Category: Film

Half Nelson (2006) (E)

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IMDb / Cale / Sragow
Written by Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden
Directed by Ryan Fleck

Traditionally, drug addicts in the movies are dealers or unemployed: figures on the margins of society physically and intellectually. They are certainly not people in positions of authority or importance. The protagonist of Half Nelson is Daniel Dunne, an inner-city high school teacher who smokes crack in the bathroom after coaching his basketball team after school. As such, this film offers the most mature depiction of drug addiction I’ve seen in movies. Dan is a real person, with real strengths and failings. He knows how his drug problem limits him, but he can’t be bothered to do something about it – or perhaps he doesn’t know how.

The film focuses on Dan’s relationship with Drey, a girl in his class who catches him slumped inside a toilet cubicle one afternoon at school. Drey lives with her single mother, a paramedic who works long hours, so Drey spends a lot of time hanging out with Frank, a drug dealer who consequently is wealthier than most of the community they live in. Frank has sold to Dan, and when Dan sees how Frank is taking Drey under his wing, he moves to intervene despite being in no real position to tell someone to stay away from drugs. It gives nothing away to say that she does eventually spurn Frank’s enterprise, and that this is a direct result of Dan’s actions, but certainly not in the way you’d expect.

This is typical of a film that doesn’t reach for anything beyond telling simple truths about normal people. Lofty ideas such as the current state of drug abuse in America, the battle between teachers and high school students of different races, or the problems of middle American families are avoided, but in the course of telling its story the film touches on all of these in some way or another. Instead of delving in and searching for answers, it succinctly shows what’s going on and leaves you to think about it. What I’d give to be offered such rich opportunities for thought every time I watch a movie, to have spoonfeeding struck from Hollywood conventions… some hope.

For example, we do get to kind of see where Dan’s problem stems from in a five minute sequence covering a night back home having dinner with his family. It only hints at the difficult familial relationships Dan has, and the escape drugs will have given him, but most of it is given over to contemplation on the viewer’s part. The movie is about the impact of his problem, not its origin. Fleck has said he was influenced by Altman, and it shows in these scenes in which people may be talking, but what they say isn’t really important: it’s the way the move, the way they sit, the looks on their faces that tell you everything. There’s no proselytizing – it leaves all the thinking up to you.

And you will think. Throughout the film, there are several of these wonderful periods of silence during which there’s so much going on even though nothing of consequence is said or done. It takes great skill to make scenes like these work. You have to make the audience forget they’re watching a movie and get them to live in the characters’ minds for the duration, and Fleck does it like he’s made a hundred movies (this is in fact his first). He achieves this not just through a great script, but by shooting the right thing in each scene to make sure its dramatic intent is understood. Like when Drey is having burgers with Frank, and Frank gets up and does the chicken walk, but the camera stays with Drey and her reaction. It’s another small moment that just works because we understand that Drey is what matters here.

Frank is the antagonist, I suppose, but he isn’t a bully or a thief, which is yet another of the film’s pleasant surprises. He’s a bad influence on Drey, but only in terms of the path he’s leading her down, not really in attitude. It’s a socially unacceptable path that could lead to hurt, and Dan feels that he must do something about it because he’s probably the only one who can, but how do you do that when your weekly budget includes $50 for crack & coke? There’s an incredible scene in which Dan confronts Frank without any real plan of attack, and what ensues will surprise any viewer.

Ryan Gosling plays Dan. He was nominated for an Oscar, and he probably should’ve won (though haven’t yet seen Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland). His is a performance of outstanding skill: subtle, understated, deeply felt and understood. He spends a lot of time brooding, but offers several moments of delight in his interactions with the kids. Then there’s newcomer Shareeka Epps as Drey, who is stunning in a role that calls for her to seem strongly independent yet vulnerable at the same time. Special mention should go to Anthony Mackie as Frank, who avoids caricature and gives us one of the most convincing opposing forces in recent history. Yeah, the whole cast is great, from these lead players to the smallest, single-line role. The set must have been a relaxed place of much laughter and creativity.

I’ve run out of steam. Just see it. I’ve watched it three times in a week, and I’ll probably watch it a couple more times before moving on to something else. It has everything I ask for from a film. (Except explosions. I’ll hopefully get those from Transformers and The Bourne Ultimatum.)

Sunshine (2007) (W)

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IMDb / French
Written by Alex Garland
Directed by Danny Boyle

Like most reviewers of Sunshine, I will start by going over Danny Boyle’s track record. It’s brilliant, but patchy: he made arguably the defining British film of the ’90s, Trainspotting, but followed it with an uninspired romance in A Life Less Ordinary; he also reinvented the zombie genre with 28 Days Later…, but that came after his and Garland’s horribly disappointing adaptation of The Beach. And don’t you dare get me started on Millions. Still, he’s clearly strong enough to give just about anything a decent go, which is why I was willing to see Sunshine on opening night. When he’s on, few are as good.

Cutting right to the chase, he isn’t really ‘on’ here either. In fact, I was frequently reminded of other films, some better, some worse. The plot has a much clearer narrative than 2001 (better), but aims for the same level of wonder and enlightenment. That it never quite reaches that level has a lot to do with how much the narrative owes to Event Horizon (far, far worse), what with monsters coming out of nowhere to conjure up ludicrous, yawn-inducing suspense. Like Paul W. S. Anderson & co, Boyle & Garland don’t heed 2001’s lesson that dialogue isn’t really necessary, especially if everything the characters say is purely expository. Explaining those plot elements two or even three times, however, is something every sci-fi filmmaker should know to avoid without having seen Kubrick’s legendary document, but these guys fall into it just like the studio execs were hoping they would. By the time they realise their mistake, the movie’s nearly over and we don’t really care about the characters enough to empathize with their plight.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting, though. Boyle has an extremely well-honed sense of visual style, and doesn’t mind taking risks with it. He has no problem presenting extended shots of almost white brightness, the characters barely visible through the sun’s vicious rays. I mean, what kind of filmmaker happily masks the millions spent on actors and sets behind intense sprays of white light? One who knows how to create a world that looks real, that’s who. He also uses a few old tricks to very special effect – when the crew first enter the remnants of Icarus 1, the quick flashes of smiling faces on screen sent shivers down my spine.

Good though the visuals are, the film’s trump card is its sound design. A surprisingly worthwhile Underworld score provides an otherworldly, occasionally sinister undercurrent to the array of ship sounds (which contain few of the distracting bleeps and boops of space cinema). Brief sound cues like the Icarus 1’s distress signal are instantly memorable. When the film was over, I still had the music and aural atmosphere running through my head, much more profoundly than any of the remarkable images on show.

How can you go wrong with a cast that includes Murphy, Byrne, Yeoh, Sanada and Wong? By lumping them with that previously mentioned expository dialogue, which gives them very little to work with. They are reduced to a selection of (very) attractive people with practically no character. A quick look at the film’s marketing campaign shows comprehensive, fascinating back stories for every character. Why weren’t these mentioned in the film? If they had, then I would’ve given a shit whether these guys could complete their mission, and in turn I might’ve got on board with the movie’s chief aim as a psychological study. Pity the script didn’t see fit to make them as interesting as they are beautiful. And wow, are they beautiful – every last one of them

Just like the whole movie. Everything looks great, and sounds great, but somehow they lost their way and left at that. Some people might find deeper illumination here, but in defence of my position, I must restate my general mantra: get the audience to care about the characters, and you’ve got a good movie. Fail to do so, and no amount of superficial brilliance will stop most of the audience forgetting the movie in a couple of days. Sunshine is so incredibly good technically that I would be hypocritical in writing it off, given my penchant for Tarantino and Children of Men, but chalk it up as a miss. Will I go and see Boyle’s next one, though? Probably.

Notes on a Scandal (2006) (W)

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IMDb / Cale / French
Written by Patrick Marber
Based on the novel by Zoe Heller
Directed by Richard Eyre

Notes on a Scandal is an oddity, a bizarre mix of melodrama, twisted comedy and thriller. Instead of writing ‘mix of’ like I did in the last sentence, I would often have written ‘caught between’, implying that it doesn’t know which kind of film it wants to be, and that it is muddled as a result. Fortunately, that isn’t true; Marber, Eyre, Dench and everyone else involved knew exactly what they were doing as they spun giddily through tonal shifts, inducing head-shaking one minute and laughter the next. It’s a strange feeling to walk out of a movie that, on the surface, seemed like such a mess, but feel satisfied because you know that’s what they meant to do. Just how well did it work, though?

I saw the trailer for this about four times before actually going to see it. Once was enough to put me off completely. It was a typical ‘give away the whole plot, and most of the best bits’ trailer – afterwards, I always think ‘Okay, I don’t need to see that now’. However, thanks to Cale’s positive review I sought it out, and was glad I did. The story is pure middle-class pulp: (underage) sex, bored married life, hints of lesbianism, ulterior motives… tick all the boxes, it’s all there. I imagine the book is an entertaining but completely forgettable romp, and it seems like the filmmakers were aware of that and, in an effort to make it a more interesting movie, decided to do a few things that couldn’t be done on the page.

One such thing is to employ Judi Dench in the main role as Barbara Covett, a history-teaching spinster who, with her stone-faced demeanour and acerbic wit, acts as a deliciously enjoyable (and completely untrustworthy) narrator. From the film’s opening, with her schoolyard deconstruction and casually bitter remarks, I was hooked. Her performance remains a treat throughout. Every line is delivered with appropriate timing, and every beat rests exactly as long as it should. For the most part, her face remains weathered yet defiant, the corners of her mouth pointed permanently at the ground; however, as revealed in her diary scribblings, this outward indifference conceals a storm of confused emotions, and as the film goes on they spill out more and more. I don’t want this review to turn into a love letter, but Dench’s command of the character is of the highest order: we know she’s a barking lunatic, and the character developments are expected, yet we rejoice in her presence. Perhaps it’s precisely because Barbara is the kind of person we would studiously avoid in real life that we’re enthralled by her. And somehow, Dench makes us feel sorry for her, and never resorts to car-crash ‘can’t look away’ cheap tactics to get our attention.

Needless to say, the film suffers when she isn’t on screen. Blanchett is good as always, but her “bourgeois bohemia” art teacher just isn’t as fascinating a character. Still, her third act meltdown is a jarring and highly amusing sight from this always refined performer. Then there’s her twenty-years-older husband, a well-written supporting character that, in scenes of high drama, Nighy brazenly overplays until drool flies from his mouth. Everyone in the audience laughed as he screamed at his wife, and I’m convinced that’s exactly what he was going for. Same goes for the stroppy daughter whose previously detached language turns Shakespearean after she learns of her mother’s infidelities; the obese colleague who is the butt of several cruel jokes (in one of the film’s best moments, watch Dench’s and Blanchett’s reactions to her announcement of her pregnancy); and the headmaster who delivers his accusations with considerable relish. Everyone’s in on the joke, and we laugh along with them.

What’s really odd is that this film contains moments of genuine insight, mostly surrounding the meaning of Barbara’s less-than-charmed life. Another writer-director team might have made more of that, seeking to make a film that would leave a lasting impression rather than something uniquely enjoyable but ultimately incomplete. I’m not complaining – I lapped up every minute – but I can’t throw all my weight behind Notes on a Scandal because it is only the sum of its parts. Dench is remarkable, and everyone else does their job competently, but that’s it. There’s not really anything to pore over afterwards; it was all up there on the screen. Plus the film’s origins seem to have held it back. Still, see it for Dench and Dench alone – she’s pretty much as good as we’ll get.

Charade (1963) (R)

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IMDb / Taylor
Written by Peter Stone
Directed by Stanley Donen

A different type of film entertainment existed in the middle of last century. It was funny and thrilling, breezy and clever, a classy sort of movie that captivates all who go into the cinema but leaves little to no lasting impact. They were made by people with a love for and great knowledge of cinema – Hitchcock, Reed et al – and they were designed only to keep your eyes glued to the screen. You don’t really see this today. Instead we get shit like Failure to Launch, Norbit and Saw 47, none of which resemble quality film entertainment. But don’t let’s get bogged down in the rubbish polluting cinema screens here and now.

Charade is the most enjoyable example of that classy entertainment that I’ve seen. It has just about everything: danger, romance, double-crossing and witty banter. A great director at the peak of his powers. Three huge stars, and another who would go on to become a legend. A twisting, cracking script, and excellent production values. Everything seems so effortless, but to get so many different aspects working perfectly in sync takes a lot of work, so the people involved were clearly professionals of the highest order.

Hepburn plays Reggie, a widow, who is being chased by three men (including James Coburn) who think she’s carrying $250,000. Cary Grant appears to want to protect her, and Walter Matthau’s CIA staffer wants to help her, but who’s jeepin’ who? The plot unfolds at a swift pace, supported by a steady stream of great lines, most of which come in conversations between Grant and Hepburn’s characters. It’s easy to see why these two would rank extremely highly on lists of the greatest movie stars ever (I believe Premiere magazine rated Grant at #1), because their very presence on screen is enough to ensure a contented smile from me. With Stone’s wonderful words to back them up, they create iconic roles which made me wish for an infinite reserve of one-liners and comebacks.

For me, though, the real star is Donen. I always figured Singin’ in the Rain was more Gene Kelly’s show than his, but on the basis of this, he’s a fantastic director in his own right. One could film this script with these stars like a sitcom, and it would still entertain; he lifts it to another level by employing wonderful dollys and pans, and timing each shot just right so that the line gets the biggest laugh. He wasn’t yet 40 when he made this; unfortunately, he became swiftly less active as the years went on.

Aside from not having anything to keep your brain ticking over after leaving the cinema, the only quibble I might have harks back to an earlier point: people like Grant, Hepburn and Matthau are (were) such massive stars that they only really needed to turn up to get the audience on-side. That isn’t to say they don’t do a good job; it’s just that I sometimes wish for real characters when I watch these movies, not another identical performance in that star’s typical groove. I suppose that familiarity was precisely what made them famous and what got them the big roles, but acting has come a long way since then, and someone like Tom Cruise has to work extremely hard just to separate the audience’s preconceptions from the character he’s playing. And quite often, to my mind, he does it.

Anyway, if you enjoy life, see this movie. Two hours could hardly pass more swiftly and enjoyably. That makes it very hard to write about – it’s light entertainment, but made with the utmost precision to mine the most out of the material. All you can do is doff your cap, then move on to the next thing.

‘Babel’ (2006) (C) – A Debate

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IMDb / Bradshaw / Lumenick
Written by Guillermo Arriaga
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

What follows is Oscar Yesenin’s take on the film, followed by my response. Something like a debate. This is Oscar’s annual bit of film writing for the site (last year’s being this), unless he decides to do this more often. I enjoy his expletive-laden style, though I do wish he were more focused and comprehensible in his rage. Anyway, I’ll leave it up to you from here.

OY

Babel (Selfish God’s act of giving a people a linguistic handicap. God, you are such a prick)

Ok, what the fuck is happening to the Cannes Film Festival? How could they give this film the Best Director Award for 2006? I am highly disappointed in the quality of the decision made by the judges. Who is the head of judges of 2006 Cannes? It’s fucking Wong Kar Wai! Jesus fucking Christ! Check the name of the other members of the jury: Monica Bellucci, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth!!! They should know what good films are; 2006 must have been the shit year of films, if Babel could come up this high. Or, Cannes is just turning into another Academy Award kind of shit-fest. Trying to exploit the profit for US, money grabbing assholes. No morals, more cash.

I’ll just give you a quick review of this film because there is not much to talk about. Babel is plus average film, because it’s really weak in overall quality, especially in character development, while some of the cinematography in the film has something worth looking at. Thing is, at the end of the film you’ll feel like, “So what?” Because there is really no meaning in the film. You don’t feel you learnt something or had your way of thinking challenged. Every issue raised in the film is so shallow, not deeply engaged as a part of the film. It scratches the surface of the problems, like just reading the newspaper headline, but ignoring the content of the article. It is not open-ended or ambiguous; it is just a lump of issues dumped in the film. Examples: drug issues, stereotypes (Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism), human ego, physical handicaps, border politics and many others. Just like, ‘here is the topic’ – that’s it, nothing else. This is not being ambiguous or open-ended; it is just being an undecisive motherfucker. The director doesn’t even give us his thoughts about the topic, it’s just being used within the film for no real good reason or to argue any case.

Take, for example, the use of Moroccan hash in part of the plot of the film to get a patient relaxed (by the way lots of the hashish in Holland is imported from Morocco, apparently it’s good shit), ‘so what?’ What are you trying to tell us? Weed is good in some uses? Anyway, it’s used very badly in the film, since patient was having a sort of panic attack before taking the grass – in reality if you take hash in that kind of condition, it could really give you a very bad trip and cannot be recommended. Sure, it can be used as a painkiller, but does more harm than good mentally. There’s other shit like this all the way across the film, this is just one example; you just don’t understand what the director wants to say with his film. Does the director try to incorporate Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism for stereotyping (‘Middle East = Terrorist country’ or ‘Arab = terrorist’) within Western cultures in the film to give an example to the audience? There are lot of ways to talk about film theory in any films, but if the director does not make a strong point within the film, either by using filmic language or plot, it just becomes a lump of shit.

The film shows us a series of characters making critical mistakes. (Fuck-ups beyond common sense, which fucks me off. In a way the film did provoke me, but it’s fucking pointless. They do this, they do that, here’s the outcome, The End.) As the film progresses their mistakes just get worse and worse. The film highlights the shadows of human behaviour, however it does not get into detail. It becomes like a shopping list of the fuck-ups you can do in critical situations. A few parts in the film tried to put themselves into an Italian Neo-Realism form of plot, to try to highlight the realism in the film and to be open ended, but it just does not work. They needed to choose either Art film or Art House film, you can’t be both ways because they contrast each other. That is why they’ve been differentiated into different categories. Anyway, the plot is very dramatic, so there is no way that this film could be manipulated into Neo-Realism form. The film failed to incorporate the details in filmic language within the mise-en-scene. It talked about light and dark, but it is very grey. Cannot say it a good film or a bad film, just a disappointment.

Oh – the film also used the same piece of music used in The Insider called ‘Iguazu’ by Gustavo Santaolalla. Iñárritu somehow decided to use this music in a similar way to how it was used in The Insider. It is not creative at all and I don’t think it’s a homage to Michael Mann either; it’s just a rip-off. Also I don’t get the significance of the title… Babel: ‘Sound of many voices talking at one time, especially when more than one language is being spoken’, yeah many other films are like that too. It’s just ironic that this film needs more filmic language though. It’s lazy, couldn’t be fucked thinking of a good title. What happened to those days with long-ass, thoughtful and original titles? Now film titles are so simple and most of the time meaningless.

Fuck it, I’m going to sleep.

BHM

Thanks for that explosion of innards, Oscar. I can’t say understand all of it, but I get the gist, and while I have similarly low opinion of the film to what you do, it’s largely for different reasons. You see, Oscar is a film academic, so he views things differently to an amateur like me; still that doesn’t make him right.

First of all, there is meaning in the film. It’s a clear attempt to make viewers see the similarities between our many disparate cultures, despite the obvious differences on the surface (the most influential being language). He called it Babel after the Tower of Babel, collective humanity’s Biblical attempt to build a tower to the heavens which God swiftly smote and, to drive home the point, messed up our common language so that we spoke in all different tongues. Iñárritu wants to show us that our distrust of each other – especially those from different cultures – is keeping us from reaching common ground. The whole movie is summed up in the look on Brad Pitt’s face as he looks at his long-suffering guide and translator, just before he gets into the helicopter. It’s a look that shows a connection has developed between them, but knows he worked against making that happen, and… oh, a whole lot of other things besides. It’s only a couple of seconds, but it is perfectly acted, and if the whole movie had been that clearly focused it would’ve been the masterpiece it ought to have been.

Second, what’s all this shit about categories of film? This is why I am so distrustful of academic writing on film: the need to categorize everything devalues the entire art. What’s the point of arguing whether the film is an ‘art’ or an ‘art house’ film? What’s the fucking difference? Do me a favour, man – it’s a ‘film’, that’s all, and should be discussed on its own terms. Of course it’s reasonable and helpful to look back at films that cover similar filmic or thematic ground, but dumping on it by saying the filmed it in the wrong category seems incredibly foolish to me. Of course, this has nothing to do with the film itself, only with your reading of it. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows? As it is, I disagree strongly with you.

One place I agree is in your disbelief at the character motivations, or lack thereof. Seriously, this is the movie where endlessly ridiculous actions are taken and you just stare at the screen, mouth agape, wondering why the bloody hell did they do THAT? Gael Garcia Bernal’s character is the major anomaly, a walking plot device so obvious he may as well be in the theatre, tapping each patron on the shoulder and explaining to them what’s going to happen next. A shopping list of fuckups? Great line, and 100% the truth. I was also kind of pissed when ‘Iguazu’ came on the soundtrack, because all it did was remind of how good The Insider was, and how shitty Babel had become.

What Oscar failed to directly mention is how much of a mess the script is, especially in the managing of different storylines. It’s all balanced out, with each plot strand taking up about the same amount of time, but each one would’ve been much better as its own film. This is from Guillermo Arriaga, who had proven himself one of the most deft storytellers in the current scriptwriting ranks with previous works, but now must be questioned as to his versatility. Babel is more or less a crash between Amores Perros, 21 Grams and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, without the dramatic resonance of any of them. If you short-change your characters in a film like this, then you lose control of the movie, and it ends up a gelatinous mess.

I don’t mind saying the Japan-set stuff is actually pretty strong, and if it had been a 90-minute stand-alone film I probably would have liked it a lot. As 40 minutes in a 140 minute film, however, it is underdone, offering only glimpses of what it could have been. That’s the story of the whole movie, though. For every great facial expression from Pitt, there’s Bernal’s decision to step on the gas. For that amazing club sequence, there’s Barraza wailing around the desert having inexplicably left the kids by themselves. Yeah, what an incredible disappointment. Babel doesn’t allow itself to be hated because there are so many strong elements, but I can’t get behind a film that knows what it wants to say but doesn’t know how to say it. Most of the positive reviews out there were written, I suspect, by people who filled in the vast gaps for themselves. Me, I’m happy to think about that stuff, but I’m not going to give the film any credit for what I come up with.

2006: Good Movies (10-1)

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At this point I must mention what films I didn’t get to in 2006 that I would like to have. This is in accordance with Andy Horbal’s much-referenced best-of lists critique (embraced by Jim Emerson among others). My writing isn’t yet strong enough to get behind everything he says, so my list is more description than discussion; next year I’ll no doubt be more adventurous and confident.

So: A Scanner Darkly and Fast Food Nation were two new films by Richard Linklater, one of my favourite directors. His failures are more interesting than most directors’ successes, and when he gets it right, his work is like nothing else (see Before Sunset).

Likewise, I missed Michel Gondry’s two releases, The Science of Sleep and Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, which I chastise myself over because Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was so good. How would he do without the safety net of Charlie Kaufman’s great screenwriting? I’ll have to find out later.

49 UP and Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple were the documentaries I most regretted missing. As you can see from my list (and last year’s), I consider documentary cinema to be on equal footing with fiction, and as Hollywood’s outlook seems to change for the worse every year, the growing popularity of documentaries is a wonderful side effect.

Finally, I probably ought to have seen Casino Royale, Flags of our Fathers and The Squid and the Whale. And there’s probably a hundred other films that were good that I didn’t really know anything about. Instead, I saw a few twice (#2, #3, #5, #10). But with that out of the way…

10. Children of Men – Alfonso Cuarón
The Mexican director/cinematographer pair of Cuarón and Emmanuel Lubezki turned my world upside down with this, the most groundbreaking film of the year. I’ve never seen anything like it; I would liken it more to the computer game Half-Life 2 than anything seen before in cinema. And that’s a huge compliment – it is a very good game, but my point is that this film is arguably the most immersive ever made. A script that is excellent in places and incredibly weak in others is totally overshadowed by some of the most incredible long takes and set pieces we’ll see for a while, and they all contribute to a sense of being part of the action. It’s also set in a childless future where anarchy mostly reigns, and it features fine acting from Clive Owen and Michael Caine among others. The film that surprised me most this year, but don’t I wish it could have ended differently.

9. Munich – Steven Spielberg
Bursting through almost unprecedented media attention (no small thing given Spielberg’s often controversial and extremely well-examined career), this film showed itself to be nothing like the defamatory, politically driven piece of work that was written about by so many. Perhaps because of this, it seemed to be somewhat overlooked by many, where in fact it may be the best film of Spielberg’s illustrious and varied oeuvre. A long, expansive film, it was Spielberg at his best in all facets of the craft: visually superb, great use of music, perfectly paced, and a great example of narrowing a wide focus down to one simple thing – the effects of the events in question on one man. Many questions were asked of us, many challenges laid down, and one could not help but leave the cinema in deep thought.

8. Waves – Li Tao
Certainly the least seen film on this list, Waves deserves as wide an audience as possible. It is very much a New Zealand story, but its scope is truly global. Boundaries are breaking down, and in her chronicle of four Chinese high school students being educated in New Zealand, Tao gets inside their experiences so intimately that we feel as if we know them personally afterwards. They are all very different people, and we understand why they live their lives as they do. Never ‘messagey’, never forced, this film will strike a chord with all who see it, because it offers a way of seeing that acknowledges cultural differences and shows how we are all similar. A vital, thought-provoking work.

7. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room – Alex Gibney
I saw this right at the end of the year on DVD, and I just thought, wow – documentary perfection. The subject matter is fascinating, the talking heads insightful and passionate, the music expertly chosen, and the archive footage perfectly edited into place. It all adds up to a masterful blow-by-blow account of just what made the Enron debacle one of the most incredible events in Wall Street history. It’s a parade of scum, low human beings who knew they were fucking over millions and just laughed about it, even as they kept the public outlook positive. It would make a fine double bill with #6 – two films that expose the hubris and sheer audacity of some of our most powerful members of society.

6. Good Night, and Good Luck. – George Clooney
No messing about from Clooney on this, his second feature, which heralds a very encouraging future behind the camera. Respect for the audience is paramount as this straightforward, free-flowing films moves quickly through the story it has to tell. And what a story, especially in these times of pandering and dishonest journalism – much of the dialogue is directly taken from what the real people said, but their words are clearly chosen to reflect our current climate. Shot in glorious black and white, and enlivened by great acting by all (especially David Strathairn’s amazing performance as Ed Murrow), this is a finely orchestrated, highly enjoyable film. If it had been a bit longer, I might have placed it higher.

5. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story – Michael Winterbottom
Not quite as flat-out enjoyable as the director’s earlier 24 Hour Party People, this was still one of the funniest movies of the year. More than that, though, it was one of the better films about films, a look at how absurd film sets really are. It is rambling and unfocused, like its predecessor, but the characters – from Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon hilariously playing themselves, to Naomie Harris’ passionate PA, to Mark Williams’ enthusiastic battle expert, to Elizabeth Berrington’s fragile costume lady, ad infinitum – are so well-drawn that you just slip straight into their world. Almost like real life! It helps if you love movies, but their ought to be something for everyone here.

4. Syriana – Stephen Gaghan
The one film of the year that had my brain in a total storm afterwards, I really, really need to see this again – it’s been almost a year. Each time I look back on it, my admiration grows. I had no idea how to write about it then, and I still struggle to have any coherent thought to express. It drops you right in the characters’ world without any preparation – the opening bombing set piece is masterfully executed, and sets the tone for the whole film – and throughout you feel one step behind, just as the characters invariably do. It’s like nobody connected with oil knows exactly what’s going on; many can see one small part of the picture, but never the whole thing. Either that or the people that can see it all are exploiting for all it’s worth. Like I said, I’d have to watch it again to make any sound judgment on it, but such daring, urgent filmmaking as this has to be encouraged.

3. De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté – Jacques Audiard
More excellence from one of France’s strongest filmmakers currently working, The Beat My Heart Skipped was probably my favourite film of the year (though obviously not quite the best). Like with his earlier (and slightly superior) Sur mes lèvres, Audiard places us in the utterly subjective film universe of Romain Duris’ Tom, a nervy, tension-filled ‘real estate developer’ looking to go straight by getting back into classical piano. Brilliantly, it is shown that practising the piano is a far more infuriating and spirit-crushing enterprise than beating up thugs for collection money. Alexandre Desplat’s score is great as usual, especially alongside the Paris dance-pop that is almost always in Tom’s ears. The epilogue will alienate many, but I thought it put the perfect full stop on an exhilirating and fascinating film.

2. Caché – Michael Haneke
Haneke’s latest assault on his own class is a clinical, endlessly debatable work that, like everything else he’s done, is deliberately designed to provoke. He doesn’t care if you walk out pissed off, upset or suicidal, as long as you have a reaction. And you will. What were they saying in that final shot? Should we feel sympathetic towards or disapproving of Auteuil’s character? The questions didn’t stop for me; in fact, I saw it twice to see if I could ‘get it’ on a second viewing (I didn’t). Afterwards, I felt manipulated like a patron at a magic show, but I’m damned if I wasn’t awed. This guy is in total control, and his brand of unsettling cinema is something I will return to again and again.

1. United 93 – Paul Greengrass
In the ultimate year of challenging, questioning cinema, United 93 outstripped everything else with its raw intensity. Instead of asking questions, it just laid the events bare and let you question things yourself. I was incredibly distressed by it, particularly a final shot of such horror and audacity that I am wary of seeing it again. There are no hidden agendas; this film is about nothing more than the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. No room for proselytizing or polemic here, just cold, hard facts. Many saw this as signifying a lack of meaning, a kind of needlessness; me, I thought it showed how Greengrass nailed our feelings by cutting through the hype and emphasizing how purely bloody frightening the whole thing was. Imagine being in that plane! Now you don’t have to. A staggering achievement.

2006: Good Movies (20-11)

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Because I live in New Zealand, and better yet, in the South Island, I get to see most films between 3 months to a year after their original US/UK release. As a result, several films on this list appeared on many US critics’ 2005 lists, and the films appearing on their 2006 lists will have to wait until next (this) year for me.

Not that I’m complaining. I saw more movies last year than probably any other year in my life, and I enjoyed a great many of them. For the first time, I kept records of what I saw, which ended up tallying around 150; between 30 and 40 of these were at the movies. For me, there’s no better way to spend my disposable income than to go to the cinema, and I am totally unrepentant about that.

On with the list, anyway. I saw enough to have a top 20 instead of a top 10 this time, so I’m splitting in half to make it more digestible. Also, I’m counting down rather than up, because I find that reading someone’s top choice first renders the rest of their list less interesting. Part 2 will appear sometime in the next couple of days.

20. Manderlay – Lars von Trier
More straightforward and less challenging than its predecessor, the excellent Dogville, von Trier’s latest brash critique of human nature is still a difficult film to wrap one’s head around. Like all his films, it is designed to bring about a reaction in the viewer, be it positive or negative; he wrings this from us not with subtlety, but with tremendous insight. Many would consider this a pack of lies and a waste of time, but I think he got it right again: we are weak in more situations than we are strong, and racism, especially views of one’s own race, does not die out.

19. The Aristocrats – Paul Provenza
Dozens of comedians tell their own variations of the world’s filthiest joke, and in doing so provide us with a few of the mechanics of what makes something funny, and/or offensive. I expected a good laugh, and it gave me that (once I’d settled into the baseness of it all), but there was also a strong awareness that most of these people were very intelligent as well as highly amusing. They knew exactly where to insert beats, when to take it further, when to cut it off. A fascinating and hilarious film.

18. L’Enfant – Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Silly young Bruno deserved none of our sympathy, but the Dardennes forced it from us without resorting to any kind of cheap cinema trick. He’s just a kid, after all – a kid who went out into the world too soon, who had a child too soon. This Palme d’Or winner at Cannes in 2005 is an intimate, unsentimental account of one very naughty boy’s actions and desperate attempts to make amends, and I was moved by its simple truths.

17. The Queen – Stephen Frears
Frears has directed a great variety of good films over the years, from to My Beautiful Laundrette to High Fidelity to Dirty Pretty Things. He did it again here, but Helen Mirren was the reason for going with her pitch-perfect performance. All the sternness and unshakeability was there, but in the film’s best scenes, so was a vulnerability we couldn’t imagine HRH QEII displaying in public. In particular, the scenes involving the stag stood out in a film that did the basics right – a good (but not great) script, adequately directed, with fine acting across the board.

16. Darwin’s Nightmare – Hubert Sauper
Helplessness was the key word here in one of the most depressing, spirit-crushing films ever to be made. It is important that people see films like this to have their eyes opened to the horrors still going on in parts of the world – things we can’t imagine in our First World cocoon – but when it ended, I felt impotent. What could I do to help someone like Eliza, the prostitute servicing foreign fish-plane pilots (who are often violent) for a dollar a trick? What could I do to give the fish-frame sellers a better go at life? Sauper wisely doesn’t offer up any solutions, because no doubt he’s just as clueless; still, he’s getting the word out there.

15. An Inconvenient Truth – Davis Guggenheim
For the first time in nearly 40 years as a movie reviewer, Ebert told his readers “you owe it to yourself to see this film”. And he’s right. Half of it may be a vanity project for Al Gore, but the other half is so vital and surprising that if you do not see it, or are not aware of the things it discusses, then you are taking the future for granted when you should not be. The effects of global warming are real, and we have to start doing something about it, now. Gore is a good speaker, and his high-budget presentation is worth every penny if half the people that see it change their views.

14. Out of the Blue – Robert Sarkies
I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I only got to two New Zealand films this year, skipping River Queen, No. 2, and Sione’s Wedding among others. This was the second, a vast improvement on Sarkies’ earlier Scarfies, and a solid entry in the Paul Greengrass-led documentary fiction genre. Through a few brilliant shots, Sarkies shows how much of a wake-up call the Aramoana massacre was, subtly embracing the bigger picture while carefully portraying the events in chilling fashion. Non-professional Lois Lawn gave one of the performances of the year as 73 year-old Helen Dickson, one of the heroes of the real event; Karl Urban was bloody good too, showing there’s life after Doom.

13. The Proposition – John Hillcoat
The best Western in years, driven by Nick Cave’s poetic screenplay and music, and by Guy Pearce’s typically excellent less-is-more performance. The film meanders aimlessly at times, but that is offset by the impressiveness of some scenes, and by the overall look and feel Hillcoat and his team achieve. Its stripped-back nature worked in its favour, keeping things unmuddied by unnecessary plot elements, but always retaining a sense of something extra going on (as indeed is revealed in the final scenes). Also, it represented the beginning of my fascination with Danny Huston, who seemed to pop up in every other film I saw last year.

12. Miami Vice – Michael Mann
If your name is Michael Mann, you don’t need a good script. Collateral had an okay script which Mann enlivened with his new-found love for digital video and general badass-edry; Miami Vice was a shitty, even awful script which he managed to fashion into one of the most intriguing and thrilling films of the year. Again using Dion Beebe’s incredible DV, he crafted a lengthy atmospheric piece that barely hung together plot- and character-wise, but when the atmosphere is that thick, I don’t care what’s going on. It was a true triumph of style over substance, like Kill Bill, or as I will discuss in part 2, Children of Men. In particular, it had the most artful violence of the year.

11. Brokeback Mountain – Ang Lee
A fine tragic love story, free of pretension or sentimentality (apart from an occasionally grating score). Heath Ledger’s performance won all the plaudits, and excellent though he is, I say don’t overlook Jake Gyllenhaal. Both commit themselves to their roles completely, and their scenes together (of which there are less than I expected) are by far the strongest in the film. Rodrigo Prieto provides his usual high standard of cinematography, but it’s very much Lee’s film with its careful compositions and thoughtful, meditative pace. You think you ain’t never goin’ to see a movie about no queers? Watch this, and be surprised at how much you care.

Children of Men (2005) (R)

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IMDb / French / Cossar
Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Timothy J. Sexton & David Arata
Based on the novel by P.D. James
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

There’s kind of a rule when it comes to screenwriting: the more writers collaborate on a screenplay, the lower the quality of the finished product. Point of trivia: the use of an ampersand (&) in screenwriting credits indicates collaboration, while the use of the complete word ‘and’ indicates a separate re-write. I’m not even sure if what I’ve used above is correct here – I’m just going by what Yahoo! tells me – but if I’ve got it right, that’s a minimum of three separate writes and re-writes for this script. So, it must be rubbish, right?

Yes and no. Yes, the screenplay for Children of Men is loaded down with plot holes, contrivances, out-and-out stupidity and a large degree of overwrought (usually religious) symbolism. No, because if a poor screenplay can attract a good director, gold can still be spun. It was the case with Miami Vice – Mann’s script was crap even before Jamie Foxx forced him to change half of it – and it is the case here. Cuaron’s direction is better than good – it’s great, and most surprisingly, it offers something almost completely new in cinema.

It’s not unusual for directors to indulge in long takes: extended, carefully choreographed and skilfully created shots that make what is happening seem all the more real. But in scenes of high action? Almost unheard of, especially these days when you’ve got films like Batman Begins preventing you from seeing anything in the fight scenes because of their 0.1sec average shot length. Here, Cuaron has his most thrilling sequences play out in shots of up to four or five minutes in length, and the plight of his characters takes on such an immediacy that when the camera moves into an unprotected place, we fear for it as we fear for the characters. He cheated by patching shots together to make them look like one – this is obvious in at least two places – but it’s still remarkable, and never loses its novelty or impact.

So, as we check off more boxes on the hokum list – animals love hero, Mary-figure draped in old cloth, a boat to salvation called ‘Tomorrow’ – we are forced to put the clipboard away and marvel at what’s being shown up there on the screen. Likewise, as advantages materialise in front of our hero, we don’t really mind because it all feels so real. (Occasional comment poster Helen Back would disagree, but ignore her if she pipes up, even though she’s partly right.) Kudos must be extended at this point to the excellent work done by the cinematographer and production design team, because they create a vision of the future which is at once believable and nightmarish. Wisely, they add little to what already exists today, instead concentrating most of their efforts on what would be missing.

Praise also be to Clive Owen, who gives his most complex, wide-ranging film performance yet. I’ve never been quite sure what to think of him because he always seems kind of flat, like he’s just playing himself, but he uses everything he has here without making it look obvious. It would have been so easy to drift into caricature, being as his Theo is the classic put-upon hero, but with his stumbles and swearing he crafts a unique screen character. (I really love it when film actors can swear well repeatedly; I think it’s a great sign of quality.) The supports are good too, especially Michael Caine as a Steve Bell-type with a great taste in music.

Children of Men is a strange beast, then. Like so many films, the greatness of some aspects (direction, cinematography, design) fights tooth and nail against the crapness of others (screenplay, screenplay, screenplay). However, unlike most of these films, the greatness wins out over the crapness for a change! Seeing as Cuaron was heavily involved in the writing, he doesn’t deserve all-consuming praise, but as a director he’s produced some of the best work on offer this year. Forget all the bullshit flying around the story, and watch it for the darkness (and dark humour) that drips off the screen.

Out of the Blue (2006) (R)

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IMDb / Wong
Written by Robert Sarkies and Graeme Tetley
Directed by Robert Sarkies

I couldn’t find a still of the image I wanted to run with this review, so I’ll describe it. Helen Dickson, 73, sits quietly in her kitchen under a duvet as David Gray, 33, stands outside her window holding a rifle. She’s cradling an injured dog, and she grips her hand around its mouth to stifle its whimpers. David can be seen through a chink in the curtains, and for a second or two, he thinks he hears something and peers around into the house. His gaze is pointed directly down the camera at the audience. That moment is a metaphor (and I’m speaking for New Zealand residents here): we’re in that kitchen with Helen, hoping that this evil outside won’t notice us and come in to destroy us. It’s done all sorts of evil deeds elsewhere, but surely it’s not going to get us – is it?

I might be stretching things, but it’s a great moment – one of several in a quality film. Our national psyche might be a bit more wary now, but in 1990, we knew we were cut off from much of the world and the bad things that can happen. Then Gray lost his mind, and we wondered about that strange guy down the street in our town or suburb. I’m not old enough to remember exactly the strength of the impact this massacre had on our society, but Out of the Blue, despite a few loose treatments of the truth, suggests that it opened many of our eyes to nastiness.

The film is at its best when it follows Nick Harvey (Karl Urban) and his fellow frightened cops as they vainly attempt to neutralise the threat posed by Gray. The nervous behaviour of men on both sides rings completely true. Gray doesn’t really have a plan, he just wants to stay alive as long as possible; the policemen fear for their lives, and lack the grit (and training) to do him in. It’s appropriately shocking at times, too: the first killing is hand-over-the-mouth brutal, and a half-second shot where Gray appears in the distance behind someone is genuinely scary.

However, points are lost during the early scenes with Gray. He is filmed mostly in pointed close-up to emphasise how alone he is, which is okay up to a point, but starts to become forced; then we see how out of step he is with the rest of the world, as schoolkids on the bus laugh at him, and starts yelling in a bank (a scene so out-of-synch with reality I couldn’t help but smile). Matt Sunderland is impressive all the way through, though – it must have been an extremely difficult role to play, and I think he got it absolutely right.

Urban is good, too. He’s doing all right for himself over in the States, and that’s because he can play any part with strength and sensitivity. He has to carry large portions of this film almost single-handedly, and he manages that easily. The real diamond here, though, is Lois Lawn as Dickson. A non-professional, there isn’t a single second of her performance that doesn’t feel like documentary. The way she speaks on the phone, the fearful but pragmatic look in her eyes, her final glance at the bedsheets fluttering in the wind – it’s all perfect, and she ought to win awards.

Sarkies has taken a few cues from Paul Greengrass (United 93), but with a few cinematic additions, such as a complex sound design (sometimes overly so) and occasional shots of calm amidst the insanity. If there are missteps, they are over-balanced by even more impressive points in the film’s favour. And as the obligatory roll of names and ‘what happened next’ info came up before the final credits, I suddenly became choked up. They’re all real people, you know? Dickson really did crawl home twice; Chiquita Holden really did get shot and see her father die. Out of the Blue doesn’t function as entertainment; it’s a warning, a reminder of what could be just around the corner, and of what happens if we neglect the marginals of society.

(What most disappoints me is that the title of this film makes me think of that horrific Delta Goodrem song about Mark Philippoussis, which has been running through my head since I left the cinema. But I’m sure I’ll be all right.)

L’Enfant (2005) (R)

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English title: ‘The Child’
IMDb / Ebert
Written and Directed Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne

During the screening of L’Enfant that I attended, a group of ladies in the row behind me tutted and sighed their way through as young Bruno made one foolish decision after another. Normally I might be annoyed by such loud and obvious reactions, but I found myself shaking my head along with them, the same way you would at a kid randomly pressing buttons in museum exhibits, or running up and down escalators. Whenever Bruno (pictured above) sees an opportunity, he leaps on it without hardly a first thought. They are almost always decisions that will make his already poor life even worse, and between our noises of condemnation, we wonder how he got to be like this.

The film begins with Bruno’s girlfriend Sonia cradling their newborn son, Jimmy, as she looks for Bruno and a place to sleep. She eventually finds him wandering around a busy intersection asking drivers for spare change, and when shown his son for the first time, he acts selfishly and irresponsibly. He lives out of an abandoned shack and commits petty crime to make a living; his existence is completely unenviable. Well, not quite. He appears to have a loving relationship with Sonia. But he destroys that when he realises that Jimmy could be worth a bit, and calls up some people who will give him 5000 euros for his nine day-old son.

It quickly becomes clear that the child of the title is not little Jimmy but Bruno. His actions are entirely motivated either by his own advancement or protection. Gradually he gets into more and more strife – first with passers-by in the street, then with more powerful criminals, and finally with the police – he continues to repeatedly make the wrong decision. He endangers not only himself, but his partner and child, and kids he’s roped into his various pathetic criminal enterprises. Many times, we see him tentatively crossing a busy road, as if to suggest that he is adrift in an adult world he thrust upon himself too early.

At no point does he take responsibility, but neither does he dismiss his actions as inconsequential. He knows he should own up, but he can’t bring himself to do so, and the accompanying guilt spurs him to keep behaving foolishly. The catharsis of the final scene, for Bruno and for us, is immensely powerful given what’s gone before. He knows he fucked up again and again, and at last he is opening himself to the forgiveness of others. Had the film ended any other way – say, for example, he ran away from his troubles – it would be infinitely less powerful and truthful. He is laid bare, exposed as the simple, stupid young kid that we’ve recognised all along, and from there we hope he can begin to grow up.

L’Enfant reminded me a lot of Sweet Sixteen, in that it details with the gritty reality of kids getting involved in things they’re too immature to really understand. It’s difficult to say which of the two is the better film. Sweet Sixteen has more complex characters, so I’d probably give it the nod, but there is much to be admired about the directness and clarity of vision in L’Enfant. The Dardennes seek to present a very basic truth in an unusually straightforward (for these times) cinematic manner, and the result is an accurate, perceptive and quite moving tale. It isn’t pretty, but it’s certainly effective.