So I got back on the band wagon in May and managed to watch almost a movie a day. I saw quite a few foreign films and shorts this month. As always, you can watch all my reviews for the films here on YouTube and after the cut I have all the films I watched, plus I highlight my five favorites that I watched.

1. Ride
2. Afternoon Delight
3. Grdzeli nateli dgeebi (In Bloom)
4. Lemale et ha’halal (Fill The Void)
5. Herbie: Fully Loaded
6. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
7. Things We Lost in the Fire
8. Every Secret Thing
9. Bessie
10. Things Behind The Sun
11. Slums of Beverly Hills
12. Peeples
13. The Secret Life of Bees
14. Jeg er din (I Am Yours)
15. Wuthering Heights (2011)
16. L’opéra-mouffe
17. Better Than Chocolate
18. Welcome to Me
19. Wanda
20. Tank Girl
21. Archipelago
22. Tirez la langue, mademoiselle (Miss and the Doctors)
23. Krylya (Wings)
24. Lick the Star
25. Walking and Falling
26. A Girl’s Own Story
27. Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight
28. Gemma Bovery

1880s: 0
1890s: 0
1900s: 0
1910s: 0
1920s: 0
1930s: 0
1940s: 0
1950s: 1
1960s: 1
1970s: 1
1980s: 1
1990s: 4
2000s: 5
2010s: 15

Lemale et ha’halal (Fill The Void), 2012 (dir. Rama Burshtein)

The more I think about this film the more I love it. It’s not really like anything I’ve seen before and sheds some insight on a culture that I don’t know anything about. The story is simple, but the performances are so affecting that they sneak under your skin and stay with you long after you’re done watching the film.

Things We Lost in the Fire, 2007 (dir. Susanne Bier)

I guess this one wasn’t well received by critics and especially by those who are sick of Bier’s filmmaking style, but I really dig her close-ups of faces and eyes and quick cuts and lingering on objects. I think she has a very distinct point of view as artist, both in the themes she explores, but also in her aesthetics. That said, the main reason this film really stuck with me was Benicio Del Toro’s performance. He is at the top of his game in this film. He can emote so much without saying a word.

Slums of Beverly Hills, 1998 (dir. Tamara Jenkins)

This is a raunchy, frank, goofy coming-of-age set in 1970s Los Angeles and I loved every minute of it. It’s very different from Jenkins’s Oscar-nominated film The Savages, but knowing she can delivery both of these films makes me wish she made more than one film a decade.

Wanda, 1970 (dir. Barbara Loden)

This movie is amazing. This is the only movie Barbara Loden ever managed to make and it is a masterpiece. She’s a real auteur; she produced, wrote, directed and starred in this semi-autobiographical look at a drifting woman in coal country. There’s a lot of really great articles about this film that I recommend you read after you watch it. Also, there’s an interview with Loden (and John & Yoko!) on YouTube where she talks about the film that is just awe-inspiring.

Krylya (Wings), 1966 (dir. Larisa Shepitko)

Another film with a very simple narrative, but one that explores complex emotions and ideas, and rests on one power-house performance from lead Maya Bulgakova. The film is one of only six feature films Larisa Shepitko directed before dying in a car accident while location scouting. I can’t wait to explore the rest of her films.

So that was May. There are several features coming out in June and July that I am looking forward to. As always, I’ll keep tweeting on Fridays about the new releases by women. I’m about to hit the half-way mark with this little experiment. How delicious!