Top30 Favorite Film Discoveries of 2015
25. Anna Karenina (1967) (Анна Каренина)
24. Win Win
23. Yo, También
Sometimes it feels I’m the only Lola Dueñas fan in the whole wide world~
Director Antonio Naharro has an English subtitled upload on YouTube!
22. Once Upon a Time in China (黃飛鴻)
I had a Once Upon a Time worldwide marathon this year~
21. Perhaps Love (如果·爱)
I’m a sucker for suffering tortured soul love stories [1], it’s the Asian in me.
20. Samsara
To prep for my interview with director Pan Nalin, in promotions for the Indian release of Angry Indian Goddesses, I caught up with his work. My favorite was this one, about a Buddhist monk who decides to step away from his life of the path to enlightenment for his desire to explore human desire. The best bit, though, was the closing monologue by Christy Chung’s character:
Prince Siddhartha, Gautama, Sakyamuni, Buddha. Everybody knows these names, but Yashodhara? Yashodhara was married to Siddhartha, she loved him dearly. One night Siddhartha left her and their son, Rahul, while they were sleeping to seek Enlightenment to become Buddha. He did not even say a word to her when he left.
Yashodhara has shown compassion for the sick and ailing long before Siddhartha ever did, long before Siddhartha was even aware of suffering! Who can say if he owned his Enlightenment to her? Perhaps Yashodhara wanted to leave Siddhartha and Raul. How can we ever know if Yashodhara fell victim to anger, to loneliness or bitterness after Siddhartha left her.
Who even thought about her?
19. The Apu Trilogy [Restoration Clip]
18. Attack the Block
17. 8 Femmes
You had me at Ludivine Sagnier, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert trapped in a house doing a murder musical.
16. Kaboom
aw man, after I ~finally~ finish my 2015 music post, I might do something like this. might. I totally need to watch So Close, as well as The Heroic Trio…
also this might be nice after Muriel’s Wedding: ” http://the-toast.net/2014/11/07/ozten-pride-and-prejudice-for-australians/”
So glad I got Attack the Block on DVD, especially since, when I shared it with friends and family, they needed subs for the accents.
Swanson managed to do better in talkies than some of her contemporaries, but yeah, her celebrity dimmed until Sunset Boulevard. Also nice for the Buster Keaton cameo during the “waxworks” card game…now that’s an even sadder story somewhat centered around the talkie transition. At least he got to see his best work rediscovered and re-appreciated, though.
Have you seen “Hipsters (Stilyagi)” yet? It’s a Russian musical that’s quite long, but some sequences are really brilliant.
I’ll look Stilyagi up :D thanks!
And yeah, it’s kinda sad about Buster Keaton, but as I understand, his problems had more to do with his drinking, no? I read Swanson had a steady career on the radio (!!) which in itself is a lot more ironic considering people though she disappeared because of the talkies. Why have a face, when you have a voice! xD
re: Buster Keaton: he didn’t have as much trouble with alcohol until the combination of a messy divorce and moving from independent studio control to MGM constraints (pushing him through more sound films than he could actually take care with- along with his voice being odd for previous fans), and possibly seeing fellow silent film friends not do well (especially Fatty Arbuckle) led him to fall more on drink, and then all these factors together fed on each other for years. At least things got better for him towards the end of his life, though.
Well Arbuckle really got quite an scandal…