Best and/or Favourite Films of 1943

My top 20:

1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
2. Vredens dag / Day of Wrath (1943, Carl Theodor Dreyer
3. L'éternel retour (1943, Jean Delannoy)
4. Ossessione (1943, Luchino Visconti)
5. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943, Preston Sturges)
6. Le Corbeau (1943, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
7. Les anges du péché / Angels of the Streets (1943, Robert Bresson)
8. Lumière d'été (1943, Jean Grémillon)
9. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock)
10. Douce (1943, Claude Autant-Lara)

11. I bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us (1944, Vittorio De Sica)
12. Heaven Can Wait (1943, Ernst Lubitsch)
13. Five Graves to Cairo (1943, Billy Wilder)
14. Wilder Urlaub / The Deserter (1943, Franz Schnyder)
15. Hangmen Also Die! (1943, Fritz Lang)
16. Münchhausen (1943, Josef von Báky)
17. Romanze in Moll / Romance in a Minor Key (1943, Helmut Käutner)
18. The Man in Grey (1943, Leslie Arliss)
19. This Land Is Mine (1943, Jean Renoir)
20. Jane Eyre (1943, Robert Stevenson)

1943 is an interesting year for me as despite the war raging, the European film industry had recovered, with many of my favourite films of the year coming from occupied territories, or even the Axis.

The US was still doing strong with comedies to alleviate some of the WW2 pressures, and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek has to be one of the funniest films ever made. Heaven Can Wait is also slyly funny, though I do feel there were less comedic standouts overall this year. The More the Merrier is another cute one that just missed my list.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is P&P in their prime, and just an incredibly stunning and expansive work, while Day of Wrath is soul-crushing and bleak. It was hard picking between the two of them.

While Jean Delannoy was ofted slighted by the new wave generation, L'éternel retour shows his arthouse credential in this surreal, beautiful and weird adaptation of Jean Cocteau screenplay, very much capturing the Jean Cocteau spirit, and helped further by the casting of Jean Marais in the male lead.

Meanwhile, Visconti's adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice is possibly his greatest work, a very raw euro-noir, and meanwhile in France, Clouzot brings up the tension and the suspense with Le Corbeau, really rivalling Hitchcock, who himself did very well this year with the eery and slow-brooding Shadow of a Doubt.

Bresson's feature debut, Angels of the Streets, is far from the minimalist he would achieve later, but shows signs of what is to come, while bringing a more conventionally powerful nunnery drama to life. Jean Grémillon made the possibly most visually beautiful film of the year with Lumière d'été, a vague and almost surreal nightmare with what we can today see as clear stabs at the nazi occupation.

In Germany, they also made a few notable, non-political films, with the stunning, charming and creative Münchhausen rivalling Hollywood splendour, and the more low-key romantic drama Romance in a Minor Key delivering on the strong emotions. As for films directly revolving around the war, the US did very, very well with Hangmen Also Die!, Five Graves to Cairo and This Land Is Mine, while it was very pleasant to see a German language film outside of Nazi influence with the striking Swiss film The Deserter.

I have to admit I have not seen The Song of Bernadette or For Whom the Bell Tolls, so these are two films I need to push up my watchlist.

Does it go to particularly heartbreaking places?