My ten favorite movies that are moods

I usually like a tight and clever plot -- except when I don't.

The extreme example of not liking a tight and clever plot is any movie with spies. I don't really care who is double-crossing whom and why. I suppose spy thrillers often violate the rules of tightness in order to achieve the heights of "cleverness," but some people really go for that. I don't.

I do generally like it when something happens in the plot late in the movie to give me a little frisson of excitement, not necessarily a "twist," but something I wasn't expecting -- perhaps emotionally. But a lot of time, an emotional "twist" is more likely to be found in a movie where mood is what they're going for more than plot.

This is a roundabout way of telling you that I love a movie that is all about its mood -- but only when it's done well. A movie all about its mood that isn't done well is just an exercise in masturbation. But one that's done well ... *chef's kiss.*

What prompted the writing of this post was resuming my viewing of my previous #1s after a 39-day break to allow for my trip to America. My trip wasn't nearly that long, but I paused this project about a week before I left and it took a week after returning to unpause. I knew I wasn't going to watch any of these while I was gone, but interestingly, I could have. As it turned out, my dad and his wife suggested a viewing of Inside Out as one of our evening activities while we were in Maine with the kids -- and I watched it again even though I'd only just watched it for this project three weeks earlier. If only I'd known, I would have saved it. 

It's not often you watch the same movie twice in a month, especially when it's your fifth or sixth time seeing the movie, but surprisingly, I was hit a tad harder by it this time than on the previous viewing. Maybe it was the company, with some people in the room -- including my sister -- seeing it for the first time. (Or it could have been the fact that my older son was in the room, and he's the same age as Riley, and he also just moved house in the past year, creating many of the emotions Riley experiences. I almost wrote a post about this very thing when I watched it back in early July.)

I contemplated watching a second movie for this project, one I hadn't just watched, on the plane, since Lost in Translation was among the Qantas offerings on our flight. But I was already watching one older movie for Audient Bollywood, so I just couldn't justify yielding a second spot to a movie that hadn't come out in 2022. (Though it would have been a great scenario to watch it, given that jet lag is a big theme of the movie.)

For a time last night, I wish I had, as I was unable to scare up Lost in Translation on any of my streaming services, despite my certainty it would be there. I was going to give up and shift to something else, and may have if I'd been able to find Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on any of them either. Instead of searching up a third title, I asked myself "How lazy are you?" and just got out my old laptop to hook up to my TV via HDMI, so I could play my Region 1 DVD of Lost in Translation. It really only took about three minutes. I'm glad to know I'm not that lazy. 

I still mightn't have written this post if I hadn't come across another movie I love that's all about its mood while doing some Flickcharting this morning. So here I am.

I decided not to come up with an entirely organic list -- that's a bit too much work for me this morning -- but rather to go down through that aforementioned Flickchart to identify the ten films I've ranked most highly that are about mood at the expense of plot. This is not to say they don't have any plot, just that the plot is there to support the mood -- at least as I experience the film.

Unsurprisingly, the mood for most of these films is "melancholy." That's really what you mean when you say "mood" without any other words to modify it. 

Perhaps also unsurprisingly, these films tend to be supported by a very "moody" score or soundtrack, one that puts you in the contemplative space to appreciate what's going on with these characters. 

Without any further ado, in the order they appear on my Flickchart ...

36. Lost in Translation (2003, Sofia Coppola) - It's a testament to Coppola's excellent musical taste that all the songs on this soundtrack strike an identical tone. As I was listening, and as an owner of the soundtrack, I kept saying "Oh yeah, this song. Wait I thought this song had already played." While that might sound like a backhanded compliment, it's actually a perfect realization of her attempt to establish a tone of melancholy and displacement, one that the movie plays out expertly. There's a disappointment while watching Lost in Translation that the "relationship" between Bob and Charlotte does not have a traditionally satisfying emotional arc, as it hits a bump in the road and ends in a place of minor disjuncture. But that's like actual life, in which connections rarely land solidly. Of course, the actual conclusion to their non-consummated romance hits it out of the park in terms of emotional satisfaction, and wouldn't you know it, there's the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" to allow us to marinate in that moment.

76. My Neighbor Totoro (1988, Hayao Miyazaki) - I didn't say all my choices had to be melancholy. However, there's melancholy to be had indeed in this film, undercutting the wonder experienced by the children as they discover their new country home and all the various sprites and other magical creatures who lurk in its nooks and crannies, or in the forest just beyond. Let us not forget that weighing down these children's otherwise uncomplicated excitement and playfulness is the knowledge that their mother is sick, and they don't know for sure whether she will recover. My Neighbor Totoro never gets anywhere close to a story and I wouldn't have it any other way.

79. Spring Breakers (2013, Harmony Korine) - Many of my explanations about why I love Spring Breakers, given to incredulous listeners over the years, have never been able to fully encapsulate the special trance this movie places on me. First it captures FOMO perfectly. Then it captures the delirium of the best time of your life perfectly. Then it perfectly captures that feeling of when you've stayed at the party too long and things have started to go south -- also something depicted in Lost in Translation. But again it's the way this movie wraps you in its soundtrack -- particularly the ultimate in melancholy, "Ride Home" by Skrillex -- that leaves me staring off into the middle distance in reverie. 

87. Once (2007, John Carney) - I wasn't at first sure if Once qualified, but it's certainly got the lack of plot. I mean, the characters don't even have names. This probably most closely approximates the missed but made connections between Bob and Charlotte in Translation, as a potential romance is considered but rebuffed, and we sense the profound effect these two have had on each other even though they may never see each other again. It's obvious that Glen Hansard's passionate, melancholy -- there's that word again -- music is the key to fueling this emotional journey, though we can't discount the contribution of Market Irglova, both as a singer and as Hansard's muse in its creation. 

108. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007, Julian Schnabel) - Two thousand seven was a good year for making us feel more than think, though of course this got ranked with my 2008 films in the first year it was available outside France. Few things are more melancholy -- I'm going to stop calling attention to my use of this word -- than the concept of being trapped inside your brain with only a blinking eye to communicate with the world. Okay, maybe some people would call that terrifying more than melancholy. But there's something about how Schnabel depicts this condition for Jean-Dominique that effortlessly communicates his desire to grasp the beauty of life now that he is intimately acquainted with its fragility. And let's not forget the role music plays here, as there's an unforgettable sequence using U2's "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" that might not sound memorable on the surface, but wallops you in context.

110. Ordet (1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer) - This might be a stretch and it might look like I'm desperate to prove to you that I like movies made before the year 2000, but there's no doubt that the spell cast on you by Ordet has little to do with its plot. This story of three sons of a devout Danish family, and their struggles with their faith, is the sort of thing that inspired a whole career of contemplation from the likes of Ingmar Bergman, some of whose films could end up appearing on this list. But I think it's really the quiet of their homestead, the rustling of its grass, that places you in this meditative space that carries through the whole picture, and prepares you for the high concept ending that it's best not to spoil.

134. Under the Skin (2013, Jonathan Glazer) - Scarlett Johansson makes her second appearance on this list with a film that basically has no plot at all. Well, it starts to develop something like a plot in its second half, but that's only in contrast to the first half, in which Johansson's alien cruises the streets of Glasgnow for new victims to lure into her black goo. If not for the eerie mood created by this film, it wouldn't have gotten under my skin (so to speak) and become my tenth favorite film of the last decade. But yes, there's melancholy here too -- just look at the expression on Johansson's face at the end and you will understand precisely what has been lost. (A nod to Micah Levy's score to put us in exactly the head space we need to be.)

160. A Ghost Story (2017, David Lowery) - Oh the melancholy! A ghost looks on quietly, helplessly, as the woman mourning him tries to recover from his loss ... and then looks in on the next 300 years or more of the occupants of this building, just for good measure. Daniel Hart's score and Dark Rooms' "I Get Overwhelmed" do tremendous work holding us there once Lowery's images, his square aspect ratio and the performances have brought us to this place. The existential ennui climaxes in a hugely satisfying final emotional payoff.

214. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004, Wes Anderson) - I debated whether to include Bill Murray's appropriate second appearance on this list, since I think Anderson is always about mood over plot. But in the end, the thing that connects with me so much about possibly my favorite Anderson film is this blue space it finds and remains in. The decline of Zissou's life is embodied perfectly by the abandoned, overgrown hotel on that island in the middle of the film. And Seu Jorge's covers of David Bowie songs are an essential component to the narrative and character work Anderson is doing.

296. Code 46 (2003, Michael Winterbottom) - And finally at spot #10, we get to the film I came across while Flickcharting this morning that prompted me to write this post. There are some high concepts at the center of a love story between two characters in a sun-bleached Shanghai of the future, when only rich, connected people can live "inside" and everyone else is forging documents to try to escape the harsh conditions. Winterbottom draws a very specific portrait of a future where characters slip in and out of multiple languages while they speak. But it's a Lost in Translation sort of relationship that develops between the characters played by Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton, plot taking a backseat to moments infused with significance and scored by memorable songs like Freakpower's "Song No. 6" and Coldplay's "Warning Sign."

Some I bypassed in this top 300 that didn't quite fit my concept of this post, but could have if I'd squinted a bit:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick) - 12th
Solaris (1972, Andrei Tarkovsky) - 146th

I also bypassed all my choices that I consider to be straight horror films, because the best horror films are all about creating a mood and that's a sort of different category of cinematic achievement. 

Now that I've become more officially acquainted with this proclivity of mine by having written this post, I'll have to see if I'm more aware of movies presenting themselves to me as moods -- kind of like I immediately notice when a "wax stamp movie" presents itself to me. (Unfamiliar with that concept? See this post.) 

Getting acquainted with ... Carl Theodor Dreyer

 
This is the latest in my Getting Acquainted series, in which I familiarize myself with a legendary cinematic talent whose work was previously unfamiliar to me. I watch three films by/featuring that person during the month, then write about it at the end.

My interest in getting acquainted with Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer was driven almost purely by The Passion of Joan of Arc. This film has surfaced in various film tomes (including 1001 Movies to See Before You Die) and other lists of generally great films, but I guess what set it apart in my mind was the immediacy of the poster (which you'll see below). This poster seems to suggest the unlimited depths of the suffering of Joan of Arc leading up to her execution, and I guess I was surprised that such an early film (it was made in 1928) would address such a controversial figure in a likely controversial way.

As it turns out, it's correct that it was controversial -- the film was banned all over the place, and was once thought to be entirely lost, the master copy destroyed in a fire. Thirteen years after Dreyer died, a nearly complete copy was discovered in the janitor's closet of an Oslo mental hospital in 1981. It's considered one of the greatest discoveries of a lost masterpiece in film history.

As it also turns out, there were plenty of other controversial films about controversial topics made around that time -- it was only my ignorance that deemed this one to be a special case. Or perhaps it just struck a chord with me, as I seem to be endlessly fascinated by the depiction of religious fervor on film. I imagine this dates back to my fascination with depictions of Christianity in 15th century Flemish art, which I discovered in an art history class in college. I want to be clear that I am not a religious person myself -- far from it. But the depiction of religion in art has interested me for at least those 17 years since I took that class as a senior in college.

Little did I know the extent to which religion and religious persecution would appear in most if not all of Dreyer's films, many of which are considered masterpieces, only three of which I've seen, with more certain to come.

I'll get into the films in particular in a moment, but I wanted to also mention at the start (since I'm not sure how this will factor into my individual discussions of the films) that I was amazed the extent to which Dreyer seems to have influenced two other filmmakers, one indisputably great, one disputably great. I was first struck by how the black and white compositions and religious themes seemed to directly influence the work of Ingmar Bergman. Needless to say, most great filmmakers were influenced by other great filmmakers before them, but until now I was not familiar with what seems to be Bergman's greatest influence. Then Dreyer also seems to have influenced enfant terrible Lars von Trier, his fellow countryman. Both being Danish filmmakers would seem to be enough, but more specifically, each film I saw of Dreyer's includes the kind of masochistic persecution of a woman for which von Trier has become famous. At least Dreyer's treatments didn't go to the extremes of von Trier's, but it was clearly a preoccupation of his.

Okay ...

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Watched: Thursday, April 5th
One sentence plot synopsis: A depiction of the events, including trial and torture, leading up to the execution of Joan of Arc at the hands of the English.
My thoughts on the film: Wow. Can I just leave it at "wow"? I ranked this film five out of five stars, without hesitation, at Letterbox'd, where I keep track of my film rankings. I've only given that rating to ten other films I've seen since about 2004 (which is where I stand now in terms of adding my back movies in reverse chronological order). Simply put, I was astonished at the level of artistry on display in a movie made in 1928, when most other filmmakers were making the cinematic equivalent of cave drawings. (Another exaggeration, but I'm making that exaggeration to indicate just how astonished I was.) What struck me most was Dreyer's use of close-ups, to capture every groove of his actors' faces, and all that they expressed. There are the hardened lines of the gruff and unyielding judges, but then there are the freshly quivering lines of the face of Maria Falconetti as Joan. Falconetti has been rightly praised for giving one of the most captivating screen performances of all time, though you can't say it is 100% realistic -- her Joan often behaves as though she is in some kind of trance, which is consistent with the character's purported religious state, I guess. It's impossible to look away from the expressions of horror, despair and ecstasy Falconetti gives us, her eyes the size of saucers. It was instantly clear to me that Sinead O'Connor must have modeled at least some aspects of her persona on Falconetti. But Falconetti's performance and Dreyer's close-ups are not the sum of this movie's greatness, and I'd like to quickly mention three other stunning things about it: 1) Dreyer's use of a panning camera. I can't say to what extent it was used by other contemporary filmmakers, but it is used wonderfully here. 2) The editing in the scene where Joan is gradually slipping into a faint while viewing the spinning wheel of the implement that will be used to torture her. Dreyer goes back and forth between the two, with ever closer shots of this spinning torture device and the man who is impassively spinning it. 3) Joan's execution. It is incredibly detailed. The camera never looks away from what's going on, and that includes seeing a slumped and blackened corpse being licked by flames. I have never seen a movie like this, and it was made nearly 85 years ago. One note: If you are going to watch this, be sure to watch it with Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light" score accompanying it. At the time it was made, Dreyer showed it with different music at different times, so there is no definitive native score. If you watch it without the score, you will be watching nothing but silence for the entire running time. After about two minutes of this, I decided I couldn't do it. (Plus, the score Einhorn composed in 1994 is really beautiful.)

Day of Wrath (1943, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Watched: Thursday, April 19th
One sentence plot synopsis: Following the decision to have a woman burnt at the stake for witchcraft, a pastor must consider evidence that he may be married to a witch himself -- and that this witch may have cast a spell on his son.
My thoughts on the film: I must admit, I chose this film more for the title than because of any particular reputation it had. You may recall that I wrote a piece on the use of the word "wrath" in movie titles when Wrath of the Titans came out, so I thought this would make a logical choice for something to see. Fortunately, it's also pretty brilliant. The film is more or less divided into two halves, the one leading up to the execution of a woman thought to be a witch (which rivals Joan of Arc in terms of being surprisingly graphic), and the second involving the wife of the pastor, who seduces his son. Day of Wrath lulls you with its pacing, but it also has this understated yet exotic beauty with its black-and-white cinematography. In fact, it was this film that first caused me to make the connection to the works of Bergman. Lisbeth Movin is otherworldly in a way that's truly chilling, playing the young "witch" (I'm putting it in quotation marks because it's only assumed, not known) who casts a spell on the ordinarily pious son of her pastor husband. You can't tell if she's truly in love with this son, or if she's merely acting out against a man at least 20 years her senior who made her his wife against her will, or a little of both. But the effect is dreamy. There's plenty more to ponder on the idea of godliness and its opposite, and whether "good" men are truly good, or "evil" women truly evil. As this film employs dialogue and Joan of Arc of course did not, I became aware for the first time of Dreyer's keen abilities with the pacing of dialogue and his minimal use of score/sound effects. Many sequences in this deliberate and spartan film are scored only with the sound of the whistling wind, and the effect is both lonely and oddly captivating.

Ordet (1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Watched: Monday, April 30th
One sentence plot synopsis: Heads of two neighboring homesteads clash over their different approaches to believing in God as one tries to marry his son to the other's daughter.
My thoughts on the film: Dreyer's second-to-last feature film is also considered by many to be his masterpiece. (Joan of Arc notwithstanding, I guess.) I am almost in agreement, but I guess I have to give Joan of Arc the slight age as seeming more radical and groundbreaking for the time it was made. Needless to say, Dreyer continues to struggle with religion in this film, which would seem to serve as a kind of overview of his whole career. (I'd have to see his other films to be sure.) You can see elements of both the previous films I've discussed in Ordet (translation: The Word) -- the farmer Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg) has a son Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) who believes himself to be the resurrection of Jesus Christ (in a bit of "blasphemy" similar to Joan's purported crimes), and the pacing, precise framing, cinematography and themes of family and religion seem to directly echo back to Day of Wrath. But this film may contain more philosophical meat than either of the others, as the dialogue frequently touches on the difference between believers and non-believers, believers and different types of believers, and the intersection between science/medicine and faith. For a fairly simple film that's easy to follow, there's quite a bit going on here. And it's in this Johannes character -- who, trance-like, tells people that they can't believe in him (Jesus) walking the earth now, though they did then -- that I'm seeing some of von Trier's later efforts. We watched von Trier's The Kingdom horror TV series, which includes a boy with Down's Syndrome working in the hosptial's dishroom. For all intents and purposes, he and a fellow female dishwasher with Down's Syndrome function as the "chorus" of that TV show, commenting on the action with an all-seeing eye but not involved directly in it, and his trance-like delivery is very similar to the trance-like delivery of this character Johannes. As I mentioned earlier, this film also has a suffering female character, the godly wife of Morten's atheist son, who is about to give birth to a baby and has numerous trials in store for her. That's all I'll say about that. All of these philosophical ideas about belief or lack of belief in God come to bear on these two families with their stubborn father figures and their innocent children suffering indirectly at the hands of their stubbornness. And it's all encased in Dreyer's unique style, with its deliberate pacing and that eerie use of the whistling wind outside as one of the only noises you hear other than the dialogue. Quite simply, I was blown away. This despite the fact that my schedule meant I had to watch it in four -- four -- different sittings. Now that's a great movie.

Conclusion: I am a full Dreyer convert. Up soon, I hope: Vampyr and Gertrud.

Favorite of the three: The Passion of Joan of Arc

Although I may be a bit exhausted by the greatness of Dreyer, that's not why I'm taking the month of May off from Getting Acquainted. It more has to do with me being out of town this weekend, then going headlong into moving. That's right, we bought a house, and escrow is supposed to close on May 25th. (There, that was my grand announcement to you that I'm becoming a homeowner.) I just figure things will be too chaotic leading up to the move to give any cinematic luminary my full attention this month.

Even though things will still be pretty chaotic in June, I do hope to return then. (If not, definitely July.) I have a number of next candidates for Getting Acquainted, but we're due for a woman on the schedule, so I've decided to go with Clara Bow, the first ever "It-Girl." This will allow me to finally see the first film to win the Oscar for best picture, Wings. I'll also see It (appropriately) and The Plastic Age (because it was one of her only other titles I could find on Netflix).

See you back here then ... in the meantime, enjoy all my regularly scheduled programming, about five times a week.