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Films
of 2000
(in preferential
order)
10 Best Films
Viewing films
in Australia, this is necessarily an impoverished list, films such as
La Captive, Yi Yi, Vengo, La Ville est tranquile,
The Circle, etc. not having made it to this fair land. Still, all
ten films I list here are endlessly fascinating and/or resonant, and I
am glad they exist. Cinema is alive and well.
1.
The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami)
2.
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai)
3.
Wonderland (Michael Winterbottom)
4.
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5.
Throne of Death (Murali Nair)
6.
Xiao Wu (Jia Zhangke)
7.
Beau Travail (Claire Denis)
8.
Blackboards (Samira Makhmalbaf)
9.
Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier)
10. Janice
Beard: 45 WPM (Clare Kilner) |
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The
Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas
Kiarostami) |
10 Worst Films
Maybe I'm getting
old and crotchety, but I found quite a few films to dislike this year.
In fact, the first seven on this list I found particulary objectionable,
on moral and/or emotional and/or cinematic grounds.
1. City
Loop (Belinda Chayko)
2. The
Photographers (Nikos Koundouros)
3. A
Pornographic Affair (Frederic Fonteyne)
4. American
Beauty (Sam Mendes)
5. The
Girl on the Bridge (Patrice Leconte)
6. The
Colour of Paradise (Majid Majidi)
7. Three
Kings (David O. Russell)
8. The
Road Home (Zhang Yimou)
9. Beautiful
People (Jasmin Dizdar)
10. Angst
(Daniel Nettheim)
10 Re(Discoveries)
Just as important
as watching new films, each year has its pleasures in discovering or rediscovering
gems from the past. The cinema is inexhaustible.
1. L’Age
d’or (Luis Buñuel)
2. Alan
Clarke films, especially Christine and Elephant
3. Seeing
Bresson films on 35mm. at the Melbourne Cinémathèque
4. Claire
Denis films, especially I Can’t Sleep and No Fear, No Die
5. Mondo
and Latcho Drom (Tony Gatlif)
6. Lucky
Star (Frank Borzage)
7. Berlin
Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
8. Close-Up
(Abbas Kiarostami)
9. L’Amoureuse
(Jacques Doillon)
10. Marius
and Jeannette (Robert Guediguian)
Australian
cinema 2000
Australian cinema,
to be (my mother) frank, doesn’t really excite me. I don’t go out of my
way looking for it. This year I saw 10 Australian films. The first five
on this list are good; the next five far from it.
the sublime:
Faint Echo of Ghosts (Darron Davies)
the fascinating:
Chopper (Andrew Dominik)
the lovely:
Looking for Alibrandi (Kate Woods)
the surprising:
Sensitive New Age Killer (Mark Savage)
the independent:
Gerry Humphrys - The Loved One (Nigel Buesst)
the problematic:
Innocence (Paul Cox)
the embarrassing:
Better Than Sex (Jonathan Teplitzky)
the pointless:
The Wog Boy (Aleksi Vellis)
the stupid:
Angst (Daniel Nettheim)
the abysmal:
City Loop (Belinda Chayko)
Films of - '14 '13 '12 '11 '10 '09 '08 '07 '06 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 '00 '99 '98 '97 '96 '95 '94 '93 '92
© Bill Mousoulis January
2001
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