So I know I said yesterday that I’d probably watch a bunch more Enterprise before eventually getting around to watching more “great movies.” But I forgot about two things:

  1. I really really really hate Enterprise Season 3, and am not eager to return to it.

  2. I am a contrary motherfucker and the instant anyone says “you’ll never actually do this,” I’m like FUCK YOU I WILL TOO. Even if I’m the person who said it.

So rather than picking a rando movie off the Criterion selection on Hulu, I decided to get systematic and find a credible list of the best movies ever. After a couple of misses (sorry, IMDB, but while I do like Shawshank Redemption, I’m not sure it really qualifies as the greatest movie of all time), I found the list linked here, which seems to be a well-regarded list. (They update it every ten years; the last time was 2012.)

I’ve already seen the top two movies on the list — Vertigo and Citizen Kane — so on to the third one it is.

So this is a longish movie (solidly over two hours), and it’s about the relationship between parents and their adult children. An elderly couple come up from their rural home to visit their kids in Tokyo, and awkwardness ensues. But the characters are all drawn with a subtlety and depth to them, and the relationships and events feel very real. It manages to be affecting without really trying for pathos, and while burying its own heart beyond a layer of quiet reserve.

It’s also a look at a time of change — it’s set in postwar Japan (it was made in 1953, and I think it’s set basically in the present day of its filming), and obviously Tokyo is being rebuilt as a new city and the Japanese economy is shifting into modernity — which ties into the gap between the parents and the children and also is interesting in its own right.

Saying that this is a genuinely excellent movie is obviously not going out on a limb, all things considered, but it is. Recommended to anyone looking for a slow, quiet movie that rewards attention.