Okay, onto the tardy list completion!
Headlined by the best film performance of the year by veteran Korean soap actress Hye-Ja Kim, the true secret to the success of Mother lies in Bong Joon-Ho's killer script and direction. Laced with a slippery trajectory of guilt and mystery that is entirely manipulative (red herrings abound), the final plot revelations are scarring to the viewer precisely because of the pathos and tragedy which is conveyed. Without giving away plot machinations or spoilers, let it be said that the films' willingness to toy with humour and melodrama only make it's emotional heft more palpable. Essentially a genre piece and a murder mystery, the film subverts the conventions of the procedural thriller in it's story of an unnamed mother who refuses to accept the accusations of murder levelled against her handicapped son (played well by Won Bin). Character arcs are handicapped by a refusal to be easily pigeon-holed, and the protagonist is at turns an embodiment of parental love and devotion, as well as bullish, naive and obsessive, let alone potentially deranged. I revelled in the calculated turns of the plot and the visceral level of engagement the film inspired, which implicitly interrogates how we as a viewer assist in the creation of convention in genre films by challenging them outright and letting the viewer reflect upon these narrative conceits and fabrications (and how they reflect upon larger themes of truth and morality). It's clever and engaging work that not only acts as a competent and post-modern examination of film convention, but what is also awe-inspiring about the film is how it is inextricably tied to a particular Korean context. The bond between mother and child in Korean society is particularly strong, and in unpacking the dynamics of this relationship the movie implicitly critiques the broader patriarchy of South Korean society and it's peripherilisation of women. This is world cinema that is broad and universal in scope and dynamic for it's engagement with it's own cultural context.
2. Un Prophete (Jacques Audiard)
Tahar Rahim and his eyebrows really come out of nowhere and anchor this ambitious film. The film-making is both epic in scope as well as being an intimate rags-to-riches story of sorts, with touches of magical realism that punctuate it's graphic and frank depiction of violence. What is most admirable about the film is it's ultimate uplift, that the highly resourceful intelligence and adaptability of it's half-French, half-Arabic protagonist Malik are privileged as his ultimate ticket to success. His ethnicity is transformed from being a signifier of his outsider status to being integral to his survival and eventual flourishing. The exhilarating sense of satisfaction at the completion of Malik's journey in the film, which albeit open-ended and essentially bleak, is electric. The film-making is first-rate, it's pacing engaging and it's detail exact. The investment felt for the character comes almost in spite of the established tropes of prison and gangster drama precisely because of the way Audiard invigorates them and tailors them specifically to this narrative.
3. The Social Network (David Fincher)
The film lives and breathes because of the syncopated rhythms it's outstanding cast find with the brilliant scripting of Aaron Sorkin. Andrew Garfield and Rooney Mara are particular emotional anchors to this story, but it is the range contained within Jesse Eisenberg's minimalist and impassive depiction of Mark Zuckerberg that brings tight focus to the narrative. He convinces well as a cipher for the emotional disconnect at the heart of the information age, which adds poignancy and urgency, and ultimately pathos, to the story. David Fincher is the perfect man to steer the film, and he brings an understated visual panache and identity to the story which is necessary for it to register as vital film-making, and it's propelled by one hell of a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The ambition and tragedy at the heart of the story are universal, and it no doubt takes enormous skill to find these core elements and handle them so well within the context of this contemporary tale about a dry and potentially alienating subject (NEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS and computer programming, no less). The results are instantly quotable, endlessly watchable, and register on an emotional level.
4. Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson)
Wes Anderson's film finds the director's visual mannerisms and undisciplined narrative handling find their perfect counterbalance within the lovingly hand-crafted realm of stop-motion animation. Whereas in live-action it's easy to criticise his works for being overly precious or precocious, in this medium these indulgences not only service the full extent of his imagination in a way which organically serves his storytelling, they also appear endearing within this context. The film is spritely and energetic, and a wonder to behold. Anderson's confidence and eccentricity with visual detail brims with excitement and potential here, and I can confidently say I believe this to be a major work and also his best work as director. The film-making is leaner, perhaps as a result of the excruciating effort required in stop-motion, and if anything there's not enough of this film to revel in. Alexandre Deslpat's banjo-based score is to die for.
5. I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino)
Tilda Swinton plays the Russian matriarch to a Milanese fashion dynasty and wanders around in custom-made Raf Simons outfits. She spends a good portion of the film pursuing her handsome, younger, bearded lover with an art book under one arm. Tilda Swinton basically throws her life of comfort and frozen decadence away because of an orgasmic experience with a prawn that revitalises the fire in her loins. Talk about a picture being tailor-made for me. This is melodrama at it's captivating best, at it's most luscious, and is so perfectly rendered it can bring the weak-of-knees or essentially-romantic (myself in the latter) crashing to the floor with conniptions. And for all the trappings that suggest it's a film deliciously coiled around surfaces, there is a gravity to the proceedings which is facilitated largely due to Tilda Swinton's performance. She conveys an emotional register, a subtlety, with barely a brittle look or a lithe line reading, that sends a fissure through the elaborately stylised sangfroid of the picture. This is a film that knows how to have it's cake and eat it too.
6. Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)
There is a humanism and earnestness at the centre of this film which is entirely endearing. In what essentially appears to be a story about rich, white problems, realistic character flaws and arcs ensure that the movie at least feels more substantial than it may actually be. The story, about a couple who await the death of an elderly neighbour with the hope of expanding into her apartment, in lesser hands would have been dealt a disservice by focusing too much on the potential black comedy in this narrative. Instead Holofcener's script balances the strangeness and guilt and anxiety at the heart of this proposition, using it as a platform to create engaging character studies, and finds an emotional resonance without being heavy-handed or miserablist. The film succeeds because it is performed so well by an outstanding ensemble, including Catherine Keener (my surrogate mother in film after Whoopi Goldberg), Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet (surprisingly adroit under the hands of Holofcener's direction and scripting), Oliver Platt and Ann Morgan Guilbert (she of Grandma Yetta fame from The Nanny). There is a modesty to the film which is so self-contained, and it's perfect delivery upon this premise registers as a minor revelation.
7. Inception (Christopher Nolan)
I can't really add much to the discussion of this except for the fact that I felt it the best adaptation of a Scrooge McDuck comic ever put to film. People bemoan the fact that originality, ambition, technical adroitness and confidence aren't demonstrated more often in large-scale, big-budget Hollywood Studio film-making, let alone Summer blockbuster tent-poles. So when something like Inception comes along and becomes part of the cultural zeitgeist it seems like an outright miracle. A dream even. Haaaa.
8. Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
There's a wonderful sense of mis-en-scene to Winter's Bone. A real sense of empathy to the Ozarks region where the film is set that is unsettling and curious. The film is wonderful because of it's blending of the universal, the story of a resourceful young woman who triumphs over adversity, and it's culturally specific details which I feel are unfairly maligned as 'poverty porn' as it suggests that any social underclass is entirely uncinematic or unworthy of representation due to complications of political correctness and accusations of exploitation. In this case it's methodically researched and lived-in, which lends both credibility, complexity and mythology to the film. Jennifer Lawrence commands the screen with a focus and vulnerability, and Dale Dickey as Merab steers focus in her scenes with her unsettling manifestation of everything Lawrence's Ree is not, but really the whole ensemble of professional and non-professional performers each pulls their weight in selling the authenticity of the movie. Special note must be given to the costuming in selling this realism. The film also enters dazzling high-brow territory with a daring River Styx analogy in it's third act that galvanises everything I said before about the film exploring mythologies; and also a bizarre dream sequence that disrupts the naturalism of the film-making. Debra Granik is clearly a talent to watch in independent cinema, and Winter's Bone engages with it's archly Gothic technique.
9. White Material (Claire Denis)
The film-making in White Material is remarkable because of how sensorial and tactile it is, with it's overlapping of visual and aural textures. The intimacy of this first-person narrative technique amplifies the tension and drama within this story of a French coffee plantation owner Maria (the ever superb Isabelle Huppert), who refuses to flee despite surmounting civil and military unrest in the unspecified African country. The Highlander himself, Christopher Lambert, plays Maria's husband. Claire Denis is a brilliant director of mood and creates suspense around this deeply unsympathetic character. The film easily invites post-colonial readings to add complexity to it's implicitly allegorical narrative, as it is essentially using genre conventions to create a thriller around the stubborn vestigial presence of the West as it witnesses the African continent reasserting control, and the violence and chaos inexplicably wrapped in this. This is where the disorienting, subjective film-making of Denis is at it's most powerful, inviting viewers to experience the trauma through the escalating frustration of Huppert's protagonist, whose hubris lies in their stubborn and frustrated attempts to carry on operation of the plantation in spite of and despite the mounting tensions. Enervating and potent marriage of style and subtext.
10. The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
Roman Polanski's film hums along with intrigue and suspense, and invites wild parallels with the director's own house arrest in it's story of a former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) living in isolation while his memoirs are completed by an unnamed ghost writer (Ewen McGregor). The personal and political threads which are slowly uncovered in this film are expertly revealed by a director who is a consummate craftsman, and it is their potential reading alongside real-life events analogous to the goings on in the film which make the film engage. The pacing of the film is tight, and every element, from the the sleekly impersonal contemporary design of the isolated mansion, to the Hermann-esque score by Alexandre Desplat, to the menacing and portentous weather conditions, elevate the investment of the viewer. Performances are great, with Eli Wallach offering a great cameo as a grizzled local and Olivia Williams a standout, nailing the enigmatically wounded and bitter dryness of Adam's wife Ruth. The standout moment of the movie comes not in the surprise at remembering that Kim Cattrall (who plays Adam Lang's secretary) is actually British, but at the delight relished in the final moments of the film, when the obligatory twist in the ending is revealed. It's expertly handled and such a brilliantly perfect scene, concluded by one of the most wonderful and memorable shots in any film of the year, so amazingly downbeat it begs immediate comparison to the ending of Polanski's own Chinatown.
