The (Now-Overrated) ILX Top 100 Films of the 2000s Poll Results

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/lives-1.jpg

I wasn't really that fussed about it until the epilogue section, and then I found it very affecting. But the final scene went over my schmaltz limits, yes.

Before all that, there was a good sense of claustrophobic paranoia evoked, I guess, and it did sort of make me see how a man could get into the mindset of justifying torture to himself, but other than that, yes, the main body of the film I found a bit disappointing, given the hype.

― Alba

I think a bigger influence on his change of heart was supposed to be him realising that his colleagues were corrupt. He was an idealist who believed in the communist project and had come to justify brutality in its defence. When he saw others being cynical andd using the party system for personal gain, the whole thing started to unravel for him, and that allowed him to start to see his victims as real humans rather than counter-revolutionaries.

― Alba

Sure, I think that's definitely true - maybe my issue was more that I was never truly convinced of Spacey's absolute faith in the Stasi project. I wanted to understand why this guy had total faith in the system that was keeping him living in a shitty apartment, eating gnarly frozen dinners, and ordering mega-boobed prostitutes.

― Ben Boyerrr

i thought this was pretty great.

my favorite detail was the naievete of the GDR writers when they got serious about being defiant -- it was the editor from the West that knew more about what their government can do and will do and is doing.

― gff

#89

The Lives of Others
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
2006
Germany
(221 points, 12 votes, 1 first place)

suckd fat commie dik

Watching vt films, I get the impression I'm watching someone who thinks he's clever by being outrageous and saying nothing at all. "look at these half-assed ideas I've got aren't they challenging and provocative? Jokes bruv I didn't really mean any of it or did I?" thanks for wasting my time, asswipe.

TLoO maybe the worst yet.

i hope morbs is going to do a worst 10 of these 100

The Lives of Others is one of my favorites - it wasn't my #1 pick - the people that disliked it, why do you think it's awful?

xpost I can see how Haneke tries (and fails) to implicate bourgeois viewers in Cache but I can't see how Von Trier's doing that. BTW and DID are just absurd, sadistic rituals which leave me completely estranged. Haven't seen Dogville though, so maybe he gets implicatin' there, but I can't imagine ever wanting to see one of his movies again.

the words "yeah you like that doncha" should flash on the screen at the end of every von trier movie

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:24 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^ I'm gonna make this every 10th post in the thread if you ppl don't stop talking about lvt

Lives is sentimental twaddle, but i'm sure the film's thread has my contemporary thoughts.

my contemporary thoughts by dr morbius

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_370/1235758790ZmJX78.jpg

it's the sequel to my antediluvian thoughts

lol

lives was utterly ponderous, leaned heavy on the lol art house tactic of using inert pacing and gloomy lighting as a proxy for gravitas

Not seen Lives. Probably should, but foreign film oscars tend to be red flags.

Breaking the Waves (and probably Dancer in the Dark - which I feel asleep halfway through, so I won't pretend that I really "saw" it) - I read in relation to traditional melodrama, as well as all sorts of films where you sit in the comfort of the theater or your home and watch people suffer. It's just taken to extremes. The Idiots is less about suffering, and more about performance and in a sense, avant-garde-ness and art. But I could be finding things in these films that are idiosyncratic and weird.

"a bit schmaltzy," you bet.

If only more playwrights and actresses had introduced Stasi loners to Brecht, the Wall woulda been down in 1970.

― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, February 13, 2008 11:48 AM (1 year ago

Breaking the Waves (and probably Dancer in the Dark - which I feel asleep halfway through, so I won't pretend that I really "saw" it) - I read in relation to traditional melodrama, as well as all sorts of films where you sit in the comfort of the theater or your home and watch people suffer. It's just taken to extremes. The Idiots is less about suffering, and more about performance and in a sense, avant-garde-ness and art. But I could be finding things in these films that are idiosyncratic and weird.

― sarahel, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:56 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark

no, that's about right... they are like psychologically implausible and unpleasant-to-watch melodramas. i don't know why you think people watch melodramas, but im p sure it wasn't to gloat. i think 'the idiots' is better than those films but basically feh.

like this Alfred post:

Then there's also this. Please ignore that it was posted on the fucking Corner.

1. The fundamental element of the plot, the Stasi officer Wiesler helping Dreymann, is such utter nonsense that it ruins the whole movie. It would never happen that some one with over 20 years of continuous indoctrination by the Stasi would help a mortal enemy of the State (and by Stasi definition, that's what Dreymann was). Even if Wiesler could have somehow come to see Dreymann as something other than an enemy, he still would have done what the Stasi expected, because he (Wiesler) would always have been watched and his work constantly checked.

2. That Dreymann could think he was not being observed and bugged is also utter nonsense. This guy was a top playwright who associated with the highest cultural officials and he thought he was not of interest to the State !?!? My wife was continuously watched and bugged simply because she had foreign diplomats as patients. Being watched and bugged was something every East German assumed was part of their life.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, April 27, 2007 1:42 PM (2 years ago)

btw i just checked out the ILM thread and uh... never mind

lol

although i mean realistically not sure what u wanted this thread to be if its not a discussion of pros and cons?

also lives of others was deeply boring and proud of itself

bring on the statham

i don't know why you think people watch melodramas, but im p sure it wasn't to gloat.

- Not on a conscious level, no, but with some there is a sense of superiority in the relationship between audience and character/scenario. Melodrama provides opportunities for sympathy/empathy (among other things) - and one could argue that the "Oh, poor thing!" response from the viewer is in a sense condescending and comes from a superior position.

i think 'the idiots' is better than those films but basically feh.

The Idiots I really like - I prefer Von Trier movies where he's examining institutions or ideas about art, performance, film than his takes on gender dynamics.

although i mean realistically not sure what u wanted this thread to be if its not a discussion of pros and cons?

― Lamp, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 4:03 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya i guess i find it more enjoyable to read why people like stuff than the other way around, but i am just as guilty as anybody else of this

i guess i just find the whole "i hate this! i hate this! i hate this!" vibe a little wearying tbh

*lies down on couch with damp washcloth over eyes*

im looking forward to keepin it pos if some of the stuff i voted for arrives, but so far i either didnt like this stuff or haven't seen it, with the exception of capturing the friedmans, but idk how to verbalize why its as good as it is.

Thought this was going to be about shitting on everyone's taste my bad.

ya i guess im just tired of complaining about most of these movies

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/memoriesmurderdrainage.jpg

memories of murder is astonishing. it veers between unbearably intense drama and disturbingly dark humor--actually it doesn't really "veer between," it sort of stays in both registers at once.

- Amateur(ist)

Memories of Murder (great film about South Korea's first serial killer with a v moving ending)

- xyzzzz

Just finished watching Memories of Murder. It owns my soul.

- jeffrey

#88

Memories of Murder
Bong Joon-Ho
2003
South Korea
222 points, 10 votes

discussion of pros and cons >>>>>>> ballot discussion >>>>>>> fantasy football

Not on a conscious level, no, but with some there is a sense of superiority in the relationship between audience and character/scenario. Melodrama provides opportunities for sympathy/empathy (among other things) - and one could argue that the "Oh, poor thing!" response from the viewer is in a sense condescending and comes from a superior position.

mm. this is actually the critics/theorists displaying *their* superiority to the target audience of melodramas. when they say "oh, poor thing", it's because they project themselves into the film and because they relate to it. i don't see why you'd think they imagine themselves to be superior.

it's not how i watch films anyway. what's wrong with sympathy/empathy?

(i'm aware this is linked to a marxist analysis (of sorts) but it's now just a rote and condescending routine -- no-one who thinks this is setting out to, you know, "change society", as the 70s film theorists reckoned they were.)

hey when marebito makes the top five i will write a short form essay on its merits, pinky swear

xxxpost ok hahaha that gives me some hope actually

we are keeping it pos, ie I can't believe you ppl voted for that piece of shit!

hahaha

liked Memories at the time, but now memory fails me

was memories of murder your #1 omar? it really is fantastic

alfred has a wife?

i don't see why you'd think they imagine themselves to be superior. it's not how i watch films anyway. what's wrong with sympathy/empathy?

Nothing - and I tend to project myself into films and try to relate them as well. But, as someone who studied film academically, I'm also conscious of watching a constructed product and issues of manipulation through the form.

The Lives of Others is not really very interesting to me, but I guess I can see how it ends up on a list like this. Not so with Sideways. I mean, do you all also listen to Spyro Gyra all the time?

i didnt actually vote for Mem of Murder, but it totally deserves a spot and is a pretty incredible movie throughout

not my #1 but way up there for me

The Lives of Others is not really very interesting to me, but I guess I can see how it ends up on a list like this. Not so with Sideways. I mean, do you all also listen to Spyro Gyra all the time?

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:14 PM (17 seconds ago)

I liked The Lives of Others because of the main character, and his existential drama (or lack thereof) - I also liked watching it and comparing it to The Conversation. Sideways, I didn't see, and had no interest in seeing - kinda like how I have no interest in listening to Phish or the Dave Matthews Band.

Alfred was quoting dere

The Lives of Others seemed roughly as dishonest about its political epoch as Mississippi Burning was about its.

sorry for going back to lvt but.. i saw part of 'dancer in the dark' and thought what was going on was.. it started to make sense why people were so awful to poor bjork's character because she was just that clueless and helpless. I mean in a way where characters (esp deneuve) are TRYING to give her advice so that bad things don't happen and she just blows it off. that was my sense of the dynamic, as a viewer, this sort of rage and frustration at watching somebody who does not have to wind up in a bad situation, but wants to act like it's fate and they are helpless, except the whole way they ignored any/all possibility of acting differently! so i wonder if that happens in his other films. i don't wonder enough to be planning to watch them anytime soon though.

been meaning to watch memories of murder 4 eva - hav to do that

memories of murder is astonishing. it veers between unbearably intense drama and disturbingly dark humor--actually it doesn't really "veer between," it sort of stays in both registers at once.

this is my take on korean cinema in general, why I love it so. when it comes to emotional tones, other films seem to pluck out one-note-at-a-time solos while the koreans are blasting out diminished 7 chords.