Mr Minio's Top 300 (2021 ed.)

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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
5. Sansho the Bailiff (1954) dir. Kenji Mizoguchi



4. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Th. Dreyer



3. The Dust of Time (2008) dir. Theo Angelopoulos



2. The Mirror (1975) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky



1. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) dir. Béla Tarr

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



I'm at 22/300. I fail at movie-ing.
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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Very surprised to see how much you appreciate Sansho the Bailiff.
Surprised you're surprised because It's been on my list of favorites here on MoFo since I joined and a favorite of mine since I first watched it in August 2012. It's also one of the films that managed to keep their position in my TOP 10, but that might be because I rewatched it in 2019. It's funny how sometimes you are afraid to rewatch your favorites, fearing you will not love them as much on a second watch, but then rewatch them and find yourself loving them even more. I also rewatched Ugetsu and was slightly disappointed with it. Theoretically, it's perfect and it's a masterpiece, but it didn't quite hit me the way Sansho did.

Sansho the Bailiff is an outstanding humanistic masterpiece. Best Japanese film, best melodrama, top 10 ever. On my rewatch I already started crying within the first 15 minutes or so, which is crazy, and after it ended I found myself in a literal puddle of tears, and no, my bladder's fine. If you analyze my favorites you will find out most movies fall in one of the few categories that I usually champion. This one falls into two.


"Without mercy, man is like a beast. Even if you are hard on yourself, be merciful to others. Men are created equal. Everyone is entitled to their happiness."
Is the life lesson a father gives to his children, hoping it's something they will remember and try to stick to their entire life. I know I will. These words must have been revolutionary in eleventh-century Japan when e.g. slavery was a common thing. Due to some events, the boy and his sister become slaves themselves and are separated from their mother. It's the eleventh century: no Internet, no TV, no newspapers, nothing, but there is a way information can be passed on. Both an ancient, beautiful, offbeat, and hope-giving way. And given that hope, and given something to reminisce about, there is a chance for a change of heart.

And then something totally unpredictable, heart-wrenching happens. The scene with circles on the water deems all other means of expression inferior with its devastating simplicity and silent despair. One of the most brilliant examples of "less is more". The Japanese are masters of "less is more" but also of "more is more". In general, they are masters of everything. But yeah, the finale is just as moving. Of course, I'm not spoiling it and I deliberately made things muddled or unexplained, so that in case somebody hasn't yet seen it... WAIT, WHAT?! YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A FILM LOVER?! WHY... YOU UNCULTURED...


Also, the cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa is among the best ever. It's outstanding the way these 50s & 60s Japanese films look. Nowadays nobody can top this, and I mean we have Pedro Costa who shot Vitalina Varela in freakin' digital and made it one of the best-looking films of the decade, but then we have that hack Luca Guadagnino shooting on film and ending up with a film that looks not only worse than Costa's digital films and Lubezki's hand-held digital extravaganza but worse than most and just so plain and boring that he could just as well shoot it in digital. And I hate Guadagnino even more for his b(otch/utcher)ed remake of Suspiria.

I also meant to say something else about Sansho but forgot as I was typing. Oops!.



Victim of The Night


4. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Th. Dreyer



Ha! I was just about to write this up myself, another of the best movies I've seen in years.



I've seen a bit over fifty. Most of these I like, some less so, at least one is my kryptonite.


*tips hat*



Also added a bunch to the watchlist, at least one with an extremely suspect title. Well played, OP.






I hope @Yoda adds this to official lists to add some adventure to personal rec HoFs.
maybe it already on Minio's letterboxd, or rym