FilmStruck, beloved by cinephiles the world over, was an amazing video streaming service that lived up to the full potential of the digital age. Rather than allowing the great classics and little-seen oddities of yesteryear fall by the wayside, it collected the very best movies from the Turner Classic Movies archive and the Criterion Collection’s expansive library to house many of the very best movies ever produced under a single banner.
Sadly, though, the service is no more: at least, it will be soon enough. Killed by the monolithic AOL-Time-Werner for being too niche of a service, its hundred thousand subscribers will soon lose out on the thousands of carefully curated titles that the service had garnered over its short time in existence.
But just because it’s going doesn’t mean that it’s gone yet. I, for one, am cramming in exactly as many movies as I possibly can before the end of November, and am not afraid to lose a little sleep to do it, either. And though it’s hardly fair to whittle down so many amazing films to such a scant number, the shrinking window sadly doesn’t allow for too many alternatives. So here, while they last, are five of the must-see titles that will soon disappear from the internet altogether.
An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
Made by one of the great masters of Japanese — and, indeed, world — cinema, Yasujiro Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon is the true crowning achievement of that celebrated director’s peerless career behind the camera. Although virtually all other cineastes will credit Tokyo Story (1953) as the greater work between them — including the contributors for both the esteemed Sight & Sound decennial poll and the BBC’s recent list of the 100 Best Foreign-Language Movies of all time — there is little that Ozu’s earlier masterpiece can do to compete with the lessons on display in his final, bittersweet masterwork.
With Ozu, movies are less about what they are about and more about the people that go about what those movies are about. They’re slice-of-life dramas that tackle with the everyday trials and tribulations of the common folk. And for much of his career, An Autumn Afternoon being no exception, they center around the complex, post-War period of Japan that was so rife with generational and cultural contradictions which here play out like a technicolor daydream.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Charlie Chaplin spent so much of his career on mute, it’s no wonder that the man had a lot to say when he could finally afford to open his mouth. Long after the rest of the film industry had switched to talkies, Chaplin was still doing the same old pantomime routine: struggling against the constraints of the silent medium by the kinds of socially conscious stories he wanted to tell. But with his native Europe embroiled in war and his adopted United States reluctant to enter into the fray, he told a story that necessarily demanded him to speak.
In a lot of ways, The Great Dictator is the greatest of his “silent” films, with many gags and sequences playing out wordlessly, in near-pantomime, in much the same manner as his fans had becomed accustomed to throughout the years. But when he does speak — here against a Hitler stand-in and his fanatical mob of followers — he does so with aplomb: more forcefully and elegantly than anything that we could have prepared ourselves for. And especially today, with the international resurgence of nationalism throughout the world, his powerful message resonates with renewed vigor.
Seven Samurai (1954)
Of all the directors of Japan’s post-War golden age of film, Kurosawa is the unrivaled master of the artform. His stories found an immediate home internationally due to their commanding narratives, manic leading men (invariably acting legend Toshiro Mifune) and masterful execution behind the camera. They ranged from gangster pictures to police procedurals to (more typically) historical epics and loose Shakespeare adaptations. He played with convention, genre and cinematic form with every new feature, though he never quite found as perfect a synthesis of his ethos as he did with his most lauded work: 1954’s Seven Samurai.
The film is, without question, my all-time favorite. From its scale to its ambitious battle scenes, everything about this film is blown up to epic proportions. Its expansive cast includes many of the greatest Japanese actors of the era, playing through the grandiose sweep of its heroic narrative. Say what you will about the BBC’s recent list, but they got it right where it counts.
Touki Buoki (1973)
African film never seems to get a fair shake among international moviegoers and it’s always surprising to me that things apparently have to be this way. Films from the Sub-Saharan region are rife with social import, often grappling with the aftershocks of European colonialism and omnipresent societal corruption. The continent has produced several unimpeachable masters of the craft, each of which holds at least a couple masterpieces between them. And even when dealing with the familiar conventions of the medium, the filmmaker’s unique perspective on global affairs invariably makes it a refreshing change of pace from the doldrums of what we’ve come to expect from out movies.
Of these great masterpieces of African cinema, Touki Bouki is perhaps the most puzzlingly absent from the larger cinematic canon. Loving Jean Luc-Goddard’s Breathless (1960) is virtually a rite of passage for becoming a movie lover these days, and Touki Bouki plays out exactly like the African version of that film. Following the semicomedic misadventures of two would-be criminals trying to steal passage to Europe in their impoverished, backwater community, it explores nearly all the pressing issues that still continue to face the continent today.
Yeelen (1987)
I love the fantasy genre. It’s a madcap cauldron of infinite possibilities, where anything worth filming will invariably make its way on screen. I grew up reading (and rereading) The Hobbit. I got into The Lord of the Rings when the first movie came out. And like everybody else of my generation, I caught Harry Potter fever (although that didn’t stop me from ripping into the first Fantastic Beasts movie when it came out).
If Tolkien and Gygax and Martin convinced you that Fantasy was nothing but white guys with pointy ears fighting dragons and winning treasure, you’d be forgiven, but there’s so much more to the paninfinite paths afforded to stories of the fantastic. One great case study in how much more the genre has to offer its adherents is Yeelen, based on an ancient African legend of a magic-wielding young man who stole his sorcerous father’s fetishes and is now chased across the country by his single-mindedly vengeful father. Along his journey, the young man leads armies into battle, steals princesses from kings and tracks down his bombastic (and similarly empowered) uncle. For the cineaste who thinks he’s seen it all, this is a little-known gem that will doubtless prove your wrong.
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