The Original Suspiria Is An Alright Movie With Exemplary Production Design

Before I spend two-and-a-half-hours this weekend seeing what the director of Call Me By Your Name has done with his horror remake of the same name, I felt it was high time to see what all the fuss was about the original Suspiria motion picture. Hailing from Italy and released in 1977, the film's reputation precedes it both in my social circles where people talk about it in reverent hushed responses and in the larger pop culture where its impact has become so immense that it even got mentioned twice in the 2007 Best Picture nominee Juno. The films larger influence on horror movies, in general, may be even greater than the praise it's received, the amount of horror fare that owes more than a tip of the hat to this Dario Argento directorial effort is unfathomable.

Journey To Italy Is A Quietly Tragic Romantic Drama NOT A Concert Movie About Journey Performing In Italy As I Thought

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #31
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #12

We have plenty of movies about people falling in love, with the subgenre thriving because of people of all genders getting to live vicariously through the characters on-screen engaging in a perfect romance they know can't possibly exist in the real world. There's plenty of those movies I like but I also tend to gravitate heavily towards movies with more realistic depictions of romance, specifically, one's that show people in either romantic partnerships or marriages that are crumbling and how that deteriorating relationship affects both people. That's why Richard Linklater's Before Midnight is so excellent, among many many other reasons!

L'avventura Wrung Character-Centric Drama Out Of A "Gone Girl" Before It Was Cool!

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #18
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #21

Each of our individual identities gets heavily informed by the people around us. When we're impressionable children, the behavior and characteristics displayed by our parents to be inherited by the children they raise while the de facto traits needed to be one of the "popular" people in High School is likely going to be imitated by those looking to obtain some sort of higher social status. This is one of those universal psychological quirks of us as a species that show easily susceptible we can be in order to gain acceptance from our fellow peers. For the two individuals at the center of L'avventura, the entire dynamic they share is upended when a woman they're both dearly close to goes missing under mysterious circumstances.

Few Movies Capture Aching Enveloping Loneliness Quite Like The Federico Fellini Masterpiece 8 1/2

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #14
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #10

Upon doing some internet-based research on director Federico Fellini, I stumbled upon this quote of his that says "All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography.". It's a surprisingly profound thought, wrapped around an easy-to-understand comparison that drives the entire point of the statement home. Art does tend to reflect the inner workings of its creators, their ideas, their ambitions, their viewpoints on the world they inhabit. That's what makes exploring art so much fun from an analytical perspective; it's incredibly exciting to probe idiosyncratic artists and the art they create to express their innermost thoughts.

Bicycle Thieves Ponders How Far You'll Go To Protect What Little You Have

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #12
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #33

Right from its opening scene, Bicycle Thieves has a remarkable talent for plunging the viewer into the desperation soaked world its lead character lives in. Dozens of human beings crowd around one man whose handing out job assignments, with all of these people eagerly hoping they can get an assignment that'll ensure they and their families will be able to eat in the coming days. Their entire lives hinge on one human being, this guy assigning people to certain tasks. It's insane to imagine one's fate being solely determined by a singular person, but that's very much the reality for all of these people.

La Dolce Vita Is An Incredible Glimpse Into Human Depravity

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #11
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #39

And now it is time once again for me to discover another hugely influential filmmaker whose work I've somehow been totally ignorant of until now. This time, it's Federico Fellini, the Italian writer/director behind a number of the most acclaimed motion pictures of all-time. It is his 1960 movie La Dolce Vita that serves as my introduction to this man's work, and after viewing La Dolce Vita, I can say that I am ravenous for other pieces of Federico Fellini's filmmaker. Good Lord, this guy has an incredible skill as a filmmaker, something incredibly evident from his work here in La Dolce Vita.

The Battle Of Algiers Is A Grim Look At The Enduring Nature Of A Resistance

One of the best things about watching a number of older foreign motion pictures is that many of these titles offer me the chance to explore aspects of other countries histories that I have only heard about passing or never even knew existed, Jean Renoir's The Rules Of The Game was a good example of this, a 1939 motion picture that clued me in on the societal issues of that day and age in France. The subject of this movie review, the 1966 film The Battle Of Algiers, is another strong example of this phenomenon, centering itself on an eight year long North Africa conflict that I had no idea even transpired.