The prestigious magazine Sight&Sound every ten years it prepares a survey to choose which is the best film in history. The last chosen one had been ‘Vertigo (From the Dead)’, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most acclaimed works, and on this occasion we have nine winners, since the lucky one has been ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’.
Written and directed by Chantal Akermann in 1977, ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ tells the story of a mother who was widowed quite young. Her life follows a rather particular order, since in the morning she takes care of the housework and in the afternoon she works as a prostitute.
Around 1,600 critics have voted in this year’s pollpractically double the number that did so in 2012, so it was to be expected that there could be some kind of revolution in the list, as it has been. The historical Top 10 remains as follows:
- ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’
- ‘Vertigo (Back From The Dead)’
- ‘Citizen Kane’
- ‘Tokyo Tales’
- ‘wanting to love’
- ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
- ‘Good work’
- ‘Mulholland Drive’
- ‘The man with the camera’
- ‘Singing under the rain’
This survey was carried out for the first time in 1952, leaving then elected ‘Bicycle thief’the renowned film of Vittorio De Sica. In 1962 she was dethroned by the undisputed ‘Citizen Kane’ and the feature film Orson Welles he defended the title in both 1972 and 1982, 1992 and 2002. In fact, no one would have been surprised if he had once again returned to the top of the list, but he has finally dropped to third position.