February 20, 2009
Favorite Films of 2008
Here is a smattering of wonderful films that I have seen this year:
25. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
24. THE SHAFT
23. MY WINNIPEG
22. LEONERA
21. THE CHASER
20. ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
19. SUMMER HOURS
18. LINHA DE PASSE
Linha de Passe is Brazilian melodrama that fits into the grand tradition seen since the birth of fictional cinema and is, its current form, perhaps more indebted to days of the neo-realists. The film concerns a poor, fatherless family struggling to survive in the hell that is a major world city. Whether Rome or Mexico City, these stories often portray families and their struggles to maintain their marginality while battling morality and the demons that ofter them futile hope. This time the place is São Paulo and the family is comprised of (Cannes Best Actress Award winner) Cleusa and her four sons, all half-brothers. Each son faces a different harsh reality. Two of the more poignant belong to Dario, who seems to have the skills to be a professional soccer player and little Reginaldo, who has a difficult time dealing with being darker than his siblings. As the film's name implies, soccer comes to represent the most obtainable way out--though how obtainable a goal it is remains to be seen. This scenario certainly sounds dire but as A.O. Scott so beautifully put it recently: it is the story of Sisyphus, the man who must push a boulder up-hill everyday for the rest of eternity. That he does so is a majesty inherent in human nature that has allowed us to perform similarly throughout history. Perhaps this is the greatest story ever told.
17. IL DIVO
16. MAN ON WIRE
I feel bad putting Man On Wire above Standard Operating Procedure because without Errol Morris, Man On Wire would not be possible. Errol is the person who mastered the cinematic re-enactment aesthetic found commonplace in investigative documentary films nowadays. It is even arguable that documentaries are profitable today because of this very aesthetic. Anyways, I'll just say that Man On Wire is one of the best films Errol never made. It must be stated that the film's aesthetic ultimately concedes to Philippe Petit. The fact is that Petit truly has us in the palm of his hand by the end of the first sentence he speaks. Sure, the results of what happened are no mystery. It is, after all, history. Don't let that hesitate you from watching this immediately. Man on Wire, along with Petit, soars.
15. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
The other teenage vampire movie. Only this one is one of the year's very best films. Loosely named after a Morrissey song, Let the Right One in concerns Oskar, a young Swedish boy, who leads a quiet, tormented life. He is a loner until he meets Eli, a young girl who may not be who she appears to be. The ice-cold landscape of Sweden is used to great effect in order to contrast the warmth provided by the sweet, blossoming love between the protagonists. Let the Right One exists within a mythology with all its gory details but it is about much more than a simple vampire story: it is about love, gender, and the awkwardness of youth. You will be talking about it for days.
14. CHE
Biopics were everywhere in 2008 and perhaps the most misunderstood of all is this film. It's subject matter, Che Guevara, is equally misunderstood. Most of the talk concerning this project has been either about its profit-making potential at 4 hours or the ambitions of the director and stars. This is clearly a work of love folks, so fuck off. The first half of the film takes after the Guevara's book on guerilla warfare. Quotes and re-enactments of Che's talks and interviews are intercut between the actions and events leading up to the Cuban Revolution. Che (the film) sticks close to the book by sticking its methodology and staying away from the mythologizing that has led Che to be on the t-shirts of many uncultured, ennui-filled kids--Guevara is probably rolling in his grave right now, though probably more so for all the problems Wall Street has created recently. This is Soderbergh's best film. People just don't seem to understand that the bloodshed is what led to the revolution; it is ok for Che to be a war film. I give Soderbergh credit for making Che human and somewhat vague, as he does with Fidel as well. A nice little scene is when Che hurts his arm. He is rising up the ranks and becoming a celebrity at that point and suddenly appears with a bandage. Someone asks him how he got hurt and before Che answers the shot cuts. The film doesn't have time for that kind of nonsense; there's a revolution to be won.
13. MILK
Milk is unapologetic from the start. Right away it tells you that its sole mission is to seduce you. And it most certainly does. Milk is (unfortunately) timely but then, it would have been even if the backwards Prop 8 didn't pass last year. Sean Penn gives the best American performance of the year portraying a man who lead a life far richer (and sassier) than most of us can ever hope for. He is surrounded by an equally excellent cast of actors who embody the spirit needed to create positive change. From my understanding, making the film was a guerrilla-like process. One quick thing that I would like to point out from a screening with producer James Schamus is that the film contrasts Brokeback Mountain (which Schamus also produced) in that it feels "gayer" than Brokeback does simply because by the time in history in which Milk takes place, gay culture (aesthetic, language, ect.) already exists. The dudes in Brokeback didn't know how to "act" gay. With figures like Harvey Milk in its history, and figures like him made known, the gay movement will surely see justice one day soon.
12. THE HEADLESS WOMAN
11. A CHRISTMAS TALE
One of two films on my list about the lives of an upper-class family. As good as Summer Hours is (it is in my top 20 after all) I only love it because it has so much to say about culture moving through generations. I couldn't care less about the family itself and I don't feel bad saying it. Fuck the rich--unless of course we can have some fun with them; and this is what we get with A Christmas Tale. I suspect the French always knew about this sinister relationship. Since the 19th century, much of their literature has snarkly revolved around gauche moments in high society. Though much can be compared to the O.C., some of it was downright perverse, like the inspiration to the film La Ronde, which is said to be about syphilis spreading around some precarious ne'er-do-wells. A Christmas Tale works similarly in this regard. Here we have one fucked-up family whose last wish would be to be around each other during the holidays. But an ailing mother needs bekons them. A Christmas Tale is a film more about individual moments--and we get a lot of them given the film's length. Director Arnaud Desplechin is now a master of this type of filmmaking, which I think he perfected in Kings and Queen, a film which plays similarly with in regards to the dynamics of drama and comedy and with employing the great Mathieu Amalric as an similar charming fuckhead. Rarely do holiday movies have this much filmmaking muscle.
10. IN BRUGES
This film about reluctant vacationers is the most unlikely pick of the bunch. I mean, Colin Farrell? It goes to show what I know. Theater director Martin McDonagh makes a spectacular feature film debut. The entire cast turns in wonderful performances (though expected from such highly esteemed players) including Farrell, from whom McDonagh extracts a poignantly sad, vulnerable, and child-like character. Again this should be expected considering the involvement of a good actor's director. In Bruges is a fantastically light yet tight exercise in narrative filmmaking that certainly gains from its association to theater. The unexpected mise-en-scene of Bruges at the end of the film is as beautiful a thing as you will see all year. To sum up, In Bruges does nothing new but it does everything right: it is both fucking hilarious and uncommonly affective. The film is absolute, delicious perfection.
09. THE BEACHES OF AGNES
One of the great directors, the now unbelievably 80 year old--yet just as rambunctious--Agnès Varda takes us on a leisurely ride through her storied, distinguished life and the beaches she always made sure to live and work nearby. We follow Agnès' memories from the turmoil of WWII to the whirlwind of the French New Wave and past her romance with her beloved husband, director Jacques Demy of the Umbrellas of Cherbourg fame. Luckily for us, we witness every moment through her slyly observant and boundlessly quirky purview. The beaches of Agnès, like Ms. Varda herself, is an absolute treasure.
08. THE DARK KNIGHT
Is there really anything that I can add? Basically, Christopher Nolan returns to his reinvented franchise and ups himself. The Dark Knight is the greatest Hollywood action film ever made. Strangely enough, the action takes a back seat to a human drama that is acted gracefully and earnestly. It is as serious as Heat, the last great American crime film and reflects on the humanity of heroes and villains like the old French crime greats. Yes, Heath Leger was great but so was Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman. In a strange way, The Dark Knight makes me wish for an end to comic book films since it is so vastly superior to every other film in the genre. Ironman sabotaged itself with an absolutely stupid second half just to "stay true" to the "form." And why do we need The Watchmen in film form? Why not a animation? Please, make it stop. The Dark Knight may not renew my faith in Hollywood, but it will certainly keep me interested--at least until the next film.
07. 35 SHOTS OF RUM
I can't say much about the plot since this is a film that relishes in slowly revealing itself.
06. THE TREELESS MOUNTAIN
05. GOMORRA
04. HUNGER
Controversial, opinionated, but certainly not polemicist, Hunger is a film with a purpose, a quality RARELY seen in cinema or within ourselves these days.
03. TONY MANERO
Holy shit. Tony Manero is about a psychopathic serial killer roaming the streets of late 1970s Pinochet-era Chile, who dreams of being Saturday Night Fever's Tony Manero character incarnate. The film follows "Tony" as he wrangles up a rag-tag dance troop in order to enter a nationally televised dance contest. Around him the world is so savage and absurd that it barely notices Tony or his brutal actions. What is so special about the film is how damning an allegory it is for Chilean society as a whole at the time. Tony Manero is a portrait of the Chile that accepted an authoritarian monster as a dictator just for the alleged sake of democracy, globalization, and capitalist prosperity--and lest not we forget in order to combat the "evil" Socialism as well. Certainly a knowledge of Chilean history enriches the film immensely but, luckily, the film, created in a raw, realist manner, still manages to get its point across while being grossly provocative. A masterpiece.
02. TOKYO SONATA
Tokyo Sonata is about a family on the verge of falling apart during the current economic crisis in Japan. Ryuhei Sasaki, the father, is a man deeply embedded in the Japanese partriarchal/capitalist sphere (guess who is taking classes at a liberal university?) who suddenly loses his job and struggles to come to terms with a social order falling apart. While this happens, all the family members deal with their own issues and places in life: the mother, Megumi, searches for a purpose outside the domesticated housewife locus; the eldest son thinks about joining the military (under the U.S.' control); and the youngest son does all he can to learn to play the piano, a cause seen unworthy to his father. The film plays like a contemporary-absurdest-socialist-realist-melodrama. Yeah. The director, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, best known for some of the finest horror films of the decade, can be considered a master filmmaker. Tokyo Sonata is flawlessly made and is an extraordinary of example astute, knowledgeable, and maverick filmmaking. The sense of control is so great, it feels like Kurosawa is the only director that ever went to film school. The cinematography and mise-en-scene are tight, purposeful, and mesmerizing throughout, and the narrative even breaks into a disrupted modernist mode appropriately in line with the content. Top. Fucking. Notch. Tokyo Sonata is a rare treat that is well worth savoring cause' they don't come around like this too often.
01. THE MILK OF SORROW
The Milk of Sorrow, winner of the prestigious Golden Bear, is a film about the affects of trauma across a generation of a Peruvian family and the efforts to put their memory to rest. Surprisingly, it has a terrific sense of humor at times, particularly when it presents some of the wonderful quirks of Latin American culture. The film follows the solemnly beautiful Fausta as she tries to raise money in order to bury her recently deceased mother, a victim of a savage attack that is part of the a history of anti-native violence that has plagued Peru. Fausta has a hard time fitting into contemporary culture while both working as a maid for a famous pianist and as a wedding events assistant for the people in her neighborhood. If you see the film and are wondering about the weddings: yes; I am proud to say that some are very much like that! The film stars the wonderfully restraint and doe-eyed Magaly Solier, whom the director discovered and convinced to try acting. Magaly is simply one of the most devastatingly gorgeous women my eyes have ever gazed upon--sorry but I had to get it out of my system. Apparently, she is now a famous singer in Peru. Something tells me we will be hearing about her here in the states soon.
And another 10 for good luck:
26. I’M GONNA EXPLODE
27. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
28. WALL-E
29. SYNECDOCHE, NY
30. HAPPY GO LUCKY
31. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
32. GONZO
33. BELLAMY
34. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD
35. ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE
Posted by Fran at February 20, 2009 3:41 PM