1964 is quite the interesting year. As I had mentioned previously, we start to see little glimmers of the tide shifting when it comes to Hollywood's output. I would argue that British films are already seeing an uptick in comparison, but even so, this list still leans heavily into international cinema.
When I wrote about 1963, I mentioned what films got singled out by the Academy that year for a Best Picture. This was mainly due to the fact that the options were totally lackluster and that I struggle to even choose what I would vote for out of the selected 5.
With 1964, two of the nominees made my top 10...and shockingly enough, both were in English! Granted...up to this point, only one foreign film was even nominated for Best Picture, so that is not exactly something to praise. Since there is a tiny overlap, I will refrain from listing the nominees this time.
I am going to stop with the preamble and jump right in, because not only do I have a top 10 to cover, but I will be quickly going over TEN Honorable Mentions. I figured I would go all out with this one, considering 1965 won't be as extravagant.
Due to the fact I will have so many Honorable Mentions, please forgive me that I will keep my thoughts on those films a bit shorter as we have quite the epic top 10 to discuss.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
THE SHAPE OF NIGHT
Directed by Noboru Nakamura
Written by Toshihide Gondo
A somber story about a young woman named Yoshie who holds two jobs, at a factory and as a bar hostess, who ends up taking a romantic interest in a bar patron who gradually reveals to be someone who is cornering the market on red flags.
The Shape of Night feels so much like it could be a precursor to the work of Wong Kar-wai with its rich colors and a story about a very problematic relationship...though perhaps a bit darker than he would've taken it.
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LOVE MEETINGS
Written & Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
A documentary in which Pasolini, a man who very much loved the topic of sex, goes around to various people throughout Italy and asks them their opinions on subtopics of virginity, prostitution, homosexuality, and how sex should be talked in schools.
Pasolini was known for being gay and was an active Marxist, with a lot of those tendencies leading to his infamous abduction and brutal murder in 1975 involving being run over by his own car multiple times, being savagely beaten, among many other horrific acts.
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DIAMONDS IN THE NIGHT
Written & Directed by Jan Nemec
Co-written by Arnost Lustig
A shamefully forgotten though very gritty and well-made Holocaust film, Diamonds in the Night revolves around two teenaged boys who are running away from being captured and taken on the train to the camps.
Once we get to the ending, we aren't exactly told what happens to them. There is a chance we are seeing a happy ending...or maybe we are not. It is really up to your interpretation, but for me, this was a film that felt like pure misery but put onscreen in a masterful way. Sort of like Klimov's Come & See.
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THE PINK PANTHER
Written & Directed by Blake Edwards
Co-written by Maurice Richlin
I am cheating a bit with this one as the film was technically first released overseas in 1963, but got released over here in 1964. Normally I try to go by the very first release date...but whatever, its The Pink Panther. It's iconic, and likely one of the more widely seen films on this list.
Sellers bouncing around with that Mancini score is pure bliss.
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GERTRUD
Written & Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
A fascinating piece that just so happened to be the final film of Dreyer, who was the man behind the legendary silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Gertrud tells the story of a former opera singer who is bored in her marriage and wants a divorce as she pursues a younger concert pianist. However, the fervor there cools and she happens to then come across an older lover from her past.
Dreyer's use of one-shot scenes are quite strong here, particularly one between Gertrud and the older lover that lasts for about 10 minutes straight.
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ONIBABA
Written & Directed by Kaneto Shindo
A far departure from his rather bleak 1960 film The Naked Island, Shindo is taking on horror with Onibaba. Two women, a mother and the wife of her son, kill various samurai who come across their property as a means to steal their armor and protect themselves...but a neighbor returns from fighting in the ongoing war and proceeds to drive a wedge between the two of them.
That may be put rather simply, but it is an incredibly bizarre film that has no fear in taking the story into darker places.
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WELCOME, OR NO TREPASSING
Directed by Elem Klimov
Written by Semyon Lungin & Ilya Nusinov
On Letterboxd, a reviewer by the name of Alexandru wrote a cheeky little blurb saying how the Soviets beat the US to space and they also made a Wes Anderson film well before Anderson was even born.
That's very apt, and even more hilarious considering it was made by the same guy who would go on to give us Come & See, possibly one of the most brutal films ever made.
Featuring a cast of primarily children, most of the film centers on a group of young boys attending a Soviet Young Pioneer camp and their desire to break some of the more strict and formal rules.
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FAIL SAFE
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Walter Bernstein
The well-made and sometimes overlooked serious cousin of Dr. Strangelove, the threat of nuclear armageddon is at hand in Fail-Safe as an error sends US bombers at to destroy Moscow and the process to stop it from occurring.
You know, something light for the whole family to enjoy!
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KWAIDEN
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
Written by Yoko Mizuki
Here we have another entry from the world of Japanese horror.
Kobayashi opts for a horror anthology form with Kwaiden, with the overriding theme being that vengeful spirits are seeking moral retribution against human kind and that they don't seem to be the least bit considered with human suffering.
If Fail-Safe wasn't enough for you, here's a another light jaunt for you and the whole family to treasure for the rest of your life!
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A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by Alun Owen
The fact that A Hard Day's Night works as well as it is does is a remarkable feat. Think of it as almost the version of Spice World that went absolutely, positively RIGHT.
While the Fab Four aren't necessarily stellar actors, the personas and charisma carry us through with ease. I also want to add that Lester's documentarian-esque approach with his direction along with a witty script that netted Owen an Oscar nomination give this film an extra boost that puts it in something of a class by itself. Spice World wishes.
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#10 - SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON
Written & Directed by Bryan Forbes
We begin this epic top 10 with a truly amazing acting showcase in a film that really had me intrigued the moment I first heard about it years ago.
Seance on a Wet Afternoon focuses on an unstable middle-class housewife named Myra (Kim Stanley) who works as a medium out of her home, often assisted by her husband Bill (Richard Attenborough) who can't get steady work due to his asthma. A lot of Myra's mental issues and her insistence at pursuing work as a medium is due to feeling the spirit of her son Arthur, who died at birth.
In order to try to make a name for herself as a medium, Myra insists that Billy kidnap a young girl named Amanda, who is the daughter of the wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Clayton. The goal is that Myra would offer her services saying she had a dream about Amanda, they would get the ransom money, but would then promptly return it upon Amanda's "reappearance".
If we are talking about films that come with a truly strong story, I would make a case that Seance on a Wet Afternoon offers that in spades. It is very well made film with a great score and great shadowy cinematrography that adds to the eerie allure.
Richard Attenborough does a splendid job here, but it is Kim Stanley who gives a true performance for the ages. That year's actual winner, whom I will be talking about soon, may have given an iconic performance but what Stanley achieves here is one of the best performances of that era easily.
A very chilling gem right in the heart of British cinema finding a lot of wealth in its grittier realism.
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#9 - I AM CUBA
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
Written by Enrique Pineda Barnett & Yevgeny Yevtushenko
I Am Cuba was, for many years, a lost and forgotten film. It had been made as a co-production between Cuba and the then-Soviet Union as a means to promote something political but also propaganda.
The director, Mikhail Kalatozov, was the master behind the legendary works The Cranes are Flying and Letter Never Sent. Both of those films were so brilliantly and eloquently shot and staged, but his work on I Am Cuba is thrillingly alive. The strange weaving of multiple storylines in anthology format while also using very chaotic cinematography had filmmakers like Martin Scorsese begging for the film to be restored when it was rediscovered in the early 90s.
I will be honest in saying I am not sure I can truly do the film justice simply by talking about it, but I do want to give you an outline of what the main stories focus on:
1 - A woman named Maria who is a moonlighting as a prostitute, and is afraid to tell her boyfriend what she actually does for a living.
2 - A farmer named Pedro is having his greatest harvest yet...but his landlord tells him that he has sold the land to United Fruit and that his family must vacate immediately.
3 - This is the one that is more immediately volatile in that a group of students at Havana University feeling they are being suppressed, but one of the boys named Enrique decides to go off on his own with the goal of assassinating the chief of police.
4 - Another farmer named Mariano is being pressured by Batista's army to join the ongoing war and the horror they face when he insists he just wants his family to remain there in peace.
The stories work very well, and the cinematography is simply just so amazing for its time that I cannot express enough how impressive it was to me when I first saw it.
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#8 - MARY POPPINS
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Written by Bill Walsh & Don DaGradi
As one of the few major Disney releases to get this kind of recognition (and a massive 13 Oscar nominations at that), Mary Poppins is quite the interesting success story. While sections of the film do end up dragging, namely when Mr. Banks takes Jane and Michael to the bank, I can't deny how simply magical this film truly is.
So much has been said about the manner in which Julie Andrews was able to net this role despite not exactly being a major star, but I do want to share it in case someone doesn't know...plus I do love the story which doesn't hurt.
Julie Andrews was mostly known to people if they were into the Broadway scene as she had starred in The Boy Friend, My Fair Lady, and Camelot all within a few years...not to mention she had made a splash playing the titular role in Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical adaptation of Cinderella that premiered to great acclaim on TV.
The issue is that she was not considered marketable enough as a film star, but Walt Disney was charmed by her work in Camelot and wanted her to play the magical nanny. She was actually pregnant and told him she couldn't do the film; instead, he said that they would wait for her. MEANWHILE - My Fair Lady's rights just got bought by Warner Brothers and the rather vile Jack Warner was only thinking of money. Passing over Andrews, he cast Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle and thus the legend was born that it was a travesty that Andrews was passed over for someone who had to be dubbed for the singing.
In a crazy bit of symmetry, My Fair Lady swept the Oscars that year, but Audrey Hepburn wasn't nominated. Julie Andrews WON for Mary Poppins. Oh, and so much for not being bankable. Mary Poppins became the highest grossing film of that year.
Sorry for the tangent, but I also suspect a lot of you have seen Mary Poppins, so I didn't think I needed to explain a lot of the plot. I'll just say that I love the score that The Sherman Brothers came up with, classic song after classic song. The ensemble is stellar, too. Even though his accent is legendarily bad, Dick Van Dyke is so charming as Bert, David Tomlinson is so smarmy as Mr. Banks, but he sells his character arc so well, and then the amazing Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks who pretty much steals every scene she is in.
The legend of Julie Andrews begins here, and by the next year, it solidified even further when she played a certain wayward nun. More on that in 1965.
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#7 - YEARNING
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Written by Zenzo Matsuyama
One of the more unsung Japanese filmmakers from this era has got to be Mikio Naruse, whose work could be more comparable to that of Yosujiro Ozu. Here, he teams up again with Hideko Takamine, who led what was likely Naruse's masterpiece, 1960's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.
Takamine is Reiko, a war widow who has been running a grocery store for the past 18 years since WWII ended. However, a new supermarket nearby is causing her store to flounder so seeing the writing on the wall, her sisters-in-law decide to find a way to get Reiko out of the picture and open a bigger market for themselves.
However, one person from her dead husband's family is siding with her: his younger brother Koji (Yuzo Kayama) who is 25. Although his interest in her more than just caring for her dead brother's wife: he has always loved her despite their 12 year age difference.
There is a lot I could try to convey about the horrific greedy family dynamics or the gloomy feelings of unrequited love, but I do need to talk a little more about Hideko Takamine.
She is one of the most underrated actresses I have come across and the reason for that is she really embraced the idea of showing us her feelings all through facial expressions if possible. Dialogue clearly worked wonders for her, but she loved being able to convey it all without words.
This became such a routine process that while on set, she would sit down with Naruse and go through the script crossing out lines of dialogue that she felt said too much when she could give us what we needed with just her face.
And it is THAT quiet brilliance that also gives the truly devastating ending all the more power.
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#6 - PALE FLOWER
Written & Directed by Mashhiro Shinoda
Co-written by Masaru Baba
And now for something completely different...though still Japanese...
For as much as I tend to worship Japanese cinema, I will have to own up to the fact that I have only seen two films made by Mashiro Shinoda. The other will be coming up later in the 60s, but of the two, I think Pale Flower is just barely my favorite. I do want to try visiting more work from various filmmakers, and do think Shinoda is undoubtedly going to be on that list.
Pale Flower is a story of a highly toxic relationship based around addictions to gambling and maybe even some drugs for good measure. A hitman/gangster named Muraki (Ryo Ikebe) is released from prison and in order to try to find some sort of solace, goes to a gambling hall and promptly loses a large sum of money to a young woman named Saeko (Mariko Kaga).
From there, Saeko's penchant for gambling and the use of illegal drugs (namely heroin) is a gateway for Muraki to slip back down into his seedy ways, perhaps never truly learning anything
I think it is safe to say that Pale Flower is, in a word, depressing. Sure, its very slick in its gritty presentation but in the end, the film provides with a general theme/question: "Isn't there a better way to be able to live your life?"
The answer is rather simple: "No".
Thanks for playing! Enjoy your drugs and empty wallet!
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#5 - CHARULATA
Written & Directed by Satyajit Ray
Admittedly, I had forgotten about Charulata. I remember having seen it and loved it but thought it came out a little later on. Much like The Big City, which is one of Ray's films I recently discussed, Charulata is only one of my 7 or so films of his I have seen. In terms of truly legendary filmmakers, I need to get far more versed in his work.
Set in 1879 Calcutta during the British rule and the Bengali Renaissance, our titular character played by Shailen Mukherjee is very smart and well read. Her husband Bhupati (Madhabi Mukherjee) edits and publishes a small political newspaper. While the film is named after her, a lot of the film is permeated with the energy of him and how there is a disconnect in how well they communicate with one another. As some might suspect considering Indian culture, their marriage was arranged and clearly one that isn't going as smoothly as it could.
A lot of her potential is being left unfulfilled simply because of her gender, and she spends her days reading and writing and crocheting and more or less feeling bored and lonely. Bhupati's cousin Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee) comes to stay with them fresh out of college and has a very similar passion for art and literature much like Charu and engages her in conversation she has been longing to have...but as one may think, there could be more brimming underneath the surface.
Charulata is what Ray considered to be his best film, and I would argue that it is one film where he manages combine his grounded realism with more of a fanciful edge. It certainly feels a tad more opulent compared to his other works, but the strong emotional stories surrounding these characters doesn't make it any lesser than his previous works.
The ending, which utilizes a sustained freezeframe, is one of the absolute best uses of the technique. There is so much tension and then...you are left to wonder if perhaps it will end up working out for the couple as they might suspect. It may seem tentative in its approach, but it is a strong statement from Ray.
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#4 - RED DESERT
Written & Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Co-written by Tonino Guerra
There was a lot of division amongst filmmakers and critics about Red Desert. The great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky was not fond of it saying that Antonioni was too busy focused on the visual aesthetics and that filming in color (being his first film to do) was a detriment to his work. Meanwhile, Akira Kurosawa instantly viewed it as one of his favorite films of all time.
In truth, Red Desert is not mentioned as much compared to the trilogy of Antonioni's work I have addressed in my previous 60s lists or as his 1966 film Blowup (we will get to that), but I do think Red Desert is his most underrated work. It also happens to be his last of 4 films he made with Monica Vitti, essentially jumpstarting her career.
Vitti plays Giuliana, a young mom with a son named Valerio and a husband named Ugo (Carlo Chionetti). He manages a petrochemical plant in which workers are currently on strike. While talking with a visiting business associate named Corrado (Richard Harris), he mentions that Guiliana was recently in a car accident. She wasn't physically harmed, but in the time since, she has been mentally unwell. He is feeling a bit helpless as she seems to be drowning in fears and insecurities and doesn't have a way to properly calm her.
Much like a lot of Antonioni's other works, Red Desert is rather abstract in its approach and is very much of an "arthouse" vibe. Making use of the new color possibilities, he utilizes pastel tints in his cinematography and presented the world as if it was horrendously tainted by the industrial plants. Trees and grass were painted white and grey, and we frequently see the red pipes from the plant (much like in the photo above) which lord over everything with such an intensity that it matches the mood of Vitti's work.
I totally understand why some don't love Red Desert. As I have admitted before, Antonioni is not exactly one of my go-to favorite filmmakers and even the films of his I do love, it isn't the same kind of love that I feel for some of his contemporaries. La Notte might be the one exception, but the more time that passes, I find myself thinking a lot about Red Desert and the chilling world of red, white, grey, and blues that cover the landscape. However, speaking of colors, the next film has the market cornered there.
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#3 - THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG
Written & Directed by Jacques Demy
If I can say anything positive about La La Land as I am seemingly one of the few people who didn't find it to be anything amazing despite the fact it was tailor made for my similar interests, I do appreciate that it helped shine a new light on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Damian Chazelle had listed it among his all-time favorite films, and you can see elements of it that come straight from the truly beautiful work of art that is Demy's little musical.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of Demy's two biggest masterpieces (the other will be coming up later in the 60s) and quite possibly one of the most visually stunning films ever made. The vibrant colors pop off the screen and thankfully Demy was prepared with that.
He shot the film on Eastman negative stock which he knew would rapidly fade over time, so he made the main yellow, cyan, and magenta masters on B&W negatives, which would have significant longevity. After Demy passed away in 1990, his wife, the filmmaker extraordinaire Agnes Varda, began a project to restore the film to its original glory. The first print of this version came to be in 2004.
The premise of the film is relatively simple: two young lovers named Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) and Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) who get separated when he is set to go fight in the Algerian War. Once he has gone, she discovers she is pregnant and longs for his return. However, unfortunate timing and circumstances lead to further hurdles on their journey.
You could argue that Umbrellas is like an opera but not truly in the style of the singing. The film is entirely sung-through, with even the standard dialogue sung as recitative. You could also say that the film could flirt with being melodramatic, but Demy doesn't truly have a melodramatic bone in his style. Everything drips with a romantic melancholy almost as much as the colors consume you.
One random note: the main actors don't do their own singing, but in that time period, it was far more common for actors to be dubbed. They even did an English language dubbing, but I never even bothered to seek that one out.
Like I stated before, the premise of Umbrellas is relatively simple...but a lot of the time, it comes down to the presentation. While the film may look beautiful and that certainly helps, Demy does such a splendid job with the material, and it also doesn't hurt that this was the true breakout role for Catherine Deneuve, who is radiant here.
Beautiful, rhapsodical, romantic, and bittersweet...just a sampling of adjectives that I could use to praise The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
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#2 -DR. STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING & LOVE THE BOMB
Written & Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Co-written by Terry Southern
Kubrick had a style all his own. A lot of his films distinctly look like what one would identify as a "Kubrick film", but what I loved about him beyond the fact that he made masterpiece after masterpiece was that he was willing to bounce around and try different genres.
Kubrick had a stretch of 7 films that I would consider to be potentially the strongest stretch of consistent masterpieces of any filmmaker or at least on par with the likes of Bergman, Ozu, and Kurosawa.
Dr. Strangelove was the first film in this stretch, and it was his attempt at dark comedy/satire. What's the topic at hand? The eventual end of the world via nuclear war.
Hilarious, right?
It is no secret in film circles that Stanley Kubrick was a genius; he was so certifiably insane. Even for this film, despite being in black & white, he was adamant that the round table used have a green top resembling something you may find in a casino as these world leaders are literally gambling potential Armageddon. He was also a master at getting exactly what he needed out of his actors (which was certainly problematic in the case of Shelley Duvall in The Shining, but that is a topic for another day) and perhaps the best example of this was George C. Scott as Gen. Buck Turgidson.
Scott really didn't want to play the role for laughs despite the fact it was a comedy. Kubrick's solution was that they do "practice takes" to loosen things up. Unbeknownst to Scott, Kubrick had cinematographer Gilbert Taylor film these takes where Scott acted with a lot more bravado and used those for the film. Honestly, even though Scott never would've cared, his performance should've netted him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year...but he wasn't even nominated. I actually read a Letterboxd review that compared his energy at times to that of Tim Robinson of I Think You Should Leave fame and frankly, that is a brilliant comparison.
Speaking of Oscars, Peter Sellers playing 3 roles (Captain Mandrake, President Muffley, and the titular character) is a masterclass at character and comedy. This should've been an easy win for him, but the Academy went gaga for My Fair Lady that year and selected Rex Harrison.
Dr. Strangelove did manage to get nods for Picture, Director, and Screenplay...which is truly quite a feat for a film like this but obviously it thrills me that it did.
The sad thing about Dr. Strangelove is how well it holds up even though it is specifically satirizing Cold War terror. That is certainly great for the film's staying power, but it feels even more relevant now than when I first saw it nearly 25 years ago. Much like a lot of Kubrick's work, it benefits from repeat viewings, and I would argue that it is one of the easier ones to do that with.
I also have to single out the ending with Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" as the musical pairing with various shots of bombs going off throughout the world. It manages to be both sobering and somehow humorous in the darkest of comedic ways.
Kubrick may have been a madman with some questionable tendencies, but he was brilliant.
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#1 - WOMAN IN THE DUNES
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
Written by Kobo Abe
It used to be a lot more common for foreign films to not be eligible for awards consideration until the year following their release as they were often delayed here in the US. This was the case for Woman in the Dunes, because despite its 1964 release, it was eligible for the 1965/66 season and it led to the absolutely banger nomination for Teshigahara in the Best Director category, which he'd lose to Robert Wise for The Sound of Music.
Still though, Teshigahara getting that nod for this kind of Japanese psychological thriller in the mid 60s is a rare kind of feat and I think it is incredible that it happened. Strangely enough though, the film DID get nominated for Best Foreign Language film for 1964. This kind of thing happened a lot, especially with works by Fellini and Bergman throughout the 60s and 70s.
Woman in the Dunes is one of the most beautiful films ever made, but not in a decadent sense...more so in the unsettling sense. The cinematography of the sand-covered landscape is stunning, but everything about this film comes off us quietly disturbing and you are often uncertain of what exactly is going to happen or if it is even truly happening.
Niki Junpei (Eiji Okada) is basically a jackass. He is on expedition to collect tiger beetles as he is something of an amateur entomologist in addition to being a teacher. His obsession and lack of awareness (not to mention the fact that clearly people couldn't have cared less about him in his group), he misses the bus to get back to Tokyo.
The locals of the area invite him to stay in their village. One young woman whom we only know as the widow (Kyoko Kishida) takes him into her home which happens to be a hut at the bottom of a sand dune with only a rope ladder to get out. Her husband and daughter both died and they are now buried in the sand nearby. Sand consistently falls on her home so she must shovel it out as otherwise her home will get buried.
In short, the two end up becoming lovers...but the film descends into darker territory than that.
Woman in the Dunes is perhaps one of the most stunning films ever made about a toxic situation and it is a beautiful to watch as it is incredibly painful and unsettling. I will admit that when I originally drafted this list, I put Dr. Strangelove at #1. Truthfully, I have bounced these two films back and forth for years now so honestly, please consider it a tie as both films are so radically different that it you can't really compare the two.
There is a provocative presentation to it that feels very thrilling, especially for this time period. In a lot of ways, it feels like a nightmare put to film that is packaged as a beautiful work of art. It is harsh and unforgiving, and I can't help but admire the hell out of it.
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FINAL THOUGHTS:
Wow. That is all I can really say.
When seeing this list all written out, I do firmly feel this has got to be one of my personal favorite years for cinema ever. Of my top 10, I would've given NINE of them a 5-star rating.
Even beyond that, Seance on a Wet Afternoon and all of my Honorable Mentions would get a 4.5 from me. That is certainly not a common amount in my book. Most years are lucky to get maybe 4 films to get 5 stars from me, but could 1964 actually be my favorite year of film from the 1960s?
I don't want to say just yet as it is still possible that another year or two could come close. We also have 1960 and 1962 that were both pretty strong in their own right. Even 1963 ended up surprising me with its small but mighty list of offerings.
Having said all that, we are about to take a bit of a dive with 1965. We will see if my thoughts improve as I begin writing about those films, but I will admit that when I wrote out the top 10, I didn't really know for certain how I wanted to fill out the last couple of slots.
And with that, I finish another epic post. My hands are tired...
