Paolo Pellicano
Head of programme - Cinema Lumière, Bologna
Italy
Voted for
| Film | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| Sonatine | 1993 | Takeshi Kitano |
| Princess Mononoke | 1997 | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Vampyr | 1932 | Carl Th. Dreyer |
| Blade Runner | 1982 | Ridley Scott |
| Mon oncle | 1958 | Jacques Tati |
| Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood | 2019 | Quentin Tarantino |
| La RAGAZZA CON LA VALIGIA | 1961 | Valerio Zurlini |
| UMBERTO D. | 1952 | Vittorio De Sica |
| The Lady from Shanghai | 1947 | Orson Welles |
| Synecdoche, New York | 2008 | Charlie Kaufman |
Comments
Sonatine
A poetic yet light-hearted reflection on the inevitability of the end and the transience of human life. Stunning.
Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki throughout his career has ennobled animation, bringing it to be a cross-genre with respect to the viewer's age. One of his films could not be missing from this top 10. Mononoke Hime is my favourite film by the Japanese director, but his other titles, I am thinking above all of Spirited Away, could be included in this ranking.
Vampyr
A masterpiece of the horror genre that takes its cue from Stoker's Dracula, the vampire par excellence, to make an apologue about evil and the fascination it exerts on humanity. Stylistically a distillation of wonder.
Blade Runner
Derivative and profoundly innovative at the same time, a true milestone in the science fiction genre that enriches it with previously unseen substance.
Mon oncle
The lesson of silent cinema applied to modernity, to consumer society. Pure, exhilarating poetry.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Rewriting history in cinema to restore the magic of cinema.
La RAGAZZA CON LA VALIGIA
One of my all-time favourite melodramas, carrying two distant yet so tangential coming-of-age stories. The formal rendering is perfect, the actors marvellous; the Italy of the economic boom has exploded into an embrace on a windswept Rimini beach, as if it were a desert. Heartbreaking and delicate at the same time.
UMBERTO D.
Umberto D., along with several other titles by De Sica, an author of profound intelligence who knew how to portray post-World War II Italians like few others.
"Some trouble happens because you don't know the grammar". A film that is a lesson in life.
The Lady from Shanghai
I did my best to avoid including a Welles film, as a matter of course, but then I failed.
This film was a visual dazzler. Welles, in general, is one of the few examples in film history of a perfect balance between form and substance.
Synecdoche, New York
If Welles han been a visual dazzler, Synecdoche, New York was an emotional electrocution.
I cannot recall any other title that has been able to render the complexity of human feeling so well. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is immense.
Further remarks
The order in which the 10 titles are presented does not reflect an order of preference.