Top 10 Best Films Seen in 2006 |
 Dec 31 2006, 02:34 AM
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Scribbulus Everchanging Inks Changer  Posts: 1,303 Joined: 7:33am January 28, 2005 Location: Manila, Philippines  |
Unlike other Top 10 of 2006 lists, this one lists down all the best movies I've seen for the first time in 2006, regardless of the original year of release instead of the usual best of 2006 lists which other critics/film geeks do which lists down only 2006 films.
Instead of ranking according to preference, I shall rank them in alphabetical order and also post the review I wrote about the film. Here goes: AGUIRRE WRATH OF GOD Directed by Werner Herzong Wow! Just wow. I downloaded this movie via BitTorrent due to it's annoying habit of being unavailable in video or DVD locally anywhere and my being unable to attend the special screening of it sometime ago. Wow, just wow. Some of the most stunning on-location shots are in this film. I watched this movie via my computer screen, I really, really felt I was there. Compelling portrait of madness, obssession and the absurdity of colonialism. Klaus Kinski gives a superb performance too. An insanely great film. CACHE Directed by Michael Haneke An amazing film! My favorite film from Michael Haneke so far (I've seen Funny Games and The Piano Teacher). Daniel Auteil and Juliette Binoche play a married couple who receives a series of mysterious videotapes of their house. The film offers no easy answers and is very much infuriating, nerve-wracking and bewildering all at once. Technically, it's a thriller but don't expect a thriller in a convential sense. Superb. THE DEPARTED Directed by Martin Scorsese It's no GoodFellas but it's pretty darn close. Tense, gripping adaptation of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs which actually manages to have an even DARKER ending than the original (if memory serves me right) something that I have mixed feelings about. Great performances by the cast (though Wahlberg is at times annoying). This is without a doubt, Martin Scorsese's best film of the 00's. THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski An extraordinary, dream-like motion picture about two women named Veronique, one Polish, the other French who look strikingly the same living parallel lives from one another. Irene Jacob plays both parts outstandingly. An absolutely spell-binding film that further cements Kieslowski in my list of favorite filmmakers. LATE SPRING Directed by Yasujiro Ozu Another quiet, understated family drama from one of Japanese cinema's true masters. A widower pretends to be interested in remarrying in hopes to get his devoted daughter to finally leave home and get married. Like with the few Ozu films I've seen, it takes a while to get used to the slow pace, the different cultural sensibility and the seemingly mundane themes but once you're in, you'll be moved by this beautifully shot and acted slice of life piece Japanese style. LE SAMOURAI Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville A quiet hitman gets caught between the police and his duplicitous employers in this engrossing French thriller, masterfully directed by Melville. His use of very sparse dialogue and images to grip the viewer is nothing short of amazing. OPEN CITY Directed by Roberto Rosselini The DVD version of this film which I watched doesn't have the best picture and best sound. Plus it isn't properly subtitled (almost half of them missing). But still, the power and beauty of Rosselini's neo-realist masterpiece comes through very clearly. Very moving with some stunning piece of acting. Superb. OUT OF THE PAST Directed by Jacques Tourneur Gangsters. B&W photography. Double-crossing femme fatales. Ingenious plot twists. All the ingredients of a great film noir is here. Robert Mitchum gives a great performance as a "private detective" working for a gangster boss and gets himself entangled in a web of deceit and intrigue when he falls for the wrong woman. Gripping, absorbing. A classic in every way. THE SEVENTH SEAL Directed by Ingmar Bergman FINALLY!!! I've seen a bunch of Bergman but oddly enough not his most well-known and popular. Until this year. Though I do not consider this my favorite Bergman film (Persona holds that title still), I do agree with the consensus that this is indeed a masterpiece in the history of world cinema. Lots of very haunting, indelible images and great performances. WAGES OF FEAR Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot This is one nerve-wracking film! Four men, two trucks filled with volatile nitro glycerine, rocky, unstable roads = a formula for a genuinely thrilling, even thought provoking character study cum thriller. Some really, really genuinely edge of your seat stuff here. |
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