Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

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Welcome to the human race...
#94. Dazed and Confused
(Richard Linklater, 1993)



"All I'm saying is that, if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."

In making a film based on his experiences as a teenager in 1970s Texas, Linklater didn't set out to make an overly nostalgic vehicle - that a sizeable chunk of the film's runtime is spent on seniors hazing freshmen definitely takes the screws to that idea, to say nothing of the various ways in which it wrings comedy out of the more questionable aspects of the film's milieu (I especially like the liquor store clerk blithely giving parenting advice to a pregnant customer before selling beer to the 14-year-old protagonist - contrast that against a modern imitator like Superbad making its entire plot about a desperate all-night-long odyssey simply to acquire any alcohol). Despite all the ways in which Linklater paints a decidedly unflattering portrayal of his younger years, even he can't avoid giving in to the party vibes he's depicting with a rocking soundtrack and an aimless filmmaking approach as indebted to Altman as American Graffiti that perfectly captures the sensation of wandering from group to group at a party with little in the way of external plot or action driving the various intertwining narratives. Underneath it all, he grounds his vast array of high school stereotypes with just enough depth (or the right lack of it) to make its tale of busting loose for one night (or possibly more) really sing.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #40
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



#96. Thief
(Michael Mann, 1981)

While I still need to watch The Insider, this is currently my favorite Michael Mann movie, due to how confident his tone/aesthetic was, even that early in his career, and the way it comes off as the Goldilocks "just right" of his filmography; something like Collateral is a tight, taught Thriller, but not quite ambitious enough to be a great movie, while Heat reaches for greatness, but bloats itself with a few too many unnecessary characters/sub-plots, while Thief comes off as the perfect middle ground in terms of ambition, if you ask me.



Welcome to the human race...
I'm definitely considering doing a full Mann watch at some point this year since I've only seen most of his movies once (or, in the case of his made-for-TV movies, not at all) - as of writing, only this, Heat and Miami Vice are the current standouts in my estimation simply by virtue of being the only ones I've watched in the past few years so I'm hoping that revisiting the others might shake things up a bit.



Welcome to the human race...
#93. Tokyo Story
(Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)



"Isn't life disappointing?"

I briefly contemplated making this a one-film-per-director list not just to guarantee a wider variety of films but also because a significant cross-section of my choices were going to essentially serve as catch-all representations for directors that I generally like but don't have too many specific favourites if that makes any sense. Tokyo Story is admittedly the boring choice for a favourite Ozu (especially since it was the first Ozu I ever saw as well precisely because of its high placement within the all-timer canon) and not exactly representative as its plot about a pair of holidaying seniors inadvertently causing trouble for their already-busy children (and eventually for themselves) is quite different from the handful of other films of his that I've seen (though Setsuko Hara as an unmarried woman is as much of a constant as the perpetually-grounded camera and deep-focus interiors). The genteel and extremely mannered approach both in terms of technique and drama may be intended as a negation of style, but absence of style is still a style - there's a line in Enter the Dragon where Bruce Lee says that the highest technique in martial arts is to have no technique and Tokyo Story is definitely proof of how such precise avoidance of convention can ultimately point the way to transcendence.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A



Welcome to the human race...
#92. The Passion of Joan of Arc
(Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1928)



"You claim that I am sent by the Devil. It's not true. To make me suffer, the Devil has sent you...and you...and you...and you."

My first countdown featured one silent film, Un Chien Andalou. My second countdown had no silent films on it whatsoever. Now I circle back around and put this on, not merely out of a sense of tokenistic obligation like the one-film-per-director idea I floated earlier but because, well, it's undeniable. In crafting a dramatisation based on records taken from the religious rebel's trial, Dreyer paints a stark portrayal of the proceedings as Joan (Renée Falconetti) endures the disdain and accusations of the assorted clergy with a thousand-yard stare while pleading her case as an apparent messenger of God. Appreciable for its innovative technical aplomb (especially when it comes to close-ups) and its dense approach to matters of faith and how they affect (or are affected by) individuals and institutions alike, The Passion of Joan of Arc might end up being the only silent film on this countdown but even so it's certainly one of the best to represent the form.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A



Welcome to the human race...
#91. Harakiri
(Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)



"After all, this thing we call samurai honour is ultimately nothing but a facade."

I'm surprised it took as long for me to find out about Kobayashi as it did - on the basis of this and the other films of this that I've seen, it definitely feels like I should've heard of him around the same time I first started to hear about Kurosawa. That might be because, where Kurosawa's exercises in samurai fiction still tended towards epic tales of adventure and swordplay whose appeal could easily translate to Western audiences, something like Harakiri is much more precise and melancholy in how it mines Japanese history and customs for such enervating levels of pathos that even its occasional foray into conventional and well-motivated swordplay doesn't evoke much in the way of catharsis. The legendary Tatsuya Nakadai excels as the haggard ronin who makes a principled stand against a local samurai clan, questioning the honour they display by enforcing the eponymous suicide ritual that other clans do not. Such an interrogation of traditional Japanese systems and attitudes that have persisted beyond the age of the samurai is able to supplement an already-intriguing mystery, resulting in a classic that I hope future generations don't have to wait as long to hear about as I did.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A



Welcome to the human race...
#90. House
(Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)



"That's weird...Just my imagination!"

Ostensibly a horror movie about a schoolgirl who invites her friends to take a holiday at the home of her elderly aunt only for the group to discover that the aunt is a witch and the house is haunted, what really distinguishes House is the sheer level of energy that goes into creating its own variation on such familiar horror tropes. Images within images, animated interludes, characters' comical under- or over-reactions to whatever paranormal (or even just normal) insanity is unfolding before their eyes...all of which is shot through at such a relentless pace even for a horror that barely grazes the 90-minute mark. It would be one thing if this manic and irreverent approach was all that House had going for it, but all this face-melting absurdity remains grounded in inter-generational conflict - protagonist "Gorgeous" (Kimiko Ikegami) instigates the trip in order to rebel against her father and new stepmother - and historical trauma - Gorgeous' aunt (Yoko Minamada) has motives that extend back to the emotional fallout of World War II. Such concerns and themes were still showing up in Obayashi's work as late as hsi 2019 swansong Labyrinth of Cinema, but their presence in his most iconic film is very much appreciated simply for lending it more substance than its seemingly wacky surface would suggest.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A



I got my friends to watch Hausu.... they did not know what to make of it.
That was pretty much my experience the one time I watched it, though I think it still got my vote for the 70s list.

For the rest of this list, I've only seen Dazed and Confused, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Harakiri. I really enjoyed Harakiri but didn't care for the other two.



Welcome to the human race...
#89. Perfect Blue
(Satoshi Kon, 1997)



"There is no way illusions can come to life."

I remain utterly fascinated by the fact that this was originally supposed to be made in live-action - I'm sure it would've been fine, but so much of what makes Perfect Blue sing comes down to what Kon and co. were able to do through simple but effective animation. Pop idol Mima (Junko Iwao) decides to transition from singing to acting, but between the demanding nature of the work and the blank-eyed stalker that starts following (and threatening) her, she begins to lose her grip on reality; this is an admittedly standard scenario (as reflected in the plot of the hoary detective show where Mima is the newest guest star) but it is definitely improved by the elasticity of the medium. It would be one thing if Kon simply used the freedom of animation to conjure up a variety of images to depict Mima's fraying mental state - joyful dance numbers meet discomforting sexuality meet grisly murders in rapid succession and begin to bleed together as the film progresses. What he does even better is show a keen understanding of the importance of editing as he strings such a chaotic stream of events together without a viewer ever getting too lost in what is real or imagined but still maintaining enough ambiguity about the proceedings while also communicating the headspace not only of Mima, but also those of the characters around her (be they colleagues or fans, all of which reflect different levels of engagement with - and entitlement to - Mima as a public persona). I'm certainly able to pick apart similarities to other live-action films that have come out before and since, but few of them manage to pull everything together into such a powerful and indelible package as Perfect Blue.

2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: N/A



Still thinking about that one months later after seeing it for the first time. Sort of like the other Satoshi Kon I watched last year.



Still need to see that. I dug Paprika a lot when I watched out a few years ago but was left completely cold by Millennium Actress.



Welcome to the human race...
I only recently watched Millennium Actress and, while it's still got that indelible Kon touch, it didn't hit me the way that his other features (and Paranoia Agent) did. Paprika runs a close second as it takes the reality-bending to a much grander and more surreal level, though I also appreciate the more mundane material in Tokyo Godfathers. Might have to rewatch them all to be completely sure, but in any case Perfect Blue is undeniable.