Top 50 French films - 1913-2013

 

Short films not included.

1913 Fantomas - In the Shadow of the Guillotine
1913 Fantomas - The Murderous Corpse
1916 Les Vampires - The Bloody Wedding
1919 J'accuse
1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc
1928 L'argent
1930 The Golden Age
1932 Blood of a Poet
1935 Toni
1937 Grand Illusion
1939 The Rules of the Game
1946 Beauty and the Beast
1949 At the Grand Balcony
1949 Manon
1950 Orpheus
1953 Mr Hulot's Vacation
1953 The Wages of Fear
1955 Les diaboliques
1956 The Mystery of Picasso
1958 My Uncle
1958 Elevator to the Gallows
1959 400 Blows
1959 Hiroshima mon amour
1960 Purple Noon
1960 Breathless
1960 Shoot the Pianist
1960 Eyes without a Face
1967 Belle de jour
1967 Playtime
1968 Spirits of the Dead
1968 Je t'aime, je t'aime
1971 Devil's Nightmare
1972 The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
1973 Fantastic Planet
1974 The Phantom of Liberty
1976 The Tenant
1978 Grapes of Death
1981 The Professional
1981 Quest for Fire
1981 Possession
1982 The Living Dead Girl
1986 The Name of the Rose
1988 Frantic
1988 The Bear
1995 City of Lost Children
1999 The Ninth Gate
2003 Swimming Pool
2003 High Tension
2005 Cache
2013 Venus in Fur

The Divine Punishment 40th Anniversary

Diamanda Galas is the greatest experimental vocalist, an artist and a composer who has always defied convenient categories.

In 1986 The Divine Punishment subverted all the commercial formulas in the music world and ensured its place in the dark music hall of fame. This is the real stuff.

2022 Remaster playlist

Night and Fog 70th anniversary

 

"The prisoners will vanish without a trace. No information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate."
Chief of the Wehrmacht Wilhelm Keitel, 1942.

Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard / Nacht und Nebel) is a documentary by Alain Resnais. The filmmaker and his crew visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek concentration camps in 1955. The finished film was shown in various French theaters in 1956.

Some of the archive footage shown in this documentary was used to convince people that the Holocaust happened. In just 31 minutes it shows more than I ever wanted to see. Photos of mass graves are nothing like moving images of dead bodies being bulldozed. Their personalities become more visible.

This is one of the best documentaries of all time. The decision not to include any interviews makes it even more powerful.

Night and fog is an old figure of speech that in this case describes the secrecy of extermination operations. The false idea that none of the obsessively recorded details of the Holocaust would ever be publicly available was a characteristic feature of the Nazi regime's delusion.

Hootie & the Blowfish + Eurodance = the new Amorphis

 

I just experienced one of the most depressing low points in 2025 music.

Fans of the older material already know that this band's downfall started a long time ago. "I should have seen it coming" is a line from their song Wrong Direction.

Tales from the Thousand Lakes is one of the best albums from the 1990s. Who knew that one day they would debase themselves with some of the worst 90s influences.

I listened to a song called Light and Shadow. The song played as an ad. That was already horrifying. I thought "they're still using a term like metal, how bad can it be?" It was so abhorrent they couldn't even save it with superficial references to the old stuff.

I hope people really learn something from this monstrosity. You can't just use the word change as a justification. Things can change for the worse, and they have.

From this point forward I'm going to be calling this band Hootie & the Amorphis.

Mainstream perfume commercials

 

During recent years we have learned just how disgustingly stupid and narrow-minded the mainstream really is.

Apparently any kind of "acclaimed" work of "genius" is supposed to look like a perfume commercial. I guess in the case of Behemoth it's shit perfume. And in the case of Robert Eggers it's rotten eggs.

The profitable elite wants you to be a brainwashed disciple. These people sound like members of Heaven's Gate - the cult that committed mass suicide so that they could catch a comet while wearing Nikes.

The major record labels only want marketable muppets. Most of these bands sound like Hootie and the Blowfish. You can also thank Monetary Skyline for bringing back Hanson.

Most Youtube channels suck donkeyballs. I've been calling the site Donkeyball Central for a while now. That place is filled with idiots trying to please a worthless algorithm. You're supposed to do these things like your life depends on it, not your livelihood.

I don't give these idiots anything anymore - no views, no clicks. I don't buy their merch and I won't subscribe to their bullshit.

Before you say that I'm "bitter", please read everything written above one more time. And this time really think about it. The mainstream is worthless. As a serious artist, you simply can't play the same game they're playing. Some people think mainstream acceptance is always the ultimate prize no matter how stupid that system is. Why would I want to be part of it?

The real underground is creative and open-minded. If you're truly a creative person, apparently the established morons think you're living in a sewer.

It's time to say good-bye to conventional opportunists and commercial desperation. Enjoy your idiocracy.

Soft alternative rock and pop culture are draining your potential

"I believe the greatest characteristic of genius is, above all, force."
- Gustave Flaubert

Art gives us different ways of discussing and portraying important things. When reality becomes too painful, it's easy to slip into the passive mode. Passivity and escapism will never let you discover your potential.

This is a form of censorship. Both self-censorship and fear in the public eye. The fear of being different.

The cliche of government sanitisation is just a diversion. There's no need for an oppressive government if narrow-minded people can dominate the creative fields.

One of the biggest symptoms is music and art turning into pure escapism. Harmless and formulaic playlists promoted by algorithms. These are mainly driven by popularity and commercial obsessions.

I didn't care about popularity in school as a kid. Why would I care about it now?

Critical thinking, creativity and curiosity are not compatible with self-censorship. Anyone who's creative or interested in the results of imaginative work: look around you. Now is not the time to soften the blow.

Metal is not about the comfort of nazis

 

Now, more than ever, we have to think about who we are supporting. The different genres we listen to on a daily basis can be exploited, seized and degraded. Far-right bands are still defecating on the metal foundry.

Bands like Marduk referring to non-white people as "barren mud" (song called "Red Tree of Blood".) The word mud in a similar context was heavily used by the neo-nazi Tom Metzger. Impaled Nazarene continuing their embarrassing clownery after decades of racism and sexism (songs "The Burning of Provinciestraat" and "Reflect on This", for example).

Writing lyrics about killing minorities or beating up women is not "provocation" just like having a swastika tattoo is not merely "controversial."

We live in an age of buzzwords and lazy research. Overused words like accusation and politics are there to lessen the importance of anti-fascism and make language softer.

We also live in a world where money talks and bullshit walks. So many of the smaller record labels are owned by neo-nazis who want to extend their influence. The neo-nazification of Finnish black metal has been going on for years. Most of the older musicians still rely on the reputation they had in the 1990s.

Even if you think that metal will never be a white power movement, you still have to actively work in order to prevent that from happening. If you don't have the guts to stand up against a herd of nazi hipsters, you deserve to be called a wimp.

Information about Fornax Ferrea

Endtime Bestiaries was originally going to be classical and orchestral. I had already written a different stripped-down orchestral work in early 2023. One of the demos was called "Callow Graves Take In." Every time I imagined Endtime Bestiaries, I thought it should be metal instead. The other project had enough material without that one demo, so it became the first Fornax Ferrea song. I drew the logo in September 2023.

80s death metal was on my mind for a long time, and I had usually rejected the idea of recording something myself. This was also true with my black metal projects, Vengeful Semblance and Grallochery. When I contemplate a project continuously, I always have something to say. It's like a boiling point.

Why am I simultaneously making art music and metal albums? Because I love the ideas and the sounds of different instruments. I can imagine and feel the potential intensely. In order to do that, you have to be open-minded. I don't need anyone's permission to do these things.

The short-sighted "explosion" we have with death metal these days is not as exciting as the influential period in the 1980s. The key refrain during those times was "here's a tape." The bands were doing interesting things but they didn't always have an audience or the blessing from a record label. They weren't doing it in order to fit in.

Labels should never run the show when it comes to creativity. It's the same with reviews. The promotion and hype machine doesn't dictate your interests.

I always see tons of stupid thumbnails online and I don't click on most of them. The worst ones are for playlists filled with generated elevator music. They clearly don't care about the origins of any genre. With Fornax Ferrea I'm still making my own music while respectfully celebrating four decades of death metal.

Ignoring or making fun of the genre's origins is beyond disgusting and stupid. Some of those opportunistic bands even have the nerve to call themselves underground. Being independent or underground is not about saying words. You always have to prove it. They should all get a lower back tattoo that says "don't shit where you eat."

Finnish death metal was not an influence. We had our first bands around 1988 and "proto-death" was not a thing here. I usually don't have a list of influences, but in this case I think it's appropriate to name Slayer, Celtic Frost, Repulsion and Morbid Angel.

The old Celtic Frost was more aggressive. These days I think it's actually more radical to be influenced by something like that, instead of the typical formula that says you're supposed to sound like a Triptykon ripoff.

Old-school can be surprising. In a world filled with random opinions, confused fledgling smart-asses and noxious "influencers", Fornax Ferrea is weirdly a breath of fresh air.

Fuck record labels

 

I hate record labels.

I hate the way they promote things, how they maintain the cult of popularity, how much they need mindless cheerleaders and followers.

It's all a bunch of bullshit.

Don't tell me I'm "insulting record labels." Go fuck yourself. What kind of backwards bullshit is that? Are record labels all of a sudden sacred? When did that start?

Artists should always lead the way. Without musical ideas the entire artform wouldn't exist. You listen to it with your ear holes and you feel something. That's what it's about. Everything else is extra crap.

Having my own record label is out of question. I can barely support myself. I don't know how many Bandcamp accounts I'm eventually going to have, but this I do know: music is in my DNA. I'm here to raise the bar, I'm here to take risks. All that mind-numbing compromising with labels is a waste of time.

Never lose your individuality and curiosity.

A story about my radicalised friend

When I was a teenager I knew someone who was radicalised by certain metal bands and their supporters. He had two sides. I always preferred his humane and comical side.

He basically fell into the old "Blasphemy and Burzum" trap. Around 2001, when we were 16, he started talking about "Aryans", racist stereotypes and clearly promoted bands with fascist inclinations. The third band was Graveland. I was aware of the racism in some areas of metal, but I usually only heard the music. "Heaven Shall Burn" by Marduk featured the Waffen-SS sign but I didn't know anything about it.

Marduk has been using the Waffen-SS sign in their artwork since the mid-90s. It's incredibly specific. They can't always use the World War II excuse. If you're only listening to mp3s and don't look at the artwork, the connection might seem too obscure. Throughout the years Marduk's Nazi obsession has become more and more obvious. I've never been a fan of them.

Waffen-SS was not voluntary. Young people were forced to swear oaths and no one could criticise it in any way. Young people are looking for a direction these days. I've seen racist graffiti and stickers everywhere.

Many bands in the early 90s were clearly reading about esoteric Nazism. Savitri Devi wrote a book called "The Lightning and the Sun" and she claimed that Hitler was the incarnation of Vishnu. If you go to Twitter right now, you will find far-right people who are writing that exact same crap. Impaled Nazarene was one of the first Finnish bands to include fascist references without discussing them in an intelligent way.

Almost everything my friend used to recommend musically had some sort of connection to neo-Nazism. I always thought those bands were incredibly stupid and didn't reinforce his initiations. But I wish I had explained my views more. You can't just blame his descent into extremism on stupidity and laziness. Our interactions ended 20 years ago. As far as I know my friend never became a neo-Nazi.

This has to be an ongoing conversation in the metal world. You can't just ask, "Are you a Nazi?" People can always say no. The key question is this: how would you criticise the far-right, the fascists or the Nazis? If you're denying all connections to these groups, you should also criticise them. Critical thinking is vital. If they refuse to express any kind of disapproval, you should always have a follow-up question.

Much like some autocratic politicians, some of these far-right bands frequently have the same safe interviewers who don't challenge anything they say. Neo-Nazis would love to be mainstream, but as they slowly creep towards their goal, it's important to remember this: they also love silence.

About Grallochery

 

The name of this project was originally supposed to be Crowned Underhound. I even drew a logo for it. One demo was recorded under that name and the material eventually ended up on Your Spine Is a Pierced Snake, the final Vengeful Semblance album. Vengeful Semblance did not become Grallochery. They are two completely separate ideas.

Grallochery as a word is a mixture of Scottish and English. It means gutting a deer. I came up with that name in late 2022 as I was entertaining the idea of having a different kind of black metal project.

I love programming all kinds of drums and some of my private demos have a drum kit in the mix, even though the final version almost never has that. I have never had a physical drum kit, so programming is my way of coming up with rhythms and beats. I've been a hand drummer my whole life.

These albums are a response to those who think black metal is just a blast of heinous crap and the dumbest cliches. I started listening to this type of music in the mid-90s and I've heard enough hyperspeed nonsense, trust me.

Avoiding fast blast beats, religious rhetoric and black thrash, I wrote two albums back to back in November 2023. Reign in Blood is one of my favourite albums, but I'm not interested in recording thrash metal. The sharp guitar tone reminds me of Slayer, Celtic Frost and Darkthrone.

I was supposed to record a cover of Fainted Eyes by Celtic Frost for Vengeful Semblance, but it never happened. Bathory's Son of the Damned was more appropriate for Grallochery.

The vocals were inspired by The Evil Dead. I wanted to achieve that without using a harmonizer. Just my own voice, no doubled tracks or effects.

Grallochery is about the intensity of pre-93 black metal. Crowned Underhound was my 14th black metal album and I'm not sure if I will ever make more.

No separate category for anti-fascist art

 

I am anti-fascist. Everything I have done creatively and politically has been anti-fascist. There is no need for a separate category when it comes to fighting far-right insanity and dictatorships.

Instead of labeling other people constantly, you have to ask yourself: what kind of approach do you have? How much emphasis do you put on counter-extremism as a way to fight extremism?

Anti-fascist commitment becomes apparent in different ways. It doesn't have to be tattooed on your forehead. Not every ground-breaking album has to be called Fascism Sucks.

Creativity is so much more interesting. It can't just be rhetoric, counter-propaganda or naively black-and-white dabbling. You can't just do the exact opposite of something you don't like.

Anti-fascist art should be a universal movement and a sentiment. The more creative you are, the more you realise how stupid fascism is. All we can do is unite against it.

If you're obsessed with categorising other people, you don't feel anything anymore.

The illusion of guaranteed views

 

The reason I'm creating art cannot be reduced to numbers. I am not online or on Youtube to make money. Art is a realm where ideas have a life of their own. All that is completely eliminated if people just look at numbers.

We decide what is on platforms online. It is completely up to us. We also decide what we choose to talk about or focus on. Worrying about a mass audience is a waste of time. That's not what reality is. And yes, we still exist in reality.

The illusion of guaranteed views has been created by people who want to make money on Youtube. It's not the platform. It's not even the algorithm.

The algorithm doesn't care about anyone or anything. It doesn't care about your interests, struggles, your family, your friends, "community", supporters or whatever is currently keeping you on that platform.

Hopefully you care. No algorithm in the world cares about what I genuinely care about. They are time-wasting machines.

Same goes for marketing machines and the sellouts who worship them. Most of these marketing lunatics assume that you are the biggest consumer who is only concerned with popularity. Who are these imaginary people? Do you really just want the same popular stuff over and over again? I don't think so.

The whole thing turns into a hamster wheel. They pay you, you do stuff, they pay you, you do stuff. It doesn't matter if you call yourself independent. Anyone can make these mistakes.

Millions of people are wasting their lives shooting fish in a barrel. Doing the bare minimum and obsessing over numbers. Smart people can also make the mistake of being fame-obsessed. You can't just point at the worst stereotypes. They are a distraction. Pointing to the fact that so many people are fame-obsessed doesn't work as an argument.

Creative holidays from NCU

 

Especially to every unknown artist with intense ambitions.

The world sometimes thinks that your works don't count, but as long as you're doing this for the right reasons, you'll be fine.

More works from NCU are coming your way next year. Whether the world likes it or not.

Never Surrender to Fascism

Nazism can't exist without white supremacy. Its inclusion in the halls of metal is one of the most childish things I have ever heard. Neo-nazis are the biggest posers and thieves. They are the ones who benefit from idiocracy. They will turn you into a far-right stooge. The term subgenre doesn't justify fascist terror.

It's not enough to claim ignorance, to be selectively "unpolitical" or rely on infantile cliches. When neo-nazis start stealing things, you don't just give in. You don't give them that credit. We don't have a nazi dictatorship yet. You can actually do something.

Don't be fooled by narrow-minded goons whining about "cancel culture" and confusing criticism with the suppression of free speech. Freedom of speech is not in a vacuum. It's connected to things in the real world. We need all kinds of constructive standards and principles besides that freedom. Freedom of speech won't make your shitty music better.

NSBM is less than music and their ideology is worthless. They would love to be mainstream. We need a new creative underground where uniqueness is not a taboo.

Historians are not creative

 

Audio commentaries used to be worth listening to. I never thought they were just meant to exist in order to employ film historians. What the hell happened?

Here's a little news flash: cinema is a creative medium. Get some creative people on those audio commentary tracks. Is that too much to ask?

It's not about explaining your work, it's about the perspective you have.

I have been actively watching films for 30 years. I'm also a creative person. What I have found out is that cinema is not about the info. It's about imagination and curiosity. The filmmakers are faced with creative opportunities and problems. Cinema should be a playground for the imagination.

What is the point of making a blu-ray if it only has one commentary track from the point of view of a historian?

I don't care if the historian calls himself a "genre expert." That's not enough. Most of them are just boring farts who have no imagination.

One of the saddest things is that so many people are now addicted to information. They ignore everything else.

Historians barely even care about the films half the time. I can't listen to the opinions of some detached historian without jumping off a cliff. Next time you talk about "quality blu-rays", ask yourself: how much do they really care?

About Afterlife Before Death

 

Is this album part of a trilogy?

No. There are three trilogies: black, white and grey. They were recorded between 2019 and 2021.

The album was written in six days from scratch. The track Godlike Nonperformance was written on paper without playing an instrument. I've only done that a couple of times. The titles include religious terminology, but the intention was to subvert cliches.

Vengeful Semblance is both classical and black metal at the same time. That's what black classical means. I want to make my own kind of music. Style is not the reason.

What is so boring about today's avant-garde black metal bands is that the dissonance is too obvious. It's like they discovered it yesterday and started mindlessly molesting their instruments. There's nothing surprising about it. Some of them just can't write music to save their lives.

There's nothing wrong with memorable music. You don't have to think in opposites or obsess over theories. An album is pointless if you can't remember anything distinct about it.

Black metal has many problems and one of them is the fact that it attracts childish imbeciles. The internet is filled with brainless jackoffs who think they're the biggest fanatics. They don't know anything. Fanaticism is not the answer. It gives you the same tired old crap over and over again.

Without musical innovation we wouldn't have black metal in the first place. That kind of innovation has to continue. There is no other way.

Artistic merit versus money and numbers

One of the worst things online is having a number next to your name. Number of followers or subscribers. The weird thing about being judged based on that number is that you can't even see all the numbers in one place. There is no "one number". We are not numbers, we are people who live in the real world.

I'm not on Youtube or Bandcamp to make money. I have a day job. People need to know what artistic merit really is. Money is just a bonus to me.

Why am I releasing ten albums this year? Because of the ideas and the creative opportunities. No record label on Earth would allow me to do all these things.

Art is a realm where ideas have a life of their own. That's what it is. Making money should never be the starting point if you want to be a real artist.

No one else has done these things the way I have. There's only one me.

The end of Art Questions 2019 - 2023

 This is the end of the monthly art questions.

These questions came from online and real life interactions. Sometimes they were inspired by research.

I have been writing about art since 2014. The writings you will find here in the future will focus on art related topics in a more concentrated way, but I won't do essays.

Destroying the "people are interested in people" scam

 People and art are one and the same. We can not be separated. Why the hell would you even attempt that? Apparently some people have decided to do that because they don't give a shit about art.

Whenever I hear stupid things like "people are interested in people" or "people are more important than art", I immediately realise how narrow-minded all this deceitful nonsense is. You can't just say the word people and leave it there. Who are they? What are they doing and what are they truly interested in?

Art is one of the few things that show us what is underneath the surface. Underneath all the bullshit. Is that something you don't like? You're a fan of bullshit? The stinkier the better?

Saying the word community is not enough either. What kind of community are we talking about? What is actually happening? We don't need more shallow pretending. Fake positivity is extremely important and useful to oppressive societies.

Is that the kind of future you're interested in?