the spirit of the beehive

The Spirit of the Beehive
d. Victor Erice, 1973

I've never seen a film quite like The Spirit of the Beehive. It is so strikingly original yet instinctive all the way through that it's easy to call it one of the greatest Spanish films ever made. The film takes place in a rural Spanish town in the 1940s, right after the Spanish Civil War; we meet a young family, the father is a beekeeper, the mother writes longing letters to old relatives, and, just as the film is beginning, the two young daughters, Ana and Isabel, are attending a screening of James Whales' Frankenstein. After the movie, the younger girl, Ana, asks Isabel to explain the actions of the monster and of the people that killed him thereafter; Isabel explains that the monster is, in fact, not dead, but is a spirit that can not be killed. She claims to have already seen it, and eventually takes Ana to an abandoned barn with a well where she claims the spirit lives. For the rest of The Spirit of the Beehive, the vaguest hints at plot revolve around Ana's attempts to find the spirit.

This movie, however, is more interested at quietly observing this rather odd family structure. The Spirit of the Beehive is so achingly beautiful that I prefer to keep its images in my head rather than try to senselessly describe them. Luis Cuadrado, who shot the film, was apparently going blind while working on the film, which just makes his astonishing work here (both in lighting and use of the rural landscape) all the more notable. The musical score by Luis de Pablo is heartbreaking without having to underline anything in the movie, much like the spare music in Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies. Then there are the beautifully crafted compositions and poetic dialogue of Victor Erice, a mysterious and iconic director who has only made two other films seen this one. In the end, The Spirit of the Beehive is a lot things: a gorgeous portrayal of life in rural Spain, a love letter to the innocence of childhood and the questions it poses, and also a testament to the effect movies can have on us; few films have filled me with more joy.

contempt

Contempt
d. Jean-Luc Godard, 1963

One of Jean-Luc Godard's best works, 1963's gorgeous 'Scope epic Contempt, is also one of the best films about film ever made (another would be Fellini's 8 1/2, released the same year), though at times it seems more like a cross between an Antonioni study and a standard Godard self-reflexiveness. Contempt stars the beautiful Brigitte Bardot (who's never looked better) and the unforgettable Michel Piccoli; he's a screenwriter recently hired to adapted Homer's The Odyssey for a new Fritz Lang film (he plays himself here), she's the loving wife whose contempt for him provides most of the thematic groundwork in the movie. The film is basically divided into three parts: in the first part, we see Piccoli visiting a producer played by Jack Palance and Fritz Lang at a studio in Rome; in the second, and probably the most astonishing, we get a 33 minute scene which takes place entirely in Piccoli's and Bardot's apartment. This scene, which is the closest thing to an Antonioni scene outside of his own ouvre, portrays the relationship between the two characters as a rocky landscape on the verge of distruction. The final part of the film, and the most beautiful in terms of photography, takes place at Palance's villa where they are shooting Lang's film. The story comes full circle there and the shock ending is quite something. All in all, this is amongst the best films of the French New Wave.

badlands

Badlands
d. Terrence Malick, 1973

Terrence Malick's best movie, and one of the key works of the 70s, follows in the same tradition as films like Bonnie and Clyde and more recently Wild at Heart and Natural Born Killers. But what separates Badlands from these other violent road movies is Malick's conviction and eye for beauty. He was 30 when he directed, wrote, and produced this film, and has gone on to make only three other (Days of Heaven in 78, The Thin Red Line in 98, and The New World in 05) since. Badlands follows Kit (Martin Sheen) and Holly (Sissy Spacek) as they make their away across South Dakota to the Badlands of Montana; while killing a few people on the way. Their relationship begins rather innocently, she's a 15 year old who lives with her dad, who moved the family to South Dakota after his wife's death; he's a 25 year old rebel who picks up trash for a living. Both are alienated in one way or another (Holly by her friends at her school, Kit by the adult world), so they find companion, albeit a foolish one, in one another. In a sudden act of violence, Kit kills Holly's father after announcing that he's taking her with him. And then, in one of the most powerful scenes in the film, proceeds to burn down the house while leaving a record with a false confession (We have decided to kill ourselves, the same way I did her dad") playing for the police to find. Kit and Holly then go on to spend some uneventful days driving through the country, bookmarked by several other killings, while the police is continuously on their trail. That Badlands ends with Kit and Holly finally surrendering isn't giving much away; the movie, like the time Kit and Holly spent together, is all about the journey and not the destination.

a scanner darkly

A Scanner Darkly
d. Richard Linklater, 2006

With a little more than half of 2006 gone, Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly is easily one of - if not the - best films of the year. Using the same animation technique as in his 2001 masterpiece Waking Life, Linklater and his animators craft a wonderfully obstuse meditation on the drug culture. As a complete turnaround from his last serious project, Before Sunset, this film represents a more free-form type of narrative resembling something like Naked Lunch way more than Dazed and Confused or Before Sunrise. At the centre of the film is Keanu Reeves' character, Bob Arctor, an undercover agent who is supposed to spy on potential drug users. The action takes place "7 years from now" according to a title card, a time when 20% of the population is addicted to a drug called Substance D. "You are either on it or you haven't tried it," exclaims Robert Downey Jr.'s character when talking to a drug addled Rory Cochrane (who played the playful Slater in Linklater's Dazed and Confused, the complete opposite of his paranoid addict here). A Scanner Darkly comes down to a series of sequences following the set of drug users (of which Arctor is one), and the Phillip K. Dick narrative seems to organically grow out of these scenes. By the end, I was completely blown away by both the visuals of the film (it's a thrill to see on the big screen, so don't wait for video) and it's uncompromising take on the world of drugs. Without a doubt, no film out there right now is as astonishing as this one.

brick

Brick
d. Rian Johnson, 2005

Rian Johnson's successful stab at neo-noir Brick follows an anti-social teenager (wonderfully acted by Joseph-Gordon Lewitt) as he tries to uncover the mystery surrounding his ex-girlfriend's whereabouts. Johnson recreates the gritty world of noir through his distant mise en scene and his intricate screenplay (complete with nicknames like "The Pin"). On a first viewing I mostly responded to the film as a formalist exercise made by someone who obviously respects and cherishes the tradition of film noirs; but there are moments of sincere raw emotion that lead me to believe subsequent viewings will reveal a more poignant statement. As it stands, Brick is a visually stunning study of high school ennui inside of a noir world; that alonge may make it the American film of the year.

the marriage of maria braun

The Marriage of Maria Braun
d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979

By now I'm pretty convinced that virtually no director has had a better run of consistently great films than Rainer Werner Fassbinder had during the 1970s; including The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant in '72, Fear Eats the Soul in '74, In a Year of 13 Moons in '78, and The Marriage of Maria Braun in '79. The latter, one of Fassbinder's most exquisite masterpieces, concerns the life and times of Maria Braun, a strong and independent woman who sets out to make a life for herself after her husband, Hermann Braun, is sent to war. She remains faithful to him despite the fact they were married for just 2 days and only met weeks before that. Maria receives (incorrect) news that he was killed, and he comes home to find his wife with another man. She smashes a bottle over his head and kills the man, only to have Hermann take the blame for it. He's in prison for the great bulk of the movie, and Maria promises to wait for him and that they'll have a new life together. Through of a series of consequences which one may describe as Maria selling herself, she manages to land a lucrative position in a textile company. She changes throughout the film, and her naive love for Hermann also suffers the consequences. Then comes the final audacious scene; Fassbinder understands that he's too far into the narrative to insult the audience with a conventional ending. Both him and the audience understand that, for Maria Braun, there'll be no resolution without death.

monsieur verdoux

Monsieur Verdoux
d. Charles Chaplin, 1947

I haven't seen enough of Chaplin's films to call this his best work (although I do prefer it to The Gold Rush [1925] and City Lights [1931]), but it's certainly brilliant. Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, scored, and starred in Monsieur Verdoux, one of his last films. Verdoux is a formally astonishing black comedy about a cynical man who provides for his family by killing women and taking their money. But this isn't one of those movies where we see some monster committing crimes and at the end we are supposed to learn some moral lesson about proper conduct; Chaplin's much too ambitious for that nonsense. Here he is using the pathos of his silent films to make us, though not necessarily identify with Verdoux, understand why these things happen. Verdoux is a man who worked for over 30 years as a bank clerk only to be fired after the depression. From that point on, he supported his invalid wife and young son by dealing in the aforementioned practices. That Chaplin manages to insert his signature brand of comedy into these situations is commendable; but more astonishing is the way he intellectually grips and ultimately moves the viewer with the experience. From the beginning we know that this story has already occurred (the first shot of the is of Verdoux's gravestone), and the last sequence deals with his trial and execution. Chaplin saved his most brilliant masterstroke for this scene, he gives us a character who has committed several murders, awaits his destiny, but also understands the way the world works, "One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow!" he tells a reporter who comes to him looking for a feature with a moral. This is what movies are all about; Monsieur Verdoux blew me away.

orpheus

Orpheus
d. Jean Cocteau, 1949

Jean Cocteau's 1949 masterpiece Orpheus is one of the most magical of all films. It manages to transport the original Greek myth into modern times seamlessly through Cocteau's own brand of storytelling, his signature special effects (The Blood of Poet), and his inimitable poetic dialogue ("Mirrors are doors through which death comes and goes. Look at yourself in the mirror and you'll see death do its work."). Orpheus is the story of a poet by the same name, who becomes distracted by visions of greatness - in the guise of a "talking car" - and must descend into the underworld once Death takes away his wife. There, a court decides to allow Eurydice to return with the condition that Orpheus is not allowed to look at her. Surely enough, Orpheus can not resist, and his wife goes back to the underworld. And though there's a happy ending to the story for Orpheus and Eurydice, Cocteau still fashions a rather melancholic view on death. The story of Orpheus unfolds here as it did in the original myth, but Cocteau inserts little plot details to enhance his film. The most notable of these is the tangled love web that includes Death, Orpheus, Eurydice, and Death's chauffeur. Cocteau is certainly one of the greatest of all filmmakers, and Orpheus is arguably his best film. A must see.