It’s never easy to boil down the 200+ films I see every year into an annual best-of list. 200 may sound like a lot, but it’s only about a third of the approximately 600 films released in U.S. theaters this year. I do enjoy watching most of them and being the “Optimistic Pessimist” that I am, I will acknowledge there are many that feature outstanding acting, editing, cinematography, writing, direction, musical scores, and costume designs, all of which I consider in determining my list. However, few are outstanding in all of these departments.
So for all these days leading up to my take on what are the “top ten films of 2011,” I’m constantly struggling to find the perfect ten every year—especially when there so many I missed, including Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion; David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method; Martin Scorsese’s Hugo; and Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret, which wasn’t even released in the Twin Cities.
Before I get to the actual top ten, here is a list of 13 films (one film is a three-part trilogy), listed alphabetically with country and director, that I saw at various film festivals this year that either have U.S. distribution in 2012 and will be in theaters, will be available via VOD, or will screen at an upcoming local film festival. A few may never find a U.S. home and make it into a Twin Cities theater, but all would have been contenders for my 2011 list had they been released in theaters this year.
• Abraxas (Naoki Kato, Japan)
• Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece)
• The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (Marie Losier, USA/Germany)
• Chicken with Plums (Vincent Paroonaud and Marjane Satrapi, France/Germany)
• Dreileben Trilogy (Beats Being Dead, Don’t Follow Me Around, and One Minute of Darkness) (Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf, and Christoph Hochhausler, Germany)
• I Wish (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan)
• Last Days Here (Don Argott and Damian Fenton, USA)
• Michael (Markus Schleinzer, Austria)
• The Silence (Baran bo Odar, Germany)
• Without (Mark Jackson, USA)
• Your Sister’s Sister (Lynn Shelton, USA)
And here are another dozen honorable mentions that came very close to making my top ten list and were released this year, though some didn’t make it to the Twin Cities.
• Cold Weather (Aaron Katz, USA)
• Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn, USA)
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, USA)
• The Interrupters (Steve James, USA)
• Love Exposure (Sion Sono, Japan)
• Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, USA)
• My Joy (Sergei Loznitza, Russia)
• Road to Nowhere (Monte Hellman, USA)
• The Trip (Michael Winterbottom, UK)
• Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (Eli Craig, Canada/USA)
• Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/UK)
• We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey, UK/USA)
Finally, here is my list the top ten films of 2011 and when and where they can be found, either in theaters or on DVD/Blu-Ray.
1. The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius (France/Belgium)
Writer/director Michel Hazanavicius’s love letter to the Roaring Twenties in Hollywood’s silent film era features the best performance of the year by French actor Jean Dujardin playing George Valentin, a silent film actor who is no longer the biggest star as the “talkies” start to rise. Matching Dujardin’s performance toe to toe is Argentinean beauty Berenice Bejo, playing the newest upcoming actress in Hollywood, Peppy Miller. The two have instant chemistry and the film breezes by with stunning cinematography by Guillaume Schiffman and a delightful music score by Ludovic Bource. The Artist is magical in every frame and should renew interest in the silent films that once ruled Hollywood. (In theaters now.)
2. I Saw the Devil, directed by Kim Jee-woon (South Korea)
Every year, a film defies the odds and brings a new take to an old story. I Saw the Devil proved that the cat-and-mouse police thriller can be turned on its head, and created a stir with its unrelenting violence. When a police detective’s pregnant wife is murdered by a psychopath (a tour-de-force performance by Oldboy‘s Choi Min-sik), the detective seeks revenge on the sadistic killer and for over two hours, Kim’s film runs the gamut of bizarre horror, suspense, and dark humor in a way that an American director hasn’t been able to pull off in years. Not for the squeamish, I Saw the Devil is pure diabolical and pulpy entertainment, and even after four viewings, I’m still shocked by its unflinching horror. (Available on Blu-Ray/DVD and Netflix streaming.)
3. The Tree of Life, directed by Terrance Malick (USA)
After waiting close to two years for the release of The Tree of Life, Malick delivered a daring and mind-boggling drama of a Southern white family growing up in 1950s Texas. It’s the most beautiful film of the year, thanks in large part to Emmanuel Lubezki’s breathtaking cinematography. Malick molded together more beautiful ideas in his film than any other this year. Covering everything from religion, the cosmos, dinosaurs, death, suburbia, memories, visions, and hard-working families to the beginning of life, Malick’s unconventional non-linear storytelling is hypnotic. (Available on Blu-Ray/DVD and Redbox.)
4. Super 8, directed by J.J. Abrams (USA)
The most commercial film on this list, J.J. Abrams’s Super 8 is a reminder of why we go to the movies in the first place: to be entertained. Abrams kept his plot secret for months before its release: Super 8 involves a group of adolescent kids working on a horror film, until their lives take a supernatural turn as a military science experiment derails from a train and sends their small town into a media frenzy. Abrams’s cast of young child actors are “mint”; the film showcased a breakthrough performance from Joel Courtney as a young adventurer caught in the middle of his first love. Super 8 proved to be even better than all the hype that surrounded the film last summer promised. (Available on Blu-Ray/DVD and Redbox.)
5. Take Shelter, directed by Jeff Nichols (USA)
Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) delivers another powerhouse performance as Curtis LaForche, a family man who begins having apocalyptic visions of an impending storm and decides to build a bomb shelter in his backyard. Is he building the shelter for his family, or for him? Nichols’s complex and emotionally-charged direction creates fear and anxiety in every scene as Curtis and Samantha (Jessica Chatain, matching Shannon’s intensity) both giving new meaning to the word “complicated” as they deal with Curtis’s condition. Could he be psychologically disturbed, or a prophet? Take Shelter never takes the easy way out in its exploration of we do when faced with an uncertain future. (Available on Blu-Ray/DVD on February 14.)
6. A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)
A married couple struggle to decide whether to leave Iran or stay in order to take care of a grandparent with Alzheimer’s. What slowly develops into a family crisis ultimately turns into a full-blown legal drama as the husband is accused of pushing a pregnant woman down a flight of stairs. As each scene builds with more pressure on the incident—not to mention the fractured family—Farhadi’s screenplay completely fascinates with every new revelation. Across the board, the performances are magnetic. (Opening at a Landmark Theatre in the Twin Cities in early February.)
7. Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed by Sean Durkin (USA)
Durkin’s film brought tension from the opening moments as Martha (a riveting Elizabeth Olsen) flees from a cult and calls her estranged sister, shaking. Olsen’s performance is equally matched by Minnesota native John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone), getting under your skin with his creepy and unnerving cult leader Patrick, who completely devours and transfixes Martha. Jody Lee Lipes’s haunting photography of rural New York makes the setting a character of its own. (Available on Blu-Ray/DVD on February 21.)
8. The Arbor, directed by Clio Barnard (UK)
Giving the documentary a completely refreshing storytelling aesthetic, Barnard took the late UK playwright Andrea Dunbar’s life story to a new level of technical achievement. Using actors who lip-sync to audio recordings from friends and family members (a technique known as verbatim theater), different actors portrayal Dunbar, including her three children and her parents. The film becomes an engrossing life story about Dunbar’s early success and later struggles with addiction. The Arbor screened at MSPIFF earlier this year and never returned to Twin Cities theaters—a shame, considering that this film is provocative, fearless, and downright amazing. (Available on DVD and Netflix streaming.)
9. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson (France/UK)
After appearing as a 1979 TV miniseries, John le Carre’s novel finally received the big screen treatment and Alfredson (Let the Right One In) works wonders in evoking the Cold War era setting and framing his film as a gigantic panic room. The cast is led by the superb and suave Gary Oldman as a retired MI6 agent brought back into the fold to uncover a Soviet spy within the current MI6 heavy hitters. Never rushing through any scenes and bringing back echoes of 1970s paranoia films, this very dialogue-driven and dense script (by Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor) makes for a smart and highly engrossing tilt-a-whirl ride of pure espionage intrigue. (Now in theaters.)
10. Thunder Soul, directed by Mark Landsman (USA)
This heartfelt and entertaining documentary about a 1970s Houston high school jazz band reuniting some 25 years later to pay tribute to their teacher known as “Prof” never got a proper theatrical release in the Twin Cities, other than screening once at the Twin Cities Film Festival this past September. Thunder Soul vividly goes back to a time, through some crisp editing and sharp musical numbers, when high school bands were all playing the same material until the “Kashmere Stage Band” brought a different sound and stage presence to their music. Landsman’s film deserves credit for striking gold with a story that may only come once in a lifetime; it’s stuck with me for over a year and it won’t be forgotten for a long time. (Available on Blu-Ray/DVD on January 31.)
Image: Super 8, courtesy Paramount Pictures
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