Robert's Picks: Top Films viewed in 2006

Robert’s Picks: Top Films viewed in 2006
Robert Yahnke (March 2007)

 

Best feature length films viewed in 2006

1. The Departed. Dir. Martin Scorsese. ( USA). He got it right this time. That’s my simple review of this thriller—which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the film. Matt Damon and Leonardo Di Caprio created real characters, and both of them were trapped (one the mole for the cops, and the other the mole for the bad guys). There really was no difference in their level of entrapment, and the tensions that provoked—except for one thing: one was on the side of the bad guys, and the other was on the side of the good guys. But that is a significant difference. So morals mean something. Poor Matt Damon has the beautiful apartment overlooking the State Capitol, the seat of power—but he can never “share in” that power because this cop is a bad cop—he chose the wrong side. Echoes of earlier Scorsese films—in particular Goodfellas, The Gangs of New York, and The Color of Money. The entire film was easy to follow because of the overall structure of parallel editing—cutting from one man’s story to the other man’s story. One brilliant approach to the film was the cutting strategy which Scorsese must have worked out with Thelma Schoonmaker. Every scene seemed to end abruptly, just before the arc of the scene was completed. Conventional editing went out the window: instead this compression via editing pushed the film along at a breakneck pace. Like Hamlet there are few main characters left standing, and the character that would be Horatio does not make a speech on stage as he stands over all the dead bodies. Horatio takes part—he acts—and completes the cycle of violence established early in the film. The ending of this film was brutal—raw, unexpected, hard to stand for because of so much emotional investment in one of the characters, and yet true, a catharsis, providing closure to all the plot strands.
2. Children of Men. Dir. Alfonso Cuaron. ( UK, USA). I was inspired by this film, which combined some of the conventions of Casablanca (the hero who is reunited with his great love, the hero who says he does things for money when he really means that he does things for the right reasons) with good science fiction (an imagined 21 st century Great Britain which has become the ugliest version of Homeland Security imaginable along with its premise that something has made women infertile for almost two decades), and a driving film style reminiscent of Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También (2001)—using a simulated hand-held camera and a quirky style of shooting where the camera often leaves the point of view shot of the main character and moves left or right to reveal a candid scene that would otherwise be taking place off-camera. This film is a film of light—usually a dim blue or blue/green light that dominates the murky life of the future. It is a film of nuances and idiosyncrasies. For instance, several times it is noteworthy that animals seems to enjoy being around Theo. But that trait is not just a quirk of character—it is essential to a character that will embrace life and do all he can to make life survive. It is a character trait—it helps us understand this guy. Likewise, when the brutal cop Sid talks about himself in the third person (“Sid does not care. Sid does not know, and Sid does not want to know”), then you understand that his detachment verges on a schizoid personality. Several times there were scenes here that were compelling in their reality: the scene of Theo and Julian and others fleeing from a killer mob, or the scene of Theo and others trying to jump start a car while the bad guys chase them across a field, or the scene where Theo finds himself in the midst of a fire fight between the police and members of an uprising—and as the shots whiz round him, suddenly there are five blood spatters on the camera lens, and you realize you are trapped in that world of killing with Theo and the others and all could end in any moment. This is a film of ideas, a film to savor, and a film to think about for days afterwards. It is not, as one critic wrote, a simple allegory of the Christ child making an appearance on earth—but it is about the metaphoric weight of children’s laughter, heard in the midst of the day by adults, even those adults without children, and savored for its life-affirming and life-embracing qualities. Sit through the credits of the film and listen to the children’s laughter.
3. The Milk Woman. Dir. Akira Ogata. ( Japan, 2005). The director makes impressive use of landscape as character in this film. The milk woman, a 50-year-old woman named Minako, is the main character in the film, and her job is deliver milk to the people in this small city perched on a hillside in Japan. Several times the camera follows her early-morning progress as she delivers bottle after bottle of milk, carefully placing it in boxes in front of the homes, and often having to run—holding a crate of bottles—up long stairs cut into the hillside in dole out the individual bottles to her patrons. She performs her tasks like an athlete, disciplined and committed to her work. She is a timekeeper of sorts to many of her clients—they can tell time based on her regular appearance. But in one house on the hillside a sad drama is being played out: there a middle-aged man cares for his dying wife. We learn that the husband was a schoolmate of the milk woman. And even more interesting—they once were lovers. In the first 10-15 minutes of this film I was hooked—I was in the world of the film, and I wanted to know what was going to happen between the dying woman’s husband and the milk woman. Would they ever be reunited? What would that mean to both of them? When Minako finally visits the dying woman, Keita’s wife says, “He loves you. I believe you love him. I want you to live together.” Even better, she tells her husband the same thing in the next scene. Now this is what I call great filmmaking: we have a story for the ages here. One woman wants the man she loves to be happy—and she wants him to find happiness with another woman after she dies. What will happen after the wife dies? You know it will happen: they will meet. The plot twist that makes it happen is effortless and believable. In many respects they are similar people. He serves the people of the city directly as a social worker. She serves indirectly as a servant of the people by bringing them life (delivering milk). At one point she says that her dream is to bring milk to everyone in town. But the plot twist at the end of this film—it will shake you, and you will have to decide if you can endure it or not. I can say that it begins with a response from one of the main characters: “Oh, no! Not this!” And yet what happens is as inevitable as the rising of the sun for that character, just as it would be for the other.
4. The Lives of Others. Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. (Germany). This film has one of the most amazing and moving third acts of any film I have seen in recent years. The premise is simple: what happens when a repressive state, like East Germany (before the fall of the Berlin wall), spies upon the lives of its citizens. There are three main characters in the film: a famous playwright, an actress (and his lover), and Hauptmann, a technician, whose job is to sit in the attic for hours and listen in on the interactions of Georg and Christa-Marie. The creation of a parallel-edited set of scenes (showing the main characters interacting in their apartment and shots of the listener at the console in the attic) creates an indelible image of Big Brother that represents, in a larger scope, the entire repressive atmosphere of the German Democratic Republic in the 1980s. The most compelling character is Hauptmann, because he is shown slowly transforming himself from a loyal Party member to a person with evolving tastes. Inevitably, the plot thickens in terms of Georg’s desire to make a political statement against East Germany. He joins with some friends to embark upon a plot to smuggle out an article exposing the high number of suicides in East Germany—a higher rate of suicide than anywhere else in Europe—except for one country: Hungary. Engaging in this plot leads to another ironic plot twist involving Hauptmann, who begins to balance his concern for these people against his supposed loyalty to the State. But file the future plot twists all under the rubric, “Good intentions sometimes go astray.” There is no way the three main characters all can survive this atmosphere of repression. Just when the film ends, in a brutal climax, the third act begins—and we fast forward to the era after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And in this act the film achieves a higher level of emotion and catharsis, events you need to experience first hand in order to have them make sense to you. All I can say is that there is a kind of healing that is achieved in this last act of the film. The good that people do actually does live after them and that is what we choose to remember when we reflect upon all the good and the evil and guilt and betrayals that have been mixed up in our crazy, repressive worlds of experience.
5. The Prestige. Dir. Christopher Nolan.(USA/UK). The first shot in the film is a shot of a pile of black hats in the woods. When we return to the scene of the black hats later in the film, there is a moment when I realized what had happened—and that meant that you can believe nothing that you see in this film. This film does the Illusionist one better. In that film, I thought there was real magic—a magic beyond magic—and I was wrong. But in this film there is real magic beyond magic, and it is frightening. What it all boils down to is a competition between two great magicians, one played by Hugh Jackman and the other by Christian Bale. It’s hard to say who wins the competition, but it is safe to say that one will be left standing when the competition is over. So you have love, betrayal, and—more important—you have obsession and revenge—great motivators for a psychological drama. You have the obsession of the magician to identify the perfect magic act, the one that no one else has ever seen and no one else will ever be able to duplicate. You have the byproducts of such obsessions: monomania, pride that goeth before the Fall, murderous rages and malevolent wills. And thank God you have Michael Caine, who is fast developing a reputation for being one of the greatest supporting actors in the business. He is brilliant as an impresario who works with Hugh Jackman and is with him to the very end. But I warn you: this film is about magic, and the basic of magic is not to believe what you see—even with your own eyes. If that wasn’t the case, then there would be no magic, correct?
6. Zozo. Dir. Josef Fares. ( Sweden, 2005). The film begins with an idyllic scene of Zozo’s family at the beach—too idyllic, film viewers should recognize. That scene is shorthand for an impending loss. Cut to Beirut in 1987, and we follow Zozo and friends in typical pre-puberty growing up scenes. Now how will the film end? I predict it will end with another idyllic moment (and it does), but by that time we will have watched this boy survive the loss of his parents, a strange immigration to Sweden, an intolerable burden of bullying from some of his classmates, and finally his own acceptance of his losses and his perseverance to begin anew. He is his family’s remnant—worth saving—and when he makes it to Sweden, and lives with his grandparents, he finds two more worthy guides to aid his journey to a safer world. The old grandfather is a wonder. All he wants for Zozo is that his grandson become strong—like his grandfather. The old man has a good idea of rough justice (especially in one scene—where he determines an effective means of combating bullying, even though it would be impossible to pull off because of society’s rules), and even more important he gives the boy a foundation for accepting the past an making his way into the future.
7. Hollywoodland. Dir. Allen Coulter. ( USA). The first key to the success of this film was that as we watched Brody’s character spiral downward into despair, we figured out that his psychological collapse was a mirror of Superman’s own psychological decline. The second key to the success of this film was that the director gave us three plausible versions of the death of George Reeves—an accidental killing, a mob hit, and a suicide. Take your pick. What I mean is that you as a viewer are given the same choices that are shown to Louis Simo; which of those truths can you wrap your arms around and make your own truth? Even more compelling was the climax of the film, where Louis Simo is actually inside the house as he imagines another version of the death of George Reeves. He is an intimate witness of this final version of Superman’s death—and it was compellingly filmed by the director. The film evokes the fragility of the truth—how we believe what we wish to believe, or what we are sold to believe, and finally what we will believe because it fits our values and our vision of life. Getting to that last stage, where we embrace a truth because it reinforces our own identities, values, and hopes (and fears), is an amazing accomplishment. Poor George Reeves. He so wanted to be a movie star. That was his tragic flaw, after all—not to realize the irony of Somerset Maugham’s words, “Mediocre people are always at their best.” There is much more to the Louis Simo story—another case he works on, his relationship with George Reeve’s mother. But again the point of the film is to watch this character descend toward despair, finally pick himself up again, keep working to figure out what really happened to George Reeves, and then finally—in a brilliant scene—to have the revelation of the truth about Reeves’ death that will work for him personally.
8. Notes on a Scandal. Dir. Richard Eyre. ( UK). So often we go to a film to see what two heavyweights of acting will do when they are paired. In this case, Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench are the heavyweights of acting, and they spar beautifully early in the film until the climactic round when the two go toe to toe—right in each other’s face—and you believe every moment of it. The film uses a simple technique: much of the action is narrated by Judi Dench’s character, Barbara, a frumpy old woman who has taught for too many years at an urban school and has decided that her students are, for the most part, underachieving and practically hopeless. When the new teacher, Cate Blanchett ( Sheba), arrives, at first it appears as if the old teacher is taking an interest in her because Sheba is curiously naïve and bohemian—a pleasant diversion perhaps in the old woman’s otherwise boring life. But something more happens than this: upon first sight of the young teacher Barbara is smitten—that’s the only way to put it. She is smitten by the young woman’s radiant beauty, naïvete, and her utter embrace of the possibilities of life. You see, Sheba thinks she can make a difference in the lives of her students. She hasn’t learned enough to become cynical and bored. And as we listen to Barbara’s self-delusional narration, we realize that Sheba is being sucked into Barbara’s web. A film like this offers a particular and perfect study of sociopathic behavior. At the end of the film, what is there left to show? The characters have drained themselves of all feelings of betrayal, rage, and guilt. Only Babs has remained a boulder of steadfastness. She does not change because she is incapable of change. She simply moves on—not in an unexpected way, and your last response to the film is that feeling of being gripped by a deeply-felt shiver of icy dread.
9. Bluebird. Dir. Mijke De Jong. ( Netherlands, 2004). I was deeply affected by this film about the effects of bullying. The first scenes are a “day-in-the-life” of Merel, a 12-year-old girl, a good student, a swimmer, a skateboarder, who is bullied after school, and at home that night reads to her younger brother, Kasper, who is seriously disabled (a Thalidomide baby). The primary intimacy in her life appears to be with her brother Kasper. At the end of the day we see her looking at herself in a mirror in her room. She is on the cusp of puberty, and she still feels awkward, anxious, and uncomfortable with her body. She needs be left alone by the bullies at school so that she can work on her own adolescent crisis. But that does not happen. The bullying continues. As her adolescence spirals downward, she keeps acting out her rage at not being understood and at not being affirmed. I was overwhelmed by sympathy as well as anxiety as the film went on, because I was afraid that at some point the bullies would be provoked to make a sexual assault on Merel.
10. The Proposition. Dir. John Hillcoat. ( Australia, UK, 2005). In this film the West is grimy, gritty, crude, and brutal—just like the people that occupy it. The “proposition” of the title is simple: A lawman apprehends a notorious outlaw and gives him 9 days to kill his older brother, or else they'll execute his younger brother. But this proposition needs to be fleshed out a bit. First, the lawman is one of the most brutal characters I have ever seen in a film. He’s the type of character who will say, “I will civilize the land,” and at the same time commit unspeakable and uncivilized acts of brutality to achieve his goals. But then we must spend a moment analyzing the character the lawman wants—Arthur Burns, the head of the gang behind the Hopkins Massacre (shown in the first scene of the film). Arthur, played deliciously by Danny Huston (in a role that allows him to express evil in ways that he could not touch in his characterization of the bad guy in The Titanic), is a match for the lawman in terms of his amorality, uncompromising brutality, and his thirst for blood and vengeance. Now throw in the mix the fellow caught in between—his brother Charlie (played adeptly by Guy Pearce). Charlie is the quintessential Western hero: he is silent, a part of the fabric of the landscape, caught between the limits of civilization and the expanses of the Western landscape—and most important of all, someone who has to act at some point in some decisive way to provide closure in the film. Of course, don’t forget that Charlie and Arthur are brothers. So how can one brother slay another brother, even if that means saving a third brother? Shades of Cain and Abel. The climactic scene of the film is one where the brutality skates on the edge of bearability—but in essence it is that intensity of the brutal that finally forces Charlie to act. But earlier scenes include a graphic rape scene, a scene where one man kicks another man to death, and a scene where a young man (the brother held hostage) receives 40 lashes and almost dies from the beating. A film like this one does not waver from its mission. All of the evil is played out according to the characters who perpetrate that evil—and finally there is a catharsis and it is swift and it is just and it provides closure.
11. Pan's Labyrinth. Dir. Guillermo del Toro. ( Mexico, Spain). This film brilliantly realized the fantasy life of a young girl at a crucial stage in her life—right on the cusp of adolescence, living with her mother and a stepfather who was as cruel as any stepfather could be, and all this during the end of WWII in Franco’s Spain, when the remaining loyalists were being rooted out of the countryside by the fascists. I was mesmerized by the girl’s fantasy world—and I believed it, as I think we need to believe in a parallel universe where faeries exists and where princesses take on their roles and responsibilities in order to create a better world. In that fantastic world, peace and prosperity are in the hands of the princess, who must accomplish three mysterious tasks in order to succeed. Ofelia is visited by a huge faun, and he assigns her the three tasks. First she confronts a giant toad underground, and she is more than a match for his ugliness and meanness. She confronts another monster—and she has a harrowing escape that was as tense as any scene can be. Of course, I kept asking myself, “What is the function of these tasks? Why has she been picked? Is all of this real or just in her imagination?” I kept rooting for the girl to succeed in her three assigned tasks. Then comes the climax—and we realize that we are in the real world, not a fantasy world, and that horrible, unexpected, and inexplicable things occur in this real world. But there is another world, a world of the imagination (perhaps mostly the province of the young?) where children can engage in combat with monsters and prevail because they are pure at heart. In that world hope resides for the world we live in. In that world our lead character finds resolution, peace, harmony, and family unity. What this film does is offer us both worlds, one in one hand and one in the other hand, and I think we are to see that both are real.
12. Heading South Dir. Laurent Cantet. ( France, 2005). This story of middle-class middle-aged women in the 1970s spending their holidays at a remote resort in Haiti, where they can spend the day around the pool or on the beach, enjoy casual sex with Haitian men, and enjoy a private paradise away from the world, at turns provoked anxiety, anger, and sadness. In many ways the women’s mores were pathetic. Even worse, their lives were desperate and lonely—except for the few weeks they spent at this resort every year. Of course, they never saw the real Haiti because that would be a dangerous and foolhardy move on their part. They spent their time in an insulated bubble of security and fantasy. I learned to empathize with these women. One of the best things about this film was the depiction of how women support each other and affirm each other through thick and thin—even after they have engaged in numerous battles with each other. Still, they understand at some deep level that many of their experiences are universal ones—they understand what other women go through, and they show compassion appropriately. Everyone in the film is trapped in one way or the other.
13. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. Dir. Michael Winterbottom. ( UK, 2005). Yes, I was an English major, yes, and I read Laurence Stern’s 18th century novel and was in awe of it at the time. Now 35 years later one of my favorite UK directors has made a film of it, and it works. It probes parallel universes. One is the genteel age of the 18th century wealthy class and their estates, the strict division of roles of men and women in the 18th century, and the hobbyhorses (Stern’s word) of the male characters (particularly Uncle Toby). This universe is compared to the 21st century filmmaking crew attempting to film the unfilmable novel. Now we deal with modern egos (especially of the actor playing Tristram), with the blurring roles of men and women in contemporary society, and the determined artists that play their roles in support of the overall production. The film moves with the same fits and starts as the novel. “I am not yet born” is Tristram’s refrain as he tries to tell his story. The modern version of this world (dominated by the film crew), leads to the most essential of film themes—transformation. In this case it is the possible transformation of the male lead playing Tristram. He has a beautiful wife and a new baby, but he has not yet invested himself in their lives. This is a film for people who know and love film—and who can accept the truth that the way a story is told has as much meaning as the content of the story. In fact, how it is told may well be the same as content.
14. Blood Diamond. Dir.Edward Zwick. ( USA). We can thank Casablanca again for another version of the classic plot: a young man has found a corner of his world that he can control (by trading in illegal diamonds), and nothing is going to shake him out of this security—unless. . . . Well, that’s the set-up for this story. As soon as Leonardo DeCaprio appeared in the film, I was interested. He lit up the screen. His delivery of lines (including Pidgeon English), his accent, just the way he carries himself within the shot: everything adds up to the creation of a character—Danny Archer. There is joy in watching great actors playing off one against the other—and that was obvious in this film, especially in the interactions between DeCaprio and Jennifer Connelly and DeCaprio and Djimon Hounsou. Yes, it’s too much to expect that all three of the main characters will achieve their goals—although when one of the characters says, “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,” that line feels perfect, and it reminds me of what Bogie would have said to Captain Renault in a scene that would have taken place some time after that airport scene at the end of the film.
15. Little Miss Sunshine. Dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris. ( USA) . Here you have a rogue’s gallery of characters: each character an isolato, alone in the world. The mother is caught in the middle. The grandfather and the little girl (who will enter a Little Miss Sunshine contest) are the power brokers of the family. The father, played perfectly by Greg Kinnear, is helpless. He wants to be the powerful Dad, the breadwinner, the provider and protector, but he lacks the inner resources to make it all happen. He is undermined by self-doubt. He wants to be rapacious—because real men are that way—but he lacks the killer instinct. He says he hates losers—but he says that only because he has bought the manipulative hype of a Tony Robbins type of guru. So he stoops to becoming a tyrant, the only real role left him. Even there he is less than effective. Who are these people? How did they ever find each other? Well, one thing is for sure: we do NOT choose our families! They are thrust upon us, and we have to endure them. Fortunately, the film wastes little time in getting us on the road—and when it becomes a road movie, it soars.
16. Babel . Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. ( France, USA, Mexico). The director interweaves four stories, one of an estranged couple touring Morocco, one of a Moroccan goat herder and his two children, one of a Mexican maid who cares for two small children in San Diego, and one of a deaf Japanese girl grieving her mother’s suicide. The connections among the three stories were sometimes profound, but sometimes tangential. I think the weakest link in the four stories was the one of the Mexican maid and her two small charges. The other three stories were interrelated by causality—a gun is given away and then sold to another person, that gun is used when another person is shot, and the shooting affects in a direct way the American couple (one of whom is shot), the Japanese father and son (he gave away the weapon), and the Moroccan father of the two boys (who suffers in the end for his two boys’ Cain and Abel behavior). The story of the American couple is the emotional heart of this film—the story of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s horrific crisis in Morocco, when she is shot while riding in a tourist bus with her husband—and shot by one of the goat herder’s boys, who is showing off his skills with a rifle his father buys in the first scene in the bus. The acting between Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt helped convey the emotional depth of their crisis. I believed in their story wholeheartedly, and it was the one segment that meant most to me as a viewer. But the problem of combining this story with three other stories is that just when a climactic or high-energy moment occurred in the couple’s story, the director cut away to one of the three other stories. The director suggests how difficult it is to connect across cultures in this world. By creating a multicultural set of stories ( Mexico, USA, Morocco, and Japan), the writer and director are also suggesting that communication is compromised by the babel of voices that bounce off one another. This idea is most obvious in the story of the deaf girl and her frustrating interactions in the non-deaf culture.
17. The Illusionist. Dir. Neil Burger. ( Czech Republic, USA) . I saw this film before I saw The Prestige, and I’m glad I saw it—because it delivers an appealing product—something akin to a children’s book or a fable. In this film about a magician, the main character, Eisenheim (Edward Norton), is a great magician who is separated from his childhood love, Sophie, to a great extent because they are from different classes. Sophie is a princess, and Norton is a commoner. So the rest of the film focuses on a good man, the magician, being dogged by an insufferable Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), mostly at the behest of the nasty and equally insufferable future king of Austria—who views Eisenheim as a threat to his throne. when Sophie is betrothed to the future king, poor Eisenheim is trapped. There is no way out. No magician can alter that plot twist—do you agree? Ah, but soon we are under the magician’s spell in ways we cannot hope to understand—until all is revealed at the end of the film. First, we have the wonderful score by Phillip Glass, whose convoluted melodies set the perfect mood for the mysterious inner workings of the human mind—the magician’s mind—as he works on this problem. Remember, dear reader, that people see the truths they wish to see. The magician relies upon that old adage. There is no such thing as the truth; the truth is only what you believe to be the truth. I give credit to Paul Giamatti for playing the social-climbing chief inspector with as much pizzazz as an actor portraying the famous Hercule Poirot. We understand his motivation—although we also understand that at bottom he is a good man. Eventually the climax will come as the real plot of betrayal is unraveled at last.
18. V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. ( UK, 2005). The film’s screenplay drops some great lines: “You cannot kiss an idea,” “People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people,” “God is in the rain,” “A revolution without dancing is a revolution not wroth having,” and “ideas are bulletproof.” What ratchets this film up to a higher level is the way suspense is built from a well-constructed parallel-edited set of scenes—one set following V and Evey’s relationship, and one set following the pursuit of the terrorists by a good cop, played effectively by Stephen Rea—in what I think was his finest performance since The Crying Game. Of course, with parallel editing structure you have to expect that the resolution of the two strands will come together in a big way—in this case when the good cop confronts Evey in a tube station and tries to persuade her, at first, not to throw the switch and send the train (laden with dynamite) hurtling underground to explode at the Houses of Parliament on the Thames. So this is a film about the best weapon against ignorance and intolerance and fear—and that weapon is hope. I appreciated the major plot twist in the film, which is set up when Evey asks V that she wishes she could be strong like her parents were. “If you wish,” he says. When that plot point is delivered, and we hear Valerie’s story, again I was impressed to find out how Valerie’s story connected to V’s story.
19. Mountain Patrol: Kekexili. Dir. Chaun Lu. ( China, 2004). A film like this transports you to a New World, introduces you to vivid characters, and conveys timeless themes. In this case, the Tibetans in the film are shown trying to protect a rare antelope that is being hunted to near extinction. In fact, since 1983 the numbers diminished from 1 million to about 10,000 animals. The film starts fast with a brutal scene, and it portrays the world of these people honestly and without sentimentality. A journalist character is introduced in order to provide the eyes and ears of the audience. Such a character exists in order to provide reaction shots. He is the Zhivago of Dr. Zhivago—the participant-observer. He will survive, of course, in order to tell his story—but some of the other characters will not survive. I appreciated one of the filmmaker’s essential techniques: using lots of deep-focus shots (character in foreground while we see background all in focus). The head of the Mountain Patrol was one tough character—as memorable as a main character in a Kurosawa film. One of the key themes is the way men find camaraderie and meaning as part of a team—men with a common purpose. These men, like soldiers, will die for each other. Another theme is the epic of survival in a hostile mountain environment.
20. The Last King of Scotland. Dir. Kevin MacDonald. ( UK). At first, this film seemed to be the conventional story of an historical or iconic figure is viewed through the eyes of an everyman. In this case, the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin viewed through the eyes of a young doctor who becomes his personal physician. And Forest Whitaker was Idi Amin—a performance to remember—and a performance enhanced by clever direction to emphasize the way this character dominated every encounter, from the first great outdoors speech to the intimate one-to-one moments in dark rooms. That first time we see Amin was captivating: it began with a point of view shot from behind the character, and when it cut to the reverse angle, he raised his arms and almost filled the frame. He was large, commanding, and a great populist hero to the people. Yet there are subtle hints of the brutality to come; for example, in this first great speech scene, there are reaction shots of one of the soldiers standing guard—and there is a look of perfect absence of feeling in his face. And there are moments when we can see glimpses of Amin’s own capacity for brutality in these early scenes. Eventually, however, the film became Garrigan’s story—not Amin’s story—and at first I was disappointed with that turn of events. Suddenly the plot twists all revolved around Garrigan’s life. Not only has he been sucked in by a powerful charismatic leader, he begins to cooperate with Amin in some not-so-subtle ways. His hands are bloodied when he fingers an innocent man, in order to curry favor, and then he becomes sexually involved with one of Amin’s wives.
21. Volver. Dir. Pedro Almodovar. ( Spain). When I left the cinema, I turned to wife and said, “That was one of the best plays I have seen in a long time.” The only fault I find in this film is that it was, quite simply, not cinematic. This is a film about women and their ability to survive in a world dominated by men. Almodóvar introduces the subject of spousal and child abuse, and he submits that sometimes the only way out for a woman is to resort to violence against her abuser. Along the way we hear a character say, “It’s really hard when a daughter doesn’t love her mother.” There’s a theme for you. The healing of mother-daughter bonds, the ability to forgive another, the restoration of a family: these are the themes of this wonderful film.

Two Great Animated Films

Cars. Dir. Jon Lasseter. ( USA). It may seem crazy, but the key to this film is that everyone of the characters is either a car or a vehicle of some kind. There are no people—and yet all of the vehicles act like and sound like people. An example: early in the film when we see the Nascar race-track scenes, all of the folks in the stadium are cars—not people! I know this sounds simple; but it was important in the culture of this film because it created consistency of character that contributed to an entire world that was based on an inexorable truth: the world was populated by cars (or trucks, or tow-trucks, or vans, etc.). Let me put that another way: the cars were characters in this film. And the destiny of characters is inextricably bound up in the way they view life, what they value in life, and what they are willing to give up in order to change. There are so many lessons in the film—that it is better to be part of a community rather than an isolated egotist, that elders still have much to teach the young, that the simple life is better than the helter-skelter rat race, that winning is not everything, that good people always prevail, that integrity is the best ace-under-your-sleeve, and that love conquers all. The film pays homage to the era before the mediocre sameness of the Interstate—when idiosyncratic towns were strung along highways like Route 66, and where the people you met were original characters.

Flushed Away. Dir. David Bowers & Sam Fell. ( UK). Aardman Art’s recreation of the city of London underground (recreated by the rat population in the sewers) was perfect. Here was a fully-realized world underground, populated with the same kinds of folks that are above-ground: some good, some bad, and some ugly. Almost every moment underground was a winning scene to me. Here were some of the other magic ingredients of this film: the evil sidekicks, the big white rat and the little rat, a perfect comedy team of knuckleheads; the great vindictive Toad villain, voiced by Ian McKellen; the self-centered karate-expert Frog, voiced by Jean Reno; and finally the solid voice talent displayed by Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet. As in all other Aardman films, the voices are the starting point for the animation. It is easy to believe the voices match the character and vice-versa. I think one of the keys to the success of the film is that it creates a kind of Dickensian world inhabited by characters who are caricatures of themselves. Every character is marked by vulnerability and at the same time bluff. As in all Aardman films there is a fascination with the unwieldy and Rube-Goldberg-like mechanical world, where assembly lines chug alone and turn out thousands of widgets. Sometimes you want to scream, “Will somebody hit the emergency button and turn off the assembly line!” There is such joy and movement and passion in a film like this. And of course there is a serious point: the emphasis on one’s grounding in identity and affection within the context of family.

Best Documentaries viewed in 2006

 

1. Shut Up and Sing. Dir. Barbara Kopple. ( USA). There is such a thing as trusting that a certain director knows how make a great documentary. I would suggest viewers get to know Barbara Kopple’s work. She is famous for documentaries on coal miners in Kentucky (Harlan County, USA), on striking meatpackers in Minnesota (American Dream), and a revealing character study of Woody Allen (Wild Man Blues). She is adept at storytelling, structure of a documentary, and revelation of character. She knows how to get maximum use out of direct cinema scenes (uncontrolled documentary)—the heart of any great documentary. In this case, she helped me understand something about a world I know next to nothing about. I had heard, of course, that the musical group the Dixie Chicks had been boycotted because one of them spoke against President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. I knew enough to agree with their point of view and to expect that their criticism of a popular policy would make the blood boil of those conforming souls in our country. The one thing I didn’t understand was who were these women and what made them tick? Right off, I have to report that my stereotype of the Dixie Chicks was that they were not articulate and that they were not entirely bright. This film proved me wrong, and the key element of the success of the documentary is that Kopple slowly unfolded that storyline so that I was drawn into the world of their downfall and made to understand what it took for them to make their comeback. The key point in the film is when the group receives a death threat (the murder would take place at a tour stop). Kopple uses that scene to help us understand the extent to which true believers will stop at nothing to get their way. The documentary begins in the present, but flashes back to 2003 with the one sentence spoken by the lead singer: “We’re ashamed that the President is from Texas.” Now that their patriotism has been questioned—their success as a musical group is shut down by a combination of social and political forces. Soon this film began to educate me: I learned that these women are great musicians. I learned these women--especially the lead singer Natalie, are articulate and intelligent and have a well-developed value system. Then I realized that this was a woman’s film, a film that explored women’s sensibilities and values. I understood the title of the song: Shut up and sing! That’s what the conforming folks want: don’t rock the boat, don’t upset the applecart, don’t worry—be happy, just follow authority and everything will be okay. So many people complain about celebrities speaking their political truths. Why shouldn’t they be able to speak up just as ordinary people should be able to speak up? But there is that strand in our country: just shut up and do your job. Just shut up and pick up your paycheck and pay your mortgage and your parking tickets. Direct cinema is at the heart of this film: scenes of the women just sitting around and talking about what’s on their minds at that moment, or talking about the music, about the arrangements, talking with their manager, talking about children, and being themselves. These women stuck together. They were in charge of their destiny. They turned the easy big bucks and made their own way. I was impressed.
2. 51 Birch Street . Dir. Doug Block. ( USA, 2005). This was an unsettling documentary, a kind of detective story (from the son’s point of view) of the truth behind his parents’ marriage. I thought Doug Block did an excellent job of story-telling as well as managing the visual medium effectively. Two of the key plot point in the film are 1) Block’s mother dies suddenly, after being married for more than 50 years to her husband, and 2) three months later Dad remarries his former secretary and plans to move from New York to Florida, where she had been living. The third plot point worth highlighting is that Doug, the youngest of three children, and the only boy in the family, was exceptionally close to his mother—or at least he thought he was close to her. But what Block learns compels him to revise his judgments. At first, when Dad announces his upcoming second marriage, he is even a worse villain than before. Suddenly Doug begins doing some research about his father. He learns that his secretary attended his own Bar Mitzvah in 1964; he learns that his father made regular trips to Florida over the years—to have sex with Kitty, his second wife? And then the fourth and most unbelievable plot point hits home. Upon cleaning out the New York house, Doug discovers a box of journals written by his mother over the years. He asks, “Do I have the right to read them?” In my notes I wrote, “He has to read these journals.” What does he learn in those journals? Her mother (and even his father) were in psychotherapy for many years, but in her journals his mother was rhapsodic about the impact of the therapy on her life. Her entries on her therapist were a version of love letters to that therapist. In the journal she is regenerated—she is passionate, fully engaged—alive! Now does that mean that she had an affair with her therapist? You have to decide for yourself. Do you think the father had a longstanding affair with Kitty over the years? Decide for yourself? Should Doug Block have made use of his mother’s journal entries throughout the documentary? Decide for yourself. At one point the son asks his father if he ever cheated on Mom! Can you imagine asking that question of your parent. The old man says he never did. Do you believe him? Decide for yourself. What I conclude is that in the process of making this film Doug Block has lost something in his emotional life. He was wounded in this process, and so he faces a difficult healing process.
3. The Heart of the Game. Dir. Ward Serrill. ( USA). This film moved about as quickly as a good pressing attack by a basketball team. I was drawn into the world of this film in no time—with its opening segment showing the coaching philosophy of this wild-and-crazy new high school coach, Bill Resler, and the play-to-kill philosophy embraced by the girls on his team. This film cracked gender stereotypes right in half! This was a female Hoop Dreams! It has a coach with as much energy and passion as the Marshall High School coach in Hoop Dreams. (In fact, it even added a second passionate coach in Joyce Walker, a former WNBA player who coaches Resler’s arch-rival high school squad. The film provided insights into specific players, especially the star on an early team who kept a dark secret, and then later the big star, Darnellia Russell and her hard-luck story, her background of poverty, and the trials of being a parent as well as a basketball player. Resler’s undying affirmation of these students is his guiding principle in life. The coach, Bill Resler, is really the star of this film. Without his character and personality nothing else would have happened that would have been worthy of note. He is the guiding star of the film; he is the pole star—and all the other stars revolve around him. He comes up with these crazy seasonal themes for the team—like Magical Journey, or Pack of Wolves. One of his players admits those themes are downright hokey—and yet they work. He taps into the world of these young women and captures their spirits and their imaginations. That’s what makes the difference.
4. Wordplay. Dir. Patrick Creadon. ( USA). This documentary is about the allure of crossword puzzles and the obsessed individuals who compete to be the best at the game. Why do we solve puzzles? What is it about puzzles that obsesses us? The film does an excellent job of providing a portrait of the crossword-puzzle guru, Will Shortz, as well as portraits of several of the best puzzle constructers and players. As you might expect, it will end with the annual championship tournament overseen by Will Shortz. But along the way it will entertain you and move you with its art. The director utilizes several montages to speed up the movie and add to the whimsy of the story. For instance, we see several people beginning to work on the same puzzle, or we see a montage of players on the first day of the big tournament, or a great scene of the players relaxing after a talent show night. One section focuses on puzzle constructors, and as we watch one master at work on a puzzle, we really get an insight into how the minds of crossword puzzle constructors work. Then we are introduced to some of the big players, Jon Delfin (a pianist), Al Sanders (who has finished 3rd at least three times), Tyler Hinman (college student), and Trip Payne (a former winner). No doubt about it: the big championship match is the pay-off for this film. One montage follows another, and by the last day of competition, when two players are left to face off against one another, and we are all worn down by the suspense. Who will finally win? It comes as a surprise to all of us, I think, and I don’t want to give it away here.

 

Other Recommended Films (in alphabetical order):

Borat
The Good Shepherd
An Inconvenient Truth
49-Up (Documentary)
Keeping Mum
Jesus Camp (documentary)
Lassie ( UK, 2005)
Little Children
The Queen ( UK)
Rocky Balboa
Scoop
Sisters in Law ( Cameroon, 2005)—documentary.
United 93
The War Tapes
Water ( India, 2005)

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Copyright 2007, Robert E. Yahnke.