Suggestions

If Almodovar embodies Spanish cinema, Angelopoulos embodied Greek cinema (which is now gaining international attention thanks to Yorgos Lanthimos). Eternity and a Day is the quintessence of his style, characterized by slow-moving tracking shots and a narration mixing present, past and dreams of the main character. Here, Bruno Ganz plays a writer who has a last day to spend before moving to an hospital where he is expecting to die. During that day, he ends up meeting a young boy, an Albanian refugee, and spends the day with him, remembering his past. This beautiful peregrination is magnified by the music by Eleni Karaindrou, that won't leave your head for a while.

I will finish the cycle of suggestions with the most underrated album of my favourite band, King Crimson. This band made a revolution with their debut album in 1969, and invented the progressive rock genre. Led by guitarist Robert Fripp, their music is at the crossroad of hard rock, jazz and musique concrète. Islands comes after their explosive debut and before their mid-70s most valued albums. This transition record (another one) was not greatly appreciated by fans, but it is the one I find the most intimate, personal, and in that sense most touching. Located somewhere between jazz, rock and classical music, it has some quiet moments as well as roaring guitar solos. A peaceful record for these strange days.

I discovered Haneke with his first Palme d'Or, "The white ribbon", in 2009, and it was one of the biggest shock I've ever experienced in a cinema. I quickly discovered that Haneke is among the best living director of our time (if not the best, according to me), and each of his movies feels like a punch in the stomach. Caché was the second time he hit me. In Paris, a bourgeois family receive video recordings of their house with strange drawings. To discover the truth, family members will have to reveal some hidden part of their lives. A haunting tale of guilt and shame, magnified by the acting of Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. Basically, watch everything from Haneke. Quickly. In cinema if possible.

I will finish this cycle of suggestions with perhaps my favourite bands, and their style will be closer to progressive rock than jazz. Magma is a french progressive rock band formed in late 60s, led by drummer Christian Vander. Even though they were considered as some crazy weirdos by some (which I can understand, considering that they are singing in an invented language and pretend to come from a planet called Kobaïa), their music is very technical and performed by extremely talented musicians. Influenced by the music of John Coltrane, it blends improvisation and orchestrations, focusing on modulation. This live album captures the peak of their music, and portrays the impressive amount of energy they can deliver on stage.

Between Dekalog (the series that made Kieslowski famous) and Three Colors: Red (his last movie), there is only 5 years. During that short period of time, Kieslowski impressed every cinema lover with his beautiful movies, where magnificient images blend perfectly with incredible music (composed by Zbigniew Preisner, his friend). Blue is the first movie of his last trilogy, and it is my favourite of his works. It follows the process of grief and reconstruction of a woman who lost her husband and daughter in a car accident. The parallel between the emotions of Juliette Binoche, the composition of the music score and the color blue is absolutely moving.

Back to 70's fusion! Weather Report is one of the main jazz fusion supergroups made of former Miles Davis bandmates. Led by keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, it started as an experimental project focusing on lengthy improvised pieces, and ended up being a very popular band in the early 80s when genius bass player Jaco Pastorius joined the band. Black Market is another transition record, the first one where Pastorius plays. It is heavily influenced by african rythms where long energetic improvisations in a pure Zawinul style blend with melodic lines of Shorter and Pastorius. And also, incredible cover!

If Russia is famous for its literature, it is also well-known as one of the finest cinema production of the world. And among Russian filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky is definitely the most important and the most influential one (with Sergei Eisenstein perhaps). He made only seven movies, but each one of them is a masterpiece. I rediscovered "Solaris" recently. It is a contemplative sci-fi drama, where a space explorer experience an existential crisis during a mission next to the planet Solaris: this planet recreates dead relatives from the thoughts of the humans on the space station. This is a fascinating and moving experience, questionning grief and human condition.

This is perhaps the record that is the closest to "pure" jazz I have suggested so far. But still, this was one of the most innovative voice in the jazz world in the early 2000s. Esbjorn Svensson was classically trained, and played in rock bands for a while, and finally turned to jazz. His trio (e.s.t) has explored the sound of their respective instruments with a lot of sensitivity and virtuosity. This beautiful adventure tragically stopped with the death of its leader, and this live in London was posthumously released in 2018. It is a masterpiece of talent and pure emotion, a beautiful summary of what e.s.t. was and why it is missed.

Let's state it from the start: I find it very difficult to not love Pedro Almodovar. Rarely a filmmaker has represented a country just by himself like him. His portrayal of Spain through his love of music, of vivid colours, of the poor neighbourhoods, and mostly of spanish women, always enchants me. But Almodovar's movies are not just about Spain, they also deal with the dark sides of huamn kind with talent and sensitivity. "Talk to Her" is in that sense perhaps the climax of his style. The plot focuses on the odd friendship between two men who are spending their time in an hospital looking after the women they love, trapped in a coma. It is bold and brilliant, as always with Almodovar!

As my previous suggestions may show it, I love the blend of jazz with other musical styles. I discovered Dhafer Youssef thanks to Spotify suggestions (what an algorithm!). The marriage of Tunisian music and jazz works incredibly well! The rythmic creativity and eastern sound of Youssef's oud gave birth one of the most exciting jazz album I ever listened to!

Bela Tarr's movies may not be the most approachable ones, nor the most cheerful ones. They are in black and white, they are long, with very long shots, they deal with extreme poverty and depression in Hungary. But they constitute unique and memorable experiences for those who dare giving it a chance. The Turin Horse is Tarr's last movie (he retired after it). It portrays the painful daily life of a man and his daughter, in some remote and extremely windy countryside. They survival depends on their horse, who is getting sick. This is a movie on the end of the world, the end of a world, and if you truly engage in such a film, it is a deep and beautiful experience.

This is my favourite album released in 2019. Saxophonist Chris Potter has always been an innovative voice in the world of jazz, as his recent collaboration with Zakir Hussain and Dave Holland proves it (I saw them live, astonishing). In this record, he blends a hip-hop sound with the virtuosity of a jazz fusion musicianship. This is a jaw-dropping performance and mind-blowing music proposition.

The Swedish director Ingmar Bergman is perhaps the most influential director of all time. His movies, austere and filled with symbolism, filled the imagination of filmmakers and cinema lovers with unforgettable images, such as Death playing chess with a crusader in The Seventh Seal. Persona is probably his most radical movie, and in that sense, it is in my view that aged the least. After a very experimental introduction, we follow a young nurse and a famous actress who suddenly stopped speaking. They move to a cottage by the sea to treat her mutism. This is the hardest film to describe: it is intensely thought-provoking, often scary, definitely beautiful.

I discovered the Israeli jazz double bassist Avishai Cohen thanks to the wonderful suggestions of Spotify, and what a discovery! His music blends jazz, middle east music and classical music. From this mix results a rich music, with intricate time signatures, polyrhythms and baroque-influenced counterpoints. The technical skills of the musicians are impressive, but they always serve beautiful melodies. I discovered him with this album, where he improved his usual jazz trio formation with an oud player. An incredible musician and composer!

A day before Valentine’s day, it seemed logical to suggest a romance. This isn’t any one of them, In the mood for love is often voted as one of the best movies of the 2000s. Wong Kar-Wai was already famous for his incredibly stylistic approach to filmmaking, but it reached its best level in this movie. In Hong-Kong, during the 1960s, two neighbours, Mr Chow and Mrs Chan, realize that their respective partners are cheating on them. They try to understand how it happened. This is a treasure of colourful images, moving music, beautiful dresses and hidden feelings.

Soft Machine is the emblematic band of the Canterbury scene, a movement of progressive rock focusing on lengthy improvisations, born in that city. Six is (another) transition record, in which two of the original members are still present (Hopper and Ratledge) and two new members just came from the jazz rock band Nucleus (Jenkins and Marshall). This double LP contains a live set and a studio set, which embodies all the features of this strange mix between experimental rock and technical jazz musicianship. And what an album cover!

The recent success of "Parasite" shed light on the capacity of Asian cinema to provide incredibly original movies to film-lovers. In 2010, Thai cinema rose to prominence when "Uncle Boonmee" won the Palme d'Or, but his director, A. Weerasethakul, was already famous for a previous strangely beautiful movie: "Tropical Malady". The film is divided in two seemingly unrelated parts: a gay romance first, the hunt of a unknown creature then. While the movie can be subject to many interpretations, it is above all a strange, immersive and magical experience that will print unreal images and sounds in your mind for a while.

Christian Scott is probably my favourite contemporary artist. Scott's music is all about heritage. Scott is from New Orleans, the birthplace of Jazz music. If Jazz is the main ingredient of his music, Scott has the amazing capacity to blend it with all the other influences deep rooted in the US culture, but also elsewhere. One can find sounds from Asian music, percussions from Africa, electronic sounds from hip-hop, saturated guitars from rock music. This is what he calls Stretch Music, and after seeing it live at the Sugar Club, I can't get it out of my head!

After winning the Palme d’Or for “Paris, Texas” in 1984, Wim Wenders came to back to Cannes film festival with another incredible movie, “Wings of Desire”, written with Peter Handke (Nobel Prize of Literature 2019). We are in Berlin shortly before the fall of the wall, and we are following two angels in their exploration of human condition. One of them (Bruno Ganz) falls in love with a woman. The poetic idea of the movie is to make us see the world from the perspective of the angels (black and white, a floating camera, we hear people’s thoughts) to contrast it with the much more colourful and exciting perspective of humans.

Gong came to prominence in the early 70s as one of the main contributors to the space rock genre. Shamal is the first album after the departure of the Australian leader of the band, Daevid Allen. It is the turning point in the style of the band, that will be then heading towards the jazz fusion genre infused by the new leader, the French drummer/vibraphonist Pierre Moerlen. The “transition” nature of this record yields a groovy and strange sound, that I really love. An unknown gem!

La Dolce Vita by Fellini is perhaps the best introduction to the 60’s Italian cinema, as it contains all its best ingredients: an incredible sense of directing, beautiful photography (the recent 4k restoration is astonishing), Marcello Mastroianni, Nino Rota’s music, a cynical picture of the Italian society. It is a 3 hours long journey in the world of paparazzis and Rome’s jet set, and it is fascinating how Fellini predicted and depicted the disillusion of the 60’s sexual revolution.

This is the first album of former Miles Davis’s band members, recorded straight after the seminal jazz fusion record “Bitches Brew”. Led by John McLaughlin, it constituted one of the most famous jazz “supergroups”, along with Return to Forever and Weather Report. For me, the most distinctive aspect of MO’s music is its sound: the heavily distorted guitars of McLaughlin, the loud drumming of Billy Cobham, the sharp sound of Jan Hammer’s synthesizers, Jerry Goodman’s screaming violin. The result is an intense music, focusing on energy and improvisation. Fire for the ears!