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Missing by Costa-Gavras - 1982

Drawn directly from real life events, Missing chronicles the search for Charles Horman, a leftist American expatriate swallowed up by the Chilean coup of 1973.  His wife, played by Sissy Spacek, is naturally another leftist who has become accustomed to the human rights violations of the Chilean military.  And his father, played by Jack Lemmon, is a conservative New York businessman annoyed at having to waste time in Chile looking for his radical son.  The father and the wife clash early on, especially as he puts too much stock in the efforts of the US Embassy and the Chilean government, institutions he's used to believing in, while she knows all too well the truth of Chile's current regime.  As you'd expect, the two come to know and love one another as they continue their fruitless search for their loved one.  Meanwhile, we are treated to harrowing sequences that put us firmly in the camp of the leftists:  Spacek hurrying home after curfew as a stranger in a similar situation is gunned down for no reason, friends of theirs are arrested and killed (the father believed the newspaper's testimony that they were released until learning otherwise in a brilliant scene), a helicopter floats by their hotel window, etc.  At first I was confused by the immersion, for we are thrown into the story without exposition, but soon enough everything was made clear, and I appreciated the decision to not sugar-coat this horror.  Lemmon and Spacek are phenomenal here, especially in their short speeches, but what they do with silence is just as powerful. 

Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni - 1966

Blow-Up is a strange little piece about art and perception and reality, but let me start at the beginning.  The opening features a bunch of kids cheering and flailing as they drive recklessly through London past our protagonist, a photographer played by David Hemmings.  An hour later comes the inciting incident, where Hemmings photographs Vanessa Redgrave and her lover only to discover a surprise upon developing the film.  But the movie is never boring.  Antonioni gives us plenty of time to establish mod London, and the movie itself plays with frames and color the way a painter might.  In addition to photography, the movie dabbles in sculpture, music, mime, artforms interested in understanding truth.  I appreciated the ominous atmosphere, from Hemmings' violent photo book to the anti-war demonstrators, but most of all, the film's focus on teleology enraptured me.  Some men are politicians or firemen, Hemmings says, but he's a photographer.  Meanwhile, he buys a propeller to use as a stationary sculpture, and when he tries to take it home in his convertible, the antique lady observes that his car is not a delivery truck.  Everything has a purpose, and fulfilling that purpose is integral to the harmony of the grand design.  If that sounds too arty, this may not be the movie for you, but if you're interested in exploring a philosophical playground with an Italian master, prepare for the least exciting murder mystery ever. 

In Bruges by Martin McDonagh - 2008

It's unfortunate that the marketing campaign for In Bruges postures it as a cross between Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the latest Guy Ritchie joint, because that doesn't nearly convey the depth of the film.  A tale of two hit men hiding out after a hit, one young and impetuous ("If I'd grown up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me"), and one enjoying the sights, the travelogue aspect of In Bruges works beautifully.  The town is straight out of a fairy tale, and it's set during Christmas, and the snow falls softly as the pair grapple with life and death and children and Catholicism.  It's to Martin McDonagh's credit that, in the midst of conveying the pointlessness of moral (and religious) absolutism, the script has no problem breaking into a bout of black comedy.  I also loved McDonagh's tracking shot, which is absolutely dramatically necessary and is manifestly not showy, as Touch of Evil plays on the television in the background.  Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes are as phenomenal as expected, but it's Colin Farrell who turns heads with a believable, fearless performance that is certainly among his best.  The highest compliment I can pay the film is that, the day after watching it, as I skimmed for screencaps, I wanted to watch the entire movie again.  Bruges will do that to you. 

Breaking Away by Peter Yates - 1979

I can't believe I'd never heard of this, another hidden classic that you can't help but love.  Don't be fooled by the cover--it's touted as a cycling movie--for this is a heartwarming story of four American kids in their senior year trying to figure out what to do with their lives.  The main kid, played by Dennis Christopher, is a cycling champion who speaks limited Italian in honor of his favorite cycling team, and his cheerfulness is infectious.  He's a dreamer with the skills to accomplish his goals, though his parents argue about how to deal with his unusual ambitions.  Meanwhile, his friends are also facing their futures with ennui.  Dennis Quaid gets in fights with the local college jocks, and Jackie Earle Haley and Daniel Stern postpone decisions with girls and jokes.  Breaking Away is more engaging than I make it sound--you'll fall in love immediately--and it fits perfectly into the grand tradition of I Vitelloni in the '50s and Kicking and Screaming in the '90s.

Interiors by Woody Allen - 1978

Woody Allen's follow-up to Annie Hall is his first drama, a smothering family piece that expertly uses houses as metaphors for family.  In fact, Allen begins the film with shots of a seemingly empty house, gradually revealing the hidden, silent women inside.  Overbearing matriarch Eve, played by Geraldine Page, first shows up fussing about her son-in-law's minimalist decor, and we immediately get a sense of how she raised her three daughters.  Soon enough, Eve's distant husband, with whom she foolishly tries to reconcile, demands a divorce, and the rest of the movie watches as the characters cope with the news.  Like many Allen movies, he's clearly inspired by Bergman here, especially 1972's Cries and Whispers, a worthy source for an excellent, underrated drama. 

Letter from an Unknown Woman by Max Ophüls - 1948

While we open with a narration that announces something like, "If you're reading this, it's probably too late," Ophuls' Letter from an Unknown Woman is one of the most romantic movies I've seen.  Naturally most of the film is told in flashback as we wonder how a man could mean so much to a woman he barely remembers.  As it turns out, the letter's writer is a young woman who pined for him from afar.  That is, until one night, when the pair spent the evening wandering Vienna and falling in love.  Circumstances forced their later separation, but that night is given the heft of the film's running time, endowing their romance with the necessary weight for the tragedy we know is coming.  Ophuls' direction is masterful, and I wish more of his work were easily accessible.  Of course, Joan Fontaine and Louis Jordan, as the lovers, are splendid, and watching them dance in a deserted ballroom stirs up such romance that you can't help but root for them.  Vienna, too, plays a major role, and the settings are exquisite, particularly the wrought iron spiral staircase Fontaine regularly climbs at her apartment.  Richard Linklater borrowed the plot and setting for his masterpiece Before Sunrise, and I hope that movie's fans look to its inspiration to discover a lesser known gem.

Shame (Skammen) by Ingmar Bergman - 1968

Shame is Ingmar Bergman's examination of war, following a young couple at home on an island enduring an invasion force from an unnamed enemy.  The husband, played by Max von Sydow, is a pacifist who is nearly debilitated by his immersion in the world of violent soldiers, while the wife, played by Liv Ullman, is a pragmatist whose sole concern is their survival and escape.  But I'm not going to discuss the plot further.  One of my favorite images from Bergman's filmography (and I've now seen all the hits except the biggie, Fanny and Alexander), occurs as their part of the island faces a harrowing bombing.  As the couple crouch down against a wall, obscured by the falling dust and debris, von Sydow covers his head with his hand.  After a few seconds, the bombs still falling, the couple still unable to see, Ullman reaches up and grabs his wrist.  All we can see is the top of his head and their hands reaching out to each other for dear life, but it's one of the most meaningful sequences in one of Bergman's best (and most underappreciated) movies. 

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by Martin Ritt - 1965

Martin Ritt's postwar spy movie is effectively an anti-spy movie--in the same sense that The Shooting is an anti-western.  I'm not talking about the movie making a value judgment about the business of espionage, but rather how it shows the real world spies live in.  Far from Bondesque superheroes, Cold War intelligentsia operated slowly and methodically, building identities and doing business--which consists of talking rather than shooting--over drinks in a public venue.  The story follows Richard Burton's spy, an alcoholic in the best noir tradition, as he appears to wash out of intelligence and cozy up to some local communists in order to determine the identity of the mole in the British unit.  The characters weave in and out of the story like players on a gameboard, controlled by unseen higher-ups willing to sacrifice them in order to win, but the star here is the controlled hand of Martin Ritt, who immerses us in a stark Berlin night and pushes us through the darker sectors of the Cold War.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser by Werner Herzog - 1974

Based on one of those bizarre true stories, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser sees Bruno S. play a man who has been in captivity since birth finally released into a German village in 1828.  He has never encountered other people or animals or buildings or trees, and he knows only a sentence.  But that's not quite accurate, as he only repeats the sentence; he does not really know language at all.  Fortunately, he is taken in by the townspeople, educated, and taught the rules of polite society.  Herzog's direction is, as always, fantastic, especially in the opening moments, where, as in Aguirre: The Wrath of God, we are treated to a sequence of light, atmospheric nature photography, and in the dreams of Kaspar Hauser, grainier and less polished than the film's "reality."  While in his cellar, he never dreamed, which makes him all the more excited to experience dreams now.  The direct translation of the German title is "Every Man for Himself, and God Against All," hinting at Kaspar's simultaneously wise and naive lack of comprehension of God.  Kaspar views the world differently from everyone in town--he believes a fallen apple is deliberately hiding in the grass, he believes dreams are transitive occurrences acting on him, and he cunningly passes a logic test by thinking outside the box--so it's almost a shame to see him learn to become more like everyone else, although without language, we would not be treated to the clear-minded depth of Kaspar's expressions about the world.  It's fitting that the nation of Frankenstein's monster would play home to a real-life version, albeit one where the townspeople are not afraid of the monster, and Herzog's film honors Shelley's classic in every frame.

Stroszek by Werner Herzog - 1977

Herzog's quirky American exploration sees Bruno S. play a version of himself who, along with a prostitute and their kind, old neighbor, moves to America to start a new life.  Bruno has just been released from prison and warned to stop drinking, and after helping Eva (the prostitute), her former pimps regularly beat and humiliate them.  Fortunately, their neighbor, the slightly deluded Scheitz, is moving to Wisconsin to live with his nephew, so Bruno and Eva join him in order to get away from their problems.  Of course, Herzog's America focuses on the mundane, but the poetic beauty remains.  This is not a nation of the Declaration of Independence, but one of "No Pets" signs on cash registers.  Instead of exploring grand New York City or neoclassical Washington, D.C., Bruno, Eva, and Scheitz wind up in a rural working class town.  Really, what could be more American?  But things turn sour, as Bruno expected, his first ill omen arriving when customs confiscates his myna bird, the reasons for which poor Bruno doesn't comprehend.  Bruno S. is a revelation, a non-actor whose background is worked into the character's, and I am heartbroken that he only acts in two films, both of which I've now seen.  Stroszek is always beautiful, whether we're watching Bruno play a glockenspiel and accordion in the middle of a Berlin courtyard or seeing Bruno take a lonely road trip toward the end, but it is also incessantly sad and strange.  But Herzog has tapped into some ignored truths in Stroszek:  that America is run on money, that misfortune usually comes from other people, that companionship makes hardship bearable, that freedom is an absurd illusion (Herzog and Bruno S. illustrate this perfectly in the final scene), and that our most innate reflex is to hold on tight. 

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