The Criterion Collection is home to hundreds of classic, obscure, foreign and independent films that come with the best possible picture and audio quality along with plenty of excellent special features. Their selection ranges from old Hitchcock classics like The 39 Steps to the massive amount of avant-garde works from people like Stan Brakhage or Hollis Frampton, but their goal of giving important classic and contemporary films their proper treatment has always stayed the same. After being inspired by Criterion’s Three Reasons campaign we decided to give our own three reasons why the following films deserve to get a place in the Criterion Collection.

Cashback – Dustin Jansick’s pick

#1 Freeze Time
The main character imagines that he can freeze time where he gets to freely move around and interact without anyone knowing. Originally, he does this to make time seem to go by faster at work but he ends up taking advantage of his artistic abilities by drawing the female form, clothing becomes optional. The final scene in the film is a magical one that people often experience, when time seems to stop when you kiss the one you love.

#2 Supermarket Fun
After watching Cashback, it makes you consider picking up a part time job night shift at your local supermarket. Or at the very least it shows just how much fun you can have at such mundane job. Racing down the aisles in a shopping cart and stuffing sex toys in women’s shopping bags were just two examples the film gave for mischievous adventures for the immature soul.

#3 Beauty Is Everywhere
One of the themes in Cashback is that beauty is all around you if you take the time to look for it. The visuals found in this indie film rivals other films with 10 times the shooting budget. Moving down aisles around people that are frozen in time was spectacularly done. Possibly the best scene is the 24 second clip of the main character hanging up the phone as he seamlessly transitions to falling back into his bed in a single shot. That shot took one full day of the 25 day shooting schedule to do.

Cashback trailer:

Stalker – Blake Ginithan’s pick

#1 Calm and Cool
Andrey Tarkovskiy loves his long shots and Stalker is filled with plenty of them. He lets scenes play out for minutes on end, even if it’s just three guys walking in the rusted wastelands of ‘The Zone’. At times the camera is so close to our subjects we feel as if we ourselves are walking with these men. Long takes, mixed with some lengthy tracking shots, make for some stunning cinematography. Some scenes the camera just sits and watches creating an edgy atmosphere as we get glimpses of utter magic.

#2 One of a Kind
When some people talk about a film, they sometimes say that they have never seen anything like it. I can truly say I have never seen a film like Stalker before. It’s a full blown science fiction masterpiece that contains no aliens, no ray guns, and no flying cars and somehow, the film feels very firmly cemented in the genre, practically reinventing it. While the basic premise of a man (the stalker) leading two others into ‘The Zone’ (said to have mystical powers) is all that happens, Stalker is about so much more.

#3 Magnetism
Stalker is brutally slow at times. There are times where you feel like time isn’t moving at all. But you don’t care because Tarkovskiy draws you in with unrivaled power. You are drawn into the lives of these three souls as they walk seemingly forever in a barren land where only a glimmer of hope exists. Tarkovskiy’s atmosphere is heightened by this. At times the characters don’t know what lies ahead of them and the tension is very palpable. A rare film where you literally don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Stalker trailer:

Sombre/La Vie Nouvelle/Un Lac – CJ Prince’s pick

#1 The Mind of a Killer
Philippe Grandrieux is a French director whose experimental films are criminally underseen. His debut feature Sombre follows a serial killer across France who goes into a crisis when he encounters a woman that he can’t bring himself to murder. It could be looked at as a (very, very screwed up) love story but Grandrieux shoots the entire film in a suffocating atmosphere, creating scenes of pure unsettling terror while achieving moments of transcendence. Sombre is the only movie by Grandrieux to get a US release, but it’s in an old non-anamorphic DVD. Releases in Europe fared a little better with picture quality but it’s impossible to actually go out and see this movie in North America properly.

#2 A Descent into Hell
His follow-up La Vie Nouvelle takes the elements in Sombre to their breaking point. Grandrieux puts his focus on visual and auditory sensations to get things across and for some La Vie Nouvelle could be seen as absolute torture. In this film we see an American visiting an Eastern European country who, after encountering a prostitute he becomes obsessed with, tries to hunt her down and buy her for himself. As the soldier travels further and further down into the seedy underworld of the sex trafficking business, the movie appears to start going off the rails entirely as we get closer and closer to its disturbing hellish climax. La Vie Nouvelle is a visceral experience that feels like a sensory overload at times, but it’s impossible to forget once you’ve seen it.

#3 A Family Disrupted
Un Lac may not have the dark storylines involving murder and prostitution that made up Grandrieux’s previous films, but it still feels as otherworldly and bizarre as Sombre and La Vie Nouvelle. Un Lac takes place at an isolated cabin where the son, who is madly in love with his sister, has to deal with a new stranger who arrives to help the family out. Despite the more human elements taking precedence here, Grandrieux’s approach hasn’t changed a bit (every scene shot in the cabin is shrouded in so much darkness it’s impossible to get a sense of what the inside looks like), creating a film that has just as much emotional resonance as his other two.

Sombre trailer:

La Vie Nouvelle clip:

Un Lac trailer:

Un Lac full streaming film:

The storyline of Cashback is nothing unique; an art student named Ben has a falling out with a longtime girlfriend and is devastated. Still, Cashback is a smart and funny indie film that nearly everyone can relate to. Also the camera work is impressive enough to make the story that has been told a thousand times, interesting.

The very opening scene is one where we see Suzy breaking up with Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff). It is his first break up and he describes it as an emotional car crash. He recalls the 2 ½ years they were together and all the memories they shared in these years. Obviously crushed by the break up, he starts questioning the very meaning of what love is and if it truly exists.

It’s as if the world is playing a cruel joke on Ben as he would want nothing more than to take his mind off of relationships and sex, yet it surrounds him. Sitting in his college dorm room, he can hear people having sex next door. It tortures him and he describes it as the “haunting period”. Also, his friend Sean cannot seem to stop talking about getting with other women.

Having a hard time falling asleep, he does what many would do in his situation, even when we know it never helps, look at photographs of the person. After realizing this, he considers burning the photos but hesitates because he is clearly not ready to let go of her.

It is not long before he cannot sleep at night at all. Ben develops insomnia and ends up with an extra 8 hours added to his days. He wants nothing more than for time to pass by quickly but instead he is forced to stay awake and think about Suzy.

Looking for a way to trade back some of his time, as he puts it, he gets a job at a grocery store working the night shift. This is where the name of the film’s name comes from. He gives them the extra 8 hours of his time and they give him money in return, Cashback. I must admit, it is a clever title for the film.

Perhaps one of the most interesting concepts behind Cashback is that Ben begins to manipulate time. In order to make his shift at work go by fast, he imagines the opposite. He pretends that time stands still but he would still get to freely move around and interact without anyone knowing. He points out what many quantum physicists preach; that you can speed up or slow down time but you cannot go back in time and change what has already happened.

After a few weeks at his new job he found a co-worker named Sharon who he was started to take interest in. Not only did he have a new job to help him stay busy but now a new girl to help him take his mind off of Suzy. Sharon asks Ben to be her date to a company party. It was then that he finally got sleep, the first time in four weeks.

Just when everything seemed to finally be working out for Ben, he runs into Suzy at the party. It is an awkward situation that we have all been a part of at some point. Suzy confesses that she still thinks about him all the time. Ben then is tested to see if he can keep the past behind him. Not an easy task by any means.

The camera work in Cashback is nothing like your typical indie film. In one scene, Ben appears to move backwards then seamlessly switches to falling back onto his bed. Which it is no surprise that it took a whole day to film that out of the 25 day schedule.

Another brilliantly done scene is when Ben freezes time in the grocery store but we see he moving around. There were several amazing transitions throughout, like the one between the grocery store and a flashback to where he is a small child.

Sean Ellis is the writer, director and producer of this independent film, which he wrote the script for in only 7 days. It amazes me just how good Cashback was considering the general plot of the film has been done, but I think that is what also makes it so enjoyable. We can all relate to the main character because we have all been through a similar situation at least once in our lives.

Even after watching the film several times, I still look forward to seeing it each time. That alone can attest that the film is nothing short of astounding. Rarely, am I excited to watch a film more than once or twice. It is unfortunate that this indie film will not get the mainstream recognition it deserves.