The Best Films of 2011: Part Two

And now, the top ten...

10. A Dangerous Method



Most of director David Cronenberg's films have been centered around moments in which characters begin pushing boundaries and soon themselves facing severe moral dilemmas. Consider Jeff Goldblum's experimental scientist in The Fly, Jennifer Jason Leigh's computer programmer in Existenz, numerous characters in Crash, James Woods' television programmer in Videodrome, Viggo Mortenson's ordinary family man in A History of Violence... the list goes on. Because of its lack of extreme violence or bizarre imagery, many have suggested that Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method just doesn't feel remotely "Cronenbergian" (er, "Cronenbergundian"). Nonsense. The director's comparatively low-key chamber drama is yet another fascinating exploration of his pet themes, as he examines a clash of ideas between two men still regarded as titans in the strange field of psychiatry. The intellectual battles fought between Michael Fassbender's Carl Jung and Viggo Mortenson's Sigmund Freud are fascinating moments fueled by sterling performances and impressively nuanced dialogue, but there are many moments of surprising contrast between the drama which plays out in medical journals and the drama which plays out in real life. The personal lives of Freud and Jung alternately contradict, inform and complicate their official positions on psychiatric subjects; a notion Cronenberg illuminates in subtle, compelling fashion. The heart of the film is formed in the relationship between Jung and his tormented yet intelligent patient Sabina Spielreim (Keira Knightley, who has rarely been better); a relationship which shifts uneasily from professional to personal while turning sticky, sweet and strained at various points along the way.  Cronenberg's film has a great many things to say (and it's a vastly more effective biopic of the three central individuals it features than a more conventional narrative would have been), but the one that really lingers is this: most truly inspired discoveries are ones which lead the discoverer to understand just how far they are from actually understanding anything.  A Dangerous Method is a dialogue-driven movie, but it's the look in Jung's eyes at the film's conclusion which says it all.

9. Drive



To a certain extent, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive plays like a Michael Bay movie for hardcore cinephiles.  It's landed on the top of quite a few critic's list this year, and it's easy to understand why: Drive feels like a movie made by a person who read every significant critical complaint about glossy Hollywood thrillers and responded accordingly.  General audiences largely responded with displeasure to the film, shaking their heads at its unexpectedly meditative tendencies in much the same way that they shook their heads during Anton Corbijn's The American. For movie buffs, it played like a dream come true; a magnificent exercise in style which fused B-movie pulp, classic noir and European arthouse flicks into a sumptuous cinematic potpourri.  Refn directs like Ryan Gosling's character drives: with consummate skill, precision and timing. The much-lauded car chase sequence which opens the film serves as guide to the film's style: it knows when to charge ahead at full speed, when to take left turns and when to simply stop, look, listen and wait.  The basic story follows a fairly simple noir thriller template, but it's the elegance of Refn's direction which makes it so engaging (I'm still marveling at how the potentially standard-issue climax was transformed into something so strangely beautiful).  It sounds like the sort of thing which might keep its characters at a distance, but another considerable part of Drive's effect is its almost uncomfortable intimacy. The romantic developments, the professional schemes and even (especially?) the killings don't feel like plot developments so much as intense moments of personal revelation. The performances are enjoyable diverse but uniformly excellent: Ryan Gosling's "Man With No Name" poker face, Albert Brooks' passive aggression which occasionally transforms into aggressive aggression, Bryan Cranston's well-intentioned haplessness, Cary Mulligan's slightly frightened curiosity, Oscar Isaac's unexpected sincerity, Ron Perlman's profane crocodile grin... these are such striking, compelling people. This is such a striking, compelling movie.

8. Hugo



Some may raise an eyebrow at the notion of director Martin Scorsese setting aside gangster movies and turbulent period dramas to helm a warm, innocent family film, but Hugo (based on a lovely book by Brian Selznick) is an immensely satisfying change-of-pace for the esteemed director. The story takes place in a Paris train station during the 1930s, and centers on an orphan named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) who has secretly made a life for himself there. The first half of the film is primarily focused on Hugo's assorted misadventures (in which he makes a new friend played by Chloe Moretz, irritates an elderly shopkeeper played by Ben Kingsley and escapes the grasp of a bumbling station inspector played by Sacha Baron Cohen), but the film quietly, beautifully segues into a tribute to one of the pioneers of early cinema during its profoundly moving second half. I wouldn't dream of spoiling the surprises Hugo has in store, but suffice it to say that the story aligns nicely with some of Scorsese's own personal passions. It's no surprise to discover that while the small character moments are touching, the moments which really resonate are those in which Scorsese gets to demonstrate his deep, unyielding love for the movies. It's positively magical stuff, and Scorsese demonstrates that he can whip up an enchanting all-ages experience worthy of Steven Spielberg. It's also one of the few films I've seen which at least partially justified its employment of 3-D, as the director makes atypically strong use of the format and effectively immerses us in his distinctive cinematic world. The movie illuminates a happy fact which is often overlooked: whether he's placing the spotlight on his childhood home, great musicians, lost cultures, pulpy thrillers of the 1950s, religious icons or pioneers of early cinema, Scorsese is one of the world's finest writers of cinematic love letters.

7. I Saw the Devil



The premise is simple: a man's wife is killed by a serial murderer. Aching with grief and hungry for revenge, the man sets out to find the psychopath who killed his wife. However, his plan is far more complex than simply hunting down the bad guy and killing him: he wants to make the killer's life an endless nightmare. I Saw the Devil is a Korean film which plays as a sharp rebuke to western revenge flicks; a movie which gives audiences their cathartic vengeance and then makes them choke on it. As a thriller, it's nearly as polished and carefully-constructed as No Country for Old Men; it moves forward with both merciless logic and dark humor (a scene involving a screwdriver managed to make me cringe and laugh simultaneously). The word "haunting" is overused in criticism of all sorts, but I Saw the Devil is precisely that.  Striking moments, stricken faces and the melancholy howls of the soundtrack linger with me vividly. I can't shake its raw power. South Korea has transformed into a force to be reckoned with in recent years, and this film is one of the most striking recent examples of the kind of great work that country is producing. It's more violent than almost any American film released in 2011, and yet uses violence more effectively and more responsibly than many American films.

6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy



Though Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy won a great deal of acclaim, there's one common complaint that I'd like to address: the notion that the movie is too confusing. Alfredson's adaptation of John le Carre's great spy novel is an intentionally disorienting experience that flings viewers into cold water and then orders them to stay afloat. Part of the thrill of the movie (and many le Carre novels) is the exhilarating sense of discovery: that moment when a little piece of information finally clicks and all of the pieces start falling into place. Many thrillers attempt to build excitement by allowing the audience to watch as the characters slowly discover information we found about out about long ago.  This one builds excitement by allowing us to slowly catch up with the characters; it's a movie which requires the viewer to lean forward and engage with what's happening. Fortunately, the film rewards our attention with precise, unwaveringly well-organized direction which allows us to feel that we're in good hands. The movie also benefits from a host of fine British actors populating even the smallest of roles, with Gary Oldman leading the charge as the weary, unflappable George Smiley. There's a great moment midway through the film in which we hear a line of dialogue which has been uttered in countless movies over the years: "We're not so different, you and I." It's a line which is usually delivered from the villain to the hero, but it's the protagonist Smiley who utters those words in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In Alfredson and le Carre's icy Cold War world of deceit and impersonal treachery, it can be difficult to distinguish the heroes and villains amidst all the shades of gray. The film's sharp left hook of a climax simultaneously reveals the full extent of the film's chilliness and the surprising depth of its empathy; leaving us as disoriented emotionally as the film's opening scenes left us disoriented narratively.

5. The Descendants



"You'll laugh, you'll cry," is the oldest critical blurb in the book, but it just might be true in this case. The Descendants is a movie which finds enormous humor in its bleakest moments, and one which reveals enormous sadness during its funniest moments. Part of the reason it's so moving is that director Alexander Payne resists easy sentiment; The Descendants elicits its tears by recreating warm and painful familiarities rather than simply offering crass manipulation. The complicated emotions the movie generates are reflected by the complicated premise: a husband and father (George Clooney) is told that his wife (who is in a coma after a boating accident) will die soon. Shortly after, he learns that he wife was cheating on him. The combination of anger, confusion and grief combined with the responsibility of raising his two daughters on his own makes his existence nearly unbearable. The film might have been, too, but Payne and Clooney find so many bracingly irreverent laughs without ever cheapening the depth of the film's emotional undercurrent. The latter's performance may not seem like a dramatic change-of-pace at a glance, but look closer: Clooney strikes some new notes and allows himself to be more emotionally exposed than ever before. The Descendants is one of the year's most impressive and challenging tonal balancing acts, and by the time it concludes you feel you know its rich characters personally.

4. The Artist



Here's why this movie is ranked so high on this list: it made me really happy. It might be easy to take a quick glance at the movie's promotional materials and guess that I'm honoring this movie because it employs the double-gimmick of being both silent and black-and-white while paying homage to a long-forgotten cinematic era. No. The Artist is a marvelous romantic comedy which uses its position as a silent movie as a springboard for tremendous humor, invention and joy. It's liberated rather than constrained by the lack of audible dialogue. To be sure, it pays affectionate homage to the old hams of the silver screen (this movie's version of silent movies runs closer to Douglas Fairbanks than F.W. Murnau), but the movie is in love with the limitless potential of the medium - silent or not - to bring happiness to viewers. The humor is frisky and frequent, the moments of drama have legitimate weight, the romance is persuasive and the actors seem incredibly pleased to be a part of the whole affair.  There are fine supporting turns from well-known pros like John Goodman (very blustery), James Cromwell (very noble) and Penelope Ann Miller (very rigid), but the movie belongs to French stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo. As established silent star George Valentin, Dujardin offers a smile so radiant that the screen can barely contain it: when he grins, he seems so overcome with delight that you can't help but grin along with him. Meanwhile, Bejo offers an exuberance not entirely dissimilar to Paulette Goddard in Modern Times; a fresh-faced energy and warmth that allows one to instantly understand why Valentin falls for her as quickly as he does.  The machinations of the plot require these two to spend a good deal of time apart, but that's only because it knows how badly we'd like to see these immensely likable people get together.  The only thing wrong with The Artist is its title, which effectively disguises what an accessible, appealing crowd-pleaser it really is.

3. Melancholia



There is a part of me which would like to place this film much lower on this list.  Not because it's lacking in craftsmanship (director Lars von Trier delivers exhilarating contrast by selectively dropping artful, elegant, jaw-droppingly gorgeous sequences into a movie largely built on effective shaky-cam naturalism) or great performances (Kirsten Dunst does the best work of her career, and is backed by a uniformly impressive supporting cast) or thematic depth (von Trier incorporates potent symbolism much more persuasively than he did in this film's companion piece, Antichrist), but because my relationship with it is so fractured and contentious. Melancholia is the most effective portrait of depression I've ever seen, made by a director who has famously used filmmaking as a way of dealing with his own depression.  While Antichrist was an impressive, disturbing movie about depression, Melancholia seems to take things a step further: the film itself is depressed, and depressing (perhaps the most potent rebuttal to Roger Ebert's claim that no great movie is truly depressing). Melancholia is also a blatantly nihilistic movie. That's nothing special in and of itself, but leave it to Von Trier to find liberation and exhilaration in nihilism. Melancholia is nearly as persuasive in its anguished, disgusted, despairing view of the world as The Tree of Life is in its serene, uplifting perspective.  Melancholia is a film of dangerous beauty; crushingly sad yet bizarrely enthralling and cathartic.  It's almost certainly von Trier's most accessible and immediately engaging film, which only adds to its potency. Lars von Trier can be maddening, exciting and unsettling, but he should not be ignored. By all means proceed, but proceed with caution. An easily-seduced deep thinker like Michael Fassbender's Carl Jung wouldn't stand a chance against the death-affirming arguments of Melancholia.

2. Take Shelter



I spent a great deal of time debating which film to put at the top of my list for 2011.  It pains me to put Take Shelter in second place, as it's genuinely one of the finest films I've seen since I began reviewing movies (in fact, it sat on top of the list for a lengthy period of time before I changed my mind yet again - I came so close to caving in and just calling it a tie). Nothing could have prepared me for this emotional wrecking ball of a movie. Sure, it's a brilliant film on many levels. On a basic surface level, it works superbly as a Twilight Zone-style thriller (even though that description makes me wince a little, as it makes the film seem vastly more gimmicky than it really is). On a deeper level, it provides a pitch-perfect snapshot of life in present-day America; subtly nudging us with painfully familiar little reminders of the countless political, social and economic storm clouds which have been quietly building in recent years. On yet another level, the film functions as a showcase for actor Michael Shannon, who delivers one of the strongest, most searingly authentic performances I've seen by anyone, ever (Shannon makes some of this year's highly-touted awards-bait performances look remarkably shallow in contrast - the fact that he wasn't even nominated for an Oscar is shameful).  However, beyond all of that (though incorporating much of that), the movie creates an emotional vortex which quickly sneaks up on you and then consumes you. Take Shelter is relentless once it has you in its grip; leaving you spent and in a daze by the time it finishes dragging you through an increasingly affecting, impossibly tense series of developments. It's common for some reviewers to employ aggressive hyperbole when describing certain movies: "It grabs you by the throat and won't let go!" they'll say of something like the latest Luc Besson action flick. However, such hyperbole is merited in the case of Take Shelter. Once it hits you, it leaves a mark.

1. The Tree of Life



It's entirely possible that Terrence Malick's latest film is the most ambitious, audacious piece of cinema since Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The structural similarities between the films are striking: they begin with two shorter opening chapters, move into a lengthy third chapter which forms the central storyline and the bulk of the film and then conclude with an enigmatic trip into the future. Both offer beautifully-told tales of specific people in a specific place (Kubrick offers the saga of the relationship between two astronauts and a devious computer, while Malick offers the coming-of-age story of a young man living in 1950s Texas), but both are about so much more than what they're about. Of course, Kubrick and Malick are dramatically different filmmakers on some levels, as Kubrick's movies are as chilly and sterile as Malick's are teeming with untamed organic life. Even so, it's increasingly hard to shake the feeling that the two are very much in the same class. How many other filmmakers share the remarkable combination of raw talent and endless ambition which Kubrick and Malick have demonstrated?  There are too few filmmakers willing to dream big, and even fewer capable of actually realizing those dreams. 2001 and The Tree of Life are truly great movies, but much of their greatness is found in what the viewer brings to the table beforehand. The wonder of The Tree of Life is the manner in which it manages to tap into so many basic-yet-profound elements of human existence, inspiring us to recall our own childhoods, belief systems, spiritual journeys and family relationships as we reflect on the enormous questions Malick poses. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, it all might have come across as eyeroll-inducing new age hokum. Then again, a lesser filmmaker probably wouldn't have even attempted it. Many films have left an impact on me in assorted ways, but few have stirred my soul in the way The Tree of Life does. My emotions were all over the place when I left the theatre after seeing it for the first time, but the overwhelming one was gratefulness. I was so grateful that I had been given the opportunity to witness such an awe-inspiring work of art. The Tree of Life is the best film of this year and quite a few others.

An addendum: Last year, I placed Shutter Island at the top of my list because it was the ultimately the film which had the largest emotional impact on me (some might judge this as a suspect way to pick the year's best film, but I would contend that cinema is fundamentally an emotionally-driven medium). It's no mistake that the three films which top this year's list are movies which had a similarly overwhelming impact. At the end of Melancholia; I was convinced that it was simultaneously one of the most genuinely depressing yet strangely exhilarating movies I had seen. At the end of The Tree of Life; I was convinced that it was one of the most legitimately profound and transcendentally beautiful movies I had seen. At the end of Take Shelter; I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that I had only been watching a movie. What a remarkable year 2011 was.

I'd love to hear your thoughts/picks/etc., so hit me up with your feedback.

Sometime soon, I'll offer some honorable mentions and useless awards.

Back at ya later