The moving image

My knowledge of film is not structured. I have profound knowledge of some directors and movies and zero in others. I watch a movie almost every night and most of those are arthouse—but not all. I have my guilty pleasures.

AN ARTHOUSE MOVIE

What does ‘arthouse’ even mean? Whatever does well in Cannes and not at the Oscars? Makes demands on the viewer, avoids clichés—yet, it’s true, sometimes turns into a cliché of its own.

The Return
dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev [2006]

This Russian movie is a minimalist story with few characters and a simple plot. It’s very effective cinema. There are many reasons to watch a movie; currently, one is prevailing and that’s steady entertainment throughout, with not much challenge. But this has more meat than that. It makes demands through its visual language, presenting you with longer shots than we’re used to. It’s all about mood. It moved me a great deal. It surprised me a great deal.

The plot in blockbuster movies always progresses at a predictable pace. When you free yourself from that requirement, you can end with a build-up or with lack of action. The ratio of entertainment per minute is different.

Ida
dir. Paweł Pawlikowski [2013]

Ida is a quintessential arthouse movie. It’s Polish, it’s black-and-white, it’s minimal in terms of composition (so a movie of low contrasts). And—contradicting what I said earlier—it won an Oscar for foreign feature film. It has what I really like in a good movie, which is ambiguity. You can read it on a number of levels, one of which satisfies the need for entertainment per minute. This movie has a photographic style of recording, with little or no camera movement. Each scene if photographed would make an amazing picture on its own. It is about a Polish Jew trying to find her identity, to understand her own history. I don’t want to say too much, because I don’t want to give away any spoilers. I was moved by it.

Phoenix
dir. Christian Petzold [2014]

The New Yorker thinks it’s rubbish; they think this guy should stop wasting his time bothering with movies. The Guardian thinks it’s out of this planet. I have watched seven movies by Petzold. His work is very peculiar.

A MOVIE FOR ALL THE FAMILY

Definitely Studio Ghibli in Japan—it’s a standout. The movies are very detailed, very beautiful, very delicate. They are morally engaged and usually have an ecological theme. They are often rich in folklore, and they have a feminist sensibility.

Sprited Away
dir. Hayao Miyazaki [2001]

Spirited Away won the Oscar in 2002. Or start with My Neighbour Totoro, which is very accessible for a young audience. My personal favourite is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind; this is beautifully executed, extremely rich in detail. But this could easily apply to Princess Mononoke, or any of them.

I would not shut my door to Finding Nemo. But it is sad that some films become so dominant. Anything with a different viewpoint ends up being so niche that it’s an adventure to find it.

DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS ONE

Bridge of Spies
dir. Steven Spielberg [2015]

There’s no sense of doom. And it’s Tom Hanks. It’s a bit of a Marmite film in that sense: either you like him or you don’t; I’m not a big fan. The whole movie really leads you by the nose. There is no room for doubt. It’s one-dimensional. I question the whole validity of the story. I had this same conversation with three of my friends, who furiously defended the movie.

MY GUILTY PLEASURE

I watch Game of Thrones. I cannot say many good things about it, but I do watch it. And I like a good gangster flick. I actually do have a guilty pleasure for a bit of violence. It’s weird, I know. Die Hard. I like it, but is that a guilty pleasure? Chinatown. Donnie Brasco. Recently I watched Black Mass with Johnny Depp: he was hilariously gripped with a bald head where obviously he was not bald.

A movie has to be believable. You go there to be lied to, and if the lies are not good, if you don’t believe the lies, why do you watch the movie? The whole illusion does not work. And that is what is wrong with Bridge of Spies.

Guardians of the Galaxy
dir. James Gunn [2014]

Guardians of the Galaxy is like a B superhero movie, an alternative superhero movie. It’s full of humour—and violence, and super special effects.

A BLOCKBUSTER BUT WHY NOT?

The Dark Knight
dir. Christopher Nolan [2008]

It’s just very, very good movie-making. As a child, I had access to comic books, unlike a lot of kids in Bulgaria, and among them were Marvel comics; since then, I’ve had an affection for Spiderman and Batman. Batman is not your cookie-cutter hero: he has a dark side. It’s a very good ratio of entertainment per minute. Usually, blockbusters overload you and don’t care about pace. This movie has the classic plot development but (again the duality) it allows for breathing space. You have unexpected readings. It is very glam in terms of special effects, screenplay and directing.  I love Christian Bale. It’s the ideal cliché, in a good way.

OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE BUT  BRILLIANT

I hate horror movies. I cannot function in fear or that sort of discomfort. Or comedies like American Pie that play on somebody getting into deeper and deeper trouble: I feel uneasy and not entertained.

Twentynine Palms
dir. Bruno Dumont [2003]

This is an arthouse movie, and it makes a disturbing, awful, horrifying, deeply horrifying impact on you. It can make you scream. It can make you punch stuff. You want to trash your room. You want to get out of your skin. It makes me regret the two hours spent but at the same time totally admire the person who created it, because they manage to evoke an extremely strong response to something that is fiction.

A ROMCOM

In Bulgaria, growing up, I sat with my father as he watched the Russian films on TV, particularly the comedies. There were classics that cropped up again and again, including this next one.

The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy your Bath!
dir. Eldar Ryazanov [1976]

The acting in this Russian comedy is amazing. And the way of thinking is so different. Probably I’m speaking with a little nostalgia, but it’s very entertaining. It’s about a group of friends who get incredibly drunk—as happens in most Russian movies—on vodka, no surprise, at the public bath.  One of them has to go to Leningrad, boards the wrong plane, calls a taxi and is taken to a building on a street which he thinks is where he should be (but it’s not, because he is in the wrong city, but, Soviet style, all the buildings look the same) and his key opens the door. He passes out on the bed. The woman who lives there comes home and tells him to leave and then they argue… Same address, same building, same key for the door: it’s a metaphor for Russian society as it was. And it’s a love story. There is something for everybody.

A CLASSIC TO BUY AND WATCH ONCE A YEAR

The Big Lebowski
dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen [1998]

I love this movie. Jeff Bridges is hilarious. But is it a classic? It’s probably a cult classic. I think I have seen every film the Coen brothers ever made. They try out a different genre with every other movie. It’s movie-making for the sake of movie-making. They definitely make requirements of the viewer in terms of film knowledge.

The Hateful Eight
dir. Quentin Tarantino [2015]

I like Tarantino. But I don’t like Tarantino. It’s probably a guilty pleasure. There’s a lot of graphic violence—I  said earlier that I like violence, but I don’t like it when people’s heads get scuppered on screen. I think it’s unnecessary. But he thinks it’s very necessary.

Days of Heaven
dir. Terence Malick [1978]

Richard Gere is in this movie and Sam Shepard, the playwright. It has a very American feel, but that’s what ‘classic’ means to me, something coming from the American tradition. Apocalypse Now is another contender. And Taxi Driver. That’s a cult classic. At the time it was very arthouse. Early Robert de Niro. But it’s pretentious. When I was thinking ‘classic’, I was thinking not pretentious. I was thinking simple.

Rashomon
dir. Akira Kurosawa [1950]

This is a timeless classic for you.

IVAN’S LIST

Great directors

Pedro Almodóvar 

Wes Anderson 

Ingmar Bergman 

Coen brothers

Michael Haneke 

Jim Jarmusch 

Abbas Kiarostami

Akira Kurosawa

Emir Kusturica

Hayao Miyazaki 

Great movies

Amour

Arizona Dream

Autumn Sonata 

Certified Copy

Dancer in The Dark

Fargo

In the Mood For Love 

Moon

Only Lovers Left Alive 

Withnail and I