2023 Contemplative Cinema Canon (Michael Guarneri) Top10
Michael Guarneri
writer
L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Fare un film è per me vivere.
Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
One for the road.
Damnation (Béla Tarr, 1988)
The storm rages outside, the fog thickens inside our brains and lungs. Sitting on a fart in the darkest corner of the bar, we think about all the things that went wrong and can't be changed... It is too late for everything now, it is all over... but maybe there is still a chance... Maybe, just maybe, after this drink, after this cigarette, something will happen and everything will change... Hope is a horrible thing indeed, and yet we can't help clinging on to it as we sink - slowly but surely - into nothingness.
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (Wang Bing, 2003)
"In the past, in China, there was a very explicit and severe system at work. What I mean is that the exercise of power by the government over the individuals was very direct and evident: the Communist Party ruled people through direct administrative and political means. Today, on the contrary, the rules of society are made almost exclusively by economic means and for economic purposes, as if politics had become the same as economy. However, I am just a simple individual who films what he loves to film. I am neither a sociologist nor an economist, so I don’t think that I am capable of listing and discussing all the problems Chinese society has. And besides, as I told you, I don’t film society. I film individuals living their everyday life..." (Wang Bing to me)
Los muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)
The dead can wait.
Krisana (Fred Kelemen, 2005)
Falling in love.
Help me Eros (Lee Kang-sheng, 2007)
Love is a four-letter word.
Melancholia (Lav Diaz, 2008)
"I know Filipinos who have been looking for desaparecidos since the declaration of Martial Law. These people are still looking for their loved ones and they won’t stop until they see evidence that their loved ones are dead. I think that, deep inside their heart, these eternal searchers know that their loved ones are gone forever. Yet, they go on searching. On and on and on. For me, this kind of suffering is unfathomable. It is like an abyss. It is really, really deep and there is nothing at the bottom. Only the infiniteness of darkness and nothingness. The word 'melancholia' can only approach the concept, it is not really the appropriate term to describe the loneliness, the sadness, the yearning and longing to see your loved ones who disappeared, to talk with them, to touch them one last time. And that’s the thing that amazes me about humanity: we can actually endure this kind of suffering. Humanity can endure, humanity has that kind of fortitude. We can endure and, maybe, we can evolve into something better..." (Lav Diaz to me)
Horse Money (Pedro Costa, 2014)
"For better or worse, when shooting, I often find myself living much more with the dead than with the living. Cinema is a very powerful ring-ring to the Other Side..." (Pedro Costa to me)
Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, 2016)
The sun shines bright.
writer
L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Fare un film è per me vivere.
Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
One for the road.
Damnation (Béla Tarr, 1988)
The storm rages outside, the fog thickens inside our brains and lungs. Sitting on a fart in the darkest corner of the bar, we think about all the things that went wrong and can't be changed... It is too late for everything now, it is all over... but maybe there is still a chance... Maybe, just maybe, after this drink, after this cigarette, something will happen and everything will change... Hope is a horrible thing indeed, and yet we can't help clinging on to it as we sink - slowly but surely - into nothingness.
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (Wang Bing, 2003)
"In the past, in China, there was a very explicit and severe system at work. What I mean is that the exercise of power by the government over the individuals was very direct and evident: the Communist Party ruled people through direct administrative and political means. Today, on the contrary, the rules of society are made almost exclusively by economic means and for economic purposes, as if politics had become the same as economy. However, I am just a simple individual who films what he loves to film. I am neither a sociologist nor an economist, so I don’t think that I am capable of listing and discussing all the problems Chinese society has. And besides, as I told you, I don’t film society. I film individuals living their everyday life..." (Wang Bing to me)
Los muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)
The dead can wait.
Krisana (Fred Kelemen, 2005)
Falling in love.
Help me Eros (Lee Kang-sheng, 2007)
Love is a four-letter word.
Melancholia (Lav Diaz, 2008)
"I know Filipinos who have been looking for desaparecidos since the declaration of Martial Law. These people are still looking for their loved ones and they won’t stop until they see evidence that their loved ones are dead. I think that, deep inside their heart, these eternal searchers know that their loved ones are gone forever. Yet, they go on searching. On and on and on. For me, this kind of suffering is unfathomable. It is like an abyss. It is really, really deep and there is nothing at the bottom. Only the infiniteness of darkness and nothingness. The word 'melancholia' can only approach the concept, it is not really the appropriate term to describe the loneliness, the sadness, the yearning and longing to see your loved ones who disappeared, to talk with them, to touch them one last time. And that’s the thing that amazes me about humanity: we can actually endure this kind of suffering. Humanity can endure, humanity has that kind of fortitude. We can endure and, maybe, we can evolve into something better..." (Lav Diaz to me)
Horse Money (Pedro Costa, 2014)
"For better or worse, when shooting, I often find myself living much more with the dead than with the living. Cinema is a very powerful ring-ring to the Other Side..." (Pedro Costa to me)
Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, 2016)
The sun shines bright.
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All the individual top10 ballots of this Contemplative Cinema greatest masterpieces survey will be published until the final canon.
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