Questions

   I've been reading more of the criticisms of 12 Years a Slave including Armond White's article Can’t Trust It. I don't mind being proved wrong (really) but I just don't recognise the feelings and thoughts that he connects to the film. I am going to see it again though.

   Jonathan Rosenbaum also has a number of interesting points to make about this year's critically acclaimed films - and some of my favourites - in posts here and here. He asks some questions that I'm not sure I have good answers to so I'd advise everyone to have a look and don their thinking caps.

   His top ten lists for 2013 for Indiewire are well worth checking out too.
 

The Great Beauty

 

   Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty is high falutin art cinema at its artiest. It’s long, 142 mins, and deliberately invokes Fellini and Antonioni.  There’s little in the way of plot yet if I said it was episodic or that the film was based on a series of set pieces or tableaux vivants I think that would be misleading too. Its construction has a delicious sweep, rhythm and poetry to it, held together by camera work that swoops, glides and circles, and by a central performance by Toni Servillo (brilliant, as he was in The Consequences of Love and Gomorrah).

   Servillo is Jep Gambardella, 65, an established journalist and writer but really  a socialite and flâneur. He only wrote one successful novel when he was in his twenties. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. He mixes with the rich and the famous, the clergy and the gangsters, the artists and the actors. The first part of the film establishes the milieu and the tone of the movie and it’s only then that Sorrentino introduces the one main plot point.  Jep’s former lover, a woman he hasn’t seen in 30 years has died and this causes him to revisit his past and consider his life.

   Through Jep’s eyes we see the decadence of the rich in Berlosconi’s Italy; its emptiness and sourness, and also its moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Thankfully we are also given the glamour and the good times, the parties and the beautiful people. It was the first time my new surround sound really earned its money as I felt a thumping baseline reverberate around my front room and deep into my chest. You feel the heady appeal of what it might be like to be rich and carefree, dissolute and profligate whilst seeing the ruefulness and ennui at the heart of most of their lives. This is one of the wonders of the film – you feel that push and pull but not in any kind of heavy-handed, didactic way. Part of that is down to Servillo’s Jep. He is resolved to this life; comfortable and resigned, compromised and happy, with a world-weary wisdom and a cynicism that somehow doesn’t alienate. When that real understanding of the world is combined with his grief and, possibly, regret, the film accrues unexpected depth and humanity. The other key ingredient to the film’s mysterious balance of forces is Rome itself. Sorrentino captures the city’s bewildering beauty in a way I’ve never experienced before, combining his array of images with a beautiful score.

   I’m kind of in awe of this film I think. I watch it open-mouthed, bewitched. Unlike so many films that seduce on a first viewing only to disappoint when watched again, The Great Beauty just keeps on hypnotizing me.  I can only compare it’s mastery of technique to middle-period Scorsese or even Bertolucci’s The Conformist. The trouble with calling The Great Beauty high falutin is that you might think it’s too subtle or boring or pretentious to bother with. It certainly has its baffling moments – the introduction of a female stripper called Ramona in the middle section of the film, who then disappears almost without comment, IS baffling on your first viewing. Yet the film is rarely subtle – indeed a good word for it might be operatic, and I was never, ever bored. Rather the main problem that readers of this blog may have is with what I can only call the preponderance of the male gaze - there certainly is a fair amount of female flesh on show in the early part of the film. Some of the images are undoubtedly meant to have erotic overtones but as with so much of the film, Sorrentino wants to seduce us AND show us the seediness. This is the life of the rich, Sorrentino is saying to us, this is how they look, this is how they desire, and it would be a lie not to acknowledge its appeal too, however superficial.

   As I watch my favourite films of 2013 again it’s thrilling to see how vital and relevant they are.

Gloria

   How many films have a 53-year-old woman at their core - in just about every single frame? Very few is the answer and even fewer if you try to think of those without sentimentality and schmaltz. Gloria is a Chilean film, directed by first-timer  Sebastián Lelio and starring Paulina García in the lead role.

   Two good reviews here (Catherine Shoard in the Guardian) and here (Maria Delgado for Sight and Sound) if you need convincing. Gloria is a brave, passionate and caring woman trying to come to terms with middle age and all the changes that brings for herself and her family. She is also daring, somewhat enigmatic and a little self destructive too which gives the film a beguiling, mysterious air.

   It's a film that doesn't lose at all by comparison with the other great political films to come out of Chile in the last few years - Pablo Larain's 'Pinochet Trilogy' and Patricio Guzmán's awesome, stunning Nostalgia for the Light. Gloria begins a relationship with Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández) who turns out to be an ex Navy officer and a man who really can't let go of the past. Watch out for the paintballers and the assassination!

   Two more things: the amount of drinking and smoking that goes on in this film almost made me break my no alcohol rule for January - what can I say, I'm easily led. Second, if the ending doesn't have you blubbing with happy tears there's probably something very wrong with you.

   If I could be bothered to change my 'Best of 2013' again Gloria would be in it. Out on DVD on Feb 10th (UK).

 

Films of the Year 2013

This is a final version. I've changed it after catching up with lots of films over the New Year and remembering some of the films I'd seen early in the year. Notable films I still haven’t seen are The Selfish Giant, Before Midnight, Gloria and Short term 12.

 

I’ve watched (or re-watched) well over 200 films this year, including around 80 Hindi films. As far as new discoveries are concerned I’d urge everyone to watch Wenders’ Pina, Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake, Satyajit Ray’s Goddess and The Big City, Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country and Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. Watching Elem Klimov's Come and See for the first time was revelatory and probably my cinematic moment of the year.  I continue to catch up on classics included in Mark Cousin’s The Story of Film and have Simon to thank for Samurai Rebellion and Harakiri.

If you wanted to get into Bollywood (and Indian parallel cinema) I’d go for Kahaani, Mirch Masala, Mandi and Debaang – that would give any cinephile a real insight into the range of pleasures to be found.

It has been another good year. My Top 5 in a Sight and Sound stylee would be:

[Remembering A: It’s always hard to choose, mainly because I only get to see most of the films once and B: I should never judge a film on one viewing – I’m far too easily seduced!]

·         Beyond the Hills

·         The Act of Killing

·         Stories We Tell

·         Upstream Colour

·         Neighbouring Sounds

Five great films in any year and by any standard.

Naffest?  I don’t go and see everything anymore but The World’s End was diabolical. LOL. I think I saw all the blockbusters and will be happy enough if I never have to watch any of them again though seeing Pacific Rim with Andy was quite fun.

Some of you might think that is all too boring (shame on you), so….

 

A Top Twelve (ten was too hard)

1. The Act of Killing
2. Beyond the Hills
3. Upstream Colour
4. Neighbouring Sounds
5. Stories We Tell
6. The Great Beauty
7. In the Fog
8. Nebraska
9. Lore
10. Blue is the Warmest Colour
11. Wadjda
12. Blue Jasmine

I still need to watch A Field in England and Computer Chess again - weird in the best possible, mind-bending, thought-provoking way. Less weird but certainly beautiful, mysterious and elusive is Pat Collins's Silence.  Any of these could easily nudge into that top twelve. 

It was a REALLY good year for women and women’s roles. Sakia Rosendahl was sensational in Cate Shortland’s Lore as were Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur in Beyond the Hills and Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Colour. I loved Blue Jasmine AND Frances Ha – Cate Blanchett and Greta Gerwig were just amazing. Everyone should watch Wadjda and Philomena too. Admittedly I don’t see much TV these days – only box sets – but Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake was weird, exciting, dark and very cinematic – I LOVED it – even better than The Bridge!

Other films in or around that top twelve would be I Wish, Gravity, Django Unchained and For Ellen. American Hustle slid into 2014.

Good documentaries included Mea Maxima Culpa, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer and Diaz – Don’t Clean Up this Mess though nothing could match The Act of Killing or Stories We Tell. University Rev socs and film societies should be joining forces to show all of these in the new year. There are lots more to catch up on, on DVD.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa made me laugh more than anything else by a long way. Sorry, but it did!

Really good Hollywood efforts: The Place Beyond the Pines, Mud, The Great Gatsby, Captain Philips, Prisoners, Much Ado About Nothing, Arbitrage and Stoker. I’ll include The Way, Way Back even though it was marred by some moments of dumb, gratuitous sexism – HUGE pity, but even so I could watch Sam Rockwell FOR EVER. And, I'll whisper this, as exploitative as it is, Spring Breakers is actually a lot more interesting than I could have imagined.

Really good World Cinema efforts include Pablo Larrain's No, Ozon's In the House, Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love, I'm So Excited and Something in the Air

Obvious one I’ve missed out: Only God Forgives. I’ve already written about it on this blog. Everyone should watch it but I need to see it again.

Popcorn pleasures: Trance, Wolverine, Warm Bodies and Catching Fire. Maybe even The Hobbit 2!

Would a Bollywood movie feature in a Top 10? Difficult question as there are lots of 2013 movies I haven’t seen, but I really enjoyed the verve (and madness) of Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola and the quiet beauty of Lootera. I’ll be able to judge better next year when my brain has processed all the new knowledge a little more.

Only God Forgives

   Most of the characters in Drive were psychopaths; some people want to believe that Driver (Gosling) starts off a reasonably nice guy and descends into a violent hell as events conspire against him. Director Nicholas Winding Refn plays a clever game however; in the first section he gives us the likeable, charismatic superstar Gosling and shows us him falling, with his childlike grin (watch those smiles again though and see if you detect how disturbing they are – isn’t there is something cocky and smug about him?) for a normal likeable young woman and her son. The scene in the diner dispels the illusion however. Driver, confronted by a past client threatens to smash his teeth down his throat. He is already used to violence and is ready to use it; and use it he does.

   More than anything Drive is a critique of and rumination on noir – not just the Hollywood noirs of the 40s but the violent existential crime thrillers of the 60s and 70s like Point Blanc, The Getaway and Le Samourai. In most of those films it was usually possible to retain some kind of sympathy for their protagonists, not least because the best of them starred some of the greatest screen presences ever – Mitchum, MacMurray, Marvin, McQueen, Delon and De Niro. It was much easier to believe in the fatalistic romance of noir because lots of the violence was hidden and the pathologies of the protagonists were obscured or softened. In Drive Winding Refn doesn’t really allow us a way out. Gosling plays Driver less as a man and more as a hollowed out child and, Winding Refn seems to be saying, if you don’t acknowledge the emptiness, brutality and desperation of this world, you’re lying to yourself; or reading my film the wrong way.

   Except, however bleak, the film does gives us consolations – the beautiful score (almost perfect I’d say); phenomenal, charismatic performances by Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston; exciting direction and editing that invokes Mann, Hill and Peckinpah.

    Now imagine a film with many of the same preoccupations but stripped of any consolation (well, perhaps that’s overstating it: Kristin Scott Thomas is ‘stand up and watch me’ astonishing and Winding Refn’s direction takes us to the far reaches of the avant-garde film spectrum). Imagine a film where ALL the characters ARE psychopaths without any fear of confusion. Gosling was laconic and reticent in Drive; now he’s virtually mute. His character’s horizons don’t reach far beyond sex and violence as the dream sequences make clear. As a man he is a spent force; damaged beyond repair by brutality and madness. Gone too is any sense of excitement – this is a slow film with all audience expectations deliberately denied. The fights are seen in middle distance using a fixed camera so that you are forced to watch with detachment. Humour is absent (except for the scene where the policeman Chang tortures a bad guy and I’m not sure it’s meant to be funny!) and there is no one to root for – Chang is the vile Old Testament God and Mai is barely a character at all.

   Or were you secretly rooting for Gosling’s Julian?

   Maybe you can. One of the most important differences between the two films is that Julian has a past (we know nothing about Driver’s past remember) – and what a brutal fucked up past it’s been as his mum Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes clear in every scene. This is part of Winding Refn’s challenge to us – especially the liberals and socialists in the audience. Aren’t we supposed to understand, forgive, reintegrate, someone like Julian? It wasn’t his fault after all that he’s been brought up in a family of mobsters and psychologically (and, the film hints, sexually) abused for most of his life. And it IS Ryan Gosling don’t you know and bless him, he’s not prepared to see children murdered. And yes that could be remorse we can see at the end of the film? But is this shell of a human being worthy of redemption? Could he ever find purpose in life?

   I doubt it. The most he would manage would be some kind of medieval, religious, self flagellation; forever damned.

   The trouble with Only God Forgives is not that it isn’t interesting – it is. I might go as far as to say it’s fascinating. I’ll watch it again. The trouble is that watching it felt like an intellectual puzzle to be solved. The obvious contrast is with David Lynch. Lynch is also a stylist who wants us to look into the nasty, hidden parts of society that we try to ignore, but his films grab you, draw you into the darkness and drill down into your subconscious. Winding Refn’s work just doesn’t have anything like the metaphorical richness of Lynch’s films.

   Drive and Only God Forgives instead need to be compared alongside the great crime and gangster films: films that that compare and contrast the psychoses of criminals and cops; films that examine and deconstruct the romance our society holds for such people; films that comment on their canonical forbears. As such they are well worth your time. However my instinct is that there is an emptiness at the heart of both films that won’t stand the test of time.

   And yet, even though it rarely happens,  I might just be wrong.