Board 8 > Board 8 Watches and Ranks Art Films: The Results

(+) Yeah! (+)

It seems like Apu was retroactively declared the protagonist after the director made two sequels continuing the story of his life.

switch back to The Holy Mountain

Also shame plasma isn't here, Vegas would be making bank

22. The Conformist
Originally released as Il conformista, 1970, Italy
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7cf12286.jpg
Ten years ago, my father was in Munich. Often, after the theater, he told me that he'd go with friends to a Bierstube. There was a nutty man they thought a fool. He spoke about politics. He was quite an attraction. They'd buy him beer and encourage him. He'd stand up on the table making furious speeches. It was Hitler.

Rankings:
Karo: 8
Inviso: 19
Johnbobb: 20
Exdeath: 22
Seginus: 27
Total: 96

Karo:

Set in Fascist Italy, this gripping drama highlights the dangers of following blindly with whatever society deems acceptable through the lens of an Italian policeman named Marcello, the titular conformist.
Marcello is someone with almost a pathological need to be 'normal', and this leads him down some truly dreadful paths as he repeatedly betrays acquaintances the minute they fall from social grace. His betrayals even extend to his own self, as it is heavily implied that Marcello is gay but refuses to accept this because it is not 'normal' or 'proper'.
Marcello is an utterly despicable person, but he isn't a psychopath. He's just a regular guy. Therein lies the movie's message of how group morals can corrupt personal ones until an individual sees the world through a lens that is twisted beyond belief. For normalcy is relative, and not in any way a virtue in and of itself, and to chase the altar of social acceptance at the expense of all else will not only cause one to lose themselves, but enables some of the worst atrocities the human race has ever perpetrated.

Inviso:

On paper, this is a relatively interesting movie. Its a story about a guy in pre-war Italy that doesnt really have an identity. He wants desperately to fit in, so he goes along with the Fascist Party and makes the party his identity. And then hes selected to help carry out an assassination on an anti-Fascist activist who happened to be his former college professor. Suddenly forced to actually put action to his words, rather than just being allowed to spout praise for Fascism, he falters. He likes the professor, the professor likes him, and he even falls in love with the professors wife, because she challenges him (as opposed to his own wife, who it seems hes only with because hes supposed to be based on society). All of that is interesting, right up until the point where Marcello stands by while his Fascist friends kill the professor AND his wife.

I guess the problem is that the movie almost feels too bloated. I get why some of the bloat is there: he got picked on by other kids because his mom is a prostitute, so he easily falls under the sway of a gay man who takes advantage of him, and hes got latent homosexuality himself, so he tries to hide it by marrying who hes supposed to marry. But so many of the scenes unrelated to the specific rising tension of the conflict between his desire to be a good Fascist and his desire to not kill his friendthey really drag. Like, building up the relationship with the professors wife, sure. Thats meant to make the ending betrayal hit harder. But the wife randomly trying to hook up with HIS wife? Unnecessary. Not every bit of backstory was necessary either.

It doesnt help that its just hard to enjoy a film about a character this fucking feckless. Like, a bad guy, surethats interesting. But this is a slimy person whos too much of a pussy to take actual action and just kinda lets everyone else push the plot forward, while he sits back and cowers. Its tough to enjoy as a film in that regard.

Johnbobb:

I'm a little torn on The Conformist. When it's good, it's so good. Like the relationship between Marcello, Giulia and Anna? Great. Marcello being a fucking coward that aligns himself with whatever the political majority is, even if it leads to the deaths of the people he cares about? Great! Well not great, but, you know. It was also just so well shot, but even with all of that, it struggled to really hold tight to my attention for decent chunks of the runtime. I really feel like it's one I'd like more on repeat viewings

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
I understood maybe 10% of this and had to pee really badly half way through

Exdeath:

Much of this movie plays out like a Rules of the Game or Zone of Interest: while it takes place in the middle of World War II, its central characters remain at home living in bourgeois decadence. The protagonist here is truly despicable, a spineless toady who neither believes closely enough in the Facism he acts to support to defend it vehemently nor enough in freedom to side with the resistance. He's an exploiter who just does whatever is the most convenient for himself, and in the end of the movie when he and his wife discuss his assassination of a political exile, all they can say is "It was an important step in your career." But he isn't purely self-serving, with second major character trait being a sort of petty vengeance. We learn that he was bullied as a child and almost seems to be avenging himself on the world with pointless acts of pathetic cruelty - he gets the exiled professor and his wife (whom he loves) killed in the most cowardly way possible, passing a note on their whereabouts to a coworker and then watching from a car as they get stabbed up and shot. In the ending, when Mussolini has just been deposed, he walks around the street manically denouncing people as facists, including his blind friend whom he then leaves to get swept up in a crowd of democratic protestors.

As much as it's a character study of this deeply pitiful man, the movie is probably most notable for its incredible cinematography, with a lot of beautiful and carefully composed shots like the sunset-drenched train ride, the framing of Marcello's viewpoint while he watches the French dance instructor lady seduce his wife, and especially the dance scene where he ends up standing around aimlessly in the center of a spiral of happy carolers. Still for all these strengths it's not typically gripping. The narrative often feels meandering and it gets exhausting to be stuck in the perspective of such an aimless yet contemptible character.

Seginus:

Futhest faller on my list. When I first saw this about a decade ago I loved it, watching it again I think I was initially just dazzled by the cinematography. The character study of a repressed fascist retains some interest, but in hindsight I dont think it has as much to say politically or philosophically as it advertises, and underneath its really just a colorful gangster movie about a jealous and petty asshole. A lot of the romance scenes made me cringe this time. It does look nice though.

Outlier:

Seginus: 64
Karo: 62
Exdeath: 53
Inviso: 53
Johnbobb: 49

The most extreme raters for The Conformist emerge as top 2 and begin to build a lead on the rest of us.

I thought The Conformist would end up kinda sitting with me more than it did. On a list of movies known for being memorable thinkers I didn't really think about it much at all after

Scoreboard:

1. Johnbobb: 1 (Ordet)
1. PunishedJeezy (The Conformist)

Current guesses:
Inviso: The Holy Mountain
LightningStrikes: The Holy Mountain
Karo: The Holy Mountain
Johnbobb: The Holy Mountain
Seginus: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Next up: A film with two top 10 placements and three at 20 or lower

Ok riding it out

I'm going to join the train and guess The Holy Mountain is next

21. The Holy Mountain
Original released as La montaa sagrada, 1973, Mexico
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/538fffbb.jpg
We began in a fairytale and we came to life, but is this life reality? No. It is a film.

Rankings:
Johnbobb: 9
Seginus: 10
Exdeath: 20
Karo: 24
Inviso: 30

Total: 93

Johnbobb:

I went into this list assuming that nothing could possibly beat Eraserhead on the "this movie is fucking weird" scale, but here we are. I imagine what most of people don't like about The Holy Mountain is what I do like about it (for the most part). It's highly symbolic and metaphorical, the typical artsy expectations, but it simultaneously makes every effort to keep your eyes fixed on the screen as you struggle to piece together what the fuck is going on. And yet, it still somehow manages to have a comprehensible plot. I laughed more here than I did with any of the rest of the art films, and it was by a pretty significant margin. It's colorful and bizarre and the absolute polar opposite of Ordet in every way.

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
By far the weirdest episode of Sailor Moon Super

Seginus:

Burn your money - Alejandro Jodorowsky to the producers

It feels like a miracle that this even got made. Gleefully offensive, gratuitous, blasphemous, arguably exploitative, also intensely creative, contagiously passionate, and unlike virtually anything else Ive seen. Although it has a straightforward narrative, its less concerned with telling a conventional story than with weaving as much esoteric symbolism, occult mysticism, religious iconography, pop psychology, and social commentary together as possible. Makes me want to brush up on my understanding of the Tarot (Im not going to). In spite of the mountain of imagery being communicated, the film doesnt suffer too much visual clutter and retains a keen sense of composition throughout. The tower/initiation sequence in particular looks magnificent.

What really makes it work for me is how funny it is, both intentionally and otherwise. It has me at Jesus wakes up hungover covered in piss and flies and only gets more ridiculous from there. Theres a thousand crazy scenes so I dont even know what to mention, I think my favorite single shot of the movie is when the police chief of Neptune is introduced and we see him with the largest prop gun a person has ever carried. Thats a meme waiting to happen right there.

If theres one weakness its that I think Jodorowsky as The Alchemist undercuts the message about killing the ego. I mean, this dude is so full of himself he plays an enlightened wizard who could teach Christ and Buddha a thing or two. But therein lies the unintentional humor. He goes full auteur by inserting himself as a suave brilliant badass and its hilarious. Never go full auteur. Check it out. Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, plays the lead role, charming, intelligent sure, but a flawless character? Naw. Remember Tommy Wiseau in The Room? You went full auteur, man.

Exdeath:

As soon as I began to make the list I knew I would have to include this film. This is probably the most art film movie on the entire list, with Jeanne Dielman and Mirror maybe being able to compete depending on your personal view of what that term means, and it's also probably as self-gratifying as a movie can get. Noted Chilean madman Alejandro Jodorowsky starts this film off by establishing a main character that, if not actually Jesus, is at least Christ-passing. He then casts himself as an all-knowing Alchemist figure who educates this ersatz Messiah and eight other disciples on the pathways to enlightenment, drawing from concepts and imagery of almost every global tradition and sprinkling in some wooey dialog about connectivity between belief systems. Give or take one hundred and twenty minutes of symbolically dense gore, sex, drugs, child nudity etc. and he tops the whole thing off by having his self-insert stare into the camera, speak the words "this is not reality, it is a film," and then instruct the camera to pan back and reveal the crew.

While it's first and foremost a convincing case that Jodorowsky should be locked up before he hurts himself and others, is there any kind of meaning to take from this movie? While a full deconstruction of the various images is a task for a far braver man than I, there are some obvious reoccurring themes: the place of religion in our increasingly depraved modern world, corruption of political and economic systems, the tendency for false prophets to try and sell you on their wisdom (the Gallilean figure of the film is referred to by the director as "The Thief, after all), and the true meaning of enlightenment and desire. And what of the ending, where Jodorowsky sends back the Pseudo-Saviour to his people before accompanying the other eight disciples into replacing The Immortals, who turn out to be faceless dummies? Is it the would-be prophet that he sends on the true path while deceiving the others, or the other way around? Perhaps everyone is heading down a spiritual road particularly suited to them? Whatever you make of it, it's definitely an intense experience, and it's hard to imagine an auteur making anything as indulgent as this film again.

Karo:

There are moments in ones life where there is no rational response other than 'what the fuck', and if you wanted two whole hours of this for some reason this is your movie!
The tone is set right away with a guy whose face is bees, peeing himself (he is not screaming, in case you were wondering). That is basically how things go for the entire runtime. To take complete stock of all the nonsense and stupidity in this movie would cause the writeup to go over the post character limit, so I'll only name a few examples such as:
-An elderly gentleman rips out one of his eyes and tenderly makes a gift of it to a child prostitute!
-Jesus ponderously eats the face of a statue of himself!
-Alchemical cooking with human feces!
-At least two graphic depictions of castration because one is never enough!
There may be some deep hidden meaning to all these things, or maybe everyone is just high. I'm leaning towards the latter.
So the base plot (if you can call it that) is a bunch of people come to this guru for enlightenment, only to be enlightened as to how full of bullshit he is. I am always up for some mockery of religion, but this... this is just... I dunno. It is far too weird and disjointed to have any real bite to it and too often it goes down the path of being simply shocking rather than satirical.
The film is at its strongest in the middle when they were introducing all the rich bastards, at least then it had some sort of direction and some marginally coherent words being spoken. But alas such moments are fleeting before it degrades back into utter incomprehensibility.

Inviso:

Fuck this movie. Seriously, FUCK this movie. I shat on artsy movies over the last few lists weve watched, but a lot of the time, its more annoyance at how utterly boring and stupid those kinds of movies can be. But this is some fucking bullshit. This movie is just a prolonged string of visceral, disgusting imagery in service of a non-existent plot. I was nauseated for almost the entire runtime of this filmuntil the 4/5 mark, where it just got kinda boring until the last fifth, where the disgusting imagery came back unnecessarily. Blood, gore, bodily functions, sex, nudityits too much of a graphic display, and at no point did it ever feel coherent enough that all of this imagery seemed to be in-service to a greater story being told.

Honestly, this movie feels VERY seventiesvery much rebelling against cultural norms by shoving it in our face how crazy and overpowering the visuals (and audio) are. But that isnt a good thing to meI dont care if youre trying to be counterculture or anything like that. Make a movie with a plot and I MIGHT be willing to forgive this crap. Instead, its just as nasty as some of the other films Ive had no problem ranking low on these lists. Honestly, this is one of the worst films Ive had the utter misfortune to sit all the way through, covering my eyes for a good portion so as not to completely vomit from the visual displays forced upon me.

Outlier:

Seginus: 74
Karo: 65
Exdeath: 54
Inviso: 62
Johnbobb: 60

Now that the Holy Mountain has finally dropped, Inviso gets around as many outlier points for it as Johnbobb.

Thank God for that.

I will say that even though I dislike the movie, I still respect it for its audacity.

Heres everyones reminder that Jodorowsky almost got to make the first film adaptation for Dune.

Ok now it's Joan of Arc

I'll guess Jeanne Dielman

I'm gonna guess Aguirre, which I'm surprised avoided bottom 10.

Evillordexdeath posted...

a full deconstruction of the various images is a task for a far braver man than I

Jodorowsky surprisingly attempts a lot of this in the director's commentary, which is itself pretty funny. Portions of it sound almost like Wu-Tang lyrics, "third eye symbolizes the inner god that opens in circles, now we descend to the land of the dead, butterfly wings represent metamorphosis, back up through the snake - the kundalini"

My favorite bit of trivia from this is that George Harrison loved the concept and was almost set to play The Thief, but they came to an impasse over the scene where he has his butthole washed on camera. Harrison wouldn't film such a scene and Jodorowsky refused to cut it, insisting it was necessary to both the character and performer's ego death.

Alright, I'm going with Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles for next

Quite a few people get on the board with The Holy Mountain

1. Johnbobb: 2 (Ordet, The Holy Mountain)
1. PunishedJeezy 2 (The Conformist, The Holy Mountain)
3. Inviso 1 (The Holy Mountain)
3. LightningStrikes 1 (The Holy Mountain)
3. Karo 1 (The Holy Mountain)

Current guesses:
Seginus: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Johnbobb: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Karo: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Inviso: Aguirre: The Wrath of God
PunishedJeezy: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

redrocket posted...

Heres everyones reminder that Jodorowsky almost got to make the first film adaptation for Dune.

Yep, with Orson Welles as Baron Harkonnen, Salvador Dali and Mick Jagger on the cast, H.R. Geiger designing the sets, and Pink Floyd making the music. Would've been a Hell of a project, I'd love to see the alternate universe where it got funded.

Seginustemple posted...

Jodorowsky surprisingly attempts a lot of this in the director's commentary, which is itself pretty funny. Portions of it sound almost like Wu-Tang lyrics, "third eye symbolizes the inner god that opens in circles, now we descend to the land of the dead, butterfly wings represent metamorphosis, back up through the snake - the kundalini"

My favorite bit of trivia from this is that George Harrison loved the concept and was almost set to play The Thief, but they came to an impasse over the scene where he has his butthole washed on camera. Harrison wouldn't film such a scene and Jodorowsky refused to cut it, insisting it was necessary to both the character and performer's ego death.

That sounds pretty hilarious, the guy definitely got a little high on Jungian symbolism. My other exposure to his work is The Incal which is pretty much complete rapid-fire quasi-spiritual nonsense only salvaged by Mbius' excellent artwork.

Oh yeah I'm gonna change my pick because I forgot about Sick Dookie, New York

20. Playtime
1967, France
Director: Jacques Tati

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7f2357fa.jpg
"How do you say Drugstore in French?"
"Drugstore."

Rankings:

Seginus: 11
Inviso: 16
Johnbobb: 17
Karo: 20
Exdeath: 27

Seginus:

A pure delight, its super charming and funny and elegantly conceived - a comedy of spatiality and its effects on behavior. Its so geometrically pleasant, all in deep focus and shot on 70mm. Monsieur Hulot fills the hole in my heart that was left by the live-action Mr. Magoo in 1997. So many bits won me over right away: the old guy working the new computer, the impractical art deco chairs, the hundred yard hallway, restless waiting room guy trying to appear busy (it was a real artform before smartphones), the vacationing American women (my midwestern relatives sound exactly like this). I love the running gag that we never really hear anything Hulot says, its not important. The scene looking into the glass apartments was a classic, where multiple scenarios play out simultaneously. Maybe the restaurant/dance scene went a little long but it was necessary for the movie to shake loose its cubic rigidity at the end, and the final sequence totally lit me up with the snap to nighttime on the streetlights. That was a sweet finisher.

Inviso:

This movie can thank its lucky stars that the back half was exciting, because it was a fucking ROUGH watch overall. The movie comes across like an extended Mr. Bean sketch (I feel like he has full-length movies, but Ive never seen one, so I cant back that up without research that Im not willing to do for a write-up on Playtime). The problem with this is that far too many of the scenes in this movie overstay their welcome to an unbearable degree. The first half of the film is quite literally sleep-inducing. I can understand the filmmaking rationale behind having exaggerated sound and highlighting sound as a means of conveying humor, and I get that the setting is meant to be satirical of modern lifebut holy shit. When your first half of a film is subtle humor in a dull, monochromatic settingit sucks the life out of me as a viewer. No moments stand out from the first half of this movie as a result.

Once you get to the club, the film gets livelier, but thats the point where it starts to have the opposite problem. Its SO colorful and SO lively and theres SO much going on that its hard to follow. Im aware that theres comedy and sight gags happening during the whole sequence, but Ill be damned if any of them really stand out. There are a few memorable characters, sure (the hapless waiter who keeps having to swap out torn or ruined clothing with his fellow employees, the doorman opening a non-existent door), but there are so many others who feel like they just blend together and being unable to focus made me feel like I was missing stuff, which made for a less enjoyable viewing experience.

The ending was nice though. Very simple and to the point: bus is driving along and the setting around them bounces up and down like theyre part of a carousel. THAT was understandable and told in a way that you can focus on each individual sight gag and enjoy them without being bombarded with too much stimulus all at once.

Johnbobb:

Early on into watching, I thought "this is kind of like a less funny Charlie Chaplin movie." But my tune changed pretty quick, as Playtime just progressively layers on its corporate monotone brand of wackiness. It's a pretty subtle build-up from little office mixups and meandering to eventually hit the point of some chaotic rich guy serving as arbitrary bouncer to a section of a restaurant split off by fallen debris. I sat watching the restaurant scene waiting for it to continue on to the next scene like it had previously, but it just kept going, getting more and more nonsensical as anyone who attempted to leave got turned around by the neon sign pointing back into the buiilding. By the end the whole thing was just a lot of fun

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
i havent seen it yet I just think its funny to give movies my friends like bad reviews

Karo:

Whatever the 1970's equivalent of a clueless boomer is gets lost amidst the high tech marvels of the big city in a tale of subtle absurdity that is more interesting than you'd think.
The film is often shot zoomed out in wheres waldo-vision with so many things going on in the background that you might not notice at first and that is a nice touch.
Its maybe kinda too long for what it was going for, particularly as it basically turns into a whole other movie halfway through, and gets a bit too silly near the end.
It is certainly unique, if nothing else.

Exdeath:

So we have Synecdoche, New York on this list, where Caden builds this city-sized set for a play with hundreds of actors divided into small rooms or cubicles with little directorial focus to draw the viewer's attention to anyone in particular. In Kaufman's film this is an insanely over-ambitious project that never comes close to completion despite Caden spending his whole life working on it. But to a very limited extent, Playtime is a vision like that fully realized: it had a famously gigantic set requiring over a hundred workers and its own power plant to construct, a parody metropolis of uniform gray. The film is often alienating and overwhelming, with copious individual actors and obscure sight gags spread throughout chaotic shots. Most of this serves to lampoon the modern era, particularly the posters of landmarks all the world over obscured by the same concrete skyscraper, distinguishable from one another only by little stickers in front of the building, like a red phone booth for London. But as immaculate as the film is, the emotional response it tends to elicit is usually just a slight smile or a little chuckle.

Outlier:

Seginus: 85
Inviso: 66
Karo: 65
Johnbobb: 63
Exdeath: 61

Although no one thought Playtime could be dropping next, no one really had an extreme rating for it either.

also I learned today that you cannot post the full name of the main character of Synecdoche, New York on GameFAQs.

Huh, I did legitimately think that would get higher given that it's definitely more approachable than a good bit of what still remains. It's not really easy to come across as both extremely funny and also "artsy"

Yeah, I was counting on the pleasantness factor to keep this one in the top half.

Mr. Bean is a good comparison, he did have a movie called Mr. Bean's Holiday which I'm now realizing must be a reference to Monsieur Hulot's Holiday.

*and thinking about it even further, the bus of American tourists reminded me of the I Love Lucy bus in Rat Race, which *also* has Mr. Bean damn

1. Johnbobb: 2 (Ordet, The Holy Mountain)
1. PunishedJeezy 2 (The Conformist, The Holy Mountain)
3. Inviso 1 (The Holy Mountain)
3. LightningStrikes 1 (The Holy Mountain)
3. Karo 1 (The Holy Mountain)

Current guesses:
Seginus: Synecdoche, New York
Johnbobb: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Karo: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Inviso: Aguirre,The Wrath of God
PunishedJeezy: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Next up: This film did quite well across three of the voters but was held back substantially by the other two.

I feel like it's time for a post-2000 film to drop...

19. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
1975, France
Director: Chantal Akerman

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d25ab55b.jpg
"I overcooked the potatoes."

Rankings:
Exdeath: 7
Inviso: 11
Seginus: 14
Johnbobb: 26
Karo: 27

total: 85

Exdeath:

Although it's way beyond the normally acceptable length for one of these projects, I couldn't in good conscience make a list of Art Films without the Sight and Sound Greatest Film of All Time. This is probably the Feminist movie par excellence, with just about every decision the director made being informed by Feminist belief - she commented for instance that the camera is kept a comfortable distance from Delphine Seyrig to respect her personal space. In particular, the crushing length and slow shots of mundane activities are intended to convey the idea of Jeanne being trapped within a patriarchal system even after her husband's death. The rigidity of her daily routine serves to avoid giving her any time for self-reflection, and the few moments where she does pause give the impression that she can't tolerate inactivity very long, particularly the scene near the end where she looks at herself in the reflection of a shop window. Of course the whole conceit of the film is that by showing you one normal day at great length, it can subtly convey the disturbance in her mental state that comes either after her second encounter with a John or when she overcooks her potatoes. Watching her leave the second button of her blouse undone is how this movie communicates that shit is about to go down. Even the classical ending with Jeanne finally lashing out against the system is conveyed as such a cold and hollow action in comparison to the catharsis most Feminist books I've read take out of murdering an oppressive patriarch.

I feel it's hard to argue that this is anything except a good film. It's original, challenging, and very carefully made. Still, the temptation to look at your phone or pause it to get up and make food is a near constant aspect of the experience, and I was definitely zoned out thinking about Evangelion for a significant portion of the run time.

Inviso:

So, when it comes to artsy movies, one of my big complaints is how fucking BORING they tend to be, often times forgoing plot for cinematic visuals and sound design or some metaphorical bullshit. And additionally, I tend to HATE slice of life movies, because the subject matter is so pointless that I feel even more bored out of my mind watching something so utterly frivolous. And yet, as evidenced by the fact that, as of this point in the list (almost at the two thirds mark), Jeanne is almost guaranteed a top half placement overallsomething about this movie just CLICKED for me.

Thinking about it, I think what tends to piss me off about slice of life movies is how a lot of the time, theyre still very boring and very pointless, but theyre often told from the perspective of a director that thinks they have something important to say. Theres often times no drama, but rather just a series of generic scenes that feel like nothing of interest happens. And the thing about that is that the scenes that were shown, boring as they are, are still shown with the intent that the audience is meant to care about them. But theres no conflict or no drama, and it results in Heres a scene of this time I went fishing and I talked to my dad and then we drove home. Thats dull as fuck to me.

With Jeanne, however, from minute one, it didnt feel that way. This movie KNEW it was slow and it KNEW it was boring, and it played that up. The first ninety minutes of this two-hundred-minute film is just starting in the evening, and following a housewife (well, former housewife since her husband dead, I suppose) as she goes about her daily routine. Nothing exciting happensits just her going through the motions in a very stoic and nondescript fashion. Something about the fact that the movie did not once during those ninety minutes make it seem like it was anything other than a mundane day for this woman. Heck, one of the first things we see from her is an off-screen sexual encounter revealing that shes secretly a prostitute, and yet even THAT is downplayed.

Now, admittedly, I dont think I could have gotten through a full 3+ hours of that, which is why at the ninety-minute mark, we effectively reach the end of that first twenty-four-hour period, and start anew. The second day two begins, its different. The vibe is different. Jeannes regimented schedule gets fucked up and it throws everything off for the rest of the evening. She goes to bed but winds up waking early, throwing off her schedule further as her morning errands are occurring before the various shops have even opened for the day. Having that first day of mundane serenity helps to establish that something WRONG on the second day. And that all leads to day three, when she just snaps, and for the first time we witness her nightly prostitute encounterbefore she straight-up murders her john.

Is this the most exciting movie Ive ever watched? No. But it wound up being a really interesting character study as Jeanne goes from organized and stoic, to a little out of it on day twoto straight up losing it over the course of day three (unable to find a button, missing out on her favorite table and favorite waitress at her local caf). Im stunned that I enjoyed this as much as I did, even though admittedly its not cream of the crop in terms of my filmgoing habits.

Seginus

Theres a payoff! Im so pleased there is a actually a payoff to this tantric cinematic experiment. It ends up delivering such a unique, singular effect that by the time it was over I found myself looking forward to a rewatch, even though for the first few hours I was questioning why I was even spending the time on this in the first place. Oh Jeanne Dielman, you saucy bitch.

You know whats really creepy, watching people silently eat a whole meal in one unbroken take. Ive never endured so much food continuity in a movie.

Johnbobb:

Between this and The Zone of Interest, I think it might be safe to say I don't particularly care for slow cinema. And by that I mean slow cinema specifically as an art form, not like slow-paced movies. The only exception I can think of offhand is Taste of Cherry, which frankly I'm surprised wasn't on this list! It's artistic, sure, I get it's whole thing, but ultimately I didn't get much out of it.

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
someone get this poor woman a cat or something

Karo:

A woman in Belgium does mundane household chores. For three and a half hours.
What now, did you want actual things to happen? I'm sorry, but your princess is in another castle, where she spends ten minutes slowly and agonizingly washing herself in a tub.
So the life of one Jeanne Dielman is chronicled here in excruciating detail, as is her slow decline into madness with the rest of the audience.

I can sort of get the artistic vision here, but what I can't get is why said vision needed to be as long as a fucking Scorsese film. The story is not complex, and the banality of Jeanne's existence could have been summed up within an hour. But, you may say, it's the whole point that it goes on forever. Well then, why not make it five hours long? Or six? You have to put your foot down somewhere or it just turns into pretentious self indulgence that doesnt really add to the work as a whole.

I will say that I hope the sound effect people got a raise after this, because what they accomplished with what little they were given to work with was suburb.
However, the overall work is an absurdly bloated, maddeningly uneventful slog that you couldn't pay me to watch again. I mean there is slow paced and then there is crossing the event horizon of a black hole into a place where time has no meaning, and this movie definitely felt like the latter.

Outlier:

Seginus: 90
Inviso: 75
Exdeath: 74
Karo: 73
Johnbobb: 70

The fall of the Greatest Film of All Time brings in lots of points for almost everyone, since it was rather polarizing with our voters.

I will say that Inviso liking this movie was probably the biggest surprise of the project for me.

I've gotta say, I think you really pushing this as "people who struggle with artsy movies aren't going to like this one" set the bar SO LOW that Jeanne cleared it AND THEN SOME for me. It wasn't the most fascinating movie, but I found myself entranced all the same. And holy shit that potato peeling scene was one of the most nerve wracking things I watched in this whole list.

Karo and Jeezy correctly call Jeanne Dielman while Johnbobb and Seginus jump off it to pursue other targets
1. PunishedJeezy: 3 (The Conformist, The Holy Mountain, Jeanne Dielman)
2. Johnbobb: 2 (Ordet, The Holy Mountain)
2. Karo: 2 (The Holy Mountain, Jeanne Dielman)
3. Inviso 1 (The Holy Mountain)
3. LightningStrikes 1 (The Holy Mountain)

Current guesses:
Seginus: Synecdoche, New York
Johnbobb: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Inviso: Aguirre,The Wrath of God

Next up: A paired movie, and an inversion of Jeanne Dielman's score spread (2 highs, 3 lows)

Also, I can't let us move past Jeanne Dielman without posting this masterpiece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwyGCzezt1g

I will guess The Tree of Life.

18. 8 1/2
Originally released as Otto e mezzo, 1963, Italy
Director: Federico Fellini

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/04c0b0d4.jpg
"All the confusion of my life... has been a reflection of myself! Myself as I am, not as I'd like to be."

Rankings:

Johnbobb: 7
Seginus: 8
Karo: 22
Inviso: 23
Exdeath: 24

Total: 84

Johnbobb:

I had high hopes going into 8 1/2. I'm a huge fan of Fellini's "I, Vitelloni" and always heard this toted to be his masterpiece. In honesty, I did try to watch it almost a decade ago, but wasn't in the headspace for it and told myself I'd come back to it. I'm glad to finally have a chance to, because it really is something else. One of my absolute favorite things to see in films is dreamlike realities that are handled smoothly. The trope is always to have something crazy happen, then have the character wake up, just to make sure the audience knows what happened wasn't real. Fellini doesn't care if you know, and the film is that much better for it. That thin thread holding reality together makes the ending so much more powerful.

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
Being a director is hard guys!!! My life sucks because I cant successfully manipulate all those around me :(

Seginus:

The title actually comes from a dream Fellini had after he 8 a pizza once and passed out (hes a lightweight).

Its the classic meta-film, a merciless parody of big-budget filmmaking and scathing self-portrait of the director, on some level also a film about Catholic guilt and repression. Whats clever is that its recursive, the movie being made within the movie is this movie. But why this really works for me is that its able to cut through the heady concept and touch base by relating such a universal human experience - scatterbrained, yearning for meaning, full of self-doubt, horny. And I find it super funny. Guido Anselmi is a great character, brilliantly played by Mastroianni, a real sleazebag caught in a web of his own design. I love that hes constantly distracted and that this informs the films structure, scenes dont actually end so much as they get interrupted by the next thing that diverts Guidos attention.

It had been a long time since my first viewing of this, and I enjoyed it so much more this time. Its filled with personality and chaotic energy. One bit that really stuck out this time is when Guido retreats to his harem fantasy, and the women revolt because he straight up uses the DiCaprio rule - once youre over 25, you get sent upstairs! Insert the Leo pointing at tv meme.

Karo:

So there's this guy making a movie, and he may be in his movie sometimes, or maybe the movie is in his life. Or alternatively, I can just take the 'everyone is high' free center space on my art film bingo card.
Anyway, he is assumedly some sort of famous director, even though he doesn't seem to have any clue what the fuck he is doing. We go though various scenes of boring filmmaking work and some equally boring marital strife, with the only reprieve being these weird scenes where I don't really know what the hell is going on but at least it has my attention.
It's just very hard to understand what is going on or really connect with anyone when characters suddenly play other characters and everyone seems more moody and perpetually irritated than Shadow the Hedgehog.
This is just never going to be the kind of thing I like, I want to see stories by a director, not about one. I mean, it's literally a film about making a film about a filmmaker. How much more self indulgent can you get?
It is something that alternates between being mind numbingly boring and being completely incomprehensible, but hey, at least nobody's penis was cut off as far as I can tell, so yay?

Inviso:

Yeah, I didnt enjoy this one. The movie even calls out WHY I didnt enjoy this one towards the end, when Claudia is laughing about how the directors idea sucks because the protagonist is a completely unlikable human being. Given that the in-universe movie being directed is meant to be loosely based on the directors lifethat means that the events surrounding the creation of the movie-within-a-movie revolve around a complete dickhead. Thats not an immediate dealbreaker for me, but if youre going to have a douchebag for a protagonist, youve gotta give me a plot that I can follow with relative ease. Instead, this movie just goes all over the place, switching between reality and magical realism and outright fantasy without proper denotations of which is which.

I think it also didnt help that the movie starts out with a very fantastical scene that then fades into another less fantastical scene, which really started it out on the wrong foot in terms of how I, the viewer, was meant to interpret things. Also, I get that theres a running theme of Guido being a serial womanizer, but it was almost too much, and there were too many female characters involved in the film for me to remember who was who and which one served what role in Guidos personal story, compared to a potential role in his film. I dont knowI just found myself confused and largely bored and uncaring about anyone in the movie, which sucked for something over two hours long.

Exdeath:

Now we're getting into my rewatches, most of which I saw for the first time as a baby film snob. I remember finding Fellini's self-reflective odyssey incredibly dull and frustrating on the first viewing. This is perhaps the quintessential film-about-film with Guido standing in for many of Fellini's own feelings as a director, which are metaphorized with various levels of clarity. For example we have a film critic character who constantly lambasts Guido's project, who is a very on-the-nose representation of creative self-doubt, but on the other hand there's a scene where a circus performer comes to a party Guido is chilling at and starts reading people's minds, coming out with a nonsensical phrase when he gets around to our protagonist. After two viewings I still have no idea what the fuck the point of that scene is!

I liked this more on a rewatch but I probably still wouldn't call it a favorite. Fellini brings some decent examination of creativity and the emptiness of religion and bourgeois society to the table here, and of course the imagery is beautiful, but for me there just aren't really any moments that spark joy like the role reversal at the end of Synecdoche, New York does. It has some things to say but not much to feel, at least for me.

Outlier:

Seginus: 100
Johnbobb: 81
Inviso: 80
Exdeath: 80
Karo: 77

Seginus continues to build a lead in first place while everyone else stays clumped incredibly close together/

Ok what the fuck

No one guessed 8 1/2 so I get to copy paste my last scoreboard post

Scoreboard
1. PunishedJeezy: 3 (The Conformist, The Holy Mountain, Jeanne Dielman)
2. Johnbobb: 2 (Ordet, The Holy Mountain)
2. Karo: 2 (The Holy Mountain, Jeanne Dielman)
3. Inviso 1 (The Holy Mountain)
3. LightningStrikes 1 (The Holy Mountain)

Current guesses:
Seginus: Synecdoche, New York
Johnbobb: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Inviso: Aguirre,The Wrath of God
sergiocornaga: The Tree of Life

Next up: A very sad movie with one top 5 placement, one bottom 5, and the rest mostly in the middle.

see that sounds like Tokyo Story but it feels too early to be Tokyo Story

but I thought the same thing about 8 1/2 so I'll say Tokyo Story I guess!

I will also guess Tokyo Story, though I hope I'm wrong.

guessing Tokyo Story

Wouldn't have guessed 8 1/2 anyways, I'll take Synecdoche, New York for the next film

The hint sounds like either Synechdoche, Tokyo Story, or Ikiru

I'll go with Tokyo Story

17. The Ascent
Originally released as , 1977, Soviet Union
Director: Larisa Shepitko

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/109a1a8f.jpg
Then go, go on living - without a conscience. It can be done.

Rankings:

Inviso: 5
Seginus: 13
Exdeath: 14
Karo: 21
Johnbobb: 27

Inviso:

This is another one of those historical dramas which tells a story about a time period and part of the world that I dont really think about all that often as an American: namely Russia during World War II, when the Nazis had taken over certain parts of their motherland. But yeah, the film is about a pair of Russian soldiers fighting against German occupation, struggling in the winter snow as theyre trying to find food for their battalion, and yet over the first third of the movie, they come across multiple houses featuring multiple Belarussian citizens who reject them at first (a Nazi collaborator) or try to hide them, but regardless of their actions, these two soldiers being in proximity leads to them receiving punishment as though theyd been aiding and abetting both ways.

The back two thirds, however, see the two soldiers captured and they, along with the mother who aided them (ripped away from her three children) and the man who did not (ripped away from his wife) are taken into custody for interrogation by the Nazis. Its here that the movie really starts to get interesting, because throughout that first third, you have the one soldierSotnikovwho has been shot and developed a fever, and hes been ready to die for the good of Mother Russia. But Rybak is far less serious about his role in the army, and he doesnt want to die. Hes the one who surrenders rather than get shot, leading to the mothers capture. And throughout the film, we get scenes of him bravely fleeing and taking bullets to the backbut these are just fantasies and hes too cowardly to risk his own life.

Sotnikov is wounded and suffering, and hes brought in for interrogation, where a star is burned into his chest for refusing to divulge any information. Rybak, however, spills every bit of information he has at the first possible opportunity. They wind up together and Rybak tries to justify his cowardice to an incredulous Sotnikov, and things are made worse when the collaborator and the mother join them in prison, captured and sentenced to death because these two soldiers disrupted their lives. Also, a Jewish child is thrown in, to really hammer home how fucked up the Nazis were. And in the end, Sotnikov TRIES to shoulder all the blame for everyone, but the Nazis arent having iteveryone must die. Except Rybak, who begs for his life via the promise of joining the German police he was offered.

I really like how the back half of this movie manages to essentially tell a Passion story, with Sotnikov taking on kind of a Christ-like role (including trying to help a crying collaborator, who hed berated for his treachery earlier in the film). Hes the last prisoner to hang, and hes given the full visual of light illuminating the back of his head, all the while, Rybak holds the stump hes standing on, crying as he knows that hes a coward and a traitor. To really hammer the point home, even the villagers who watched the hanging call Rybak a Judas. Its an interesting take without going full ham on the religious aspect of the narrative. And yeahwatching Rybak have to suffer the guilt of his choices is an interesting way to conclude an overall bitter narrative. Its really well done as a result.

Seginus:

A WWII engagement in Russian winter makes for a harrowing setting that keeps the characters constantly near the brink of death, extreme conditions reducing them to opposing ideological nubbins. Judasov and Jesuslavsky, its a bible story. You turn your back on the motherland its like turning your back on god, on god. Like a lot of soviet cinema, it gets a little heavy-handed with the o7 comrade message, but it feels so earned here. I mean, the scale of loss incurred on this front was unprecedented and this is just a microcosm of it.

This movie had a great sense of dread, with standout sequences of being dragged through the snow, premonitions of doomed escape attempts, longing glances across nearly empty snowfields save for one tiny figure with a rifle just waiting for a guy to risk it. I thought it was well-written and well-acted with a surprising turn from Tarkovsky regular Anatoly Solonitsyn as a villain. And I love the high-contrast black and white, it looks very striking.

Exdeath:

Ah, Soviet cinema. There is a narrative in film history about how the cold war was waged through film: while America, true to its capitalist ideology, focused on bombastic, crowd-pleasing blockbusters designed to rake in as much cash as possible, the USSR's leadership wanted to prove the superiority of Communism by churning out art films that would win awards at Cannes. I feel like it's only in Russia where a story can end with the main character failing to hang himself because if he succeeded it wouldn't quite be depressing enough. One of my regrets in making this list is that I couldn't think of enough great examples of this type of Soviet film to include. I desperately wanted Come and See on the list but left it off so Snake can use it on his war films list, so I'm gonna be PISSED if he doesn't end up including that one.

A common interpretation of Playtime, another film of this project, is that it's like an extended game of Where's Waldo, but when you really think about it the entire list is an extended exercise in spot-the-Christ. Ordet and The Holy Mountain are the first few pages where it's easy mode, and I'd say this film is the intermediate difficulty to coax you into seeking hidden Jesuses before you get into analyzing how Eraserhead (which is, after all, Lynch's most spiritual film) is a metaphor for the crucifixion or Mirror as an elaborate analogy for the religious life. Rybak is explicitly likened to Judas which makes Sotnikov the clear stand in for the lamb of God. But what makes it profound is how much humanization there is for Rybak before that moment, including how he literally carries Sotnikov on his back before they're captured by the Germans. In the end, this kind of allegorical analysis doesn't really change the meaning of the film, and it works regardless of your interest in digging up secret Messiahs. It's a depiction both of human goodness and our worst tendencies against the backdrop of the most brutal military front in the history of warfare.

Karo:

A pair of Soviet soldiers get lost in the snow and bad things happen. After wandering around in the snow a lot they get captured by Nazis and the story finally begins.
I feel a lot of the movie isnt super interesting up until the point where Rybek is forced to make tough decisions that spark his decent into madness, and unfortunately that is a good 40 minutes of nothingness.
But once this is all over with we get a pretty good story of a loyal and heroic soldier who, over just a few days of hardship: Betrays his comrades to save himself. Wants to run away, but is too much of a coward. Is too incompetent to even hang himself properly. Walks away to become a Nazi policeman with the horror on his face of someone who has realized just what a miserable and utter failure he is.
Pretty dark, but decent stuff.

Johnbobb:

I don't know. I'll admit I kind of had some trouble getting through this one. It had some very strong moments, especially in the last half hour, and leaned heavily into the hopeless aspect. The people who stay strong in the face of evil will die, the people who don't will live but want to die. Strong ending, if a miserable one, but the majority of the film didn't really do much to movie me.

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
I realized why I hated it so much, it's because it reminds me of PATHS OF GLORY I LOVE YOU KUBRICK BUT ITS HIS 2ND WORST FILM I HATE THE ASCENT I HATE PATHS OF GLORY GOD DAMN WHY DID I EVER DECIDE THAT WATCHING MOVIES WERE EVER GOOD

Outlier:

Seginus: 104
Inviso: 92
Johnbobb: 91
Exdeath: 83
Karo: 81

Johnbobb gets a lot of points from The Ascent, but Inviso gets a couple more.