Sight and Sound 2022 Top 20

yes, Sunrise deserved more love, but I like that all the rest got votes

The number that surprises me the most--shocks me almost--is 9 for Persona. Nothing to do with the film, which I love, but beforehand I was going to predict which five films I thought most likely to get zero, and that was going to be one of them. People just rarely talk about it in the context of these lists.

2 for Vertigo is a surprise given its Morbsies placement

Actually, that's just as or maybe even more surprising.

An even spread, though Murnau deservedThe Searchers' two votes.

otm, it's really stunningly beautiful top to bottom iirc

Being the only film to get zero votes is special in its own way!

Unless I’m missing something, that’s a grand total of 1 vote for silent (or thereabouts) cinema?

At least this poll kept Regle in the top 10

Man With a Movie Camera is silent, unless you see it with the Shuffle Demons providing an improvised soundtrack.

I knew I was overlooking something

murnau was robbed

2002: pop critics are stupid rockists that can barely put a sentence together. ILX is where it's at.
2022: ILX doesn't get a ballot for the S&S poll. Let's keep it that way.

Seriously though, seeing Renoir at 2nd place and then the discussion was really great. I should rewatch Regle and get to French CanCan

2002: pop critics are stupid rockists that can barely put a sentence together. ILX is where it's at.
2022: ILX doesn't get a ballot for the S&S poll. Let's keep it that way.
2001: Wins yet again

Wow. I voted for either Cleo or Persona (can't remember which) but both Sunrise and Meshes of the Afternoon deserved better than this.

Michael Jeck’s commentary for Seven Samurai on the Criterion Channel is rather dry but super well observed and cool.

Sight and Sound 2022 Round 2: 21-40

btw when did Close-Up become the canonical Kiarostami but not Through the Olive Trees, A Taste of Cherry, Certified Copy, etc., all of which I prefer? (Close-Up is fine ftr).

Close-Up was also the only Kiarostami in the top 100 in 2002 (#68) and 2012 (#43).

My first watch was in 2012, yeah.

seemed like every public library in the county had a copy of A Taste of Cherry.

Same way Tokyo Story became the default Ozu … who the hell knows? (I love Close-Up, and it’s still maybe my #4 or #5 AK overall.)

TS became the default Ozu, I suspect, because it was easily available. Every Blockbuster I visited in the '90s had a VHS copy. Not the case with Close-Up, I don't think.

the meta quality of it, as a docufiction film that kind of becomes a documentary, makes it stand out among his other great films to me

Oh, I know: we're suckers for films about films. But this is Kiarostami's fascination.

That he inserted himself into the middle of the film and changed the course of events makes it unlike any other film I think

Tokyo Story became the default Ozu because it references neither a season nor a time of day and as such is easier not to get mixed up with a different Ozus.

Tokyo Story's '92 placement (surprise top 3) fed into its availability in the ensuing decade(s) ... I agree with Dan S that Close-Up is perhaps the slipperiest of Kiarostami's meta experiments, which is also to account for it getting pushed to the top.

(Also, '22 seemed to take a lot of cues from '12 in terms of what new masters' "default" picks would be)

Come by!

https://com.miami.edu/event/the-sight-sound-top-ten-jeanne-dielman/

I wish I was in Miami instead of cold and drizzly New Jersey. Speaking of how certain films seem to get selected as the representative for a director who often made many films in a similar style, of the 5 Wong Kar Wai films I’ve seen, In the Mood for Love is the one that made the least impression on me. But I get that it’s kind of the most grown-up and has the best production values.

I usually don’t let the weather get to me, but the cold drizzle this evening and stepping over or walking through the resultant puddles was totally a bummer.

The Godfather is on tonight on film 4 uk (II tomorrow, III on friday, repeated next week). making it about a dozen of the S&S top 100 that've been on free-to-air tv since mid-december.

(and Parasite is on again next week)

I've been watching the shortest movies on the list that i haven't seen before. Partie de campagne, The house is black, black girl, several under 90 minutes. Gotta build up to edward yang, bela tarr, those endless documentaries...

Pyaasa is leaving Criterion channel this month so I'll try to watch that longer one.

Oh! Need to watch all those Guru Dutts! Meaning I need to, maybe somebody else needs to as well.

"...of the 5 Wong Kar Wai films I’ve seen, In the Mood for Love is the one that made the least impression on me"

re: In the Mood for Love, the characters repeatedly meet in a cramped 1960s Hong Kong apartment building (to a couple of Spanish language Nat King Cole songs on the soundtrack). She is always wearing different beautiful cheongsams. They get to know each other and eventually role-play the adultery they think represents the lives of their spouses. They try to imagine confronting their spouses and can’t. They yearn for the same connection with each other and it becomes very palpable for them, but then it is gone. The events are told in short-hand

In addition to the innovative filming techniques which I’ve mentioned in other threads and which go to the heart of the story - presaging or echoing of certain moments, replaying of scenes with different perspectives, use of different frame rates, overcranking, step-printing, different exposures - it is a heartbreaking story of missed connections and lost love

also how most scenes are short but some are extended

I can’t claim to have noticed the innovative techniques. Not sure if it would’ve changed my impression, which is that the film was less entertaining than Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild, Happy Together or Fallen Angels.

I haven’t seen it since it was in theaters but Dan’s analysis seems to me otm. Will hopefully find some time in my busy schedule to rewatch soon/pvmic