Saturday, September 22, 2007

Unfinished business


At around the point when I jacked in this blogging enterprise, what, eight months ago, there was a post missing: my year-end top ten. Before I offer any mid-term assessments for 2007, here, after a needlessly long drum-roll, is what 2006 would have looked like.

1. Inland Empire A

A nightmarish (not to mention doomed) quest for lost marbles, utterly forbidding and quite mesmerising.

2. The Death of Mr Lazarescu A

The systematic erasure of "Mr L" (identity, I think) before medical death ensues.

3. Black Sun A

A haunting disquisition on what it means to see, narrated by a philosopher who no longer can.

4. Requiem A—

What happens when an illness can't be cured because the cure is the illness.

5. Red Road A—

Stalker cinema par excellence, driven by multiple ambiguous agendas for most of its length.

6. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada A—

An Arriaga jigsaw which worked, in part because the pieces weren't just tossed to the winds but carefully gathered, and lovingly rearranged.

7. Frozen Land A—

Finnish desperation as a virtuoso relay race.

8. A Scanner Darkly A—

Linklater and PKD: a paranoiac's delight, and a riot of free-associating.

9. Deep Water A— (pictured)

The British national psyche at sea in a shattering, superbly crafted doc.

10 United 93 A—/B+

Still one to grapple with on all sorts of levels, and a technical triumph.

1 comment:

Y Kant Goran Rite said...

Frozen Land played on TV here a couple of weeks ago and I managed to miss it, which I'm fairly pissed off about.

Have you had a chance to see Frozen City? I think it was a sequel in some vague way. In any case, it's a sensational piece of work and disgustingly neglected, even in the festival circuit