The votes have been counted, and The Wicker Man is your favourite film of 2023.
The Wicker Man
- I loved everything about The Wicker Man. In many ways quite a simple story but told so well. It is engaging yet disturbing and has a fantastic dark humor – if he’d just slept with the innkeeper’s daughter he would have been saved!
- It has been on my bucket list for years and finally got to see it on the Embassy screen!
- The soundtrack, the acting, the cinematography and story were outstanding.
The Night of the Hunter
- It’s strange, unexpected, suspenseful, and absolutely captivating. A fairy tale brought to life in breathtakingly beautiful black & white…
- For me the movie is the ultimate Suspense film. Mitchum’s character is so evil and vile that you can’t help hating him for preying (see what I did there?) on the family. Top notch cinematography from the man who shot Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (Stanley Cortez) both lights up and darkens down the screen through the movie.
- So artificial and yet so cinematic. The world created is so convincing because it is more real than the world we inhabit. Its creepiness, its religiosity and its symbolism are entirely and perfectly translated into cinematic language.
Sweet Smell of Success
- Pitch black dissection of two dark hearts that care little but for their own careers and their reputations to break careers. All shot with glorious crispness by James Wong Howe giving us a quintessential Noir York City.
- The dialogue was crisp, and kept you guessing, and the B&W cinematography wrapped the story with great images of 1950’s New York.
- The sleaziness of the world was visceral; the script and performances were razor-sharp. The pathetic, co-dependent, self-satisfied disgusting men were such engaging characters, pitiable in their myopic obsession.
The 2023 Best Comments Awards
Just say ‘No’ to Noir!
Free November from its grabby claws!
This from a commenter whose review of Taxi Driver said that “…such a powerhouse of a film – it’s how cinema should be – a visual and aural artwork that kicks you in the guts” .
They loved the rest of the programme too, and the experience of watching it with us.
Thank you very much for a great year – it was a beautifully and thoughtfully curated selection of films. It’s great to see the Film Society so buzzy – it’s amazing seeing the Embassy nearly full, and lots of young people coming along.
Award for drawing the longest bow
And appropriately in a Western too. Has the gloomy librarian from Hull ever been mentioned in a review of a John Wayne movie before?
You may have heard it here first in this comment about The Searchers…
Undeniably racist, sexist, and ‘disturbing’ in all its tacit assumptions, but still wonderfully formal film-making in a classic genre with stunning landscapes. Same problem with Leni Riefenstahl and Philip Larkin.