Quarantine “Why Not?” Films
You may have seen it pop up on Facebook or other social media. You may not. The ten-day Coronavirus Quarantine “Why not?” Project, in which you “post just an image — no posters, no title, no explanation — from 10 movies that have had an impact on [you].” With each picture, you nominate a person to do the challenge. Yet another way to kill time.
I was nominated by a one of my most handsome and charming friends and dutifully took on the challenge. It was good fun, but the “just an image — no posters, no title, no explanation” rule irked me a bit. I could do without the poster, even the title, but I wanted to give away my reasons, I wanted to explain how the films impacted me, why they are important to me and what makes them, in my opinion, great films. So naturally I take to this platform to express myself.
Day 1/10: Goldfinger (1964)
This was the first Bond film I ever saw, most likely back in 1995 or possibly 1994. While From Russia with Love has long been my favourite in the series, this one has been a close second as far as I can remember. Not only did Goldfinger spark a lifelong interest in James Bond but Sean Connery’s portrayal instilled in me the notion of what it is to be cool. His effortless amalgam of suave sophistication and brutal intensity is second-to-none.
For a laugh I deliberately chose the rather obscure shot of the nice old lady, “Goldfinger’s grandma”, firing a machine gun at Bond’s Aston Martin during the car chase in Goldfinger’s factory.
Well over 50 years later, Goldfinger is still a great piece of escapism. Despite seeing it over a dozen times, I still find myself at the edge of my seat while the laser creeps towards Bond’s fabled loins, still grinning at the quips and banter, still invested in the Goldfinger’s evil scheme, and still genuinely rooting for the good guys as if their victory was ever in question. I wonder if today’s escapism, so reliant on special effects spectacle, will age this well.
Day 2/10: Oldeuboi (2003)
Not wishing to spoil it, let’s just say that the plot is… intriguing. Oldeuboi does not pull its punches, a bizarre mystery and a riveting story.
For me, the impact was in the revelation of what is “possible” and “allowed” in storytelling, and that the stakes are actually in play. No foregone conclusions, as the happy ending so often is in Western and mainstream cinema. And it’s just a great film.
Tired of the Hollywood formula? Watch Oldeuboi. Feel like getting thrown around by a clever narrative? Watch Oldeuboi. Want to feel something? Watch Oldeuboi. Have two hours to kill under lockdown? Watch Oldeuboi.
Day 3/10: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
One of the best films of all times (if you ask me), it swept up the “Big Five” at the Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. Well deserved.
The story is a robust blend of comedy and drama, hope and despair, kindness and depravity, friendship and hate, life and death. I’ll stop there but the list of antonyms goes on. It embraces the contradictions of humanity which fiction — and film in particular — so often eschews. The film is both heartwarming and heartbreaking in a way that is hard to describe.
The extreme chemistry between Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched and Jack Nicholson as Mac is one of a kind. While they are polar opposites, this is not a story of good and evil, not in purest sense: Mac’s goodness is tainted and Nurse Ratched evil is not absolute. In short, they are human, they’re real. And that’s where the magic comes from.
Day 4/10: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
There was something about Tarantino’s first three films, something very special, something that got lost after the criminally underrated Jackie Brown. I blame unlimited resources.
And I have been saying this for years: Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino’s best film. Yes, better even than Pulp Fiction and far and away better than anything that followed, although I thoroughly enjoy most of his work. The perfect cast and their chemistry, the endlessly quotable dialogue, the simple but clever story, the swagger and the music and the gratuitous violence.
Simply wonderful.
Day 5/10: Das Experiment (2001)
Das Experiment is inspired by the famous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. The film explores how things could have turned out had the experiment not been halted earlier than planned. What happens? Bad things happen. Very bad things.
It’s a disturbing “what if” scenario and takes a hard look at the shadowy parts of the human psyche and what apparently normal people will do under certain circumstances. It’s gruesome at times and unflinching in its approach, evoking anger, sorrow and disgust. There is, however, a thread of humanity that runs through the story and makes you want to know what happens next and allows you to hope for an at least marginally happy ending. It’s hard to watch but impossible to look away.
Day 6/10: Some Like It Hot (1959)
Comedies are very hit-and-miss for me, to the point that I rarely watch them. The risk that it’ll be a waste of time is too great.
With Some Lite It Hot I needn’t have worried. Not only is it marvelously funny but is so without any of cheap seediness and below-the-belt ploys and tactics that tend to plague modern comedies and had led post-adolescence me to leave the genre almost entirely behind.
While deemed “morally objectionable” at the time by the Roman Catholic Church’s National Legion of Decency, Some Like It Hot is just a good bit of wholesome fun. It makes you laugh, yes, but it also makes you smile inwardly and happily roll your eyes and tut-tut. And, of course, it’s not only nice — it’s also naughty. Wonderfully so. With Marilyn Monroe strutting around, and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in full drag, this is inevitable but it’s playful and fun; nice, naughty but never nasty.
Despite being in black-and-white, the film feels colourful and vibrant. It’s a true feel-good film in every sense, leaving you elated and optimistic.
And all this without any use of bodily fluids or excrement.
Day 7/10: Brother (2000)
I must admit that I do not remember the Takshi Kitano’s Brother very well but I know that I rewatched it at some point since I saw it at the cinema when it was first released.
What I do remember clearly is coming out of the cinema with my friends back in the day, having had a blast and feeling elated as only a teenager can be when they experience something new and different. I liked the black humour, the gratuitous violence, the craziness, the distinct Japanese flavour.
It was Brother that really opened the door to non-Hollywood cinema for me. Violently kicked it wide open with guns blazing, in fact. And sliced off a pinky or two for good measure.
Day 8/10: Taxi Driver (1976)
There isn’t much that I can say about Taxi Driver that someone else hasn’t already said much better.
Perhaps paradoxically, Taxi Driver is not my favourite Martin Scorsese film (I’m partial to Goodfellas) but I do think it is his best and most significant film. Unlike Goodfellas, this isn’t an entertaining film, not in the usual sense. It is engaging, utterly gripping, but it is the couldn’t-look-away-even-if-I-want-to kind of gripping. It is not fun to watch, it doesn’t make you laugh, it doesn’t amuse or distract. It is cold and grim, dirty and mean. It doesn’t even make you feel particularly good, not about yourself or life in general. About anything. It leaves you thoughtful and full of questions, shaken and disturbed. In the best possible way.
Day 9/10: El secreto de sus ojos (2009)
It is difficult to put your finger on what exactly makes El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) such a marvelous piece of cinema.
Juxtaposing a heartwarming love story and a haunting mystery against the historically charged background of Argentina’s dictatorship and its life-and-death implications, the film is a wonderfully paced and perfectly balanced mystery/drama/romance. There is something deeply human and emotive about the story and the characters which is effortlessly mesmerising. Soledad Villamil and in particular Ricado Darín perfectly portray their characters and exude their conflicting emotions and troubled minds.
Somehow managing to be both gritty and tender, coldblooded and heartwarming, El secreto de sus ojos is a dark story full of regret that shines a light and inspires hope. A beautiful mass of contradictions.
Day 10/10: The Godfather (1972)
After going back and forth between the original and Part II over the years, I have settled on The Godfather as my favourite film ever. I could have put Part II and III as separate entries for this challenge but I decided on settling on the original alone. In a way it represents the whole trilogy.
Anyone that has ever discussed film with me will know that I hold The Godfather trilogy in very high esteem. Along with Taxi Driver, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and a few others, it is a benchmark for film-making in my mind. Think a film has vision? A good story? An impressive character arc? Compare it to The Godfather. Impressed by an actor? Compare them to Brando, Caan, Cazale, Keaton, Duvall, Pacino, Shire ... what an ensemble. Stimulated by a film’s use of light and shadows? Check out Gordon Willis’ work on this one. Feel that a film is amplified by its soundtrack? See if it matches how Nino Rota’s score elevates an already sterling bit of cinema.
The Godfather ticks all the boxes.
The trilogy is an inimitable Mafia masterpiece that isn’t really about the Mafia. It’s the tragedy of Michael Corleone, a story about family and humanity, love and loss, hope, disappointment and betrayal. This, more than the superficial, although admittedly fantastic, crime family saga, is what gives The Godfather and the series its lasting appeal.
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. Roman Polanski’s Le locataire. The enormously historically inaccurate but wonderful piece of fiction and filmmaking that is Oliver Stone‘s JFK. Brokeback Mountain, with the late Heath Ledger’s magnum performance. Any of these and more could have made the challenge. If not for the rules. In addition to “no posters, no title, no explanation”, they said ten films only.
If not for the rules, this could have kept going for weeks.
