Last year was a disappointingly bad year for movies, but there were a few films that stood out as the most entertaining, inventive, and thought-provoking, all of which are at least worth the one viewing. Here I have compiled a list of what I deem the best and most important films of 2006.
Conversations With Other Women
Structurally similar to Richard Linklater’s brilliant Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Hans Canosa’s Conversations With Other Women is less a conversation with ‘other women’ and more a conversation between one man (Aaron Eckhart) and one woman (Helena Bonham Carter). They meet at a wedding and spend the rest of the evening conversing with each other. He boldly seeks her out and unabashedly comments on how she fills out her dress nicely. They exchange pleasantries which tend more and more to the personal. They speak with insight and wit; she describes meeting up with old friends as a process of retelling the same memorized 10-minute speech of what you have been doing with your life. Told entirely in split-screen, Conversations has great depth that no Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie ever dared reach. It is fascinating to watch their interactions play, change, progress, and open up their respective histories. The split-screen technique is more than pure gimmick, it lends a sense of detachment between these characters who keep trying to connect, and it gives the film a vibrant energy despite the somewhat jaded, world-wearied characters. Simple in form and beautiful in execution, Conversations proves once more that glam, glitz, and shoot-em-ups are hardly necessary for good-old-fashioned movie magic.
Babel
Three interlocking stories in three different places – one in Japan, one in Morocco, and a journey from the United States to Mexico – all link together, somehow, by one event, in this staggering story of desperate people unable to communicate with each other. Two young Moroccan boys acquire an illegal gun from their father for hunting, and decide to test its range by firing at an incoming tour bus, assuming that the gun won’t reach it. They’re wrong; a woman is shot.
Babel is an exploration of the irresponsible, half-witted measures people will go to out of desperation. We come to understand the brutality of the Moroccan police early on in the film, and we watch the young boys and their family act rashly to avoid their grasps. The injured woman is in far range of any medical care, and her utterly desolate husband deals with the situation in a heart-wrenching manner; they are also dealing with a loss and a marriage on-the-rocks. The couple’s children, back in the States, go on a ludicrous and painful, and more than somewhat illegal, ‘adventure’ to Mexico: their nanny’s son is getting married, the parents are unable to find a replacement, and the nanny is unable to find anyone to care for the children. And in Japan, a deaf girl with serious emotional damage feels rejected and sexually degrades herself in a pitiful attempt for acceptance.
Babel was maddening and frustrating at times; I was groaning, resisting the urge to yell at the characters to think about the idiotic acts they were committing. But there’s something utterly tantalizing about Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film. The pacing of the film, the beauty of the scenery, the strength of the acting, it’s just perfect. This is an important film, cinematographically and structurally, and it’s a film that awakens the mind.
Bubble
I had the opportunity to see the North American premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble, at the Toronto Film Festival, in September 2005 and to speak with him. In Bubble, Mr. Soderbergh introduces us to a small, blue collar town in Ohio, where the characters are decidedly banal, unintelligent, and realistic. Bubble is a jarring, truthful, and as, the writer, Coleman Hough put it, “twisted love triangle”, which descends into a murder mystery, yet remains hardly about the murder or the mystery, and more about an accurate portrait of these characters. Kyle is the main male around whom the triangle forms. He is in his mid-twenties, a high school dropout, who still inhabits his mother’s trailer park haunt and works at the local doll factory. His long time colleague, the thirtysomething Martha, has an odd affection for him which is tossed out when the newbie, Rose, turns up and a mutual attraction occurs between her and Kyle.
To describe this movie by invoking love story, murder mystery, or detective genres would not do it justice, nor would it accurately depict it. Soderbergh takes an unexpected approach, with a stark still camera, and large scale shots, so different from his usual movement-oriented style. I asked him whether he found it difficult to contain himself, keeping the camera still; he responded that it was actually a nice change. After all, it’s all about “the scenery”. And that it is. The film is about being an observer, watching from a distance and discerning the proclivities of human behaviour. It is not about the murder. It doesn’t have that flowing, mesmerizing, classy, noiresque style to it as is the trademark of Ocean’s Eleven and Out of Sight for the film is not about charisma. But each frame is shot with incredible skill, as is expected from cinematographer Peter Andrews. The film has more of a documentary feel; it does not seem as though you are watching “actors”. And of course, Soderbergh used amateurs, which explains the success of the effect.
Bubble is further proof of Mr. Soderbergh’s great talent, and one can only hope that he would continue on with such creative ‘indie’ fare rather than wasting his talent on Ocean’s Thirteen.
The Departed
Within the first two minutes of any Scorsese film, you know you’re in the presence of the work of a master: the scope of the cinematography, the rhythm and the flow of the story, the layout of the scenes, the strength of the acting, and the beauty of the whole execution. You’re hooked from the establishing shots (“They had you at ‘hello’ ”) and it only gets better from there. The Departed is a game of the corrupt, where the cops appear to be combating the murderous mafia, but even their moral compass is just as lacking. There is one shining knight in it all, an undercover cop, Billy Costagen (Leonardo DiCaprio), but we watch him suffer through the psychological trauma of his job, we watch him play the bad guy, and we see him in a state of confusion. The Departed is full of stark, unapologetic violence, with blood-splatter, bullets-to-the-brains throughout, but each one still makes a bang and provokes a shock. But the violence is not gratuitous, and the script is tight. We can easily forgive this film for a plot hole here and there, for the strength of these morality-starved characters in a world where everyone works for someone else and no-one can be trusted, is still a rare commodity. The film has such style and such grace that you’re mesmerized from the get-go, glued to your seat, just happy to go for the ride. A wonderful film that’s a little hard to stomach because the violence is so graphic, The Departed is yet another in the roster of Scorsese greats. Now, would the academy please wake up and give him an Oscar?
Volver
Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver is a vibrant, dark, raw, light-hearted, and even sometimes laugh-out-loud film about mothers, daughters, and sisters, over three-generations: Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), her daughter Paula, her mother Irene (Carmen Maura), and her sister Sole. These women are no strangers to tragedy and hardship: Paula suffered sexual advances from her father and killed him for it out of desperation; Irene disappeared years back in a fire; Raimunda was, at the very least, stuck in a seemingly loveless marriage; and Sole is lonely and runs an illegal hairdressing business out of her apartment. On the day of Raimunda’s aunt’s funeral, her mother, a walking corpse, mysteriously reappears (but is, initially, only visible to Sole), a ghost returned to beg forgiveness from Raimunda to set things right. These women hail from a deeply superstitious village in Spain, where the villagers are eager to believe in spirits, and the magic power of the winds that waft through the town. Death is an ever present and accepted part of this society; the film opens with scenes of women in a graveyard, scrubbing the headstones.
But this is not an inherently sad film; sure, the characters are damaged, but they’re as vivacious as Maude from Harold and Maude, and they live in Almodóvar’s dream world of rich, lavish colours. They band together, they laugh, they keep secrets, and they fight, but this is no YaYa Sisterhood. Not yet ready to face Raimunda, Irene camps out chez Sole, who yells at the top of her lungs ‘Hello Raimunda!’ whenever she comes to the door, as a warning to their mother to take cover and hide. Almodóvar never stoops to the Hollywood cliché. At one point Raimunda helps herself to her neighbour’s restaurant in his absence to cater for a film crew and there’s a ‘strapping young man’ among them dangled at us as a potential love interest might be. But Almodóvar never yanks these two into a gratuitous romantic relationship. Volver is a lot of fun, beautifully shot, but never superficial and always engaging.
49 Up
49 Up is the latest installment of Michael Apted’s ‘Up’ documentary series, which catches up with the same people every seven years for a new documentary, starting at age 7, and then subsequently at age 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, and now 49. Some grow up to be university professors, some teachers, some unable to work, some construction workers, some taxi drivers, among other professions. 49 Up is a fascinating sociological study of how people and their relationships develop, how their attitudes and world-views change, and indirectly, the factors that affect this.
At each stage, Apted asks the participants about their love lives: do they have or want a girlfriend or boyfriend? If they’re married, what are the marriage and possibly the family situations? He asks them about their jobs, their education, and the personal satisfaction they receive therein. Some of the participants divulge very personal information; others refuse to discuss such things for public scrutiny. Here we have a compilation of current scenes intermixed with scenes from the past films: real-life character development.
All of the participants agree that contributing to this film is extremely stressful; every seven years painful memories and experiences from the past get stirred up, and they’re forced into self-reflection. But all also agree that it’s an important series of films, that are important to many people. Well-shot, without the usual annoying documentary gimmicks, caring for its characters, and completely engaging, 49 Up has become an important film and it’s a wonderful one to watch, at that.
The Good German
It’s no secret that I’m a diehard Steven Soderbergh fan, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that in a year in which two of his films were released, both should make it to my final list. The Good German is a darker Casablanca-esque – with a few twists - thriller set in July 1945, when only the Japanese continued to fight the war, and around the time of the peace conference in Potsdam.
Jacob (George Clooney) is an American journalist for the New Republic, who formerly worked as a foreign correspondent in Germany before the war, and who has come to town to cover the conference. He gets paired with a sleazy driver, Tully (played by the awful Tobey Maguire) for the extent of his stay, who just so happens to be screwing his former flame, Lena (Cate Blanchett), from before the war. Tully has dirty dealings with the Russians, and Lena appears to be using him in a desperate attempt to get out of Germany. At the beginning of the Potsdam conference, American soldier Tully is found floating down the river, dead, in Potsdam. For some reason, the Americans are frantically looking for Lena’s husband, and hence, so, too, are the Russians. Why are they looking for him? Why is Tully dead? Is it pure coincidence that Jacob’s driver just so happens to be having an affair with his former fling?
Shot entirely in black-and-white, using vintage cameras and equipment, Soderbergh gets the look and feel just right. Everything is in shadows because everyone has something to hide and everyone’s morality and decisions come into question. The bartender once says that “In Berlin, there’s always something worse”, and we always do find something worse, as we see the left-over atrocities from the war, inside a city turned to rubble. The suspense builds gradually and formidably, the acting is wonderful, and the story chilling. Despite a few plot holes here and there, this is a beautiful, visually stylistic sight to behold, and tells the story of the end of the war in Germany, a time often forgotten in the storybooks.
Match Point
Woody Allen went over-the-ocean to shoot Match Point and the change of scene from his traditional New York City to London seems to have led him to an excellent come-back after several years of truly awful films (with the exception of the underappreciated Melinda and Melinda of 2004). Match Point is a story of a social climber, Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who marries into money and privilege, but not romantic love, and is tempted into marital infidelity by an irresistible and sexy American, Nola (Scarlett Johansson). As he gets deeper and deeper into the relationship, the stakes get higher, and Nola threatens to tell his wife about their relationship. There are many similarities between Match Point and Allen’s 1989 masterpiece, Crimes and Misdemeanors, but you can’t really accuse it of being a recycled Woody Allen stock plot. It’s chilling, erotic, painful, eerie, and a little depressing. Allen understands the British cultural backdrop, and these characters fit into and abide by ‘society’ in a believable manner. This is not Woody Allen’s greatest film, it’s no Annie Hall or Manhattan, but it is an excellent character study, in which Allen himself never appears, and which continues to explore Allen’s favourite topics – love, death, and sex – in a new way.
An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a generally well-made documentary that does a good job of explaining climate change, what caused it, and the consequences of it on the state of the earth. There is a good variety of media to keep the film engaging – from slideshow presentations to interviews – and some important, personal interviews with Al Gore, which ground the film so that it doesn’t become condescending or unrelentingly guilt-tripping. We grow to understand Al Gore’s point of view, his struggle, and his passion for the environment and we can see him as someone like us. The interviews also work as a break from the hard facts, so that we don’t feel bombarded with information. It presents the problems to the audience in an intelligent manner, with humour and visual panache, and without babying us, which makes the argument that we need to act now and do something much stronger. An Inconvenient Truth is a good film, not a great film, but –here’s that word again – an important film. It knows its audience and it targets it well; it explains its point, it’s motivating, and it’s entertaining. My only qualm is that it didn’t give enough information, up front, about what individuals can do to conserve energy and reverse the effects of climate change. It wasn’t until the titles that we received a preachy montage with suggestions. Reasonably high profile, and deservingly so, one can only hope that An Inconvenient Truth made and will continue to make big ripples and help spark the change we need.
Half Nelson
Half Nelson is a darker, grittier version of Music of the Heart; it’s the story of an inner-city school teacher with radical teaching methods who ‘changes the lives’ of his students. But Ryan Gosling’s Dan Dunne has many an imperfection, a fiercely unhappy cocaine addict, cynical about his own life but remarkably optimistic for his students. One of his students befriends him, a precocious girl, when she catches him overdosing in the girls’ bathroom one evening after one of their basketball tournaments, and she helps him come to in what can only have been a horribly uncomfortable moment for her. She gets involved with dealing; he falls deeper into drug usage. Their relationship develops, and he begins to care for her as a father-figure, but one that’s hardly grown up. Sometimes it’s not clear who’s parenting who, but it never becomes overly sentimental, and the wisdom of each character is believable for their situation. We’ve seen variations on this story many times before, but Ryan Gosling’s very strong performance is just a joy to watch in its attention to detail. He’s scared, strong, helpful, indifferent, caring, screwed up, childish, and fatherly all at once. Gosling has been taking a wide variety of roles in the past few years, from leading man to delinquent; he plays them all with seamless grace. I’m still not completely sure that the relationship between Gosling and the student is perfectly believable, but their interactions work. There are a few scenes in the movie that are perfect in tone, and some remarkable acting which make it a more than worthwhile see.
Previously published in The Newspaper.
