Earlier this spring I began watching the films of The Criterion Collection, inspired to do so partly by a post from This Recording (in turn inspired by Diablo Cody, writer and erstwhile stripping sensation, responsible for Juno, the best movie yet about unplanned teenage pregnancy and fatherhood ambivalence) and partly by the realization (arrived at while compiling my list of favourite movies) that I really ought to expose myself to the work of the great auteurs of cinema, and who better than The Criterion to educate me (of course, I later found that Michael Bay has two films in the collection, so every theory is flawed). I've since watched Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau's fairytale), Casque d'Or (tarts and gangsters and love), A Generation (coming-of-age tale and the rightness of communism), Grand Illusion (war is hell, even for aristocrats), The Ice Storm (Nixon-era anomie), The Lady Vanishes (great Hitchcockian escapist fun), The Most Dangerous Game (Leslie Banks is deliciously wicked as a Russian nobleman who enjoys the hunt), The Rules of the Game (satire of the French upper-class - and I can't believe how many animals died during the filming), and Solaris (the alienness of the alien - if you think this is difficult viewing, try watching Stalker). Pretty heady stuff, I think you'll agree.
And in June I watched two classics from Japanese cinema: Kwaidan (ghosts and demons, with lovely cinematography) and Onibaba (especially horrific, with the main female protagonist suffering a grisly fate), both from 1964, and both clearly (I think) influences on Ringu (which still gives me the occasional nightmare) and hence the horror genre of the last decade (all three are based on Japanese folktales, which may explain the similarity in sensibility). Which is the real reason for this post: this Italian poster of Onibaba, which is absurdly salacious (granted, there's a lot of naked flesh in the movie, especially for 1964, but still).
'I'm Afraid of Japan' Final Fantasy
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