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.) 

The right kind of quirkiness

This is the latest in my Double Jeopardy series, which runs on Tuesdays. I'm watching movies I've seen exactly once, which other people seemed to enjoy a lot less than I did, to see if it was me who was wrong, or them.

I am not your typical Wes Anderson fan.

For starters, my favorite movie is his first, Bottle Rocket, which many Anderson fans haven't even seen. It's sweet and simple and doesn't try to do too much.

At the time I saw it, I thought I loved Rushmore, but have downgraded that to "liked a lot" over the years -- I've yet to actually watch it a second time, which I guess tells you something. I loved Bill Murray in it, but in retropsect, probably did not love Jason Schwartzmann, who I've since decided is one of Hollywood's greatest beneficiaries of nepotism. And I think the warning signs were there that Anderson could be too quirky for his own good.

Like in The Royal Tenenbaums. I'm sure I owe this movie another viewing, because it has just gotten worse and worse in my mind over the years as I've offered various people my take on it. Which is: It left me feeling offbeaten to death. (I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with that line, but I'd never heard it before and felt kind of proud of it.) It was a thumbs up for me, but just barely.

Let's skip The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou for the moment, because it looked to me like The Royal Tenenbaums times ten. I didn't see it until after seeing ...

... The Darjeeling Limited. I probably owe this movie another viewing as well, because I started it at nearly midnight in a hotel room, and may have snoozed through as much as five to ten minutes of it, even though at the time I thought I saw the whole thing. Anyway, I hated this movie. What I disliked about it was summarized in a scene involving the aforementioned Mr. Schwartzmann, as he maces his brothers (Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson) while they're wrestling on a train. Ridiculous. Also thumbs way down to the scene at the end where they throw away all their luggage (baggage). It's as bad a metaphor as the rat running along the railing in The Departed.

I liked The Fantastic Mr. Fox about the same as most people, if not slightly more.

It was my thoughts on Tenenbaums and Darjeeling that I thought brought me out of sync with other Anderson fans ... and threatened to make me not an Anderson fan at all. They seemed to love the quirks of those movies, while I hated them. But I wanted to be an Anderson completist, so I finally circled back to The Life Aquatic, about eight months after seeing Darjeeling.

And was blown away by how much I loved it.

This was troubling. In any discussion I'd had with people about Wes Anderson, The Life Aquatic was their choice for the chink in his armor. They were willing to accept the spirit of my criticisms of Tenenbaums and Darjeeling, but always applied them to a different film -- "That's how I felt about The Life Aquatic," they said.

Not me. I didn't feel that way, not a bit. Let me give you some of the reasons I didn't:

1) The music. Here's a good sign of how effective I found the music: Nearly two years after first seeing it, I remembered the exact song that plays over the DVD menu. It's part of the goofy synthesizer score, with its throwback parallel-dimension 1980s sound -- and now that I look it up, the composer, Sven Libaek, originally wrote the music for a 1974 underwater television series called Inner Space. Then there's the consistently enjoyable decision to have Seu Jorge, playing one of Zissou's crew, sing David Bowie songs in Portuguese throughout the movie, while strumming his guitar. But what really blew me away was the use of the spine-tingling Sigur Ros song "Staralfur" during the film's emotional climax. It got me.

2) The marine life, CGI and otherwise. I loved the moment, after Zissou's disastrous opening for the first part of his most recent film, when Klaus' son presents Zissou with a colorful seahorse in a bag of water. (When the bag springs a leak during a brouhaha, Zissou transfers the creature to an empty champagne flute.) It's the film's first digital effect, and it prepares you for the way modern technology will inform this story, with its antiquated gadgets and out-of-time production design. The CGI creatures, of which there are maybe a half-dozen throughout the film, never call special attention to themselves -- they function as a throwaway detail, and are all the more pleasant for that fact. Also loved the live tracker dolphins who swim alongside the boat. And speaking of the boat ...

3) The boat. The Belafonte, Zissou's boat, is a masterpiece of old-school set design. Anderson built a massive boat set that's open on one side, as though it had been sliced in half lengthwise from bow to stern, so he could film the characters from the side as they walk between rooms, sometimes climbing between levels on ladders. It's an effect we saw in an ad campaign for (I believe) a cell phone company that Anderson shot around that same time, and it really works. Not only is it excellent to see the craftsmanship that went into this, and enables some great uninterrupted takes in which the characters move between rooms that are full of ongoing activity as they do the scene, but the rooms themselves are a triumph of understated quirkiness.

4) The antiquated equipment. As mentioned briefly earlier, I dig all the old computers, rotary phones, and other ancient gadgets that fill the Belafonte.

5) The locations. I love where Anderson chose to shoot. There's the Zissou complex on a tiny island, and the Hennessey complex on a huge island. One of the reasons I love the section where they visit the Ping Islands, torn apart and left uninhabited by a hurricane, is that they serve as a great metaphor for the Zissou we know now. As a young newlywed, Zissou visited this island on his honeymoon, its five-star hotel resplendent and shimmering. The moldering grandeur of that hotel is like Zissou in his current state of disrepair.

6) Bill Murray as Steve Zissou. I was expecting a super-ironic, eyeball-rolling, detached performance from Murray. But what I got was emotional engagement in a way that creeps up on you. Sure, there are some absurd set pieces here, most notably the one where Zissou grabs a gun and single-handedly saves most of his crew from pirates, killing several of them. But his character's emotions are always honest. I felt Zissou becoming a real person as he grapples with the reality that his best days are behind him, and that he had a son he didn't meet until the boy was in his mid- to late-20s. Anderson creates a goofy tone so that all this emotional processing can be light and funny, but that doesn't make it any less true, nor make the moments of real introspection feel any less introspective.

7) The tone. As hinted at in the previous paragraph, Anderson creates a tone that I like to think of as "melancholic jauntiness." Certainly, there is a sadness that permeates this film -- Steve Zissou is close to being washed up, he's already lost a friend to the possibly mythological jaguar shark, and his current mission is a flimsy contraption ready to take on water at any minute. But never once is The Life Aquatic depressing. It tells the story of a man who was once truly great -- he wasn't just a laughingstock, as some films would have had him be. A lesser film would have just made him a self-involved boob with no redeeming qualities, but there's a basic goodness to Steve Zissou, at his core, and he eventually displays a perceptive understanding of every situation, just when you think he might be wandering dangerously close to self-involved boobdom. He's clearly sailing into the sunset, but enough of the things he's done right in his life prevent him from being a total shambles -- and this little bit of lightness and optimism, along with some truly screwball set pieces, keeps the film humming along quite nicely.

8) The cast. There are plenty of familiar players from other Anderson movies -- Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, and of course Murray himself. But they are assembled here in a way that makes good, quirky sense. I can imagine an international oceanographic film crew being made up of all types -- an Indian cameraman, a German second-in-command, a pilot bastard son from Kentucky, an aloof ex-wife, a pregnant reporter, a half-dozen green interns, a bond company stooge who in his younger years was Harold in Harold & Maude. (The sight of Bud Cort was quite welcome.) The Belafonte is the perfect location for this motley crew to come together as some kind of oddball family unit ... one that's a lot less over-the-top than you'd think.

Double Jeopardy Verdict, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: I'm happy not being your typical Wes Anderson fan, if it means getting to have a special place in my heart for this film.