#1 - A Dangerous Method (directed by David Cronenberg)
David Cronenberg might not be the obvious first choice to direct an adaptation of a play featuring Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud about the birth of psychoanalysis. In light of his mainstream breakthrough with 2007's Eastern Promises, and 2012's Cosmopolis which is set to star Robert Pattinson, A Dangerous Method does seem to be more in line with a Sunday afternoon art house than the midnight, bodily horror, creature features that became his hallmark more than two decades ago, like The Fly, Rabid and Dead Ringers. But here the monsters in the room are the words themselves, and watching one of today's most popular medical treatments created out of the havoc of transferrence, as Jung begins an affair with one of his patients, and ego, as Freud's methodology seems to grow out of misogyny and jealousy towards the rich, hiding behind his cigars in a vaulted intellectual lair, is every bit as terrifying as one of the Mantle brothers' gynecological instruments. Becoming the first actor to ever star in two of my five favorite films of one year, Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung, a doctor so unsure of himself, and in such need for validation that he allows an affair to continue with Sabina Spielrein, an abused pre-med candidate who easily uses the loose interpretations of psychoanalysis to convince him that what they are doing together is right. Viggo Mortensen plays Freud, conveying more in a glance, or a flick of a cigar than with his dialogue. The two of them write letters back and forth, and occasionally meet to discuss Sabina's progress, or the course of psychoanalysis in general, and it grows harrowing to see how the two men's desperate need to be infallible, with Freud's conformation of any act to his published ideas of subconsciousness and sexuality, and Jung's desire to prove him wrong, devolves their medical practice, and what would ultimately revolutionize medicine in the twentieth century, into a series of increasingly petty hypotheses. Freud is depicted as smug and pretentious, and his jealousy of Jung's wealth, and bitterness at the diminishing respect he receives as a Jew (the impending Holocaust is consistently implied as the monster right around the corner), provokes derision at anyone who suggests he could be wrong, despite the fact that the lives of patients hang on his every word. This film is all about the subtext, perfect for a film about psychoanalysis, and with it David Cronenberg has now become one of the greatest directors alive. Cronenberg uses deep focus photography (I think I have seen more examples of it in 2011 than any other year) with all of his main characters, at different times in the foreground and background, forcing us to question their relationships, and ask who is the authority and who is the subject, reinforcing the seemingly arbitrary nature of psychoanalysis's creation. Adapted by the great Christopher Hampton, from his own play "The Talking Cure," and the nonfictional account based on Spielrein's writings by John Kerr called A Dangerous Method, the film is a treat to listen to as well as look at, sophisticated, direct, and poetic in its economy and wealth of meaning. Coaxing the greatest performances of Viggo Moretensen and Kiera Knightley's career, Cronenberg marries a singular vision and focus with masterful filmmaking, both in front of and behind the camera. But the reason this is the best film of the year is its resonance and relevance today. Lending credence to history's and modern-day's skeptics of psychoanalysis, the film unearths a hope and trust that through the pragmatism and tests of time, the practice of therapy has alot more in common with actual science than it did a hundred years ago.
#2 - We Need To Talk About Kevin (directed by Lynne Ramsay)
I thought Gus van Sant's Elephant would stand as the lasting film about a high school shooting, one that attempted to draw some sort of meaning out of something so random and tragic. But what director Lynne Ramsay achieves in her devastating portrait of a mother of one of society's most unconscionable criminals is nothing short of miraculous. Ramsay finds the perfect vehicle for such a tale in the film's mosaic structure, a never-ending source of inspiration for filmmakers, as editing the film in seemingly random, haphazard order allows for new meaning to be created out of the disjointed juxtaposition of scenes. The most punishing and revelatory scenes come after the incident, in derisive glances by the townsfolk towards the mother, and the endless splashing of red paint onto her house, which many scenes throughout the film are spent showing her cleaning off. Unfolding the narrative linearly, the actual shooting would have to be frontloaded for enough time to be spent on the repercussions, but the mosaic structure allows the film to still build towards both the shooting and an emotional zenith, while cutting the past and present together to draw more subjective parallels and conclusions. Tilda Swinton plays the mother, Eva Khatchadourian, to flawless perfection, in what is the greatest female performance from 2011, instilling scenes of her character's mounting frustration with pure humanity and realism, like when her son Kevin's endless crying as an infant is momentarily relieved when she stands smiling beside a jackhammer, a visual stroke of genius depicting the diminishing definition of bliss to a first-time mother. And that is where the film truly resonates, in the moments where it earns its title, as her relationship with Kevin becomes fractured during his childhood, perhaps due to her inexperience, or resentment at having to give up her artistic pursuits, or perhaps just because Kevin is a bad egg, and persistent attempts to discuss the matter with her husband Franklin, a never better John C. Reilly, fall on deaf ears. A lesser film would have relegated his dismissals of her protestations to mere absenteeism, but Ramsay's film is smarter than that, ever aware of a working class family's subconscious need to conform to a traditional dynamic of stay-at-home mom and blue-collar dad, and more importantly the basic fact that dad only sees Kevin at his best, running and jumping into his arms when he comes home, leaving no trace of the hell he put mom through all day long. Or is it just that she is a bad mother, and impatient? The film leaves this question up to the viewer, but Tilda Swinton internalizes both answers to obsession in her performance, until barely a trace of emotion can get through either way to her rapidly deteriorating mind. We Need To Talk About Kevin will ultimately prove the definitive film on this issue. Never manipulative, and never in betrayal of the gravity of emotions it is dealing with, Lynne Ramsay uses the tragedy to tell the story of an often unmentioned victim, or cause, with unflinching honesty and realism.
#3 - The Tree Of Life (directed by Terrence Malick)
Number one on this list for nearly the entire year, but ultimately bested by two films that share a similar power in their homogenic mastery of style and content over conventional storylines, The Tree Of Life remains one of the greatest examples of unconventionality and the soul-searching power of abstract cinema ever filmed. Directed by auteur Terrence Malick, who has made only five films in thirty-eight years, including Days Of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, the film is a continuation of the style of his recent output, which emphasizes direct address, poetically constructed, existential musings, and immaculately photographed images, instead of traditional storytelling, unyielding to a sometimes maddening degree, to any sense of narrative development. Until now his films, like The New World and The Thin Red Line, have basically been tone poems, but they at least had a narrative throughline that audiences were accustomed too, in the sense that events in scene A have logical effects in scene B. The Tree Of Life abandons even that contemporary crutch in its search for absolute meaning, able to be tailored exclusively to the individual watching it, a mode of construction unable for many to grasp, evident in many walkouts and complaints during its theatrical release, undoubtedly from Brad Pitt fans. Pitt plays a domineering, blue-collar father, whose strictness with his children is presented as mere information, leaving the motivation and morality completely up to the viewer. Jessica Chastain, continuing a wonderful year, plays a graceful, contemplative mother, forever her children's bedrock. And Sean Penn plays one of their children, all grown up in the world, reflecting on how he came to where he is in life. Time is of little importance to The Tree Of Life, much like before birth and after death, and the time span of the film includes the creation of the universe, through the end of the world as we know it. Yes the film is confusing, and exudes an air of superiority over its audiences, and many times my mind couldn't quite follow the narration, too lost in the visuals, but it is no less beautiful and life changing because of it, and what many dismiss as pretentious I see as an invitation to multiple viewings. I ask, wouldn't it ultimately be a disservice to the film, and the audience, if the audience's grasp exceeded the film's reach? I am convinced the meaning of life itself is hidden inside this film, not explicitly, but in what it is able to draw out of those who let it. The film demands self-examination of one's deeply personal experiences in the human condition, and for those who are open to it, it can help unravel the endless tangle of meaning in today's very hard and uncompromising world, of which we often times feel trapped by our own beliefs. The Tree Of Life will alter your interaction with the world, even if it is just in the most minute and unimporant of ways. It is a challenging collection of sumptuous imagery and abstract thoughts, that in the end, boils down to a still small voice, no small feat for a film that tackles the creation of the universe.
#4 - A Separation (directed by Asghar Farhadi)
A Separation, or as it is called in Persian, The Separation of Nader From Samin, is that rare film from the Middle East, in this case Iran, that is free of any shred of political charge or motivation. It is the story of two families, and that's it. An argument between husband and wife Nader and Samin over Samin's desire to leave Iran to give their fourteen-year-old daughter a better life, and Nader's desire to stay with his father who is stricken with Alzheimer's disease, reaches a breaking point in their increasing emotional distance from each other, prompting Samin to file for divorce. Their daughter Termah stays with Nader, who sets out to find a housekeeper to watch his father while he is away at work. He settles out of necessity on Razieh, who eventually, due to negligence and her own family's financial woes, leaves the house one day and Nader's father falls out of his bed. An argument in an attempt to fire Razieh, where emotions run hot, causes Nader to push Razieh out the front door and she falls down the stairs; then later she brings Nader up on charges of causing a miscarriage. The film has near constant dialogue, to the point where the subtitles went away before I had a chance to read them, all delivered superbly by the actors, especially Peyman Moaadi as Nader, who beautifully assumes all of the character's complications and projects a deeply human being. Usually the height of drama is reached when every character in an argument is correct, according to their perspective, and A Separation has a never-ending supply of those scenes. Characters argue, and talk over one another, most fascinatingly in front of an arbiter of the court, who is only interested in facts. Embroiled in two suits, that of his wife trying to divorce him and his housekeeper trying to sue him, Nader doesn't fight for the audience to take his side, or coast through a screenplay tailor-made to depict him in the best possible light; he simply does what he believes to be right, and what is right by his daughter, who he considers the only judge that matters. In contrast, Demian Bichir was nominated for an Oscar as Carlos Galindo in A Better Life, a horribly written role where any trace of human complexity or grey area is whitewashed by a chorus of angels just to make absolutely certain no audience member can feel ambivalent towards the illegal immigrant's plight for a fair chance in America. I pick on that film because, not only was that role an offense to an average citizen, but most definitely to those it seeks to depict, who are mired everyday in a complex, moral uncertainty. People need to realize why A Separation works as well as it does, and why the characters are so engaging; because they are real, warts and all reflections of human beings. I wanted to watch it again immediately after seeing it for the first time, so I could spend more time watching the thing instead of reading it. It is so realistic, and important for every American to understand that other cultures and people have some of the exact same problems we do here. And it's important to see how someone in Iran, like director Asghar Farhadi, who won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, can reflect marital tumult in his art, better than I have ever seen it done in Hollywood.
#5 - Shame (directed by Steve McQueen)
If we accept the definition of shame according to dictionary.com as "the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something improper done by oneself," then Shame is the most correctly titled film ever made. Michael Fassbender stars as Brandon Sullivan, a man crippled by his addiction to sex, to the point where the act itself holds no joy at all for him. Completely consumed, nights are filled with random encounters, and days are spent masturbating at work and filling his company computer with pornography. An unexpected visit from his estranged sister Sissy, leading to a prolonged stay, resurfaces unexplained emotions from the past, and soon sends him spiralling towards self-annihilation. If his problems sound miniscule against the "real" problems people face everyday, it's just because you are reading about them on paper. The real beauty of Shame is in the economy of its screenplay, written by Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen, and the way in which director McQueen allows scenes to unfold with adequate space to breathe. There are no details given to explain what makes him this way, and whatever they are they surely contribute to Sissy's itinerant lifestyle on and off as a lounge singer. McQueen wisely understands that details would only make the audience focus on the wrong things. It is sufficient to know that whatever happened in the past, he believes it was damaging enough to cause his behavior, and the fractured relationship between the two of them, evident by his reluctance to get too close to her. McQueen allows scenes to play out in single long takes to heighten realism, like a first date at a restaurant with a woman Brandon really wants to have an actual shot at a relationship with, and like the final confrontation between him and Sissy, shot from behind, and separated by the glow of a cartoon on the television. With very little storyline, these scenes are pure emotion, and Fassbender and Carey Mulligan as Sissy, make Shame an acting tour de force. Over its brief running time, Shame doesn't waste a moment, even if some scenes seem to last longer than they should, as in one extended tracking shot of Brandon running the streets of New York in the middle of the night that lasts three minutes, while the somber strains of Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations play accompaniment to his misery, and counterpoint to the physical exertion he expends just to feel something real. Narratively, his running serves to establish a scene at the end when he has to run for a different purpose, but emotionally it helps Shame bring to life the punishing bleakness at Brandon's core. Shame was released in theatres with a NC-17 rating, as McQueen refused to alter the film in any way. Though it meant certain death at the box office, I applaud his convictions. Shame is the greatest picture of the self-destructive nature of addiction since Leaving Las Vegas, and to cave in to the censors would have resulted in something akin to not being allowed to see Nicholas Cage take a drink.
#6 - Take Shelter (directed by Jeff Nichols)
There are many films that explore psychological conditions like schizophrenia, and the effect they have on families, but not very many that I can think of where the characters are not exactly certain that is what's going on, and that's the wonderful originality of Take Shelter. Curtis LaForche is a construction worker living in Ohio with his wife Samantha, deaf daughter Hannah, and of course his dog. Everything about his blue-collar life is the picture of normalcy until he begins having visions of devastation that grow increasingly paralyzing, sinister, and apocalyptic. Oily, black rain, birds flying together in strange shapes, and the family dog attacking his daughter lead him to begin believing that something bad is coming, and that he needs to begin taking action to protect his family. It starts off innocently enough, building a pen to corral the dog, but then soon enough, terrified of a coming storm, he begins to expand and reinforce the storm cellar to make it habitable for the long term. At the same time this is happening, he discovers that his mother's descent into schizophrenia began with symptoms exhibited right around the age that Curtis is now. Michael Shannon is the perfect actor to play Curtis, like a modern, young Marlon Brando, his facial expressions betraying everything he tries to hide through his deep, stoic, nasally voice. Immortalized by his brief turn in Revolutionary Road as the catalyst for Frank and April's impending self-destruction, his character, John Givings Jr. was a man institutionalized in the 1940's for mental problems which amounted to merely saying what was on his mind, despite the societal norms of living in denial, and in Take Shelter it's as if Givings has been given his own spin-off in LaForche, a man whose powerful visions persist, no matter how loud the protests of society that he is going mad. There really isn't a way to translate visually the internal conflict he struggles with, of risking the lives of his family through inaction if he surrenders to the belief that he is ill; it is all conveyed through Shannon's uncanny abilities. He must see what he started through to completion, himself and everyone be damned. Take Shelter's director Jeff Nichols and Michael Shannon worked together before, on Nichols' first film Shotgun Stories, and the two clearly have a chemistry. Through Nichols' lens LaForche is never judged, just observed, and in the characters of his wife and child Nichols wisely avoids the trappings of lesser films, drawing wife Samantha, the best of Jessica Chastain's four breakout roles in 2011, as cautiously steadfast, refusing to leave Curtis' side, even when his visions cause him to lose his job and health benefits, and even when he spends the money for his daughter's expensive hearing implants, in what are the film's most devastating scenes. And in daughter Hannah, making her deaf not only gives her character the necessary affliction to make their situation more grave, but through the sheer fact of her inability to speak Nichols also deftly avoids the inconvenience of the usual pitfalls in film's like this, where the children seem to appear and disappear at the whim of the screenplay. Take Shelter is an ingeniously conceived character study of either a prophet of doom or a rapidly deteriorating mind, but never once, inhuman. As long as there is uncertainty in the world, Take Shelter will remain a timeless story, and a master class in acting.
#7 - Hugo (directed by Martin Scorsese)
I will admit to being one of Martin Scorsese's harshest critics over the last few years. From his undeserved win for The Departed, which has inexplicably become Goodfellas for people who have never seen Goodfellas, through the atrocity that was Shutter Island, and finally the pilot of HBO's wrongly praised gangster porn series "Boardwalk Empire," Scorsese's film style seems to have devolved into over-edited messes, with unmotivated, incessant camera movement replacing, or hoping to disguise, a complete lack of meaning. With Hugo, I say welcome back Marty. I don't know if he conceived the artistry on display in Hugo, or if he just stumbled across a project most appropriate to his recent stylistic interests, but whatever brought him to this project, it is the cinematic equivalent of pure marvel. I already cannot understand the praise heaped on 2011's The Artist, but next to Hugo, which shares a similar nostalgic wonder, it is downright criminal. This story of an orphan child living and working to maintain the clocks behind the scenes of a Parisian train station in the early 1900's, who learns of the birth of cinema and rediscovers one of its forefathers, George Melies, helping him believe in himself again, captures the magic of the movies unlike any other film in recent memory, especially The Artist. At its core, Hugo is nothing that hasn't been done before, where a child helps an aging recluse rediscover what it means to be alive, but in Scorsese's hands and heart, it is a paean to cinema itself, introducing modern audiences to the sheer power of the medium we now take for granted, and reaffirming the testimony of those who are already under cinema's spells. Children will be enthralled by Hugo's visual prowess, and subplot involving the Station Inspector, Sacha Baron Cohen in a welcome change from his usually vile roles, whose life goal is ridding the station of miscreant orphans, and adults will respond in kind to the sophisticated narrative and masterfully paced, crystalline direction of a story about not giving up on your passions and dreams. And lest I neglect to mention, film enthusiasts will relish the opportunity to be in the same presence of an authority who truly shares and delights in their reverence for what is arguably the greatest art form in the world. Hugo is easily Scorsese's best film since Goodfellas, whether he intended it or not.
#8 - Midnight In Paris (directed by Woody Allen)
Midnight In Paris is Woody Allen's best film since 2005's Match Point, which itself was a sea change in Allen's career from upper class New York comedies to globe trotting dramatic thrillers. But one would have to go back even farther, all the way to 1979's Manhattan to find a comedy as wonderful as Midnight In Paris. Longtime fans of Woody Allen have been no doubt lamenting the obvious dilution over the years of what were once films of wholly original, intellectually stimulating, philosophically-inspired comedic genius. Somewhere along the way, in the late eighties or early nineties, his knack of coaxing humor out of incessant namedropping of obscure philosophers and critical authorities gave way to a more streamlined version of itself, in which the new extreme became a comment here and there about Marxism, which even the most impenetrable audiences can understand in proper context. Unfortunately watching Annie Hall or Interiors these days with a modern audience is like reading Dostoyevsky to a child, as every generation pushes Marshall McLuhan and Ingmar Bergman farther and farther from its collective consciousness. Until now, Allen has not found a way to incorporate the elements that made his early-career masterpieces so magical. With Midnight In Paris, he hits the jackpot. What could possibly be better than a bunch of people sitting around talking about Hemingway, or Gertrude Stein, or Salvador Dali? How about actually seeing them? With a sublimely inspired screenplay, Allen's film about a screenwriter whose midnight strolls while vacationing in Paris with his controlling fiance and her parents transport him back in time to the 1920's where meetings with those mentioned above force him to confront the mixed feeling he has towards getting married, and his insecurities surrounding the writing of his first novel. Watching Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali, staring at Owen Wilson's face while describing an idea for a painting that has just occured to him which would feature Wilson, a rhinoceros, and Jesus Christ, is the funniest moment in film of the entire year. Even if audiences don't get all of the jokes, they can still be distracted by Brody's funny faces. Midnight In Paris is one of Allen's most focused films, wildly exhibiting all of his strengths without restraint, while at the same time displaying none of the troubling hallmarks of his recent output. Considering he only writes one draft of his screenplays, his next film may very well be awful, but Midnight In Paris reassures the world that he can still deliver comedies both conventional and intelligent, a welcome breath of nostalgia among the current crop of foul comedic debris that litters our multiplexes.
#9 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (directed by Tomas Alfredson)
In retrospect, many of the films on my top ten this year demand multiple viewings. In the case of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy multiple viewings are required. Adapted from John Le Carre's seminal spy novel, the film has baffled many people with its spy terminology, wealth of characters, stoicism, tendency to impart lots of information in a few quick scenes, and its mosaic structure, cutting back and forth through time; and I'll admit I was not immune to the feelings at first. It's not that there is a sense of something missing, or incongrous, its just that the film monopolizes, or rather consumes all the attention lavished on it. All the pieces are there, without an extraneous scene to be found, and after spending some time with it kicking around in my head I realized what an accomplishment it is. The film concerns British Central Intelligence, or as they call it in the film, The Circus. In 1973 the head of The Circus, called Control, and his right-hand-man, spy George Smiley, are forced into retirement after a botched operation to acquire secret information. A year later, Control having died in the interim, Smiley is asked to return to root out a suspected mole within the organization who has been feeding information to the Russians all along. The bulk of the film is Smiley's investigation, and the film weaves effortlessly back and forth through time in its subtle building up to the final revelation of who the mole is, and how Smiley captures him or her. The greatest thing about this film is the very same thing that makes it impenetrable to some people, its sheer unwillingness to dumb itself down. This is definitely not a Jason Bourne film, but rather a series of quiet scenes in smoke filled rooms, inhabited by people who are living in their own world and refuse to divulge any of its secrets. Mainstream audiences are so used to the illusion of being a fly on the wall, but even in that there remains a subconscious expectation that the characters in scenes will speak as if they are talking to the fly, while the fly carries on believing itself omniscient and invisible. Here, screenwriters Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor treat the audience as fellow spies working in The Circus, assuming common knowledge about everything. That approach can backfire if the script is not airtight, but luckily not a problem here. Director Tomas Alfredson also doesn't cater, presenting visual challenges to accompany the screenplay, such as crafting tense scenes that we've experienced in films before, but refusing to pay them off in the same manner, like playing hide and seek with the screenplay's precious information. Straughan and O'Connor had a massive undertaking when they set out to adapt Le Carre's immense tome, especially when the entire story is backstory, and requires unearthing and reassembling by Smiley through his investigation. Assembled in a mosaic structure, the film mimic's these assortments of random revelations from which Smiley must extract a linear narrative. In our minds we try doing that while we watch the film, but we are no match for George Smiley, a fact I believe the filmmakers relish. At the center of it all, and ultimately the reason we are here, at number nine, is the terrific performance by Gary Oldman as Smiley. I ridiculed him quite heavily for the pompous diversity of his roles in the nineties, from Dracula to Beethoven, and to a pill-popping sadistic detective in The Professional, all roles wallowing in pretension. But watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, it's hard to even reconcile him as the same actor. If you thought Commissioner Gordon was low-key for him, you haven't seen anything yet. Miles of celluloid are spent just looking into Smiley's eyes, secluded by those giant lenses, and furrowed by an aging brow whose lines carry timelines of history as well as information. Restraint is much harder than scenery-chewing, and Oldman is a textbook here, and when his personal past begins to intertwine with his investigation, that restraint only serves to make him more dangerous, especially in a film where information can mean power, or certain death.
#10 - The Mill & The Cross (directed by Lech Majewski)
Yes, that is Rutger Hauer's face gracing a one-sheet for a Polish art film. There is no other film in the world like The Mill & The Cross. In 1564 the artist Pieter Bruegel created a painting called The Procession To Calvary. Here is what it looks like:
What director Lech Majewski does with this film, drawing inspiration from Michael Francis Gibson's book The Mill And The Cross, is to go inside the very painting itself, exploring and dramatizing the lives of characters depicted on its canvas with the most breathtaking and sumptuous visuals. Bruegel, played by Hauer, is seen too, away from the action, painting the people and discussing the meaning behind their placement within the scene, and explaining how the perspective, and perception of those looking upon it, give it meaning. The film is not just an art history lesson, though time would be well spent viewing the film in high school and college art classes as well as film classes, and it is not just a documentary of the meaning of a painting. It is an unfolding story of the painting, and each part is not treated as a mere vignette for the camera to zoom in on and then zoom out before heading to the next section, characters are returned to throughout, narrative motifs are generated, and the whole thing transpires as one living, breathing entity with all the characters interconnected to define Bruegel's vision. There is no dialogue for long stretches, especially in the mill, where the sound design featuring the turning windmill, the howling wind, and the gears turning to mill the wheat dominates, letting the audience truly experience what is going on in the painting. At the close of the film, the camera pulls back from the painting, showing it hanging on the wall of a museum, and continues pulling back, turning down the hall, out of its sight completely, as a visitor might, moving on to the next exhibit, forever unable to return to that moment. But with Majewski's film, one can return, everyday if possible, and experience its truth over and over again. You might be able to approximate the power of this film in your head, if you stared at the painting for an hour and a half, but you cannot really get inside it, even with unlimited time. With The Mill & The Cross, now you can. Imagine the possibilities with other paintings.
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