Interlude: TwitCrix Poll

Update: A few more people posted lists. I've updated it to reflect those.


Yesterday on Twitter, a number of the film critics I follow/follow me got around to posting their favorite films of 2012 so far. Curious to see what was the favorite, I aggregated the 25 30 lists I found. I ranked them the usual way (#1 picks got 5 points, #2 got 4 points, and so on—if the lists were unranked I each pick one point). This of course isn't the end all list, but for those wondering what to fill your Netflix queues with for the rest of the year, all these films are great, or at least worth checking out. 

1. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, USA) - 73 points/23 mentions

2. Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey) - 29 points/7 mentions

3. The Deep Blue Sea (Terrence Davies, UK) - 26 points/11 mentions

4. Haywire (Steven Soderbergh, USA) - 26 points/10 mentions

5. The Kid With A Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium) - 24 points/8 mentions

6. The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr, Hungary) - 20 points/8 mentions

7. Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman, USA) - 16 points/5 mentions

8. This Is Not A Film (Jafar Panahi, Iran) - 14 points/5 mentions

9. Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, USA) - 13 points/5 mentions

10. The Color Wheel (Alex Perry Ross, USA) - 13 points/3 mentions

11. Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico) - 10 points/3 mentions

The Deep Blue Sea: A Romance Untamed

The Deep Blue Sea

Directed By: Terrence Davies

Written By: Terrence Davies, adapted from the play by Terrence Rattigan

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale, and Ann Mitchell

Director of Photography: Florian Hoffmeister, Editor: David Charap, Production Designer: James Merifield

            With the cinema of Terrence Davies, sometimes all it takes is one shot. The British director can say it all with one marvelous stroke of cinematic precision. In his latest feature, The Deep Blue Sea, it comes quite early. During the film’s abstract, almost wordless prologue, we see at one point the camera swirl around lovers Hester and Freddie, naked in bed, their bodies so perfectly aligned, they look like two puzzle pieces coming together. Halfway through the shot, Davies slowly cross-dissolves to the exact same shot, except we are back in the present, and Hester is alone. At this point, we don’t know what has happened to Freddie, but we can feel the tremendous sadness behind the eyes of Hester. She exalts a loss, which we learn is not one of physical proportions, but actually metaphysical; A love that simply cannot be kindled, with no hope of coming back.

            And in his first narrative film in over a decade, Davies captures the sublime, devastating tragedy of love in this adaptation of the play by Terrence Rafferty set in 1950s London. Davies has often been an autobiographical filmmaker—his first two features, Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, play more like memory totems (as does his 2008 essay film, Of Time and the City). You get the sense that there is still some of Davies’s past creeping into The Deep Blue Sea through the background visuals, but most of the film is dedicated to these characters, which Davies inhabits with beauty, and devastating emotions in this day long narrative.