It's so very difficult trying to sum up an entire 12 months worth of film-watching in such a restrictive form as the standard Top 10 format, so I'm going to make things slightly easier on myself by trying to sum it up in a Top 20.
These have been listed alphabetically so the order should not be construed as indication of which ones I think are better than others. These are all fine films in their own ways.
Adventureland (dir: Greg Mottola)
Greg Mottola, who had previously directed Superbad, made a much more personal film for his follow-up and, whilst it didn't make anywhere near as much as its predecessor, it is a far superior film. Jesse Eisenberg plays a young man who gets a job at a theme park when his trip to Europe has to be cancelled and falls in love with Kirsten Stewart. A sweet, funny and honest film that will resonate with anyone whose ever had to work a job they hate or who has ever fallen in love.
*Review pending purchase of it on DVD.
A Serious Man (dir: Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Coens returned after the lacklustre Burn After Reading with one of their most bizarre and personal films to date. Drawing upon their own experiences growing up as part of a Jewish community in the Midwest in the 60s the Coens created a darkly hilarious film about a man failing to come to terms with the collapse of his marriage.
Read my review.
Broken Embraces (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
Though it lacks the emotional punch of his more recent works, Almodovar's latest is a sumptuous film full of beautiful imagery and infused with a deep love of cinema. Penelope Cruz gives one of her best performances and Almodovar uses colours and textures like the master that he is.
Read my review.
Bronson (dir: Nicolas Windig Refn)
Tom Hardy's performance as Michael 'Charles Bronson' Peterson, Britain's most dangerous prisoner, would be enough to warrant a place on this list for Bronson, but the combination of a brave and terrifying performance with artful, exciting direction from Refn produces an unforgettable film.
Read my review.
Coraline (dir: Henry Selick)
Animation fans are often antagonistic whenever it comes to discussion the merits of the different forms that make up the medium, with defenders of old-school animation, such as cel or stop-motion, being dismissive of computer animation and vice versa. Coraline stands as a glorious example of how different kinds of animation can augment each other as it combines lovingly crafted stop-motion with computer effects to create a world that young and old alike can get lost in.
Read my review.
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs (dir: Phil Lord and Chris Miller)
This was a complete and joyous surprise for me. Adapted from the children's book of the same name, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs provided a heady mix of stunning visuals, a surprisingly affecting father-son dynamic and an unrelenting assault of gags. Easily the funniest film I saw all year.
*Review pending purchase of it on DVD.
The Cove (dir: Louie Psihoyos)
Much like that other great modern documentary Man On Wire, The Cove distinguishes itself by choosing to tell its fascinating story using the language of a heist film. By presenting its creators attempts to expose a secret cove in which dolphin's are slaughtered as an Ocean's Eleven-style thriller, the film is able to get across its worthy message in a way that makes for one of the most exhilarating and frustrating films of the year.
Read my review.
District 9 (dir: Neill Blomkamp)
There has been a relative dearth of fun and original sciene fiction films over the last couple of years and District 9, directed by Peter Jackson's protegee Neill Blomkamp after he was prevented from directing the Halo movie, was a wonderful exception. Mixing a slightly hamfisted Apartheid analogy with some inventive action and a gritty aesthetic, the film made for one of the most interesting and enjoyable blockbusters of the year.
Read Neil's review.
Fish Tank (dir: Andrea Arnold)
Quite simply one of the most uncomfortable films I've ever seen. The combination of an incredibly intimate style with a story of sexual attraction between a man and a 15-year old girl creates a film that is uniquely discomforting, yet ultimately uplifting.
Read my review.
The Hurt Locker (dir: Kathryn Bigelow)
Many people have made films about the way in which wars can destroy the psyches of those who fight them, but few have ever contemplated whether or not the people having their psyches destroyed actually like it. The Hurt Locker is one such film.
Read my review.
In The Loop (dir: Armando Ianucci)
The history of British sitcoms transferring to the big screen is chequered, to say the least, but Armando Ianucci's puerile and hilarious series The Thick of It made the transition smoothly when this big screen spin-off was released. A satire of war and politics that warrants and deserves comparisons with Dr. Strangelove.
Read my review.
Let The Right One In (dir: Tomas Alfredson)
The vampire movie may be a genre that is over-subscribed nowadays - there are two of them in my Top 20 - Let The Right One In managed to stand above pretty much all of them. A story of social isolation, friendship and urban decay that is as touching as it is chilling.
Read my review.
Looking For Eric (dir: Ken Loach)
The combination of master social realist Ken Loach and footballing legend Eric Cantona may not seem like the most natural of partnerships, yet when this odd couple came together for Looking For Eric the results were magical. Cantona plays himself as a sort of spirit guide who helps Manchester United-supporting postman Steve Evets get his life back together. A film with a strange concept but which is anchored very much in real emotions.
*Review pending purchase of it on DVD.
Ponyo (dir: Hayao Miyazaki)
A new film from Miyazaki, the Japanese animation legend behind Spirited Away the second-best film of the decade, is always a delight, but Ponyo was even more delightful than most. A new take on The Litte Mermaid, Miyazaki creates a beautiful, colourful world in which a magical fish, who gradually turns into a girl, falls in love with a young boy and, in the process, almost destroys the entire world. It says something about Miyazaki's capacity for magic that he makes a film that features the apocalypse seem so charming.
*Review will go up when the film has its UK theatrical release
Star Trek (dir: J.J. Abrams)
During a summer that seemed doomed to offer nothing beyond the lunkheaded stupidity of Transformers and Terminator: Salvation, Lost and Alias creator J.J. Abrams' reboot of the venerable sci-fi franchise was a breath of fresh air. Its blend of smart thrills, playful dialogue and winning performances was sorely missing for the rest of the summer.
Read my review.
Thirst (dir: Park Chan-Wook)
The other great vampire film of 2009 and one that stands in stark contrast to Let The Right One In; whereas Let The Right One In is a story of a chaste friendship, Thirst is about a Priest who gives into his desires for blood and sex in dramatic fashion once he is turned into a vampire. Violent, funny and tragic.
Read my review.
Up (dir: Pete Docter)
Pixar continue to be one of the most consistently brilliant and original studios out there. What other studio could take the story of an old widower flying in a house attached to thousands of balloons and turn it into a deeply moving, hilarious and exciting adventure AND make it one of the biggest hits of the year? I am in awe.
Read my review.
Where The Wild Things Are (dir: Spike Jonze)
In the run-up to the release of Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book, people asked how anyone could turn a 10 sentence book into a 90 minute film. I'm betting that no-one expected that Jonze and his co-writer, Dave Eggers, would turn those 10 sentences into a beautiful, fun and sad film about childhood. A real achievement made all the more special by the fact that, thanks to the relative failure of the film, Jonze will probably never be given the sort of budget and freedom he was given that resulted in such a great film.
Read my review.
The White Ribbon (dir: Michael Haneke)
Michael Haneke turns his unblinking analytical eye onto Germany's history of violence, asking whether or not there is something in the German character that would allow the atrocities of the Second World War to occur. A deeply unsettling journey into the broken psyche of a nation, albeit one that is slightly warmer than Haneke usually is.
Read my review.
Zombieland (dir: Ruben Fleischer)
Horror comedies are one of the trickiest kinds of films to make - if they're too scary the humour will suffer, if they're too funny then the comedy will suffer - and Zombieland, rather than risk an imbalance, went for straight comedy and made for one gleefully gory and silly romp. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg (he loves to be in films with the suffix 'land') make a great comic pairing and TV veteran Fleischer injects the action scenes with wit and excitement.
*Review pending purchase of it on DVD
Special Mentions:
Antichrist (dir: Lars von Trier) - For reminding me that you should never judge a film until you have seen all of it. And showing me that horror films can still be surprising, even if the surprise is something you wish you hadn't seen and hope never to see again.
Crank: High Voltage (dir: Neveltine/Taylor) - For sheer energy and lunacy. Probably the most fun I had watching a film all year, definitely the one that had me saying "What the fuck?" the most.
Funny People (dir: Judd Apatow) - For being one of the more interesting films of the year, even if what was interesting about it wasn't necessarily what was good about it.
Inglourious Basterds (dir: Quentin Tarantino) - For reminding me how good Tarantino can be (the opening 20 minutes) as well as how bad he can be (the rest of the film).
Paranormal Activity (dir: Oren Peli) - For making me afraid to be alone in my house for weeks afterwards.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
The Damned United
Things are going to be a little different around here... without Don.
On the face of it, The Damned United doesn't seem like a story that would make for a compelling novel or an equally compelling film. Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) was one of the most talented and successful managers in the history of English football, whose prodigious talent and outspoken personality made him controversial and beloved. Why would someone make his infamous 44-day stint as the manager of Leeds United, the lowest ebb of his career, the focus of a story? Because David Peace knew when he wrote the novel that people are only at their purest when they are at their worst, and there was no purer distillation of Clough than when he floundered at Leeds.
The film jumps between two timelines; Clough's time at Leeds in 1974, and his time at Derby County from 1968 and going up until a few weeks before he took the job at Leeds. The two timelines serve to illustrate how Clough's career developed as a result of his obsession with Don Revie (Colm Meaney), the man who preceded him at Leeds. Revie casts a long shadow over the film; he only spends a handful of scenes with Clough and they barely exchange any lines but Clough is always thinking about him, trying to work out how he can beat him. And all the while his success feeds his ego, which feeds his further success, until he flies so high that he can only fall.
As Brian Clough, Sheen so dominates the film that it does run the risk of turning into a one-man show. None of the Leeds players feel all that real because they are featured so rarely, and even Don Revie, who is the closest the film has to a villain, is mostly seen on television screens. However, that is the point of the film; it doesn't need villains because the greatest threat to Clough is Clough himself. His ego and hubris are what ultimately lead to his downfall and he needs no help from anyone to destroy himself.
On the face of it, The Damned United doesn't seem like a story that would make for a compelling novel or an equally compelling film. Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) was one of the most talented and successful managers in the history of English football, whose prodigious talent and outspoken personality made him controversial and beloved. Why would someone make his infamous 44-day stint as the manager of Leeds United, the lowest ebb of his career, the focus of a story? Because David Peace knew when he wrote the novel that people are only at their purest when they are at their worst, and there was no purer distillation of Clough than when he floundered at Leeds.
The film jumps between two timelines; Clough's time at Leeds in 1974, and his time at Derby County from 1968 and going up until a few weeks before he took the job at Leeds. The two timelines serve to illustrate how Clough's career developed as a result of his obsession with Don Revie (Colm Meaney), the man who preceded him at Leeds. Revie casts a long shadow over the film; he only spends a handful of scenes with Clough and they barely exchange any lines but Clough is always thinking about him, trying to work out how he can beat him. And all the while his success feeds his ego, which feeds his further success, until he flies so high that he can only fall.
As Brian Clough, Sheen so dominates the film that it does run the risk of turning into a one-man show. None of the Leeds players feel all that real because they are featured so rarely, and even Don Revie, who is the closest the film has to a villain, is mostly seen on television screens. However, that is the point of the film; it doesn't need villains because the greatest threat to Clough is Clough himself. His ego and hubris are what ultimately lead to his downfall and he needs no help from anyone to destroy himself.
Everyone in the film is defined by their relationship to Clough, and if he doesn't care about them, then neither should we. That the only character of real substance besides Clough is his assistant manager, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), whose decision not to follow his friend to Leeds plays a major part in his downfall, supports this. Clough cares about Taylor, so we are given time to grow to care about him too. But at the end of the day, he is only as important as Clough considers him to be; as soon as they have a fall out, Taylor disappears and Clough is left to face the barbs and the spotlight and the failure all on his own.
A very human story about a man whose professional and personal lives are almost destroyed by his own obsessions, The Damned United is a fascinating character study that both fans and non-fans of football can enjoy.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Thirst (Bakjwi)
It's like Twilight, except it is no way like Twilight.
Vampire stories, with a few exceptions, are all about sex. From Count Dracula to Edward Cullen, the image of the vampire penetrating their victim with their teeth has been a simple and effective metaphor for sex, and the desire for blood a lusty stand-in for other earthly pleasures.
Thirst, the latest film by Park Chan-Wook, the South Korean auteur renowned for his violently poetic works, has a more literal take on the "Vampire/sex" concept. When a priest (Song Kang-Ho) is turned into a vampire after an experimental treatment for a deadly disease goes awry, he not only starts to lust after blood, but also his friend's wife (Kim Ok-bin). What then unfolds is a curious mix of horror, romance and Double Indemnity-style crime story, with a rich undercurrent of dark comedy and tragedy coursing through its veins.
Park's films have always resisted easy classification and, despite being part of an established and popular sub-genre, Thirst is no exception. Like all of his films, it manages to be several different, even contradictory things at the same time. To illustrate this, let's consider one of the most iconic images from the film; Priest Sang-hyeon drinking the blood of a comatose patient through an I.V. drip. This image is both inherently funny, since the act of feasting on a man's blood is equated to that of drinking a milkshake, but it's horrific for exactly the same reasons. The idea is also tragic because we know how good a man Sang-hyeon is and understand how far he has fallen.
The dramatic weight of the tragedy at the heart of the film stems from Song Kang-Ho's soulful performance as Sang-hyeon. From the moment we are introduced to this young idealist who is willing to sacrifice himself to help his fellow man we know that he is a good, decent man. The essential goodness never leaves him. Even when he is co-opted into helping a vampire he sired kill innocent people we still feel that he is a man who has not lost his faith or his soul. It's that central conflict between Sang-hyeon's good intentions and his evil actions that allows Park Chan-Wook to indulge his visual flair and let the plot meander; the film is always grounded by Sang-hyeon.
The meandering of the story is the greatest knock against the film. Though the film doesn't at any point bore, it does drag, particularly after the first hour and a half when the film enters a holding pattern as it prepares to reach its climax. However, once it enters the final act it recovers any lost momentum and ends on a moment of real beauty.
Vampire stories, with a few exceptions, are all about sex. From Count Dracula to Edward Cullen, the image of the vampire penetrating their victim with their teeth has been a simple and effective metaphor for sex, and the desire for blood a lusty stand-in for other earthly pleasures.
Thirst, the latest film by Park Chan-Wook, the South Korean auteur renowned for his violently poetic works, has a more literal take on the "Vampire/sex" concept. When a priest (Song Kang-Ho) is turned into a vampire after an experimental treatment for a deadly disease goes awry, he not only starts to lust after blood, but also his friend's wife (Kim Ok-bin). What then unfolds is a curious mix of horror, romance and Double Indemnity-style crime story, with a rich undercurrent of dark comedy and tragedy coursing through its veins.
Park's films have always resisted easy classification and, despite being part of an established and popular sub-genre, Thirst is no exception. Like all of his films, it manages to be several different, even contradictory things at the same time. To illustrate this, let's consider one of the most iconic images from the film; Priest Sang-hyeon drinking the blood of a comatose patient through an I.V. drip. This image is both inherently funny, since the act of feasting on a man's blood is equated to that of drinking a milkshake, but it's horrific for exactly the same reasons. The idea is also tragic because we know how good a man Sang-hyeon is and understand how far he has fallen.
The dramatic weight of the tragedy at the heart of the film stems from Song Kang-Ho's soulful performance as Sang-hyeon. From the moment we are introduced to this young idealist who is willing to sacrifice himself to help his fellow man we know that he is a good, decent man. The essential goodness never leaves him. Even when he is co-opted into helping a vampire he sired kill innocent people we still feel that he is a man who has not lost his faith or his soul. It's that central conflict between Sang-hyeon's good intentions and his evil actions that allows Park Chan-Wook to indulge his visual flair and let the plot meander; the film is always grounded by Sang-hyeon.
The meandering of the story is the greatest knock against the film. Though the film doesn't at any point bore, it does drag, particularly after the first hour and a half when the film enters a holding pattern as it prepares to reach its climax. However, once it enters the final act it recovers any lost momentum and ends on a moment of real beauty.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Crank: High Voltage
He was dead...But he got better.
Crank, directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, released in 2006 and starring Jason Statham as Chev Chelios, a hitman who is given a poison that will kill him if he doesn't keep his heartrate up (it's Speed, with a man!) was a bizarre delight that somehow got past the parts of my brain that make me hate stupid action films and hit me square in the part that makes me giggle like an idiot. Much of my enjoyment from the film stemmed from the fact that Crank was a deliciously knowing film that was aware of how silly it was and so felt no compunction to treat its ridiculous plot with even a cursory level of seriousness and instead focused its considerable energy on delivering a visceral and unhinged piece of cinematic silliness. Could the sequel possibly match the boundless energy and lunacy of the original? I'll let the plot synopsis answer that question.
When last we saw Chev Chelios, he had just fallen out a helicopter without a parachute, landed heavily on a car, and more or less died. However, as the film begins, Chelios is being kept alive so that the Triads can steal his indestructible heart (This is all true) as well as his other organs. To keep him alive, they replace his real heart with an artificial one with a limited battery life. When Chelios escapes from the Triads in order to get his "fucking pumper" back, he has to give his battery a jump every so often by any means necessary.
Yes, it is every bit as mad as that sounds. Buoyed by Statham's game performance, Neveldine/Taylor's frenetic direction and a script that veers between awful and brilliant at the drop of a hat, Crank: High Voltage matches its predecessor in many ways, and even brings some bizarre new tricks, but it also brings some unwanted subtext to the party.
Crank: High Voltage has been accused of being misogynistic. If anything, that is too light; it should be accused, tried and convicted of being misogynistic because it undoubtedly is. The scene in which a stripper is shot through the breasts and silicon bleeds out over her chest has been cited by many as an example of this, but the overall tone of the film and its portrayal of women is much more damning. Neveltine/Taylor display a commitment to portraying women as only strippers or whores that would make Frank Miller balk. Amy Smart, returning as Chelios' girlfriend Eve, is probably the best representation of femininity in the film, in that she does at least get to beat a man up, but even she is a stripper whose main role in the narrative is to have sex with Chelios on a racecourse. And Smart doesn't quite make up for Bai Ling, who plays a Chinese prostitute who is so incomprehensible and annoying that I, somewhat shamefully, found myself cheering when she was hit by a car. It's not just a film that seems to hate women, it is a film that somehow makes its audience hate women.
When last we saw Chev Chelios, he had just fallen out a helicopter without a parachute, landed heavily on a car, and more or less died. However, as the film begins, Chelios is being kept alive so that the Triads can steal his indestructible heart (This is all true) as well as his other organs. To keep him alive, they replace his real heart with an artificial one with a limited battery life. When Chelios escapes from the Triads in order to get his "fucking pumper" back, he has to give his battery a jump every so often by any means necessary.
Yes, it is every bit as mad as that sounds. Buoyed by Statham's game performance, Neveldine/Taylor's frenetic direction and a script that veers between awful and brilliant at the drop of a hat, Crank: High Voltage matches its predecessor in many ways, and even brings some bizarre new tricks, but it also brings some unwanted subtext to the party.
Crank: High Voltage has been accused of being misogynistic. If anything, that is too light; it should be accused, tried and convicted of being misogynistic because it undoubtedly is. The scene in which a stripper is shot through the breasts and silicon bleeds out over her chest has been cited by many as an example of this, but the overall tone of the film and its portrayal of women is much more damning. Neveltine/Taylor display a commitment to portraying women as only strippers or whores that would make Frank Miller balk. Amy Smart, returning as Chelios' girlfriend Eve, is probably the best representation of femininity in the film, in that she does at least get to beat a man up, but even she is a stripper whose main role in the narrative is to have sex with Chelios on a racecourse. And Smart doesn't quite make up for Bai Ling, who plays a Chinese prostitute who is so incomprehensible and annoying that I, somewhat shamefully, found myself cheering when she was hit by a car. It's not just a film that seems to hate women, it is a film that somehow makes its audience hate women.
Yet for all its obvious sexism, it's hard to take the film seriously as a misogynist tract because it is so thoroughly ridiculous and the tone of the film is so over the top that the misogyny only really forms a part of the film's bizarre milieu. Crank was a pretty manic film, but High Voltage is downright certifiable. It takes the energy that drove the original, increases it to a dangerous level, then adds a dose of surrealism into the mix. Neveltine/Taylor seem to have reached a point where they suspect that someone, somewhere is going to realise that people as obviously insane as they are shouldn't be given $20 million to make a film and have decided to just completely go for broke this time around. So you get sequences in which Chelios, having been kicked into the control box of a power station, envisions a fight as a Godzilla-style battle between a giant version of himself - complete with distorted giant face - and a giant version of Johnny Vang, the man who stole his heart. As Fish Halman, the news reporter played by Star Trek: The Next Generation fave John de Lancie, says at the start of the film, "It can only be described as implausible".
The self-reflexivity of the film is also quite wonderfully odd. As the above quote from Halman (which is used in reference to the events of the first film) indicates, the film is well aware of its own ridiculousness. In the way that it constantly brings attention to how strange it is, and the way in which it repeatedly makes references to events in the first film in the most offhand and cavalier way, it's almost a parody of its predecessor and of itself. These are not always successful - one moment in which an old woman says that Chelios looks like the guy from the Transporter films is a painful and awkward moment of self-awareness - but for the most part they hit home and make the moments when High Voltage retreads the plot of the original feel fresh and new again.
The sheer giddy abandon that applied to the first film is very much in evidence the second time around but High Voltage runs out of juice about twenty minutes from the end. The opening hour is so frenetic that when it stops for just an instant it stops completely dead and, unlike Chev Chelios, it does not have the resilience to come back. For that first hour, though, it is one of the most glorious batty cinematic experiences out there. And my, is it out there.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Avatar
Different picture, different review.
Comparisons are already being drawn between Avatar and Cameron's previous film, Titanic. This is understandable since it's the first film he has made in twelve years and the last film he made was (unadjusted for inflation) the highest grossing film at the U.S. box office. It's a lot to live up to. Though Avatar more readily fits in with his science fiction work since it examines similar themes as those, such as the relationship between man and technology, Titanic is probably the best comparison because of the romance at its centre and because, like Titanic, it only really gets good at the end when everyone starts to die.
Because for much of its running time, Avatar is a bit of a slog. Not an unenjoyable slog, but a slog nonetheless.
The main reason for this is the plot, which is predictable to the point of parody. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a crippled ex-marine who, for reason both too complicated and too stupid to explain, is going to the world of Pandora to take his twin brother's place in the avatar project, in which he will be given control of a sort of mechanical-organic hybrid creature that resembles the 12-foot tall, blue Na'vi that populate the planet's surface. The aim of Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the project leader, is to better understand the Na'vi and study their world, whilst the aims of the company funding the project, represented by company man Giovanni Ribisi, and their military cohorts, represented by gloriously insane commander Stephen Lang, is to use Jake and his fellow avatars to open a line of communication with the Na'vi so that they can then force them to leave their homes and get at the rich deposits of unobtainium (what, did you just forget to come up with a fucking name, Jim?) that lie underneath the huge tree in which they live.
Things don't run quite to plan, though, as Jake is left alone and isolated when he is attacked by one of the many beasties that populate Pandora's lush forests and is saved by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi who takes a shine to Jake and starts to show him the ways of the Na'vi.
Mark Kermode so perfectly described the experience of watching Avatar that I'm going to have to paraphrase him because I have not found a more apposite way of summing it up: it's akin to watching an ocean liner turning 360 degrees; it's impressive, but you can see where it's going and it takes such a long time to get there. You can see the plot points far in advance of them happening - you can see that Jake and Neytiri are going to fall in love, that he will be forced to choose between the Na'vi and his own people, and that it's all going to end in a bigass battle - and much of the running time is spent waiting for things to happen up to an hour after you've already figured out that they are going to happen.
Cameron, if we are being very, very charitable, could be described as an inelegant writer. It is telling that all the films of his which are remembered for their strong characters and plots (Terminator, Aliens) are the ones which he co-wrote, and the ones which are remembered for their predictable plots and paper-thin characterisations (Titanic) are the ones on which he has sole writing credit. Avatar falls very much into this latter category. The characters, apart from Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch, who is simply fantastic, are all quite flat and forgettable, falling into well-worn stereotypes (the evil industrialist, the kind-but-firm scientist, the badass pilot) who spout reams of expositionary, cliched dialogue with only a modicum of effort. Admittedly, Sigourney Weaver acting with only a modicum of effort blows most other actors out of the water, but Sam Worthington just isn't charismatic enough to carry off his role. He's good, but you never get the sense that he is conflicted at any point, since he seems just as committed to helping the Na'vi as he does to destroying them and there is no sense of progression for his character. The only reason his decision to switch allegiances makes sense is because we know he's going to do it anyway.
I can understand why it is so simplistic, though, because Cameron is savvy enough to know that if you are going to introduce audiences to a new technology and world then you should couch it in easy, understandable terms. And what he brings to the table does need to be seen because it is quite stunning. Pandora is a thoroughly convincing world, full of bioluminescent plants, hideous yet fascinating monsters, and as we see Jake running through it or flying high above it it is easy to get lost in Pandora. It's just a shame that Cameron does as well, fetishising his own creation by staging endless shots of plants and animals, like a child showing off his drawings to a parent. "Look at the drawing I done!", he cries, to which the parent replies, "That's very nice, Jim, but why don't you attach it to a compelling narrative?"
My parents always offered very constructive criticism.
Anyway, I don't want to be completely against the film because I wasn't bored at all during its entire running time, but I only really got involved when the action kicked in at the end and for the most part I didn't really care all that much. It is very, very pretty though.
Comparisons are already being drawn between Avatar and Cameron's previous film, Titanic. This is understandable since it's the first film he has made in twelve years and the last film he made was (unadjusted for inflation) the highest grossing film at the U.S. box office. It's a lot to live up to. Though Avatar more readily fits in with his science fiction work since it examines similar themes as those, such as the relationship between man and technology, Titanic is probably the best comparison because of the romance at its centre and because, like Titanic, it only really gets good at the end when everyone starts to die.
Because for much of its running time, Avatar is a bit of a slog. Not an unenjoyable slog, but a slog nonetheless.
The main reason for this is the plot, which is predictable to the point of parody. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a crippled ex-marine who, for reason both too complicated and too stupid to explain, is going to the world of Pandora to take his twin brother's place in the avatar project, in which he will be given control of a sort of mechanical-organic hybrid creature that resembles the 12-foot tall, blue Na'vi that populate the planet's surface. The aim of Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the project leader, is to better understand the Na'vi and study their world, whilst the aims of the company funding the project, represented by company man Giovanni Ribisi, and their military cohorts, represented by gloriously insane commander Stephen Lang, is to use Jake and his fellow avatars to open a line of communication with the Na'vi so that they can then force them to leave their homes and get at the rich deposits of unobtainium (what, did you just forget to come up with a fucking name, Jim?) that lie underneath the huge tree in which they live.
Things don't run quite to plan, though, as Jake is left alone and isolated when he is attacked by one of the many beasties that populate Pandora's lush forests and is saved by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi who takes a shine to Jake and starts to show him the ways of the Na'vi.
Mark Kermode so perfectly described the experience of watching Avatar that I'm going to have to paraphrase him because I have not found a more apposite way of summing it up: it's akin to watching an ocean liner turning 360 degrees; it's impressive, but you can see where it's going and it takes such a long time to get there. You can see the plot points far in advance of them happening - you can see that Jake and Neytiri are going to fall in love, that he will be forced to choose between the Na'vi and his own people, and that it's all going to end in a bigass battle - and much of the running time is spent waiting for things to happen up to an hour after you've already figured out that they are going to happen.
Cameron, if we are being very, very charitable, could be described as an inelegant writer. It is telling that all the films of his which are remembered for their strong characters and plots (Terminator, Aliens) are the ones which he co-wrote, and the ones which are remembered for their predictable plots and paper-thin characterisations (Titanic) are the ones on which he has sole writing credit. Avatar falls very much into this latter category. The characters, apart from Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch, who is simply fantastic, are all quite flat and forgettable, falling into well-worn stereotypes (the evil industrialist, the kind-but-firm scientist, the badass pilot) who spout reams of expositionary, cliched dialogue with only a modicum of effort. Admittedly, Sigourney Weaver acting with only a modicum of effort blows most other actors out of the water, but Sam Worthington just isn't charismatic enough to carry off his role. He's good, but you never get the sense that he is conflicted at any point, since he seems just as committed to helping the Na'vi as he does to destroying them and there is no sense of progression for his character. The only reason his decision to switch allegiances makes sense is because we know he's going to do it anyway.
I can understand why it is so simplistic, though, because Cameron is savvy enough to know that if you are going to introduce audiences to a new technology and world then you should couch it in easy, understandable terms. And what he brings to the table does need to be seen because it is quite stunning. Pandora is a thoroughly convincing world, full of bioluminescent plants, hideous yet fascinating monsters, and as we see Jake running through it or flying high above it it is easy to get lost in Pandora. It's just a shame that Cameron does as well, fetishising his own creation by staging endless shots of plants and animals, like a child showing off his drawings to a parent. "Look at the drawing I done!", he cries, to which the parent replies, "That's very nice, Jim, but why don't you attach it to a compelling narrative?"
My parents always offered very constructive criticism.
Anyway, I don't want to be completely against the film because I wasn't bored at all during its entire running time, but I only really got involved when the action kicked in at the end and for the most part I didn't really care all that much. It is very, very pretty though.
Avatar
Ava-Adore
Hype is a dangerous thing. Use it well, and it can propel your product into the stratosphere of success. Unfortunately, the flip side to such a build-up can lead to crushing disappointments. Just look at Guns n’ Roses ‘Chinese Democracy’, or Barack Obama’s failure to fix all the world’s problems in a year.
So after twelve years since James Cameron’s last project (the saccharine teenage girls’ favourite, Titanic), the impossible build up of expectations (it’ll change the way you view cinema!) and the fact that the last project was Titanic, is Avatar actually any good?
Well, as you can probably guess from the by-line at the top of the article, yes. It’s good. Very good. In fact, it’s easily one of the best blockbusters of the decade. After the clusterfuck of Transformers, the unnecessarily overblown world building attempts of the Pirates of the Carribean sequels and the woefulness of 300, the simplicity and artistry of Avatar welcome one of science fictions great action directors back to the top of his game.
Set in a distant future, humanity is struggling for resources, having depleted the earth with rampant industrialisation and imperialism. Now, scouring the stars, they have found the ultimate mineral (the ridiculously named ‘Unobtanium’) which is unfortunately located on the heavily populated planet of Pandora. Humanity’s efforts to deal with the native Na’Vi (a race of giant blue cat people) is split between all out military confrontation and the titular Avatar project. In this, willing pilots control a Na’vi/ human hybrid from the comfort of a Matrix-esque-computer-bed-thingy, and they offer a more diplomatic approach to the situation.
This may sound a little confusing, and to be frank, could very easily be so. However as with many of his sci fi efforts, Cameron has applied a simple story to the complex world building around it. While the story borders on predictable, and heavily resonates the Pocahontas tale, it allows the world to breathe. Apart from District 9, there hasn’t been a new piece of world building as fully developed as this to come straight to the screen in years and, as with that, it’s glorious to behold.
The film follows the paralysed veteran space marine, Jake Sully (Terminator Salvation’s Sam Worthington), after the death of his brother offers him the opportunity to join the Avatar program, despite his lack of training. From here he gets to experience as we do. Inexperienced and virgin to the world, he essentially acts as the audiences own avatar, being led through the world and introducing us to its many wonders, both natural and cultural. Through this medium, we are given a great chance to get an idea of what life on Pandora is like, even if it is somewhat heavy on the exposition.
Worthington plays Sully as the everyman exceptionally well and, given that he's only managed to pull himself into the leading roles this year, he shows a lot of promise for the future. What makes his performance even more interesting however is his addiction to becoming the Avatar, refusing meals, and losing sleep in between his sessions. With his paralysis seemingly making him obsolete in the corporate human world, between the high price of surgery and treatment from other marines ("Meals on wheels!"), his progression to falling in love with his alternate persona is believable and will probably make you want to do the same. It's an interesting subplot given the rise and rise of digital entertainment, with games like the sublime Dragon Age: Origins offering a fully interactive narrative and people losing their marriages to online titles like World of Warcraft, it keeps the themes of the movie relatable to daily life, even in this fantasy world.
Falling in love with Pandora is easier for both Sully and the viewer thanks to the native Na'Vi guide, Neytiri (voiced by fellow newcomer, Star Trek's Zoe Saldana). At once powerful, sexy and mysterious, it's the strength of her character that helps sell the world and the plight of her people. I'm not entirely sure how sexy works for giant blue aliens, but watch the film for yourself. Maybe it's just because I'm tall. Stop judging me!
In general, I found it quite hard to fault any of the performances on display. Sigourney Weaver does a good job as the lead professor of the Avatar project, even though she channels Ripley for most of her early scenes. Michelle "Neil's least favourite actress ever" Rodriguez is actually quite good and Giobanni Ribisi does a great job as the slimy corporate leader. However, of the supporting actors, none compare to Stephen Lang as chief antagonist and general bastard, Colonel Miles Quaritch (though General Bastard would have been a much better name and you know it). Basically it's Dick Cheney as played by an aging G.I. Joe, and he steals practically every scene he's in, furthering the audiences support of the Na'Vi plight like a hate conduit. It's a pitch perfect performance, that could be seen as a little bit comic book or even pantomime, but it's exactly what the film needs.
As you can probably guess though, the real draw here are the special effects. To answer your questions about the hype, yes they really are that good. They manage to create a world full of believable creatures, despite their outlandish appearances, as well as realistic vehicles and fauna, particularly the flying lizard mounts of the Na'Vi, some kind of six legged giant panther and big 'Aliens' style robot battle suits used by the humans. The most impressive are the Na'Vi themselves. They look alive, and that is the key to their success. Their eyes convey as much emotion as their human counterparts, and their flesh is so realistic, it makes it look like blue is a real skin tone.
The 3D does add a sense of depth to proceedings, but at the same time is not a deal maker. It's great when it works, and it does help generate a sense of scale, but given the quality of the effects and sets, I'm not entirely sure how influential it is to the audience. That said, the option is there, so if you've got the option, I'd definitely recommend it.
The reason these effects work so well though is that Cameron is a real film maker. He understands cinematography and pacing and all these other things that Michael Bay has no concept of. To compare this to Revenge of the Fallen (twice in one article) is actually quite essential, as that is one of the few films that could rival Avatar in terms of its use of high quality CGI. The difference is though, that no matter how busy Avatar gets, you can always see exactly what's happening at any given time, no matter how frantic. Sadly what has become the norm appears to be shaking the camera round so much, you only know what exactly happened from whether the protagonist is crying or smiling by the end. Which is why that film was a mess, and why Avatar looks great.
Avatar is genuinely one of the best action movies of the last few years, perhaps even decade. Though the story is fairly predictable, the world building, underlying satire and performances more than make up for it. The action sequences are second to none and act as a great reminder of why we loved James Cameron in the first place. Is Avatar the future of cinema? Possibly, yes. Will it be for it's use of 3D? Possibly, but hopefully not. Though it the 3D was impressive, what would be great to see is more films taking inspiration from the imagination, the clarity of vision, the pacing and the emotional engagement from the characters.
But if, as a film maker, you take one thing from Avatar, make sure it's not using Leona Lewis to sing your theme song.
Hype is a dangerous thing. Use it well, and it can propel your product into the stratosphere of success. Unfortunately, the flip side to such a build-up can lead to crushing disappointments. Just look at Guns n’ Roses ‘Chinese Democracy’, or Barack Obama’s failure to fix all the world’s problems in a year.
So after twelve years since James Cameron’s last project (the saccharine teenage girls’ favourite, Titanic), the impossible build up of expectations (it’ll change the way you view cinema!) and the fact that the last project was Titanic, is Avatar actually any good?
Well, as you can probably guess from the by-line at the top of the article, yes. It’s good. Very good. In fact, it’s easily one of the best blockbusters of the decade. After the clusterfuck of Transformers, the unnecessarily overblown world building attempts of the Pirates of the Carribean sequels and the woefulness of 300, the simplicity and artistry of Avatar welcome one of science fictions great action directors back to the top of his game.
Set in a distant future, humanity is struggling for resources, having depleted the earth with rampant industrialisation and imperialism. Now, scouring the stars, they have found the ultimate mineral (the ridiculously named ‘Unobtanium’) which is unfortunately located on the heavily populated planet of Pandora. Humanity’s efforts to deal with the native Na’Vi (a race of giant blue cat people) is split between all out military confrontation and the titular Avatar project. In this, willing pilots control a Na’vi/ human hybrid from the comfort of a Matrix-esque-computer-bed-thingy, and they offer a more diplomatic approach to the situation.
This may sound a little confusing, and to be frank, could very easily be so. However as with many of his sci fi efforts, Cameron has applied a simple story to the complex world building around it. While the story borders on predictable, and heavily resonates the Pocahontas tale, it allows the world to breathe. Apart from District 9, there hasn’t been a new piece of world building as fully developed as this to come straight to the screen in years and, as with that, it’s glorious to behold.
The film follows the paralysed veteran space marine, Jake Sully (Terminator Salvation’s Sam Worthington), after the death of his brother offers him the opportunity to join the Avatar program, despite his lack of training. From here he gets to experience as we do. Inexperienced and virgin to the world, he essentially acts as the audiences own avatar, being led through the world and introducing us to its many wonders, both natural and cultural. Through this medium, we are given a great chance to get an idea of what life on Pandora is like, even if it is somewhat heavy on the exposition.
Worthington plays Sully as the everyman exceptionally well and, given that he's only managed to pull himself into the leading roles this year, he shows a lot of promise for the future. What makes his performance even more interesting however is his addiction to becoming the Avatar, refusing meals, and losing sleep in between his sessions. With his paralysis seemingly making him obsolete in the corporate human world, between the high price of surgery and treatment from other marines ("Meals on wheels!"), his progression to falling in love with his alternate persona is believable and will probably make you want to do the same. It's an interesting subplot given the rise and rise of digital entertainment, with games like the sublime Dragon Age: Origins offering a fully interactive narrative and people losing their marriages to online titles like World of Warcraft, it keeps the themes of the movie relatable to daily life, even in this fantasy world.
Falling in love with Pandora is easier for both Sully and the viewer thanks to the native Na'Vi guide, Neytiri (voiced by fellow newcomer, Star Trek's Zoe Saldana). At once powerful, sexy and mysterious, it's the strength of her character that helps sell the world and the plight of her people. I'm not entirely sure how sexy works for giant blue aliens, but watch the film for yourself. Maybe it's just because I'm tall. Stop judging me!
In general, I found it quite hard to fault any of the performances on display. Sigourney Weaver does a good job as the lead professor of the Avatar project, even though she channels Ripley for most of her early scenes. Michelle "Neil's least favourite actress ever" Rodriguez is actually quite good and Giobanni Ribisi does a great job as the slimy corporate leader. However, of the supporting actors, none compare to Stephen Lang as chief antagonist and general bastard, Colonel Miles Quaritch (though General Bastard would have been a much better name and you know it). Basically it's Dick Cheney as played by an aging G.I. Joe, and he steals practically every scene he's in, furthering the audiences support of the Na'Vi plight like a hate conduit. It's a pitch perfect performance, that could be seen as a little bit comic book or even pantomime, but it's exactly what the film needs.
As you can probably guess though, the real draw here are the special effects. To answer your questions about the hype, yes they really are that good. They manage to create a world full of believable creatures, despite their outlandish appearances, as well as realistic vehicles and fauna, particularly the flying lizard mounts of the Na'Vi, some kind of six legged giant panther and big 'Aliens' style robot battle suits used by the humans. The most impressive are the Na'Vi themselves. They look alive, and that is the key to their success. Their eyes convey as much emotion as their human counterparts, and their flesh is so realistic, it makes it look like blue is a real skin tone.
The 3D does add a sense of depth to proceedings, but at the same time is not a deal maker. It's great when it works, and it does help generate a sense of scale, but given the quality of the effects and sets, I'm not entirely sure how influential it is to the audience. That said, the option is there, so if you've got the option, I'd definitely recommend it.
The reason these effects work so well though is that Cameron is a real film maker. He understands cinematography and pacing and all these other things that Michael Bay has no concept of. To compare this to Revenge of the Fallen (twice in one article) is actually quite essential, as that is one of the few films that could rival Avatar in terms of its use of high quality CGI. The difference is though, that no matter how busy Avatar gets, you can always see exactly what's happening at any given time, no matter how frantic. Sadly what has become the norm appears to be shaking the camera round so much, you only know what exactly happened from whether the protagonist is crying or smiling by the end. Which is why that film was a mess, and why Avatar looks great.
Avatar is genuinely one of the best action movies of the last few years, perhaps even decade. Though the story is fairly predictable, the world building, underlying satire and performances more than make up for it. The action sequences are second to none and act as a great reminder of why we loved James Cameron in the first place. Is Avatar the future of cinema? Possibly, yes. Will it be for it's use of 3D? Possibly, but hopefully not. Though it the 3D was impressive, what would be great to see is more films taking inspiration from the imagination, the clarity of vision, the pacing and the emotional engagement from the characters.
But if, as a film maker, you take one thing from Avatar, make sure it's not using Leona Lewis to sing your theme song.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Issues Gloriously Rendered in Three Dimensions
So, last Monday I, like seemingly everyone else in the Western world, went to see Avatar, James Cameron's science fiction epic about blue cat people re-enacting the plot of Pocahontas. I enjoyed the film quite a lot; I though the plot, whilst very, very predictable, was carried off with gusto, the action set-pieces that littered the film were exciting and frenetic without sacrificing cohesion, and the effects were absolutely glorious and created a fabulous world.
I'm going to write a full review of the film later this week - I'm hoping to see it again to just shore up my opinions about it - but I wanted to write a separate entry entirely devoted to the aspect of the film that has been the most trumpeted - its use of 3D - so as not to bog down my review with my concerns.
My issues with the 3D are not to do with the experience itself which was great and, apart from a slight bout of nausea at the start of the film which was more to do with acclimatising to wearing the 3D glasses over my regular glasses, I found nothing about the actually experience of wearing the glasses to watch the film all that difficult or intrusive. No, my issues are with the implementation of the 3D and the question of whether or not it added to the experience of watching the film.
The phrase that is being thrown around a lot whenever people describe the RealD 3D process is 'immersion'. Unlike old 3D, the kind used in the 50s, 70s and even today in theme park attractions such as Shrek 4D and T2:3D (proof that Cameron is no late-comer to the 3D party), which was often used to point things at the audience (for a recent example, see the remake of My Bloody Valentine, which made full use of its pickax-wielding killer) where this new process is all about pulling the audience into the film by creating space and depth that 2D, theoretically cannot provide.
This year, many animated films have employed 3D to exactly this effect. Pixar's Up used 3D to create a sense of vastness and scale for the film's Paradise Falls locale, whilst Henry Selick's Coraline used 3D to help delineate between the Real world and the Other world that its heroine travelled between, with the real world being flat, grey and dull, and the Other world being given a sense of hyper-reality by being rendered in colour and in 3D.
Even though both those films utilised 3D in intelligent and subtle ways, I can't help but think that there is an erroneous presumption at the heart of their use; the presumption that you need 3D to create a sense of scale or an sense of something being otherworldly. I saw both Up and Coraline in cinemas in 2D and at no point in either did I feel that I was losing anything by not experiencing that extra dimension. Up's world was vast in 2D and the use of colour and music in Coraline aptly illustrated why Coraline would find the Other world so fascinating compared to her dull reality. It seems that all 3D adds to both films (apart from a few pounds extra on the ticket price) is an augmentation of their existent merits, rather than a genuinely new dimension.
To return to Avatar, the reason that I want to see it again is that I want to see it in 2D, because I feel that everything that I liked about the film is to do with everything but the 3D, which was very good and certainly light years ahead of the 3D I'm used to, but which as far as I could tell did not actually add anything to the experience. Any sense of immersion in the world I felt could be attributable more to the visual effects than the effect of the 3D, since it is the wealth of invention and imagination that has been put into the creation of Pandora that drew me in, rather than the 3D. Similarly the story, as predictable as it was, was involving enough for me to care about the characters, something which the 3D would not be able to engender.
The 3D in Avatar is bizarrely counter-intuitive. The story takes place within two distinct realms; half the film consists of the protagonist, Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, inhabiting his avatar and running around on the lush and verdant surface of Pandora, whilst the other half consists of Jake talking with scientists and military men inside confined interior sets. The paradox of my experience was that whilst at no point was I taken out of the story by the sections concerning Jake and the Na'vi, I frequently found myself disconnecting from the narrative whenever it switched to the military/scientist side. This was not down to the acting, which was uniformly solid across the board, or the writing, which was weak but was at least consistently weak, but because whenever the film went inside, the 3D became incredibly intrusive as bits of the sets would be really, really prominent and distracting in a way that they wouldn't be in 2D. Whereas the grand vistas of Pandora were so vast that you actually didn't notice that any 3D was being used at all. The most when the 3D should not have been noticeable were when it was at its most distracting, and the moments when it should have been apparent in all its glory it was almost as if it wasn't being used.
I'm no Luddite and I'm not writing this to bemoan 3D. I think that it is a perfectly viable extension of the medium and I'm sure that one day someone will find a way to do something truly revolutionary with it, I just don't think that Avatar is the film that does it. It does show us the possibilities of 3D, but it also confirmed to me that at worst it is a distraction and at best it can only marginally enhance what is already good in a film. With full awareness that I am putting into words something that may leave me branded a fool, I am going to say the following:
I think that in 10 years time, people will still be talking about Avatar and that it will be remembered as an important film. But it won't be talked about for its 3D. It will be talked about as a film that pushed the envelope of special effects and motion capture, and will be considered as part of the evolution of digital visual effects alongside Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings. But it will not be talked about for its 3D. I don't think that 3D will fail or be abandoned as it has historically, there seem to be far too many people - including big names like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson - behind it now for such a failure to occur, but neither do I believe that it is the future of cinema. I can easily see films like Avatar - i.e. blockbusters with bloated budgets - and CG animated films being increasingly reliant on it to increase ticket prices, as but beyond that I don't think it will become the industry standard.
I'm going to write a full review of the film later this week - I'm hoping to see it again to just shore up my opinions about it - but I wanted to write a separate entry entirely devoted to the aspect of the film that has been the most trumpeted - its use of 3D - so as not to bog down my review with my concerns.
My issues with the 3D are not to do with the experience itself which was great and, apart from a slight bout of nausea at the start of the film which was more to do with acclimatising to wearing the 3D glasses over my regular glasses, I found nothing about the actually experience of wearing the glasses to watch the film all that difficult or intrusive. No, my issues are with the implementation of the 3D and the question of whether or not it added to the experience of watching the film.
The phrase that is being thrown around a lot whenever people describe the RealD 3D process is 'immersion'. Unlike old 3D, the kind used in the 50s, 70s and even today in theme park attractions such as Shrek 4D and T2:3D (proof that Cameron is no late-comer to the 3D party), which was often used to point things at the audience (for a recent example, see the remake of My Bloody Valentine, which made full use of its pickax-wielding killer) where this new process is all about pulling the audience into the film by creating space and depth that 2D, theoretically cannot provide.
This year, many animated films have employed 3D to exactly this effect. Pixar's Up used 3D to create a sense of vastness and scale for the film's Paradise Falls locale, whilst Henry Selick's Coraline used 3D to help delineate between the Real world and the Other world that its heroine travelled between, with the real world being flat, grey and dull, and the Other world being given a sense of hyper-reality by being rendered in colour and in 3D.
Even though both those films utilised 3D in intelligent and subtle ways, I can't help but think that there is an erroneous presumption at the heart of their use; the presumption that you need 3D to create a sense of scale or an sense of something being otherworldly. I saw both Up and Coraline in cinemas in 2D and at no point in either did I feel that I was losing anything by not experiencing that extra dimension. Up's world was vast in 2D and the use of colour and music in Coraline aptly illustrated why Coraline would find the Other world so fascinating compared to her dull reality. It seems that all 3D adds to both films (apart from a few pounds extra on the ticket price) is an augmentation of their existent merits, rather than a genuinely new dimension.
To return to Avatar, the reason that I want to see it again is that I want to see it in 2D, because I feel that everything that I liked about the film is to do with everything but the 3D, which was very good and certainly light years ahead of the 3D I'm used to, but which as far as I could tell did not actually add anything to the experience. Any sense of immersion in the world I felt could be attributable more to the visual effects than the effect of the 3D, since it is the wealth of invention and imagination that has been put into the creation of Pandora that drew me in, rather than the 3D. Similarly the story, as predictable as it was, was involving enough for me to care about the characters, something which the 3D would not be able to engender.
The 3D in Avatar is bizarrely counter-intuitive. The story takes place within two distinct realms; half the film consists of the protagonist, Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, inhabiting his avatar and running around on the lush and verdant surface of Pandora, whilst the other half consists of Jake talking with scientists and military men inside confined interior sets. The paradox of my experience was that whilst at no point was I taken out of the story by the sections concerning Jake and the Na'vi, I frequently found myself disconnecting from the narrative whenever it switched to the military/scientist side. This was not down to the acting, which was uniformly solid across the board, or the writing, which was weak but was at least consistently weak, but because whenever the film went inside, the 3D became incredibly intrusive as bits of the sets would be really, really prominent and distracting in a way that they wouldn't be in 2D. Whereas the grand vistas of Pandora were so vast that you actually didn't notice that any 3D was being used at all. The most when the 3D should not have been noticeable were when it was at its most distracting, and the moments when it should have been apparent in all its glory it was almost as if it wasn't being used.
I'm no Luddite and I'm not writing this to bemoan 3D. I think that it is a perfectly viable extension of the medium and I'm sure that one day someone will find a way to do something truly revolutionary with it, I just don't think that Avatar is the film that does it. It does show us the possibilities of 3D, but it also confirmed to me that at worst it is a distraction and at best it can only marginally enhance what is already good in a film. With full awareness that I am putting into words something that may leave me branded a fool, I am going to say the following:
I think that in 10 years time, people will still be talking about Avatar and that it will be remembered as an important film. But it won't be talked about for its 3D. It will be talked about as a film that pushed the envelope of special effects and motion capture, and will be considered as part of the evolution of digital visual effects alongside Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings. But it will not be talked about for its 3D. I don't think that 3D will fail or be abandoned as it has historically, there seem to be far too many people - including big names like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson - behind it now for such a failure to occur, but neither do I believe that it is the future of cinema. I can easily see films like Avatar - i.e. blockbusters with bloated budgets - and CG animated films being increasingly reliant on it to increase ticket prices, as but beyond that I don't think it will become the industry standard.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Where The Wild Things Are
I didn't want to wake you up, but I've got something to show you...
Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic book opens with a sequence in which Max (Max Records), dressed in the iconic wolf suit, chases a dog around a house. It's a scene full of humour, as Max yips and barks aas he pursues his quarry, but the violent camerawork and the way Max throws himself after the dog undercut the silliness of the situation. The juxtaposition of seeming whimsy with implied violence in the scene sets the tone for the rest of the film.
The film is, in places, incredibly dark - given the expectations of a film that children will see - with the Wild Things themselves playing a large part in that darkness. Though they often seem fluffy and the physicality of actually having actors in suits play them makes them seem slightly ridiculous, the film establishes quite early on that their size is not just a by-product of the studio wanting to sell fluffy toys of the characters; they're that big because they are strong creatures with an immense capacity for destruction.
We are introduced to the Wild Things when Max runs away from home and, after sailing across a vast ocean, arrives on their island. Carol (James Gandolfini), the most compassionate but also the most destructive of the Wild Things is smashing up a bunch of houses in a fit of rage after his friend, KW (Lauren Ambrose) has left. The sequence, shot in an eerie half-light, is at once quite amusing, as we see this large bundle of fur throwing himself at houses made of woven sticks, but also frightening since we get a sense of his power and his temper.
The uneasiness between the outward amiability of the Wild Things and their barely suppressed emotions is a near constant throughout the film, lending each scene a tension that you really don't find in most kid's films. There is a sense throughout that at any moment one of the Wild Things could flip out and start arguing with another, and that they could move from play-fighting to malicious acts of violence just as quickly. Imagine every family argument you've ever had, every petty squabble that blew up into something much worse, then cram them all together into a 90 minute period and you'll get a sense of the tone of Where The Wild Things Are.
The reason for this sense of anger and frustration throughout the film is that Max brings these emotions to the land of the Wild Things and each of them represents some aspect of his own personality. The Wild Things, far from being otherworldly creatures, are very much rooted in human - but more importantly childish - emotions, with each of them having their bouts of jealousy, anger and loneliness, all of which stem from Max and the connection between them and him is reinforced very early on. In the first ten minutes of the film we see Max engage in a snowball fight with his older sister's friends. Max hides in an igloo he built as a kind of fort and one of the older kids destroys it, reducing Max to tears and causing him to then destroy his sister's room. This pattern - moments of joy followed by moments of futile anger and destruction - is repeated throughout the film, except as the film progresses Max moves to being the mature party in the altercations as he tries to deal with the Wild Things and their own destructive habits.
It'd be wrong of me to represent the film as completely downbeat since there are plenty of moments of humour and, as I've already said, moments of joy. Seeing Max and the Wild Things running through a forest, engaging in dirt clod fights or banding together to build a fort are moments of controlled but absolutely charming whimsy. It's just that these moments are there to punctuate the film, rather than to define it. Everything about the film is geared towards a more downbeat feeling; the autumnal cinematography; the score by Carter Burwell and Karen O, which has bursts of energy but is more often than not characterised by mournful acoustic guitar; and the performances of the voice actors, all of whom give performances that are adult in cadence but childish in tone. There's a sense of being in transition, of the world being caught between seasons and of the characters being caught between different stages in their lives. Both Max and The Wild Things have the capacity to be mature but not the emotional ability to deal with those responsibilities.
Where The Wild Things Are is a film about what it is to be a child, the joy and the sense of imagination that comes with being very young, but that means covering the bad parts as well. Anyone who has ever had a fight with their parents or had to come to terms with a life change that is beyond their understanding, such as the divorce between Max's parents which forms the backdrop of the film, will identify with Max as a child unable to express himself except in the most inappropriate and hurtful ways. The film is very much about his maturation and how his adventures with the Wild Things make him come to terms with his own problems and the consequences of his actions. In some ways it reminded me of Spirited Away, in that both films are allegorical accounts of the end of childhood and often painful process of growing up, though I don't think that Jonze's film has quite the magic that Spirited Away does.
It does have a magic of its own, though, and it is a beautiful film. It's deeply sad and melancholic, and it may be a bit too intense for young children who might not quite be able to grasp what the conflicts in the movie are about, but as a depiction of the internal conflicts of childhood it is absolutely sublime.
Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic book opens with a sequence in which Max (Max Records), dressed in the iconic wolf suit, chases a dog around a house. It's a scene full of humour, as Max yips and barks aas he pursues his quarry, but the violent camerawork and the way Max throws himself after the dog undercut the silliness of the situation. The juxtaposition of seeming whimsy with implied violence in the scene sets the tone for the rest of the film.
The film is, in places, incredibly dark - given the expectations of a film that children will see - with the Wild Things themselves playing a large part in that darkness. Though they often seem fluffy and the physicality of actually having actors in suits play them makes them seem slightly ridiculous, the film establishes quite early on that their size is not just a by-product of the studio wanting to sell fluffy toys of the characters; they're that big because they are strong creatures with an immense capacity for destruction.
We are introduced to the Wild Things when Max runs away from home and, after sailing across a vast ocean, arrives on their island. Carol (James Gandolfini), the most compassionate but also the most destructive of the Wild Things is smashing up a bunch of houses in a fit of rage after his friend, KW (Lauren Ambrose) has left. The sequence, shot in an eerie half-light, is at once quite amusing, as we see this large bundle of fur throwing himself at houses made of woven sticks, but also frightening since we get a sense of his power and his temper.
The uneasiness between the outward amiability of the Wild Things and their barely suppressed emotions is a near constant throughout the film, lending each scene a tension that you really don't find in most kid's films. There is a sense throughout that at any moment one of the Wild Things could flip out and start arguing with another, and that they could move from play-fighting to malicious acts of violence just as quickly. Imagine every family argument you've ever had, every petty squabble that blew up into something much worse, then cram them all together into a 90 minute period and you'll get a sense of the tone of Where The Wild Things Are.
The reason for this sense of anger and frustration throughout the film is that Max brings these emotions to the land of the Wild Things and each of them represents some aspect of his own personality. The Wild Things, far from being otherworldly creatures, are very much rooted in human - but more importantly childish - emotions, with each of them having their bouts of jealousy, anger and loneliness, all of which stem from Max and the connection between them and him is reinforced very early on. In the first ten minutes of the film we see Max engage in a snowball fight with his older sister's friends. Max hides in an igloo he built as a kind of fort and one of the older kids destroys it, reducing Max to tears and causing him to then destroy his sister's room. This pattern - moments of joy followed by moments of futile anger and destruction - is repeated throughout the film, except as the film progresses Max moves to being the mature party in the altercations as he tries to deal with the Wild Things and their own destructive habits.
It'd be wrong of me to represent the film as completely downbeat since there are plenty of moments of humour and, as I've already said, moments of joy. Seeing Max and the Wild Things running through a forest, engaging in dirt clod fights or banding together to build a fort are moments of controlled but absolutely charming whimsy. It's just that these moments are there to punctuate the film, rather than to define it. Everything about the film is geared towards a more downbeat feeling; the autumnal cinematography; the score by Carter Burwell and Karen O, which has bursts of energy but is more often than not characterised by mournful acoustic guitar; and the performances of the voice actors, all of whom give performances that are adult in cadence but childish in tone. There's a sense of being in transition, of the world being caught between seasons and of the characters being caught between different stages in their lives. Both Max and The Wild Things have the capacity to be mature but not the emotional ability to deal with those responsibilities.
Where The Wild Things Are is a film about what it is to be a child, the joy and the sense of imagination that comes with being very young, but that means covering the bad parts as well. Anyone who has ever had a fight with their parents or had to come to terms with a life change that is beyond their understanding, such as the divorce between Max's parents which forms the backdrop of the film, will identify with Max as a child unable to express himself except in the most inappropriate and hurtful ways. The film is very much about his maturation and how his adventures with the Wild Things make him come to terms with his own problems and the consequences of his actions. In some ways it reminded me of Spirited Away, in that both films are allegorical accounts of the end of childhood and often painful process of growing up, though I don't think that Jonze's film has quite the magic that Spirited Away does.
It does have a magic of its own, though, and it is a beautiful film. It's deeply sad and melancholic, and it may be a bit too intense for young children who might not quite be able to grasp what the conflicts in the movie are about, but as a depiction of the internal conflicts of childhood it is absolutely sublime.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Ed's Top 20 Films of the Decade
So, it's come to this. A Top 20 of the decade. A summation of 10 years of film-making, millions of feet of film, and an attempt to weigh up and quantify something as ethereal as art.
Yes, yes, I realise that every bloody body on the internet is getting very introspective and retrospective now as we see the final days of this decade wane and die with maudlin regularity, but that's only to be expected when you sit back and realise how 10 years really is such a long time, and yet how quickly it all seems to have flown by.
Time is an inelastic property, in that it progresses at a set rate, yet memory, the process by which we measure that time, is an elastic property with no real logic to it. For example, I can remember with crystal clarity what it was like watching the news on September 11th 2001 or July 7th 2005 or, on a more personal level, what it was like attending my grandmother's funeral, as if they had happened yesterday, yet I couldn't tell you with any real accuracy what it was like being 15, as I was when the two planes hit the Twin Towers. That doesn't make sense, if you think about it, since the exact same amount of time has passed in both instances, but we tend to focus on specific events that in some way define us, leaving whole sections of the past in a sort of blurry haze. Like looking at photographs through a magnifying glass; some parts come into sharp relief, but others are distorted.
As with all things memory-related, it is the same with cinema. Over such a long period of time, we can't remember every film we see in perfect detail. And if you watch as many films as I do (on average about 300 a year, though I'm a little down on that this year) that makes the task doubly difficult. The sheer volume of films means that it is hugely difficult to draw up a shortlist that will include every film I've loved or every film that has impressed me. All I can really go on is the gut reaction associated with my memories of those films.
Nor can I hope to say that this list of films is a definitive account of the best or most important films of the past ten years. Some of them, in my opinion, are, but that is still only my opinion. There is no empirical evidence I can call upon that will back them up. I can throw up the box office data of a film, but financial success is no indication of artistic success, and a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes is no guarantee that a film is actually any good. I can only offer this list up as my own personal, partial and imperfect account of the decade in which I truly fell in love with cinema, and the best I can say about it is that it is mine and it is honest. That's all I can offer you.
So, from 20 onwards, here is my list.
When looking back on the last ten years there are a number of trends that really leap out at me, none more prominent than the rise and rise of South Korean cinema, which has consistently delivered some of the most bizarre and entertaining films of the last decade. The Host is probably the most fun of the bunch and the one that most aptly illustrates Mark Kermode's view that every South Korean film is, in fact, seven different films in one. Encompassing numerous genres, The Host is a monster movie, a horror film, a touching family drama, a critique of American foreign policy and a black comedy. What's most astounding about it is that it manages to be all of those things simultaneously without ever feeling like an incoherent mess. It is bizarre, brilliant and beautiful. Probably the film that gave me the most enjoyment in the cinema this decade.
Looking at my list, it seems that a fair few of the films on it could be considered exceptions in that they are often made by film-makers whose work I otherwise don't care all that much about but which, for whatever reason, managed to really reach me in some way. Wes Anderson's 'The Royal Tenenbaums' is one such film; I have no strong feelings either way on the majority of his oeuvre, but for some reason I adore this particular film. A tale of a family of former prodigies who are brought back together when they learn that their father (Gene Hackman) is dying, it's the film in which all of Anderson's quirks and foibles coalesce into a coherent whole, a film that is subtly funny and heartbreakingly moving. It also boasts quite possibly the best soundtrack album of the whole decade too.
Danish agent provocateur Lars von Trier is another director who, in general, I don't have all that much time for, but his 2003 film Dogville is a truly exceptional piece of film-making and it would be remiss of me not to include on this list just because I don't like him very much. Grace (Nicole Kidman) is a woman who arrives in a small village in Depression-era America seeking shelter, which the locals promptly give her. Once they learn that Grace is running away from something, the locals begin to take advantage of her in many, many ways. A powerful piece about the corruptibility of ordinary people that is made all the more remarkable by the fact that it was filmed entirely without props or sets, using chalk outlines to show where walls, doors etc. would be. The performances from all involved are so strong that you don't even notice their absence.
At first glance, Grizzly Man would seem like a sensationalist documentary made in the poorest possible taste. German director Werner Herzog tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, a former actor who dedicated his life to preserving bears, only to wind up being killed by one. Rather than playing up his death for ironic effect, Herzog crafts a lyrical and compulsive film about the dangers of obsession and of man's tendency to anthropomorphise wild animals. Using footage shot by Treadwell on his many excursions, Herzog allows his subject to speak for himself, in doing so revealing both his admirable qualities (his love of nature and genuine desire to do good by the creatures he wants to protect) and his worst qualities (his obsession and borderline psychotic belief that everyone is out to hurt the bears except for him). Utterly compelling.
The late Heath Ledger gets a lot of the press when Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel is discussed, his Joker is one of the undeniable icons of the decade, but the whole film is such a vast and sprawling epic that it seems unfair to focus on just one part of it for praise. Nolan uses the comic book movie to examine questions of control vs. anarchy, the use of torture and the ethical implications of vigilantism whilst also delivering some of the most exhilarating action set-pieces of the decade. An almost perfect blend of arthouse movie and blockbuster that is as entertaining as it is provocative.
A few years ago, the Oscars saw one of its biggest upsets ever when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won Best Original Song with their track 'Falling Slowly', beating songs from the much more high-profile (and very good) Disney film Enchanted. It was just one more amazing moment for the pair, who starred in and co-wrote all the songs in John Carney's low-budget musical about a man and woman who meet on the streets of Dublin and begin writing songs together. It's easiest to describe the film as a romance, but in many ways it's far much more than that, as it's a film about music and friendship and life and so many wonderful things. A beautiful, beautiful film.
Sometimes subject matter and film-maker are so perfectly attuned that the end results can't help but be spellbinding. David Fincher, the notoriously perfectionist director of Seven and Fight Club, took on the task of telling the story of the Zodiac, a serial killer who terrorised the San Francisco area for over a decade in the 60s and 70s and who to this day has never been caught or successfully identified. Rather than try to solve the mystery, Fincher instead focuses on a handful of journalists and investigators who became obsessed with the killings and kept investigating them long after the clues had dried up and the rest of the world had moved on to other things.
Romania exploded onto the international film scene this decade as a number of directors released films that would go on to wow audiences across the globe. Picking just one of this crop of tough, uncompromising films is tricky, but for being probably the most successful and arguably the most iconic (when it was released you couldn't move for talk of 'The Romanian Abortion drama') I have to put Cristian Mungiu's absolutely harrowing film on the list. A story about friendship in the most extreme of situations, the film depicts the attempts of a woman (Anamaria Marinca) to get an abortion for her friend (Laura Vasiliu) under the oppressive regime of Ceauşescu's communist government. Whilst it's most obvious strength is the chemistry between its two leads, the real power of the film comes from its ability to recreate a time of such paranoia and danger that even a character walking through the streets becomes one of the tensest scenes imaginable.
David Cronenberg had a terrific decade in the 00's, really expanding his palette beyond the body horror and science fiction ideas that he had explored so brilliantly in the 80's and 90's with films like the brittle Spider and the brutal Eastern Promises. His best film of the decade, though, would have to be this adaptation of John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel. Viggo Mortenson gives a career best performance (I haven't seen The Road) as Tom Stall, a small time shop owner who kills two men when they try to rob his shop. When a scarred criminal (played with icy cool menace by Ed Harris) comes to town and starts saying that Tom isn't who he appears to be, his life is shattered. Stripping the story to its bare bones, and eradicating the somewhat ludicrous complexity of the second half of the graphic novel, Cronenberg upends the traditional revenge thriller to give us a story about what violence does to a man and how it can have repurcussions far beyond the actions themselves.
I'm no huge fan of Dogme films, which in their attempts to appear as realistic as possible often end up feeling distractingly fake, but Open Hearts is a film that cut right through my general dislike of the form. Danish director Susanne Bier delivers a story that could run the risk of being soap operatic (young man is crippled in a car accident and his fiancee falls in love with the doctor treating him) and turns it into a heartbreakingly honest film about love and the consequences of that same love as the two engage in a love affair that can not last and will only hurt those around them.
It's hard to choose just one of Chan-Wook Park's films for this list since pretty much all of them (bar I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay which is, appropriately enough, just okay) have something to recommend them. However, his Vengeance Trilogy is undoubtedly his greatest achievement and, whilst I personally think Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance are stronger films, I have to go for Oldboy, the middle film of the trilogy and easily the most iconic. His darkly comic and luridly violent tale of a man (Min-sik Choi) trapped in a prison for 15 years, then released and told to find out why he was imprisoned, is one of the most stylish and entertaining films of the last decade. Plus, it's really violent.
I've made no secret on here about my love of Guillermo del Toro, who this decade gave us great big budget spectacle (The Hellboy movies) and quiet Spanish-language dramas with equal aplomb. Of his Spanish offerings, Pan's Labyrinth just pips The Devil's Backbone for me for its stunning creature design and heartbreaking depiction of a young girl trying to find safety among creatures of magic amidst the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. And there were few moments in cinema this decade more genuinely terrifying than watching The Pale Man sitting at a table laden with food, waiting to strike, or as shocking as Captain Vidal letting loose on a peasant with a broken bottle.
There are a fair few foreign language films on this list and I feel that there would be far fewer if it weren't for this, the first foreign language film I ever saw and the one which showed me that films don't necessarily have to be in a language you understand to be great. A blistering crime drama set in the slums of Brazil, City of God shows in thrilling detail how gang culture became so prevalent in Rio de Janeiro by focusing on the lives of two young men; one who seeks to escape the slums by becoming a photographer, and another who seeks to control them by becoming the strongest and most powerful gang leader there is. An exhilarating ride through a terrifying underworld, it is a film that truly has to be seen to be believed.
The film that ruined Adam Sandler for me by proving that he could act and making all his subsequent work seem so utterly disappointing. Expectations can really kill a relationship. P.T. Anderson and Sandler take Sandler's well established angry guy persona and, rather than play it for laughs, turn it inwards and create a film that is painful in its depiction of a man so frustrated by his life that he can only act out in sporadic, illogical outbursts of violence. Easily Anderson's most idiosyncratic film, it's an acquired taste but one that is endlessly rewarding.
Argh, to pick just one Pixar film from this decade, the decade in which the studio released some of its most innovative and profound works, is terribly difficult, but whilst my head says The Incredibles or Up, my heart says WALL-E, and so it must be. A undoubted technical triumph in its ability to create a photo-realistic devastated world, but it's also a heartwarming story of love between two robots. How do they do it?
I'm cheating slightly here by including all three parts of Peter Jackson's mammoth Tolkien adaptation, but since they were all filmed at the same time and are intended to be watched as one gargantuan film I'll include them as a single entry. Breathtaking in scope, Jackson was able to take the seemingly unfilmable world of Tolkien's novels and bring it to glorious life over the course of his three epic installments. Its effects are still wonderful almost a decade after the first film was released, making such sequences as the siege of Helm's Deep still jawdropping after so many viewings, but the greatest triumph is in making the characters and their relationships so believable. Would the films have worked if we didn't care so much about Sam and Frodo? Of course not. It's that core of emotion that makes all the spectacle worthwhile and why we are drawn back to that journey time and again. And for the record, Two Towers is the best of the three.
Shane Meadows has repeatedly proven himself to be the greatest film-making talent Britain has produced in many a year by creating personal films of real emotional weight that can appeal to a wide audience. Though my personal favourite of his is A Room For Romeo Brass, that was released in the wrong decade and so I will have to plump for the film that could very well be his masterpiece, This Is England. An examination of skinhead culture in England in the 80's, it stars Thomas Turgoose as a young lad who falls in with a group of friendly skinheads after the death of his father leaves him isolated at school. This bubble of community and fraternity is soon burst by the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham), a member of the group who has become radicalised after a stay in prison. Swayed by his hateful rhetoric, Turgoose is drawn to the darker side of skinhead culture and witnesses acts of terrible violence. On one level, it's a beautiful recreation of a time and a place, but on another it is an honest, cathartic attempt by Meadows to deal with his own past and that of this country in a way which is powerful and provocative.
Jim Carrey finally laid to rest all the claims that he couldn't act (then spent the rest of the decade seemingly trying to prove that he in fact couldn't act) when he starred in Michel Gondry's film about a man who learns that his ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet) has had him erased from her memory and decides to have the same procedure, only to realise that the pain of their break-up is nothing compared to the pain of forgetting about it. Achingly sad but ultimately cautiously hopeful, it's a film which (rather suitably, given the subject matter) is unforgettable.
Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has been making perfect films for over 30 years by this point, but his best film of this decade and, many would argue, his best film full stop would be Spirited Away. A gorgeously animated retelling of Alice In Wonderland in which a young girl finds herself lost in a land of spirits, demons and witches and is forced to work in a bath house until she can figure out how to get home. Part fairytale, part allegory about the end of childhood, it's a film with a depth that belies its two-dimensional form. I really cannot overstate how brilliant the animation is. Every time I watch it it reminds me of how beautiful hand-drawn animation is, and when its employed to tell a story this compelling it really does make for something unique and perfect.
Well, what more can I say about this that I haven't already in the past? P.T. Anderson makes his second appearance on my list with his bravura adaptation of Upton Sinclair's Oil!, marrying stunning technique with a towering and incendiary performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a man whose greed and lust for power slowly cause him to loose everything he holds dear to him. Like many great films, it works on many different levels; it's a compelling character study; it's a diatribe about the spiritual emptiness of capitalism and the material corruption of religion; and it's a history of America in miniature. I'm sure there's more to it, I certainly keep finding more each time I watch it, and my fascination with it makes it wholly deserving of being my number 1 film of the decade.
Yes, yes, I realise that every bloody body on the internet is getting very introspective and retrospective now as we see the final days of this decade wane and die with maudlin regularity, but that's only to be expected when you sit back and realise how 10 years really is such a long time, and yet how quickly it all seems to have flown by.
Time is an inelastic property, in that it progresses at a set rate, yet memory, the process by which we measure that time, is an elastic property with no real logic to it. For example, I can remember with crystal clarity what it was like watching the news on September 11th 2001 or July 7th 2005 or, on a more personal level, what it was like attending my grandmother's funeral, as if they had happened yesterday, yet I couldn't tell you with any real accuracy what it was like being 15, as I was when the two planes hit the Twin Towers. That doesn't make sense, if you think about it, since the exact same amount of time has passed in both instances, but we tend to focus on specific events that in some way define us, leaving whole sections of the past in a sort of blurry haze. Like looking at photographs through a magnifying glass; some parts come into sharp relief, but others are distorted.
As with all things memory-related, it is the same with cinema. Over such a long period of time, we can't remember every film we see in perfect detail. And if you watch as many films as I do (on average about 300 a year, though I'm a little down on that this year) that makes the task doubly difficult. The sheer volume of films means that it is hugely difficult to draw up a shortlist that will include every film I've loved or every film that has impressed me. All I can really go on is the gut reaction associated with my memories of those films.
Nor can I hope to say that this list of films is a definitive account of the best or most important films of the past ten years. Some of them, in my opinion, are, but that is still only my opinion. There is no empirical evidence I can call upon that will back them up. I can throw up the box office data of a film, but financial success is no indication of artistic success, and a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes is no guarantee that a film is actually any good. I can only offer this list up as my own personal, partial and imperfect account of the decade in which I truly fell in love with cinema, and the best I can say about it is that it is mine and it is honest. That's all I can offer you.
So, from 20 onwards, here is my list.
20. The Host (Gwoemul) (2006)
When looking back on the last ten years there are a number of trends that really leap out at me, none more prominent than the rise and rise of South Korean cinema, which has consistently delivered some of the most bizarre and entertaining films of the last decade. The Host is probably the most fun of the bunch and the one that most aptly illustrates Mark Kermode's view that every South Korean film is, in fact, seven different films in one. Encompassing numerous genres, The Host is a monster movie, a horror film, a touching family drama, a critique of American foreign policy and a black comedy. What's most astounding about it is that it manages to be all of those things simultaneously without ever feeling like an incoherent mess. It is bizarre, brilliant and beautiful. Probably the film that gave me the most enjoyment in the cinema this decade.19. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Looking at my list, it seems that a fair few of the films on it could be considered exceptions in that they are often made by film-makers whose work I otherwise don't care all that much about but which, for whatever reason, managed to really reach me in some way. Wes Anderson's 'The Royal Tenenbaums' is one such film; I have no strong feelings either way on the majority of his oeuvre, but for some reason I adore this particular film. A tale of a family of former prodigies who are brought back together when they learn that their father (Gene Hackman) is dying, it's the film in which all of Anderson's quirks and foibles coalesce into a coherent whole, a film that is subtly funny and heartbreakingly moving. It also boasts quite possibly the best soundtrack album of the whole decade too.18. Dogville (2003)
Danish agent provocateur Lars von Trier is another director who, in general, I don't have all that much time for, but his 2003 film Dogville is a truly exceptional piece of film-making and it would be remiss of me not to include on this list just because I don't like him very much. Grace (Nicole Kidman) is a woman who arrives in a small village in Depression-era America seeking shelter, which the locals promptly give her. Once they learn that Grace is running away from something, the locals begin to take advantage of her in many, many ways. A powerful piece about the corruptibility of ordinary people that is made all the more remarkable by the fact that it was filmed entirely without props or sets, using chalk outlines to show where walls, doors etc. would be. The performances from all involved are so strong that you don't even notice their absence.17. Grizzly Man (2005)
At first glance, Grizzly Man would seem like a sensationalist documentary made in the poorest possible taste. German director Werner Herzog tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, a former actor who dedicated his life to preserving bears, only to wind up being killed by one. Rather than playing up his death for ironic effect, Herzog crafts a lyrical and compulsive film about the dangers of obsession and of man's tendency to anthropomorphise wild animals. Using footage shot by Treadwell on his many excursions, Herzog allows his subject to speak for himself, in doing so revealing both his admirable qualities (his love of nature and genuine desire to do good by the creatures he wants to protect) and his worst qualities (his obsession and borderline psychotic belief that everyone is out to hurt the bears except for him). Utterly compelling.16. The Dark Knight (2008)
The late Heath Ledger gets a lot of the press when Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel is discussed, his Joker is one of the undeniable icons of the decade, but the whole film is such a vast and sprawling epic that it seems unfair to focus on just one part of it for praise. Nolan uses the comic book movie to examine questions of control vs. anarchy, the use of torture and the ethical implications of vigilantism whilst also delivering some of the most exhilarating action set-pieces of the decade. An almost perfect blend of arthouse movie and blockbuster that is as entertaining as it is provocative.15. Once (2006)
A few years ago, the Oscars saw one of its biggest upsets ever when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won Best Original Song with their track 'Falling Slowly', beating songs from the much more high-profile (and very good) Disney film Enchanted. It was just one more amazing moment for the pair, who starred in and co-wrote all the songs in John Carney's low-budget musical about a man and woman who meet on the streets of Dublin and begin writing songs together. It's easiest to describe the film as a romance, but in many ways it's far much more than that, as it's a film about music and friendship and life and so many wonderful things. A beautiful, beautiful film.
14. Zodiac (2007)
Sometimes subject matter and film-maker are so perfectly attuned that the end results can't help but be spellbinding. David Fincher, the notoriously perfectionist director of Seven and Fight Club, took on the task of telling the story of the Zodiac, a serial killer who terrorised the San Francisco area for over a decade in the 60s and 70s and who to this day has never been caught or successfully identified. Rather than try to solve the mystery, Fincher instead focuses on a handful of journalists and investigators who became obsessed with the killings and kept investigating them long after the clues had dried up and the rest of the world had moved on to other things.13. 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007)
Romania exploded onto the international film scene this decade as a number of directors released films that would go on to wow audiences across the globe. Picking just one of this crop of tough, uncompromising films is tricky, but for being probably the most successful and arguably the most iconic (when it was released you couldn't move for talk of 'The Romanian Abortion drama') I have to put Cristian Mungiu's absolutely harrowing film on the list. A story about friendship in the most extreme of situations, the film depicts the attempts of a woman (Anamaria Marinca) to get an abortion for her friend (Laura Vasiliu) under the oppressive regime of Ceauşescu's communist government. Whilst it's most obvious strength is the chemistry between its two leads, the real power of the film comes from its ability to recreate a time of such paranoia and danger that even a character walking through the streets becomes one of the tensest scenes imaginable.12. A History of Violence (2005)
David Cronenberg had a terrific decade in the 00's, really expanding his palette beyond the body horror and science fiction ideas that he had explored so brilliantly in the 80's and 90's with films like the brittle Spider and the brutal Eastern Promises. His best film of the decade, though, would have to be this adaptation of John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel. Viggo Mortenson gives a career best performance (I haven't seen The Road) as Tom Stall, a small time shop owner who kills two men when they try to rob his shop. When a scarred criminal (played with icy cool menace by Ed Harris) comes to town and starts saying that Tom isn't who he appears to be, his life is shattered. Stripping the story to its bare bones, and eradicating the somewhat ludicrous complexity of the second half of the graphic novel, Cronenberg upends the traditional revenge thriller to give us a story about what violence does to a man and how it can have repurcussions far beyond the actions themselves.
11. Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt) (2002)
I'm no huge fan of Dogme films, which in their attempts to appear as realistic as possible often end up feeling distractingly fake, but Open Hearts is a film that cut right through my general dislike of the form. Danish director Susanne Bier delivers a story that could run the risk of being soap operatic (young man is crippled in a car accident and his fiancee falls in love with the doctor treating him) and turns it into a heartbreakingly honest film about love and the consequences of that same love as the two engage in a love affair that can not last and will only hurt those around them.10. Oldboy (2003)
It's hard to choose just one of Chan-Wook Park's films for this list since pretty much all of them (bar I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay which is, appropriately enough, just okay) have something to recommend them. However, his Vengeance Trilogy is undoubtedly his greatest achievement and, whilst I personally think Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance are stronger films, I have to go for Oldboy, the middle film of the trilogy and easily the most iconic. His darkly comic and luridly violent tale of a man (Min-sik Choi) trapped in a prison for 15 years, then released and told to find out why he was imprisoned, is one of the most stylish and entertaining films of the last decade. Plus, it's really violent.09. Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno) (2006)
I've made no secret on here about my love of Guillermo del Toro, who this decade gave us great big budget spectacle (The Hellboy movies) and quiet Spanish-language dramas with equal aplomb. Of his Spanish offerings, Pan's Labyrinth just pips The Devil's Backbone for me for its stunning creature design and heartbreaking depiction of a young girl trying to find safety among creatures of magic amidst the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. And there were few moments in cinema this decade more genuinely terrifying than watching The Pale Man sitting at a table laden with food, waiting to strike, or as shocking as Captain Vidal letting loose on a peasant with a broken bottle.08. City of God (Cicade de Deus) (2002)
There are a fair few foreign language films on this list and I feel that there would be far fewer if it weren't for this, the first foreign language film I ever saw and the one which showed me that films don't necessarily have to be in a language you understand to be great. A blistering crime drama set in the slums of Brazil, City of God shows in thrilling detail how gang culture became so prevalent in Rio de Janeiro by focusing on the lives of two young men; one who seeks to escape the slums by becoming a photographer, and another who seeks to control them by becoming the strongest and most powerful gang leader there is. An exhilarating ride through a terrifying underworld, it is a film that truly has to be seen to be believed.07. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
The film that ruined Adam Sandler for me by proving that he could act and making all his subsequent work seem so utterly disappointing. Expectations can really kill a relationship. P.T. Anderson and Sandler take Sandler's well established angry guy persona and, rather than play it for laughs, turn it inwards and create a film that is painful in its depiction of a man so frustrated by his life that he can only act out in sporadic, illogical outbursts of violence. Easily Anderson's most idiosyncratic film, it's an acquired taste but one that is endlessly rewarding.06. WALL-E
Argh, to pick just one Pixar film from this decade, the decade in which the studio released some of its most innovative and profound works, is terribly difficult, but whilst my head says The Incredibles or Up, my heart says WALL-E, and so it must be. A undoubted technical triumph in its ability to create a photo-realistic devastated world, but it's also a heartwarming story of love between two robots. How do they do it?05. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
I'm cheating slightly here by including all three parts of Peter Jackson's mammoth Tolkien adaptation, but since they were all filmed at the same time and are intended to be watched as one gargantuan film I'll include them as a single entry. Breathtaking in scope, Jackson was able to take the seemingly unfilmable world of Tolkien's novels and bring it to glorious life over the course of his three epic installments. Its effects are still wonderful almost a decade after the first film was released, making such sequences as the siege of Helm's Deep still jawdropping after so many viewings, but the greatest triumph is in making the characters and their relationships so believable. Would the films have worked if we didn't care so much about Sam and Frodo? Of course not. It's that core of emotion that makes all the spectacle worthwhile and why we are drawn back to that journey time and again. And for the record, Two Towers is the best of the three.04. This Is England (2006)
Shane Meadows has repeatedly proven himself to be the greatest film-making talent Britain has produced in many a year by creating personal films of real emotional weight that can appeal to a wide audience. Though my personal favourite of his is A Room For Romeo Brass, that was released in the wrong decade and so I will have to plump for the film that could very well be his masterpiece, This Is England. An examination of skinhead culture in England in the 80's, it stars Thomas Turgoose as a young lad who falls in with a group of friendly skinheads after the death of his father leaves him isolated at school. This bubble of community and fraternity is soon burst by the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham), a member of the group who has become radicalised after a stay in prison. Swayed by his hateful rhetoric, Turgoose is drawn to the darker side of skinhead culture and witnesses acts of terrible violence. On one level, it's a beautiful recreation of a time and a place, but on another it is an honest, cathartic attempt by Meadows to deal with his own past and that of this country in a way which is powerful and provocative.03. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jim Carrey finally laid to rest all the claims that he couldn't act (then spent the rest of the decade seemingly trying to prove that he in fact couldn't act) when he starred in Michel Gondry's film about a man who learns that his ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet) has had him erased from her memory and decides to have the same procedure, only to realise that the pain of their break-up is nothing compared to the pain of forgetting about it. Achingly sad but ultimately cautiously hopeful, it's a film which (rather suitably, given the subject matter) is unforgettable.02. Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) (2001)
Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has been making perfect films for over 30 years by this point, but his best film of this decade and, many would argue, his best film full stop would be Spirited Away. A gorgeously animated retelling of Alice In Wonderland in which a young girl finds herself lost in a land of spirits, demons and witches and is forced to work in a bath house until she can figure out how to get home. Part fairytale, part allegory about the end of childhood, it's a film with a depth that belies its two-dimensional form. I really cannot overstate how brilliant the animation is. Every time I watch it it reminds me of how beautiful hand-drawn animation is, and when its employed to tell a story this compelling it really does make for something unique and perfect.01. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Well, what more can I say about this that I haven't already in the past? P.T. Anderson makes his second appearance on my list with his bravura adaptation of Upton Sinclair's Oil!, marrying stunning technique with a towering and incendiary performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a man whose greed and lust for power slowly cause him to loose everything he holds dear to him. Like many great films, it works on many different levels; it's a compelling character study; it's a diatribe about the spiritual emptiness of capitalism and the material corruption of religion; and it's a history of America in miniature. I'm sure there's more to it, I certainly keep finding more each time I watch it, and my fascination with it makes it wholly deserving of being my number 1 film of the decade.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A Serious Man
We're going to be fine.
Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a maths professor with a family and a good job, sees his entire life fall to pieces around him as first his wife (Sari Lennick) seeks a divorce so that she can marry one of Larry's best friends (Fred Melamed), then he discovers that someone has been sending letters to his University to try to dissuade a review board from offering him tenure, and his brother (Richard Kind), who may very well be some sort of Maths genius, is, when he isn't sleeping on Larry's couch, constantly in his bathroom draining his sebaceous cyst. Amidst his trials, he seeks spiritual guidance from a number of Rabbis, each of which offers him some advice, but none of which seems particularly useful.
The Coen Brothers' latest has been compared to their earlier film, Barton Fink, and it's easy to see where the parallels can be drawn. Both have Jewish protagonists, both examine a particular time and subset (1930s Hollywood versus 1960s suburbia) and both focus on individuals whose existence slowly comes to represent their own personal hell (albeit in a far more literal sense in Barton Fink). As with that earlier film, there is a certain misanthropic glee inherent in seeing Larry failing to comprehend what is happening to him. The comedy of the film - and it is, despite all appearances to the contrary, a comedy - is bleak, bleak stuff. It's a film about family, faith and spirituality in which all three are revealed to be hollow and unsupportive as each in turn fails Larry. It is very much in keeping with the Coens recent output in that it is nihilistic veering on malevolent. It may even be darker than anything they've ever done since all the terrible things that happen do so to someone who is completely undeserving of them.
The main point of comparison between A Serious Man and Barton Fink, from my perspective, is that both are, to a degree, inscrutable, and this inscrutability is what makes them so fascinating. Throughout its running time, A Serious Man sets up a number of running themes and sub-plots, some of which are explored, and others which aren't. Which are and which aren't is not really important, yet it is absolutely vital. The film is about the malaise of Larry's life and the stasis that he has reached. His repeated refrain of "But I haven't done anything", is both a plea and an accusation. He may have not done anything to get himself into this situation, but neither is he prepared to do anything to get himself out of it. The sub-plots that the film establishes are vital in showing us how thoroughly inert Larry is and how his community, rather than supporting him, has incarcerated him.
Larry is, by all accounts, a good man who tries to do right by everyone, but he's also a man who is good kind of by default since, although he never does anything bad, he never does anything particularly good, either. He is content to coast along and his inability to act when confronted with an array of personal and professional crises is indicative of his general stasis in life. Michael Stuhlbarg is great as Larry; he's able to perfectly capture the essence of a man who is trying his hardest to make sense of his life and who is completely failing to, making his frustration at life in general palpable. Though he is outshone by Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman, Larry's softly-spoken adulterous friend, It is Stuhlbarg who shoulders the weight of the film (and, seemingly, the world).
I don't think I've got the full measure of the film after a single viewing, but I've not stopped thinking about it since I watched it, which is a recommendation, of sorts.
Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a maths professor with a family and a good job, sees his entire life fall to pieces around him as first his wife (Sari Lennick) seeks a divorce so that she can marry one of Larry's best friends (Fred Melamed), then he discovers that someone has been sending letters to his University to try to dissuade a review board from offering him tenure, and his brother (Richard Kind), who may very well be some sort of Maths genius, is, when he isn't sleeping on Larry's couch, constantly in his bathroom draining his sebaceous cyst. Amidst his trials, he seeks spiritual guidance from a number of Rabbis, each of which offers him some advice, but none of which seems particularly useful.
The Coen Brothers' latest has been compared to their earlier film, Barton Fink, and it's easy to see where the parallels can be drawn. Both have Jewish protagonists, both examine a particular time and subset (1930s Hollywood versus 1960s suburbia) and both focus on individuals whose existence slowly comes to represent their own personal hell (albeit in a far more literal sense in Barton Fink). As with that earlier film, there is a certain misanthropic glee inherent in seeing Larry failing to comprehend what is happening to him. The comedy of the film - and it is, despite all appearances to the contrary, a comedy - is bleak, bleak stuff. It's a film about family, faith and spirituality in which all three are revealed to be hollow and unsupportive as each in turn fails Larry. It is very much in keeping with the Coens recent output in that it is nihilistic veering on malevolent. It may even be darker than anything they've ever done since all the terrible things that happen do so to someone who is completely undeserving of them.
The main point of comparison between A Serious Man and Barton Fink, from my perspective, is that both are, to a degree, inscrutable, and this inscrutability is what makes them so fascinating. Throughout its running time, A Serious Man sets up a number of running themes and sub-plots, some of which are explored, and others which aren't. Which are and which aren't is not really important, yet it is absolutely vital. The film is about the malaise of Larry's life and the stasis that he has reached. His repeated refrain of "But I haven't done anything", is both a plea and an accusation. He may have not done anything to get himself into this situation, but neither is he prepared to do anything to get himself out of it. The sub-plots that the film establishes are vital in showing us how thoroughly inert Larry is and how his community, rather than supporting him, has incarcerated him.
Larry is, by all accounts, a good man who tries to do right by everyone, but he's also a man who is good kind of by default since, although he never does anything bad, he never does anything particularly good, either. He is content to coast along and his inability to act when confronted with an array of personal and professional crises is indicative of his general stasis in life. Michael Stuhlbarg is great as Larry; he's able to perfectly capture the essence of a man who is trying his hardest to make sense of his life and who is completely failing to, making his frustration at life in general palpable. Though he is outshone by Fred Melamed as Sy Ableman, Larry's softly-spoken adulterous friend, It is Stuhlbarg who shoulders the weight of the film (and, seemingly, the world).
I don't think I've got the full measure of the film after a single viewing, but I've not stopped thinking about it since I watched it, which is a recommendation, of sorts.
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