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THE LISTS KEEP COMING
I haven’t been too focused on all of the end-of-year “ten best” hoopla, but there are some lists up today worth checking out. Indiewire has their “insider” ten best, with lists from people like Bingham Ray, Christine Vachon and Ryan Werner. And then there’s our former Filmmaker West Coast Editor Chuck Stephens, whose list is provocatively subtitled “The top 10 fresh wounds to the body politic of global filmmaking.” I only know about half the films on Stephens’ list, so there are a lot of discoveries here. And, as usual, his write-ups are a treat. Here’s what he has to say about Ilea Khrzhanovsky’s 4, a Russian film that screened in Venice and Rotterdam this year:
“Who knows what to make of this sprawling noise-symphony of ludicrous lies, double-double agents, mongrel howling, Robocop jackhammering, sub-Tarkovsky zone-wandering, and naked grannies pelting each other with greasy slices of pork? As unexpected an erruption from a national cinema otherwise thought to be teetering on the edge of insignificance as last year’s Mexican Japón, Khrzhanovsky’s deliberately fracture-prone debut is also as infuriating as it is engrossing, and a one-of-a-kind cosmic/comic marvel that remains this year’s only fantastic 4.
