In
probably the pitch-perfect cinematic moment of the 2011, Curtis, the tall and
constantly in-check protagonist of Take
Shelter, watches lighting dance across the sky while his wife and daughter
sleep in the back of the car. “Is anyone else seeing this?” he exclaims. If
this is the end, we need to know we’re not the only ones out there realizing
the world is about the change.
Which
is perhaps what all these apocalyptic films—Margin Call (fiscal), Contagion (viral),
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (special),
and Melancholia (literal)—are all
about. Even if we’re prepared to face the end, we can’t do it alone. We need to
be sure of who we are and understand ourselves, which is why so many films not
specifically about the end are about the minor apocalypses within our lives.
The strange protagonist of Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In must come to terms with a completely new
identity. Werner Herzog explored both the birth of spiritual life (Cave of Forgotten Dreams) and the end of
an actual life (Into the Abyss). Attack the Block gave us teenagers who
must redeem themselves and their way of life by defeating forces greater than
our world. And so many films explored
the state of the family and the trials and often failure resulting in those who
cannot manage it: A Separation, The Descendants, Take Shelter, Margaret.
Apocalypse isn’t about the end of the world, as the idiotic villain (Michael
Nyqvist) from Mission Impossible — Ghost
Protocol lectures. It’s about what comes after, which is why so many films
have focused on our uncertainty to face something new.
It
was also a ridiculously excellent year for film, easily the best since I
started writing in 2004. Perhaps not in the Hollywood sphere, where mainstream
cinema continues to lead down a series of franchise reboots and post-3D
conversions, as much as in the independent and world cinema. This year was
simply impossible to narrow down to the best films of the year, and deciding
where to stop (20? 25? 40?) made the usual business of top 10s even harder. I
decided on 15 films, and any of the top six or seven would have probably been
my #1 film last year, showing the quality of excellent cinema today, as long as
you know where to find it.
So
for honorable mentions, any of these could have made the top 15 on a different
day: The Arbor, Bridesmaids, City of Life and Death, Contagion, Coriolanus, Film Socialisme, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, The Ides of March, Jane Eyre, J. Edgar, Of Gods and Men, Melancholia, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, Moneyball,
Pina, Project Nim, The Skin I Live In, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,
and War Horse.
15. The Descendants
(Alexander Payne, USA)
The
story in The Descendants is about
some truly ugly people: a financially well father who has never bothered to
take care of his children, a cheating wife trapped in a coma, cousins selling
off inherited land to make a fortune, and an asshole adulterer who refuses to
face what he’s done. But as a director who has matured from a satirical and
biting comedian to something more understanding and human, director and
co-writer Alexander Payne has made a film that asks us questions about both
what we can forgive and how. Mr. Payne, adapting the novel by Kaui Hart
Hemmings with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, uses the location of Hawaii, plus the
natural beauty of his actors (most notably George Clooney), to give The Descendants a soothing sense to calm
the troubled mental state of this family in crisis. This natural beauty (always
cautioned though by the overhanging clouds of melancholy that hang over the
islands) allow protagonist Matt King and his daughter Alex (newcomer Shailene
Woodley, who can seem extremely mature and naively innocent within a single
line of dialogue) to make sacrifices and find some sense of companionship in
each other that they’ve never felt before.
Read the original review. The Descendants is now
currently playing in theaters.
14. Le Havre (Aki
Kaurismäki, Finland/France)
In
a year where waves of films dealt with nostalgia for classic cinema (Hugo, The Artist, The Muppets,
and even Drive), none put a larger
smile on my face than the classic and humorous beauty Le Havre. Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has created a narrative
surrounding the old, titular town that often feels like a place time has
forgotten, but in the best way possible. The dry colors of simplistic homes and
bars, and the charm of its French citizens create a magical world that has no
business in reality, but feels so honest with goodness that it tore my heart
apart. The narrative may deal with a huge issue surrounding illegal immigration
in the European state, but Mr. Kaurismäki has no interest in politics as much
as he has in humanity. He looks at these characters and asks, “Why can’t they
all get along, and do nice things for each other?” It seems like a bizarre
question, but with a cartoonish feel (especially the film’s villainous
detective played by the marvelous Jean-Pierre Darroussin), Mr. Kaurismäki
imagines a world where people simply do the right thing and try and create an
environment where anyone can be family.
Read the original review. Le Havre is currently in
select theaters, and will be on DVD later this year.
13. Rampart (Oren
Moverman, USA)
“Date
Rape” Dave is a brutal and destructive human being, unleashed on the world with
what seems like only hate in his heart and anger as his fuel. Worst of all,
he’s supposed to serve and protect. Rampart,
Oren Moverman’s second feature and co-written by noir writer James Ellory, is
an intense odyssey into the darkness of one man’s soul. It’s an intense
character study following an officer of the law who has never let any
authoritative voice ever stop his sound and fury, mainly because he is the
voice of authority. Intensely shot by Bobby Bukowski in stunning digital
crispness, Rampart is as visually
intense as Dave himself, which allows us to hate him while constantly find ourselves in awe of him. Most
of that comes from the commanding performance of Woody Harrelson, who has no
problem playing a monster of society to its very fullest. What makes Rampart so unique is there’s no
redemption for Dave; he and whatever informed his past are the sources of evil
in society. But what makes him so scary is there’s no way he and his kind will
ever disappear.
Read the original review. Rampart played for a short
run in New York, and will re-open in theaters sometime this winter.
12. We Need To Talk
About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey, United Kingdom)
The
shattered mind can be a beautiful thing, especially when portrayed by filmmaker
Lynne Ramsey in We Need to Talk About
Kevin. Kevin is a monster of a person, and its unclear whether it is
because of his inherent nature or the way he was raised. But the answer is
simply impossible, as Ms. Ramsey has taken the novel by Lionel Shriver and
turned it into a pop art explosion. Set in a highly subjective universe of the
mind of Eva (Tilda Swinton, terrific as always and with a face out of a
Rembrandt painting), Ms. Ramsey gives us a series of memories and images, many
abstract and without any particular context. There’s no way to comprehend the
structure of the film—it’s more reminiscent of Jackson Pollock than any other
films. But within its moments, Ms. Ramsey finds wry and sadistic humor,
beautiful imagery (that of course is hiding malicious evil), and the voice of a
mother lost to her own demons, unable to comprehend past, present, and future.
Kevin tells Eva late in the film, “I used to know why, but now I’m not so
sure.” Similarly, Ms. Ramsey invites us to become lost as well, washed over by
the monsters of our own world.
Read the original review. We Need To Talk About Kevin
played for a short run in New York, and will re-open in theaters this January.
11. Uncle Boonmee Who
Can Recall His Past Lives
(Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
It’s
the end of the line for dear Uncle Boonmee, but in his exploration of faith,
death is truly just the beginning. Thai director Apitchatpong Weerasethakul
retains his identity as one of the most unique artists working today, mixing
his understanding of Thai culture with a unique art house aesthetic and a
self-aware humor. Uncle Boonmee Who Can
Recall His Past Lives may be bizarre (any film that includes monkey ghosts
and a coital sequence between a princess and a catfish certainly qualifies),
but Mr. Weeasethakul has such a strong conviction in his characters and the
story he wants to tell, that you always feel less sad about the death of one
man, than invited into the world that awaits him after this one. It may not
make complete sense, but Mr. Weeasethakul brings a wondrous beauty to the
wonders of nature and animals, and constantly plays with his style of
filmmaking as well, constantly reinventing his images and his narratives to
create new meaning. “Heaven is overrated,” Boonmee’s dead wife tells him, and
the use of deadpan humor in Uncle Boomee
is part of what makes the fear of death so inconsequential, and the invitation
to the after life so exciting.
Read the original review. Read an interview with writer-director Apitchatpong Weerasethakul. Uncle
Boonmee is now currently on DVD and
Netflix Instant.
10. The Tree of Life
(Terrence Malick, USA)
Terrence
Malick’s grand-scale and operatic The
Tree of Life sets itself out on the biggest question it possibly can: the
search for God and meaning in any and all exsistence. But the way the eclectic
Mr. Malick has gone in answering that question is what makes him a continually
fascinating filmmaker. God may be in the origins of the universe, the formation
of planets and first life. Or perhaps it’s in the origins of kindness shown by
a mother to her children. Perhaps it is in a ray of light, just hitting the
waters of a river in a particular way. Or in the stern attitude of the father,
teaching both strength but often fear to his son. There is no answer and every
answer in Mr. Malick’s filmmaking, making The
Tree of Life a work of huge detail and also incompleteness. Even despite
its flaws, the filmmaking by Mr. Malick and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki
feels so monumental and simply on a different level than what anyone else is doing
in contemporary cinema today. There’s no story, simply images and feelings and
symphonies and poetic dialogue, all to bring you through one man’s search for
answers of what is all means, whether cosmological or personal.
Read the original review. Read a piece on the critical response to the film. The Tree of Life is now on
DVD and Blu-Ray.
9. Tuesday, After
Christmas (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Paul
Hanganu thinks he can control every aspect of his life, but he is sorely wrong.
He loves two women, and thinks he can easily balance having a wife and a mistress
without complication. And then he believes a divorce can be a simple and
painless process. But Adriana and Raluca are not simply pieces to be
controlled, and they will give him hell for it. Radu Muntean, the latest
director to emerge as part of a generation of geniuses in the Romanian art film
scene, has made a brilliant work in Tuesday,
After Christmas that is firstly a human drama, but often a very, very sly
comedy. The humor Mr. Muntean shows is more hidden than overt, but there is
something inherently funny about Paul’s actions in this story. His belief in
being able to keep everyone in his life in order of course leads to chaos, even
as the camera stays with slow long takes that allow us to feel each beat, as
the tension rises (and what could be more tense than a foot massage?). Whether
or not Tuesday, After Christmas was
made as an allegory for Romania’s state of repression is hard to say, but it’s
a delightful small film about the collapse of a marriage, seen through the eyes
of a very silly man.
Read the original review. Tuesday, After Christmas is
now on DVD and Netflix Instant,
8. Take Shelter (Jeff
Nichols, USA)
The
worries in Take Shelter are not just
the biblical images of the end that haunt poor Curtis. They are the ones that
Americans face every day: will our health insurance cover this operation? Do we
have enough money to make it to next month? Can I really afford to see a doctor
right now? In crafting this masterwork of the American zeitgeist,
writer-director Jeff Nichols has made a film that resonates through every inch
of middle America, a film about a man who questions himself in every way,
fearing for both the end of the world, the end of his family, and the end of
his masculinity. Through the film’s bold language (a visual style reminiscent
of Days of Heaven), Mr. Nichols keeps
us on the edge of our seats as we watch Curtis slowly fall into madness, even
when he tries to take every precaution to stop it. And lead by a towering and
subdued performance by Michael Shannon, we come to believe and hope for Curtis
to get better, just as much as his wife (Jessica Chastain in the best of her
six roles this year). While the final moments may not work completely, Take Shelter is such a unique look at
not the end of the world, but how afraid we are that the end could come and
take what is dear to us, whether that’s looming storms of dread or simply a
pink slip.
Read the original review. Take Shelter will be on DVD
in the spring.
7. Mysteries of
Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz, France/Portugal)
There
are 100 stories in Raúl Ruiz’s Mysteries
of Lisbon, and it often feels like there could be 100 more. Everyone must
tell a story, and everyone has a revelation about how the actions of their past
have created their present, and how small gestures in one story can become the
essential turn in another. A Chilean born director, Mr. Ruiz made over 100
films in less than half that many years, and he sadly passed away this year,
making this his truly final film (another was shot, though how much work was
left on it has not been stated). But Mysteries
of Lisbon, adapted from the 19th century epic by Camilo Castelo
Branco, is such a delightful journey (and a long one, running over four and a
half hours) into the world of the Portuguese and French aristocracy and the secrets
they hide. His camera work makes things even more magical than the revelations
of his narrative, shooting every scene in a single long take, gliding his
camera along like a ghost wanderer. This magical realism of Mr. Ruiz makes
everything so enthralling and full of surprises, whether cinematic or what the
next story could possibly reveal.
Read the original review. Mysteries of Lisbon will be
released on DVD and Blu-Ray this month.
6. Margaret (Kenneth
Lonergan, USA)
If
Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life
resolved that we are just specs within the grand scheme of the machinations of
the universe, the world of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret asks well why shouldn’t we consider ourselves the center
of the universe. That certainly makes sense for Lisa, the young protagonist
played by an impeccably perfect Anna Paquin, a teenager from the Upper West
Side of Manhattan who becomes a witness to the death of a woman in a bus crash.
Written and shot during the years after September 11th and the early
stages of the Iraq war, Margaret is a
wildly diverse film about how guilt can haunt us long after an event,
exasperated by the need for closure and resolution, or simply some sort of
answer that will never come. Lisa goes on a quest to try and make sense of the
senseless, something that Emily (the enormously terrific Jeannie Berlin) knows
cannot happen. Because of its legal issues, Margaret
feels imperfect, and its last half hour feels like only the iceberg of a much
bigger film. But the ambition and perfection of so many sequences—a bus
accident that is not only horrifying to watch but also darkly funny, a
conversation with a lawyer who simply cannot understand the story, and Lisa’s
numerous debates with friends, students, and family—makes Margaret, a film that was almost lost and buried, a hidden gem.
Read the original review. Read my piece addressing the phenomenon of #teammargaret. Margaret is currently playing in New York, but not
for much longer. There are no current plans for a DVD release, but hopefully,
it shall come.
5. The Interrupters
(Steve James, USA)
Ameena
Mathews is a short woman, round but not overweight, with longing eyes, a black
hijab covering her hair, and a heart bigger than any fictional character on
screen this year. Ameena does one thing and one thing only: stop the kids of
Chicago from murdering each other. In a world where we speak about Occupy Wall
Street or Republican Debates, it’s often so easy to forget about the plague of
gang violence, especially if it’s not outside our own streets. And thus in
crafting a documentary about such a large subject, master documentarian Steve
James has instead focused on three former criminals who now work as “violence
interrupters” in the South Side of Chicago. The
Interrupters gives us the portrait of a culture unwilling to change, an
endless cycle for which things may never get better, but it also displays three
people who can give us hope, and truly make us believe there can be a
difference. Mr. James makes the personal fight for justice by these individuals
our entry point to a year of crimes and atrocity, balancing both stories of
utter tragedy and individuals who can be taught how to use a book instead of a
gun. Mr. James, who brought us Hoop
Dreams in the 1990s, has shown that the documentary form is often about
characters—draw us into the people who fight for justice, and we’ll follow
their cause, no matter how hopeless, to the very end.
Read the original review. The Interrupters will play on
PBS in Feburary, and will be out on DVD and Blu-Ray shortly after.
4. Meek’s Cutoff
(Kelly Reichardt, USA)
Information
is power in Meek’s Cutoff, and simply
by the choice of the aspect ratio, we are constantly limited from it. Instead
of shooting the film’s brutal and dynamic landscapes in wide ratio, giving us the
epic scope of the terrain, director Kelly Reichardt chose to shoot this
allegorical tale in the standard 4:3 “Academy” ratio. The result is that we as
spectators are limited in what we can see, just like the young women on the
pioneer trail with their bonnets. This almost claustrophobic choice makes Meek’s Cutoff a work of intense
naturalism, as settlers follow an impossible journey, led by a mysterious and
often mischievous man, played effortlessly by Bruce Greenwood. But whom to
trust? The man who led us astray (though we have no idea) and the indigenous
man who may lead us into danger? While crafted from the same bones as her
previous feature, Wendy & Lucy,
Ms. Reichardt’s work here reaches for something greater as it plays with every
genre trope of the Western, and keeps us wholly invested in the life or death
stakes of its narrative. The movements in character and narrative are so
subtlety crafted within the framework, demonstrating the work of Ms. Reichardt
and screenwriter Jonathan Raymond to help us understand that the smallest of
gestures, perhaps simply fixing a broken shoe, could be the keys to freedom and
escape from death.
Read the original review. Meek’s Cutoff is now
available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Netflix Instant.
3. A Separation
(Asghar Farhadi, Iran)
There
are two keys to unlocking the guilt at the center of Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, but we never see either.
Did some character over hear a conversation in another room, and what happened
behind the door? But what we soon realize in Mr. Farhadi’s simply overwhelming
work of drama is that everyone is at fault, trying to prove how everyone else
has failed. A Separation is a film
about Iran, but it’s not about the Iran we see in the video footage from
Twitter and CNN, but the ones that its citizens face every day. It’s about the different
stratums that keep us apart: religious, gender, economic, and generational.
Supported by one of the most revelatory casts I’ve ever seen in a foreign film
(especially the brutally cold but totally humane Peyman Mooadi as the father,
Nadar), Mr. Farhadi pulls us into the intense legal debates of A Separation by both using a
naturalistic handheld camera that gives the film an authenticity, but also
carefully crafting each shot to give depth and meaning to its brutal story. By
the time each of the layers of the narrative are revealed, we can’t see
ourselves identifying with any of the characters—they are all simply men and
women trying to do what’s best for themselves. “Wrong is wrong, no matter what
anyone ever says,” exclaims Nadar to his daughter, and that’s all we can know
in A Separation; not who is right,
but that everyone is wrong.
Read the original review. Read an interview with writer-director Asghar Farhadi. A
Separation is currently playing in New
York and Los Angeles, and will expand to more theaters throughout the next few
months.
2. Martha Marcy May
Marlene (Sean Durkin, USA)
There’s
a reason that Elizabeth Olson, who plays the three titular characters of Martha Marcy May Marlene, has multiple
identities. Martha can’t deal with the pains of entering the real world after
having a transcendent experience. Marcy May can’t deal with the guilt of what
she’s done in her past. And Marlene fears that her actions may continue to
haunt those like her. With a formal precision rarely seen by any filmmaker
working today, newcomer Sean Durkin has crafted a haunting and terrifying debut
thriller built on what we can and can’t see. Along with director of photography
Jody Lee Lips, Mr. Durkin carefully uses his visual style to spatially and
temporally dislocate his young and naïve protagonist, as she lives in fear of
the dangers that haunt her, and the crimes she herself committed. The cult
aspects of Martha Marcy May Marlene
are less relevant than they are the catalyst for the splitting personalities of
Ms. Olson (simply unsettling to watch this young actress), especially the
brutal tranquility of its leader, played with a terrifying strength through a
soft and almost silent voice by John Hawkes. Mr. Durkin brings us closer and
closer into how his protagonist views the world with her shattered mind, and is
able to make every shot count, each speaking to the horrible guilt and fear
this young woman feels. We soon enough realize that there is no redemption for
Martha, Marcy May, or Marlene, not only because her mind has been broken so far
that she cannot understand reality from fiction, but the work she has done for
the cult is simply irreconcilable. In an age of DIY filmmaker shooting tiny
films with the “mumblecore aesthetic” without much thought for the visual look
for their films, Martha Marcy May Marlene
proves there is still worth in meticulous formalism, as every shot in this bold
work shoots tingles down your spine.
Read the original review. Martha Marcy May Marlene is still playing in select theaters, and will be on DVD and Blu-Ray in the spring.
1.
Certified
Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, France/Italy/Iran)
A man and a woman sit down for a
café. For all we know, they are strangers, having what seems like a quite
enjoyable first date, filled with interesting conversation. The man begins to
tell the story of a woman and a boy he once saw five years ago, and the strange
habit they played. The camera though focuses on the woman, the color draining
from her face as he tells it. “Seems quite familiar,” she murmurs, letting a
single tear fall from her face. With that moment, I became entranced by Certified Copy, the first film by
Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami not made in his home country, and not just the
best film of the year, but the best in at least half a decade. Dealing with
similar themes of performance, perception, and the nature of art, Mr.
Kiarostami plays a delightful game as he gives us a romantic mystery about a
couple, perhaps strangers, perhaps married for over a decade, as they debate a
past life they may have never shared. James, the philosopher played by newcomer
William Shimmel, tells us in his opening lecture that perhaps there can be
value in a copy as much as there is in the original. And thus, we are treated
to a copy of a real life drama, and our choice to invest in it confirms what
our own philosophical beliefs are. Certified
Copy has been compared to films like Journey
to Italy and Before Sunrise, but
Mr. Kiarostami’s formal precision is too great and too wondrous to call this
simply a walk-and-talk romance. Every shot, every edit, every line of dialogue
(including what language the dialogue has been spoken in!) is a clue to
unpacking a mystery with no solution but what we desire to subscribe to it. And
Mr. Kiarostami has found a wondrous muse in European superstar Juliette
Binoche, giving a performance of witty humor, deep sorrow, and tender romance.
Ms. Binoche is only known as “she” in the movie, and it fits perfectly; she can
make us believe in a romance that never existed, proving that artifice can
truly stimulate real emotion. I’ve seen Certified
Copy five times now, and each has pointed me in a different direction
toward what I think the answers of the cryptic narrative might be, but more
importantly, I’ve been stunned by the new details—visual, textual, and
diegetic—I’ve kept unlocking in this truly masterwork of cinema.
Read the original review. Certified Copy is currently
available on Netflix Instant. A DVD release will hopefully happen sometime this
year.
Agree? Disagree? Have favorites of your own? Sound off in the comments!
Agree? Disagree? Have favorites of your own? Sound off in the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment