21 Haziran 2012 Perşembe

The Best Movies of 2011, and your Best Picture

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The Grumbach Awards 2011SPECIAL MENTION: I thought this might be the appropriate momentto discuss the one title that has managed to make the transition from mywish-list of movies-to-see to things-to-do, although it is stilla fair distance away from things-to-do-before-I-die. Nevertheless, Ihave fantasized all year, since the day I read David Bordwell’s blog,to one day pack my bag with portable food, take my wife and spend a whole daywatching Christian Marclay’s The Clock.And talk. And watch. I say, that’ll be the day. 


Best Picture
The Nominees are (In alphanumeric order):


Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da(Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan) (Review forthcoming)Themayor’s daughter sure is beautiful. I mean, she’s divine. Not since Inglourious Basterds’ opening has therebeen a scene that has achieved such precise connection with the audience, beingboth with it and ahead of it. It’s magical and amusing working on so manydifferent levels, motivating explaining and mystifying the entire film. Not manymovies remind us of Stalker, and Mr.Ceylan’s film does. My guess is it isn’t merely the most perfectly crafted filmof the year, but its most perfectly realized. A masterpiece. 



Budanggeorae (Dir: Ryu Seung-wan) (Reviewforthcoming)
Ifsomebody ever wanted to make a sequel to TheDeparted, here is a film infinitely more skillful and precise. What’s more,it is readily available. Arguably the year’s most dynamic film, and easily itsmost stylish. From its opening of a city enclosed within and under amedia-controlled apparatus, to its skyrises, to its golf-courses, Mr. RyuSeung-wan, much like Elena below,creates the year’s keenest layout of a city in a social context. This is whatwe call an absolute stunner, the kind of genius we seek from the Koreans in thegenre department. This is a filmmaker we need to keep a track of. At least, Ineed to. 





Elena (Dir: Andre Zvyagintsev)   (Read review)
 Mr.Zvyagintsev’s best film, and I absolutely agree with what I believe to be thefilm’s central political stance. I mean, why the hell should he? But leave allthat, and relish the sheer mastery of some of the shots here, especially theopening, where new spaces are revealed in a way as if the history of a nationis being re-created. I do not think any other film this year builds a keenermore insightful layout of a city ina historical context. Andyeah, those three-way mirror shots not only reveal a novel way of staging thatcliché but greatly intensify the Macbeth-ian angle. Killer, I say.

 

El Primio (Dir: PaulaMarkovitch)Theautobiographical film of the year. Filled with so many moments so detailed itcould not be fiction. The way a name is to be pronounced, to the way a chessboardis to be used, to the way words are understood, to the way an essay is written,Ms. Markovitch’s incredibly moving film doesn’t let the shaping of a childhoodbe oblivious of a country’s politics, or the society, or the family. My guessis that linguists, and maybe even anthropologists, would be thrilled. And inthe mother’s breakdown piece we’ve the sort of honest and heartbreaking momentJames M. Cain would be proud of.



  Ha-Shoter (Dir: NadavLapid)   (Read review)InMr. Lapid we probably (there’s Ms. Julia Leigh as well) have the hottest newtalent. For topicality alone (Israeli social unrest), this movie achieves thekind of significance few others this year have. Very political, and verycritical, my guess is this movie probably finds Israel at a very criticaljuncture in its history. Or maybe…I don’t know. Whatever it is, this film gets macho. And that is an A+ in mybook. 


Hwang hae (Dir: NaHong-jin)  (Read review)SergioLeone once said of Once Upon a Time inthe West“The rhythm of the filmwas intended to create the sensation of the last gasps that a person takes justbefore dying. Once Upon a Time in the West was, from start to finish, a danceof death.”  All of the characters,apart from Jill, seem to be conscious of the fact that they wouldn’t arrive atthe end alive. In Mr. Hong-jin’s film, everyone seems to be destined to theirdeath, and yet they are resilient to survive at any cost. It’s a dog’s life,they say. This follow-up to The Chaseris a massive epic, slowly building and spreading into some sort of a contagion,affecting everybody. Arguably the most intensely physical film of the year, andcertainly it’s most visceral.





Meek’s Cutoff (Dir: KellyReichardt)Thetension here is unbearable. Your mind runs in a thousand directions, and asopposed to Mr. Ceylan’s masterpiece, we do not even have the comfort thateverybody would end up safe. It runs something like an extended Hitchcockexperiment, observing the everyday details, but ticking the bomb in thebackground. Ms. Reichardt uses the academic ratio to killer effect, essentiallyboxing what would have been Lawrence ofArabia widescreen, and somehow manages to create claustrophobia from thatexpansive landscape. Oh yeah, there’s the year’s most astonishing dissolve. 



Mildred Pierce (Dir:Todd Haynes)   (Read review)
Ihated this film. I mean, I was filled with hate while watching this film. Forits characters. Mr. Haynes, channeling Fassbinder here, creates such carefullyconstructed frames, where you’re watching and reading the stuff at the sametime. Womenfolk are in full control here, and men are constantly used. Andre-used. At the end of it, you want to strangle somebody. Probably thestrongest I reacted to any movie all year.








Nostalgia De La Luz (Dir: Patricio Guzmán Lozanes)
IfThe Tree of Life was the film Rise of the Planets should’ve been, thanNostalgia for the Light is what The Tree of Life should’ve been. Fromthe earth to the moon to its craters to plates to wheels to telescopes, Mr.Guzmán makes us see the cosmic in every little bit. An order so to speak. Atonce specific and cosmic. If you haven’t seen it, I wouldn’t reveal to you thefilm’s central connection, except for that it is probably impossible toidentify which is the metaphor between the two. Whatever it’s worth, one of mypersonal favorites. It is a movie I shall be losing myself in with someregularity now. 




 Rise of the Planet ofthe Apes (Dir: Rupert Wyatt)  (Read review)
Ina year that would historically be remembered for the revolution-virus, andwhere this film reminded us of moments from our own consciousness, this Apefilm thundered across with blockbuster filmmaking of the awesome kind. A momentthat serves as a victory for sound in cinema, a moment where an animal learnsto control another animal, a moment where an animal looks at another sleepingpeacefully, a moment where an animal achieves chilling cruelty (as againstgrace), and they all serve to hail one of cinema’s greatest accomplishments –Caesar!



 
Senna (Dir: AsifKapadia)  (Read review)
Thehumanity in here is overwhelming, and more than movie I’ve ever seen, thisdocumentary really gets what sports is all about. Yes, it is about us v/s them,but historically sports movies tend to stop there. Mr. Kapadia doesn’t leaveProst as a rival but an integral part of Ayrton Senna, as much as his fatherwas, or as much as McLaren was. Involving arguably the greatest tracking shotever…okay, let us keep it down to my favorite tracking shot, it is a shatteringfilm and a humbling experience.







  
Tinker Tailor SoldierSpy (Dir: Tomas Alfredson)   (Read review)

Ah, that killer ending! To which I stood up andapplauded. To which the film itself applauds. There’s that faint smile onGeorge Smiley, and trust me here when I say that if Mr. Alfredson had madeSmiley declare – It’s just you and me now,sport – I would’ve taken my shirt off and waved it around like amadman. Who knows, given all the frenzy, even running around the auditorium would’vebeen a distinct possibility.

And the Grumbach for theBest Motion Picture of 2011 goes to:



Word of advice: Ideal time to watch it –0400 to 0630. As the night breaks into dawn into morning, the film shall be amemorable experience. Take my word.






Oh yeah, just in case you’re wondering, The Tree of Life is some sort of achievement, if not amasterpiece. The editing is something monumental, the way it picks up tinyfragments and associates them all. And so is A Separation,which is one giant moral mess, just as its frames are.

Movies I’m looking forward to:Myshkin’s Yuddham Sei, Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance, Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty, Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Life in a Day, Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre, Johnnie To’s Life Without Principle and Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, JafarPanahi’s This is Not a Film, DavidCronenberg’s A Dangerous Method,Steve McQueen’s Shame, Jeff Nichols Take Shelter, Mariano Llinas’ Extraordinary Stories and Raul Ruiz’s Mysteries of Lisbon.
Oh yeah, if you’re thinking there’re as manytitles to watch as there have been nominated, that’s a bingo.

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