instead of the best of 2006

As I wrote in the piece attached to this one, there is no practical way for me to have seen a wide enough range of movies released last year to offer a valid “Best of 2006” list; I simply can’t commit the time, money or sanity needed to suffer the mostly dreadful movies being released. But while I only got to see about twenty new movies this year (easily half of which I could have done without), I was hardly idle, watching around four hundred titles over the last twelve months. This may sound at first like an incredible number, but take into account that I rarely watch ‘regular’ television, and that two hours with a movie is more gratifying than dedicating that same amount of time to a “Full House” marathon.

This is a great time to be a cinephile; while cynicism is the default attitude for lovers of the esoteric, never before has so much been so easily accessible. As more and more titles become available, we’re seeing the gradual disappearance of blandly uniform video chains, which never catered to any but the most common-denominator tastes. I’ve always resented that chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video edit the content of the movies they rent, and I look forward to the approaching day when I can dance on their graves.

Along with the ever-expanding catalogue of available titles, my film jones has been well fed by the opening of Odd Obsession only a couple of miles away. For any readers in the Chicago metropolitan area, I can’t emphasize enough how great this storeis, how it contains almost every rare title I’ve ever hunted. When you travel through life as a film geek, you carry in your head (or your wallet) a list of movies you’re forever on the look-out for, titles you’ve heard of or read about that you dream of someday finding.

Film is the only true Twentieth century artform. Perhaps not coincidently, film is also the only artform in which the United States has found a voice independent of European aesthetics. This is why it is a travesty that film continues to be the only art that has a canon defined by the first response of the public. While I think the inclusion of the audience in shaping the film canon is a definite improvement over the reliance on the cultural bias of academic authority used to frame value in the other arts, the harsh reality is that the public is only participatory to the extent that they fall for ‘opening weekend’ marketing blitzes. At the close of the last century, the industry financed American Film Institute published their list of the “100 Greatest American Movies of All Time”; and while I concede it certainly does include many worthwhile titles, only a slight bit of adjusting and it could easily be retitled “100 Most Effectively Marketed Movies of All Time”.

Instead of a “Best of 2006” list focused on movies released last year, here, instead, is a “Best Seen in 2006”- the most memorable titles I stumbled onto in the past twelve months. If you are a lover of important, exceptional or unusual cinema, there’s bound to be at least one or two titles worth your time.

A quick side note: despite being masterpieces that profoundly changed my life, I’ve not included either Prime Cut (1972; Ritchie) or The Big Red One (1980; Fuller), since both were thoroughly covered in my Lee Marvin series a few months back.

Viva la Muerte (1971; Arrabal) The surrealism of Spanish exile Fernando Arrabal is perhaps less cinematically impressive than his compatriot Alejandro Jodorowsky (whose Frando y Lis Arrabal wrote), but used with a focused purpose sometimes absent in A.J.’s work. A meditation on oedipal betrayal set during the bloody aftermath of Franco’s victory.

The Killing of Sister George (1968; Aldrich) It’s genuinely surprising to me that this non-judgmental gay film from grossly overlooked Robert Aldrich has fallen between the cracks. Although its’ premise borders on the torrid (an older bull-dyke and her ‘kept’ girlfriend, who spends the early part of the film in a babydoll teddy playing with dolls), not only is the issue of homosexuality’s ‘morality’ ignored, the other characters seem to be completely indifferent to the orientation of the leads. While this is yet another story where a lesbian ends up insane, her descent has nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with society’s inability to value women after a certain age. Worth it alone fun bonus: a scene in a lesbian bar, with an all-girl mod band.

Bone (1972; Cohen) Sadly, there will probably never be a time like the early 1970s, when the line between message and exploitation was so poorly defined. A ‘big, scary blackman’ invades the Beverly Hills home of a wealthy couple, whose façade of bourgeois bliss quickly crumbles, exposing them as shallow, bitter alcoholics living far above their means.

Gate of Flesh/Nikutai no Mon (1964; Suzuki) In the rubble and chaos of post war Tokyo, four prostitutes band together, forming a mini-society based on unity, cooperation and a strict code of behavior. The arrival of a soldier turned criminal soon erodes their harmonious existence, which eventually mirrors the brutality and disintegration of the world outside. Working out of Nikkatsu Studios (which primarily produced low-budget and formula films), the prolific Seijun Suzuki has often been over-looked by Western audiences trained to see Japanese Cinema through Kurosawa’s eyes (Japanese film historian Donald Richie never even footnoting Suzuki). This has changed in the last decade, mainly because of the usually genre-leery Criterion Collection releasing six of Suzuki’s titles. Equally recommended is his 1967 deconstruction of the gangster film, Branded to Kill/Koroshi no Rakuin.

Deep End (1971; Skolimowski) I’d searched in futility for this film since I first read about it in Danny Peary’s Cult Movies almost twenty years ago. Unlike a lot of the movies I’ve sought, this one not only didn’t disappoint, but was even better than I could have hoped. There are countless movies about either coming of age crushes or obsessive stalkers, but this movie succeeds in arguing the dangerous idea that there is no difference between these two loves. Too often, any good movie that never found its’ audience is labeled a ‘lost classic’ by film fanatics (including me), but in the case of Deep End, it’s a label that comfortably fits.

Private Parts (1972; Bartel) A runaway hippie moves into a hotel, which turns out to be full of freaks and weirdoes. This was directed by Paul Bartel, who also made Death Race 2000 (1975), Cannonball (1976) and Eating Raoul (1982)…information that will have a few dedicated readers running out to find this title, and the rest shaking their heads, asking; “so the fuck what!?!”

Sweet Movie (1974; Makavejev) The marginalization of this movie stands as further proof that too much of our expectations of European Cinema is defined by the fragile sensibilities of effete anemics. So relentless in its’ use of obscenity and shock to discuss the failure of the Marxist revolution that it’s now nearly impossible to find, this movie is a testament to the idea that sexual and political freedom go hand in hand. Also check out Makavejev’s (equally difficult to find) 1971 exploration of Reichian philosophy, WR: Mysteries of the Orgasm, if for no other reason than the cameos of Warhol Superstar Jackie Curtis and Fugs founder Ed Saunders.

Ecstasy/Ekstase (1933; Machaty) Probably the least obscure film on this list, at least in film history terms. This is the foreign film that first taught American audiences to associate foreign films with something somehow naughty and forbidden. And while it’s certainly a shock to see a nude woman (Hedy Lamarr) walking around in a 30s movie, the most surprising scene is later, when she finally frees herself of the frustration of being the bride of an impotent neurotic, and the camera stays in extreme close-up on her face as she reaches orgasm through cunnalingus. Despite an out-dated ending of female sacrifice, an important and interesting early entry in Feminist Cinema.

Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space (2003; Tol) For about six months the trailer for Tamala 2010 ran at a theatre I frequent, but if the movie ever actually appeared on any Chicago screen, it did so with such quickness that I missed it. Thankfully, I finally got to see this dreamy, metaphysical cartoon on DVD, and while it would have been better on a big screen, its’ artistry still stood out. Any attempt to explain or even describe this complex, beautiful work would be an act of futility. Even being (reasonably) familiar with Japan’s tradition of serious animated features for adults, I’m hard-pressed to find anything to even compare this to. A serious work of art.

Coming Apart (1969; Ginsberg) Technically, a cheat, since I saw this once in my late teens, long before I was mature enough to understand it. While this movie comes from the same late 60s to early 70s era that most of this list shares, the failure of its’ initial release makes sense, considering how ahead of its’ time it is. You can look at the others and lament that they don’t make movies like that anymore, but this movie has no precedent…and no peer. Basically the story of a psychiatrist who secretly films his adultery and breakdown, Coming Apart manages to be experimental without bogging down in pointless theory masturbation. When it was released, the implicit brutality of it being clandestinely filmed with a hidden camera, mixed with the actors’ naturalism, terrified audiences, many of whom thought they were seeing something ‘real’, exploiting the private lives of actual people. While we no longer are so naïve, this film is still worth seeing, not just because it uses a thematic device standard in contemporary cinema.