^{www.camerastylo.com}

^{by Derek Lam}

^{Yi Yi} 

^{1.  YI YI} 

^{The apotheosis of Edward Yang, and as wise as George Eliot: a clear-sighted masterpiece that distills Yang's output in the Nineties (A Confucian Confusion, Mahjong) as effectively as A Brighter Summer Day did the earlier, more pessimistic films.} 

^{2.  THE WIND WILL CARRY US} 

^{Abbas Kiarostami at his most relaxed and masterly.} 

^{3.  BEAU TRAVAIL} 

^{A film, which given its protagonist's prolonged, yearning backwards glance at a paradise lost, is almost cruelly beautiful and sensual.} 

^{4.  THE HOUSE OF MIRTH} 

^{It's a testament to how free from literalism is Terence Davies' vision of the past that his soundtrack for turn-of-the-century New York can range from Handel to Morton Feldman.} 

^{5.  THE IDIOTS} 

^{A withering auto-critique that's all the more effective for not trying so hard as the smug spectacles that flank it in von Trier's de facto trilogy.} 

^{6.  POLA X} 

^{Carax romances the Other and abandons his freewheeling cinema of attractions for a tight, linear adaptation: an oddly compelling exercise in orientalism.} 

^{7.  WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES} 

^{Tough minded it isn't, but the simplicity and sheer ecstasy of vision are compelling: like Beethoven, Tarr can round up the local drunks and somehow elevate them into a view of the cosmos.} 

^{8.  IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE} 

^{Days of Being Wild is a superior film, but Wong Kar-Wai has become so deft a filmmaker that one can forgive the results for being occasionally undercooked.} 

^{9.  HUMANITÉ} 

^{It's proof of Dumont's masterfully sustained ambiguity that the same onscreen behavior can be viewed by three of our best critics as variably a compassionate hug, a detective's procedural sniff, and a "psychosexual freak-out."} 

^{10.  GOHATTO} 

^{Visually elegant, remarkably lucid in its construction, it's also a surprisingly funny film.} 

^{Honorable Mention:} 

^{Platform, The Circle, Brother, Kippur, George Washington, Eureka, Suzhou River} 

^{I Am Twenty}

^{I AM TWENTY  (Marlen Khutsiev, USSR, 1963)} 

^{Heartbreak and disillusionment cast an autumnal glow over post-Stalinist Moscow as three twentysomethings, shot New Wave-style on the streets, contemplate the gulf between the postwar generation and its wartime forbears.  The director, Marlen Khutsiev, is a real discovery: this is Godard, if he lived in a Communist state.  No self-respecting distributor should overlook this essential work.} 

^{MOLOCH  (Aleksandr Sokurov, USSR/Germany, 1997)} 

^{I can't agree with Ian Christie that this is on quite the same level as Our Hitler.  Nevertheless, it's a cogent, at times extraordinary, interpretation that's nowhere more perceptive (and alarmingly funny) as when Hitler armchair conducts a Furtwängler concert film, only to encore Beethoven’s Ninth with footage from the front.} 

^{Gillian Anderson in The House of Mirth}

^{Best Performance:}

^{Gillian Anderson, The House of Mirth 
Wu Nien-Jen, Yi Yi} 

^{Best Cinematography:}

^{Agnès Godard, Beau Travail 
Robby Müller, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai} 

^{Best Screenplay:}

^{Edward Yang, Yi Yi} 

^{Best Director:}

^{Edward Yang, Yi Yi} 

^{Best Short:}

^{The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin)} 

^{Enough already:}

^{Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon} 

^{When Ang Lee made Ride with the Devil, did Taiwanese critics call it the "best Western ever," and insist on comparing Lee to John Ford?} 

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^{All written material (c) 2002 by Derek Lam}