While in New York City to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her monster international hit “The Babadook,” Australian writer/director Jennifer Kent took a stop over at the Criterion Closet and proved that she not only enjoys making spooky movies — she likes watching them too. Her first pick of the shelf was one of the first films of the horror genre, the 1922 silent essay piece “Haxän: Witchcraft Through the Ages.” Kent described the film as “a huge inspiration for ‘Babadook.’”
She added, “It’s about the devil and about witchcraft, it’s also about women going nuts. Fantastic.”
Kent’s next selection was from her home country, Peter Weir’s 1977 mystery “The Last Wave,” which she’d initially avoided watching because she misconstrued the title.
“I’m embarrassed to say, I thought it was a film about surfing. It’s not a film about surfing,” said Kent. “It’s a film about the end of the world perhaps. And it’s one of [Weir’s] most, sort of mystical and spiritual films. An amazing performance by David Gulpilil.”
Taking a moment to praise the work of Japanese horror maestro Kaneto Shindo, Kent pulled out both his well known film “Onibaba,” as well as his less known piece “Kureneko,” which she called “the most haunting, sort of, spine-chilling ghost story” before moving on to “Mulholland Drive.”
“David Lynch is really up there with one of my absolute favorites,” Kent said of the surrealist filmmaker. “I’ve seen this film about, I don’t know, 10 times. The first time I saw it I didn’t really understand it. It made me really angry and I thought, ‘I’ve wasted my time watching this stupid film about nothing,’ which is embarrassing to say, but the second time I watched it, I sort of fell asleep about mid-way through and woke up and then I thought I started to understand it. The third time I watched it I really felt a sense of what it was about. And then the fourth time I saw it while I was in L.A. and I realized, this is a documentary on L.A.”
After grabbing the French prison drama “A Man Escaped” and praising the work of auteur Robert Bresson, Kent closed her video with Yasujirō Ozu’s highly influential “Tokyo Story.”
“I watched this sort of around the time my mum passed away and it’s a really affecting and subtle, sad film about not appreciating your parents,” she said. “I can’t recommend that enough.”
Watch her full closet video below.
