10 Days of Christmas: La Jetée and Cleo from 5 to 7

I'm two movies in on John's Top Ten Criterion titles available on NWI list.

Let's start with Cleo from 5 to 7 first.  I really like the premise of this film and how it is told in real time (well before 24 ruined this idea).  It somehow feels as if the two hours we spend with Cleo illuminates what her normal, everyday life is like.  However, I must admit that I was not really sold on the film throughout most of the first half.  There were definitely moments, but overall I was having a difficult time empathising with Cleo.  When the piano player called her "spoiled and self-pitying" I was like, "yes, finally, shut the hell up."  But then I started to realize what was going on.  There was so much life around her and I began to notice subtle things that contrasted with her sullen mood that I thought were quite brilliant.  Slowly the superstitious omens disappeared and the film and Cleo start to see her illness in a different light.

I think that Cleo from 5 to 7 is a film that I will have to watch again to really appreciate.  I spent too much time not enjoying it, which on reflection corresponds to Cleo's difficult time dealing with her illness.  Perhaps I was more in tune with Cleo than I thought.

The next film that I watched from John's list was La Jetée.  This film really blew me away.  After a minute I did not notice that it was comprised purely of stills until the brief moment when the woman opens her eyes.  It was so real and fluid (that part was not stills, right?) that it sort of woke me up from this "dream" and made the experiment more real than the real world.  But isn't that the most sane response to a world gone crazy?

Even with viewing La Jetée only once, this film can be placed solidly among my favorite movies of all time.  If all the other films on John's list are duds, which I doubt, this little 10 Days of Christmas project will have been worth it just to see La Jetée.


*Bonus Film*  Brandon made a list of his Top Ten Criterion Films on NWI yesterday.  Since I got home from game night still amped about Bill Murray joining us in two weeks I decided to watch something from his list.  I picked Umberto D.  because of his description - "The best film about a man and his dog even if that that’s not what this film is actually about."

This was a very touching film.  I'm glad that Umberto has Flike and the kindness of the maid. It is sad to see an older person brushed off and treated so poorly by everyone around him.  The last bit of the film was heart-breaking, but the way it ended still gives me hope.

I think that this film is going to fall into the same category as Wendy and Lucy for me.  Great films, but I just cannot bring myself to view them again.  Movies about dogs and their owners and the bond between them just really gets to me more than anything else.  I'm sure it is because I have two dogs and I would probably die before I allowed either of them to be hurt or taken from me.

And now, for anyone who feels like a good cry, I present Last Minutes with Oden, one of the best and most affecting documentaries that I have ever seen even though it clocks in at only 6 minutes long.

Last Minutes with ODEN" won first prize at the Vimeo Awards this year. It's a touching story about how Jason Wood, an ex-convict and drug addict, grows personally, even spiritually, through his relationship with Oden, a three-legged dog now stricken with cancer.The documentary takes us poignantly through their last day together.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.