Archives of Others' Lists, Part 5: Sarajevo

I have made a lot of lists on this blog, but in the words of Confucius I am not an originator but a transmitter. All my lists are nothing more than a compilation of interesting stuff I've found by perusing other lists on various forums and sites. When lists are of particular value to me, I tend to save them on a document, and I'd like to share them here as an extension of my archive, since the originals of these lists are long, long gone at this point. Most of the originals had great images along with them, but oh well. Sacrifices will have to be made. Unless stated otherwise, the lists are one-film-per-director, as was tradition.

I had these up on ICheckMovies but I kinda hate that site.

The primary place I have lists from is two forums, YMDb and its re-incarnation The Life Cinematic. I browsed from 2008 onward and posted between 2010 and 2013 when the forum finally died.

Sarajevo was a poster whose writing and opinions I always thought were fascinating. Some people accused him of being way too somber and serious, but I think he definitely had a good sense of humor when push came to shove, he just was very sincere, something very lacking in most people. These lists have a great deal of individualism and personality. Some things we can see from these lists is a deep interest in memory, both on the personal and grand historical level. There are a lot of films that do interesting things with archival footage and experiment with the way personal memory intersects with historical reality and memory on a collective/cultural scale. Some of the films are connected to theory and politics, but almost all of them have a great deal of direct emotional power. I never get the sense of any of his favorites being “cold” or “distant,” but always formally dynamic. One thing he often said was that he hated films made by people who had no need for a camera, and it shows. Lastly, I know that, although Sarajevo was from Montreal (and reps his hood with some excellent Quebecois cinema choices), he was a big Russophile and it shows in this list. While not all of the films are Russian, there is a kind of reserved, visually beautiful, lightly cynical, and emotionally weighty quality to much of these choices that reminds one of many great works of Russian art. His choice of the lesser-known Herzog film Bells from the Deep betrays his personal interest the most (and for good reason as it is one of the best, yet also most underrated Herzog films). I think these lists have the perfect mix of intellectualism and emotion.

List 1: Sarajevo's Favorite Films

One of the absolute best lists I've ever seen. Outside of Carmelo, Sarajevo is one of the figures whose taste I'm closest to.

1. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)

2. Histoire(s) du cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard, 1989-1999)

3. A Comédia de Deus (João César Monteiro, 1995)

4. Level Five (Chris Marker, 1997)

5. They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948)

6. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, 2006)

7.a Fata Morgana (Werner Herzog, 1971)

7.b Bells from the Deep (Werner Herzog, 1993)

8. Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 1974)

9. In Memory of the Day Passed By (Šarūnas Bartas, 1990)

10. Elle a passé tant d’heures sous les sunlights… (Philippe Garrel, 1985)

11. Tokyo Twilight (Yasujirou Ozu, 1957)

12. Strike (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

13. The Cranes Are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)

14. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)

15. Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)

16. Haut, bas, fragile (Jacques Rivette, 1995)

17. Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)

18. Yumurta (Semih Kaplanoğlu, 2007)

19. Blokada (Sergei Loznitsa, 2006)

20. Our Century (Artavazd Peleshian, 1983)

21. Mauvais Sang (Leos Carax, 1986)

22. L’Humanité (Bruno Dumont, 1999)

23. Abraham’s Valley (Manoel de Oliveira, 1993)

24. How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1941)

25. Landscape in the Mist (Theodoros Angelopoulos, 1988)

26. Wolfsbergen (Nanouk Leopold, 2007)

27. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, 1988)

28. Cœur fidèle (Jean Epstein, 1923)

29. Sombre (Philippe Grandrieux, 1998)

30. The Lonely Voice of Man (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1987)

The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924)

Limite (Mário Peixoto, 1931)

Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)

The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946)

Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)

A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)

La strada (Federico Fellini, 1954)

The Forty-First (Grigori Chukhrai, 1956)

Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1961)

Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

Le Règne du Jour (Pierre Perrault, 1967)

Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970)

Mon oncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971)

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)

The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)

Hynningen (Werner Nekes, 1975)

The Wishing Tree (Tengiz Abuladze, 1977)

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi, 1978)

Possession (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981)

Dans la ville blanche (Alain Tanner, 1983)

Les Enfants (Marguerite Duras, 1985)

Thérèse (Alain Cavalier, 1986)

The Eye Above the Well (Johan van der Keuken, 1988)

The Passing (Bill Viola, 1991)

Sicilia! (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, 1999)

Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, 2000)

Eureka (Shinji Aoyama, 2000)

What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)

A Place on Earth (Artur Aristakisyan, 2001)

Profil Paysans: l’Approche (Raymond Depardon, 2001)

Dream Work (Peter Tscherkassky, 2002)

Le Monde vivant (Eugène Green, 2003)

List 2: Sarajevo's Top 10 Films of the 21st Century

Not much new information, but I'm such a fan of this guy's lists that it's worth preserving.

1. Vai e Vem (João César Monteiro, 2003)

2. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, 2006)

3. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)

4. Blokada (Sergei Loznitsa, 2006)

5. Yumurta (Semih Kaplanoğlu, 2007)

6. Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, 2000)

7. Eureka (Shinji Aoyama, 2000)

8. Notre musique (Jean-Luc Godard, 2004)

9. Los muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)

10. The Regular Lovers (Philippe Garrel, 2005)

List 3: Sarajevo's Top 30 Directors

It's about what you'd expect from his list (a habit we certainly share), but it deserves its recognition here.

1. Andrei Tarkovsky

2. Jean-Luc Godard

3. João César Monteiro

4. Chris Marker

5. Werner Herzog

6. Pedro Costa

7. Šarūnas Bartas

8. Manoel de Oliveira

9. Philippe Garrel

10. Alain Cavalier

11. Nicholas Ray

12. Artavazd Peleshian

13. Raymond Depardon

14. Aleksandr Sokurov

15. Yasujirou Ozu

16. Philippe Grandrieux

17. Tsai Ming-liang

18. Bruno Dumont

19. John Ford

20. Béla Tarr

21. Robert Bresson

22. Jacques Rivette

23. Carlos Reygadas

24. Leos Carax

25. Semih Kaplanoğlu

26. Pierre Perrault

27. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

28. Theodoros Angelopoulos

29. Orson Welles

30. Ingmar Bergman