Are they kidding? Nope. When you ask 60 ‘experts’ to vote for the best films of the decade, you end up with a terrible list that makes you wonder if they actually went to cinema these past 10 years.
In the following top 30 list, you’ll find out the most respected asian directors of the decade are Jia Zhang-ke, Wong Kar-wai, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Edward Yang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Lee Chang-dong and Hayao Miyazaki (!).
I told you, they’re not kidding. No Johnnie To, no John Woo, no Sion Sono, no Yoji Yamada, no Bong Joon-ho…:
1. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand) – 53 votes
2. Platform (Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Kong, China/China/Japan/France) – 49 votes
3. Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China) – 48 votes
4. Beau travail (Claire Denis, France) – 46 votes
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, China) – 43 votes
6. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand/Germany/Italy) – 38 votes
7. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania), Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, Hungary) – 35 votes
8. Éloge de l’amour (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/ France) – 34 votes
9. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania) – 33 votes
10. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands) – 32 votes
11. Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, Russia/Germany) – 31 votes
12. The New World (Terrence Malick, USA) – 30 votes
13. Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand) – 29 votes
14. Le Fils (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France) – 27 votes
15. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Switzerland) – 25 votes
16. Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnès Varda, France), In Vanda’s Room (Pedro Costa, Portugal/Germany/Italy/Switzerland), Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, Sweden/Denmark/Norway) – 24 votes
17. Caché (Michael Haneke, France/Austria/Germany/Italy), A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, USA), Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, France/USA), Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan) – 23 votes
18. Rois et reine (Arnaud Desplechin, France) – 21 votes
19. Elephant (Gus Van Sant, USA) – 20 votes
20. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain) – 19 votes
21. The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran/France), YI YI (A One and a Two) (Edward Yang, Taiwan/Japan) – 18 votes
22. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Spain) – 17 votes
23. L’Enfant (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France), The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin, Canada), I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France/Austria), Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, USA) – 16 votes
24. The World (Jia Zhang-ke, China/Japan/France) – 14 votes
25. Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Japan), The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Spain/France/Italy), L’Intrus (Claire Denis, France), Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France), My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada), Saraband (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden), Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan), I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, USA) – 13 votes
26. Gerry (Gus Van Sant, USA) – 12 votes
27. Distant (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey), Dogville (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/UK/France/Germany), The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, USA) – 11 votes
28. Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov, Russia/France), demonlover (Olivier Assayas, France) – 9 votes
29. Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, Canada), Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan) – 8 votes
30. Longing (Valeska Grisebach, Germany), Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea), Vai e Vem (João César Monteiro, Portugal), Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, USA/France) – 7 votes
(Via)
Image From Election (2005)
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m glad they didn’t ask you. Snoozemaster Yamada? What Woo exactly in the 00s? Sion Sono – are you kidding me? “PTU”, possibly. “The Host”, well, maybe… It is a very, very good list.
Well, best films and most respected directors really aren’t the same. For example Gaichu deserves to be listed, but the director (Akihiko Shiota) doesn’t. A lot of one hit wonders out there.
Just a few movies to the list: Love Exposure, Realism no yado, Tokyo . Sora, United Red Army, Tokyo Marigold, Suicide Club, No One’s Ark, Azumi, Eureka, It’s Only Talk, Gaichu, 5 Centimeters per Second…
oh, was I supposed to name non-Japanese movies as well? Ah, those aren’t interesting. Well, maybe Millennium Mambo.
Mikko> Good point! But when some directors (Jia Zhang-ke, Hou Hsiao-hsien) are listed several times, one could assume it’s also because they’re respected as film directors.
BTW, this list is the “TIFF Cinematheque’s Best Of The Decade” (via)
THAT makes the whole difference: as told on numerous OTHER websites (such as TWITCH, whose artciles are more and more “taken over” on this site), this is Toronto International Film Festival Top 54 of THEIR selected movies through the years… Adn as one might see, there are quite some directors of their own publications mentionned.
As to compare Sono Sion or Johnny To’s works to great master works such as Apichatpong or Hou Siao-Hsien, you must be kidding !! Sion and To do very good COMMERCIAL and / or genre-movies, but from a cinematographic point of view, there are definitely of no match (let’s go for another round of the typical “what is real cinema / arthosue / commercial movie”).
Est-ce que même ces experts ont vu du Sono Sion, ou les Yamada? Faut pas rêver, au vu de la liste proposée. De toute manière, QUI sont ces experts? On est pas un peu experts, à notre échelle, nous aussi? Il faut arrêter un peu avec ça, avec ces listes faites par on ne sait qui, ça n’a aucun intérêt.
Par contre, Syndromes and Century en premier…la classe.
Carth> Check the press release linked in my previous post. You’ll find more details!
Happy> According to the man who conducted the poll:
Later, he adds:
Just for fun, it appears Victor Erice’s Dream of Light was voted the best film of the 1990s.
(‘Nuff said?)
I don’t see any reason to distinguish between arthouse, mainstream and genre cinema. The only thing that matters is how good a film is, and that is how entertaining / powerful the experience was. Do you really want to vote for a film that is brilliant in theory (say, politically or historically remarkable) but miserable in practice (you hated watching it)?
United Red Army, Azumi, and Realism no yado are all equal in my books. They all made it to my list for the one and same reason; they were films that I enjoyed enormously. There is no reason to use their “classification” as excuse to include them on my list.
You try applying some rules – what makes a movie good – and you’ll get lost very soon. Is the editing good enough? Is it historically accurate? Is it the most remarbable movie ever made in country X? I don’t know. Should I ask someone? Who is reliable enough not to tell me lies? So that I don’t call this movie great, when in reality it’s not, I just don’t know it. No one’s got enough knowledge to play this game. Instead we might just sit down and enjoy movies. And maybe vote those ones that we liked at the end of the year.
It’s a good list.
Can’t expect to see Nobuhiro Yamashita… at least yet… maybe in ten years. Same goes for Hirokazu Koreeda & Bong Joon-ho.
Well, anyway, if you look at the list, the asian movies are a kind of “equivalent” for the western movies. They don’t talk about genre or directors, they talk about “art”.
Actually the list is great! Those are all masters! And you even have Pedro Costa, the man who making the most important films of our time!
Sion Sono?!?! LOL
Please…….
Terrible list?!?! I think it is time for you to change that blog tagline (Treasures of ASIAN Cinema) to “Treasures of JAPANESE Cinema.
Not only because 99% of your posts are about japanese movies but we understand that your idea of ASIAN Cinema it´s extremely limited!
The fact that Guy Maddin made the list more than once is a testament to the fact that the people who voted on the list know what they are doing.
In theory, Johnnie To easily has the potential to be on that list, but since he makes the sort of movies that arrogant critics like Mr. Knörer (whose writing, by the way, is among the most hilariously self-indulgent drivel I have come across in my life) look down upon, you can’t really blame anyone. And I am very happy To is not going the arthouse route all the way – we have Pang Ho-cheung for that.
It’s only the beginning of the “Best Of The Decade”-season!
Here’s the TONY (Time Out New York)’s top 50 movies of the decade – asian films in bold;
(Via)
Well, Pang Ho-cheung it´s just an average director even when he tries something more “arthouse” like Isabella which is good but not great. His other works go from mediocre to absolutely ridiculous.
Seeing a To film on that list wouldn’t be a shock to me, he did some great movies and in recent years he has been on fire.
Unbelieved was the reaction to such master directors, which makes me wonder what have you (both Michael and Mikko) seen from these directors? I´m intrigued and i would love to be enlightened!
I stopped reading the list once I saw Syndromes and a Century was #1.
I wasn’t seriously criticizing the movies they chose (except maybe Secret Sunshine, which is the cheapest melodrama bullshit I’ve had to sit through in recent years) but rather what they didn’t choose, and also express my opinion that their list is quite boring and one sided. It consists of very safe critic choices and probably applies that “mainstream / genre / arthouse” ideology where some types of films are not considered worthy of being listed.
But like ‘happy’ and Michael pointed out, that list was based on a certain film selection, and I don’t know what movies were included in the nominees. They can make any kind of list they want. It’s just worth pointing out that their list doesn’t provide a very open view at the 2000′s cinema.
And I have to thank Michael for his slightly provocative starting post. My taste and his taste are actually quite different, and our list would probably have little in common. But that’s completely besides the point. To have conversation is the point.
“To have conversation is the point.”
Well put! And it worked!
“our list would probably have little in common”
Would? We will have the chance to see that soon, right?
I invite everyone here to start thinking about their own ‘expert’ list! We’re not fest programmers, not archivists but fans. And that’s what matters, whatever our choices are.
So, a Top 20 should be OK? Next month ~around the same date!
With only Asian films, I guess?
@ Mikko
I´m sorry, but seeing you calling this list “one sided” it is really curious and ironic! I mean, your only references and examples are all japanese! If that is not “one sided”, what is it? We are talking about ASIAN cinema, if you dont remember! Not to mention that last sentence of your first post, which says it all.
This is not an asian top so obviously there is a lot missing, but i was very surprised with the great amount of asian cinema in the list! Usually in tops like this they completely neglect asian cinema.
“And I have to thank Michael for his slightly provocative starting post.”
Yeah, but it is a shame that he´s not answering and prefers an eloquent silence instead of assuming the things he said to make is point clear!
@AV
Would it have been easier to understand if I had added a wink smiley at the end of that sentence?
No, it would be easier to mention asian films other than japanese films, or you are telling me that it was just a coincidence? (wink smiley)
About those directors and your elliptical answer to my question i can only assume that your idea of Asian cinema it´s as ‘one sided’ as Michael.
And Mr. Michael forgot (once again) to mention all the asian directors, just an example he forgot Abbas Kiarostami who is one of the most influential contemporary asian diretors, but probably he doesn’t even know him, so that is ok. (wink smiley, wink smiley, wink smiley)
You should see Shirin, his last experiment i think you´ll love it! (wink smiley, wink smiley, wink smiley, wink smiley, wink smiley, wink smiley)
Actually, naming Kiarostami here may raise another debate : shall we consider Iran as part of Asian cinematography ? imho, no
@ Guillau
Well, and exactly why do you think that?
Iran is part of Central Asia. Full stop.
…or Western Asia. Slightly different.
I shall certainly be the only one here having this opinion, but as far as I’m concerned it’s not a geography concern but a religion’s. What I call Asian Cinema is linked to buddhism (and all branches and / or all “spin off).
Brian’s comments on these tops.
Wong Kar-Wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE #1 on The Playlist’s Best Of The Decade;
@ Guillau
Thank Buddha, you still have the discernment to say that you are the only one to think that way. That association it´s totally inappropriate, i had never heard anything remotely close to that.
About Brian comments, i think it´s pretentious to be so assertive about a list, when he only saw 4 of the 16 Asian films.
quoting people with your opinion……..
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