The Greatest Films You Don't Know

welcome to the cinema cartography

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when we speak of the cinematic canon

there's an ingrained knowledge of what

films make up cinema with a capital c

even those we may not have had direct

familiarization with will be embedded in

our minds by the collective

consciousness of art and its history

its fundamental knowledge and in many

ways indisputable

but knowledge can be lost

and that which should have been part of

our cinema now wanders somewhere in the

ether

this is not an attempt to capture the

most obscure films that people haven't

seen nor is it an attempt to bring to

light films that do not deserve

recognition

this is an attempt to bring awareness to

those films that for one reason or

another have been excluded from the

conversation of cinema's greatest

triumphs

these are not just worthwhile films to

see

these are the instances of forgotten

films which truly belong within the

highest echelon that the art has to

offer

this is a celebration of cinema and

although you may be aware of some of

these works this is not enough for it's

my hope that these films gain the status

that they deserve as some of the

greatest films ever created

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philosophical cinema can be traced back

to the earliest days of cinema when

filmmakers such as lewis manuel

attempted to narrativize through

abstraction marrying the moving image

with poetry of thought

not only did this make him an integral

figure in the surrealist movement he

made the approach of philosophy and

cinema subversive

philosophy could be intertwined

discussed and developed within cinema

and bergman making the seventh seal on

wild strawberries in 1957 raw art house

philosophical cinema widespread

attention

the idea of a literal discussion of

pre-existing philosophies through cinema

was an idea that expanded all the way up

until the 1981 masterpiece my dinner

with andre wonderful shape

i mean they were literally driving my

father crazy you know here's an 82 year

old man who's very emotional and you

know if you go in one moment and you see

the person's dying and you don't want

them to die and then a doctor comes out

five minutes later and tells you that

wonderful shape i mean you know you can

go crazy

in which the entirety of the film is a

conversation of two friends meeting and

discussing what's essentially the

entirety of human existence

almost antithetical to the cinematic

experience my dinner with andre doesn't

need to show because it's all tell yet

there is a film that came before this

that i believe to have reached the

zenith of philosophical discussion in

cinema

zoltan fabies the fifth seal

similar to my dinner with andre the

fifth seal is primarily focused around a

philosophical discussion a group of men

in world war ii hungary gather in a bar

and have a diverging conversation it

isn't until one of the men asks a single

question that the axis of the film is

completely altered and it's on this

swaying pendulum that the film remains

until its end

time

would we choose to be born as a tyrant

that punishes and tortures his subjects

yet never feels remorse in his actions

or would we choose to be born as a slave

who undergo subjugation each day yet can

take solace in the fact that they harbor

no evil within them the film is composed

of three acts it begins in an inn where

the characters engage in their

discussion then a brief respite in the

evening when the characters return home

and the finale is held in the

headquarters of the hungarian party

allied with the nazis

here at

each segment of the film is shot in

completely enclosed spaces as once the

seminal question has been uttered

there's no escape from the line of

thought that the film has made subject

and become subjected to

the film is the question and it's able

to take this philosophizing to its most

extreme level examining the futility of

human behavior under extreme

circumstances

rather than just relying on the

discussion to convey its point the fifth

seal expounds its ideas on a theoretical

basis as much as it's possibly capable

of doing only to move away from the

theoretical to the experience

of

the second act serves almost like an

interlude we have the opportunity to

weigh the moralities of our characters

via a brief glimpse into their personal

lives

some doing incredibly righteous things

while others doing less so

and it's during this sequence that we

begin to acknowledge that the world

depicted isn't precisely one of

actuality the film extrapolates the

truth of a most extreme situation to the

point it becomes allegory

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the filmmaking resembles that of a play

to display the veracity of a point of

view unencumbered by any filmic

furnishings

when we're constantly addressed with the

question the film is as flat as it can

be it's important that the film makes

its points directly

hammering in our head the responsibility

we have in precarious times by simply

showing us the suffering that we or

others will endure

the fifth seal shows us the importance

of making decisions

when we're simultaneously

helpless in making one

let's get to his cases i guess

documentary is a difficult enough genre

to entice audiences to engage with from

the get-go

it's rare that a documentary becomes a

cultural phenomenon equal to that of

narrative film

all that's brought to mind are the likes

of supersize me and fahrenheit 911

because even for ardent cinema goers it

can be surprisingly rare to find one

that's willing to go to the cinema with

the intention of watching a documentary

perhaps being so close to real life is

the demeaning factor that even within

the art of cinema people are still

hoping for some degree of escapism

ironic that as many good documentaries

aim to expose the forgotten parts of the

world they themselves become forgotten

the iranian poet photo faroxad's

landmark documentary short the house is

black transports us to a place we

wouldn't even dare to tread

a leper colony

taking those directly within the worlds

of these people it's shot with a sublime

poetic quality that both captures the

tragedy of this world yet elevates these

people to treat them with utmost respect

my

this is a world that we aim to forget

but farooq zad uses the documentary

medium as her tool of immortalizing this

world so that no matter how hard we aim

to avoid it it may persist longer than

we

our role becoming either that of someone

who fought for justice for the outcasts

of this world or one that allowed them

to be such

the house is black is a harrowing

experience displaying the horror of

human decay with the beauty of human

creation and like all great

documentaries it encapsulates the good

and the bad of the human condition

balancing the realism and the magic of

cinema

but even stories that are tied to a

certain time or culture still in one way

or another are connected to these

universal human stories

yet one documentary filmmaker whose

entire filmography is entrenched in the

politics of his homeland is wang bing

wang bing's work is a memento a way of

honoring the legacy of the chinese

people in both their history and their

strife

focusing primarily on the political

fallout of china in the 20th century his

works are epic ventures into the

cataclysmic effects on the world's

largest population yet he translates

these sentiments through focusing on the

smallest of gestures

his seminal work taishiku west of the

tracks is a nine hour piece examining

china's economic shift from complete

state control into a free market society

and the effect this has had on its

forgotten workers

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foreign

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high cq over the course of around two

and a half years and when did that time

he had the patience to capture on film a

paradigm shift the beginning of one new

world and the slow death of another his

use of extreme long takes with his

observational approach allows taishiku

to capture the scale and breadth of the

circumstances while also honing in on

how a geopolitical shift affects

families in their day-to-day activities

the work of wang bing in many ways are

all companion pieces to one another many

of his documentaries being over five

hours in length they attempt to shed

light on one of the most misunderstood

and constantly shifting cultures in the

world

a common thematic motif of bing is

exposing the remnants of the once maui

society and its attempts to ingratiate

itself within a modernized world while

at the same time attempting to lead it

bing's work has a sense that there is no

intrusion on the part of the filmmaker

that what's captured is the purest in

very similar tude to the real experience

yet this in itself is an artistic choice

aimed to highlight what's in front of us

a subtle way of asking us to pay closer

attention to what's really occurring

his piece feng ming a chinese memoir is

essentially a three-hour interview of a

woman discussing her time in the labor

camps on the mao

wang bing wants to capture in

documentary the grand and most recent

history in china's darkest chapters

yet at the same time always prioritizing

to condense the entirety of that history

to view how it fits into the story of a

humble individual

the self will always be a cornerstone of

artistic exploration for many they're

interested in the kaleidoscopic

interactions of people

for others the artist may inevitably

turn to their own self for deep

introspective explorations a la

fellini's eight and a half

however perhaps the ultimate cathartic

exploration into the artist's own story

is found in the work of jonas marcus

his magnum opus as i was moving ahead

occasionally i saw brief glimpses of

beauty can also be called a documentary

yet in truth it's closer to a

compilation work

the ecstasy of filming

just

filming life

around me

what i see

to what i react

to what my fingers my eyes react this

moment now

this moment when it's all happening

ah

what ecstasy

made at the age of 77 marcus compiled

together footage from his old home

movies in an attempt to reconstruct his

life the film footage we see spans over

the course of decades we watch marcus

grow from a young man into a father his

family members that have long passed and

every insignificant moment that in this

newfound context gathers an incredibly

beautiful meaning

for as we watch the film meccus watches

along with us speaking to us

i'm talking to you now

una

and sebastian

and hollis

i'm talking to you

now

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these are

my

memories

your memories of the same

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moment

if you will have any

you'll be very

different

this is how life was captured and how it

appeared through the eyes of meccas

now he's taking that footage with even

more context and reflection

this is a man's life curated by himself

for hair towards the final stages of his

life in his moments of deepest

reflection he sees not regret

all that's left is beauty

not beauty of any overwhelming kind but

the quiet understanding of those

fleeting tranquil moments in which so

much of life is made

ah my friends

the hours the evenings we spent together

that was

paradise

as time goes

as time goes

there is nothing more important

than good

friends

my friends

in the end we only have our memories

our memories are a completely new life

within themselves

his other diary films walden and

reminiscences of a journey to lithuania

are equally ethereal and beautiful

contemplations into trying to make sense

of one's life but finding oneself

content and being lost in the beauty

i do not

know how i managed to reach this point

how i have

reached this

point in my

life

but i continue moving ahead

slowly

moving ahead

and some glimpses of happiness and

beauty

come

my way

by chance

when i do not even expect it

comparisons to mecca's diary films can

also be found in jean-claude clauseau's

le faleclos in which rousseau takes

blocks of image from super 8 and with an

approach reminiscent to that of the

soviet masters

allows the relation of the images

between one another to denote their

meaning

rather than with intrusion

this is purest experimentation

the editing exercise being that if we

leave a film as it is and allow it to

construct itself what are the results

that will emerge

there's a humility in shooting in such

simple means however the valley close is

one of the more daring experiments with

the moving image and similar to the work

of meccas it's the serendipity of what's

captured that was unintended wherein

deep rooted magic is to be found

there's no dialogue no movement

just pure sensation

for it's one thing to birth an idea

within one's mind and it's another to

translate that for the artist can often

be the biggest boundary in the way of

their own ideas and similar again to how

fellini approached amacord we can view

suji terayama's pastoral to die in the

country

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at first what may appear to be japanese

surrealist work stretched out to the

highest levels of absurdity after a

prolonged setting into its bizarre logic

we begin to be able to find some sense

of deep metaphor within the film's

layers of symbology even if they feel

loose and disconnected

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now it would be appropriate to describe

what kind of narrative that a film as

surreal as pastoral is attempting to

convey however

this may be to the film's detriment

for it's only until almost halfway

through the film that the war between us

and the world of pastoral is shattered

and we begin to realize just what kind

of adventure we're in for

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pastoral to die in the country is

terrayama's take on subconscious

filmmaking

with all of its incredible compositions

over-the-top costumes and sets and

filmmaking techniques that appear

intentionally misplaced it would be

ignorant to disregard the technical

prowess of pastoral as just an excuse to

make surrealist images solely for

aesthetic grandeur this is a

sentimentality

the likes of which are present in the

dance of reality

if pastoral is the director's means of

remembering his past then up to what

point are they not truthful

if anything this is the only document

that exists of such a life

sequences within pastoral are so

personal to the filmmaker himself that

it seems strange to say

but this is the only rational way these

memories could be expressed

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they're exclusively his they have no

necessity to belong within the real

world the film allows these differing

modes of reality to blur within the

image

the reality of the film collapsing is

paradoxically the method in which it can

establish itself as artistic truth

the artist can be seen as the final

obstacle a piece must overcome for it to

reach its zenith but of course it's seen

as that for perhaps the best lessons on

the artist ingratiating themselves

within the work were in these seldom

spoke-off masterpieces

sometimes a work is forgotten because it

too closely resembles the uncomfortable

truths of the current state of the world

a film like sallow was so provocative in

its depiction of european fascism that

it's been etched in the annals of

cinematic history however a film that

predates sallow that's so true to life

we don't want to believe it to be so is

peter watkins's punishment park

if it's up to you kind of people we

would just shut down these factories

we'd burn them down we'd all go out and

panhandle in the street then what kind

of society would we have then

what kind of how would you how would you

feed people then

so you want us to work and support you

that's what you want

there's enough food enough wealth in

this country to take care of everyone in

this country if everybody there is

everyone around the

or to go around the streets and have

orgies all the time and sleep in the

streets i'm going around the streets

having orgies all the time you're not

huh burning down buildings i'm concerned

as you are about the direction of this

country

filmed as a fake documentary the

performances and structure may have you

believe that it's anything but

this is a film about the manner in which

the real world operates on the regimes

of control as a result authenticity is

one of the major ingredients of time

dismissal on what grounds constitutional

in particular first fourth fifth and

fourteenth amendment motion overruled

the [ __ ] you gonna overrule the

constitution

keep the defendant silent

and if it please the court i'd like to

introduce a motion to have each of the

defendant's convictions reviewed

separately what king's aim is to prod

you don't for one second think that just

because this is fiction that it isn't

happening right now and that precarious

barrier between the real world and the

film is one that's often questioned we

use force against them we will not take

any chances with these individuals

they've killed once i don't like to lose

men

did any of you know the deputy that was

killed

quite the opposite we're not doing this

for ourselves we're doing this for the

people who pay the taxes

watkins's approach is that of an

intensely provocative touch the

cinematic style is simple as that it

doesn't become distracting

thereby watching the piece

every infuriating twist of the knife

from those that abuse power can be felt

what punishment park is is the place

that people elect to go to so that they

don't have to go to a penitentiary to

serve a sentence for what's essentially

a baseless accusation on their statuses

as criminals

all they have to do is obey the rules

and finish the tasks set ahead of them

the object of this course is simple

you must evade capture by the pursuing

law enforcement officers and reach the

flag by the appointed time

that is to say 10 o'clock on the evening

the third day from now

yet in an enraging turn of events we

watch how no matter what our

protagonists do

they're not in control of the rules of

their circumstances

almost as if they can't win because the

game itself is rigged

punishment park opens with a meekly

blowing american flag in the distance

and its transgression of the documentary

genre never lets us forget that this is

a film about americans

all of them

famously the same year as punishment

park was the stamford prison experiment

in which normal people found themselves

as power-hungry maniacs ready to dish

out torture and humiliation onto others

but if the idea of a tyrannical force

ready to suppress any descent seems a

bit too hyperbolic due to its

controversial content punishment park

was denied distribution by all major

studios

a politician is nothing but a debater

all that you do is debate issues you fat

pig you meathead that's all that you are

because you are you are a flying sucker

you lying to the camera you lying to

your mama you lying to everybody but

every time you open up your mouth all

right

you know cause you ain't got no humanity

in

it's rare to grant a film the status of

ahead of its time yet punishment park

could be viewed as a film that paved the

way for the found footage genre

particularly combined with the lens of

intense violence

however another that would slot into the

space of any new wave magnum opus is uri

herze's the cremator

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much like punishment park the cremator

is an altogether unresting experience

yet rather than approaching the descent

into maddening behavior at the

sociological level we examine it from a

single deluded individual

one of the entries in a prominent czech

new wave the superb black and white

cinematography shot by stanislav milota

shot the film primarily in wide lenses

to give the shots of coffin-filled rooms

an overwhelming feeling

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the constant manipulation from behind

the camera unnerves and unsettles the

viewer to the point that they want to

completely reject the ugliness of this

film's main character the cremator

follows cattle a worker in a crematorium

who under the radicalization of europe

in the second world war devolves from a

well-intentioned man to a mass murderer

complicit in the genocide of

extermination camps the cremator is not

just a fascinating story of one man's

plunge into darkness it's an expertly

crafted piece of cinema taking editing

inspiration from yan svankmaya and even

the writings of satra we see glimpses of

hieronymus bosch and the stylistic

parallels to bunwell the cremator is

what's now referred to as a cult classic

yet it is in fact cinema of the highest

caliber

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and although we've seen films that were

bypassed or negated from their initial

release

this is not true with all of these

forgotten pieces

for example opagadoji promises by

ensemoduachi

is not only a masterpiece of brazilian

cinema it was the recipient of the 1962

palme d'or following a humble land owner

opagadoji promesis tells the story of

his donkey approaching death but the man

promises that if he survives then he

shall carry a cross on his back across

the country and offer the cross to a

priest bringing with it the expected

magic realist tones we expect from south

american cinema opaga doji promesus was

a landmark film appearing to even have

some influence on oazad balthazar a

still recognized milestone in cinema and

some oduachi's adaptation is solemn and

inspiring dealing with issues of faith

and sacrifice through beautifully

interwoven poetry

some parts near realist some parts

allegorical a rightfully celebrated work

of genius upon its release

so where did all that acclaim go

why did these films in the canon of

cinema

disappear

because knowledge is something that we

must maintain

we are the keepers of what tomorrow's

future will be

and if we don't decide to uphold the

bastions of our culture then it will be

decided for us

some films have not had enough time for

them to be recognized antoine de gato's

white noise has portrayed the depths of

the human experience through nothing

more than monologues and grim fragmented

cinematography jiashanki has become a

more renowned filmmaker yet his work

platform has yet to be recognized as

what it truly is one of the seminal

works of the century

other films suffered different fates

kon ichikawa's 1956 to burmese harp was

one of the most important japanese films

to date examining the effects of the

second world war from the perspective of

their own army yet the story only gained

the audience recognition it deserved

when it was remade in colour 30 years

later

some films are ahead of their time

audiences not ready to be exposed to

them others are just unfortunate but

regardless of what mistakes were made in

the role of film watchers

it's never too late to bring lost

greatness to the world

for great cinema will always be great

and it's our duty to ensure that it

remains as such

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you