How am I just seeing this? I certainly do! Haha
I’d recommend starting with Stalker. What were you thinking?
I like your choices too. I need to watch Greta Gerwig. Little Women looks so good! Agnès Varda is another. A friend recommended her to me.
What do you recommend by Ken Loach, Damien Chazelle, and Bong Joon-ho?
I just got my first films by Hayao Miyazaki the other day. I’m really looking forward to watching his work. I got Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind and My Neighbour Toroto.
I wrote that list late at night, and completely forgot that I’ve already seen Ivan’s Childhood. Some really striking compositions in that film. I own Stalker on blu-ray, so that probably will be my next port of call - then because I’m a sci-fi fan, I think I’ll watch Solaris next. I remember seeing a clip from the film - the long driving scene - which totally mesmerised me.
With Agnès Varda, I’d recommend you start with Cleo from 5 to 7, which is my favourite of her films. Ken Loach, start with Kes, then The Wind that Shakes the Barley (my favourite I think), and his most recent ones I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You are very good as well. Damien Chazelle, I honestly don’t think it matters where you start (I haven’t seen his debut, about the two people meeting on a park bench, yet though). Bong Joon-ho: I became interested in him after Parasite, then you could always go back to some of his earliest films like Memories of Murder. However, Snowpiercer from 2013 is a great companion film to Parasite: while Parasite visually depicts wealth inequality on a vertical scale, and in modern day Seoul, Snowpiercer visually depicts wealth inequality on a horizontal scale, and in a post-apocalyptic world. You’ll understand what I mean about vertical and horizontal if you see the films.
Oh! I need to see Ivan’s Childhood. It and Nostalghia are the two by him I’ve not seen. Do you happen to have the Criterion Blu Ray? I’ve heard very bad things about the Artificial Eye transfer. So I hope that’s not the version you have. Oh, Stalker like Solaris is Sci-Fi too but of a very different kind. That scene indeed is very mesmerising. Definitely one of my favourite moments from the film. Solaris was hard for me to get on my first viewing but I definitely want to watch it again. I think you’d equally enjoy The Sacrifice.
Here’s the trailer.
Funny I saw a post on socials today about Cleo and 5 to 7. The quote I saw really spoke to me. I’ll have to certainly make it my first film by her.
They all sound really intriguing and like my kind of films. Thank you for the recommendations. I’ll report back to you when I’ve watched one of them. 🙂