Years & Movies: 1955

 The best film of world cinema of 1955, according to FilmGourmand, was recognized the film “Ordet (The Word)” by Karl Theodor Dreyer. 

The premiere of the film "Ordet (The Word)" was held in Denmark on January 10, 1955. In August of that year, Dreyer’s film took part in the Venice Film Festival and was awarded the main prize of this festival - the Golden Lion. Moreover, the struggle for this prize was very intense, since among the nominees there were films by Fellini, Antonioni, Hitchcock, Mizoguchi and other fairly well-known filmmakers.

At the beginning of the following year, 1956, the film "Ordet (The Word)" received the Golden Globe in the USA in the nomination Best Foreign Film. And it is absolutely natural that a film that has achieved such wide international recognition obtained a national award as well. Dreyer's film won the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film. And Karl Theodor Dreyer himself after that was recognized in Denmark as a "living classic". For 66-year-old Dreyer, "Ordet (The Word)" became the 13th feature film, and one of them - "Day of Wrath" - according to FilmGourmand, was already recognized as the best film of the year - 1943.

Roger Ebert, who rated the film 4 stars out of 4 and included in his list of "Great Movies", wrote in his 2008 review: "For the ordinary filmgoer, and I include myself, "Ordet" is a difficult film to enter. But once you're inside, it is impossible to escape. Lean, quiet, deeply serious, populated with odd religious obsessives...The lives of everyone in this film depend entirely on religion. It could be shown in any church in the world, with a few adjustments to the subtitles to supply other words than "Christian." Yet I find from Rosenbaum that Dreyer was not a particularly religious man, and this film is not intended to proselytize. It simply intends to see." 

The film is based on the play of the same name by a Danish playwright, poet, publicist and Lutheran pastor Kaj Munk, written in 1925. Kaj Munk was never a supporter of democracy and all his life dreamed of uniting all the Scandinavians under the auspices of the Nordic Dictator. In the early 30s, he openly admired Hitler, who, in his opinion, managed to unite the Germans. However, by the end of the 30s, in his sermons, he criticized the Nazi regime for persecuting Jews. After the Nazi occupation of Denmark in 1940, he not only did not go underground, as his friends advised him, but, on the contrary, in his poems, articles and sermons he continued to openly denounce Nazism. On January 4, 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo, and the next day his body was found in a roadside ditch. A note was pinned to his body: "Swine, you worked for Germany just the same." The film "Ordet (The Word)" was shot in the same village where Munk preached. 

 
This is the only Dreyer film that has been enthusiastically received by both professional film critics and the general public. So, according to the Rottentomatoes website, there is not a single negative review of a professional film critic for this film, while there are many positive reviews. Regarding ratings of moviegoers, 71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users around the world gave this film ratings from 8 to 10.

In the USSR, the film, of course, was not shown.

Given the success indicators listed, the rating of the film "Ordet (The Word)" according to FilmGourmand's version is 9.346, and this allows it to occupy 96th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to the film "The Word", the following films were also included in the top ten films of the world cinema of 1955 according to FilmGourmand:
- East of Eden, by Elia Kazan, USA. Movie's Rating - 9,090; 145th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Pather Panchali  ডিভিডি কাভার (Song of the Little Road), by Satyajit Ray, India. Movie's Rating - 8,8297; 206th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Sommarnattens leende (Smiles of a Summer Night), by Ingmar Bergman, Sweden. Movie's Rating - 8,243; 455th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Du rififi chez les hommes (Rififi), by Jules Dassin, France. Movie's Rating - 8,177; 503rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Максим Перепелица (Maksim Perepelitsa), by Anatoliy Granik, USSR. Movie's Rating - 8,129; 562nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Rebel Without a Cause, by Nicholas Ray, USA. Movie's Rating - 7,891; 882nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Shree 420   श्री ४२० (Mister 420), by Raj Kapoor, India. Movie's Rating - 7,890; 884th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Sôshun  早春 (Early Spring), by Yasujirô Ozu, Japan.
- Ensayo de un crimen (The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz), by Luis Buñuel, Mexico.        

10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1955:  
- Battle of the Taiwan Strait. The armed forces of the PRC struck a massive blow on the army units of Taiwan located on the islands of Dachen and Yijianshan. As a result of the attack, the islands became part of the PRC.
- Assassination attempt on Zhou Enlai. The Kuomintang authorities of Taiwan organized an assassination attempt on Chinese leader Zhou En-lai. A bomb detonated aboard Princess Kashmir’s plane claimed the lives of 16 innocent people, but China’s leader remains alive.
- The loss of the Shiyun Maru ferry. In Japan, as a result of a collision with another vessel, Shiyun Maru sank due to heavy fog. Killed 169 people, mostly children, participants in the school tour.
- First civil war in Sudan. In Sudan, a civil war broke out between the northern territories inhabited by Christians and the southern regions inhabited by Muslims.
- The defeat of the "Black Lion 777". The leaders of the underground anti-communist organization Black Lion 777 were executed in Czechoslovakia.
- Formation of the Warsaw Pact. The USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia formed the Warsaw Treaty Organization in order to protect themselves from NATO.
- The sinking of the battleship Novorossiysk. In the USSR, in the bay of Sevastopol, an explosion occurred on the battleship Novorossiysk. 829 people were killed. This explosion was the largest disaster of the Navy of the USSR. The causes of the explosion have not yet been clarified.
- Istanbul pogrom. In Istanbul and a number of other cities in Turkey, pogroms took place against the Greek minority. The pogroms were inspired by the country's Muslim leadership.
- The beginning of the Vietnam War. The refusal of Ngo Dinh Diem, the US-backed prime minister of Vietnam, to comply with the Geneva agreements and hold democratic elections in South Vietnam, erupted into civil war, which subsequently involved North Vietnam.
- Operation Gold. As part of Operation Gold, the tunnel has been completed to obtain access to telephone communications of the headquarters of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany by intelligence services of the UK and the USA.

Besides Lena Olin was born.

* -With "cinematic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already found their reflection in world cinema, or deserve to become the basis of the plot of a future film.