My Top 9 Films Of The Year

This was a great year for movies as I was exposed to films I normally would not be exposed to as I firmly entrenched myself in auteur theory this year which basically means if you like a director you see everything he has done so you have a greater understanding of his/her voice. I covered filmmakers as diverse as Aki Kaurismaki, Francois Truffaut, Shohei Imamamura and David Gordon Green. I also was introduced to some daring new voices whose every film I now know I will see. Giorgos Lanthimos, tops the list with his amazing, disturbing and unique film, Dogtooth. I did not see as many movies as last year but the quality was extremely high as usual. Also look out at the bottom for names of films that almost made the cut. Links to previous top 10's will also be there. Without further ado, here is this year's list.

L'Eclisse, 1962 - Antonioni has always been an anomaly to me. I love Blow Up as that was one of the first films that got me into the whole film nerd thing in the first place. But I overdosed on it and for some reason only saw very limited Antonioni up to this year. This year I vowed to change that. I watched many but remained skeptical. While L'Aventura and La Notte were good, they were not great. It seemed he was trying to do something, filmically and artistically that quite hadn't come to fruition yet. Well, with L'Eclisse, boy did it come into fruition. Possibly one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Using early 60's Rome as a backdrop, there is not much of a story, but that is never the point of an Antonioni film, is it? Aesthetically it is brilliant. Within 5 minutes of putting the DVD in, I was transported to the bare existential existence that the characters were inhabiting in early 60's Rome. To skim the plot seems just in this case as that is what Antonioni does in this stark, beautiful existentialist meditation on a woman, Monica Vitti (she has never looked better), who goes from one relationship to another. The another is Alain Delon, in perhaps one of the most unexpected performances I have ever seen him in, as I am so used to him playing a cop or a gangster which he is so good at. He plays a stockbroker in L'Eclisse. As an aside, the energy in the scenes of the stock trading exchange in Rome are breathtaking, There are two scenes that have the stock exchange in them and the kinetic energy in each scene is unreal. But the reason why I love this film and it made such a deep impression on me is it seemed that the all the wanderings of La Notte and L'Avventura, for me, led to L'Eclisse. It seems La Notte and L'Aventurra were building towards L'Eclisse. During sections of L'Avventura and La Notte I found myself being bored and my mind wandering but not the case in L'Eclisse, which happens to be the third film in this unofficial trilogy. Antonioni looks at digressions not central to the bare bones plot as essential to his style and while many people see these as pointless, you have to understand that Antonioni was not going for film as entertainment but film as art. L'Eclisse was a film essay (more Faulkner) on modern malaise. The difficulty of having a relationship in the increasingly isolated world that they lived in. As you can see I could be typing these words about finding love in the world we live in today. The mark of a great artist. The art they put out is timeless, which L'Eclisse most certainly is. I urge you to see the remastered version on a big screen TV or even in the theater if you can find a place playing it. Criterion has put out an excellent version, which is the one I watched. I could write heaps more on this film and I have barely done it justice but if you have time read this wonderful article from Criterion's website on Vitti and Antonioni.

George Washington, 2000 - I have no idea how this ended up on my queue but I am sure glad it did. And after I saw the film I was even more surprised that the director, David Gordon Green, directed Pineapple Express. This film could not be more different than Pineapple Express. I hated Pineapple Express the first time I saw it but quickly saw it again after George Washington and actually loved it. The first impression I had in my mind when this film was over was "French New Wave meets rural North Carolina." The best way to describe this film would have to be, as on astute Netflix reviewer said, "GW is a film that embraces ugliness in the pursuit of true beauty, while managing to shun what is merely pretty." That is about astute an observation as I have read about this powerful yet delightfully innocent film. All the action, if you could call it that, takes place in a rural North Carolina town during summertime. There are a core group of characters at the heart of the film and they are mainly children but there are also a smattering of adults. The performances of the children are just amazing, and even more amazing is that they all were amateur actors hand-picked by David Gordon Green himself. Captivating, gritty and gutsy performances.  There is a very existential vibe in this film caused by the effect of a narrator (one of the children) and the striking 35mm shots of  the desolate rural and factory wasteland that is rural small town North Carolina. Most independent film debuts are not shot in 35mm so we really got to see the ugly turned to beautiful by David Gordon Green's brilliant camerawork. So what is the plot? Do you remember when you were between the ages of 9-13 how your summers were? Was there a plot to them? That is this film. The long, hazy, lazy days of summer in a small town are portrayed perfectly. Empty rambling conversations between adults who have nothing better to do and fascinating children. Something ghastly does happen in the film and this has an effect on the outcome and direction of the film yet it is not the "plot" of the film at all. That is something Hollywood would do, and most importantly, it feels completely right in this film to not shift the film to satisfy the audience that would want the film to be a specific "thing" tailored to their needs after the ghastly incident does indeed happen. It remains beautifully authentic as a result of this decision. That really deserves a bravo to Mr. Green as that was a risky decision to take, but it payed off swimmingly, at least, in my opinion. As I sit here and recollect the film a chill is running through me as it is one of those films that will never leave you. What is amazing about George Washington is the pure simplicity of the film. The shots, the acting and the "plot" are all so simple yet that simplicity at its deepest level remains purely authentic. Possibly my favorite film on this list the more I think about it.

In a Year With 13 Moons, 1978 - Rainer Werner Fassbinder at the peak of his powers and perhaps his most deeply personal film. And man does this film pack a wallop. It is the story of Elvira, a young German transexual, played fearlessly by Volker Spangler, and the last five days of her life. It is based on tragic events that played out in Fassbinder's life itself. Fassbinder's lover at the time, Armin Meir, committed suicide and that is what inspired him to make this film. The title means that in years of 13 moons, versus 12, tragic emotional events can happen, people can suffer increasingly emotional ups and downs plus there is a great chance of intense depression. This is not an up film. You will not feel like riding a unicorn into a field of wild flowers with endless bottles of La Tache at the other side after this film is over. You might not even be able to move from your chair for an hour. The performances by Volker Spangler and Gottfried John are riveting and not easy to watch. Elvira changes her sex to win the affection of Gottfried John, who plays a young, suave Holocaust survivor who becomes a pimp/businessman. He passively says one day when Elvira was a male, "I wish you were a girl," and that  utterance sets him off to change his sex for him. He travels to Casablanca and returns a woman, and that is not enough for him. Fast forward to 1978. Elvira tries to find Saitz (Gottrfied John) to beg of his forgiveness but the film becomes Elvira's journey of self-acceptance and finding love that may or may not exist. If the plot sounds outrageous it is, and I have not gotten to the nunnery scene or the meeting with the mystical gay bodybuilders. Try and see this movie not knowing anything about as you need to let it sweep you up in its world. I knew nothing about it and I feel that is why it impacted me more. This will require numerous viewings over the rest of my life as Fassbinder's films are notoriously dense and this is perhaps the most layered of all. Fassbinder directed, produced, wrote, designed, shot and edited this film and it shows. It is a true work of art and about as perfect a film by Fassbinder I have ever seen. In the interview on the DVD, Fassbinder's friend and collaborator,  Julian Lorenze, said that making this film successfully got Fassbinder through his grief and anguish, following Meir's suicide, that he emerged, she believed, a happy man. The power of film can be amazing.

Paranormal Activity 3,  2011 - Your probably wondering why this is on the list, especially after 3 very artsy films. The horror film is, next to the comedy, the hardest film to perfectly execute. There have been so few but when they are on, they capture humanity just as well as drama, romance, thrillers, which are all words I detest actually because a great film should not be classifiable by some meaningless, arbitrary word used to categorize things. But for the sake of simplicity and not trying to invent the wheel here, I will use horror. Paranormal Activity 1 swept through this country like an internet meme and was a rousing great horror film. Really scary, which is so hard to do, an innovative unique idea, amazing sound design and of course, an invitation for a sequel. Plus the plot was interesting and also extremely open-ended and a lot was left to the viewer's imagination. 2 was just a big swing and miss. Really disappointed me. I heard some good people were working on 3 and it would indeed be great. I saw it a few weeks after Halloween as the crowds are not so big. This was a great film. Horror or not. Another example of how so little can be used to create so much. For those of you who don't know the plot is very simple. Young couple in house, with young twins, notice weird stuff is happening and the husband decides to set up cameras in the house in various locations to capture the goings on and to try and figure out if it is a ghost, a possession, a poltergeist or some other nefarious entity that is wrecking their lives. The point of view is almost 100% through the cameras set up in the house. So each mini-scene is titled with Day 4, Day 5, Day 6. etc, as to establish the passing of time as that is somewhat difficult if the viewer's point of view is through a camera. A great horror film does not have predictable frights, has a slow build that climaxes with not a resolution, but some crazy scary stuff towards the end or at the end. Don't want to spil as this film is worth at least 3 viewings to catch all the nuance. This does each of those aforementioned things perfectly. The execution is brilliant, so brilliant in fact, that when the film ended, I was stunned in my seat, as I know it's corny, the last 15 minutes are mindbending. But this film is so good, and you lose track of time so quickly, that you don't know it is even the last 15 minutes until it is over. That is very very hard to do. Make the audience lose track of time. An exceptional film, perfectly executed, and easily one of the finest "horror" films I have ever seen. If curious, others I love are The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, Let The Right One In, Ju-On (The Grudge, not remake), Ringu (not remake), The 6th Sense, and High Tension. There are tons of others but those come to mind off the top of my head. Horror films are what I cut my teeth on and what got me into film and also is the genre I have the most range with. I'll watch a bad horror film. There, I said it.

The Hit, 1984 - Totally did not expect this to be as great as it was. A whopper of a mob-hit film, but done with an existentialist slant. Directed by the always intriguing Stephen Frears. Where to begin? That's easy. Performances. John Hurt is absolutely brilliant as the mobster who has to put a hit on Terence Stamp as Terence has testified against his old crime compatriots. Stamp, who is an utterly brilliant actor, gives a captivating performance as man facing imminent death. Tim Roth, who is very young in this film, kills it as an over aggressive side-kick to John Hurt's cool, calm and somewhat reserved yet crafty mobster. They leave a trail of destruction on their car ride to eventually kill Terence Stamp's character and police are hot on their trail. But the performances drive this film, especially John Hurt who adds layers with with his nuanced and very intelligent performance. There is much ambiguity in the way the viewer will feel about the characters. A great film with complex performances.

Dogtooth, 2009 - I just saw this within the past week and I am still thinking about it. An incredible film and from Greece, of all places, as I have not seen many great,  or in fact many at all, Greek films. But  that has all changed as it is a country I will investigate in 2012. It is directed by Giorgos Lanthimos, who is a voice to be reckoned with. This was his 2nd film. If I had to blurb it, it would "home schooling nightmare beyond anything you have ever seen" but that truly does not explain just the pure control that the parents have over their children in this film, but I am getting ahead of myself. The story is of a family who lives on a decent sized estate in a suburb. A father, mother, son and two daughters. The father works at a factory. The children are in their late teens/early twenties and all have never left the house and surrounding yard in their entire lives. The mother has not either and that seems voluntary, but Lanthimos does not give any backstory as to the why this has happened, the reasoning of the parents, or any type of deeper exposition than as to what is being said on the screen and shown us. This is this family. Let's watch them. The parents, in my opinion, are depraved for how they are raising their children. Teaching them words that have false meanings. The sea, in their world, means armchair. The title of the film, Dogtooth, is another myth the parents tell the children to keep them firmly under control. I won't give away what it is. They watch TV but it is only home movies of themselves. The sisters play a game where they knock themselves out with some sort of anesthetic. They swim a lot in the backyard.  The father, pays a female security guard, at his factory to service the sexual needs of his son. But eventually she seeps in too much information from the outside world and is banished. So the father makes him choose one of his sisters, in the most innocent portrayal of incest you will ever see. There are so many compelling scenes in this film as it just explodes from the screen, but Lanthimos has the touch of a master and makes many interesting choices, especially with his composition of shots. Some characters are shot from waist down, cutting off half their bodies in certain scenes. The dialogue is also, so, well, just strange and sterile, but it is so effective. The sisters are amazing. The standout performances in the film. The above shot is from a scene when they are giving a dance recital. This is a must see film as Lanthimos seems to be an exciting new voice in the vein of Michael Haneke and Lars Von Trier.

The Ballad of Narayama, 1984 - This was during my Shohei Imamura phase where I gobbled up three of his films in a week. He is a unique filmmaker for sure. Other Imamura films, like The Pornographers and Vengeance Is Mine are on the just missed list at the bottom. This, I believe, won the Palm d'Or at Cannes in 1983. It is a beautiful, yet very sad and intense film. The story is just amazing. It takes place in 19th Century Japan in a very remote village. They have a very morbid tradition of sending their old people to the top of Mt. Narayama, where they are left to die of starvation. This is called ubasate. The main section of the film centers around a 69 year old woman, who seems fit, mentally and physically, getting ready to go to Mt. Narayama. She is not afraid to die despite hearing a husband had to throw his wife down the mountain the other week. Grim, huh? She gets her affairs in order and you see how life is in the village through her eyes. She helps her son lose his virginity in sequences that are pathetic yet endearing. All of this is building towards her eventual treck to Mt. Narayama. The film changes at that point and you cannot take your eyes off the screen. It is exquisite perfect filmmaking as soon the journey starts til the end of the film. The journey which she takes with her son is an amazing scene with no dialogue. It clocks in at just under 30 minutes. The last hour is incredibly powerful. Truly amazing film.

Ariel, 1988 - Directed by Aki Kaurismaki, who is from Finland, this is a director who is said to have the greatest influence on Jim Jarmusch. Kaurismaki is very influenced by Bresson and Melville himself so Jarmusch and Kaurismaki seem like very interesting lenses to look at the power of influence in film. A bit film nerdy but what do you expect? It is evident from the first frame, or should I say tableau, the Jarmusch influence. Very painting-like as Jarmusch is but Aki, seems to be the first to frame in this way. There is also some of the best deadpan, is it funny, isn't it funny performances in this film I've ever seen. I saw most of Kaurismaki's work this year and could have chosen any number of films but Ariel was the first I saw and still resonates the strongest. The story centers around a coal-miner stuck in a droll almost proletariat style existence, and in fact this film is grouped with two others in Kaurismaki's "Proletariat Trilogy." It is also very funny. The comedy can only be described as black, dark and almost perverse. I have included a clip of one of the funnier darker moments that will give you an idea of what to expect in this film. The film is basically a journey of this coal-miner to better himself after his coal-mine shuts down and along the way he finds love with a woman named Irmeli, who is a single mother who is heavily in debt. So many things happen to Taisto, the main character, all of them bad, yet there is an ugly beauty to this film, reminding me a bit of George Washington, in that the industrial/urban decay that is shown to be Helsinki and the outskirts has a sort of perverse beauty as a result of the way Kaurismaki frames everything. This is a quirky film that can be darkly comic at times, idealistic at others and just plain absurd at other times. A film you cannot take your eyes off. Best thing coming out of Finland by far.

Mafioso, 1962 - This film portrays the big Italian family that all Italian people talk about that have back in Italy. But also so much more. It is a about a man. newly married, who returns to a small, rustic village in Sicily to introduce his new, attractive, blonde wife to his family, and winds up getting entangled with some mobsters from the old days. Directed by Alberto Lattuada, the star of the film is by far, Alfredo Sordi, whose impassioned performance is really the whole film. Marta, his wife, has trouble handling the rustic conditions and Antonio (Sordi) meets up with old friends and also his old Don, Don Vincenzo. Don Vincenzo needs a favor from Antonio, which is to carry out a mob hit. He tells his wife he is going hunting early in the morning with friends and winds up being smuggled to NYC to do the hit. It is a jolt for the viewer as the whole film has taken place in rustic Sicily and then boom you are in Manhattan. Lattuada uses unique camera angles to capture the contrast. What's so masterful about this film is there are many black comedic moments, moments of light-hearted humor along with the dark undercurrent that Antonio has to kill someone. It is done masterfully. Also the portrayal of a backwards Sicily is unlike anything I have ever seen, and indeed, this was all shot on location. The trains stop running in Sicily, they said back then. It is a cultural stereotype, but doing some cursory reading, apparently Sicily was far behind the rest of Italy at this time. The more North you got the more cultured it was, or so the story goes. This is shown by the initial rejection of Antonio's blonde/northern/attractive by the family, who seem to be suspicious of all northerners. An amazing film that is half farce/half gritty neo-realist tragedy and still seems bitter even today. Timeless.

Only 9 films this year I want to write about. Been going back in forth in my head if there was a 10th film that was good enough that I wanted to write about, but it seems that is all she wrote.

Here is a list of just misses. All worth your time. Movie, year, director is the format. Some of the below are streaming on Netflix.

• Melancholia, 2011, Lars Von Trier
• Snow Angels, 2007, David Gordon Green
• I Saw The Devil, 2010, Ji-woon Kim
• The Chaser, 2008, Hong-jin Na
• Insidious, 2011, James Wan
• Onibaba, 1964, Kaneto Shindo
• Dersu Uzala, 1975, Akira Kurosawa
• The Corner, 2000, David Simon
• The Earrings of Madame de . . ., 1953, Max Ophuls
• La Ronde, 1950, Max Ophuls
• All The Real Girls, 2003, David Gordon Green
• The Passenger, 1975, Michelangelo Antonioni
• Exit Through The Gift Shop, 2010, Bansky
• Until The Light Takes Us, 2008, Aaron Aites/Audrey Ewell

As promised here are the links below to the previous top 10's. 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3