This is my 11th year doing a version of Blindspot (not to mention that various other bloggers do it too… or used to. Do other people still do this? Is there a whole world of it going on that I’m somehow cut off from? Or am I a lone proponent, still plugging ahead with a near-decade-old fad, because I really like it? I don’t know…)
Anyway, if you somehow still don’t know what it is or how it works, the premise is simple: choose 12 films you should have seen but haven’t, then watch one a month throughout the year. (My 12 also contribute to my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.)
Some people just choose their 12 films. I normally do it via an elaborate system of compiling “great movies” lists in various configurations to spit out some general consensus of which 12 well-regarded films I should watch next, rejigging which lists are included and how they’re factored in to provide new results each year. But 2023 is a bit different, thanks to a significant event last month: the publication of a new edition of Sight & Sound’s decennial 100 Greatest Movies poll, one of — nay, the most widely respected list of its kind among cinephiles. There were 27 films I hadn’t seen on the latest edition of the list — more than enough to fuel my Blindspot selections for this year.
I’ll explain how I whittled those 27 down (it wasn’t a long process, but it’s more than just “the top 12”) after listing the films themselves. In the order they ranked in Sight & Sound’s poll, this year I must watch…
Jeanne Dielman…
Beau Travail
Cléo from 5 to 7
Close-Up
Au hasard Balthazar
Shoah
Killer of Sheep
Fear Eats the Soul
A Brighter Summer Day
Pierrot le Fou
Tropical Malady
Black Girl
With just 12 slots but 27 films I hadn’t seen, obviously I had to pare the list down somehow. One method would’ve been to just take the 12 highest ranked — they’re meant to be the best of the best, after all. But that didn’t allow for the fact that, to be blunt, there were films further down the list that I was more interested in seeing. Another method would’ve been to run the 27 films through one of my usual list-of-lists calculations and see which 12 emerged victorious. But in a year where I’d simplified the selection process, it seemed silly to overcomplicated it again.
So, here’s what happened: I already owned some of the films on disc; when the list came out, after I had a look at it, there were a couple of highly-ranked films that I’d already been considering purchasing, so I ordered them; and there were a few more that, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to, um, download. When I stopped to take stock of this flurry of activity, the number of films in my possession added up to 13. They weren’t necessarily the films I had envisioned being in my final 12 (for starters, two from the top 50 were missing), but there we were.
The only remaining question: which to ditch? It was nearly Au hasard Balthazar. I wasn’t sure I’m ready for the “a donkey’s miserable life” movie. I’m still not. But this seemed as good a time as any to bite the bullet and get it seen. What about approaching it from the other angle — which had to be included? Well, I don’t think I’m going to like Jeanne Dielman, but I’ve felt I should watch it for some time now… and, more importantly, it’s #1 — of course #1 had to go in! Then there’s the ones I already owned on disc: Shoah, A Brighter Summer Day, and Black Girl (also Yi Yi, but that was on last year’s list, so I ruled it out on the presumption I’d watch it in December. Oops). Then, the ones I’d freshly ordered: Beau Travail and Close-Up. Even if I hadn’t bought them, both are among the top four I hadn’t seen.
That just left narrowing the remaining seven downloads to six. I could talk you through my process, such as it was, on a film by film basis, but in the end it came down to a gut feeling. You can already see which films made it in — the loser, for what it’s worth, was Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life. I couldn’t really tell you why; it’s just what I decided.
One other thing: I can’t usually have wildcards from Blindspot — it’s a list of 12 films taking up 12 slots; there aren’t any to be wildcards. But this year is an exception in that respect, too: I figure that, as the entire list is chosen from Sight & Sound’s list, then the 15 unchosen films were the only other eligible options, and therefore they could be eligible for wildcard slots. Disagree? Tough, it’s my game. Will I actually watch any of them, when getting through the 12 actual picks can be challenge enough some years? Maybe not. But the possibility is there.
Before we leave Blindspot behind and head to “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” (or, if you’ve come to this post second, before you head back to your life), here’s a dash of additional info. You see, just because these 12 films were all taken from the Sight & Sound list, that doesn’t mean they don’t contribute towards my completion of other lists — unsurprisingly, there’s some degree of overlap between different “great films” lists. So, in case you were curious (because I was), other key lists that some of these films appear on (at time of writing) include…
TSPDT’s The 1,000 Greatest Films (16th edition) — all 12, ranging from 34th (Au hasard Balthazar) to 869th (Black Girl).
BBC’s The 100 Greatest Foreign-Language Films — Jeanne Dielman; Beau Travail; Cléo from 5 to 7; Close-Up; Au hasard Balthazar; Shoah; Fear Eats the Soul; A Brighter Summer Day; Pierrot le Fou.
BBC’s The 100 Greatest Films Directed by Women — Jeanne Dielman; Beau Travail; Cléo from 5 to 7.
iCheckMovies’s Most Favorited — Jeanne Dielman; Close-Up; A Brighter Summer Day.
Letterboxd’s Top 250 Narrative Feature Films — Jeanne Dielman; A Brighter Summer Day.
IMDb’s Top 250 — nothing (can’t say I’m surprised).
100Films.co.uk 