my favorite movies of 1993:

(1) The War Room

(2) Red Rock West

(3) The Scent of Green Papaya

favorite of 1993:

The War Room

(Documentary. Directed by Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker.)

This documentary takes us behind the scenes of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, led by James Carville and George Stephanopolous. Though you know they’ll win, you feel like you’re there with them going through all the uncertainty, the ups and downs, the internal debates, the brilliant moves and the desperate ploys. You feel the frustration before the exhilaration. 

It’s hard to imagine any fictional version of a political campaign inventing a character quite like Carville. The Democratic strategist says this to a roomful of campaign staffers in an emotional speech the night before Election Day:

Outside of a person’s love, the most sacred thing that they can give is their labor. … And people are gonna tell you you’re lucky. You’re not. Ben Hogan said: “Golf is a game of luck. The more I practice, the luckier I get.” The harder you work, the luckier you are.

Stream The War Room on the Criterion Channel (with bonus features) or Max. If you don’t subscribe to the Criterion Channel, try a free trial.

2nd favorite of 1993:

Red Rock West

(Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Lara Flynn Boyle, J.T. Walsh, Dwight Yoakam. Directed by John Dahl.)

This Western neo-noir pays homage to The Postman Always Rings Twice (one of my favorite movies of 1946), starting when a down-on-his-luck drifter drifts into the wrong diner or bar, run by a man whose marriage is poisoned by greed. The atmosphere of inescapable suspicion and betrayal evokes another classic noir, Double Indemnity (my favorite movie of 1944). One twist leads to the next so relentlessly that Red Rock West could’ve come off as laughably contrived, but we’re able to take it seriously because of a well-chosen cast including Nicolas Cage as the reluctant hero, Lara Flynn Boyle as the femme fatale, Dennis Hopper as (what else?) the giddy psychopath, and country singer/songwriter Dwight Yoakam, whose career as an actor started here.

Stream Red Rock West on these sites.

3rd favorite of 1993:

The Scent of Green Papaya

[Vietnamese: Mùi đu đủ xanh]

(Tran Nu Yên-Khê, Man San Lu, Thi Loc Truong, Anh Hoa Nguyen, Hoa Hoi Vuong. Directed by Tran Anh Hung.)

Ebert wrote:

Here is a film so placid and filled with sweetness that watching it is like listening to soothing music. “The Scent of Green Papaya” takes place in Vietnam between the late 1940s and early 1960s, and is seen through the eyes of a poor young woman who is taken as a servant into the household of a merchant family. She observes everything around her in minute detail, and gradually, as she flowers into a beautiful woman, her simple goodness impresses her more hurried and cynical employers. The woman, named Mui, is an orphan — a child, when she first comes to work for the family. She learns her tasks quickly and well, and performs them so unobtrusively that sometimes she seems almost like a spirit. But she is a very real person, uncomplaining, all-seeing, and the film watches her world through her eyes. For her, there is beauty in the smallest details: A drop of water trembling on a leaf, a line of busy ants, a self-important frog in a puddle left by the rain, the sunlight through the green leaves outside the window, the scent of green papaya. …

I have seen “The Scent of Green Papaya” three times now. … It is a placid, interior, contemplative film — not plot-driven, but centered on the growth of the young woman. As such, you might think it would seem “slower” on later viewings, but I found that the opposite was true: As I understood better what the movie was, I appreciated it more, because like a piece of music it was made of subtleties that only grew deeper through familiarity.

If there is a verb meaning “to stir harmoniously,” it should be used here.

A video essay on The Scent of Green Papaya:

Stream The Scent of Green Papaya on Kanopy or one of these other sites.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.