This decade's Sight and Sound Greatest Films poll has finally had its results published and whilst most people understandably don't care about this I ended up on the verge of happy tears looking at it because the 2012 poll had zero films directed by women in the Top 20 and this decade's poll has four, including the very top film on the list being directed by Chantal Akerman. Seeing women filmmakers being given more attention and credit gives me many good feels.
Also can't help but go full-autism mode on the list as a whole, changes vs the 2012 version, comparing/contrasting the 2022 critics poll vs the directors one etc...
- A Woman Under the Influence, Raging Bull and The Godfather Part II all show up in the Top 30 on the directors list, but don't appear in the Top 100 for the critics list. I've not compared the number of American films on each list but I assume the directors list must just lean more American also
- Daisies and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (both very surprising inclusions that I'm excited to check out) are the two films to show up in the Top 30 of the critics list and yet not in the Top 100 of the directors list, and both represent quite how big a push there was in voting towards women directors in this decade's poll
- Black directors have also been much more represented on this iteration of the list compared with a decade ago, and I think this is the first time an African film has ever broken into the Top 100?
- Never would have expected Beau travail to break the Top 20 on both lists but also wow that film rules and I'm thrilled to see it crush
- Whilst there are individual details about the list that maybe don't resonate with me I think a lot of the broad trends in changes are very good and it's nice to see the film canon shifting in a direction that is a bit less white and a bit less male
Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit that's rad! A friend of mine invited me to watch this in early 2021 and it's a very surreal film that I still think about from time to time, it's really cool to see that it ended up so high on the list!
The blurb is kind of underselling the movie but the full page does a better job. It's basically two women going "fuck it, we ball" on everything they can manage in a series of shorts across 90 minutes. It's gorgeous and funny and truly weird as hell. Men get used for their status constantly, there's a giant food fight at one point... I can barely remember it (the plot + style don't lend well to linear narrative) but now I really wanna watch it again.
