CARLO PANGALANGAN LABRADOR'S PERSONAL FAVORITE FILMS OF THE DECADE

The 2010s were a very pivotal decade in my life, I ended my 20s and entered my 30s, moved to and then left New York, ended two long term relationships, and also began discover who I really was as human and a filmmaker. I made my first feature, and a couple of shorts that I’m proud of. I continue to evolve, but I certainly feel I know myself better at the end of the decade than I did when it began. I am grateful to everyone who helped me grow along the way, you know who you are.

These are the movies that were significant to me during this pivotal time, they inspired me, made me feel creatively engaged, reinvigorated. They’re not ranked per se, as we who obsess over our lists know that their order can change at any given day. But I will say that the ones closer to the top are probably more significant.

Paterson may be the most conventional movie at the top, but seeing it was the right movie at right time. It came out at the very end of 2016, which was a disastrous year for me, and Paterson was just what I needed. I saw it at the now defunct Landmark Sunshine, went back to see it again just to make sure what I had seen was truly great, and then came back a third time with a date (she loved it, but unfortunately it didn’t work out between us.); and after three viewings, I knew it was something special. It inspired me to write poetry, I went on trips to Paterson, NJ to visit the locations of the film, tried to do recreations of some of the images from the film and do side-by-side comparisons. The central relationship in Paterson is one I aspire to, yet I’m not quite sure if it’s even possible. The film’s assured calm, ambient mood make it the perfect film to have playing in the background, and then I end up watching it all the way through. The biggest take away for me, though, is how important it is to make work that is personally significant to you, even if you don’t end up sharing it with the world.

The next few films are closer to what I aspire to achieve cinematically: they are pushing the limits of the possibilities of the moving image, they’re ambitious, take risks, and make you feel like you won’t ever be the same after seeing them for the first time. And there’s some fun entertaining ones in there, too. I also avoided some of the more obvious choices that I knew would be ubiquitous on other people’s lists, I made this list in the hopes that there would be some discoveries for you, some stuff you may have missed, or had come across but never quite gave a chance to. Happy hunting!

TOP TIER:

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)