Landmark fantasy movie-making

Rating: 7/10 (22 October 2015)

It might seem – but it isn't – condescending to find it ill-considered for any one of us, in unqualified fashion, to declare one particular motion picture the "very best" unless and until thoroughly familiar with the whole spectrum of all genres and disciplines from the last century. An absolute favorite, certainly, as in music, literature and the arts; but there is the work of Mizoguchi; Godard; Buñuel; Riefenstahl; Fellini; Ozu; Fritz Lang; Satyajit Ray; Renoir; Dreyer; Truffaut; Bresson; Murnau; Welles; Kurosawa; Kazan; Ophuls; Eisenstein; Keaton; Bergman; Kubrick; Minelli; Kieslowski; Yimou; Hitchcock; Rohmer; etc. "B-e-s-t" might reasonably include at least a handful of other movies in world culture.