Carlos Vermut

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind

There have been many movies about the process of filmmaking, but I think none is as accurate as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Few films have so well exemplified through their protagonist the lonely, obsessive, often selfish and most of the time useless process of making a film.

Wild Strawberries

I regard it to be an absolute masterpiece because it connects us with those things that we find difficult to explain with words. That is in my opinion the magic of cinema and Wild Strawberries is the highest expression of it. There are movies not recommended for people under 18 and I think Wild Strawberries should not be recommended for people under 60. I saw it long before my sixties and every time I see it I understand it more and I feel both a sense of peace and fear.

Viridiana

The film deals with charity in the most perverse and hilarious way possible. Buñuel was an expert in collecting the most absurd vices of high society and its relationship with religion (Catholic and Spanish in this case).

The Green Ray

A movie that is terrifying and hopeful at the same time. I had never seen depression treated in this way. It is a monster that stalks you wherever you are. The entire film haunts you with a deep sense of anguish that contrasts with the luminosity of the scenes and shots. Marie Rivière is stunning. For me, it has the best ending in the history of cinema.

The Terminator

It is literally a monster that stalks you wherever you are. I have always been a defender of the first film over the sequel, because the idea of inevitability is as threatening and unstoppable as the Terminator itself. I prefer when the horror aspects take precedence over science fiction. The same thing happened to the Alien and Robocop franchises.

HADAKA NO SHIMA

I think it is the most beautiful film in the history of cinema. As in most of Shindo's films, darkness lies below the surface. It is a good example of the fact that the most wonderful silent movies were made when silence was an option and not a limitation.

JUSTE AVANT LA NUIT

For years I was tormented by the inability to understand the motivation of the main character in murdering his friend's wife. That margin of uncertainty is the core of the entire film. The film flies over the relationship between the drive of desire and death, and how they can be separated by a line so fine that it can sometimes be broken. I think it is a film that directly challenges each viewer.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

It is an intense and explosive film. After seeing it I have to take a tranquilizer because the level of intensity and hidden hatred is so high. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are just wonderful. It is a film that perfectly portrays one of the greatest domestic terrors: hating the person with whom you share your life and at the same time needing to be with that person. Still, I always hoped that the cleverness and skill with which the characters hurt each other kept them alive.

Pulp Fiction

I have rarely felt in a movie theatre what I felt while watching Pulp Fiction. The feeling that anything could happen and the movie could take me anywhere. No matter how many times I have watched it, I have always found some secret that made me fall more in love with it. It is a funny, deep and playful movie. I think Pulp Fiction was the beginning of the end of classic cinema.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

More than a movie, Picnic at Hanging Rock takes the form of a spell or an incantation. Peter Weir uses cinematographic techniques to invoke atavistic elements buried deep within human emotions. It is a beautiful, mysterious and strangely terrifying film.

Further remarks

The selection of these films is born from an intimate and probably too personal place. The very selection of the films and their order has been the result of this moment. Having made the list a few days ago or in a few weeks might have given a different result and order. In all of them I have found what is fundamental for me in a film: connecting with a deep feeling of mystery and fascination.