the only one i can say off top of my head is noroi the curse
Come and See and it’s sibling The Ascent. Tough to watch but essential.
The White Tiger. It’s a weirder and mostly metaphorical WW2 movie about the incomplete defeat of fascism and how it’s bound to return. Hits harder and harder every year that goes by. ;_;
Stalker and Solaris by Tarkovsky.
Apocalypse Now
Scarface
Animated stuff: The End of Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Akira
Banger after banger right here. Currently watching Stalker for the first time now and I’m loving it (Will likely read the book too). Solaris is right after
I rewatched Stalker with my partner recently. Absolute masterpiece from the cinematography to the acting to the themes. The kind of movie that leaves you excitedly discussing it instead of going to sleep afterwards like responsible adults who need to work in the morning.
Ivan’s Childhood is another good one by Tarkovsky. Not as high on my banger list as Stalker but stuck with me all the same.
Also urging everyone to not sleep on The Ascent. It’s less of a war movie and more of a psychological drama and biblical parable set during the fascist occupation of the Byelorussian Soviet Republic. Director Larisa Shepitko was married to Elem Klimov who later went on to make the more famous Come and See and the influence is palpable. Her death in a car accident while scouting out sites for her next movie was a tragedy and a great loss for Soviet cinema.
I’ll add it to my watch list! I’m currently at the meat mincer part and it has me glued to the screen. The long takes are amazing to just make you stop and think, reason with what is happening, and they really show the emotions on the characters.
Stalker is great. The transition into color from b&w is breathtaking!
The Last Unicorn.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
I’m not huge on movies, but Solaris by Tarkovsky is beautiful.
I watched it last year. What an experience!
The films of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky are more like environments than entertainments. It’s often said they’re too long, but that’s missing the point: He uses length and depth to slow us down, to edge us out of the velocity of our lives, to enter a zone of reverie and meditation. When he allows a sequence to continue for what seems like an unreasonable length, we have a choice. We can be bored, or we can use the interlude as an opportunity to consolidate what has gone before, and process it in terms of our own reflections.
Only Yesterday (1991), despite being made by a legendary Studio and a legendary director, is a criminally underrated film. It doesn’t have anything that should prevent it from being watched by kids, yet it’s not a movie for kids.
Paul Schrader’s 1985 Mishima is such a beautiful film- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytA4_dI2mjc . It dissects the pathologies driving one of Japan’s most famous fascists and examines his coup attempt/suicide, playing out four of his novels as surreal kabuki theatre productions. Philip Glass does the soundtrack and it’s one of his best.
O: never heard of it, will see if i can watch it soon ^^
On November 25, 1970, renowned Japanese author Yukio Mishima led a failed coup attempt at the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s Ichigaya headquarters in Tokyo. He and four members of his private militia, the Tatenokai, seized Commandant General Kanetoshi Mashita, took him hostage, and barricaded themselves in his office. Mishima then delivered a speech to approximately 1,000 soldiers below, urging them to overthrow Japan’s post-war democratic constitution—particularly Article 9, which renounces war—and restore the emperor’s divine status and national sovereignty.
The attempt collapsed when the soldiers mocked and jeered Mishima, refusing to support his call. Realizing the coup had failed, Mishima performed seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment), as planned.
Ngl, that was the most pathetic coup attempt.
That leaves out the best part. The soldiers below couldn’t hear him because there was a news helicopter overhead trying to film it, so it’s like if the leader of the Proud Boys screamed about cum magick to no one before disemboweling himself. The film does a really good job at exploring the social psychology of 1930s-70s Japan and how that drove him to think it was a smart idea while still showing how absurd it was.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Several come to mind, like the Soviet film Come and See, or some of Abbas Kiarostami’s films, but I’ll always recommend Amores Perros (2000) first. In the latter, the protagonist, Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, also plays Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), a film that recounts Che’s motorcycle journey through Latin America, a journey that radicalized him and led him to study Marxism.
ive heard good things about “Come and See”, but i am scared of seeing it because my already fragile mental state might not be able to withstand it >< The rest also sounds particularly interesting, especially The Motorcycle Diaries for me.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Mine is probably Newton. It does a great job of balancing serious subject matter, simplicity and humour. It also marks a point (for me) after which bollywood just straight up became a garbage factory. There aren’t movies like this anymore.
O: interesting!! i’ll take note of it
Perfect Days
Mike Nichols directed Emma Thompson’s tour de force in “Wit.” Yeah, it’s a TV movie, but still one of my favorites. One of the best single set movies I’ve seen.
I’ll take note! thanks ^^
cabin in the woods
O: never heard of it, will look up
it’s a fun horror comedy. it takes the typical horror tropes and plays around with them.
I’m not sure, it would depend on the genre. What’s yours? /Nopressure
i wouldnt be sure eother XD i think End of Evangelion or Monty Python’s Holy Grail >w<
