The Summer Edition of Sight and Sound has the following description on their website: From our vantage point in 2024, we sit one quarter of the way through the 21st century. To acknowledge this milestone, we have enlisted the help of 25 of our finest critics, asking each to nominate a film that is significant within our cinematic era – the kind of film that could be put into a time capsule for the cinephiles of the 22nd century and beyond to marvel at, a movie that is both representative of and a high watermark of the years 2000 to 2024.
Listed in chronological order, these 25 entries – one from each year – form a fascinating snapshot of our times. With no aspirations to comprehensiveness, this is a subjective, esoteric, perhaps even provocative, collection of films. From the UK to Brazil to China to Lesotho, from independent breakthroughs to Hollywood hits to the utterly uncategorisable, our cover feature celebrates the films of the century so far.
The EDITORIAL (Mike Williams) in this edition chooses a Thai director as the most significant film maker of the century so far. Just because his films regularly make the top ten in each year. Apichatpomg Weerasethakul. No, I had never heard of him either. Or any of his movies. Then extensive name checks of other directors who made those top tens.
Fast forward to IN PRODUCTION where Ruben Ostlund (I enjoyed his The Square and Triangle of Sadness) is working on his new film The Entertainment System in Down. Shot on board a real airliner where the passengers have a "bumpy ride".
IN CONVERSATION is with screenwriter Efthimis Filippou who describes his relationship with director Yorgos Lanthinos on their new film Kinds of Kindness where a starry cast led by Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe appear in all three stories. Filippou sounds like a writer on the edge of extreme who has to be reigned in.
There are normally four articles in the TALKIES section starting with Nicole Flattery's FLICK LIT. About James Baldwin's 1976 book of film criticism. Then Pamela Hutchinson's THE LONG TAKE where this month she talks about female film directors. From Alice Guy-Blache to Emily Blunt in Te Fall Guy. Then TV EYE by Andrew Male where the BAFTA TV Award for Best International Series went to Class Act. And lastly THE MAGNIFICENT '74 by Jessica Kiang, a homage to Chinatown's "convincing storytelling". But, for me, the movie is completely let down by the ending (see post 18th January this year) and how Roman Polanski changed Robert Towne's ending for something much darker and totally unsatisfactorily. The crooks win!
Over fourteen pages, the CANNES BULLETIN has ten articles including one on Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis and Sean Baker's Palme d'Or winner Anora. If I had to look out for one film of the couple of dozen from the festival it would have to be Emilia Perez that won the jury prize.
Then we come to the main section of this edition: FILMS OF THE CENTURY. (So far). Twenty five critics choose an "era defining" film for each year from 2000 to 2024. First up is Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I from 2000 and chosen by Pamela Hutchinson, then in 2001 comes Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Park Chan-Wook's marvellous Old Boy is Hannah McGill's choice for 2003 that is followed by an article from October 2004's FROM THE ARCHIVE. It includes eight stills from the film, each with an explanation. Other picks are David Cronenberg's A History of Violence from 2005 and Jordan Peele's 2017 film Get Out.
TIMELINE OF THE CENTURY lists Sight and Sounds top ten films for each year. from 2005 to 2023. Here are the number ones for each year together with my choice from the other nine that I would like to see for the first time or to see again.
2005 Brokeback Mountain The Beat My Heart Skipped
2006 Hidden Hidden
2007 4 Months 3 Weeks and Two Days Inland Empire (Five other brilliant films)
2008 Hunger Gomorrah
2009 A Prophet Let the Right One In
2010 The Social Network Winter's Bone
2011 The Tree of Life A Separation
2012 The Master Berberian Sound Studio
2013 The Act of Killing Frances Ha
2014 Boyhood Leviathan
2015 The Assassin Son of Saul
2016 Toni Erdmann American Honey
2017 Get Out Twin Peaks - The Return
2018 Roma Leave No Trace
2019 The Souvenir The Irishman
2020 Lovers Rock The Power of the Dog
2021 The Souvenir Part 2 Petite Maman
2022 Aftersun Saint Omer
2023 Killers of the Flower Moon Do not expect too much from the End of the World
OZPOCALYPSE NOW
A major piece on Furiosa: A Mad Max Story with an interview with George Miller.
AUTEUR'S THE RIGHT WORD
A previously unpublished interview by Matthew Thrift with director Roger Corman (who died in May at the age of 98), "the undisputed king of the American B movie". And a "giant of American independent cinema". The interview was originally commissioned for a magazine that went bust. Then he came to the UK and made all those Edgar Allan Poe movies such as The Fall of the House of Usher. (There is a full page photo of Vincent Price).
REVIEWS
There are twenty new films that have reviews, mostly international. There is one for Furiosa where the franchise is "losing steam", and for The Bikeriders "a void in the film's heart". Kinds of Kindness is too long and Tom Shone said avoid, and the others were of no interest.
In REDISCOVERY, Heartbreakers from 1984 is only on Blu Ray.
In DVD'S AND BLU RAY up pops Stephen Poliacoff's Hidden City with Charles Dance and Cassie Stewart from 1987. A paranoid thriller from a favourite writer and director. Coming soon from the BFI at £16.99. Maybe not.
WIDER SCREEN features "Dawn of the Ted", a review of the book "Teddy Boys: Post War Britain and the first youth revolution".
In the BOOKS section comes the latest in the BFI Film Classics Collection, David Wier's "The Leopard", describing the 1963 "classic". The vast collection also includes books on films from Midnight Cowboy to Pulp Fiction and TV series from The Singing Detective to Prime Suspect. all mostly at £22.99 each! But I have found and bought Blade Runner on eBay for £4.60.
Saved the best for (almost the) last. FROM THE ARCHIVE is from the summer edition of 1957 and "There cannot be a fine picture without a fine script". The director Elia Kazan wrote about the writers. This will have it's own post.
ENDINGS has an article about the 1971 movie Straw Dogs, "a model of escalating suspense". In particular the smile to camera at the end from Dustin Hoffman. Director Sam Peckinpah has a script only very loosely based on the book "The Siege at Trencher's Farm". Some staggering twists and turns in the last part and those last lines as Hoffman and David Warner have no idea where they are going.
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