The sixth listicle of this (tiresome) year encompasses 12 films (out of approx. 80 watched) - 7 features, a medium-length offering and 4 shorts arranged in order of preference.
I Go Seek | The Scenic Route | Transfiguration: Slow Approximation
1. Я иду искать / I Go Seek (Vladimir Fessenko, 1992) - The game of hide-and-seek is transmuted into one of the most surreal, visually inspired pieces of short animation to come from Russia! 10 minutes that, simply put, have to be seen!
2. The Scenic Route (Mark Rappaport, 1978) (click on the title for a short review)
3. Transfiguration: Slow Approximation (Wolfgang Lehmann, 2020) - Draped in long, fluttering veils of haunting, otherworldly vocalizations, the incessantly trembling and inwardly decomposing images create the immaculate illusion of a transcendental experience. Each shot appears like a fading memory of an abstract impressionist painting gradually and mysteriously mutating as the film progresses, whereby the screen gets transformed into a liquid, rippled surface brimming with vivid colors. Seen in fleeting glimpses, naked bodies act as vessels for ancient souls, eternally wandering between the spiritual dimension and nature's subconscious mind...
4. In Vitro (Søren Lind & Larissa Sansour, 2019) - A ruminative and gorgeously shot post-apocalyptic short which makes great use of split-screen, as it deals with themes of memory, nostalgia and exile. The brutalist architecture of the underground compound where it is set intensifies the pervading sense of crippling melancholia... A perfect match for a double-bill with Jóhann Jóhannsson's Last and First Man.
5. Shell and Joint (Isamu Hirabayashi, 2019) (click on the title for a short review)
6. Le cortège / The Procession (Pascal Blanchet & Rodolphe Saint-Gelais, 2019) - A bautifully retro, elegantly animated pseudo-noir told from the beyond by a victim of a car acident, Catherine, whose love for her grieving husband, Philip, in a way blurs the boundaries between life and death.
The Palace | On the Comet | Stranger on the Third Floor
7. Palac / The Palace (Tadeusz Junak, 1980) - If you like your Eastern European gothic decadently surreal, unapologetically fragmented and feverishly nightmarish, then Tadeusz Junak’s puzzling, psychologically intense drama is the right film for you. Cinema at its most delirious!
8. Na kometě / On the Comet (Karel Zeman, 1970) - From the opening credits wonderfully stylized as postcards all the way to the slightly rushed ending, this oneiric, anti-war fantasy is a pure delight to watch. And it's often pretty funny too (code: pots and dinosaurs)! Putting you in a state of wide-eyed wonder, it will stay with you long after you left its phantasmagorical world...
9. Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940) - Exploring the theme of guilty conscience gradually mutating into paranoia, the first 'true' film-noir mesmerizes with its 'artifice' reflected in heavy, unnatural shadows and other hallmarks of the said sub-genre. Peter Lorre is utterly creepy as the titular enigma of a character.
10. Puccini e la fanciulla / Puccini and the Girl (Paolo Benvenuti, 2008) - Recounting the events which led to the suicide of a young maid, Doria Manfredi, who was falsely accused of being Puccini’s mistress, Paolo Benvenuti’s period drama pays a loving homage to silent cinema. Almost wordless, with only music, letter readings and sounds of nature piercing the solemn quietude, Puccini and the Girl is characterized by a meticulous frame composition which lends a painterly quality to virtually every scene. Its visual eloquence is so awe-inspiring, that you frequently forget you’re watching a story of adultery which is but a shameful episode from the famous composer’s life...
11. Zombies (Baloji, 2019) - Brimming with vivid colors, vibrant energy and outlandish costume design (which I'm not gonna spoil describing!), Zombies is a hyper-stylized musical critique of selfie-culture slightly reminiscent of Khavn De La Cruz's films, with the exception of a discotheque scene which gives off a Nicolas Winding Refn vibe. Although the music is not my cup of tea, I felt like dancing to it!
12. Pinocchio (Matteo Garrone, 2019) - A classic fairy tale gets an endearing, decidedly (and even refreshingly!) traditional adaptation in Matteo Garrone's latest, visually striking offering directed with a keen sense of (slightly grotesque) fantasy which evokes childhood memories. Its biggest drawback lies in a fact that it is released into a desensitized society used a bit too much to cheap thrills and provocations...
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