See if you can spot a trend here. I have watched the film Yesterday four times, Citizen Kane twice, Rashomon once, La Règle du Jeu once, The Fifth Element maybe eight times, There Will Be Blood once, Beau Travail once, Persona once, Pitch Perfect too many times to count… and Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles? Never.
OK, so I’m a wannabe film snob refusing to face facts – I like trashy feelgood movies. Well, not exactly trashy, but… some of the films in that list are considered among the greatest ever made, and the ones I’ve watched on repeat aren’t. But I’m not having a guilty pleasures moment here, and I don’t need a psychologist to tell me I’m seeking comfort in things I already know. There’s something in each of those stories that I really like, something that is operating in the exact opposite way to, say, Todd Fields’s Tár, which was an early contender for film of the year when it came out in January. Great movie, I remember thinking, as I walked out of the cinema; I never want to see it again.
