MC Consensus: Nordic Countries

[Spinal]

Submit your FIVE TO TEN favorite films from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Iceland and .... eventually .... I will give you a top TEN TO TWENTY. Films should have one of these countries listed as a country of origin in IMDb. Hopefully, I won't have to make a ruling on this and it will be self-policing. But the purpose of the thread is to specifically address films that are from one of the Nordic Countries.

The point system is as follows

1st Place- 10 points
2nd Place - 8 points
3rd Place - 7 points
4th Place - 6 points
5th Place - 5 points
6th Place - 4.5 points
7th Place - 4 points
8th Place - 3.5 points
9th Place - 3 points
10th Place - 2.5 points

(Point system is weighted to give your top film a boost and to minimize the discrepancy between the films in the bottom half of your list.)

There will be no restrictions on short films. A list must have ten films to be eligible. If you list more than ten films, I will assume that the top ten films are the ones you want to receive points. If you do not list your films 1-10, I will assign the points from the top on down.

If you decide to edit your ballot, please make a new post indicating the changes. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

If, for some reason, you would like to like to submit your ballot via private message, I will accept those as well. However, your ballot will be revealed after the final results are posted.

You may begin now.

[Spinal]

See first post for eligible countries. Once again, I will be accepting ballots of 5-10 films.

[Spinal]

1. Breaking the Waves
2. Dancer in the Dark
3. Songs from the Second Floor
4. Winter Light
5. Dogville
6. The Virgin Spring
7. The Celebration
8. The Seventh Seal
9. Day of Wrath
10. Let the Right One In

Apologies to Manderlay, Antichrist, Fucking Amal, Together, Hour of the Wolf, Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage, Wild Strawberries, Persona, etc., etc.

[Lazlo]

1. Scenes From a Marriage
2. Fanny and Alexander
3. Let the Right One In
4. The Act of Killing
5. Force Majeure
6. Lilya 4-Ever
7. The Look of Silence
8. Manderlay
9. Zero Kelvin
10. Oslo, August 31st

Added the Oppenheimer films.

[Melville]

Now we're talking.

1. Edvard Munch
2. Ordet
3. Persona
4. Cries and Whispers
5. Fanny and Alexander
6. Hour of the Wolf
7. The Act of Killing
8. The Look of Silence
9. Force Majeure
10. Oslo, August 31st

11. The Seventh Seal
12. Let the Right One In
13. Nymphomaniac Vol I
14. Breaking the Waves
15. A Swedish Love Story
16. Dogville
17. Miss Julie
18. Songs from the Second Floor
19. Gertrud
20. Assorted Lars von Trier movies

[Spinal]

Now we're talking.


Yeah, this is probably my favorite region. So many great films I had to leave out.

[Grouchy]

Really? More than Italy?

1. The Seventh Seal
2. Persona
3. The Virgin Spring
4. Pelle the Conqueror
5. Dancer in the Dark
6. Häxan: Withcraft through the Ages
7. Cries and Whispers
8. Let the Right One In
9. The Idiots
10. The Bohemian Life

[Spinal]

Oops. I forgot The Celebration.

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
2. The Virgin Spring (1960)
3. The Phantom Carriage (1921)
4. The Sacrifice (1986)
5. Ingeborg Holm (1913)
6. Lilya 4-Ever (2002)
7. The Celebration (1998)
8. Shame (1968)
9. Dancer in the Dark (2000)
10. Play (2011)

[ContinentalOp]

1. Ariel
2. The Man Without a Past
3. The Virgin Spring
4. Hamlet Goes Business
5. Leningrad Cowboys Go America
6. The Seventh Seal
7. Pusher II
8. The Match Factory Girl
9. Pusher
10. Let the Right One In

[Gizmo]

1. Let the Right One In
2. My Life as a Dog
3. Nymphomaniac Vol. 1
4. Melancholia
5. Dogville
6. Persona
7. The Act of Killing
8. Nymphomaniac Vol. 2

[baby doll]

The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöstrom, 1921)
Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)
Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964)
A Passion (Ingmar Bergman, 1969)
Drifting Clouds (Aki Kaurismäki, 1996)
Songs From the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, 2000)
The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismäki, 2002)
Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, 2014)

[Yxklyx]

1. The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
2. Songs from the Second Floor (Andersson)
3. Fucking Åmål (Moodysson)
4. Pelle the Conqueror (August)
5. Lilya 4-Ever (Moodysson)
6. The Celebration (Vinterberg)
7. Breaking the Waves (von Trier)
8. The Hunt (Vinterberg)
9. The Element of Crime (von Trier)
10. Scenes from a Marriage (Bergman)

Honorable Mentions: Medea (Von Trier), My Life as a Dog (Hallström)

[Peng]

1. Fucking Amal
2. The Celebration
3. Persona
4. Dogville
5. Dancer in the Dark
6. Force Majeure
7. The Virgin Spring
8. Let the Right One In
9. The Hunt
10. We Are the Best!

[dreamdead]

1. Ordet
2. Breaking the Waves
3. Shame
4. Scenes from a Marriage
5. The Celebration
6. The Act of Killing
7. Persona
8. Oslo, August 31st
9. The Virgin Spring
10. Force Majeure

One of the great regions, for sure.

[Spinal]

Lots of films getting strong support this time around. We could have a shot at a top 20 this time around with a few more ballots.

[Stay Puft]

I forgot about this. Lemme take a crack at a quick five:

1. Oslo, August 31st
2. The Act of Killing
3. Fucking Amal
4. The Virgin Spring
5. Songs from the Second Floor

I need to see more from Bergman, Dreyer, etc. I'm woefully lacking here.

[Raiders]

Don't have too much to add to the same films that are being mentioned already... I'm even throwing LVT a bone for his one true masterpiece.

1. Persona (1966)
2. Fucking Amal (1998)
3. Edvard Munch (1974)
4. Day of Wrath (1943)
5. Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
6. Dogville (2003)
7. Drifting Clouds (1996)
8. Together (2000)
9. Ordet (1955)
10. Oslo, August 31st (2011)

[Melville]

3. Edvard Munch (1974)
Nice.

[Spinal]

#20

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/220px-Lilya_4-ever_poster_zpsztnqqixe.jpg
You can't buy me. You can't buy my heart and soul.


Lilya 4-Ever

Director: Lukas Moodysson

Year: 2002

Sixteen-year-old Lilja and her only friend, Volodja, live in Estonia, fantasizing about a better life. One day, Lilja falls in love with Andrej, who is going to Sweden, and invites Lilja to come along.

Won 5 Guldbagge Awards (Swedish film industry awards) including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Actress (Oksana Akinshina). Also nominated for Best Actor (Artyom Bogucharskiy).
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Akinshina and Moodysson had to communicate through an interpreter because Oksana spoke neither English nor Swedish at the time.

"It's a long way to the bottom, even from the lower depths, and with Lilya 4-Ever, Moodysson captures the wrenching vertigo of an accidental look down." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

[Spinal]

#18 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/584b9ae5025e4c30b09f4cde6a79c5 af_zpsa9k2oqwy.jpg
Lord, please let my soul come to maturity before it is reaped.


The Phantom Carriage

Director: Victor Sjöström

Year: 1921

It's New Year's Eve. Three drunkards evoke a legend. The legend tells that the last person to die in a year, if he is a great sinner, will have to drive the Phantom Chariot during the whole year, the one that picks up the souls of the dead.

Based on the novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! (1912), by Nobel prize-winning Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf.

The film was a powerful influence on Ingmar Bergman who also utilized the figure of Death in The Seventh Seal. Bergman cast Sjöström in the leading role for Wild Strawberries, which also features references to the film. Bergman has said that he first saw it at 15 and watched it at least once every year.

"The special handmade visual beauty of The Phantom Carriage has never been equaled. When Georges drives to a rocky seashore to pick up a woman who has drowned after a wreck, the coach glides through the crashing waves. When he goes down into the sea to get her, the effect of the ghostly figure under the swirling water is delirious, a hallucination of drunkenness. The film itself is drunk. The carriage is an emblem for cinema as a phantom form capable of the documentary (Lumière) and the imaginary (Méliès) at the same time." - Paul Mayersberg, screenwriter of The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Eureka, and Croupier

[Mysterious Dude]

For once, I'm glad Baby Doll posts his lists in chronological order.

[Spinal]

#18 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/munch_poster_sm_zps8p0oxzdz.jp g
I felt as if invisible threads from her hair still twisted themselves around me. And, when she completely disappeared there, over the ocean, then I felt still how it hurt, where my heart bled, because the threads could not be broken.


Edvard Munch

Director: Peter Watkins

Year: 1974

Following a rough chronology from 1884 to 1894, when Norwegian artist Edvard Munch began expressionism and established himself as northern Europe's most maligned and controversial artist.

Won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Foreign Program.

The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition.

"Not only does it dare to approximate a documentary—narration, direct-camera address—as Watkins has always done, the film also places industrial-age class injustice, including the small matter of pervasive child labor, in the foreground so relentlessly that Munch himself often disappears into the social weft ... Meanwhile, the film's angry gravity and smoky visuals create an indelible period ambiance, and the fidelity to both the art and the people surrounding it is breathtaking. If you're starving for a masterwork, this may be the only one playing the city as we speak." - Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice, 2005

[Spinal]

#17

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Day_of_Wrath-547750005-large_zpso1vufzp8.jpg
There is nothing so quiet as a heart that has ceased to beat.


Day of Wrath

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Year: 1943

The young wife of an aging priest falls in love with his son amidst the horror of a merciless witch hunt in 17th century Denmark.

Named one of the year's 10 best films by the National Board of Review.

When it premiered, the film received poor reviews and was unsuccessful financially, with many Danes complaining about the film's slow pace. It later gained a better critical reputation after World War II. While Dreyer denied the film was about the Nazis, during the war it had resonated with the Danish resistance movement.

"Day of Wrath may be the greatest film ever made about living under totalitarian rule. Astonishing in its artistically informed period re-creation as well as its hypnotic mise en scene (with some exceptionally eerie camera movements), it challenges the viewer by suggesting at times that witchcraft isn't so much an illusion as an activity produced by intolerance. And like Dreyer's other major films, it's sensual to the point of carnality. I can't think of another 40s film that's less dated." - Jonathan Rosenbaum

[Spinal]

#16

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/faef212c36dabd011eff36762700e6 12_f4990_zpsnyj2qsmh.jpg
There's nothing in your head that you haven't said!


Force Majeure

Director: Ruben Östlund

Year: 2014

A family on a ski holiday in the French Alps find themselves staring down an avalanche during lunch one day; in the aftermath, their dynamic has been shaken to its core, with a question mark hanging over their patriarch in particular.

Won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes.
Won 6 Guldbagge Awards including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor (Kristofer Hivju). Nominated for 4 others.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes.
Nominated for Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTAs.
Nominated for Best International Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Despite being a winter film, the recurring main music theme of the movie is from Antonio Vivaldi's Summer Concerto.

"What makes Force Majeure much more than a clinically accurate depiction of a middle-class marriage in crisis is its keen understanding of how, in modern civilization, people increasingly imagine that they can control nature. But what about human nature? Until it smacks them in the face, they ignore their irrational, atavistic drives. No matter how well we talk the talk of technological mastery and rationality, there are crazy parts of us that remain beyond the reach of language to explain or resolve." - Stephen Holden, The New York Times

[Spinal]

#15

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Scener-Ur-Ett-C4ktenskap_zps04hkudqj.jpg
We're emotional illiterates.


Scenes from a Marriage

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Year: 1973

Ten years of Marianne and Johan's relationship as they separate, engage in extramarital affairs, bond, re-bond and eventually divorce.

Won Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes. Also nominated for Best Actress - Drama (Liv Ullmann).
Nominated for Best Actress (Ullmann) at the BAFTAs.
Won 4 awards from the National Society of Film Critics including Best Film, Best Actres (Ullmann), Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Bibi Andersson).
Won Best Actress (Ullmann) and Best Screenplay at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Due to the original miniseries version being telecast in Sweden, the film version was ineligible for the Oscars.

Ingmar Bergman gave options to the actors and crews to choose between receiving salary or percentage share from the TV series profit. Liv Ullmann chose salary since Cries and Whispers was a financial failure, while Erland Josephson chose percentage share. Scenes from a Marriage ended up being internationally popular and financially successful. According to Ullmann, this was one of the things she most regretted in her life.

"In Scenes from a Marriage, Mr. Bergman is examining the molecular structure of a human relationship. You think you've seen it before, but every time you see it, it's new, which is one of the things about love. Like a laboratory model of a molecule, the design is complex and beautiful in a purely abstract way, but the film is also intensely, almost unbearably moving." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times

[Spinal]

#14

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Dogville_zpsfdhr7xqr.jpg
Dogs can be taught many useful things, but not if we forgive them every time they obey their own nature.


Dogville

Director: Lars von Trier

Year: 2003

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado town. In exchange, she agrees to work for them. As a search visits town, she finds out that their support has a price.

Won Best Film at the Bodil Awards (Danish Film Industry Awards). Also nominated for Best Actress (Nicole Kidman) and Best Supporting Actor (Stellan Skarsgård).
Won the Palm Dog at Cannes (Moses).
Nominated for Best European Union Film at the César Awards.

The introductory scene was in fact generated by a computer from 156 individual shots. The ceiling of the filming studio was actually not tall enough to make one single, wide shot from above possible.

"To [Lars von Trier], democracy is just another form of exploitation, veiled by a false egalitarian spirit: As an outsider, Kidman labors without any hope of eventually fitting in, exposing the myth that hard work leads to social advancement ... No one puts himself in the center of an argument like von Trier, and Dogville provides mountains of grist for fans and detractors alike." - Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

[Spinal]

#13

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Bjork-Dancer-In-The-Dar-324254_zpsngtldlbl.jpg
In a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens.


Dancer in the Dark

Director: Lars von Trier

Year: 2000

An east European girl goes to America with her young son, expecting it to be like a Hollywood film.

Won the Palme d'Or and Best Actress (Björk) at Cannes.
Nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars ("I've Seen It All").
Nominated for Best Actress - Drama (Björk) and Best Original Song ("I've Seen It All") at the Golden Globes.
Won Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won Best Actress (Björk) at the Bodil Awards. Also nominated for Best Film.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Won Best European Film at the Goya Awards.
Won a Special Citation (Outstanding Dramatic Music Performance - Björk) from the National Board of Review.

After shooting, the film's prison set was painted pink and used as the main set for Zentropa's hardcore porno film Pink Prison.

"Dancer in the Dark is not like any other movie at the multiplex this week, or this year. It is not a 'well made film,' is not in 'good taste,' is not 'plausible' or, for many people, 'entertaining.' But it smashes down the walls of habit that surround so many movies. It returns to the wellsprings. It is a bold, reckless gesture." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#12

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/v2wo01_zps93tabujl.jpg
Look at my life. I'm 34 years old. I've got nothing.


Oslo, August 31st

Director: Joachim Trier

Year: 2011

One day in the life of Anders, a young recovering drug addict, who takes a brief leave from his treatment center to interview for a job and catch up with old friends in Oslo.

Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Won Best Film and Best Cinematography at the Stockholm Film Festival.

The movie is very loosely based on the French book Le feu follet, a 1931 novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle.

"Trier delivers a quiet, haunting masterpiece, all the more remarkable since it’s made up of fleeting, episodic moments ... The evocation of things ending suffuses the film with melancholy, as Anders increasingly becomes an observant rather than a participant in his own life." - Ela Bittencourt, Slant Magazine

[Spinal]

#11

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/break_zpsbe3dabom.jpg
We do not need bells in our church to worship God.


Breaking the Waves

Director: Lars von Trier

Year: 1996

Oilman Jan is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when Jan urges her to have sex with another.

Nominated for Best Actress (Emily Watson) at the Academy Awards.
Nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Actress - Drama (Watson) at the Golden Globes.
Nominated for Best Actress (Watson) at the BAFTAs.
Won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes.
Won 3 Bodil Awards including Best Film, Best Actress (Watson) and Best Supporting Actress (Katrin Cartlidge).
Won Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won 4 Awards from the National Society of Film Critics Awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress (Watson) and Best Cinematography (Robby Müller, who was also cited for Dead Man).
Won 3 New York Film Critics Circle Awards including Best Director, Best Actress (Watson) and Best Cinematography (Müller, who was also cited for Dead Man).

The person being buried is called Anthony Dod Mantle. Mantle wasn't the cinematographer for this film, but he did work as a location scout for it.

"As Breaking the Waves requires Bess to make her leap of faith, it demands one from the audience, too. It's necessary to follow this quirky, single-minded film into parts unknown, trusting that the risk will be rewarded." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times

[Spinal]

#10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/ff702a9baf63ecd3879eb96705d614 69_zpsyutcvnul.jpg
If there is a god, then he's a shit, and I'd like to kick him in the butt.


Fanny and Alexander

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Year: 1982

Two young Swedish children experience the many comedies and tragedies of their family, the Ekdahls.

Won 4 Academy Awards including Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Also nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Won Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes. Also nominated for Best Director.
Won Best Cinematography at the BAFTAs. Also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design.
Won Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement by the Directors Guild of America.
Won Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor (Jarl Kulle) at the Guldbagge Awards.
Won Best Foreign Film and Best Cinematography at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film from the National Board of Review.
Won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

To encourage a more natural performance from his young lead actor, Bergman didn't tell Bertil Guve what the film was about or what was going to happen in it.

"It's an epic family film that revisits Bergman's favorite subjects -- marriage, passion, infidelity, death, God -- and yet in ways more generous and less austere than in his other films. That's why it is repeatedly called his most accessible work and why, though it's his last film, it's probably the ideal first Bergman film for the uninitiated. It introduces Bergman's concerns against a rich backdrop of vibrant turn-of-the-century color and active family drama." - Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

[Spinal]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/457d0cee-6b3d-4240-8de7-315d94cf7dd0_zpsjf2iktf6.jpg
Here's to the man who killed my sister... to a murderer.


The Celebration

Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Year: 1998

At Helge's 60th birthday party, some unpleasant family truths are revealed.

Won the Jury prize at Cannes.
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes.
Won Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Nominated for Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTAs.
Won Best Film and Best Actor (Ulrich Thomsen) at the Bodil Awards.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the César Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

On March 28th, 1996 the Danish National Radio broadcast "Koplevs Krydsfelt" when an anonymous caller, 'Allan', told his story about an unusual speech he held at his step-fathers 60th birthday. Vinterberg was listening and used the story as inspiration for his film. In 2002, Danish Radio found 'Allan' again. Allan met with Vinterberg. During the interview it was revealed that Allan's entire story was pure fantasy.

"Plenty of films have been made about dark family secrets, but few are as honest and moving as The Celebration ... Vinterberg has created an extremely approachable work, an unflinching, darkly comedic, and profoundly humane film. It's likely to touch something close to most people's experiences of living in the world in a way that makes movies like Hope Floats seem truly bizarre." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

[Spinal]

#8

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/MV5BNzQ0NDA1ODQ3NF5BMl5BanBnXk FtZTcwNjQwMzk0OA._V1_SX640_SY7 20__zpshggztvjj.jpg
Is it all coming back to me? I really hope it won't. I don't want it to, Josh.


The Act of Killing

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, and Anonymous

Year: 2012

A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards
Nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary by the Directors Guild of America
Nominated for Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards

Won Best Documentary from:
Asia Pacific Screen Awards
Austin Film Critics Association
Awards Circuit Community Awards
BAFTA Awards (also nominated for Best Film not in the English Language)
Berlin International Film Festival
Boston Online Film Critics Association
Central Ohio Film Critics Association
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (also Best Foreign Language Film)
Chlotrudis Awards
Cinema Eye Honors Awards
CinEuphoria Awards
CrÃ*ticos de Cinema Online Portugueses Awards
Denver Film Critics Society
Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards
European Film Awards
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards
Gotham Awards
Indiana Film Journalists Association
Indiewire Critics' Poll
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards
London Critics Circle Film Awards
National Society of Film Critics Awards
New York Film Critics, Online
Nordisk Panorama
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards
Online Film Critics Society Awards
Robert Festival
San Diego Film Critics Society Awards
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards
Utah Film Critics Association Awards
Vancouver Film Critics Circle
Village Voice Film Poll

48 members of the film crew in 27 different positions, are credited as 'Anonymous'.

"To dub Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary a masterpiece is at once warranted and yet somehow limiting, the term too narrow for what the first-time American filmmaker achieves with his debut ... The film morphs, in ways both ghastly and glorious, into an examination of institutionalized violence, guilt on individual and national scales, and the role of cinema to both shape and reflect our darkest impulses." - Nick Schager, The Village Voice

[Spinal]

#6 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Seventhsealposter_zpsvlsazcy2. jpg
Why can't I kill God in me? Why does he live on in me in a humiliating way - despite my wanting to evict him from my heart?


The Seventh Seal

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Year: 1957

A man seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.

Won the Jury Special Prize at Cannes.
Named the #8 film of all-time by Empire magazine in 2010.

The church which Antonius Block arrives at 15 minutes into the film is actually a model hung in the dead tree in the foreground.

"A magically powerful film ... The images and the omens are medieval, but the modern erotic and psychological insights add tension, and in some cases ... excruciation. The actors' faces, the aura of magic, the ambiguities, and the riddle at the heart of the film all contribute to its stature." - Pauline Kael

[Spinal]

#6 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/e351aa9e9615d2ac914ed714890721 1c_zpsyyn0oec6.jpg
And the rest of us, all the rest of us, we go straight down to hell to eternal torments, don't we? Yes, that's what you think, isn't it?


Ordet

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Year: 1955

People believe in the dead Christ, but not in the living.

Won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
One of 5 films given a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Film in 1956.
Named Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review.
Won 3 Bodil Awards including Best Film, Best Actor (Emil Hass Christensen) and Best Actress (Birgitte Federspiel).

Federspiel had saved audio of herself in labor and it was used during the film's birth scene.

"When the film was over, I had plans. I could not carry them out. I went to bed. Not to sleep. To feel. To puzzle about what had happened to me. I had started by viewing a film that initially bored me. It had found its way into my soul. Even after the first half hour, I had little idea what power awaited me, but now I could see how those opening minutes had to be as they were." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/large_2QWEbrQvtXD1fQJ3K0Fm9Vpb keb_zpsmhskwnmb.jpg
It's not easy being human.


Songs from the Second Floor

Director: Roy Andersson

Year: 2000

We meet people in the city. People trying to communicate, searching for compassion. We see the connection of small and large things.

Won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Won 5 Guldbagge Awards including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography (see trivia below) and Best Achievement.

The camera moves once in the entire film, in the railway station scene

"The picture's mordant, almost ghoulish tone suggests Odin watching the failures of modern society — and its alienating effects on the human race — through a snow globe. All the people here are unable to communicate; Mr. Andersson has laminated his cast members, and the antiseptic seal that keeps them from generating the friction that makes life worth living also has each of them living in a plastic bubble." - Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/e130e79381ccfee5649ab953afcfca 59_zpsr2whmn6j.jpg
I'm twelve. But I've been twelve for a long time.


Let the Right One In

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Year: 2008

Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.

Nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards.
Won 5 Guldbagge Awards including Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography. Nominated for 2 others including Best Film.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the London Critics Circle Film Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.
Won Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Eli was portrayed by three different actresses. Lina Leandersson portrayed the child Eli while Turkish voice actress Elif Ceylan provided the character's voice. The elderly Eli was played by Susanne Ruben.

"Set in a wintry Stockholm suburb, the film is lit like a Renaissance painting. In addition, the audacious sound design ... and wise performances from Hedebrant and (especially) Leandersson infuse the film with a low-key naturalism that allows for maximum believability. Right One returns to the archetype of the immortal its poetic cohesiveness and the power of myth." - Elena Oumano, The Village Voice

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/a28597da28618382ca063fc9747013 24_zpshtjy0c1a.jpg
We must be out of our damned minds! ... But we are so fucking cool.


Show Me Love

Director: Lukas Moodysson

Year: 1998

Two teenage girls in small-town Sweden. Elin is beautiful, popular, and bored with life. Agnes is friendless, sad, and secretly in love with Elin.

Won 4 Guldbagge Awards including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (split between Alexandra Dahlström and Rebecka Liljeberg).
Won Best Foreign Feature Film at the Amanda Awards (Norway film industry).

The bathroom where Johan and Elin meet during the party was so small the bath tub had to be taken out in order to make room for camera, sound man, and the director.

"This is all I ask of a movie about teenagers: That they be as smart, as confused, as good-hearted and as insecure as the kids I went to high school with. Such characters are so rare that when you encounter them in a movie like Show Me Love, they belong to a different species than the creatures in the weekly Hollywood teenager picture." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/130114_zpsxl6uquuz.jpg
You allowed it. I don't understand you. Yet now I beg your forgiveness.


The Virgin Spring

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Year: 1960

A kind but pampered beautiful young virgin and her family's pregnant and jealous servant set out to deliver candles to church, but only one returns from events that transpire in the woods along the way.

Won Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Also nominated for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.
Won a Special Mention at Cannes.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes.

The script is based on the medieval Swedish ballad "Per Tyrssons döttrar i Vänge".

"It might be termed a morality play, so direct and uncomplicated is it. But for all its directness and simplicity—its barrenness of plot and perplexities—it is far from an easy picture to watch or entirely commend. For Mr. Bergman has stocked it with scenes of brutality that, for sheer unrestrained realism, may leave one sickened and stunned. As much as they may contribute to the forcefulness of the theme, they tend to disturb the senses out of proportion to the dramatic good they do." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1960

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/persona_zpsdaioyzk4.jpg
I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire.


Persona

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Year: 1966

A nurse is put in charge of an actress who can't talk and finds that the actress's persona is melding with hers.

Nominated for Best Foreign Actress (Bibi Andersson) at the BAFTAs.
Won Best Film and Best Actress (Andersson) at the Guldbagge Awards.
Won Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress (Andersson) at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.

According to Bergman, he fell in love with Liv Ullmann during the making of the movie.

"This is a difficult, frustrating film, seeming at times to have more in common with the 'personal cinema' of Jean-Luc Godard than with Bergman's usual cool control. The director keeps reminding us that he's right there, creating his film before our eyes. And the distance between his presence and the story he tells is like the distance between what the actress is and what she reveals. The nurse is maddened by the unspeaking actress in the same sense that the audience is frustrated by the movie: Both stubbornly refuse to be conventional and to respond as we expect." - Roger Ebert, 1967

"Persona was one of the first movies I reviewed, in 1967. I did not think I understood it. A third of a century later I know most of what I am ever likely to know about films, and I think I understand that the best approach to Persona is a literal one. It is exactly about what it seems to be about." - Roger Ebert, 2001

[Spinal]

1. Persona (40.5)
2. The Virgin Spring (39.5)
3. Fucking Åmål (32)
4. Let the Right One In (29)
5. Songs from the Second Floor (28.5)
6t. Ordet (28)
6t. The Seventh Seal (28)
8. The Act of Killing (26.5)
9. The Celebration (25.5)
10. Fanny and Alexander (23)

11. Breaking the Waves (22)
12. Oslo, August 31st (21)
13. Dancer in the Dark (21)
14. Dogville (20.5)
15. Scenes from a Marriage (18.5)
16. Force Majeure (17.5)
17. Day of Wrath (17)
18t. Edvard Munch (17)
18t. The Phantom Carriage (17)
20. Lilya 4-Ever (14)

Where possible, ties are broken with the film receiving the most mentions getting the higher slot.

[Spinal]

And yes, Raiders swooped in at the end and changed the leader.

Awesome list. I've seen 16 of them and would give 13 of those a 4-star rating.

[baby doll]

Awesome list. I've seen 16 of them and would give 13 of those a 4-star rating.I think Persona, The Virgin Spring, Songs From the Second Floor, Ordet, Breaking the Waves, Dogville, Force Majeure, Day of Wrath, and The Phantom Carriage are all pretty great. I wouldn't count Dancer in the Dark as one of Trier's best films (for one thing, it plays too much like a remake of Breaking the Waves), but it's certainly something to see. I need to take another look at Scenes From a Marriage and Fanny and Alexander as I haven't seen either of them in over a decade (and only the theatrical versions), but the former struck me as fairly repetitive and the latter just bored me, except for the scenes with the mean step-father. Fucking Åmål was cute but I wouldn't want to see it again. And I think I've said enough about Let the Right One In and The Act of Killing on this forum, and the popularity of both films continues to mystify me.

[Melville]

Easily my favorite of these lists so far. Next let's have Russia/former USSR countries for more icy northern spiritual plumbing goodness.

1. Persona - 10
2. The Virgin Spring - 8.5
3. Fucking Åmål - haven't seen
4. Let the Right One In - 9
5. Songs from the Second Floor - 8
6t. Ordet - 10
6t. The Seventh Seal - 9
8. The Act of Killing - 9.5
9. The Celebration - 7
10. Fanny and Alexander - 10

11. Breaking the Waves - 9
12. Oslo, August 31st - 9.5
13. Dancer in the Dark - 5.5
14. Dogville - 8.5
15. Scenes from a Marriage - 8.5
16. Force Majeure - 9
17. Day of Wrath - 8
18t. Edvard Munch - 10
18t. The Phantom Carriage - haven't seen
20. Lilya 4-Ever - haven't seen

[Yxklyx]

The Hunt didn't make it?!