Let me state this right off the top. When picking my favourite movie, I hereby divulge myself of the need to choose a film that is “artistically important.” I could, you know, choose an Ingmar Bergman film (I love
Wild Strawberries), or another Classic of World Cinema. I shed the requirement to select something that is necessarily “serious.” Yes, I love
Apocalypse Now,
The Godfather,
Gallipoli,
The Third Man, and reams of other serious dramatic films. I will choose based completely on my personal love of cinema and on turning points.
Let me explain. In screenplays, turning points are when something happens in a film that spins it in a completely different direction. Louise Sawyer (Susan Sarandon) shooting and killing the cowboy dude who tried to rape her friend, thereby changing them into fugitives from the law, is an example of a turning point from
Thelma and Louise. Life has turning points, too. And if you spend an inordinate amount of time watching and appreciating movies, your cinematic life also has turning points.
One of my key cinematic turning points was the joyful, exuberant, wonderfully exciting adventure film
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). It’s only a small exaggeration to say that I walked into this film liking movies, and walked out LOVING them. As such, it is arguably the most important cinematic turning point for me, and so I have chosen it as my favourite film.
In the tradition of the Bond movies,
Raiders begins with a short “mini-movie” that has little direct relevance to the rest of the plot. In this beautifully constructed sequence, we are introduced to Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), a resourceful, globetrotting archaeologist who is in search of a legendary golden idol in the dark jungles of South America. In another Bond parallel, his introduction is like the first appearance of 007 in
Dr. No. At first we see only glimpses of the character. A silhouette here, a fedora there, flitting through the shadows. He looks at a worn map. Behind his back, one of his guides slowly draws his gun. The metallic crack as the hammer is cocked causes a slight inclination of his head. Then, with blinding speed, a whip is snapped out, and the gun is wrenched from the villain’s hand. Indy finally steps into the light. It is the first time in the film that he cheats death, but definitely not the last. For the next two hours, the audience is taken on an adrenaline ride from America to Nepal to Egypt in pursuit of a lost holy relic called the Ark of the Covenant, which Hitler’s Nazi army would dearly like to get first.
The first collaboration between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg,
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a milestone in the development of the action-adventure genre, and one of the few films that gets the difficult chemistry of the genre right. Action films are like the formula for an explosive. Too much oomph and the mixture explodes in your face; too little and it fizzles.
Armageddon was like having someone fire an Uzi next to your face for two and a half hours;
Tomb Raider was sleep-inducing. But when its mixture is correctly balanced, an action adventure burns at just the right pitch.
Raiders of the Lost Ark gets it gloriously right.
Lawrence Kasdan’s screenplay (from a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman) towers above most in this genre. There are several set-pieces: the hunt for the golden idol and the escape from South America; the fight with the Nazis in Nepal; the street fight in Cairo; the discovery of the Ark; the amazing truck chase; and the phantasmagorical final opening of the Ark. These are imaginative and exciting sequences, based in spirit on the cliffhanging serials from the ’30s and ’40s. But the film does more than jump from action to action. It connects the action sequences with a good story and interesting characters. When there’s no action, we’re not snoozing in our seats; we are engrossed in the search for the ancient relic, and are enjoying the characters that are expertly brought to life.
This was Harrison Ford’s first major leading role, and he is magnetic. He creates a terrific hero, with a laconic Bogart-like presence, and a dash of human weakness. He hates snakes, and often has no set plan in mind, sometimes flying by the seat of his pants. One of the most memorable exchanges (paraphrased):
INDY: “Get me some transport to England. Boat, plane, anything…I’m going after that truck.”
SALLAH: “How?”
INDY: “I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go.”
Cinematic rollercoaster rides are common these days, so it’s easy to underestimate the impact of
Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was one of the first. Up to that point in time, I watched a movie like this: dull scene starts the film; action scene; dull scene (time to review the action scenes in my head so I can remember the highlights); another dull scene; wake up for an action scene; and so on.
Raiders was the first time that I was so engrossed in absolutely every frame that I had no time to review the highlights in my mind. The whole film was highlights.
I left the theatre pumped up with excitement. I just had to tell someone about this film. My friends and I babbled endlessly about it on the bus ride back. At the end of the day, we were reluctant to leave the experience behind us. I remember that during the opening sequence of the film, when Indiana Jones dodged the spiked gate that was triggered by passing through a shaft of light, my friend turned to me and whispered excitedly “This is an amazing film!” He was right. And it still is.
It looks to be close in tone and mood to Del Toro's great ghost story The Devil's Backbone which, if you haven't seen it, is a must-see. Moody, atmospheric, occasionally very scary, yet with a fully realized dramatic story and characters, The Devil's Backbone is one of the best supernatural-themed films for a long time. 
