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)

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)

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