In early June, 2013, my best friend killed herself.
She took a cab to the middle of nowhere and vanished, and three months later, her body was found. In the wake of her disappearance, I was... obliterated. Utterly and completely obliterated. I still have not recovered, and I know I probably never will.
Sometime shortly after she disappeared, I joined this site. At the time, I could not have told you the real reason why. I had been trying to make a list of my favorite movies through Facebook's piss poor interface, got fed up, and joined this site that some of my online friends had been using. I decided shortly thereafter to take up a project: to watch the…
In early June, 2013, my best friend killed herself.
She took a cab to the middle of nowhere and vanished, and three months later, her body was found. In the wake of her disappearance, I was... obliterated. Utterly and completely obliterated. I still have not recovered, and I know I probably never will.
Sometime shortly after she disappeared, I joined this site. At the time, I could not have told you the real reason why. I had been trying to make a list of my favorite movies through Facebook's piss poor interface, got fed up, and joined this site that some of my online friends had been using. I decided shortly thereafter to take up a project: to watch the 1073 (I think) on an old list compiled by a bunch of LiveJournalers in 2007 or so.
It took me a few months to realize that what i was really doing was drowning out my grief and depression by filling my time watching movies. Having a list to check off as I went gave me a sense of doing something. It let me pretend I wasn't wasting my time. Mostly, I just logged my films here with a short word or two. In part, I just wasn't in any condition to think or write about film, and in part, I hadn't found my voice.
Then I watched Funeral Parade of Roses and remembered my voice, as it were. It was like waking up.
Like myself, Kaylie was gender non-conforming--she was in the process of transition, in fact, unlike me. She was much braver than I am. She was much stronger, in her way, than I am. But she was unhappy on a fundamental level that I struggled with on her behalf for over a decade, trying to get her to be the person I saw in her rather than the pain-swallowed, life-hating person she had become. I failed; she lost her life.
I watched Funeral Parade of Roses, and some of my grief and guilt crystallized. I was able to talk about myself again. I realized why I had been watching movies this last year or so--to both escape and process my pain--and I redoubled my efforts. I have now mostly completed that list. It hasn't lessened my pain, but it helped me get through the darkest times in the wake of my loss.
It might have saved my life.
So here it is. The original AOV canon game films, ranked. Here is where this list comes from. There are two films I have been unable to find: Stan Brakhage's Panels on the Walls of Heaven and Claes Fellbom's topless Swedish rendition of Aida. If you know where I can get a copy, please, let me know.
Not listed in Letterboxd (numbered parentheticals denote my ratings so you can guess roughly where they'd rank): New Wave Hookers (2), The Voyeur and the Exhibitionist (2.5), "First Time Here" (3.5), "Death of a Rat" (4), "Poeme Electronique" (4), In Thru the Back Door (0.5), Through the Looking Glass (Middleton) (3.5), "Making a Splash" (3), Corruption (Watkins) (1.5), "Fluxes" (3.5) Moans of Pleasure (3), "Two Dogs and a Ball" (2.5), "v.o." (4.5).