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My
Favorite Films of the 1990s
How can we say what the best
films were? After
you pass a certain level of excellence a strict criteria
can no longer be applied to films that stand out in their own
unique way.
These are the films of the ‘90s that moved,
delighted or taught me the most about filmmaking, and
have, over the last ten years of my development, helped
shape the sensibility towards both films and life in my
fragile little mind.
10. All's Well That Ends Well (director:
Raymond Wong)
For my money, this is the funniest
movie of the ‘90s that I saw.
You may argue whether it had bigger laughs than There’s
Something About Mary, but it is certainly boasts a
more sustained level of humor throughout its crazy
course, and has more to say about the society it
depicts, especially in the limited lifestyle options
given to Hong Kong women.
The claims that Mary
pushed the boundaries of gross humour are hereby
deflated after seeing this movie I wonder just what
other great comedies I haven’t seen from Hong Kong
(which, up to 1997, may have been the ‘90s de
facto moviemaking hub of the world), or the world
for that matter. And the irrepressible Maggie Cheung may be the actress of the
‘90s sweet, sexy and smarter than Julia Roberts or
Cameron Diaz.
9. Hoop Dreams (director: Steve James)
Call me inexperienced at the time, but this movie blew
away my preconceptions of what a documentary could be.
The lives of real people never had never seemed
so larger than life and dramatically powerful as
realized in the families of Arthur Agee and William
Gates, two inner city kids trying to survive both high
school and their adverse living situations while
pursuing their dreams of NBA stardom.
Reading about the making of this film, I learned
to what ends filmmakers will go to realize their own
dreams. Peter
Gilbert, Steve James and Frederick Marx lived with both
families in order to capture four years worth of
footage. The
result is a seamless epic of the American dream, with
enough twists, disappointments and triumphs to make a
professional screenwriter turn in his keyboard.
8. Farewell My Concubine (director: Chen
Kaige)
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The film that introduced me to the
beauty of the films of Mainland China, which after a
decade of cultivation suddenly exploded onto the world
stage at the beginning of the decade.
Chen Kaige paints a story that drifts dreamlike
through several decades, and laments the passing of
Chinese art and culture over the course of a century’s
tumult. Melodrama
is mixed flawlessly with important social and historical
themes, helped in no small part by the performances of
Zhang Fengyi, Gong Li and especially Leslie Cheung in a
bold break-out performance as the female actor. One almost doesn’t notice how controversial the content is,
because it all flows by in a reverie of light and sound.
7. Magnolia
(director: Paul Thomas
Anderson)
A film that pushes the boundaries
of audience belief with a pyrotechnic display of
improbable scenarios charged with dazzling camera
movements and histrionic acting. Any film with
this level of creative energy is going to be successful
-- but Magnolia is also impeccably accomplished
in its technical prowess, and every member of its cast
gives a gutsy performance. This movie had me from
beginning to end, and as each minute of its three hours
passed I felt myself being levitated to a catharsis of
Biblical proportions.
6. Fargo (director: Joel Coen)
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The Coen Brothers had quite a run
in the '90s, from stylish but empty exercises in genre (Miller's
Crossing, and The Hudsucker Proxy -- which I
found in China and was amazed when my students enjoyed
it) to more inspired creations of weirdness (Barton
Fink, The Big Lebowski). Among this
company, Fargo is perhaps the anomaly because it
is far more subdued and patient in its storytelling than
the others. It seems to treat a greater number of
its characters more humanely as well; even the villains
are given space for us to take in what makes them
tick. The cast is superb: (Frances McDormand and
William H. Macy are of course unforgettable as pregnant
police chief Marge Gundersson and shady car salesman
Jerry Lundegaard, but Harve Presnell must also be cited
as the stubborn father-in-law). The parochialism
of the dialogue is cute, but its minimalist quality
opens a lot of dead space for subtext to creep in,
making this film a must-see for screenwriters.
Every scene has a purpose, and runs no longer or shorter
than it needs to: and even when the Coens can't help but
to allow for some kookiness, there's functionality
involved. The bewildering meeting between Marge
Gundersson and Mike Yamagita is one of the most
brilliant narrative decisions in the history of
film.
5. The Story of Qiu Ju
(director: Zhang Yimou)
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This film should be of a pair with Fargo
-- the similarities are numerous. Foreboding
northern setting, colloquial dialogue, simple plan whose
ramifications go horribly out of proportion, pregnant
protagonist who journeys to the city in search of
justice. I prefer Qiu Ju if only because
its characters are closer to my heart, and it was the
first film to show me China as it was really like --
though I had to go to China to realize that.
Zhang's neorealistic approach to his standard social and
feminist agenda, for me anyway, is bolder and more
substantial than his melodramatic efforts Raise the
Red Lantern and Ju Dou. It unfolds its
narrative at the pulse of Chinese life, that is, slowly,
patiently, and courteously, with full of detours and
frustrations along the way. However, Zhang gets to
slip in a few metaphors, like the chili peppers that
symbolize Qiu Ju's temperament. What's more, it is
a surprisingly funny movie -- but what else should we
expect from a story about woman seeking revenge for her
husband being kicked in the balls?
4. The Thin Red Line
(director: Terence Malick)
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After watching this film in China
(off a shoddy pirated VCD that had been taped in a Hong
Kong movie theater) I would ride my bike through the
Chinese countryside surrounding my apartment, humming
the hymn that opens this epic film, my world opened up
to the transcendent. This epic-in-verse of a film
did something to redeem my experience abroad, to fill me
with a sense of purpose. I realized that I was
witness to amazing things, just as the everyman cast of
soldiers are witness to a terrible assault on an Edenic
island called Guadalcanal, and as such are, in a way,
touched by God. This movie made me feel that we
all are similarly touched, if we care to notice.
Since then I have kept this film in a sacred place
inside me -- it reinforced a pre-adult sense of wonder
in everything beautiful and terrible in the world.
Sometimes when I walk down the sidewalk the vision of
the movie will take over
-- and everything seems really blessed. It's the
same vision that American Beauty cheapened with
its commercial packaging. But nothing can cheapen
the beauty this film will offer to those who open
themselves to it.
3. Flowers of Shanghai (director: Hou
Hsiao-Hsien)
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A movie that has nothing to do with
the spirituality of The Thin Red Line -- but has
also affected my way of seeing things since -- this time
in more painterly ways, looking at life as isolated
moments, to be taken in patiently, letting observations
come to the eye as they will. The result is
something sadly nostalgic and sincere, set apart from
the fragmented temporalities of today's fast paced
world. It doesn't hurt that both the sets and the
actors are impossibly gorgeous to look at; but
underneath these opulent surfaces lies a stale romance
between a prostitute and her wealthy patron who express
the dying gasps of their love between the profoundly
endless spaces of their silence. Inside the
brothel, they have escaped the world of practicalities,
demands, and duties, but only for a while. One
doesn't realize until after the movie, if not after
several viewings, that these characters, whose
marriages, affairs, and everything else in their lives
have been determined for them a long time ago, lost
their love the moment they discovered it in each
other. It doesn't get any sadder than that.
2. Breaking the Waves (director: Lars Von
Trier)
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Or maybe it does get sadder.
The spirituality in this film is many times more intense
than The Thin Red Line, and charges the doomed
marriage between dim-witted village girl Bess (Emily
Watson, in what is easily the best performance of the
'90s) and her dying husband Jan. Bess' faith is an
atrocity to most people's senses, whether
they be agnostic or Christian, because it exists in a
realm of its own. It is carnal, unrelenting, and
brings Bess to make the ultimate sacrifice -- is this
really faith, or just plain lunacy? That is the
question Lars Von Trier dares to ask; and he makes it
clear that even he isn't sure; he inserts some kitschy
views of paradise as if to scoff at Bess'
misgivings. But he does so, as Jonathan Rosenbaum
points out in a brilliant review, partly to point out
his own postmodern incapacity for faith, and is
sympathetic, if not awestruck, with Bess' character,
presenting her, naked and brave, to a world entrenched
in its beliefs and disbeliefs.
1. GoodFellas
(director: Martin
Scorsese)
A few years ago Scorsese completed
a six hour documentary on the films that touched him
deeply during his formative years before becoming a
filmmaker. If I were ever to consider doing a
similar project, GoodFellas is the film I would
put first. It hit me like a dream at the point in
my life when movies were ready to become something more
than entertainment. But the thing about GoodFellas
was that although it was highly informative and
insightful it was also very entertaining.
In a sense it was the first documentary that I ever saw
-- I can't remember seeing any before it, probably
because if I did I didn't enjoy watching them. It
showed me that movies rather than books could be a way
to tell my own stories; not just action-oriented plots,
but highly thoughtful films about the people in my life,
my own world that I was just starting to understand for
myself. But it also showed, more than almost
any film I've seen, the sheer joy of making a
movie. With a full arsenal of techniques,
including a compendium of film references, set in motion
to a relentless pop soundtrack, GoodFellas is
what woke me into the world of filmmaking.
Another ten to remember: Army of
Darkness, As Good as It Gets, Babe, Chungking
Express, The City of Lost Children, a tie
between Groundhog Day and Rushmore,
Leaving Las Vegas, Pulp Fiction, Schindler's
List.
What's your Ten? Let
me know.
Write to kevinblee@theglobe.com
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