the year that was (5/5): top 10 films of 2011.
we’re so sorry, tomas alfredson. (and sean durkin, it was like being brainwashed and raped against our will to have left your film off, too).
#10. le havre [dir. aki kaurismäki].
it’s been a long time since miff in july, when i saw aki kaurismäki’s bitterly-but-not-overly sweet le havre, and it’ll be a longer time still before others get the chance to see it in a wider release. but what remains beyond any specifics is le havre’s idiosyncratic tone: humanistic yet comedic, heavy yet luminously bright its its visual character. it’s an immigrant-misfit, pseudo father-son yarn that should by no means work, with a plot synopsis so ripe with formulaic overtones that it reeks of hollywood heartstring yanking. that kaurismäki defies all these preconceptions is alone enough of a feat to warrant the first spot this here list. –jansen
#9. the artist [dir. michel hazanavicius].
a full year ago, most would scoff at the prospect of a black-and-white silent film as the ’11 oscar frontrunner, but no doubt, michel hazanavicius’ ludic valentine to the cinema of yore is indubitably it. with its charms not simply restricted to the nostalgic visual storytelling of the cinematic era it evokes — as plenty of filmmakers could replicate that — but rather, that wholehearted, spirited conviction it exudes in doing so, the artist is what homage should be: an assured pursuit of the heart beyond form. – judah
#8. the descendants [dir. alexander payne].
picture a distraught cloons, awkwardly gunning it through a hawaiian suburb in inappropriate footwear to forcefully confront close friends about his dying wife’s secret lover. few scenes from alexander payne’s latest better illustrate the tonal roundedness of his singular brand of ‘comedy’. for all of the weight embedded in its tragic, downbeat premise, payne has a way of punctuating with the farcical, finding a humor in that sharp, vicious sadness at the heart of his work. the descendants is merely testament to the inch closer payne gets to perfecting that stinging human messiness with each of his films. – judah
#7. beginners [dir. mike mills].
one of the first pieces i read on mike mills’ beginners described it as a comedic take on similar themes to terrence malick’s the tree of life and looking back, there’s definitely some truth to that. so much fuller than the whimsical dramedy it appears, beginners was as much a work of intimate, free-flowing biography as malick’s, and found a profound perceptiveness all of its own in examining life, death and family. while just as much an ode to gay life, maturation, and rather specifically, to mills’ late-father; beginners is quite simply about the way we choose to love, which, as emphasized by chris plummer’s warm-hearted rendering of papa mills, defines the way in which we live. – judah
#6. shame [dir. steve mcqueen].
steve mcqueen’s abrupt, dark, and above all frank analysis of the alienation of modern times was only a roundabout delving into one man’s paralysing addiction to sex. that it pulled no punches about its subject matter is only half of the argument – anyone can be graphically explicit. but it’s the specificity with which we are presented (with the help of incredible performances by both fassbender and mulligan) the troubling mindscapes over troubled bodies that make for the movie’s raw power – and its the explicitly psychological immediacy of the film that insists on sticking around. – jansen
#5. we need to talk about kevin [dir. lynne ramsay].
lynne ramsay’s uncompromising maternal nightmare would have been nasty whichever way it was told, but few methods would have come off as intimate and jarring as the darkly poetic narrative of disjointed impressionism employed here, as if filing through literal memory. via a dreamy language of visual metaphor does eva’s self-loathing battle with blame come so brilliantly alive here — a motif of red liquids, in particular; from the opening sequence of swinton’s eva crowdsurfing through la tomatina with reckless abandon, to crimson paint splatter tarring her home, to her rising internal tension visualized in the form of tinned tomato soup. once that other kind of red is finally unleashed, there’s literally no shaking this film, such is its distinct, haunting artistry. – judah
#4. melancholia [dir. lars von trier].
not many films have the effect of making one physically nauseus in their seat; or could cause the stunned and totally perplexed expressions on the faces of the majority of folks leaving my screening of von trier’s melancholia. as existentially ambitious as malick’s the tree of life, lars’ apocalyptic spin on the lack of meaning in life was wrenching and potent as it was aggrandisingly rapt with style. add in a two-wins-out-of-as-many-turns for von trier by the magnificent charlotte gainsbourg, and a career-defining cannes winning performance by kirsten dunst of all people, and we may find ourselves agreeing with judah: perhaps melancholia is the greatest director on earth’s best work. – jansen
#3. drive [dir. nicolas winding refn].
drive, more than any other populist hit of the year, has done its dash along the hipster zeitgeist cycle – from gushing praise following its debut on the croisette through to the aloof handing off it’s currently receiving in somewhat of a backlash. we’re here to say fuck them all. drive remains the genre film of the year [we’re really, really, really sorry, mr. alfredson]: magnetic, stylish, essential in its directorial components, and underwritten by one of the year’s most unforgettable soundtracks. drive is so compulsively good that it’s worth starting every sentence with its name. drive is winding refn pronouncing himself an auteur of psycho-dramatic hyperviolence (if bronson wasn’t already a marker, that is), and that best of all, he’s here to fucking stay. – jansen
#2. the tree of life [dir. terrence malick].
few films can, or should, be credited on the grounds of sheer ambition alone, but with that being said, few films experiment with material as vast, subjective or unexplored as terrence malick dallies with here. that’s not to say he misses any marks with his expansive, deeply polarizing cannes winner, as whatever ‘marks’ there may have been have certainly been lost in a picture both intimately autobiographic and to-the-dawns-of-time geographic. instead, the tree of life feels both kaleidoscopically brimming and like a blank canvas, reliant on projected audience readings as equally as the evocative beauty of whatever emmanuel lubeski turns his lens to. a picture about something as divisive as the meaning of life was always bound to draw detractors, but the difference here is that whatever you believe about our existence, the tree of life probably has room for it. – judah
#1. nader & simin, a separation (jodaeieye nader az simin) [dir. asghar farhadi].
call us pretentious what-have-yous for capping our list with the gripping iranian family drama that (probably) nobody’s seen. call us anything you want, but don’t dispute asghar farhadi’s masterpiece of social dissection, crises of faith, and the double-handed reality of being truthful in today’s age as the most powerful, insightful document on the times in cinematic form to have been released in 2011. from peyman mooadi’s riveting performance to farhadi’s miss-no-beats script, nader & simin, a separation pits prestige foreign-language cred up against universal, pre-linguistic moral dilemmas in an escalating drama that’s as surprising as it is frustratingly acute. – jansen
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