Taking stock of 2008

I like making lists. Since I don't have a say over the mise-en-scène of my life, making lists of things would come close, at least, to taking stock of the year that has passed. If each film is an image, complete in its totality and indivisible by its parts, then making a list of films would be like montage. Like montage, what is excluded is always as important - if not more - than what is included; but this exclusion, this 'offscreen space', can only be alluded to and grasped at.

The films below are listed in the order of which I've seen them. Some of these films I encountered for the first time, some I've encountered before. They all mean something to me; they represent discoveries that have opened my eyes. Some of them made me discover filmmakers I've never known before; some made me discover things I've never known before about filmmakers I know. Some of them opened my eyes to things I never knew about cinema; some opened my eyes to things I never knew about myself.

Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Gang of Four (Jacques Rivette, 1988)
Everyone Says I Love You (Woody Allen, 1996)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson, 1962)
La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage, 1940)
Inquietude (Manoel de Oliveira, 1998)
Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1980)
La Belle Noiseuse (Jacques Rivette, 1991)
Broken Lullaby aka The Man I Killed (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) + Hotel Monterey (Chantal Akerman, 1972)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
The Story of Marie and Julien (Jacques Rivette, 2003)
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978)
Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Raúl Ruiz, 1979)
The Dangerous Thread of Things (Michelangelo Antonioni, 2004)
La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)
Maborosi (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1995)
Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-Wai, 1990)
Hurlevent (Jacques Rivette, 1985)
A Hen in the Wind (Yasujiro Ozu, 1948)
Shara (Naomi Kawase, 2003) + The Mourning Forest (Naomi Kawase, 2007)
La Belle (Kyun-dong Yeo, 2000)
Late Chrysanthemums (Mikio Naruse, 1954)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008)
He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Sjöström, 1924)
Another Woman (Woody Allen, 1988)
That Day, On the Beach (Edward Yang, 1983)
Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-Wai, 2008)
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 1996)
I Can't Sleep (Claire Denis, 1994)
Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)
The Intruder (Claire Denis, 2004)
The State of Things (Wim Wenders, 1982) + False Movement (Wim Wenders, 1975)
Violated Angels (Koji Wakamatsu, 1967)
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
Plastic City (Nelson Yu Lik-Wai, 2008)
That Lady in Ermine (Ernst Lubitsch, 1948)
Life On Earth (Abderrahmane Sissako, 1998)
Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)
Girl Shy (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1924)
Le Gai Savoir (Jean-Luc Godard, 1969)
Go Go Second Time Virgin (Koji Wakamatsu, 1969)
Central Station (Walter Salles, 1998)
In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis, 2007)

Every film by Jacques Rivette is a discovery.