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Safe in Hell 1931
Yet another pre-code classic that served as kind of a catalyst for what the Hays Code would do its best to avoid just a few years down the line. Safe in Hell very well could have been a major factor in getting the censors further invested in shaving off cinema's more "dangerous" aspects - in this case, a darker and more difficult sense of morality famously marketed as "NOT Recommended for Children". Also rather subversive in this film's case is…
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An Actor's Revenge 1963
An inventive balance between the theatrical - that is, the theater - and the cinematic. Consistently working in different layers of actors playing actors and those actors playing characters who tend to mirror themselves; a surreal experience, a little delirious in the same way you might imagine from Paul Schrader circa Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters a couple decades later, albeit more subdued and easier to grasp on some literal level. Yet it does exemplify Kon Ichikawa's remarkably understated…
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Mirror 1975
Tarkovsky is a bit different from other slow cinema artists that dominate other parts of the world. Like filmmakers such as Bela Tarr and Lav Diaz, Tarkovsky holds shots for long periods of time, perhaps with more camera movement than the others, yet when Tarr and Diaz move their shots, they match the mood out of necessity. Their films are slow, so their camera movements are slow as well, makes sense, and they do it spectacularly. Tarkovsky moves his camera…
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Marketa Lazarová 1967
Sátántangó may be this film's only rival in terms of quality, yet they are near polar opposites, with Sátántangó achieving mood through slow, sprawling, dense story-telling, and Marketa Lazarová punching with every scene of action and dialogue; as flashy and bombastic as possible.
Of course this is all a personal perspective, but if I were to visualize a potential "peak" of film perfection, Sátántangó and Marketa Lazarová are the only films that seemed to attempt that jump. Neither film is…
