My Favorites in 2006… (Reformatted!)
[I have now decided to make it a longer list, it was getting a bit farcical otherwise with ten best films and almost as many on a ‘just made it’ list!]
(I am only listing films that released in 2006 in their original country of release. I have found all of these films the ‘most interesting’ as narratives, political explorations, and in general for their
cinematic language. I do not list these in any order as I always find such lists impossible to do beyond a point. Also I have not included an Indian film because I did not find anything good enough to be put in this list. Had Lagaan for example released in ‘06 it would have made my list. I could think of other examples as well. Omkara would come the closest to such a list from last year)
1)The Lives of Others
My personal favorite for the year. A gripping narrative fused with a remarkable meditation on ethics, aesthetics and the relations between the two in a politically repressive climate. Ultimately the film is about the ‘justice’ that transcends all three categories and forever orients one towards the ‘other’.
2)Pan’s Labyrinth
This is not dissmilar to the Lives of Others in its central concerns. Nietsche famously stated that “we need art lest we should perish of the truth.” This is doubly ironic precisely because ‘art’ and ‘life’ might not be as neatly separable as the lexicon might suggest. And in very complementary ways both Pan’s Labyrinth and the Lives of Others are reflections on this equation. But especially the former with its fable-like quality.
3)Still Life
Following once more in the wake of Antonioni, Zhang Ke Jia fashions a powerful narrative about the loss of ‘home’ in the post-industrial present, and the struggle to retain any sense of identity in the face of a devastated physical environment. The film is filled with bare landscapes and architectural solitudes and allegorically functions as a search for the very ‘being’ of the ‘human’
4)Children of Men
This movie did not make my list initially but on revisiting it I have found it to be more interesting than I initially though. I still find it relatively unengaging on an emotional level but this might be a strength of the film given that so much of it is about the ’sterile’. The film certainly puts up a mirror to our very ‘ugly’ present in various ways in the guise of predicting a rather disturbing future. I am indebted to Zizek who on the DVD version offers a rather succinct and probing reading of the film.
5)Inland Empire
Even for Lynch this film is radically experimental. Hard to characterise in any meaningful sense it might best be described as an orgiastic and ultimately overwhelming plumbing of the unconscious. Perhaps an essay in ‘identity’, perhaps one on the schizoid modern self, perhaps simply a vision of apocalypse, it is in any case unfathomable beyond a point but all the more powerful as one cannot but yield to it. One might be forgiven for finding it rather indulgent and excessive!
6)The Page Turner
This exquisitely precise French thriller is a work that Chabrol could easily have made. A superb tale of revenge, at once haunting and disturbing, the film adds marvellously to a history of French cinema that has followed in Hitchcock’s wake.
7)Volver
Almodovar’s most deceptive film. A further chapter in his ever expanding universe of women and conversely shrinking world of men. This re-mapping of gender politics within the cinematic with parricide/matricide alternating with homage might yet turn out to be the most radical directorial gesture of our times.
8)Days of Glory
In a sense this film does in far more delicate and sophisticated fashion what it takes Eastwood his twin war films to do. This is not to demean Eastwood’s accomplishment but Bouchareb’s remarkable film is not just an anti-war statement but also an extremely thoughtful meditation on notions of the ‘local/native’ versus the ‘foreign(er)’ (the French titles is Indigenes) and the interplay of these two categories in the most elaborate way. How nations make insiders out of outsiders and vice versa is the specific theme of this work and as Bouchareb shows us ‘colonialism’ alters all of these already problematic issues in complex ways. Not the least among these films strengths is the extent to which it seems to cast a light on our ‘present’.
9)After the Wedding
I have not been a fan of Susanne Bier’s earlier work but this film is a rather moving reflection on ‘paternity’ and the messiness of familial ties. The narrative additionally fuses these concerns with a reflection on ‘East-West’ and ‘North-South’ questions and the nature of philanthropic desire.
10)Babel
Another ‘huge’ statement on the ‘present’. The most unsettling film of the year. The global reach of the film is held together not by narrative logic as much as by an ‘affective’ whole and a ’shot heard around the world’. A fine essay on the ‘economies’ of globalisation.
11)It’s Winter
If one leaves aside the films of Kiorastami this is easily one of the finest films to have come out of Iran. Beautifully shot, Antonionesque both in its cinematographic choices as well as in its themes, the film is truly poetic.
12)Little Children
This film is a more persuasive representation of American suburbia than just about any other exploration on this terrain.
13)The Departed
Scorsese’s most expansive statement on the economy of violence.
14)The Fountain
Aronovsky’s compelling New Age fantasia, is replete with the metaphysical and the mystical and themes range from the Buddha to Faust! The director handles it all with a certain lightness. The visuals are often stunning, the music always sublime.
15)The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Ken Loach offers in Wind that Shakes the barley a marvellously comprehensive and clear-headed view of the Irish struggle. A gripping narrative is combined with a rich tapestry to create a ‘fuller’ account of the subject than any prior to this and the director handles all the ‘interests’ here with remarkable dispassion. The visual texture of the film is ‘romantic’, the politics less than this and Loach constantly plays these off each other.
16(Flags of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima
Eastwood’s diptych (to borrow a critic’s term) comprised of Flags of Our fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima offers one of the boldest treatments of war in cinematic history. As an ethical act these complementary films might even be unequalled. The director resorts to a language of humanism that often seems to verge on the simplistic but this is a rather cunning gesture on his part that specially in the latter film makes identification with the ‘other’ complete. The ‘American’ or the ’self’ (to wit) becomes either a tragic example of ‘innocence lost’ (Flags of our Fathers) or more profoundly ‘alien’ (Letters from Iwo Jima). With one eye trained on the present Eastwood on the one hand lays bare the business and cynicism of war as practised on the American side and on the other hand gives the enemy heroism and dignity by way of the classic Hollywood war film format.
17)Private Fears in Public Places
Resnais’s film offers striking, ambivalent, and totally heartfelt vignettes of couples without the prop of total narratives in each case. With beautiful transitions the director crafts a somewhat deceptive film that acquires a rather mysterious hue as it moves along.
18)The Illusionist/The Prestige
I tend to think of these as complementary works. Nolan’s the Prestige forms an interesting counterpoint to the Illusionist. As opposed to the Illusionist being about ‘magic’ and ‘magic’ being something in the film, the Prestige fuses the art of magic with the art of cinema. The latter with its numerous twists is structurally like a magic show even if it doesn’t seem emotionally as involving as the former. I would like to think though that here again the work is a bit like a magic show! If we truly empathised with these characters we would perhaps gain the kind of access into the film (Nolan’s box of magic) that the director doesn’t want to grant us. We are always on the outside, dazzled and puzzled, this is how it should be. In fact Nolan’s point in this vein might even be that too much identification with characters or situations in a film leaves us less alert to the ‘artifice’ involved. To re-iterate the Illusionist is the more spontaneous and more satisfying work but the Prestige is the more complex attempt and perhaps the one that will reward re-viewing to a great degree.
There’s another tangential point here. Both the Illusionist and the Prestige are period pieces. Perhaps cinema (as symptom of the modern) destroys ‘magic’ once and for all. No magic trick can match the artifice of cinema. And no magic trick can seem quite as impressive to those soaked in the ‘tricks’ of cinema.
19)I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
Tsai Ming-Liang’s latest film much like a lot of his previous work takes Antonioni’s Red Desert as the starting point. At the same time the director belongs to a group of Asian auteurs who provide the seemingly improbable intersection of Antonioni and Ozu in their respective works. This current film is an enormous commentary on ‘a’ modernity by way of the urban squalor of Kuala Lumpur. This near-silent film relies on haunting imagery to examine its themes.
20)Apocalypto
This is a terrific action/adventure film from Gibson and stays gripping from beginning to end. One might consider it questionable on ‘anthropological’ grounds, detect an older Hollywood genealogy here of the ‘racist-exotic’ but the film is ultimately not a serious statement as such and perhaps free of the latter charge to the extent that the ‘contexts’ here are not the same.
21)Climates
Nure Bilge Ceylan ‘re-writes’ L’Avventura without the mystery in this remarkable film that centers around a deteriorating relationship. Marvelously framed and poignantly acted the director makes a finer film here than his earlier Distant.
22)Lights in the Dusk
Aki Kaurismaki is perhaps a greater talent than Jim Jarmusch on much the same terrain. His mixture of a minimalist aesthetic with black humor is usually pitch perfect. Lights in the Dusk is a perfect example of this. Once again Antonioni lurks in the background.
23)Daratt
Mahmet-Saleh Haroun after the interesting Abouna fashions a remarkable tale of revenge and forgiveness amidst the stark desert landscapes of Chad and the solitude of its urban life.
24)Syndromes and a Century
Weerasethukal is fast emerging as one of the most compelling chroniclers of our ‘post’modernity and one that at least in cinema seems to increasingly reveal the trace of Antonioni. This work is possibly the director’s best.
25)Time
Kim Di-Kuk adds another chapter to the range of his fairly disturbing films. This film might properly be seen as a response to Teshigahara’s Face of Another. Both films are potent fantasies.
26)Lady Chatterley
Pascale Ferran offers not just the best version of this novel but simply one of the best treatments of the erotic in cinematic history. The novel is not a particularly significant work (except as a controversial chapter of Western cultural history) but the film comes close to being an important one with its economy of minimalism.
27)The Banquet
An improbable marriage of Hamlet and Chinese action choreography and it makes for a heady mix even if this is not the most profound Shakespeare interpretation.
28)Summer Palace
A somewhat unevenly plotted though ultimately moving film about the shattering of the personal by the political and the role of memory in determining each.
29)Dreams of Dust
This African debut film set in Burkina-Faso is a truly haunting work involving profound existential themes in a part of the world that offers the very definition of liminality as indeed the characters in the film do.
(The scores on The Lives of Others, Letters from Iwo Jima, Volver, Babel, The Fountain, Private Fears in Public Spaces stand out; the Fountain is the year’s best; with Ming-Liang’s film I had the more personal pleasure of hearing Tamil, one by way of a music video from a film!)
Comment by goodfella on 15 February 2007:
Haven’t seen your number 1, 3 or 7 but this is a nice list, Satyam. Qualitatively (though I know that’s not the point with your list) I’d probably put Pan’s at the top of everything I’ve seen this year by far, and call me nuts, but I’d put LRM in my top ten without a doubt. No question about it.
The film I thought was truly mistreated this year, though, was Linklater’s difficult but memorable “A Scanner Darkly”. “Letters from Iwo Jima” was a film I really didn’t like, (didn’t see the first Eastwood film) but “The Departed” was just a superb return to form for one of the true American innovators. Although having said that, there was no better film about betrayals and spies than the masterful Melville’s “Army of Shadows” which had an official release here.
As a sucker for revisionist Westerns, I also loved the meditative, sublime/violent Austrailian “The Proposition” with Guy Pearce. Then there was the wonderful little movie “Half Nelson” with the year’s best male performance in the impressive Ryan Gosling and although I liked the elegant and supremely well shot “The Illusionist” Edward Norton and Jessica Biel brought it down a few notches for me and the real performance here was Paul Giammati’s.
Comment by satyam on 15 February 2007:
Thanks for the response Goodfella. Army of Shadows is definitely a terrific film though I decided not to follow the US system in this sense. But yes it would have topped my list otherwise.
Pan’s Labyrinth was my top film for the year but then the Lives of Others just about edged it. This is more of a personal thing though as Pan’s labyrinth is of course a very fine film.
To be honest I haven’t seen Half-Nelson (though I will very soon as it just released on DVD) nor A Scanner Darkly (though this has been out for a while, will check it out soon). Similarly the DVD for Guide to Recognizing your Saints releases next week. I also regrettably missed out on THe Fountain and Days of Glory. If I decide to add any of these I will certainly revise this list.
Did like the Proposition, not as much as you did I guess.
Comment by satyam on 25 February 2007:
I should add here that Rached Bouchareb’s earlier Little Senegal is another masterful work and the themes here are once again similar to the ones explored in Days of Glory.
On a related note a film that just released in NY but is actually an ‘06 film in my books — Bamako — disappointed terribly. I was sure this film would make my list based on the director’s (Abdel rahman Sissako) earlier and superlative Waiting for Happiness. While the latter was a remarkable meditation (in an Antonioni-esque vein, specially that of the Passenger) on the loneliness and disenfranchisement experienced in a ‘fringe’ society the current film is really a blunt polemic masquerading as film. It was rather tiresome watching this one!
Comment by goodfella on 1 March 2007:
Satyam, I’m so glad I decided to see “The Lives of Others”. It is one of the most affecting, provocative and thrilling motion pictures I’ve seen in years, and though I find it greatly difficult to choose between this film and Pan’s as my favorite for this year (so I won’t) the fact that I have to grapple with this decision speaks volumes about how brilliant this film is. I also think that in Ulrich Mühe, I have found my favorite performance of 2006, even more affecting that Forest Whitaker’s wonderful work in “The Last King of Scotland” or Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson”.
I implore everyone here to run out and see this film.
“The Fountain” I found sort of silly and engaging simulatenously, but you’re right to point out the visuals and especially the music - Clint Mansell’s pieces constitute my favorite composition work this year.
Comment by goodfella on 1 March 2007:
By the way, in the thrilling pacing and superbly atmospheric interrogation sequences (as well as the central storyline about the ethical and personal dilemma of a state’s “enforcer”) the Hindi film I found most like “The Lives of Others” is Nihalani’s superb “Droh Kaal”.
Comment by Qalandar on 1 March 2007:
Glad you brought up Drohkaal: I saw it years ago, and the impact is still vivid! I haven’t been able to find a DVD, alas…
Am scheduled to see lives of others tonight…
Comment by goodfella on 1 March 2007:
Q - You saved me an email. Glad you’re seeing this.
Also, the other film this reminds of perhaps even more in tone and visual sensibility is my favorite Coppola film ever, (outside of the second Godfather) “The Conversation”.
Comment by Qalandar on 1 March 2007:
hmmm, haven’t seen the Conversation…
Comment by goodfella on 1 March 2007:
Ooooh. Q. MUST watch The Conversation. Move it up there, man.
Comment by Qalandar on 1 March 2007:
ok buddy, to my netflix queue I go…
Comment by zero on 1 March 2007:
The Conversation is a great, great film, and it’s second to none in Coppola’s oeuvre, in my view! Glad to see someone else sharing the same.
Comment by satyam on 1 March 2007:
Goodfella: Glad you saw Lives of Others. I’ve seen it twice myself and agree with everything you’ve said including your comments on the Fountain which is why I added ‘New Age’ to the description, this term in my vocabulary always suggesting a bit of ’silliness’! also see where you’re coming from in terms of the performance though I have a great weakness for Whitaker’s Bollywood act!
Comment by satyam on 1 March 2007:
Qalandar: Drohkaal is actually available on DVD, I’ve been meaning to get it myself. It might not be easy to find at this point.
Comment by satyam on 1 March 2007:
Actually the Oscars in my view had one of their best shortlists ever in the foreign film category woth three superb works in Lives of Others, Pan’s Labyrinth, Days of Glory. I haven’t seen that Danish film, I found Water mediocre barring some of the cinematography but the list was still an excellent one. And potentially the fourth Danish film could very well be truly good.
Comment by zero on 1 March 2007:
It’s available in all major DVD shops in India. Check this out, from where you can buy it online.
Comment by Qalandar on 1 March 2007:
Thanks guys…wonder how and why I got the idea it wasn’t available on DVD!
Comment by goodfella on 1 March 2007:
Days of Glory is next on my list, Satyam. Really looking forward to that one…
Comment by satyam on 4 March 2007:
Zodiac has received some excellent reviews though Rosenbaum and Sarris have been less enthusiastic. Might check it out today. Still have to put out some thoughts on Nishabd.
Comment by goodfella on 4 March 2007:
In general, even I’m pretty unenthusiastic of Fincher beyond his obvious gifts in the visuals department, but this film is full of actors I really like and looks more like Fincher in “Panic Room” mode than in “Fight Club” mode. The latter is a film I have no affection for.
Comment by satyam on 4 March 2007:
Agreed Goodfella on all counts. The Fight Club though is probably the most significant American film in US academia since the Matrix. I find it overrated myself. I am also not a fan of Seven.
Comment by goodfella on 4 March 2007:
Yeah, Se7en was truly, truly overrated in a huge way.
Fight Club was crap in a different sense - (and at the risk of sounding offensive) it was dime store philosophy geared towards a clueless, wealthy white-American upper-middle class. Superb visuals, though, which is the redeeming facet in a number of Fincher films. You’re right about it being the most cultish, significantly paraded American film in the US scene since The Matrix, although The Matrix merits its status. Its turgid sequels takes a bit of the luster off the original’s successes, though.
Comment by akshay shah on 4 March 2007:
I loved all of Finchers films, even THE GAME was damn good! Have been looking fwd to ZODIAC for a long time!!!
Comment by goodfella on 4 March 2007:
Oh, yes, akshay, forgot about The Game, that’s a Fincher film I don’t mind too much precisely because, like Panic Room, it’s got a nice sense of fun and narrative stability married to the brilliant visuals. I think and hope Zodiac will be along the lines of these films.
Comment by akshay shah on 4 March 2007:
Agree-though PANIC ROOM is Finchers most straight forward thrller to date. My favourite piece of work from Fincher is still SEVEN! I agree with you on FIGHT CLUB Despite my huge weakness for the visuals and performances
A.Shah
Comment by sujith on 4 March 2007:
Seven is on of my alltime favs..after Seven,Game and Fight Club i was pretty disappointed by Panic Room.
But Fincher is in great form with Zodiac,its unlike any of his other films, and i only realized it was almost 2 and half hours after i got out of the theatre
Comment by akshay shah on 4 March 2007:
Thanks Sujith..looking forward to ZODIAC!
Comment by satyam on 4 March 2007:
Just got back from the film. I found it excellent if not quite a masterwork. I think this is Fincher’s most compelling work.
Comment by satyam on 4 March 2007:
Sujith: I think this is closer to 2 hr 40 min.
In any case I’ve never been a Fincher fan but I liked this very much and I think this works better than his other films (I also enjoyed Game) because Fincher is not overlaying commentary onto the narrative. There is enough in the material here that Fincher can work with without having to ‘expostulate’ in any way. Not that he’s always done this in previous films, just that he’s been more heavy-handed in the past.
Comment by akshay shah on 4 March 2007:
ThankS Satyam! Cant wait for this one…and also….still waiting on your NISHABD views?:)!
Comment by satyam on 4 March 2007:
Yes I will get around to it soon Akshay…
Comment by akshay shah on 4 March 2007:
Eagerly awaiting it:)
Comment by Shahid on 4 March 2007:
Ooh, looking forward to Zodiac then! (Comes out in the UK in April)
Glad to see I’m not the only one who liked Panic Room. The only thing is that PR doesn’t have trendy quotes or one-liners that Fight Club had. Hence, it never gained that ‘cult’ favourite thing.
Is Inland Empire the latest entry on your list, Satyam? Glad to know that you liked it. I saw a preview and it seemed provocative and interesting. It releases here this coming Friday, I’ll try and catch it.
Comment by abid on 4 March 2007:
Akshayshah “Eagerly awaiting it:)”
I am afraid you will have to wait a bit as true/authentic Amitabh Bachchan fans only watch Abhishek Bachchan movies first up !
In your and Aby2000s case you both are unfortunate that it has released far off from your place .
Comment by akshay shah on 4 March 2007:
Yes bade, it is MOST unfortunate, heck even HTPL and NEHLLE PE DEHLLA didn’t release in a closer cinema! The next film releasing in a closer cinema to me is NAMASTEY LONDON! No doubt there is a chance NISHABD might get moved to a different cinema this week Thur so I still haven’t ruled out the option of seeing it! This looks like one of Bachchans most different and exciting performances and RGV’s best film since god knows wheN!
Comment by abid on 5 March 2007:
Since ‘Sarkar’ Akshayshah
Comment by akshay shah on 5 March 2007:
SARKAR as much as I like personally..is a flawed piece of work from RGV!!!
Comment by satyam on 5 March 2007:
Akshay: You should definitely watch Inland Empire. Whether you love it or hate it it’s a one of a kind movie experience! By the way it’s 3 hrs!
This wasn’t the latest entry on my list. It’s the Fountain. Before this it was Days of Glory.
Hope to do the Nishabd piece today. I of course saw it Fri night as I do most films. Have been in a funk for some reason and haven’t done this.
Comment by goodfella on 5 March 2007:
I just saw Zodiac last night, satyam, and I completely agree that it’s Fincher’s best film. It’s very exhaustive and slightly exhausting but the digital photography, the atmosphere and generally (and genuinely) creepy ambience creates a superb mood piece. The actors are quite good too, and I had a particular weaknes for Mark Ruffalo’s very solid work here.
Comment by satyam on 5 March 2007:
Glad you did Goodfella. Agreed in every sense, specially on the “very exhaustive and slightly exhausting”! But yes Ruffalo’s was my favorite performance in the film too within that sea of good acting jobs.
Comment by satyam on 5 March 2007:
Shahid: My apologies. I just noticed you’d asked me the Inland Empire question, not Akshay.
Comment by satyam on 7 March 2007:
Having just revisited Army of Shadows I hunted for threads that had this reference and this was one of two I came up with. The other one was a Guru review. I certainly didn’t want to be accused of re-introducing Guru using this as an excuse. So I used this second, somewhat egotistical option, though this is not in any way a self-serving exercise!
The more I revisit Melville’s films the more I like them. Army of Shadows to my mind is his absolute masterpiece followed possibly by Le Cercle Rouge but Le Doulos, Le Deuxieme Souffle (Second Breath), Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai are all excellent films. Just recently I saw his early Silence of the Sea (not available on DVD yet) for the first time and this was also outstanding if not quite comparable to the later works. I think Melville is in many ways Hitchcock’s truest heir. Chabrol is of course the first name that crops up in any such discussion but as far as I’m concerned Chabrol has many good films but perhaps no true masterpiece. At any rate Melville offers a concoction of extraordinary camerwork, suspense (one often follows the other) and narratives that seem deceptively ‘literal’ but that often turn out to be rather radical. All these are qualities that make him a truer bearer of Hitchcock’s legacy (as I see it) than Chabrol or for that matter any other filmmaker I can think of. Again, much like Hitchcock, Melville always exhibits a ruthless economy and is devoted to his ‘craft’ before all else. One might say a bit provocatively that for both directors this is for better and for worse.
I used to feel that Melville was one of the lesser directors in the French post-war pantheon but re-viewing has led me to revise my view. And with Army of Shadows I only saw it for the first time a year or so ago.
for those interested in DVD releases a superb restoration was done on Army of Shadows, this was the one BFI used for their R2 release, this is also the one Criterion (R1) have used for their upcoming May release of the film. Criterion have also earlier released Le Cercle Rouge, le Samourai, Bob le Flambeur. Unfortunately Le Doulos is available only on R2, Second Breath is not available with subs anywhere though a good tranfer with subs can be obtained at superhappyfun.com.
Comment by satyam on 13 March 2007:
On Zodiac, I’d like to put up this following brief review by David Denby in the New Yorker (I am not a great fan of his writing but liked his insights here):
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2007/03/19/070319crci_cinema_denby?printable=true
The great film critic Manny Farber once praised what he called “termite art,” by which he meant the kind of small, stubborn movie that chews its way through a narrow piece of turf. David Fincher’s “Zodiac” is mollusk art: the movie keeps elaborating itself out of its own discharge, hardening its emotions, anxieties, and energies into a shell of obsession. Fincher, working with a fantastically detailed script by the young James Vanderbilt, chronicles the case of the self-identified Zodiac killer, a taunting, publicity-mad creep who murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay area in the late nineteen-sixties and sent confessional notes about the crimes (sometimes in code) to newspapers. Fincher puts two of the murders right near the beginning of the movie, both of them as sustained in their terror as anything he did in his notorious serial-killer movie, “Se7en” (1995), which featured deliquescing corpses. But then, astonishingly, “Zodiac” becomes not another thriller or horror show but a multifaceted procedural that divides its narrative attention between the Police Department, where two hardworking cops (Anthony Edwards and Mark Ruffalo) keep coming up with false leads, and the San Francisco Chronicle, where an ace crime reporter, Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.), and the newspaper’s cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has a talent for puzzles, devote their lives to the search for the killer. Moving swiftly, but with precise attention to the emotional coloring of such things as weather and light and dour institutional spaces, Fincher runs through interrogations, trips to the library, the sorting and matching of mounds of evidence. Fincher has changed direction. The creator of the nutty, sub-fascist “Fight Club” and the dumb fright movie “Panic Room” has suddenly devoted himself to (of all things) manners and jurisdictional niceties—the way people talk to one another in a newspaper office, the hassles over evidence between the police of one city and those of another. He has discovered the everyday working world, and he’s fascinated by its moods and small tensions, its endless give-and-take.
“Zodiac” is superbly made, but it’s also a strange piece of work. As the bad tips and the dubious suspects pile up, one Zodiac investigator after another, devoured by the hunt or merely bored, leaves the case or retires. Only Graysmith, whose two books about Zodiac served as the basis for the picture, keeps going, but he brings his kids into the investigation and breaks up his marriage, and comes off as a selfish nut. As “Zodiac” goes on and on, and it becomes clear that no dénouement is possible (the crime was never solved), we have to ask what the reason for all this cinematic blind-alleying might be. Any honest neurotic could probably tell you: the emotional payoff of an obsession is not attaining some longed-for goal—it’s the obsession itself, which fulfills certain needs. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be an obsession. Graysmith, whom no one takes seriously at first, wants to prove himself as a sleuth, perhaps, but his real need is to be absorbed in the search. For Fincher, I would guess, the identity of the killer is less important than the vast effort of almost (but not quite) finding him. He teaches us—and we absorb the lesson uneasily—that truth, like some vision that recedes as we draw near it, will never quite yield to our most ardent pursuit
Comment by Qalandar on 13 March 2007:
Re: “Melville always exhibits a ruthless economy and is devoted to his ‘craft’ before all else.”
This is well-stated, I have not seen any Melville except for Le Samourai and Army of Shadows, but in both films I felt there was something stripped down and bare at work, not in the sense of a criticism but in that the films gave off a sense of an art boiled down to the bare essentials. There is no flab in either of those films, and the director’s eschewing of any excess (by way of gesture, or self-indulgence) is almost monkish…
Comment by satyam on 13 March 2007:
“There is no flab in either of those films”
This is an appropriate point to make about a director whose best films work with all the precision of clockwork.
Melville is also just about unparalleled in his use of silence and in fact he deviates from Hitchcock in this very interesting sense but not using music very much at all. His remarkable editing coupled with his use of silence create a startling level of suspense in his best work. Again he is to my mind still an underrated director (to be fair I underrated him myself once upon a time). His mastery over sight and (non)sound are readily accepted as is his dominance within his chosen genre. However what is often missed is his politics. The films are often deeper than might appear to be the case.
Comment by Qalandar on 13 March 2007:
With Le Samourai, perhaps the word I would use is “mysterious”, still on the fence when it comes to “deeper.” Obviously no arguments when it comes to Army of Shadows. But Le Samourai is mysterious without ever seeming obscure…and it might just be one of the most stylish films I have ever seen (Blow Up is another candidate)…
Comment by henry on 13 March 2007:
I adore Fight Club. It is hilarious, and consistently ironic and uncompromising in the themes and messages it delivers.
What I found especially ironic was that Ed Norton’s character never escaped the rules-laden world in which he felt trapped. All he ended up doing was create another reality (the Fight Club) with as many rules, if not more. Even with the help of his alter ego, Tyler Durden, Ed Norton’s character, on a subconscious level, could never free himself. In a way, isn’t Fincher trying to say that even anarchy is a form of enslavement?
This is just the surface of an immensely complex and satisfying work. I find it quite unfortunate that it has become a cult favorite among violence-obsessed brats. It deserves a better audience.
Pingback by The Lives of Others (London Review of Books) on 18 March 2007:
[…] I mentioned here this was my favorite film from ‘06 though having recently revisited Pan’s Labyrinth I […]
Comment by satyam on 21 March 2007:
Henry: In American academia no American film has been more influential over the last decade or more with the exception of the Matrix. In fact along with Alien this a holy trilogy for film studies in this country! I am not a great fan of any one of these films though I certainly understand your sentiments on Fight Club.
Comment by Qalandar on 21 March 2007:
Which is the updated portion?
and don’t mind, magar yaar ek aur baar is ko update kiya to mein…
duniya ko aag laga doonga!
Comment by Aditya on 21 March 2007:
i take it you haven’t seen ‘children of men’? it definitely makes my top 10 best film of the year. its the best sci-fi film ever made since ‘blade runner’, without question. you must see this film!
Comment by satyam on 21 March 2007:
Qalandar: LOL! The updated portion is the Loach addition.
Comment by satyam on 21 March 2007:
Aditya: I have seen Children of Men. Though I admire the director’s achievement here for some odd reason I couldn’t connect with this film. This despite giving it a second chance as well. But I can certainly see where you’re coming from on this.
Comment by satyam on 21 March 2007:
Qalandar: You must see Melville’s le Cercle Rouge. It is to my mind one of his absolute masterpieces along with le Samourai and Les Armees des Ombres.
Comment by Mr.Bond on 21 March 2007:
Satyam: I finally watched Pan’s Labyrinth on DVD a couple of days ago. I agree with you, it’s an awesome movie.
Comment by rks on 21 March 2007:
“Pan’s Labyrinth on DVD a couple of days ago.”
Has it been released on DVD? Netflix is still not showing any release date.
Comment by akshay shah on 21 March 2007:
Adi: Thanks for the reccomendation on CHILDREN OF MEN, will check this out!!! I simply love BLADE RUNNER! So its better than THE MATRIX?
Comment by satyam on 21 March 2007:
Rks: It releases in the US on May 15. Mr Bond here might have other ’sources’!
Pingback by The Illusionist vs. The Prestige on 27 March 2007:
[…] me append here my own thoughts on the […]
Comment by satyam on 30 March 2007:
I have once again added a film to this list, Children of Men. Because Qalandar threatened violence the last time around I have not actually ‘updated’ it this time.
Comment by satyam on 30 March 2007:
Aditya, I have seen the error of my ways on children of men!
Comment by satyam on 30 March 2007:
though if I were to update the list yet again it would be hard for me to remove one of those ten movie and substitute this for it.
Comment by henry on 30 March 2007:
Update it, Satyam. Qalandar ko main dekh loonga
Comment by satyam on 30 March 2007:
Thanks buddy!
Comment by rks on 30 March 2007:
Satyam:”It releases in the US on May 15.”
Thanks. Volver is releasing this week.
Comment by akshay shah on 30 March 2007:
Just managed to get my hands on CHILDREN OF MEN, THE PRESTIGE, ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL and GRIDIRON GANG tonight!! Plan to check the rest out too!
Comment by satyam on 15 April 2007:
Again and even though mindful that Qalandar has threatened physical violence I have nonetheless updated this list as I feel there are some major changes at this point. Also Henry has promised to protect me!
When I say ‘06 I go by release date in the original country. Some of these films released in the US/UK only in ‘07.
Comment by satyam on 15 April 2007:
I should just warn everyone though that there might be one last update when I watch resnais’ Private fears in Public places! In this case Volver will have to make way!
Comment by rks on 20 April 2007:
I watched Volver yesterday. It is a funny movie around serious issues. Acting was very good. I liked the young girl’s facial expressions while acting. **SPOLIER**It was ironic that young girl a product of father’s abuse, was going to be victim of abuse by father.**END SPOILER**. Some of the situations were implausible but overall an entertaining movie with subtitles.
Comment by satyam on 20 April 2007:
Rks: Check out the following piece on this film that among other things contextualises it within the director’s previous work:
http://www.naachgaana.com/2007/02/08/the-women-of-pedro-almodovar-volver-review-ny-review-of-books/
Comment by rks on 2 May 2007:
Yesterday I saw “Little children”. Acting was very good . I loved the portion where the lady in kitty party kept describing Madam Bovary as Slut in all her answers. Then finally got overwhelmed by other people opinions. I was not convinced why the Brad stayed with the guys at skating place instead of eloping with Sarah. And there was too much nudity, which I thought was not necessary for the movie.
Comment by Qalandar on 3 May 2007:
OK the reformatting works very well I concede…”magar kameenay, mein tera khoon pee jaaonga” as Garam Dharam would say!
Comment by satyam on 3 May 2007:
Rks: I found in an otherwise fine film the ending overall conservative in more ways than one.
Comment by satyam on 3 May 2007:
This post should be in the all stars for the most updated in NG history!
Comment by satyam on 3 May 2007:
Qalandar: LOL!!!
Actually it’s a vicious narcissistic cycle with me. First I like (yes indecently understated) watching movies, then I watch them again and again (just on this list I have already seen 60% of the movies twice!), then I make up a list, and I also revisit the list multiple times! In other words I love revisiting what I’ve written about movies I have loved watching more than once!
Comment by satyam on 3 May 2007:
But be thankful for small mercies.. what if I decided to ‘justify’ my choices further and expanded each note into an essay?!!
Comment by goodfella on 3 May 2007:
Satyam, since it’s a never ending cycle, might I propose the next step in its evolution? How about a personal faves list for ‘06, much like the personal all-timers list you composed at my suggestion? Unless, of course, this is that…
Comment by rks on 3 May 2007:
Satyam:”I found in an otherwise fine film the ending overall conservative in more ways than one.”
Yups, After doing mistakes thay all come to senses! I think they are making a lot of movies with different tracks in same movie. Have you seen a movie “11:14″?
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/11_14/70038951?trkid=189530&strkid=548937912_0_0
Comment by satyam on 3 May 2007:
These is more or less that list Goodfella, in fact I called it my ‘personal favorites’ earlier. I suppose I would take out a few here if push came to shove but not sure what I could add. For example I didn’t really have a favorite Hindi film in the true sense in ‘06.
Comment by satyam on 3 May 2007:
A purely personal list here would be:
1)Lives of Others
2)Pan’s Labyrinth
3)Letters from Iwo Jima
4)Page Turner
5)After the Wedding
6)Babel
7)Days of Glory
Comment by Aditya on 3 May 2007:
sadly, i missed watching ‘the fountain’ in the theater. the mixed reviews discouraged me, but i’ll check it out now 4 sure.
good 2 see ‘little children’ here. i thought it was one of the very best films of 2006.
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
aditya: The Fountain releases on DVD May 15. It did get mixed reviews. It’s wonderfully silly like much New Age stuff but it’s quite compelling.
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
Another very interesting ‘06 film was Hollywoodland though I didn’t like it enough to put it on this list.
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
It’s a pity that Bouchareb’s cast was not even nominated for the french cesars 2007.While, they won a collective award for best actor at cannes film festival.
Though the film was nominated in 9 categories at the
cesars 2007.
One of the rare films which had an immediate effect on any government it forced the conservative government(chirac -after watching the film) to pay the long due pension for the foreign soldiers who fought and risked for France.
It entered the oscar foreign category not for france but for Algeria.Fauteuil D’orchestre by Daniele Thompson was selected to represent France.
Comment by Qalandar on 6 May 2007:
Re: “One of the rare films which had an immediate effect on any government it forced the conservative government(chirac -after watching the film) to pay the long due pension for the foreign soldiers who fought and risked for France.”
That’s very interesting, I didn’t know this.
How come the film ended up Algeria’s official entry? Was it a French-Algerian co-production situation? I had been under the impression it was made “by” the French film industry…
How many cesars did it win (you mention it didn’t win any acting cesars, but what about others)?
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
As you know Qalandar a film of foreign language can be selected by any country.case in point “Water” which was nominated for Canada or even Pan’s labyrinth was nominated for Mexico and not Babel or Children of men.Even if all three are mexican directors.Babel could have been nominated for different countries.I think the 3 mexican directors planned it out first.It’s a new rule by the oscars.
“Indigenes” had great difficulty in finding funds for the movie.It was financed by more than 30 production aids ranging from Morroco to Belgium.Even from where i live Alsace helped in the making of this movie.
It did not make it the best actor category at the Cesars.That’s scandalous man!!!Considering the fact that it got a collective award at Cannes.Just like VOLVER.
IT did win one cesar for it’s original screenplay by oliver Lorelland the director himself Rachid Bouchareb.
It was a “flop “,relatively small film Pascal Ferran “lady chatterly ” which won maximum awards followed by the thriller “Ne le dis a personne”by the young actor/director Canet. which
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
In France there is a big problem when you want to make a film about the french history.And film is majorly financed by the television production house like canal+ or the number 1 television private company TF1.You should have seen them gloat after the pensions were allocated to these soldiers.Not only was it late in the day as many soldiers had died by the time they got their dues but to pride yourself afterwards is a bit too much.Considering the fact that Bouchareb had to fight intensely with these very production houses to see his dream(indigenes) fulfilled.
But at the end of the day, the biggest victory of this film is that people across the world have watched it or will eventually watch it!!!
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
Anyway the presidentials are on here.In 15 mins we will have a new president in France.
Comment by Qalandar on 6 May 2007:
Yeah, sadly (although I don’t think highly of either choice) I guess it’ll be Sarkozy…
Thanks for the comments kmkm13, no doubt the fact that we have this film to view is the real silver lining…
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
YEah man sarkozy it is…53 for him and 47 for Segolene ROYAL…estimation tns /sofres
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
Kmkm13: On this side of the Atlantic people are already cheering for ‘Sarko L’Americain’!
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
Kmkm13: Interesting info on Indigenes (released here as Days of Glory, always thought this ruined the sense of the title, specially given the film’s concerns).
On Lady Chatterley I’ve heard nothing but good things. Do want to watch this. It was playing at a festival a few weeks ago but I couldn’t make it. The DVD will release in France in a week or so. Bouchareb’s earlier work, Little Senegal, was also a fine film.
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
Yes satyam sarkozy is something.He is pro american for sure.Even went to America to click a picture with Bush.They derided him for quite sometime as he is short and the picture showed him to be at the same hight than Bush.
On Lady chatterley it came as a surprise here that this little film which made 200 000 entries won 5 cesars.
Indigenes is an apt title but these french films go to America and they have to change their titles.It’s the same for American movies.
Have you heard what the director of “Lady Chatterley” said at the cesar?
Have you seen the film by Tommy lee jones ” Trois enterrements”?Could easily have been on your list.
Have you seen another small movie which got 4 cesars for 2005 cesars Abdellatif Kechiche’s “l’esquive”?
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
The dvd of “indigenes” has already been released here in France.Haven’t watched ” little senegal”?It was playing on the cable. I am too lazy, i guess…
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
I was referring to the Chatterley DVD, not Indigenes.
I have seen the Tommy Lee Jones work though I wasn’t crazy about it. Have heard of L’esquive though haven’t seen it.
Comment by kmkm13 on 6 May 2007:
sorry yes you’re right Lady chatterley will release on 9 mai.You should see “l’esquive” it’s a good love story about a timid boy Krimo wanting to seduce his love by playing a part in a play by Marivaux ironically named ‘le jeu du hasard et de l’amour’.A different take on cliches surrounding “Les Banlieues” where art can emante…But tragically for him theatre won’t help him as he is too sincere (which ends up in a pedestrian effort by him) while playing his part.
Can be easily adapted in india!!!!The dvd’s price is quite low now!!!!
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
Thanks for the info. Will check it out..
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
Kmkm13: Actually I will watch L’Esquive during this week. I didn’t realise it was available in the US on DVD and it’s called Games of Love and Chance (ironically after the play within the film!).
The other two recent French films that didn’t make my list were Les Anges Exterminateurs and Sissako’s Bamako. I found the latter little more than blunt polemic and couldn’t quite figure out the critics who loved it. And I say this as someone who loved the director’s earlier waiting for Happiness.
One film that could still make the list is Chabrol’s L’Ivresse du Pouvoir. I missed this in the theaters and it releases on DVD here this week.
Comment by satyam on 6 May 2007:
By the way if L’Esquive were to be adapted in India ‘les banlieues’ would have to be converted to the ‘metro’ proper! Because the suburbs don’t have much cultural resonance in India. And the whole ‘immigrant’ issue would also work well with something like Bangladeshi immigrants in calcutta or some other kinds of immigrants in other cities.
Comment by satyam on 8 May 2007:
And speaking of ‘les Banlieues’ I just revisted La Haine after many years (for the first time since the original release actually) as it just released on DVD in the US. I remember not liking it originally but I found it outstanding this time around. And given some of the recent rioting (on that sort of scale even if the event is hardly new) it seems even more cogent as a film today.
Sarkozy according to some accounts has done more for immigrant policies in a positive way than most before him. But his tough stance on the ‘rioting’ ruined his reputation in this sense. But of course he also had his eye on his candidacy! Would be interesting to see what he does on this score in the future though I am not holding my breath!
Comment by kmkm13 on 8 May 2007:
Yes La Haine is one hell of a film.I certainly liked it when i saw it.This film will remain contemporary forever in France due to the problems immigrants namely blacks and muslims face.It’s a fitting account of a two way society where the young though french of African origin have little chance to make it.La Haine doesn’t glorify these jobless,aimless youth but shows a brutal reality where it’s more easy to become a drug dealer than a graduate.
The problem with Sarkozy is that he went to a suburb and pronounce words like ” racaille ” scums that needed to be cleaned to these youth.If you are a respectable politician surely you can’t use this kind of language.This episode is still vivid in the mind.Also considering the fact that there were 2 adolescents (zyed and Bouna) which died in an electrical transformer because they were pursued by the police.This is what started the riots.Also afterwards he came on television saying they were not pursued by the police which was a blatant lie.He never ever said he was sorry for saying those things.
Many people are kind of afraid of him not only does he control the political UMP, he’ll have full control of the police and power even the media as his friends control it.He opposes the working persons/unemployed,rich/poor,French citizens/immigrants or french with African origins rather than unite them.He certainly made his butter on the extreme left candidate Le PEN and took much of his voters.I don’t think he has done much for immigrants really.
I mean in some villages in Alsace Le PEN now Sarkozy came out with 80 percent of the votes where the risk of having an immigrant or stranger is scarce.
Comment by Qalandar on 8 May 2007:
Yeah, can’t say Sarkozy’s election thrilled me one bit, although Segolene Royal didn’t help matters by being so vaccuous. Actually was hoping Bayrou would do better, and still wonder how his party will fare in the Parliamentary elections that will be coming up shortly.
Satyam: not sure what you are referring to when you say Sarkozy has done stuff for immigrants! Must say I had never heard any such thing.
Comment by satyam on 8 May 2007:
Nice summation here kmkm13. I would add that this whole mix gets even more disturbing given the draconian powers the police have to begin with in France.
By the way I think you’ve mistyped ‘left’ for ‘right’ just before Le Pen.
Possibly the most outspoken contemporary French thinker on this entire issue is Badiou. Among other things, and in a somewhat more philosophical register, he talks about how the word ‘worker’ which was initially stigmatized in the West and was eventually institutionalized has now been converted into the ‘immigrant’. Not that the ‘worker’ became the ‘immigrant’ but that whole socio-politico-economic nexus that once defined the ‘worker’ in an industrial and perhaps even post-industrial age now defines the ‘immigrant’.
Badiou is constantly speaking out for the ’sans papiers’. It’s one of his great projects in life.
Comment by satyam on 8 May 2007:
Qalandar: Nor did I but I remember this view being represented in a recent piece somewhere. can’t remember where it was. I wasn’t endorsing the view. I was just interested that someone had made it and it was a mainstream source.
Comment by kmkm13 on 8 May 2007:
Haven’t seen either Bamako’s work or Brisseau’s “Les Anges Exterminateurs”, it was a very polemical film .Brisseau was even convicted for 1 year of imprisonment by the court for making 4 girls do erotic scenes before during the trials.Only 2 girls charges were taken into account for sexual harrasment.
Coming to “La Haine” its director mathieu kassovitz didn’t make another great film after it.He is also a very talented actor starred in films like Audiard’s”Regarde les hommes tomber,”Le fabuleux destin d’amelie poulain”Lagaan opponent at the oscars , Gavras’ “AMEN ” where he played a priest during the Nazi regime.He also played with kidman in ‘Birthday Girl’and directed the forgettable “Gothika” with Halle Berry.He got the best director award at cannes and also won 3 cesars including for best film.I gather he is working on a sci-fi movie Babylon Babies adapted from a book by Dantec.
Comment by satyam on 8 May 2007:
Alright, here’s that NY Times piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/world/europe/05france.html?pagewanted=print
May 5, 2007
In French Bid, Immigrant’s Son Battles Reputation as Anti-Immigrant
By CRAIG S. SMITH
PARIS, May 4 — The possible next president of France is the son of an immigrant with a very un-French name who has done as much, if not more, than any other French official to improve the status of minorities.
He knows the pain of being an outsider and even advocates American-style affirmative action, heresy for many people in officially colorblind, egalitarian France.
Yet the one place that the leading candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, has dared not go in the days before the election on Sunday are the volatile working-class neighborhoods of France’s second-generation immigrants, where he is largely reviled.
His opponent, Ségolène Royal of the Socialist Party, has played on fears that if Mr. Sarkozy is elected, this country’s minority youths may take to the streets as they did in 2005, setting cars and buildings aflame.
On Friday she said that if he is elected, “democracy will be threatened,” The Associated Press reported. She said she felt a “responsibility to raise the alert about the risks of this candidacy and the violence and brutality that will be set off in the country.”
The integration of alienated, second-generation immigrant youths into mainstream French society is one of the thorniest problems facing French politics today, and Mr. Sarkozy, as interior minister, tackled the problem head-on with a directness more typical of an American politician than a French one.
But his Giuliani-inspired zero-tolerance anticrime campaign, his frank, sometimes imprudent talk (tailored to attract far-right voters during an earlier stage of his campaign) and his combative style have turned him into an enemy for many young minorities. Fear that a President Sarkozy would bring five years of heightened tension and violence is an emotion operating at the core of the presidential campaign.
“There’s never been a presidential election in France in which the leading candidate causes so much fear,” said Kamel Chibli, who grew up in public housing projects outside Toulouse and now acts as a spokesman on minority affairs for Ms. Royal. “The future of the country is at stake.”
Certainly, the hoots and jeers that Mr. Sarkozy’s name brings amid the crowded high-rise apartment blocks in the Paris suburbs suggest that a Sarkozy presidency would face resistance, if not unrest. Even Mr. Sarkozy’s closest supporters concede that there is likely to be some car burning if he wins the election.
But those supporters argue that, given time, his anticrime campaign and promise of training and jobs for unemployed youths would eventually turn the tense suburbs from increasingly stagnant ghettos into peaceful pools of hope.
“If the only reason to vote for Ségo is fear of trouble in the suburbs, then democracy is in trouble,” said Yves Jégo, the mayor of one immigrant-heavy northern suburb and a staunch Sarkozy supporter. Ségo is Ms. Royal’s nickname.
Mr. Sarkozy himself has struggled as an outsider, describing himself as a “little Frenchman of mixed blood” who rose to the top of French politics without going through the normal channels of the elite École Nationale d’Administration as Ms. Royal did.
His record includes a number of efforts to improve the status of members of the country’s minorities, most of whom are Muslim. He encouraged the creation of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, which gave Islam a voice in France. He appointed the first prefect in France who is both foreign-born and Muslim. He has even argued for relaxing rules that restrict government support for building mosques.
And he supports affirmative action, which the Socialists steadfastly oppose. He has promised to find jobs for 250,000 disadvantaged youths before the end of the year.
Ms. Royal promises to reinstate neighborhood police officers and reinstate a state-financed youth employment program, both created by the former Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin and discontinued by Mr. Sarkozy. She has vowed that no young person would remain unemployed for more than six months after leaving school.
Even many of Mr. Sarkozy’s critics concede that his proposals are broader and deeper than those of Ms. Royal.
“He is more concrete, more precise than the left,” said Mohamed Hamidi, editor in chief of Bondy Blog, a fledgling online magazine focused on France’s working-class suburbs. “But he is ready for confrontation.”
Many people blame Mr. Sarkozy for the 2005 violence, citing his tough talk and policies during four years as interior minister. Soon after getting the job in 2002, he got rid of beat police officers in troubled neighborhoods, chastising patrolmen in Toulouse for organizing soccer games with local youths. “You are not social workers,” Mr. Sarkozy said.
His combative style exacerbated the rising tensions, even as it solidified his credentials with the far right, whose support was critical in winning the first round of voting last month.
While visiting La Courneuve, a working-class suburb of Paris, after a shooting in June 2005, he vowed to clean out the suburb “with a Kärcher,” a brand of high-powered industrial pressure washer.
He inflamed passions further a few months later by telling people in another suburb that he would rid the place of the “scum” responsible for petty crime.
The harsh language, which he and his supporters still defend, defined him as racist in the eyes of many French blacks and Arabs who were already bristling from the police spot checks that came with the anticrime campaign.
When two youths were accidentally electrocuted while fleeing police officers two days after his “scum” remark, working-class neighborhoods across the country erupted in an unprecedented wave of urban unrest that was largely a response to Mr. Sarkozy and his tough tactics.
While Mr. Sarkozy has moderated his language and struck a more conciliatory tone in the presidential campaign, he did not help matters by proposing last year that France have a ministry of immigration and national identity to ensure that new citizens adhered to France’s secular values.
To many people in the suburbs, the idea seemed to be a way to suppress cultural differences in favor of a traditional French way of life.
Since the 2005 violence, Mr. Sarkozy has been unwelcome in the suburbs. He made only one visit to a troubled neighborhood during the campaign, a brief, tightly controlled trip to the suburb of Meaux, where he bore the heckles and harangues of angry citizens in a closed meeting with more than 300 police officers posted outside.
But Mr. Sarkozy’s supporters say that the law-and-order drive and social programs, in time, would have a deeper impact on the stagnation in the suburbs, for which they blame 20 years of Socialist Party policies.
“You have to be firm with people who interfere with other people’s lives,” Taymir Boungou-Pouaty said as he watched a handful of police officers intervene to stop a fight outside La Courneuve’s notorious “city of 4,000” housing projects, so named because it includes about 4,000 apartments. “You can’t coddle them.”
Mr. Boungou-Pouaty, an immigrant from Congo, was one of the handful to benefit from Mr. Sarkozy’s 2005 visit to the suburb. He was hired by a French company as part of Mr. Sarkozy’s affirmative action plan and is now a volunteer in Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign.
He said many people in the housing projects supported Mr. Sarkozy, even if they were reluctant to talk about it.
“They speak through the ballots,” he said, noting that while Ms. Royal won 41.1 percent of the vote in La Courneuve, Mr. Sarkozy received a respectable 22.9 percent, more than the centrist candidate François Bayrou, and better than President Jacques Chirac fared in the 2002 presidential election. “There are people that want a little order, a little rigor,” Mr. Boungou-Pouaty said.
He is reassured because Mr. Sarkozy himself was born to a refugee, a Hungarian.
“The name Sarkozy isn’t French like Royal or Le Pen,” Mr. Boungou-Pouaty said, referring to Ms. Royal and the defeated far-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen. “To have a name like that at the top of France, that’s something.”
But the accusations of racism have stuck. The soccer star Lilian Thuram says that Mr. Sarkozy told him during the 2005 unrest that “it’s the blacks and Arabs who create problems in the suburbs.” Though Mr. Sarkozy says the story is not true, Mr. Thuram has repeated it over and over, becoming a popular voice of the anti-Sarkozy movement.
“If Sarkozy wins, I’m sure there’ll be trouble the night of the elections,” said Mr. Hamidi, the Bondy Blog editor. “With Ségo, things will be calm for five years.”
In a way, Mr. Sarkozy’s confrontational style has already changed the suburbs, where economic stagnation had dee