Ma Nuit Chez Maud

Ma Nuit Chez Maud (1969)
a film by Eric Rohmer

Watching Ma Nuit Chez Maud is like climbing a mounting and then without stopping skying your way down. This film is rich in dialogues and references and although it required a lot of concentration it is very gratifying to follow this characters and their story.

This is the story of Jean-Louis (played by the great Jean-Louis Trintignant), a single freethinker engineer that returns to France to work in a small town. The movie can be easily divided in two parts. First the story guides you through the context of his life and then through interesting and elaborate dialogues, full of references to philosophy (Pascal readers, this movie is a must) you reach the point of intimacy that is the turning point of the movie: he is invited to spend a night in the apartment of Maud, an attractive and seductive divorced pediatrician. In the second part, the movie changes and you feel the moral discussions collapsing into the images and events you see in the screen.

This movie is so rich in content that it is well work watching with attention, it features philosophical discussions mixed with the great sense of style and an amazing skill in showing the characters and their dialogues. You learn about Pascal and see really beautiful actresses, and in the end the story reaches deeper limits and it leaves your head full of questions. It is the questioning of decisions and the discussion of moral what lives in this movie and what I kept rolling in my mind after watching it.

It is Rohmer's great achievement to put the moral subject in a setting that reaches many levels from philosophy discussion to the plain street actions and through beautiful images and greatly developed characters dives into a trip that may touch your soul.

The Graduate

The Graduate (1967)
a film by Mike Nichols

I forgot about the infinite number of references to its scenes that are widespread. I forgot about the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. I forgot that this movie has been regarded as a milestone of American cinema and as a generation-defining film. And I was trying to forget because although I haven't seen the movie, the story and the images were already in my mind. So I sat down and tried to watch The Graduate without the baggage that this movie carries behind.

Many lines have been written about the great performances and the controversial scenes and the critical content of this movie and it is for a really good reason. Dustin Hoffman is great and Anne Bancroft creates an icon with her performance. It is hard not to feel moved by the character of Benjamin Braddock. Both in his hesitance and his resolution this character delivers a great portrait of the cultural breaking point during the sixties and it is his questioning and confused attitude together with the great interpretation by Dustin Hoffman what makes him linger and make this movie so memorable. On the other side there is Anne Bancroft in a great role where she delivers the sharpest lines and the greatest evil.

This movie is a Molotov cocktail to the right-way-to-do-things and it is the defiance to the establishment what makes it so incendiary. I can only imagine the storm that it must have produced when it was released but I'm glad it is still so exciting almost fifty years later. I find amazing how many elements of this movie have become references in the popular culture, from the great soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel to the memorable lines of the characters. But it doesn't matter how many times those songs have been played or how many clichés have grown from its scenes, watching this movie was tons of fun.

Yoyimbo

Yoyimbo (1961)

a film by Akira Kurosawa

This movie embodies all the climate that inspired Western movies, no surprise two of its remakes became to be so celebrated: A fistful of dollars(1964) and The last man standing(1996). It has the same desolation of the lawless lands, it has the synthetic story, the unleashed violence and the figure of the renegade, the ruthless anti-hero that is memorable in Clint Eastwood but is outstanding with Toshiro Mifune.

I enjoyed the two groups fighting over this town. I loved the cartoonish depictions of the characters: the huge guy with the hammer, the terrible looking outlaws, the peculiar looking Inokichi, the greedy and heartless wife, the pusillanimous constable, the newly arrived guy with the gun and so on. All of them make a really rich set of characters and although the story is so simple the characters together with the great soundtrack and smart camera movements provide an entertaining environment for the story.

Toshiro Mifune is great and the soul that he brings to this renegade is hard to match (it would take nothing less than Clint Eastwood to follow him). This masterless samurai is the perfect representation of the antihero and the fact that Mifune gives him so much ease and confidense makes it a memorable character.

This is the ultimate western and the great introduction of the "Man with no name" to the history of cinema. Is not my favorite Kurosawa but is lots of fun.

Gosford Park

Gosford Park (2001)

a film by Robert Altman

It is a great achievement to handle the army of actors that Robert Altman directs in Gosford Park and it is genius to create such a detailed and entertaining story with so many characters. Directing a sequence with more than 12 actors in the scenes must be as hard as handling a family reunion in an English countryside manor.

This movie has many levels in which it is surprising and amusing. First the story is a crime story diluted in the complex and interesting relations of a rich english family and its servants. The environment in which the crime is developed is so full of surprises and interesting relations that the crime provides a path but not a goal to the story. The characters are so interesting and connections that are established in each scene end up making the cobweb in which the film sustains.

In order to make such a great characters-movie, Altman counted with a great cast. Each one of the characters works in this cobweb thanks to the great work of the cast. It is hard to pick a favorite, and although I really liked the roles of Christine Scott Thomas, Emily Watson and Clive Owen, I loved Maggie Smith as Countess of Trentham. I smiled every time she appeared on the screen and the wit and bitterness of this character is one of the many things to remember about this movie. I only disliked the detective who I found to be a boring shadow of Monsieur Hulot.

Gosford Park is a lot of fun and great movie making. It has the dark allure of juicy family gossip and the entertainment of an Agatha Christie novel. This movie is so stylish and so carefully put together with so many interesting characters and details that it kept playing in my mind after the credits were over.

Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday (1953)

a film by William Wyler

Watch this movie and I guarantee that you will fall in love. You would go crazy about Rome and you would dream of Audrey Hepburn.

There was something already seen about this movie as some of its scenes have become classics and are infinitively reproduce in Roman tourist gift-shops and Vespa advertisement. However, the films feels fresh and entertaining and is really amusing to see Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in this princess-dreamed-day flick. It is maybe the amazing acting of both of these actors- Hepburn is gorgeous and talented, her range expands from physical comedy to total elegance, all of it with her charming eyes and her fast lines. Peck plays a great antihero, also very whimsical but neat.

This movie is full of style. Audrey Hepburn looks are elegant and fashionable as Rome looks radiant. This film is a letter of love to the city and it made the Vespa rides a classic, but besides that it is nicely constructed with witty dialogues and fluent sequences that allow to enjoy an amusing story.

I like the element created by the photographer who takes images directly from the photograms, and as a twist from the Italian director's look of the city, this time is brought through the screen through the eyes of a dazzled tourist as is Princess Anna. It is this romantic view of the city and the story what I found so memorable in this film and make it fresh and entertaining but also moving and stylish.

Rififi

Rififi (1955)

a film Jules Dassin

Cinema as literature has the power of make a story linger on time and that is the case with Rififi, a regular crime story which Jules Dassin turns in a great heist film. This is one of those movie that are mentioned to be the source of inspiration for many directors from Kubrick to Tarantino, but the great think is that it is not necessary to watch all those films to find the true value of Rififi because this one is a fun and well made movie.

There is rabid and bitter antihero, Tony the Stephanois. There is a great job, a perfect hit. There is a woman. There is a crack team of expert and sympathetic burglars. There is a group of evil bad guys. And there is an interesting story. Voilá. You are in the edge of the seat.

Besides the story Rififi is visually beautiful, the streets of Paris look gorgeous in the black and white on this film and the sequences of the robbery are film with so much care as the burglary that is being performed. I really liked the attention put to all the details, the tools, the ballerina shoes, the schedules and it is the great technique that make those sequence so loved by the directors who found in Rififi a reference point.

The dialogues and the sets in Rififi are excelent and the story is really entertaining but another success is the emotional thread that the burglars manage to create with the audience, they seem so human that even when they are also the bad guys they manage to touch your heart in the middle of a crime story.

I would like to keep many memories of this film but my favorite is the scene were César le milanése is taking to the back of the club were all the stored stage decorations make the scene look like a walk into a cubist painting.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall (1977)

a film by Woody Allen

There is something really fantastic about this movie and is the fact that beyond the gags and the amazing lines it feels like real life. Woody Allen made a hatrick with this film which is entertaining, emotional and funny at the same time. It is really hard not to fall in love with Annie Hall, it is easy to like this movie.

In one corner there is Woody Allen who plays his mask once again with the witty lines and so peculiar that it is hard to believe how sad this character really is. On the other corner there is Annie Hall, full insecurities but so natural and beautiful (Diane Keaton is superb and lovely!). This two characters make one of the best movies about relationships I have seen and deliver a really entertaining and emotive story.

This is a Woody Allen movie so is full of smart references and details both in the dialogue and in the images but this movie provides one of the most memorable gags I have seen and a great example of narrative freedom at work: the Marshall McLuhan scene is great and I was the character wishing that life could work like that.

Annie Hall is full really entertaining dialogues, jokes in many levels and numberless references but is in the end a lovely story about relationships. About how relationships end and begin, about how one suffers and find happiness and about how life just keeps drifting until we meet such lovely character like Annie Hall.

The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

a film by Gillo Pontecorvo

Watching this film I had the impression I was experiencing a document and the fact that this is real story and the emotions that it awake in me are just shades for reality surprises me and makes me like it more.

The people of Algeria has decided the French colonialist have to leave and this movie is the document that moves this historical fact to posterity as a great movie. There is no main character but the people and the city of Algiers: you see the winding street of the Casbah and the cosmopolitan street of the European town, you see the faces of the people and the terrifying uniforms of the paratroopers, you see the shots and the bombs and cannot remain unemotional about this story. This movie shows the process of independence of Algiers and it does it through the experience of the Algerians as a collective. This is the way to understand the process of decolonization of Africa, is in this images were I have seen it summarized.

This film has an amazing narrative partly powered by the force of the facts but also achieved with great selection of sequences and an amazing soundtrack (no surprise I found Ennio Morricone was behind it). The great achievement of this film beyond the amazing shots and the memorable images is the fact that it seeds ideas that linger and keep rolling in my head after I finish watching it. It shows the struggle of the Algerians but I also see the brutality of terrorism. It shows the opprobrious behavior of the paratroopers but you also see their confusion and their fear. You see the victims of both sides, you see the streets boiling with the popular will and the wish of independence and it is hard to remain apathetic when the story is told a way that is nothing less than memorable.

This movie seems to keep asking for more, I want to know about the way in which it was made and who is the director and who is all the people on it and who payed for it when the cause and the shame were so recent. After the final credits and beyond the controversy is this haunting spirit of curiosity that makes this movie so lasting and then I remember the great photography and the soundtrack and the sequences and...

Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory (1957)

a film by Stanley Kubrick

Paths of Glory has some of the most memorable images in war films: the camera travels next to the soldiers over no-man's land or shows their faces in the foggy trench right before the charge. But this movie features more than the great technical genius of Stanley Kubrick. It is also the portrait of a bitter story, one where the ambition and contempt for human life contrast with the sense of honor and decency.

I watched Paths of Glory and with every scene I was feeling a larger and larger hole in my stomach. It is not easy to see the story of Colonel Dax and his men, in the shameful frame of the First World War. It is the great success of this film to deprive the battle scenes from any heroism or epic and present the hell of war as it was created by the men who pushed the regiment without any consideration for human life.

It is a big contrast to watch Paths of Glory after The Great Dictator, but I found in both of them the same feeling of hope despite the darkness of the times. The Colonel Dax is greatly incarnated by Kirk Douglas. He drives the story and provides the spirit of confrontation between the shameful reality of war and the search for decency and honesty that is so moving about this film.

This is one of the best war (anti-war) films I have ever watched and it is hard not to feel something and take many ideas home after watching it. The technical mastership of Kubrick make many of the scenes linger in my pupil and the story still feels like a knot in my heart.

The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator (1940)

a film by Charles Chaplin

I can only imagine the hope that was brought by this film in the darkest hour of the war. I can only imagine the smile of the audiences when looking at the images were with good will and good humor Chaplin made fun and ease the heavy spirits of terrible times. And if I can summarize this great film in one line it would be: hope and good humor.

In The Great Dictator, Chaplin shows his genius when portraying Hickel, the dictator of Tomania, making his figure a cartoonish image of Hitler and bringing back to earth the heavy atmosphere of the time, reducing the ambition and the hatred of the time to a boy's tantrum. It is in making fun of the darkest times and finding hope in the regular people that Chaplin manages to deliver an amazingly beautiful story.

I watched this film with the bitter feeling of knowing the aftermath of the war but I was easily contaminated with the spirit of hope that it brings. All of this in the middle of the situations that made Chaplin a master of the comedy. He trascends from the silent movie and for the first time I had the great experience of hearing his voice.

It takes a genius to face the darkest hours with creativity and good humor. It takes a genius to master the physical comedy and deliver memorable images as that of Hinkel playing with the world. It takes a genius to pass on so much faith in the human nature and make you laugh at the same time. And while watching this movie I had no doubt this beautiful movie was the work of a genius.

Dressed to Kill

Dressed to Kill (1980)

a film by Brian DePalma

I guess it is pretty accurate to call this an erotic crime thriller. There is at least two scenes of naked women in a misty shower room, there are horrible crimes, and the story possibly get really entertaining by moments. Sounds good at first glimpse, nevertheless, if there is a real crime in this movie and it is the poor acting and the lack of dramaturgy.

If you can tolerate tacky scenes, stereotyped characters, horrible acting -including Michael Caine in a regrettable role-and lame dialogues you may be able to fine some really good suspense scenes and good action sequences. Scenes like those in the Museum of Modern Art or the thrilling elevator sequence are barely enough to forget the boring characters that appear between electrifying moments. Maybe is worth seeing this movie to discover that it can thrill using poor character development.

There is no question on why the suspense scenes work. There is Alfred Hitchcock all around the place, there is Psycho and there is Dial M for Murder and there are many other references in this movie. Those scenes work as they worked for Hitchcock, there is excitement and some memorable moments on this film, but when I finished watching it I asked myself if going through the whole film was a price too-high to pay as this movie walks on the edge between B movie and a memorable thriller.

Les Vacances de M. Hulot

Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1956)

a film by Jacques Tatis

Comedy can be beautiful. It is with Chaplin and with Buster Keaton, and it is beautiful with Jacques Tatis. In this movie the images are great postcards in black and white, the gags are beautiful in their simplicity and the characters are remarkable on the way they are cartoons of themselves. Whatever I would write here will sound ceremonial when compared to the fresh manner in which this movie delivers its beauty and its humor.

The story is simple: vacations in the beach. And along the tourists you have a rich sea of relations going on: social classes, old and young people, rich and poor, a Marxist intellectual and a war veteran and around all of them Monsieur Hulot, uncomplicated and authentic. It is brilliant the way in which this character navigates through this temporary ecosystem of tourists and manages to deliver really memorable gags.

The costume of M. Hulot is as remarkable. The hat, the pipe and the striped socks are part of the icon that Jacques Tatis created with this character, that embodies at the same time a humble hero and a clown. To complete the figure of Hulot, each of the takes in this film could be used as a postcard as each of the characters can be used as a portrait of the stereotype they represent. The movie is loaded with so many common images that it is easy to relate to them and enjoy the beauty in the apparent simplicity of the story. So much good humor and amazing photography, this is superb movie. Great pirate costume, M. Hulot.

Raging Bull

Raging Bull (1980)

a film by Martin Scorsese

What a great character is Jake La Motta,, so full of destructive violence both in the ring and outside, so jealous and full of energy, so easy to hate but also so human. It is remarkable and epic the way in which Robert De Niro captures this character, using both his acting and his body to embody this boxer.

I'm a big fan of Scorsese movie but I never had the chance to watch this one. I was looking forward the boxing scenes and I wasn't disappointed. I love the traveling of the camera on the ring, specially during the fight between La Motta and Sugar Ray Robinson. The shots in the ring give this movie an amazing technical value perfectly complemented with really artistic shots like that one of Vicky splashing the water in the pool or Jake and Joey walking on the hallway. This film brings many memorable images and a really engaging story.

Violence is crude on this film, maybe because in contrast with other Scorsese movies, this time it is presented bare naked without music. Joe Pesci feels really fresh although I had seen this role repeated with really similar features in other films, and how impressive it is to see his rage unleashed in the scenes. It is the contrast between this rage and his personal feelings that makes his character so memorable, and is this contrast in the end that make the story in this film so vibrant.

This movie grows in the my memory as I'm thinking about it before writing this lines I find it more and more full of passion. Each of the scenes delivers a dose of the strength of the character, and some times in the ring it just seems La Motta is about to jump out of the screen.

High Art

High Art (1998)

by Lisa Cholodenko

I arrived to High Art with an unexpected prejudice founded on the comment of a friend whose opinion in film I really respect. So even when I worked hard to arrive to the movie without any expectations, I watched this one with Hipster Movie tag was still in my mind. Nevertheless, as I started to watch I really liked the initial scene, the colors, the realism of the characters and the photographic beauty of the takes.

A lot can be discussed about this movie, including the fact that is in this fancy list instead of many other remarkable movies, but beyond the list I consider this a movie worth watching specially if you like photography. This is a late coming-of-age movie, with a passionate and ambitious character that is also really human and sensitive, finding herself in unusual circumstances by the randomness of life. She finds her passion reflected in the character of Lucy, that has accomplished to become an isolated and independent artist but is also stuck in a moment of her life and see Syd as a door to something else.

I like the casting in this movie, the bodies of the actresses and their movements reveal as many things as the dialogues as the images. Patricia Clarkston is incredible here, and I'm only avoiding to find out if Greta Krauss is a real actress because I don't want to spoil Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz.

So it is or is not a Hipster Movie? Well, the characters are definitively hipsters and they live particular lives, nevertheless, the situations in which they are involve are easy to identify with and the passion of the characters is a motor that sustains the movie. From the mean bosses at the photography magazine to the neglected boyfriend these movie is sparkled with situations that are common to young adults and that gives the movie a tone of soap opera that I didn't really like. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed it, I really liked the images and although I have reserves putting this film in this list next to great master pieces, I think it is enjoyable and certainly gives a lot of topics for discussion.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
a film by

So many elements on this film have spread in the form of reference in the popular culture that even watching it the first time it feels so familiar. "Raindrops are falling on my head" is the last thing to expect in a western and it fits here perfectly as the Paul Newman's tricks on the bike.

Watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is an invitation to ambiguity. It is an invitation to discover and love this two characters that even being heartless bank robbers manage to captivate as much as the historical figures in which they are based. These are the ultimate nice bad guys and the word antiheroes is all over the place.

This is a movie about an amazing duo, and beyond being Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford and Paul Newman do an amazing job with this characters that seem fresh and kind where many other western characters fall in the serious cartoon of the ruthless cowboy. This movie reminds me of another amazing duo movie: Jules et Jim. They are the kind of character that seem to have a dimension outside the movie and linger after the credits have rolled.

I really like the "irregular" narrative, the photo-stills and the music that fills in the gaps of the story. The movie doesn't need to tell it all. It feels and appear in the screen -sometimes in unexplainable ways like that bike scene- like a jigsaw, where it is left to the audience to fill in the blanks and construct the story of the great adventures of this two memorable characters.

My Own Private Idaho

My Own Private Idaho (1991)
a film by Gus Van Sant

The circumstances that leads us to find a particular film and make it meaning full are as unpredictable as the places where movies can take you. I found My Own Private Idaho in a poster by the twin churches in Piazza del Popolo in Rome and it took me to the endless plains of Idaho and the loneliness and bitter beauty of this story.

I knew Gus Van Sant's work and I wanted to be fully awake for this story. His films have felt for me like a moving sedatives and I wanted to be in the right attitude for this one. So I decide to follow the story of this character in his circular path, starting and ending on the same road, on the same loop, isolated and rejected. It was moving to follow him in the middle of such a beautiful set of images. Endless fields of wheat, two identical churches in a foggy day and the rooftops of Portland frame this tough story in a halo of beauty and colour that contrast with the toughness of the story.

It needs a particular state of mind to watch this movie and catch the brush of solitude and the feeling that I can describe with other words than happy-sad. This feeling is brought mainly by the character of River Phoenix who is absolutely great in this film and who delivers most of the intense load of this outcast character. On the other side the rest of the characters help to construct the reality around the main thread and in the same sense help to make the context that makes the story so light but emotional at the same time.

There is no way to leave this film without wanting to talk about the interpretations and the influences, without trying to debate or comment. The only way to do it is watching it and is worth taking your time to do it. Pick a large screen and quiet day.