A recap o’some favorite moving pictures from this year…
1
Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
Cer·ti·fied Cop·y, film.
1. A construction of dramatic gestures giving way to other, virtually opposing glances and gestures.
2. A subtle process of suggested or actual simulation which renders the meaning one had for the term ‘relation’ either incomplete or inadequate.
If our authentic selves have fallen out of place within a relationship, is presenting a replica of the best version of ourselves a sufficient and/or moral choice to make?
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2
Road To Nowhere (Monte Hellman)
“It’s actually a movie within a movie that’s within a movie,” so says Mr. Hellman of his film. If one falls into the trap that is our reflexive need for cohesion and order, Road passes by as the hardest film to follow, probably ever. Its opaqueness, though, is loaded with intent. It took a couple viewings from me, but I relinquished, and what I discovered was a love letter to filmmaking… a straight and simple declaration that defined lines do not exist between action! and action.
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3
Another Year (Mike Leigh)
Fact: Mike Leigh has explored more psychological and emotional terrain than any other director – living, dead, or otherwise. Bergman could be close, but beyond him it’s no contest. In a 1000 years time (less?), when we have long passed from or evolved beyond this Earth, Leigh’s films will stand as testaments to what it meant to be a human being. To accomplish this, he asked the pertinent questions about who we are and offered insights into the ways we hurt ourselves and others: What does it feel like to be this person? Why can’t that individual give or receive love? Why is this one so unhappy? Why does that one treat others so badly? Why can’t this one even see that he has a problem? What is it about this situation that causes pain? Could anything relieve it? Leigh’s filmic argument could be understood as such: meaning cannot merely be willed, it has to be made by grappling with and working through complex emotional experiences.
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4
3 Backyards (Eric Mendelsohn)
There’s over a 10 year gap separating Mendelsohn’s only two feature films (1999′s very moving Judy Berlin being his first), and that is a goddamn crime for an artist brimming with this much sensitivity. While the dominant culture of cleverness, irony, and detachment continues with its descent into the creative substratum, 3 Backyards‘ offering of sincerity envisions an artistic expression that is not somewhere beyond ordinary life but continuous with it.
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5
Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
As scorching and bleak a dissection of Manifest Destiny as I’ve ever seen. The emphasis here by Reichardt is not so much on the telling of any defined ‘story,’ but rather a languid case study on how one copes with, and ultimately inhabits, a process of daily struggles; namely those of monotony, isolation, and death.
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6
Cold Weather (Aaron Katz)
An odd mix of ‘conversational-family-comedy’ & ‘low-key-detective-thriller’ is the bit of yarn Mr. Katz has spun here. Smooth, humane, well crafted entertainment like this is harder than it looks. At the heart of the film is the brother-sister relationship, which in startling ways remains teasing and fluid. Between their cutting, yet knowingly playful banter lies a strain of recognition that mutual dependency should not be their prolonged mode of relation.
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7
Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
Godard’s latest is more video essay than film, and a dense one at that. I think it’s about the circulation and reproducibility of images, how they work in mythologizing then overtaking our past meanings and histories. Also something about America being a ‘fatherless,’ naïve country with no rooted origin and therefore no historical perspective. In an interview, when asked why Patti Smith appears, Godard replied, “So that there would be one good American. Someone who embodies something other than imperialism.” I really liked that answer.
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8
Terri (Azazel Jacobs)
Terri takes what’s at this point a well worn out movie trope, that being the outsider misfit finding a more sure-footed path forward in life trope, and presents it without condescendingly smoothing over the sharp edges that make up adolescence. The key is Jacobs’ tempered pacing, which allows a respectful breathing room for events to unfold, and for shit to get real. And it don’t get mo’real than in the final basement scene, which has to be one of the most shockingly honest portrayals of teen drunkenness ever put to screen. Also, John C. Reilly rules as the slightly off, yet deeply compassionate assistant principal.
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Honorables
Bellflower (Evan Godell)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
I Love You Phillip Morris (Glen Ficarra)
Kaboom (Greg Araki)
Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)
Where did you watch these movies? I think I’ve heard of one of them.
more than half i saw at theaters. the rest on the netflix. godard doesn’t believe in the idea of intellectual property, so i downloaded his.
This was a thorough enjoyment..I walked down the list googling each film to check them out as I read along.
I live a relatively sheltered life when it comes to current films ,so this is a real treat.
I can say as a result I will not seek out “Meek’s Cutoff”.. I can’t stand to watch the story of so much basic, doomed, tragedy, particularly when you already know at least some of the basic the history of the insane Manifest Destiny mindset that caused, and continues to cause so much destruction..to both perpetrator and victim.
It’s an emotional reaction on my part.
On the other hand, just the picture of Juliette Binoche in the post ensures I will definitely be checking out “Certified Copy”.
I did see “Another Year” already..one thing about that film was , especially in the beginning, I was ready for the incredibly well adjusted and successful couple “Tom and Gerri’ to be revealed as full on psychopath’s in a frenzy of kitchen knives and blood everywhere.
Ruth Sheen as “Gerri” is to me a really spooky and covertly malevolent person..she oozes self righteous judgement through the entire film and I continued to wait for that to spill out in perhaps a physical way..in the end, the dinner scene is about as wrenching as anything ever you would ever want to witness.
You wonder, who wrote this story; it’s really a Bergman like intra personal trip to a very special version of upper middle class hell, where evil as a result of rigid conditioning creates a banal form of socially accepted submission and dominance, and somebodies psychological wheels inevitably come right off ..cause that’s what must happen.
Heavy stuff..and possible genius.
Thanks J-Man!
See I didn’t view Gerri as a malevolent type, even covertly. i just saw someone dealing as best she could with a friend (Mary) who’s in a spiraling and increasingly desperate state. there was a shortness to Gerri, possibly the result of long hours at work dealing with similarly draining cases, or even the cumulative effect of years of Mary’s neediness with her. hard to say…
what i love about Leigh’s films is that he never supplies the shorthand, never gives info to make sense of the characters present actions. you experience his films and the people in them like you would in real life. perception and interpretation happen simultaneously and on the fly.
anyways, glad you liked the rundown. ‘Certified’ is the one though.
That’s because you have been seduced by the veneer of Gerri’s “normalacy”..she appears to be a caring person with a needy friend; and so maybe she’s just a bit under strain because of the stress and hard work required by her rather noble, professional career.
On the other hand, she wouldn’t even have a career without people like Mary.. I wonder how symbiotic the relationship truly is?
Who needs who, and who is controlling who?
Evil is frequently a deceptively simple banal concoction,cloaked in generally accepted endeavors, goals, and behaviors.
Apart from that, and probably most importantly, she reminds me strongly , (both physically and psychologically),of a hideous someone I had to deal with as a youth,and who dealt many people I knew a lot of harm, so I just know that Gerri is an evil character.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I wonder what Mike Leigh thought about this character?
here’s an excerpt from a pretty good interview with ML:
clearly even Mike Leigh has fallen under influence of Gerri’s evil spell.. damn, that woman is crafty.
“she’s a witch! burn her, burn the witch’!