This year, for the first time, I submitted an official Top 10 list, abiding by the “one-week theatrical run in the States” rule. The full write-up can be found at The Auteurs’ Notebook.
- Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke)
- In the City of Sylvia (Jose Luis Guerin)
- Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
- A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin)
- Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
- Paraguayan Hammock (Paz Encina)
- Love Songs (Christoph Honore)
- The Last Mistress (Catherine Breillat)
- Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo)
- The Romance of Astree and Celadon (Eric Rohmer)
In the three weeks since I submitted that piece I’ve caught up with a couple other well-reviewed films, and I suspect that one of them, Heartbeat Detector (Nicolas Klotz), would have bumped Rohmer from the list had I seen it sooner. I’m eager to watch it again.
Favorite New Films I Saw in 2008
As I mentioned in my write-up for The Auteurs, these year-end lists offer a really frustrating glimpse into the state of film distribution. If I hadn’t spent ten days in Toronto, the list below would include one film, Love Songs, which, it’s perhaps worth noting, played at TIFF ‘07 and which I saw more than a year later when it finally found its way to DVD. Someday, hopefully, Senses of Cinema will post their next issue (it’s already more than a month late), which will include my essay about many of these films.
- RR (James Benning)
- When It was Blue (Jennifer Reeves)
- 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
- Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso)
- Revanche (Gotz Spielman)
- A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin)
- Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
- Winter / Sarabande (Nathaniel Dorsky)
- Horizontal Boundaries (Pat O’Neill)
- Love Songs (Christoph Honore)
- Birdsong (Albert Serra)
- Salamandra (Pablo Aguero)
- The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda)
- Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
- Hunger (Steve McQueen)
Favorite Discoveries of 2008
This list is a lot more fun. Older films that I saw for the first time in ’08. Limited to one film per director, listed in alphabetical order. This was a great year for silent films — starting with the Ford at Fox boxset, followed by a trip to San Francisco for the Silent Film Festival in July, and ending with a brief trip through Murnau. With the recent release of the Murnau, Borzage and Fox set, I suspect 2009 will be a good one, too.
- The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincent Minnelli, 1952)
- Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, 2000)
- Faust (F. W. Murnau, 1926)
- Four Sons (John Ford, 1928)
- Jujiro (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1928)
- Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)
- Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)
- Life on Earth (Abderrahmane Sissako, 1998)
- The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax, 1999)
- Los Muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)
- Platform (Jia Zhang-ke, 2000)
- ‘Round Midnight (Bertrand Tavernier, 1986)
- Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
- The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
- The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)
- Vers Mathilde (Claire Denis, 2005)
- Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967)