This is the genre I appriciate the most when it comes to movies. Please feel free to share your suggestions.
Disclaimer- some of the reviews are not mine but come from IMDB and I qouted them cause I couldnt agree more
So here is my list:
1. La Reine Margot France, 1992
My all time favourite dealing with the massacre of St. Bartholomews night and the events around it. This movie is so realistic that almost every frame looks like an oil painting from the period. The wild boar hunt as never seen on the movie screen before.
Superb acting and amazing gallery of psychopats leading with Virna Lisi as the evil incarnated Katherine de Medicci. Musical score by Goran Bregovich compliments the visual feast. For some of it he used ancient songs from medieval Dalmacia and Bosnia.
2. The Mission 1986 by Roland Joffé
I found myself emotionally devastated after seeing this film the first time. The film packs a punch in its contrast between the beauty of nature and human self-sacrifice on the one hand and the depths of human self-interest and ruthlessness on the other. Its theme is as relevant today as it was in the 1600s - what are the consequences of my actions, and what price must be paid by me and by others as a result? The film depicts several characters with whose choices the viewer can identify - the missionary, the repentant killer, the papal legate - and gives no easy answers to the choices that confront them. But the fact that there are no easy answers doesn't let them off the hook. In the end, they all have to take responsibility for what they do or fail to do. See this movie and contemplate what would be the right (STO) choices in given circumstances.
3. Iphigenia 1977, Greece
Before sailing ships for troy Agamemnon is getting ready to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia.
Just the little segment of Trojan War but still way more powerfull then recent hollywood shite
4. Last Temptation of Christ by Scorcesse and Life of Brian by Month Pytons
Two totally different takes on life or in the latter case concept of Jesus Christ , each precious in its own right.
Has anyone noticed flying saucer in The Life of Brian?! :)
5. Il Decameron 1971, Italy by Paolo Passolini
Pasolini freely adapts ten or so episodes from Boccaccio's fourteenth century collection of hundred short stories. He interweaves the tales of happy or tragic lovers, naughty nuns and lusty priests, naive husbands and cheating but quick-witted wives, inept grave robbers, and a young gardener who got more than he had bargained for, with his own meditations on art, life, death and love. Pasolini himself plays a painter Giotto who observes the characters that inspire him to paint a fresco on the church's wall. In the end of the film Pasolini's Giotto comments that it may be better to dream about a work of art than to actually produce it.
6. Galipoli 1981 by Piter Wier
There are anti-war movies that work by rubbing your nose in the gore and brainless waste of war, and then there are those that are more subtle and cunning, and approach your sensibilities from behind. Gallipoli, certainly one of the best Australian films of the modern era, is one of the latter. It approaches war as a game right up until the last 20 minutes, it derives comic dialogue from it, and in some scenes openly ridicules the concept of soldiering (a platoon is swimming naked in the ocean, for example, and one man is hit by falling shrapnel, causing resounding cheers - this means he will be going home.) It's essentially a movie of two overlapping halves: the first tries to encapsulate and describe exactly who the Australians of 1915 were, how they thought, felt and behaved; the second plonks them into the unnatural setting of a war run by the British, who seem quite alien in this film.
7. Elizabeth the Virgin Queen 1998 by Shekhar Kapur
England. 1555. Henry VIII has snuffed it from gout or syphilis, it depends on who you read, Bloody Mary's got a tumour and the Catholics' greatest fear is Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth. Director Kapur has brought to the screen some of the most intriguing moments in English history, ad brilliant cate Balnchet and the result is dazzling.
8. Barry Lindon 1975 by Stanley Kubrick
THIS, I feel sure (without having read Thackeray), is the proper way to adapt a long story from novel to screen. It's one of Kubrick's most gripping pictures, with a narrative drive second only to that of "Dr. Strangelove" (and it's unquestionably a more glorious creation than, say, anything he made in the 1950s). English director Michael Powell (while attributing a similar failing to one of his own works) says that Kubrick fell into "the trap of the picturesque", but while I admire Powell as a creator, the judgment is absurd: at the VERY least, each lush image shows us people not just occupying a part of the screen but inhabiting a world, and tells us much about their relation to that world. Many shots are indeed amazing and beguile the eye, but they don't have the effect they do simply because they would make nice postcards.
9. Der Untergang (The Downfall) Germany, 2004
Traudl Junge the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII
You feel transported to Berlin as it was bombarded by the Russians. You get a very clear insight (or an impression?) in how the military decisions were taken during those final days of the war. The movie balances well between large-scale effects of bombs exploding in ruined streets and depictions of different persons going though the experience – from Hitler and his staff in the well-protected bunkers to the principal military commanders torn between reason and loyalty and German civilians trapped in an inferno. The movie is neither pro-Nazi nor does it depict all Nazis as mindless monsters. It gives an impression of utter reality - especially when watching the ultimate act of psychopathic monsters Goerning and his wife giving pooison to their children.
10.Orlando 1992 by Sally Potter based on V. Wolf's novel
Ah, last but definitely not the least!
Well not really historical movie but I includeed it here as it could as well be. maybe a story nobody managed to record, a real life tale of alchemist who has achieved androginous state and imortality.
(okay the chances are he or she definitelly wouldnt hang around 3 D for so long, but bare with me pls)
The review on IMDB says:
"Orlando" is a curiously ravishing series of essays built around the title character's travel through four centuries and two genders. The film's critical acclaim and awards in contrast with the luke warm IMDB user rating is testimony to the esoterics and queer plot of the film. "Orlando's" artful and elegant presentation features a wonderful performance by Swinton, sumptuous costuming, lush locations, and a screenplay rich in comedic overtones and serious undercurrents. Not for everyone but a wonderful film for the jaded.
Disclaimer- some of the reviews are not mine but come from IMDB and I qouted them cause I couldnt agree more
So here is my list:
My all time favourite dealing with the massacre of St. Bartholomews night and the events around it. This movie is so realistic that almost every frame looks like an oil painting from the period. The wild boar hunt as never seen on the movie screen before.
Superb acting and amazing gallery of psychopats leading with Virna Lisi as the evil incarnated Katherine de Medicci. Musical score by Goran Bregovich compliments the visual feast. For some of it he used ancient songs from medieval Dalmacia and Bosnia.
I found myself emotionally devastated after seeing this film the first time. The film packs a punch in its contrast between the beauty of nature and human self-sacrifice on the one hand and the depths of human self-interest and ruthlessness on the other. Its theme is as relevant today as it was in the 1600s - what are the consequences of my actions, and what price must be paid by me and by others as a result? The film depicts several characters with whose choices the viewer can identify - the missionary, the repentant killer, the papal legate - and gives no easy answers to the choices that confront them. But the fact that there are no easy answers doesn't let them off the hook. In the end, they all have to take responsibility for what they do or fail to do. See this movie and contemplate what would be the right (STO) choices in given circumstances.
Before sailing ships for troy Agamemnon is getting ready to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia.
Just the little segment of Trojan War but still way more powerfull then recent hollywood shite
4. Last Temptation of Christ by Scorcesse and Life of Brian by Month Pytons
Two totally different takes on life or in the latter case concept of Jesus Christ , each precious in its own right.
Has anyone noticed flying saucer in The Life of Brian?! :)
5. Il Decameron 1971, Italy by Paolo Passolini
Pasolini freely adapts ten or so episodes from Boccaccio's fourteenth century collection of hundred short stories. He interweaves the tales of happy or tragic lovers, naughty nuns and lusty priests, naive husbands and cheating but quick-witted wives, inept grave robbers, and a young gardener who got more than he had bargained for, with his own meditations on art, life, death and love. Pasolini himself plays a painter Giotto who observes the characters that inspire him to paint a fresco on the church's wall. In the end of the film Pasolini's Giotto comments that it may be better to dream about a work of art than to actually produce it.
6. Galipoli 1981 by Piter Wier
There are anti-war movies that work by rubbing your nose in the gore and brainless waste of war, and then there are those that are more subtle and cunning, and approach your sensibilities from behind. Gallipoli, certainly one of the best Australian films of the modern era, is one of the latter. It approaches war as a game right up until the last 20 minutes, it derives comic dialogue from it, and in some scenes openly ridicules the concept of soldiering (a platoon is swimming naked in the ocean, for example, and one man is hit by falling shrapnel, causing resounding cheers - this means he will be going home.) It's essentially a movie of two overlapping halves: the first tries to encapsulate and describe exactly who the Australians of 1915 were, how they thought, felt and behaved; the second plonks them into the unnatural setting of a war run by the British, who seem quite alien in this film.
7. Elizabeth the Virgin Queen 1998 by Shekhar Kapur
England. 1555. Henry VIII has snuffed it from gout or syphilis, it depends on who you read, Bloody Mary's got a tumour and the Catholics' greatest fear is Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth. Director Kapur has brought to the screen some of the most intriguing moments in English history, ad brilliant cate Balnchet and the result is dazzling.
8. Barry Lindon 1975 by Stanley Kubrick
THIS, I feel sure (without having read Thackeray), is the proper way to adapt a long story from novel to screen. It's one of Kubrick's most gripping pictures, with a narrative drive second only to that of "Dr. Strangelove" (and it's unquestionably a more glorious creation than, say, anything he made in the 1950s). English director Michael Powell (while attributing a similar failing to one of his own works) says that Kubrick fell into "the trap of the picturesque", but while I admire Powell as a creator, the judgment is absurd: at the VERY least, each lush image shows us people not just occupying a part of the screen but inhabiting a world, and tells us much about their relation to that world. Many shots are indeed amazing and beguile the eye, but they don't have the effect they do simply because they would make nice postcards.
9. Der Untergang (The Downfall) Germany, 2004
Traudl Junge the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII
You feel transported to Berlin as it was bombarded by the Russians. You get a very clear insight (or an impression?) in how the military decisions were taken during those final days of the war. The movie balances well between large-scale effects of bombs exploding in ruined streets and depictions of different persons going though the experience – from Hitler and his staff in the well-protected bunkers to the principal military commanders torn between reason and loyalty and German civilians trapped in an inferno. The movie is neither pro-Nazi nor does it depict all Nazis as mindless monsters. It gives an impression of utter reality - especially when watching the ultimate act of psychopathic monsters Goerning and his wife giving pooison to their children.
10.Orlando 1992 by Sally Potter based on V. Wolf's novel
Ah, last but definitely not the least!
Well not really historical movie but I includeed it here as it could as well be. maybe a story nobody managed to record, a real life tale of alchemist who has achieved androginous state and imortality.
(okay the chances are he or she definitelly wouldnt hang around 3 D for so long, but bare with me pls)
The review on IMDB says:
"Orlando" is a curiously ravishing series of essays built around the title character's travel through four centuries and two genders. The film's critical acclaim and awards in contrast with the luke warm IMDB user rating is testimony to the esoterics and queer plot of the film. "Orlando's" artful and elegant presentation features a wonderful performance by Swinton, sumptuous costuming, lush locations, and a screenplay rich in comedic overtones and serious undercurrents. Not for everyone but a wonderful film for the jaded.
