Matthew Flanagan

Comments

These films speak for themselves but I will contextualise the additions to my last ballot in 2012: I finally saw The Puppetmaster (1993) in London in 2015, and the delicate, amber quality to the 35mm print felt totally unique. It’s said a fair amount, but here it really is true: impossible to replicate on a home video format. Miami Vice (2006) might be the key film of the ‘00s, a fatalist cinema of the everyday warzone. Mafrouza (2007-10) stands alongside West of the Tracks (2002) as an invaluable long-form documentary, uniquely rewarding - I couldn’t choose between these two so voted for both. Christine (1987): what can I say, I grew up in these interiors, this decor (finally, in 2016, a revelatory remaster was published). Nana (2011) is the kind of film that doesn’t commonly enter into contention in these polls, but cinema as an artform is made so rich by modest, tender gestures such as Massadian’s. Hence it is not a small or minor film, but in fact one of the most important.