It's that time of year when newspapers etc are full of 'best of year' lists, and, as it's also the end of the decade, 'best of decade' lists as well. I must say, it doesn't feel like the end of a decade. And what a piss-poor 'decade' at that - 10 years of mediocrity, greed and evil.
I have seriously had to wrack my brains to try and come up with 10 worthy films for my own list. I'm sure the 1990s were easier. Anyway, for want of something better to do, here is my list, in chronological order:
Kimono (Hal Hartley, 2000)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, 2000)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Coen Brothers, 2001)
Va Savoir (Jacques Rivette, 2001)
Être et Avoir (Nicholas Philibert, 2002)
The White Balloon (Werner Herzog, 2004)
Into Great Silence (Philip Gröning, 2005)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
The Man from London (Béla Tarr, 2007)
Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008)
Today is, incidentally, the anniversary of the first public film show, in Paris in 1895, by the Lumiere brothers. They later remarked that the cinema was 'an invention without a future'. On the basis of how bad most films are, I'm tempted to agree.
