Considering that I could always write a separate blog entry on the major film trends of 2011 and other categorized highlights of the year (best performances and whatnot) at some near-future point, I'm inclined to skip a proper introduction altogether and just dive right into my top ten. With no further ado:
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick). The sheer scope, ambition, and artistry of Malick's mammoth achievement is downright humbling. Any critic attempting to do justice to this simultaneously intimate and grandiose epic can only tremble when faced with the task. And yet here I stand, making a noble effort! (Who says this profession isn't heroic, right?) Singular poetic visionary Malick has made his best film yet in a remarkable (if hardly prolific) career by swinging for the fences in a manner rarely seen since Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey threw down the cosmic-auteur-statement gauntlet nearly 45 years ago. The Tree of Life addresses death, life, love, family, God, the universe, and just about every other pertinent issue we all ponder during the most emotionally fraught times in our adult lives. As a stern patriarch who is thankfully never one-dimensionally villified, Brad Pitt demonstrates that his facility for suggesting roiling emotions underneath a cultivated facade has improved with middle age, and there may be more about him further down the list. (I know, I know--spoiler alert!) Playing protagonist Jack (Sean Penn) as a child, Hunter McCracken is one of those refreshingly natural kid actors who don't seem to be acting at all. But for me, the dominant performance here is from 2011 breakout Jessica Chastain, who creates a distinctive maternal presence through her unique and touching combination of innocence, tenderness, and fragility. The emotional force of her work befits a movie that goes beyond being a beautiful cinematic art object--though, boy howdy, it sure is that--to connect the medium to our shared human experience in a truly vital way.
2. Hugo (Martin Scorsese). Though he's indisputably one of America's greatest filmmakers, Scorsese seemed to be taking a major creative risk by making a big-budget family film (in ever-divisive 3D!). That concern was only amplified by the unfortunate trailer for Hugo, which features a lot of context-free slapstick backed by the grating sound of 30 Seconds to Mars on the soundtrack. To say that the finished film makes those pre-release doubts look idiotic in hindsight is an understatement. Rich, dazzling, and incredibly moving, Hugo is another masterpiece from a filmmaker who makes little else. Scorsese's auteur stamp is evident everywhere: his anthropological interest in dissecting insular communities can be seen in his treatment of the train station that little Hugo (Asa Butterfield) resides in as a self-contained neighborhood, full of indelible supporting characters; the see-sawing moods and grief-fueled anger that make Hugo as fascinatingly mercurial a protagonist as Travis Bickle or Billy Costigan; and, of course, the secret of sad, old Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley, in his best performance since Sexy Beast), which I'll refrain from revealing, since I can think of a few friends who have yet to experience Hugo (I can't be disappointed in them, because again, that trailer!). Writer John Logan's adaptation of Brian Selznick's book is the most thematically dense and narratively surprising piece of family film writing since Brad Bird's similarly Paris-set Ratatouille. One of the key themes is the way in which the world of machines can overlap with the world of the human heart. Scorsese, whose sublime and utterly jaw-dropping use of 3D composition manages to augment the nearly overwhelming emotions of Hugo's story rather than get in the way of them, has made a film that is itself proof that a piece of technology can be very much alive.
3. Moneyball (Bennett Miller). Here's a bit of list-nerd statistical trivia, which is entirely apropos, considering Moneyball burrows so obsessively into the world of baseball data it's like the thinking person's sports-movie equivalent of All the President's Men or Zodiac: Miller's film was originally in the number-five slot on this list, but a second viewing last weekend revealed it to be even more intelligent and emotionally textured than I had remembered. What made Miller's non-documentary debut, Capote, so auspicious was how he balanced an icy, spare style with an extreme focus on Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in the title role, while at the same time subtly respecting some of the mysteries of that central, real-world-based character. Moneyball is a staggering follow-up that manages to marry those artful character-study virtues--this time out, Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is the ambiguously regarded biographical subject instead of Truman Capote--with a healthy abundance of crowd-pleasing tough talk (supplied by co-writer Aaron Sorkin, whose precision is dizzying), badass underdog triumphs, and movie-star swagger. Pitt, of course, supplies the latter, in a career-peak performance that organically combines all the qualities that have made him so beloved over the years--his Zen calmness, his Young Redford authority, his clownish eccentricity (yep, he indulges that hilariously mannered eating tic of his), and, crucially, that flicker of instability that David Fincher really nurtured in him. Miller and Pitt make Billy fascinatingly quixotic and near-mad; underneath the character's bravado is an insecurity and fear of failure that occasionally rise to the surface in shocking ways, never more so than in the movie's pulverizing final shot (and music cue), which packs a wallop that only cements Moneyball as a magical merging of art and entertainment.
4. Melancholia (Lars von Trier). I raved about Danish provocateur von Trier's ravishingly imagined yowl of apocalyptic despair right here on this blog over the summer, and have little to add to my review, which I'll re-post here: http://brettbuck.blogspot.com/2011/08/728-viewing-journal-early-review.html. But it's worth reemphasizing that von Trier's magnificent audacity--that brilliant two-part structure! that cinema-orgasm prologue!--is matched by the ferocity and commitment of Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who ensure that their sibling characters are as palpably human as they are allegorically fertile. It's von Trier's attention to that kind of character nuance that makes this his most satisfyingly well-rounded achievement since 1996's Breaking the Waves.
5. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen). This bewitching and stealthily wise late-career triumph for the Woodman begins with a beautiful, classical-music-scored montage of the titular metropolis, which immediately calls to mind the opening of Allen's Manhattan. However, as Midnight in Paris goes on, it reveals itself to actually be a companion piece to a different career landmark for the director, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Like that '85 love letter to the movies, Midnight explores the painfully adult crisis of having to choose between retreating blissfully but unhealthily into a world of pure fantasy and responsibly taking on the present-day real world, with all its nagging imperfections. Owen Wilson has such a distinctive and effortlessly funny vocal rhythm that there's no mistaking him for an overly imitative "Woody stand-in" figure, but more than that, his performance has the proper undertow of melancholy to suggest how difficult that tug-of-war between fantasy and reality is for the character. It's gratifying that Allen has received his first Directors' Guild nomination since Crimes and Misdemeanors 22 years ago for this, since it reasserts his behind-the-camera mastery (as opposed to his more frequently celebrated scripting) in small but forceful ways. The period recreation of Wilson's fantasy scenes is opulent and immersive without calling undue attention to itself, the framing of every shot is exquisite, and I just love bathing in the gold-and-black glow of Allen and d.p. Darius Khondji's artful coloring, which ensures that Wilson isn't the most butterscotch visual element on display. It speaks to Woody's range that Midnight is a lighter achievement than his other great movie of the new millenium, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but is no less profound.
6. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar). It would be easy to imagine a gifted but precociously shock-cinema-enamored young director like, say, Chan-wook Park, or, more to the point, the more gleefully button-pushing Almodovar of the late '80s taking the wildly lurid basic premise of The Skin I Live In and making something vivid but too alienating-for-its-own-sake out of it. Instead, the now-62-year-old Almodovar, who has reached a peak of supreme confidence and precision as an artist over the past decade or so while (thankfully) having lost none of his taste for ripe melodrama, brings a maturity to The Skin I Live In that renders it an unusually refined, elegant, and even humane horror freak-out. Ever the playful storyteller, Almodovar performs a commanding, time-shuffling narrative strip tease that makes this the most flat-out spellbinding movie of his since Talk to Her, and he riffs on dominant inspirations Frankenstein and Vertigo in a manner that goes deeper than mere homage. The central character of Vera (Elena Anaya) is where the influence of those classics can most clearly be seen, but she also acts as a provocative extension of Almodovar's very personal, career-long interest in gender and sexual identity. So, in spite of the burning obsession of Antonio Banderas' great performance as a misguided mad scientist, this lush and enveloping work of genre art belongs to Anaya, whose fierce strength sucks us into Almodovar's labyrinth.
7. Project Nim (James Marsh). Like Melancholia, this is a film I covered thoroughly for the blog before: http://brettbuck.blogspot.com/2011/07/726-viewing-journal-reviews-of-project.html. What's key to mention again is that I sincerely believe this to be a documentary that even mainstream viewers normally averse to non-fiction filmmaking are likely to find deeply involving and emotionally affecting. Man on Wire Oscar winner Marsh deserves a second Academy Award for bringing a Morris-esque inventive, free-form style and a well-judged, never shrill sense of outrage to this infurating yet ultimately inspiring story of a chimp who became collateral damage in a scientific endeavor run by allegedly more evolved and intelligent primates.
8. The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg). For years, I've put forth the theory that the experience of making Schindler's List changed Spielberg so much as an artist that he's now no longer capable of delivering the kind of pure escapist blockbuster that he used to be such a master of in the '70s and '80s. This isn't to deny that certain action set pieces in post-Schindler films have that unmistakable Spielberg flair (Minority Report has a couple humdingers), but those set pieces are couched in movies defined by dark, despairing, and sinister subtextual undercurrents. Now here comes The Adventures of Tintin, an old-school adventure yarn that's proudly devoid of heavy thematic ruminations, and all I can say is: whoops! Tintin is an uncommonly exhilarating popcorn-movie ride, and what's also uncommon is how Spielberg brings a real artistry, not just genre craftsmanship, to an admittedly weightless bit of fun. His peerless gift for visual composition allows him to sneak in many mischievously witty gags within the frame, and he takes advantage of the freedom afforded him through performance-capture animation (thank goodness those faces look more expressive now!) to shoot the movie's most awe-inspiring set pieces in vertiginous long takes. Detractors who gripe about the youthful protagonist (voiced by Jamie Bell) being defined only by his thirst for adventure are missing the point entirely. Whenever Spielberg focuses on a child or young-adult character, it's always as an interesting point of identification, thus making Tintin a surprising and joyous reaffirmation of the incongruously boyish adrenaline rush that fuels its aging auteur's passion for filmmaking.
9. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay). In her second feature, 2002's Movern Callar, Scottish director Ramsay mastered the art of subjetive-point-of-view cinematic storytelling--using images, edits, and an intricate sound design to plunk the viewer directly into the central character's noggin. For her audacious, long-awaited (like Malick, Ramsay is a genius who really should work more often) follow-up, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ramsay applies that intuitive talent to an unlikely subgenre--the demon-seed horror movie--and, as a result, ends up granting that subgenre a much-needed artistic legitimacy. That makes Kevin coincidentally similar to The Skin I Live In; both films redeem potentially disreputable exploitation elements via an understanding of how even the most lowbrow genre material can be infused with rich character and thematic undercurrents. Ramsay's gorgeously abstract non-chronological shifts between past and present mirror the flow of memories that clutch Eva (Tilda Swinton), who can't help but blame herself for raising a very disturbed son who ends up...well, let's just say he commits a heinous atrocity that merits discussion, as per the title. The formidable Swinton is a marvel at embodying the two sides of Eva we see--the frustrated mother who regards parenthood as a riddle she can't figure out, and the town pariah who has been transformed by guilt and shame into a meek, withering shell of her former self. Ramsay coats the movie in an air of dread so consuming that I walked out of the movie feeling shaken and positively poisoned by it, and underneath that dread is an assessment of parenthood that bracingly goes against the suger-coated norm.
10. 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike). Sometimes the shrewdest and most effective action movies are those that consciously mimic a roller-coaster trajectory--an unapologetically long build-up followed by a giddy plunge downward. (Think of The Matrix, for example--the necessary world-building exposition leading to a glorious cascade of awesomeness.) Miike, who, unlike other directors on this list, tends to be too prolific, has made his most fully realized film since the genuinely progressive torture-porn-slash-gender-relations-study whatsit Audition by adhering to this structure and making it his own. The stakes-establishing first half of 13 Assassins has proven too deliberately paced for some--and, indeed, there's a chance the film would be higher on my list if the right five or so minutes were trimmed--but there's something refreshingly neo-classical in the calm, patient manner in which Miike depicts the rounding-up of the titular team. Once the baker's dozen of warriors is assembled, Miike then cuts loose with a dazzling, brilliantly choreographed climax that effectively takes up the entire latter half of the film. The mega-sized set piece is as gloriously kinetic and impressively sustained as the hospital-set finale of John Woo's action milestone Hard-Boiled. As with that film, and with the other remarkable movies that made this list of the best of '11, 13 Assassins leaves you in an enraptured state where you truly can't believe what you're seeing.
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