Hal Hartley -How do you rank his films?

[theprestige85]

It's only just occured to me recently that we have little to no threads on Hal Hartley's films.



A prominent in the development of the American Indies in the early to mid 90's, Hartley has quite the following in modern cinema. His style is idiosyncratic and peculiar, but no less compelling. He is often compared to his contemporaries, with obvious comparisons to the likes of the Woody Allen and Jim Jarmusch. But he is (much) more interesting than the former, and distinctive enough from the latter that they don't need to be compared too much. All they have in common is that they have all made dramedies, but other than that, Hartley is his own beast.

At his worst, Hartley's films can come across as soft student films with dodgy theatrical performances that appeal to pseudo intellectuals and the like. At his best, his films see his protagonists highlight the contradictions and hypocrisy in society (and themselves) and do so in a way that's both blackly funny and moving.

I haven't seen much of Hartley's post 90's films, and I don't believe that I should even bother since they were all filmed with poor digital cameras. They looks truly awful and I think Hartley's decline a good example of why some filmmakers should never have adopted the cheap digital style.


Anyways, heres my ranking. I'll expand at a later date as to why I rank his films the way I do:



1.Henry Fool (1997) - His most ambitious and best film imo. It's the one with the most black humour in and it a features the most complex and flawed of his protagonists, the titular Fool. Incredibly funny, thought provoking, moving and even a little disturbing at times.




2. Trust (1990) Very funny and moving with an iconic male lead from the superb Martin Donovan




3Simple Men (1992) - I really related to Robert John Burke's character, and it features a great soundtrack among everything else. Notions of masculinity and femininity are at play here. His 3rd best film




4.Surviving Desire (1993) - Too short to really be considered a feature length film, but too long to be considered a short one, Surviving Desire is an interesting anti romance on the expectations of relationships and all that. It didn't grab me the way those other three films did, but I certainly liked it.




5. The Unbelievable Truth (1989) - while witty and engaging in it's own way, this does feel like the blueprint to what will become Trust so comes across as Trustlite





6. Amateur (1994) - If i'm honest...i'm a little disappointed with this one. I've only seen this once, but it just didn't click with me the way other Hartley films had. I liked the concept , but there was something missing. It's one I want to immediately watch again to form a definitive opinion as I know it's highly regarded as one of Hartley's best, but at this point, I just don't see it. It IS worth a watch, but I wouldn't expect much.





7. Fay Grimm (2006) - Liked the different, experimental approach, and it's well acted, but that isn't enough. My biggest problem is it looks like shit. Completely digital rubbish.




8. No Such Thing (2001) - His weakest film by far for me. It looks like crap, has crap dialogue, and theres nothing seductive about the characters the way they are in his other films. I've heard the other noughts films are even worse. It's a shame because I really like Sarah Polley too.


So how do you rank Hartley's films? worse to best or best to worse? Looking forward to the responses.