One of the strongest top 10 lists I have had in
year.
10.
Jackie (Pablo Larrain)
Pablo Larrain’s Jackie is one of the most
interesting biopics I have ever seen. The film focuses on the week after JFK’s
assassination, as his wife – played, brilliantly, by Natalie Portman, clearly
suffering from PTSD, has to somehow find the strength not only to move on and
tell her kids about what happened, but also secure her husband’s legacy – all
the while she grieves for him, and is angry at him, as she knows theirs was
little more than a sham marriage. Strangely, the only time Larrain’s film flashes
away from this time period, is when it goes back to a TV special, where Jackie
gives a tour of the White House to a reporter – although that is linked as
well. For Jackie Kennedy, she know that appearances are what matter – what you
read and see on TV is more important to defining someone’s legacy than what
they actually did. This is a dark film, brilliantly well made, often using
horror movie aesthetics to tell this deep, dark story. A haunting film – and
one I think will only get better as you revisit it, time and again.
9.
Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
When I saw Green Room in the spring when it came
out, it seemed like an excellent horror film/thriller, superbly directed by
Jeremy Saulnier – an almost unbearably intense 95 thrill ride that just keeps turning
the screws tighter and tighter until you cannot bare it. And it is still that –
few films this year are as meticulously crafted for maximum impact like this.
But, in the wake of Trump’s election, Green Room has taken on a new resonance
for me. It is a sadder film (it’s also sadder because its star, Anton Yelchin,
died this year – and it’s tough to see him in pain in this film, given what we
know about his death). This is a film about being young and idealistic – and
completely sure you know everything you need to know about the world, and then
getting out and seeing just how hard, cruel and ugly it is. The punk band that
is confident enough to walk into a room full of Neo-Nazis, and sing a song
entitled “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”, think they are protected by some sort of
society – and perhaps, normally, they would be. But they don’t count on walking
in on a murder scene – and they don’t count on the Neo-Nazis doing whatever it
takes to protect their own. Saulnier is one of the best up-and-coming directors
around – his previous film, Blue Ruin, already confirmed that. This one takes
it to the next level. A brilliant film that was difficult to watch the first
time – and perhaps even more so the second.
8.
Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
One of the quietest films of the year, Jim
Jarmusch’s Paterson is a real world fantasy – about a bus driver named Paterson
who lives and works in Paterson, New Jersey – a once thriving industrial town,
which has fallen on hard times. Adam Driver plays the title character who takes
comfort in his routine – waking up at the same time, walking the same route to
work, listening to his boss complain, driving the same bus route, coming home
to his wife and her artistic ambitions, walking the dog to the bar, where he
has one drink and heads home. He gets flustered when things get him off of his
route – and you cannot help but notice pictures of him during his time in the
Marines, which perhaps offers a key to him. His one outlet is poetry – he reads
a lot of it, and writes his own, in a small notebook. His poems capture the
beauty and mundanity of real life. In lesser hands, this film would be about a
man in a rut who needs to break out and live his life – but Paterson seems
happy in his life, happy with his wife and friends – happy living in his own
head, with his own poetry – which he doesn’t bother to share with anyone other
than his wife. Perhaps living in your head isn’t that bad afterall. Jarmusch
has been making quiet films like this for more than 30 years – and this is one
of his very best.
7.
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
Barry Jenkins’ striking film Moonlight is beautiful
and tender – a story told in three acts of a young African American named
Chiron, growing up in Miami. In the first segment, he’s under 10 and often left
alone by his mother (a brilliant Naomie Harris), slowly slipping in crack
addiction. He finds a kind hearted mentor in Juan (Mahershala Ali) – a drug
dealer, who sells his mother crack, and while that’s something between the two
of them, they bond anyway. In the second, Chiron is in high school, picked on
because he’s quiet (and gay – although he cannot even admit that to himself,
let alone anyone else) – his mother has fallen deeper into addiction – but he
finally meets one friend. In the third, again about 10 years later, Chiron has
grown up, but built walls around himself and his identity – he doesn’t let
anyone in. Then, he gets a call from that same kid he once knew, and his world
opens up – just a bit. The film is visually striking – each segment has its own
visual look, while still being a part of a whole. The acting is brilliant –
it’s the best ensemble cast of the year – and the movie is quietly devastating
in its final act. Jenkins film has become the most acclaimed of the year – and
it’s a well-deserved, for a brilliant film, by a filmmaker who I cannot wait to
see more for.
6.
American Honey (Andrea Arnold)
Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, starring newcomer
Sasha Lane as a teenager from middle America, who runs out on her family and
joins a group of travelling magazine salesmen. It is, in many ways, the perfect
film to usher in four under President Trump – a film about that shows the
hopelessness and poverty for its characters, who may well be taken in by
someone like Trump and his platform. Yet, if that makes American Honey sound
bleak, it really isn’t that at all – the film portrays young love – or more
accurately young infatuation, contains a great soundtrack – which Arnold often
pauses on, to watch the crowd of teenagers, crammed into a white panel van,
singing along to. It’s about the dangerous situations the main character gets
herself in – without ever quite realizing it. The film is three hours, and
largely plotless, but it doesn’t really need a plot. It’s about the romantic
notion of life on the road – but also how gross that can be. Lane terrific in
the lead role, tender honest, sweetly naïve at first – it’s the best debut
performance of the year. Shia LaBeouf has never been better than he is here as
her trainer – and object of her infatuation – and Riley Keough is great as her
boss. American Honey is the film that I nominate – along with Green Room – as
being the ones to perfectly usher in Trump’s America.
5.
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
There was no stranger film this year than Yorgos
Lanthimos’ The Lobster – a dystopian satire about a future in which if you are
not paired up in a romantic relationship, you will be transformed into the
animal of your choice (it’s nice that they let you choose – and you’re also
allowed to be gay, so that’s forward thinking of them as well). The film stars
Colin Farrell – who in the first half, goes to a hotel in which he has a few
months to find his perfect match, and in the second, completely abandons that
society, to live in the woods with a group who completely bans all romantic
coupling of any kind. The switch at the half way point is crucial in the film –
if you think you’re watching a film about the ridiculous way in which society
insists on coupling each other up – you’re right! – but then the film rubs your
face in the other side as well. The Lobster is really a satire of extremes – of
mandates and banishments that limit your choices but strict adherence to the
rules. It brilliant, funny, disturbing and 100% original – a big step forward
for Lanthimos, already one of the most original voices around with Dogtooth and
Alps – the fact that’s he’s coming to TV, with Colin Farrell, fills me with
glee.
4.
Silence (Martin Scorsese)
Martin Scorsese’s Silence is one of the director’s
most overtly religious films – it completes the loosely connected trilogy
started with 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ and continued with 1997’s
Kundun – but it really is a culmination of his career to this point, touching
on the themes that has driven his work for nearly 50 years now. The film is
about a pair of Jesuit priests who in the 1630s travel to Japan to try and find
their mentor – who apparently cracked and renounced his faith when threatened
with torture – and to spread the word of God to the residents there. Andrew
Garfield gives a great performance as one of the priests – who both cares
deeply about the Japanese people he is there to serve, but also, never quite
sees them as human. Eventually he will be captured, and held by the Inquisitor
(Issei Ogata) – who doesn’t want to torture him, and turn him into a martyr –
but would rather break him. The film is hardly a white savior epic – Garfield’s
priest is no saint, and Adam Driver’s priest even less so – and while the
Japanese are capable of torture, they are also capable of so much more – and
even the Inquisitor has a point. Silence is a beautifully mounted film – you
won’t see more stunning cinematography this year – but it’s also a tough film
to endure – there is torture in the film, and long stretches of, well, silence,
when we are invited for moments of introspection alongside the characters. The
film is unlike anything else made in 2016 – it seems like a classic film, but
not one out of Hollywood – it has more in common with the work of Ingmar Bergman,
Carl Dreyer or Robert Bresson. The film may have been underrated this year –
but it will last.
3.
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann is the year’s best comedy –
and one of the most ambitious films of the year as well. It’s a nearly three
hour comedy about a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship, where the two
spend time needling each other when the father shows up at her job in Bucharest
unannounced – eventually posing as a businessman himself. I heard one critic
describe the film as Homer Simpson visiting a grown up Lisa – and that’s not a
bad description. The film crams so much into its run time – misogyny, feminism,
globalization, depression and that’s just for starters – that you would think
that the final product would feel overstuffed, yet it never does. That’s because
writer/director Maren Ade keeps the focus on these two characters, who are so carefully
observed and brilliantly acted by Sandra Huller and Peter Simonischek that no
matter what is going on, it feels natural. The whole film is brilliant, but Ade
goes for broke in the last hour or so – and has one great sequence after
another. Ade’s last film, Everybody Else, was brilliant – one of the best
break-up films in recent memory. It took her far too long to make a follow-up –
and you wouldn’t expect a comedy from her. But she made one of the great ones
of the decade. A masterwork.
2.
Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
No film wrecked me emotionally this year more than
Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea. Casey Affleck gives the performance
of the year as a man who has pretty much completely shut down since a tragic
accident that was his fault. He lives alone, in a cruddy apartment, and works
as a handyman for several buildings in Boston. He’s good at his job, but quiet,
and more than a little bit of an asshole if pushed. He is forced back into the
world when his brother dies, and names him as the guardian of his teenage son –
a role he doesn’t want, but cannot exactly say no to – at least not right away.
The film is about grief, of course but Lonergan knows how there is humor in
even the darkest situations, and often the film is quite funny – which I think
makes the emotional revelations hit even harder when they do come. Affleck is
amazing – his performance ranks amongst the best of the decade so far, a quiet,
understated performance that sticks with you. Michelle Williams makes her few
scenes as Affleck’s ex-wife count – they are as emotionally devastating as
Affleck’s best scenes are (in fact, they may be Affleck’s best scenes, the two
playing off each other beautifully). This is a deep, knowing film – Lonergan’s
best film to date, and an absolute masterpiece.
1.
O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)
Was there a more relevant film this year than
O.J.: Made in America? I don’t think so – this film, an 8 hour documentary
about the life of O.J. Simpson takes hours to examine the man – and the country
and times that produced him – the Watts riots, the Civil Rights movement, etc.
that Simpson largely stayed away from – and his entire career, and superstardom
– before even getting to the crime that has made O.J. Simpson infamous. That it
finds new ways to look at that crime – including the most graphic description
ever of what happened, including photographs, making the audience reckon with
the crime in a way that we haven’t before (because it’s all about OJ, not the
victims). It also provides an outline of police brutality in America –
specifically L.A., putting this trial, and crime, in its proper historical
context – something no one was able to do at the time. It’s an in depth look at
the trial – the strategies, the gamesmanship that went into it. And finally,
it’s a sad look at the man Simpson became – desperately holding onto fame
however he could get it, and the almost Keystone Cops-type crime that landed
him in jail. O.J.: Made in America is about this tragic figure of course – but it’s
also about so much more. If Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is the greatest documentary
of all time (and it is) – this belongs on the tier right below that in terms of
docs. If Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is the greatest film ever made about
race relations in America – than this challenges that masterpiece for the
throne. I don’t really care how you classify O.J.: Made in America – as TV or
as a film – it’s clearly the best thing I saw this year, and worthy of this
number 1 spot.
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