Favourite Films of 2009

1. Fish Tank

Dir. Andrea Arnold

[BBC Films, U.K]

Arnold follows her dark and stunning debut, Red Road, with something more palatable but no less uncompromising. Quietly intense, the films' ‘gritty’ social realism resulted in a deluge of comparisons to the work of Ken Loach. Whilst there are legitimate points of comparison, Arnolds' style and execution is vibrant and original, deserving of acknowledgment outside of a ‘Loachian’ framework. To me it certainly felt like the years most important piece of filmmaking and bodes well for British cinema.

2. Mary and Max

Dir. Adam Elliot

[Melodrama Pictures, Australia]

Director Adam Elliot eschews the shine of this years other animation successes: Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, etc. Eliot instead favors an intensely muted colour palette of browns, grays and blacks, perfectly matching the somber, gloomy melancholy that presides over the lives of the characters. Wonderfully weighted, perfectly timed, emotionally poignant without any schmaltz and visually creative and exciting, Mary and Max was my favorite surprise of the year. Despite the slightly depressing subject matter the film does not lack mirth. There are wonderful moments of joy that arrive from the strangest of places, making the feeling enormously powerful. Whilst some might bemoan the fact that it's not suitable for children, I think it's great to get an animation all to ourselves.

3. Let the Right One In

Dir. Tomas Alfredson

[EFTI, Sweden]

Glancing over the synopsis of LTROI, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for just another teen-vampire film, circling Twilight’s monopoly. However, apart from it being a coming-of-age story of a teenage vampire, the two films have nothing in common. Alfredson’s Nordic tale of vampiric love has all the grace and dolorous beauty that its counterpart lacks. Superbly crafted and wonderfully understated, perhaps the films' biggest triumph is that it somehow doesn’t feel like a vampire film. Alfredson deserves further praise for abstaining from displaying every frame of gore and action to the viewer. Often the violence is meticulously framed so that we don’t see all that is happening but still feel the full effects. The film culminates in an impeccably orchestrated finale, which ranks up there with my favourite scenes in cinema.

4. Frozen River

Dir. Courtney Hunt

[Cohen Media Group, U.S.A]

Following a surge of films about forgotten middle-America (see: Ballast) and American explorations of social realism, Frozen River is certainly the most impressive feature debut of the year. With extremely tight resources, Hunt crafts a tense and terse thriller which examines the dangers and desperations involved in illegal immigrant smuggling. There is an authenticity that runs throughout the film, helping achieve a relentless portrayal of poverty stricken America. The film falters in its final moments, succumbing to the temptation of resolving order and seeking redemption. However, for a debut feature, such minor problems are easily overlooked.

5. Moon

Dir. Duncan Jones

[Liberty Films U.K, U.K]

So, Bowie’s son can direct, and he also digs space. Sweet. It’s great to see a British film of this kind made so well. Jones carves out an otherworldly atmosphere of brooding solitude and despair and creates a meaningful work of science fiction, accessible to those not familiar with the genre. For me, the ‘poignant’ themes of memory and existence raised in the film were fairly glib. The films true accomplishment is in the crafting of the distinctly original eerie tone.

6. The Hurt Locker

Dir. Kathryn Bigelow

[First Light Production, U.S.A]

Kathryn Bigelow masterfully recreates the immeasurable tension and fear of the everyday duties of soldiers in Iraq. The story is told honestly and without over-sentimentally. Brutally tense and terse, it’s hard to imagine a more accomplished cinematic representation of modern warfare.

7. Adventureland

Dir. Greg Mottola

[Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, U.S.A]

Admittedly, this film has been done before, and will be done again. However, Despite it being a big ‘ol indie clichy with precocious geeks getting girls that are way too hot for them, there’s a great amount of sensitivity and humour in the story. Unlike many films of its kind, were encouraged to laugh at the pretension of using phrases like ‘per se’, rather than take it seriously (see: Squid and the Whale) Mottola really cares for his characters, resulting in complete plausibility in spite of their generic indie-boy/girl credentials. Added charm supplied by a wonderful Yo La Tengo score and music from The Velvet Underground. It’s a film that made the most of its conventions and resources and packed a whole load of charm.

8. Where the Wild Things Are

Dir. Spike Jonze

[Warner Bros. Pictures, U.S.A)

Only days after seeing the film, my memories of it are blurred in a childlike reverie. This is exactly the films strength. Jonze captures the chaos, unstained imagination and innocence of childhood and presents it to us in a thrilling hipster-friendly spectacle.

9. An Education

Dir. Lone Scherfig

[BBC Films, U.K]

Desperately charming, wonderfully acted and greatly entertaining, An Education is certainly the most quintessential English production of the year. Carey Mulligan’s preciously elegant lead performance as Jenny is stunning and reason enough to see the film. The film is packed with British charm and whit but tends to gloss over the darker elements of the story that would have provided much needed shadow from the gleam.

10. Watchmen

Dir. Zack Snyder

[Warner Bros. Pictures, U.S.A]

In short, if you’re a fan of the comic, you’ll love it. If you’re not familiar with the source material, you’ll most probably be left mystified as to why it’s often lauded as the greatest-ever graphic novel. The film sort of requires background knowledge to understand the depth of story. Perhaps this is bad filmmaking, or maybe it’s just impossible to get all the issues of the comic into a film of a watchable length. Either way, for fans of the comic it still was a remarkable experience to see the characters of Watchmen immortalised on screen.

Honorable Mentions

Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga, Mexico)

Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, U.S.A)

Milk (Gus Van Sant, U.S.A)

Looking For Eric (Ken Loach, U.K)

The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, U.S.A)

Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, U.S.A)

Up (Pete Docter, U.S.A)

The Imaginarium of Dr. Panassus (Terry Gilliam, U.K)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, U.S.A.)

Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, U.S.A)

The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, U.S.A.)

Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, 2009, Australia)

With 2009 drawing to a close, one of the most deleterious nuisances to cinema since Hugh Grant is successfully winning over audiences and reconnecting them to the movie-going experience. I’m talking about 3D cinema, of course. Whether or not there are ‘immersive’ benefits to 3D cinema, it does not change the fact that it was dreamt up by marketing men in an attempt to combat piracy. The idea being that the audiences now gets something impossible to replicate for free in their bedrooms. Well, at least for the time being.

I personally do not see the benefits of 3D and believe it adds nothing to the cinema going experience, apart from an added expense. It’s has a detrimental affect on independent cinema, with Cineplex’s reserving the few digital projectors for 3D films, forcing smaller films to distribute through the more costly medium of 35mm, and it encourages filmmakers to concentrate on gimmickry instead of storytelling.

Right, now that that’s all out the way, it’s my pleasure to say that my favorite film of the year is an animation that uses good-old stop-motion, without a sniff of 3D nonsense.

Based on a true story, Mary and Max is a dark, brooding tale of friendship between an aging New Yorker, voiced by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and an eight-year-old Australian, voiced by Toni Collette. The two strike up a warm long-distance pen-pal friendship that spans over a period of twenty years, bonding initially over their shared love of chocolate and a children's cartoon called The Noblets.

Director Adam Elliot eschews the shine of this years other animation successes: Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, etc. Elliot instead favors an intensely muted colour palette of browns, grays and blacks, perfectly matching the somber, gloomy melancholy that presides over the lives of the characters. Interestingly, Elliott decides to starkly contrast the colours used for the New York landscape to that of Australia. In New York there are only blacks, grays and whites with a smatter of red, whilst the Australian colours consist of a drab sun-kissed red. This tonal juxtaposition makes for stunning imagery and works wonderfully when the two worlds meet in the films climax.

The merits of Claymation are clear to see. There’s a tremendous amount of inventiveness and character in the craft and it somehow seems that there’s comparatively much more graft and endeavour in the art of Claymation than there is in CGI animation. That might not actually be the case, but it certainly feels that way and as a result there is a heightened sense of admiration and awe attached to it. Each second of the tactile stop motion is crammed with detail that brings what are essentially just lumps of clay to life.

I can’t think of any significant flaws in the film. It’s wonderfully weighted, perfectly timed, emotionally poignant without any schmaltz and visually creative and exciting.

Despite the slightly depressing subject matter the film does not lack mirth. There are wonderful moments of joy that arrive from the strangest of places, making the feeling enormously powerful. Whilst some might bemoan the fact that it's not suitable for children, I think it's great to get an animation all to ourselves.

A Scene to Remember

Every week this section will be looking at a scene or moment in film history that has, for some reason or another, resonated with me and left an impression.

Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris Jr., 1989, USA)


Every moment of Chameleon Street is crammed with wonderfully witty wordplay. For a directional debut Wendell B. Harris Jr. has complete creative control, having both written and starred in the film too. Harris does a stellar job of all three and is one of the only men that can out-cool Morgan Freeman's voice.

The films lack of success over the years is puzzling and obviously irked Harris who never wrote, directed or starred in another film.

Nuovo cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988, Italy)

An epic tale that has it all: humour, warmth, sincerity, drama, fantasy and most importantly a true sensitivity for its characters.

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso Is the story of Toto, a young boy growing up in small close-knit Sicilian village in the 1940s. The fatherless Toto seeks a father figure in Alfredo, the only projectionist in the village. Alfredo nurtures Toto’s love for cinema and educates him in the art of projection. The film is structured in a series of flashbacks with Toto, now known as Salvatore, reflecting on his childhood experiences and how they shaped his future.

There seems to be conflicting reports amongst critics on the best version to see; the original theatrical release, or the interminable Directors’ cut. Having not seen the original theatrical release I can’t pass judgment on which is the better of the two. However, what I can say is that all three hours of the directors’ cut seems necessary to me. There are a great number of films that would have benefited from greater editorial gardening, but I don’t believe this to be one of them. Admittedly, there is a minor lull in the middle of the film, which I assume was pruned from the theatrical release, but even so, it never feels bloated or becomes tedious. There are moments of Almodovar-esque melodrama that eek into the directors’ cut that perhaps distract slightly from the films core. That being said, I would happily have watched another three hours of footage, with or without the melodrama.

Despite how engaging and pleasing the film is both emotionally and visually it does suffer from a series of problems. From the beginning the film is unashamedly romantic and nostalgic, which works well for the most part, but there are moments where it becomes overly sweet and schmaltzy. Another problem is that the somewhat clichéd and one-dimensional representation of rustic village life renders it to be emotionally glib.

In spite of these problems, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso still manages to remain sincere and in its final scene delivers one of the warmest and most sincere moments in film history. It’s a love letter to cinema and will be thoroughly enjoyed by all film aficionados for its countless references to cinema of the past.

For those of you that are unconvinced about watching it, it's worth seeing simply because it's scored by Ennio Morricone! (see trailer below for a snippet of the wonderful score)

A Scene to Remember

Every week this section will be looking at a scene or moment in film history that has, for some reason or another, resonated with me and left an impression.

Pather Panchali (Satayajit Ray, 1955, India)

Often in film there are entrancing moments that are too ephemeral and unassuming to be properly described in words. Considering the point of a film blog is to communicate the seemingly ineffable, I have to admit failure for not being able to do so with the above clip.

Each and every time I see Apu's eyelids being prized open in unison with a young Ravi Shankar's sitar bursting into life, a shiver goes through me.

I can't recall any other film introducing a character in such an effectively beautiful and delicate way.

Jungle Fever (Spike Lee, 1991, USA)

With the recent anniversary of Spike Lee’s incontestable classic Do the Right Thing coming up under the media spotlight, it felt fitting that my first film blog review should be a Spike Lee ‘joint’.

Produced only two years after DTRT Lee continues in his examination of racial tensions in contemporary America. A theme that would continue to be explored again and again in Lee’s oeuvre.

It has been widely reported that upon the release of DTRT many government officials lobbied for the film not to be shown in theatres, fearing that it would spark violence and revolt in the black community. Whilst of course this was ridiculous, it said something for the raw power of the film. (Apparently pizza parlours across American genuinely sought security reinforcements!)

Though Lee clearly has something to say in the film (that being that interracial relationships are plagued with difficulties) the message is debased by the lack of subtlety employed. Instead of simply allowing the audience to feel and experience the tensions between Flipper and Angie, we are repeatedly told about them directly from the characters. A grave symptom of lazy and obtuse screenwriting.

The film is, however, interspersed with fleeting moments of brilliance. The most memorable scene being Gator’s baleful last dance, wonderfully performed by the always-impressive Samuel L Jackson. (see video below)

Overall the film felt messy and weak – both in vision and message. It lacks the vitality of DTRT and unlike its predecessor, it feels completely jaded in 2009.