20 Favourite Films of the 20th Century #7

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Cléo from 5 to 7

(Directed by Agnès Varda; Written by Agnès Varda; Starring Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray and Michel Legrand; 1962)
The line I most associate with this film: "Ugliness is a kind of death."

I was completely blown away by this classic of French cinema. For about an hour and a half, we dive into a world seen through the eyes of a woman and see society from her point of view, experiencing all the pressures and hostilities of a male-dominated world. As someone who (obviously) experiences our world through the male point of view, this film was one of the most eye-opening experiences I ever had. In it, we follow Cléo - played so vulnerably by Corinne Marchand - a beautiful singer, as she awaits her medical test results and gets increasingly worried about them. This is one of the greatest achievements in feminist filmmaking and one of the absolute best from the Queen of cinema herself, Agnès Varda. If you still haven't seen any movie from her, this is a great introduction. It's unforgettable.

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Films watched this year

  • 1917 (2019) directed by Sam Mendes
  • 9 to 5 (1980) directed by Colin Higgins
  • A Place in the Sun (1951) directed by George Stevens
  • Adults in the Room (2019) directed by COsta~Gavras
  • Bacurau (2019) directed by Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho
  • Bait (2019) directed by Mark Jenkin
  • Bombshell (2019) directed by Jay Roach
  • By the Grace of God (2019) directed by François Ozon
  • Female Trouble (1974) directed by John Waters
  • Flames of Passion (1989) directed by Richard Kwietniowski
  • For Sama (2019) directed by Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts
  • Ford v Ferrari (2019) directed by James Mangold
  • From Here to Eternity (1953) directed by Fred Zinnemann
  • GUO4 (2019) directed by Peter Strickland
  • I Confess (1953) directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  • Invisible Life (2019) directed by Karim Aïnouz
  • Jojo Rabbit (2019) directed by Taika Waititi
  • Jubilee (1978) directed by Derek Jarman
  • Little Women (1933) directed by George Cukor
  • Little Women (1949) directed by Mervyn LeRoy
  • Little Women (1994) directed by Gillian Armstrong
  • Little Women (2019) directed by Greta Gerwig
  • Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018) directed by Bi Gan
  • Looking for Langston (1989) directed by Isaac Julien
  • Monos (2019) directed by Alejandro Landes
  • Mosquito (2020) directed by João Nuno Pinto
  • Network (1976) directed by Sidney Lumet
  • O Fantasma (2000) directed by João Pedro Rodrigues
  • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) directed by Céline Sciamma
  • Red River (1948) directed by Howard Hawks
  • Richard Jewell (2019) directed by Clint Eastwood
  • Shadow (2018) Zhang Yimou
  • The Farewell (2019) directed by Lulu Wang
  • The Hunger (1983) directed by Tony Scott
  • The Leopard (1963) directed by Luchino Visconti
  • The Lighthouse (2019) directed by Robert Eggers
  • The Nightingale (2018) directed by Jennifer Kent
  • The Souvenir (2019) directed by Joanna Hogg
  • The Wild Goose Lake (2019) directed by Diao Yi'nan
  • Thelma & Louise (1991) directed by Ridley Scott
  • Un Chant D'Amour (1950) directed by Jean Genet
  • Uncut Gems (2019) directed by Benny and Josh Safdie