Movie : Top Ten Films of 2011
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Top Ten Films of 2011
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I've held off publishing my top ten list for 2011 because A) I was hoping to catch a few last flicks that could've made the cut (Melancholia ended up being a flop) and B) I've strongly debated stretching the list to 20 or 25 films, which takes more careful planning. This has been my most productive year as a reviewer yet (publishing close to 100 reviews since April), but the films rounding out my top 25 (Moneyball, Attack the Block, and Warrior) don't excite me quite enough to venture into such territory. My top 10, however, excites me from bottom to top. The Artist may win big tonight at the Academy Awards (it rounds out my top 50), but for this blogger it was all about The Tree of Life. While The Artist will undoubtedly attract a brief infatuation for film amongst newcomers, The Tree of Life will continue to captivate viewers for decades. You know how all those kids complain about having to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey in your film class and you're just like, "But this is amazing,"? Well, your kid will be saying the same thing down the road about The Tree of Life (pending you've trained them properly).
Being my first legitimate year as a reviewer, I can say that this is the strongest year of film I've encountered. I don't believe 2011 is the greatest year for film of all time, but I'm nonetheless insanely enthused. First of all, four of these films came out in 2010, but (after years of opposing the method) I've decided this is the proper route. Many 2010 films were not available to me until 2011, being they premiered in other countries and were unavailable. Unable to be received during their proper release dates, including 2010's (and any prior year's) films gives them a chance to be recognized. So, including films that were available in 2010, I'm confident in saying I've never penned a finer Top 10 list than this one. And as I watch more films, I can only hope that each and every year will continue to top the last. If that's not motivation to keep going, I don't know what is.
So here we go, my Top 10 Films of 2011:
Last five out: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rango, Like Crazy, Carnage, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Sure there was a collection of sighs when David Fincher announced his follow-up to the beloved The Social Network would be a remake of a 2009 film. While adored by some, the original film was generally viewed as a mediocre crowd pleaser that could have easily passed as a made-for-TV film. Owning a mystery that's inherently boring from the source novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had to find a way to become entertaining through its filmmaking and its acting. David Fincher took care of the former, showing off the fast-paced story piecing and melancholic mood setting attributes that made The Social Network so captivating, while Rooney Mara displayed why she's a star of the future. Mara completely becomes Lisbeth and completes a dynamite acting duo that made Fincher's new and infinitely improved ending that much more of an emotional wallop. See: remakes aren't always shitty.
9. Beginners
Optimistic films just don't receive enough love these days. Admittedly, most of them suck. But there's also a mindset that disallows many viewers to accept films like Beginners as "great". I've got a word for this film: fucking wonderful. Here we have a film that can make us both laugh and cry and never once does it make us feel silly for doing so. Director Mike Millis unabashedly intimate and revealing filmmaking methods invite the viewer to become a part of the film, challenging us to look at ourselves and recognize our own faults and most endearing traits. The film features several characters whose only collective wish is to be happier. Not only do they achieve such a wish, but by opening themselves us to each other (and to us) they become happier because they become better people. Other than Certified Copy, I'd say no other film this year came closest to inviting the audience to become part of its story.
8. The Descendants
Maybe Alexander Payne should have never made Sideways. His long absence definitely didn't help. Other than producing the best short film amongst the collection in Paris je t'aime, Payne went seven years without a film, and The Descendants was immediately confronted with the question: "Can he make another Sideways?" Maybe he'll never reach such high standards again, but if he keeps making films like The Descendants, I won't much care. Combining the simple human hardships of the everyday and a traumatic life-changing event, Payne made a film that appeals to us all by simply remaining human. It's also his finest looking and most mature film to date, employing the listless Hawaiian environment as a backdrop, relating the faux-charming mindset we use for life and the grim reality that coincides. But however depressing the film can be, The Descendants ultimately becomes an optimistic film because it allows its characters to grow without sacrificing their original nature and move on. Along with a career-best performance from George Clooney, Payne produced a film that's a worthy predecessor to the beloved Sideways.
7. The Interrupters
If we can count on anyone to produce hard-hitting humane documentaries time in and time out, it's legendary filmmaker Steve James. Nobody will ever produce a documentary as epic or emotionally draining as Hoop Dreams...well, except James himself. He did a pretty fuckin' good job with The Interrupters, a film few people saw—a film that held more social importance than any other. Dedication is what separates James from the pace. He invests himself in his subjects lives, who happen to be a product of Chicago's biggest problem: violence. Following a group of people hellbent on making the famed city more safe, James reveals violence to not just be a problem, but a disease that inflicts a community and spreads until it becomes an epidemic. And whether its revealing his subjects' violence-ridden pasts or capturing people on the verge of self-destruction, there's an attention to humanistic detail that simply isn't found in many documentaries. When James flashes between a young girl riddled with a fluctuating violent streak and a group of joggers circling the park, it becomes clear the simple human drama is combined with a much deeper metaphorical style of documentary filmmaking that isn't at all intrusive or restricting, but altogether revealing and engaging.
6. A Separation
Combining the hardships of family life and repressing politics of Iran, A Separation was not only a great film, but a heavy one as well. We're invited to watch the most emotionally traumatizing time in several people's lives in a film that owns no dull moments. Constantly separating his characters with physical barriers, director Asghar Farhadi penned several characters that were flushed out and conflicted souls. Either at odds with one another or themselves, each and every second of this family/legal drama builds its characters and the court trial, which ultimately comes to fail in comparison to the political, religious and family conflicts that flood these people's everyday lives. With so much packed in one film, the emotional journey becomes a trying one, challenging the audience to understand and feel the toll these characters endure.
5. Poetry
Perhaps 2011's most intricate screenplay, Poetry was a film that thrived on its circling narrative that took its main character, the 60-year-old Mija, through an emotional toll that nearly broke her spirit. Diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's, the prospect of losing the past forces her to confront it. Faced with a grandson who raped a young girl who committed suicide, Mija ventures on a journey that allows her to truly love her grandson and love herself. The use of poetry throughout the film relates Mija's struggles to find beauty in life during a period where beauty (along with her memory) is fleeting. Director and writer Chang-dong Lee created his most interesting character and finest film to date with Poetry, showing the future may hold finer and finer films from the veteran director.
4. Drive
The film nobody seemed to understand, Drive was the year's most accomplished and fully realized film. Depicting the psyche of a psychotic human being stuck in a self-produced film, Drive combined every technical aspect of filmmaking to fully reveal a character at odds with himself and the realities of society. Whether it was the intricate lighting or the all-time great soundtrack, almost every aspect of Drive was committed to painting a character who fell in love, but didn't know how to love. A character that wanted to help, but only made things worse. A character that believed he was a hero, when he was anything but. The alienation he creates from such a complex mindset pushes his loved ones away and brings his enemies closer, producing a film that owns emotional human weight beneath the accomplished mission of the screenplay. Ryan Gosling said he always wanted to make a superhero film—I'd say Drive ain't to shabby.
3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
There aren't many directors producing masterful films each and every time out, but Apichatpong Weerasethakul is defying the statistics. Combined with Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century, Uncle Boonmee completes a string of films that are as equally masterful as the last, and all more gripping than most movies the film industry has to offer. And while Uncle Boonmee is as every bit as intricate and humane as his previous films, his matured camerawork and autobiographical screenplay feels much more engaging than anything he's made yet. While Syndromes and a Century transcended traditional filmmaking on a humanistic level, Weerasethakul manages to capture the same mindset set against a much simpler, straight-forward story. Calling on demons and ghosts to enter his characters lives, he challenges the very notion of life itself and whether death is actually the end. Never condescending and always inquisitive, Uncle Boonmee is a trip for both a famed director and the viewer, challenging us and himself to ask the question, "What happens when we die?" I'll end this with an echo of my original review that pretty much says it all: "In making a film for himself, Apichatpong Weerasethakul made a film for us all."
2. Certified Copy
Caught up in the confusing nature of the narrative, many undoubtedly judged Certified Copy unfairly. It's true we may never fully understand the exact relationship between Elle and James, but the two heroes of his film need only interact to push the intention of the overall arcing narrative. Just as Elle and James' true relationship is in question, the prospect of their happiness coincides with such a dilemma. The parallels between these dynamics creates a monstrous hope within the characters for self-happiness amidst an altogether disappointing lifestyle that has left two human beings in disarray. Such an emotionally draining human journey is transcended only by director Abbas Kiarostami, whose level of engaging filmmaking is unmatched by anyone in the industry. Positioning the camera and his characters to constantly interact with the audience, few films have ever invited the viewer to become part of a movie so prolificly and gracefully, to the point where we don't even realize we're a part of the—to the point where Certified Copy becomes a film about us and life itself.
1. The Tree of Life
The new century's first 11 years have come and gone, and no film came closer to defining the undefinable human existence than The Tree of Life. While Certified Copy accomplished such a feat on a much smaller scale, Terrence Malick's gargantuan questioning of the meaning of life is equally matched by a journey in classic filmmaking that will separate The Tree of Life from its opponents for years to come. Depicting the creation of the universe through a beautiful montage of images, sounds and soon-to-be metaphorical dynamics, Malick connects such a gigantic notion with human existence, linking human beings with a process that seems too impossible to comprehend and relate to. But in creating such a dynamic, Malick breathes life into each and every existing soul, creating a message that's as cruel in nature as it is hopeful in its grace. I can't lay claim to the unequivocally greatest film of the decade, but I'll be surprised if any film touches me as deeply as The Tree of Life did. When a film can remind you what it's like to be human by simply reminding how to live, you find something to live for. And while Terrence Malick didn't find the meaning of life, he gave me something to live for—more than I'll ever hope to ask for from a film.
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