Top 20 Films of 2016

I've put off posting my favorite films of 2016 too long. The laziness must end before 2018!

Last year saw Hollywood studios determined to push ever onward down the same well-rutted road despite record-setting financial failures. The curtain of generic superhero uniformity still smothered the multiplexes, but it was pierced here and there by little stabs of originality through which hints of a more complicated moral universe flickered. A serious renewal in terms of substance, style, and structure has yet to emerge, but maybe there's hope.

More exciting is the huge number of debuts and breakthroughs in 2016, with major new voices both inside the US and abroad. I call out a few below. My picks are all over the place, and I struggled to spot a pattern. Maybe the only thing they have in common is an ability to sustain deep and opinionated conversations. In a time where the culture wars of the 1960s and 70s have escalated to all-new heights, perhaps that's the best gift cinema can give us.

So without further ado, my top 20 of 2016 (counting down, of course):'


20) Chevalier

Six Greek men on a yacht obsess over who is best, competing in a bizarre tournament with dubious criteria ranging from how you look when you sleep to building IKEA furniture. A snapshot of contemporary masculinity in self-defeating crisis. Bonus trivia: Chevalier joins K-19: The Widowmaker, The Descent, and The Women (1939) among films featuring exclusively a single gender, but directed by the opposite gender.


19) The Wailing

South Korea's underrated Na Hong-jin serves up a long, dark, and enigmatic horror-mystery about a an ineffective cop investigating a local outbreak: a feverish rash that culminates in violent insanity. He tracks down a Japanese hermit who's either perpetrator or protector. Demons plague the hills. Doubt plagues his heart.


18) Elle

Isabelle Huppert plays Michele Leblanc, a no-nonsense video game designer who has a complicated response to being raped during a traumatic home invasion. Huppert's icy intensity sells a role that should be completely ridiculous; she's the daughter of a serial killer as just one barely-relevant aside. Veteran director Verhoeven learned French in order to direct her.


17) 20th Century Women

Annette Benning, Elle Fanning, and Greta Gerwig are the 20th century (1979, to be specific) women of the title. Collectively they turn in one of the most likable ensemble performances of the year. They shape the life of well-meaning Jamie, based on director Mike Mills as a teenager, who's unfortunately the official "center" of a film that barely needs him. Fortunately the sensitive and funny script rescues this from becoming just another good-guy-coming-of-age nostalgia-fest.


16) Eye in the Sky

The ethics of drone warfare play out via a joint UK-Kenyan anti-terrorist operation. A tense, well-cast, and extremely topical thriller that lives a second life in the debates you'll have afterwards.


15) O.J.: Made in America

A hugely-compelling 467-minute documentary, complete with historical context and in-depth cultural analysis, on orange juice production and distribution in America.


14) Moonlight

A coming-of-age triptych following one man's early life and first love, with sexual identity, race, and poverty not giving him any easy breaks. Moonlight is a cultural milestone, an underdog award-winning masterpiece, and a beautiful heartfelt story. Best of all, every indication is that director Barry Jenkins is just getting started.


13) The Fits

Toni is an 11-year-old boxer who decides to go in for dance. She watches the older girls: their physical confidence, their tough talk, their feminine sexuality. When an epidemic of unexplained fits creeps across her school, she watches that too. Inspirational sports/music movies take place on the surface, where we literally see and hear everything. The Fits is something else. It operates underneath.


12) The Handmaiden

Sarah Water's Dickensian novel about British con artists, lesbian lovers, and rare books is transposed to 1930s South Korea. This is the sexy, twisty, period piece thriller you didn't know you needed!


11) La La Land

You saw it. You have a strong opinion. It made me smile all over the place, and I hate smiling, so save your "overrated" and "they can't sing/dance" stuff for someone else.


10) Midnight Special

Jeff Nichols, the master of rural noir, my favorite micro-genre, mixes in some sci-fi and road movie to deliver Midnight Special. Two men transport a messianic telekinetic child to a mysterious rendezvous point in the Southern swamplands, while pursued by the NSA and a cult. Dusky cinematography and an accent-infested cast also help.


9) Hell or High Water

Speaking of rural noir! Wikipedia also calls this a "neo-Western" which will do equally well. See this for Jeff Bridges doing full-on Jeff Bridges. Or in case you were ever thinking of robbing a bank in West Texas (TLDR: everyone has a gun). Music by Nick Cave.


8) The Salesman

Every film by Asghar Farhadi is gold. His territory is the precise elevation where the moral high-ground shifts beneath you, and the rockslide starts to gain momentum. In The Salesman, a couple move into a new apartment. Off-screen, Rana is surprised by an unexpected intruder. Her husband, Emad, struggles to understand what happened, why, and who to blame. Like Farhadi at his best, there are no clear, easy answers.


7) The Witch

A stubborn Puritan exile homesteads his family in a godforsaken New England meadow circa 1600s. When their newborn disappears, the patriarch suspects a supernatural threat, and consumed by mounting paranoia, turns on his own daughter. Who'd have guessed that the year's most harrowing horror film would be delivered in difficult-to-decipher but utterly rich vernacular dialog?


6) Jackie

Jacqueline Kennedy (portrayed by Natalie Portman) recounts her days in the immediate aftermath of her husband's assassination. Putting Pablo Larrain, a politically-minded Chilean, at the helm of a Kennedy profile is bold (US - Latin America relations being what they were), and partially accounts for the depth and ambiguity rarely seen in patriotic biopics. The formal rigor of the compositions, editing, and sound design are highlights. Discordant music breaks the hermetic seal.


5) Toni Erdmann

So very good, and yet hard to classify or explain. A futile and useless summary: unhappy businesswoman is visited by prankster father. Only slightly better: a character-driven cringe comedy woven from criss-crossing contradictory emotions. Perhaps I had better pitch it based on its unforgettable dinner party scene or as a modernist family drama sustained with wry humor for almost 3 hours primarily on the painfully honest non-chemistry of two non-heroes. Director Maren Ade is another talent to watch.


4) Arrival

Towering black extraterrestrial ellipsoids position themselves around the globe. Governments scramble to understand the technology, the intentions, and, most critically, the language of these cryptic visitors. The US military tasks a linguist (Amy Adams) to make meaningful contact. This is the type of ambitious, cerebral, and yet supremely entertaining genre film I miss. A master class in the possibilities of visual storytelling. Denis Villeneuve may be my favorite director at work today; but can he pull off a Blade Runner sequel?


3) The Lobster

Imagine a European hotel where you can stay for 45 days. You must either fall in love with another guest or be turned into an animal of your choice. You can hunt loners, vagrant forest-dwelling locals, to extend your time. David (Colin Farrell) is shy, lonely, has poor eyesight. If cupid does not intervene, his chosen animal is the lobster. You need a taste for dark, imaginative, deadpan comedy to enjoy this, but if that's your thing, you're in for a very rare treat.


2) Manchester by the Sea

Lee (Casey Affleck) inherits custody of his brother's son, teenager Patrick (much-lauded newcomer Kyle Chandler), much to their mutual chagrin. As they bond, they slowly open up. We see the still-raw nerves of Lee's broken past and Patrick's inarticulate hunger for guidance. An uncompromising depiction of grief and getting by, one day at a time. Writer-director Lonergan (You Can Count On Me, Margaret) is 3 for 3 in my books.


1) The Forbidden Room

What is this? Your grandpa's old instructional bathing tapes? A recovered crooner-era music video about brain surgery and pygophilia? Why is squid theft the greatest crime? How can a saplingjack (an apprentice lumberjack) just "shows up" aboard a submarine deep below the ocean surface? Are those lithesome skeleton women secretly perpetrating insurance fraud? Can perusing even "The Book of Climaxes" tie this mess together?

Canadian experimental pioneer Guy Maddin segues with unpredictable dream logic between dozens of sparkling interlinked stories, depicted in an encyclopedic array of silent and early sound era techniques complete with artful deterioration and distortion. What is it? "Dreams! Visions! Madness!" Not for all tastes.

Some honorable mentions: Victoria, 13th, Don't Breathe, Nocturnal Animals, Zootopia, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dheepan, Don't Breathe

SLIFF 2014: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Title: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Country: Iran

Rating: 8.5

                Have you ever been to the Iranian netherworld of Bad City? No? Well it’s awesome! Black and white, ultra-hip, throbbing with 80’s music and vintage cars. Of course, it is ravaged by plague, haunted by vampires and burdened by drugs, crime and male violence. But nowhere is perfect.

                I could talk to you about plot. There’s a young guy who appropriates a cat. And this cat gives a great performance! And the dude’s trying to pay off his dad’s debts, the legacy of an opium addiction. He meets a rich girl and something starts to spark, but he steals her earrings instead of her heart. The girl he falls for next is a bit more bohemian, and a vampire. They meet after he leaves a party high, dressed as Dracula, and asks her for directions. Every second of the scene is witty. Oh, and they have a prostitute friend in common. But not like that sounds.

                So yeah, the plot isn’t really the point. Director Ana Lily Amirpour is more interested in making individual shots and scenes work then in worrying about the big picture. That’s mostly fine with me. Especially since the shots, immaculately lit, crisply composed and tightly staged, are so incredibly good. That said, A Girl Walks Home isn’t exactly style-over-substance: the subtext here is frightfully loaded with delightfully weird feminist vibes and bristles with little daggers pointed at parental, patriarchal, political and religious authority. And even if I’m not really sure what anyone is thinking or why they do what they do, I like the mystery.

                This is a horror film for people who enjoy their chills moody, modish and a bit hard to pin down. It is destined for culthood.

Film Atlas (Iran): The Cyclist

Country: Iran

Title: The Cyclist / Bicycleran (1987)

Nasim and his young son are Afghan refugees living in Iran. Nasim is desperately searching for a means to fund his wife’s life-or-death surgery, but he is just able to feed himself on backbreaking day labor like digging wells. He fails in a few half-hearted attempts at less-than-legal means, including putting himself under the tire of a bus in what is either a dangerous con or a suicide attempt. He eventually comes into contact with a scheming event promoter, who arranges a shrewd publicity stunt: Nasim will ride his bike in circles, day and night, for seven straight days. Soon a crowd of gawkers, gamblers, beggars, dancers, food vendors and local gangsters descend on the scene of exhausting endurance, each eager to exploit Nasim and his hard-won spotlight. Throughout it all Nasim pedals on. By the final stretch he is a grim and silent skeleton with toothpicks propping open his eyelids; an indelible image of desperation, fatigue, dignity, strength and the struggle for life on the brink of death.

Over the last 30 years Iran has risen to the forefront of Middle-Eastern cinema with major auteurs like Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf receiving international recognition. The Cyclist is one of Makhmalbaf’s earliest films and it has a certain roughness around the edges, but its lack of slickness and polish gives it an almost documentary-like immediacy. First-time actor Moharram Zaynalzadeh’s central performance as Nasim may not have much screen presence, but it has authenticity and humanity. Though the dialogue is intentionally trim, Nasim isn’t just a symbol of voiceless poverty and the tribulations of the immigrant experience; he builds his performance from weathered expressions, pragmatic need, suppressed intensity and an underlying resolve. His plight, a rather hopeless and wretched piece of circus sideshow endurance, is both uncomfortably pathetic and boldly heroic (like the growing crowd, we can’t help but watch) and that can be interpreted within literal, sociological, political, cynical and spiritual contexts. Makhmalbaf based the film on a real life case that was actually even more dramatic than what he depicts here and, though he eventually agreed to “soften” the ending, it strikes me as even more devastating and thought-provoking than the truth.

My Favorites:

About Elly

A Separation

The Circle

The Cyclist
Leila

Taste of Cherry
The Deer

Life and Nothing More
The Salesman (2016)
Salaam Cinema

Brick and the Mirror
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Where Is the Friend's Home?

Turtles Can Fly

The White Balloon

A Moment of Innocence

The Day I Became a Woman
The Cycle (1978)

Major Directors:
Asghar Farhadi, Bahman Ghobadi, Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Samira Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi

SLIFF 2007 Coverage Part 6

Only about a month late, but this wraps them up!

St. Louis International Film Festival 2007 reviews for Nov. 17-18:


Title: Persepolis
Director: Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi
Country: Iran
Score: 8.5
Review:
“Persepolis” was probably my most anticipated film from this year’s fest, considering that it had great Cannes buzz (it won the Jury prize), Iranian graphic novel roots, Catherine Deneuve voice-acting and black-and-white animation (of which I’m apparently one of very few fans). A local comic book store, Star Clipper, helped promote it, leading to a packed theater and a slightly younger crowd than the other films.

The film is an autobiography of Marjane Satrapi, an upper-middle class girl growing up in Iran in the 70’s and 80’s. Her experience with education, dating, music and politics is colored by the volatile backdrop, including the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq war. Well-educated and independent, Marjane must decide between staying close to her family and homeland or leaving for freedom and security. The choice is not anywhere near as easy as it would seem. Several trips abroad only shift the attention from national conflicts to personal troubles like loneliness, depression, racism, identity-loss and poverty.

Traditionally, rambling war-torn coming-of-age stories are not really my cup of tea, but “Persepolis” has more to offer than most. The animation is merely the most obvious curveball, but it certainly helps lend a coat of polish to the material. The color scheme is primarily B&W, with some blue mixed in (the present-day framing material is in full color). It walks an interesting line between a cartoon look (large blocks of solid tone) and pen-and-ink detail. The look doesn’t try to be particularly exotic, instead it has the clean-cut edges and formal balance I associate with abstract modernism.

The medium is rarely used to break with reality, although the transition cuts are often quite clever and a couple loose history lessons are given where the character are intentionally moved like jerky marionettes. I think Satrapi was smart to keep the action fairly grounded, because it allows the audience to feel secure in the emotional sincerity.

Marjane Satrapi easily shoulders the central focus. It may be unfair for me to say, but I think the story benefits from her gender since it frees the film from what have gradually become clichés of the male, coming-of-age cycle. It also helps that her experiences have been so atypical, although her reactions, her choices and her dreams feel quite natural. The non-fiction source means that there is nothing symbolic, forced or structurally contrived (like a neat, happy ending or a steady progression). The dialogue sounds like things people might actually say, without being boring or deadpan; Satrapi has a talent for bringing out the humor and wisdom in her remembrances.

I found to “Persepolis” to be a solid, well-rounded movie that is likely to have very wide appeal. It has human interest, topical political issues and a strong visual style. I particularly liked the marionette sequences, a hilarious “Eye of the Tiger” training montage and the perfectly handled close-calls, that have just the right levels of tension and relief without too much tasteless audience manipulation.


Title: The Walker
Director: Paul Schrader
Country: US
Score: 6.0
Review:
I couldn’t help being disappointed with “The Walker,” a slow-burning political thriller starring Woody Harrelson as a D.C. female escort cavorting with the rich and influential. Perhaps I was expecting more from Schrader, who was easily one of the biggest names in the festival. There was also something lacking in the conspicuously famous cast (Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, Willem Defoe, Moritz Bleibtreu), all doing their best to seem infinitely cultured, effete and cagey.

Harrelson is Carter Page the Third, a name previously worn by a plantation owner and a prominent, well-liked politician. #3 is somewhat of a disappointment to, apparently, every other person in the film. Page squanders his good-breeding by being a professionally homosexual female companion who provides gossip, fashion advice and a fourth for Bridge. He’s quite satisfied with his well-funded lifestyle until the illicit partner of one of his highly-ranked clients is murdered. Page winds up taking the wrap and going on the offensive, trying not to get buried along with the truth.

Harrelson is surprisingly good in the serious and often demanding role, though he spends far too much time on his meticulous Southern drawl. He does it well, but half an hour in I was wishing he would drop the faux refinement. The whole cast suffers from essentially the same problem, when they’re not pretending to possess some earth-shaking secret (most of them are actually just as clueless as the protagonist). The level of hype the film creates around the presumed conspiracy is totally disproportionate with the somewhat mundane and noncommittal revelation of the truth. The shaky ambiguity doesn’t cover up for the writer’s poor plotting and half-baked villain. One particularly bad moment involves a CEO personally sabotaging Page’s car. Why didn’t he send a henchman? Where did he learn henchmen skills like car sabotagery and assassination?

Schrader makes up for the otherwise meh script with his dialogue, which is really what he cares about anyway.Far, far too much time is spent regurgitating Schrader’s pet theme of flawed men living in their father’s shadow, but that’s really the worst of it. On the up side, there are lots of memorably articulate, cynical quotes about the political system, paranoia and power.

The killer lines are timed to coincide with Schrader’s best shots, visual counterparts to the ubiquitous, ominous insinuations. The art direction features a color-coordinated veneer of civility, set off by satin, brass and ornate wood. It’s a little overdone, as is the flipside: Page’s gay bars and his boyfriend’s painfully “shocking” art loft.

Overall, this film is probably best left to the hardcore political thriller junkies. There is too little payoff, either in rousing surprises or artistic standouts, for the casual fans.


Title: Fine Dead Girls
Director: Dalibor Matanic
Country: Croatia
Score: 8.0
Review:
A pair of unassuming lesbians moves into a new apartment building and finds themselves harassed by their disparate, self-righteous neighbors (especially the nosey landlady) in this dark Croatian message film. The social critique comes from the way the tenants turn up the heat on Iva and Marija merely because they have a same-sex relationship, when each of the victimizers has secrets of their own. Sharing the same roof are such other outsiders as a jingoistic foreigner, a man who looks after his dead wife, a mentally challenged boy, a prostitute and an abortionist.

“Fine Dead Girls” works much like “Delicatessen,” taking a group of quirky eccentrics and forcing them to interact uncomfortably in cramped quarters. “Fine Dead Girls” is noticeably less outrageous, but substantially more barbed in its indictment of people’s petty prejudices. Though the building isn’t haunted, much of the film feels like a horror movie because of the constant confinement, rising intensity and the inescapable approach of a deadly breaking point. Sadly, the film also shares that genre’s somewhat throwaway character typing, but at least here they serve double-purpose as symbols of Croatia’s marginalized populations. Alone, their personalities would be too single-stroke to be actually interesting, but their interplay in nonetheless the riveting.

The central story has a nice tragic arc, but it helps that there are plenty of subplots, often merely glimpses into the lives of the lesser tenants. In particular, the film opens with the arrival of a mysterious priest who makes a deal with the prostitute as part of his own secret agenda and the film ends with a kidnap-plot epilogue.

The god’s-eye-view overhead camerawork, emphasizes the smallness of the squabbling tenants. In fact, much of the tone and atmosphere comes from the thoughtful camera placement, helping to offset the general low-budget, no-frills feel. One of the director’s strengths is an ability to skirt around the constraints, using the single location to great effect.

Review of Where Is the Friend's Home?

Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has one of the best reputations on the international art film circuit today, and yet it still feels like his name recognition on the streets of America is absolutely nil. Despite winning a Palme d’Or in 1997, being named the greatest active non-US director by The Guardian in 2006 and getting dubbed the world’s best filmmaker by Werner Herzog (who has indie fan and college campus buzz to spare), Kiarostami couldn’t even get a visa to enter the US for a film festival.

On one hand, it isn’t terribly surprising Kiarostami doesn’t have a huge stateside fandom since his films resonate primarily with the generation of maximally ivory tower middle-aged critics who have the ear of a very select New York intellectual audience. Even middlebrow critics aren’t always enthusiastic. Ebert’s 1-star scathing review of “A Taste of Cherry” (1997), for instance, has been only the first in an ongoing campaign against the director. Kiarostami doesn’t have the obvious youth appeal of Spike Jonze or the provocative headline-earning of Lars Von Trier or the cult virtuosity and wit of the Coen brothers. Instead, he is minimalist and often political. Distribution has been difficult for the director and, of course, he must contend with the middle-America’s generally negative reaction to anything Iranian. None of this adds up to a blockbuster sensation.

My own reactions have been somewhat mixed. “Where Is the Friend’s Home?” (1989) is the fifth film I’ve seen by the director (a small fraction of his total output) and I think I’m finally coming to understand his unique style and simple tales. While not the masterpiece that I considered “A Taste of Cherry” to be, the film is accessibly light and irresistibly winning. It begs to be called poetic and lyrical and hypnotic and full of humanity and all those other descriptors that inadvertently drive movie-renters to set the DVD back on the video store’s shelf and to continue looking for “Torque” (2004) like they originally intended.

I myself am not always that into experimental forays into minimalism (see “Goodbye Dragon Inn”), although the best ones can break through my outer crust of low-attention-span pop-culture barnacles. “Where Is the Friend’s Home?” comes burdened with two additional factors that could also potentially prevent my connecting with it: repetition and child actors. Despite the odds, however, I must admit that I quite liked the film and found myself neither bored nor annoyed.

So what is the film about? It’s about an eight-year-old named Ahmed (Babek Ahmed Poor) who accidentally takes home his friend’s homework notebook. The friend, Mohammad Reda Nematzadeh, is berated by the teacher in the film’s opening and Ahmed knows that if he doesn’t return it the boy will be expelled. Basically the entire film (about 83 minutes) follows Ahmed’s journey to return the notebook before the next day.

Though outwardly simple, the film isn’t empty, an important distinction for such works. Ahmed’s performance really helps to drive the film. His naïve morality makes him instantly likable and the camera’s insistence on participating only within his world grants a limited perspective that is wholly convincing and sympathetic. Ahmed hardly seems to “act” since he talks and behaves in a naturalistic way completely devoid of self-consciousness or staginess. The quietly stirring approach adopted by director and star is at least on the level of Italian neo-realist classics like “The Children Are Watching Us” (1944) and the critically acclaimed Indian film by Satyajit Ray, “Pather Panchali” (1955).

Throughout the film, Ahmed is hindered, punished, misdirected and derailed by adults. The adult world is too caught up in self-importance, rules, punishments and agendas to understand the enormous significance Ahmed places on his appointed task. They view the child as a servant, a trainee or a distraction when they bother to view him at all. Without ever directing any true malice at the boy (safely avoiding melodrama or exaggeration) they impose upon him arbitrary restrictions or treat him as insignificant. The audience can easily identify with him through their memories of being frustrated, confused and neglected simply because we were not old enough to be taken seriously.

An extended conversation between his grandpa and another old man (“Every week my father would give me a penny and every fortnight he would give me a beating. He would sometimes forget the penny, but he never missed a beating.”) perfectly captures the absurdity and arbitrariness of old-world ideas about discipline. I much prefer the personal experience of Ahmed’s journey and the universal themes of generation gap disconnect to the more abstract political readings of the film as a veiled anti-authority statement.

The visual technique is nearly documentary in tone. Except for the schoolroom scenes bookending the film it takes place entirely outdoors. The setting comprises dusty, crumbling old-world alleys in rural villages and the yellow-gray calm of the hillsides in-between. The same locations, and even the same camera positions, are often visited twice or more. Repetition, not with a sense of ritual but merely routine, literally and thematically dominates the film. Ahmed dialogue rarely varies since his pleas require a certain amount of stubbornness and annoyingness simply to get attention. His search is often circular, zigzagged or dead-ended with as much backtracking as exploration. It works because the mood is right and the sense of hope and allegory keep the mind at work when the narrative flow sails into dead water.

As the story consumes time (the word “progresses” is too strong) the changes in light shifts the familiar sites into more desperate shades, a gradual transformation reflected also in the boy’s unassuming face. Just as the film looks like it is reaching an inevitable anticlimax (I mean how many outcomes can there be? He finds the friend’s house or he doesn’t…) the boy joins an old man for a rambling nighttime stroll to the final destination and Ahmed makes a strange choice that adds an element of mystery. The final scene is wonderfully handled, full of just the right amount of tension and poignancy. The last shot is so simple that I found it hard to comprehend how I could be so touched and pleased by it. It ends with a precise abruptness that proves Kiarostami’s slow pacing isn’t for lack of timing sense.

“Where Is the Friend’s Home” is a satisfying film and if watched at a time when the viewer isn’t rushed or antsy, it should be a pleasure for even the jaded. It doesn’t have the sugar-coating or proselytizing that turns me off to so many “heart-warming family gems” and there is a certain alluring formal rigor underneath the laidback realism. It works as a great introduction to the director though it doesn’t match the genius of “A Taste of Cherry.”

Walrus Rating: 7.5