In Internet there are lists of everything and everyone. Movie lists were not going to be an exception: prescribers we can turn to to enrich our movie culture. One of the best apps for finding specific movie lists is letterboxd. And in it we have found a very curious, and at the same time valuable: the one elaborated by the Harvard Fil PhD Program. In it we will find non-experimental films that the prestigious university recommends for students of the Doctorate in Film and Visual Studies.
Among all of them, we have chosen five that aren’t big hits and they have not even agreed to specialized criticism. So that in the end you take into account that the cinephile criteria is as personal and subjective as each person exists in the world.
The Tree of Life (2011)
A film with which to touch the sky, an absolute masterpiece. Terrence Malick’s swan song (he has not surpassed this one again with any of his subsequent titles) is the attempt to capture what does life mean for the human being. Pretentious? In the eyes of many yes. Instead, I prefer to describe it as ambitious. Does it achieve its goal? This already depends on each one. It is available on Movistar Plus and on Filmin. A poem in images that even dares to stage the origin of the universe. Big words.
United Red Army (2007)
Japan has not been characterized as a country with great terrorist activity. However, during the 1970s, the united red army He wanted to contradict that statement. The film consists of three acts: it begins with the student riots of the 1960s with archival footage; It is followed by the formation of the terrorist group in the mountains of the south of the country, in which the cruelty with which they murdered the members of the group themselves for petty infractions is described; ends with the splinter group after two members went on the run. A key film in Japanese cinematography, directed by the veteran Kōji Wakamatsu (director of the pinku eiga Go, Go Second Virgin), and with a duration of 190 minutes. It is not available on any platform.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)
Romanian cinema is characterized by touching very lurid subjects in the best possible way, in addition to the long duration of its films. The death of Mr. Lazarescu is about an old man who goes to the hospital because he feels bad and from there they are moving him to other places, without receiving the specialized care he deserves. And it lasts 153 minutes. This black comedy by Cristi Puiu won the Best Film award at Cannes 2005 in the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section and is available on Filmin.
Talk to her (2005)
Which for many is the best movie of Pedro Almodóvar is one of Harvard’s recommendations for its students. With the recent premiere of the short film Extraña forma de vida, it may be good to remember this story of love and death starring a comatose Leonor Watling, the injured bullfighter Rosario Flores, Javier Cámara, who plays a nurse who falls in love with the sick woman, and Darío Grandinetti. Available on Netflix and for rent on Filmin.
Love Dogs (2000)
The first film by the Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu offered us a collage of tremendous stories in Mexico City, in which a car accident It involved three people. A violent and crude example of the subgenre of crossed lives, starring Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo and Álvaro Guerrero, among others. Available on Movistar Plus and Filmin.