The five calibration films

Stalker is the philosophical pole: a journey in which almost nothing happens and almost everything means something. Parasite is the genre wildcard: a film that changes kind and stays whole. In the Mood for Love is the film of restraint: everything felt, almost nothing said. Mad Max: Fury Road is the kinetic pole: a film that is nearly all motion. Close-Up is the meta-realism edge: a film where the real and the staged trade places.

They were chosen to sit far apart. Between them they mark out the edges of what films can be, so that a film in the middle can be placed by how near it sits to each.

A calibration film is a fixed point. Each was read first, with its sentences, and then left alone: a later reading may never change it. Every other film is read against these five and then checked. Films that should sit far apart must come out far apart, and a search for Stalker must never return Mad Max: Fury Road. Five films cannot cover cinema. They fix a frame; they do not prove it. They are not a canon or a list of favourites. Another five could have been chosen. These were chosen to disagree with each other.