|
|
|
2003 World Poll - Part 2
The Entries
The year's cinematic output had everything to do with the complex cultural climate. The fear of mortality, the yearning for connection, and the lust for vengeance appeared again and again in movies, whether comedies, action flicks, or serious year-end sagas. Following is a list of the year's films that most notably resist or scrutinise these notions, in alphabetical order:
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002) City of God (Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund, 2002) The Dancer Upstairs (John Malkovich, 2003) Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2003) Elephant (Gus van Sant, 2003) The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003) Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003) Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003) Raising Victor Vargas (Peter Sollett, 2002) Cynthia Fuchs is associate professor of Film & Media Studies at George Mason University, film-TV-DVD editor for PopMatters.com, and editor of Spike Lee: Interviews (University of Mississippi Press, 2002).
Ten best films released in the US in 2003:
Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002) Five best recent films undistributed in the US as of the end of 2003:
Goodbye Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003) Worst films of 2003: The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand, 2003), Japanese Story (Sue Brooks, 2003), Pieces of April (Peter Hedges, 2003). Worst scenes of 2003: the classroom scenes in Shattered Glass (Billy Ray, 2003). I find mysterious the all but unanimous critical praise (in the US) for Lost In Translation, a mediocre light comedy that owes almost all its effect, apart from that ensured by the contrivances with which the scenario locks up its central situation, to the charm of the stars. The sublimity of one affecting moment – Bill Murray's karaoke rendition of Roxy Music's “More Than This” – can scarcely make a masterpiece of the whole film. For all its hypnotic excellence, Elephant, another much praised film, has little to say about the causes of the calamity that it takes as its subject and left me feeling that if it had turned out to be a highly aestheticised teen comedy instead of a film about the Columbine massacre, it would have been just as good (and therefore better). A defense on the lines of “that's exactly the film's point: impossibility of understanding, rejection of catharsis” is plausible, but of Van Sant's two 2003 releases I prefer Gerry (2002) which stands in no need of such arguments. Two other American films I appreciate less than many people seem to are American Splendor (Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman, 2003) and Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003). The former is an agreeable and clever portrait that domesticates and sweetens its subject's subversiveness. In the latter, the superficiality of the treatment of a complex and unpleasant subject is even more disappointing, and more open to the charge of opportunism, than in Elephant. These four films – Lost In Translation, Elephant, American Splendor, Capturing the Friedmans – exemplify the main weaknesses of current American cinema, at any rate American cinema that has any claim to importance: its diffidence with large themes and its caginess with disturbing material, which it is nonetheless willing to exploit for shock value; its heavy reliance on the charisma of actors; its cultivation of what entertainment journalists call the “quirky”, in preference to either a personal style or anything that might pass as classicism in a non-trivial sense. One American film released in 2003 avoided, as if systematically, each of these problems: Mystic River, a masterpiece equal to its big themes that, far from being a meteorological showcase for its leading actor, dismantles the alibis and the mystique of violent emotion. Chris Fujiwara, the author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall (Johns Hopkins University Press), writes on film for The Boston Phoenix and other publications. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Irreversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002) Great year for documentaries and a terrible year for fiction films, except for the ones with Hope Davis. Most overrated film by far: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson, 2003). Doesn't anyone notice how profoundly gynophobic this series of films has been? The ring is just what it looks like – a wedding ring. If you wear it, you go crazy. Or you have a vision of what is supposed to be the eye of Sarin but what looks to me like a flaming vulva. At the climax of the series, when Frodo tries on the ring, he quickly experiences an upward displacement of castration by having his finger bit off. The boys and men are constantly gazing at each other longingly and holding each other in their arms, while the occasional female character gets a peck on the mouth and is then hustled offscreen. Is this what our popular entertainment has come to? Krin Gabbard is Professor of Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of Comparative Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema (University of Chicago Press, 1996) and the editor of Jazz Among the Discourses and Representing Jazz (both Duke University Press, 1995).
Some personal viewing pleasures of 2003 in no particular order (a year spent more in the street than in the theatre): Masked and Anonymous (Larry Charles, 2003). Nearly as maligned as Renaldo and Clara (Bob Dylan, 1978), and just as worth seeing and grappling with. Friday Night (Claire Denis, 2002). Quite simply, a film that made me feel good to be alive. A difficult feat on some days.
Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom (Naomi Kawase, 2002) Discovering in greater depth the documentaries of Noriaki Tsuchimoto including On the Road: The Document (1964), Minamata: The Victims and their World (1971), Shiranui Sea (1975), and Afghan Spring (1990); and the documentaries of Tran Van Thuy: The Story of Kindness (1987), The Sound of the Violin in My Lai (1998) and A Story from the Corner of the Park (1996). Dans le noir du temps (Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, 2003) Discovering in greater depth the films of Phil Solomon including Nocturne (1980/1989), The Exquisite Hour (1989/1994), The Snowman (1995), Twilight Psalm II: Walking Distance (1999), Seasons (1998-99, co-director: Stan Brakhage).
From The Other Side (Chantal Akerman, 2002) John Gianvito is a filmmaker, curator, and teacher presently residing in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Eligibility: theatrical or premiere DVD releases or festivals in US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, calendar year 2003.
21 Grams Most welcome retrospectives:
Yasujiro Ozu (touring North America, 2003) Antony I. Ginnane is a producer, distributor and commentator based in Los Angeles, USA and Melbourne, Australia. He is also President of IFM World Releasing Inc.
Ten best cinematic things of 2003:
Aaron Goldberg studies screenwriting at RMIT in Melbourne and writes for R4 magazine, JJJ websites and anywhere else that will have him.
The best performance of the year was the most fun, Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean (Gore Verbinski, 2003). Many films from both lists above could serve as most underrated, but the most overrated movie of the year is Nathanael Kahn's My Architect, an ego-trip adventure in self-advertising. There are plenty of real worst movies of the year, but the worst film that anyone took seriously was the wretched after-school-special-with-music Camp (Todd Graff, 2003). I also have to salute the Criterion Collection and Palm Distribution for the best DVDs of the year: By Brakhage: An Anthology and the Director's Series featuring the work of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham. Both ventures took commercially released videos into territories they've never been before, and the results are wonderful. For me, the Arafat balloon and the flying Ninja in Divine Intervention were the best scenes of the year. Several films listed above still haven't had American distribution, but the most baffling MIA movie is My Mother's Smile (Marco Bellocchio, 2002) my favourite film from Cannes 2002 – one of the best years in recent memory. Adam Hart is a critic and filmmaker based in Seattle, WA (USA). He has written for indieWire, Res, Really Good Films and others.
As I moved to a smaller city this year, the issue of distribution has been more on my mind than ever...many of my favourite films this year were thus viewed on DVD, or while travelling.
A few DVDs I loved: By Brakhage, The Work of Director Michel Gondry, Style Wars. Dave Heaton is the editor of the online magaine Erasing Clouds. He currently lives in Lansing, Michigan, USA.
Infernal Affairs 2 (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2003). Deepening the story of part one in ways that The Godfather Part 2 (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) only paid lip service to, this sequel to Hong Kong's runaway hit of 2002 accomplishes what sequels only rarely do: you can no longer watch part one without also watching part two. Infernal Affairs 1 and 2 now stand as the deepest and most satisfying crime saga of them all. Men Suddenly in Black (Edmond Pang, 2003). The ultimate expression of the Porky's (Bob Clark, 1981) aesthetic. A lowdown sex farce runs through once on normal, then passes through the fire and becomes a meditation on marriage and fidelity. A little too long, but when else has sexual slapstick left you feeling clean and pure and privy to the secrets of the universe? Fueled by brutal parodies of everything from Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2002) to Se7en (David Fincher, 1995), the director plays it straight-faced from start to finish – all too rare in the current “wink, nudge, learn a lesson” school of Hollywood comedy. Running on Karma (Johnnie To & Wai Ka Fai, 2003). “What genre is this?” madness ends with a plea for an end to all violence. Martial arts, comedy, romance, and grotty blood-letting swirl psychedelically as this Johnnie To wonder wagon transforms itself into a truly Buddhist movie. Totally unique. Twins Effect (Dante Lam, 2003). Hong Kong's number two movie of the year (beaten out by Finding Nemo – d'oh!) is a wet raspberry blown at Hollywood by an overconfident film industry that was left for dead, but now emerges stronger than ever. Not so much a movie as a series of disconnected setpieces strung together, it stars pop sensations, the Twins,
Memories of Murder (Bong Jun-Ho, 2003). From the true story of a serial killer in 1980s Korea, Bong Jun-Ho crafts a mix of police procedural, thriller, political drama, and angry comedy that leaves you breathless and burnt. Going into this movie you know that this crime went unsolved, but it doesn't stop the ending from leaving you squatting on the floor, gripping your head in your hands and howling in frustration and anger. Save the Green Planet (Jan Jung-Hwan, 2003). Another freaky, genre-busting flick in the vein of Running on Karma. Only this one doesn't beg us to give peace a chance, but holds a gun to our heads and demands it. Billed as a kooky black comedy, it's instead a heart-shredding plea for humanity completely devoid of laughs. Only the most sadistic audience could find this funny. Ong-Bak (Prachya Pinkaew, 2003). Made by a cast of unknowns from a mostly-unknown-in-the-West film industry, this is the most liberating collection of brutally beautiful violence, hard falls, and high kicks to grace the screen since Jackie Chan's 1994 Drunkenmaster 2. A truly joyous experience, the likes of which are all too rare these days. From Justin to Kelly (Robert Iscove, 2003). A mishmash of everything from Fosse to West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961) to Beach Blanket Bingo (William Asher, 1965) and Elvis flicks, this motion picture toilet-clogger is the most daring American movie of the year. Eschewing middlebrow, middle-class conventions in a bold attempt at refashioning the musical for today's teen, no other Hollywood picture reaches so far and falls so short. Inspiring! Grady Hendrix is one of the founders of Subway Cinema, a film programming collective in New York City dedicated to increasing exposure for popular Asian movies neglected by Western critics and audiences.
Listed alphabetically – all are features unless stated:
Captive, Waiting... (Mohammad Ahmadi, 2002) (short documentary) James Hewison is Executive Director of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
For reasons that would take a small novel to explain (and probably not a very interesting one at that) I missed out on several 2002/2003 releases somewhere in mid-Atlantic transit over the course of that period. However, as we all grow to embrace the wonders of the digital, multichannel universe, instead of getting all anal-retentive about release dates, I have decided to include films that I caught up with on DVD, and television fare as good if not better than many hyped cinema releases I did love or simply enjoy. And no, I did not see the latest Lord of The Rings installment, but enough of you have, so I think we can all sleep a little better with that knowledge. Top Ten:
21 Grams Best war movie: In The Line of Fire (produced by Tom Giles for BBC's Panorama program, broadcast, Nov. 9, 2003). In April 2003, BBC news veteran, John Simpson, found himself caught up in one of the more absurd “friendly fire” situations of the Iraq war. This documentary deserves as wide an audience as possible as one of the most compassionate and lucid attempts to make sense of last spring. I Laughed, I Cried: The sublime comic genius of Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant's The Office (BBC) and Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO). To paraphrase Faulkner, great comedy is worth any number of former Saturday Night Live regulars. Entertainments/Diversions/Guilty Pleasures: About A Boy (Chris and Paul Weitz, 2002), Changing Lanes (Roger Michel, 2001), Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002) Intacto (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2002), Ripley's Game, Le Divorce (James Ivory, 2003), The Good Thief (Neil Jordan, 2003), Summer Things (Michel Blance, 2002), Small Cuts (Pascal Bonitzer, 2003) Intolerable Cruelty (Joel Coen, 2003), and Mystic River. “What the – !”: The Hulk (Ang Lee, 2003) and In the Cut Best Alan Pakula Film: State of Play (David Yates, 2003) (BBC1, written by Paul Abbot) Worst: Kill Bill: Volume 1. Volume two will have to be some amazing mix of the best of Bresson, Welles, Peckinpah, Wong Kar-Wai, etc. etc. to atone for the laziness, cynicism, and decadence of Harvey and Quentin's version of the Emperor's New Clothes. Favourite screen nasty/off-screen nice guy: Sydney Pollack Best Film Book: Making Pictures: One Hundred Years of European Cinematography (published by Harry N. Abrams). Grand Guy: Steven Soderbergh for helping to arrange the donation of the Terry Southern papers to the New York Public Library and his generosity and vision as producer and director. Lee Hill is the author of A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern (available in paperback from Bloomsbury UK).
The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001) On another day any one of Divine Intervention, Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002), Alexandra's Project (Rolf de Heer, 2003) or Adaptation might have made it into the ten. Most of the above get points for the way they tested the parameters of genre and/or narrative while Far From Heaven and Springtime were affectingly neo-classical. Special thanks to Nigel Buesst for reminding us that, for an all too brief few years in the late '60s, Carlton + Godard = Cinema (2003). Bruce Hodsdon has curated film and video collections and screenings in the National Library, Canberra, and currently in the State Library of Queensland.
Favourite films seen in the San Francisco Bay area in 2003:
That a film like Looney Tunes: Back in Action (Joe Dante, 2003) a heart-rending literal, if slightly compromised, tribute to the greatest cinematic achievement of the 20th century failed to resonate with audiences and (most) critics alike may have been the biggest blow of 2003, but then the general preference for Sofia Coppola's likable Bill Murray vehicle over Stuck on You (Peter & Bobby Farrelly, 2003), the true Hollywood masterpiece of the year, indicates that we still like it better to imagine ourselves superior, alienated and in possession of great cynical wit than to humbly embrace our basic flaws. The Farrellys' magnificently written parable about the interconnectedness of alarming ignorance and moving innocence certainly proves that it is still possible – in Hollywood of all places – to make great humanist cinema, even if irony is the preferred mode nowadays. Irony Killed Bill: Volume 1 (specifically the line “Buck wants to fuck” did, and not even Chiaki Kuriyama could bring it back to life, though she tried amazingly hard), but that may be part of its design which suggests the biggest irony is making White Elephant Art out of innocently gnawing exploitation movies. Still it was the 6th best Hollywood entertainment of the year, in case there's any meaning left in the word entertainment: the huge amount of space wasted on even the second turgid Matrix sequel when a film like Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (Jang Sun-Woo, 2002) – which was everything the interminable trilogy should have been: smart, risky, funny and positively utopian – gets virtually ignored, seems to indicate otherwise. Then again, the ridiculous, but thankfully short ending of Revolutions (Larry & Andy Wachowski, 2003) was more merciful than the most self-indulgent encore ever in Peter Jackson's Christmas-slot filler. It made you wish he hadn't stuffed his then-anarchic brain back into his head in Bad Taste (Peter Jackson, 1988), so he could exchange it at the box office later. Box office receipts visibly were not the driving force behind the most personal and interesting films of the year: Batang West Side (2001), Lav Diaz's towering epic about the Filipino diaspora, probably wasn't screened in more than a handful of venues (I saw it on video), but it's the most startling film I've seen in years, not just because of its aesthetic rigour; its sheer scope and ambition are awe-inspiring, in a very modest way. (Only the Pynchonesque conception of Barbara Albert's Free Radicals [Böse Zellen] [2003] came close in the latter category, even if it's sometimes too audacious for its own good, and for all its ambiguity it does seem a bit too much in love with suffering.) The sheer insouciance of making something for himself rather than them seems to be what infuriated the critics in Cannes at the embarrassing screening of Vincent Gallo's excellent road movie The Brown Bunny; actually I preferred the original cut (though it was probably wise to remove the ending), but for all it lost on Warhol/Benning/Frank-frontline, the new edit moves closer towards Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971) not just because of the haunted, ragged landscapes and melancholia, but because of its overwhelming sense of futility and the sparse musicality. Actually, The Brown Bunny is best approached like a singer-songwriter album – the music gives all the c(l)ues – it's quite explicitly a film about all great themes from the dark side of country music: anger, jealousy, vanity, the devils lust, booze, drugs and suffocating on your own vomit. I wish Gus van Sant had cut the vomiting girls from Elephant, but it was a remarkable film for the self-reflexive pangs of guilt on display alone: Few shots this year carried the same desperate weight as the last shot of the photographer who instinctively cannot resist taking a last picture of his killers; Marcia Gay Harden waving at her child in vain, maybe. Which reminds me: for all the ample display of Eastwood's usual mastery in Mystic River, he doesn't try to conceal the (eminently forgiveable) usual weaknesses of Helgeland's script. So I'm flabbergasted at the sudden masterpiece-touting after unwarranted dismissals; like with the sudden embrace of Elephant after many Gerry-pans, it seems looming gravitas of theme is still a necessary factor. That would also explain why a simple, classical, unassuming and near-perfect film like School Trip (Henner Winckler, 2002) has no chance. (It's not that it's near unintelligible outside of its country of origin, like Stossek 1968-86, a feature-length cultural artefact by Alexander Binder condensed from 18 hours of home movies by Werner Stoschek covering 18 years and a mesmerising collage of unconsciously captured signifiers of the Austrian mindset of the era; its unexpected finale is probably more powerful than Elephant and Mystic River combined.) What's funny about Mystic River though, is that the best performance in the film – Kevin Bacon's unfussy turn, his effortlessness in putting the amusing star-gazing of his two male co-stars in perspective – will go mostly unheralded, a replay of Eastwood's own fate as an actor. Speaking of great acting, I'm still of the opinion that if Willard (Glen Morgan, 2003) had been titled Crispion Hellion Glover – The Movie, the film, and especially its star (which is most of the film) would have gotten the recognition they deserved. Enough rambling; since it's time to confess that I probably couldn't even make a convincing argument that Thome's somehow magical Red and Blue is actually a good film (whatever that means) – I only can say that I wish one Rohmer movie in the last decade intoxicated me as much with comparably subtle sleight-of-hand-manoeuvres and evocative mise en scène, what could I add? Maybe that – even though Murray's rendition of Roxy Music's “More Than This” was magical – the true sound sensation of 2003 was that Takeshi Kitano finally made his musical, which was – not quite surprising, but still – the only great genre film of the year. God bless him. 15 favourites:
Abel Ferrara: Not Guilty (Rafi Pitts, 2003) 15 runners-up:
196 BPM (Romuald Kamarkar, 2003) Christoph Huber is the main film critic for Die Presse (Vienna). He has published on cinema and pop music for various film magazines, newspapers and websites and writes the program notes for Vienna's Cinémathèque.
Guilty pleasures: Shanghai Knights (David Dobkin, 2003), Pirates of the Caribbean, King of the Ants (Stuart Gordon, 2003), Identity (James Mangold, 2003), The In-Laws (Andrew Fleming, 2003) (bless you Albert Brooks), Bulletproof Monk (Paul Hunter, 2002), Old School (Todd Phillips, 2003), Buffalo Soldiers (Gregor Jordan, 2001), Spy Kids 3D (Robert Rodriguez, 2003), Freaky Friday (Mark Waters, 2003), Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt, 2003) and nominally Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Jonathan Mostow, 2003), Hollywood Homicide (Ron Shelton, 2003), 28 Days Later, and Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003). Christopher J. Jarmick is a writer, journalist, and poet. He's the President of PEN-Washington, a board member of the Washington Poets Association and the author of a critically acclaimed thriller, The Glass Cocoon (co-written with Serena F. Holder). His 30-part narrative prose poem, The Red House Tavern Tales is being published serial style (3 or 4 poems at a time) by Brutarian Magazine out of Washington D.C.
Top Films of the Year (in the order I saw them):
Solaris Special note: 15 minutes in the latter half of Zatôichi: during a rainy afternoon, as the narrative builds to its climax, the film grinds to a halt so that each character may slip into a reverie – pure cinema. Crimes against Cinema:
Lost In Translation Special note: The all-singing, all-tap-dancing ending of Zatôichi – deeply offensive. Narain Jashanmal is an author and filmmaker who splits his time between New York, Europe and the Middle East.
Best re-release: Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983) Honourable mentions: 28 Days Later, Friday Night, The Son (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2002), Elephant, In This World, and Johnny Depp's performance in the otherwise wretched Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Interesting failures: All the Real Girls, demonlover, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir, 2003), The Singing Detective (Keith Gordon, 2003), In the Cut, and Gigli (Martin Brest, 2003). Biggest waste of time for all involved: the MPAA screeners ban. Jeremiah Kipp is a frequent contributor to Filmmaker Magazine, Fangoria, Shock Cinema, Film Festival Today, Slant Magazine, Culturedose.net and other publications.
I paid to see 60 films on the big screen in 2003, and my lists are drawn from those. I'm troubled by the dominance of American films on my list, and regret missing out on a lot of films that might have made the cut, including Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne's The Son, which never played in my city of residence, Austin, Texas. However, I had an exciting year at the movies, and though few films completely bowled me over, leaving me gasping for breath and reevaluating my path in life, I enjoyed most of what I saw. Here goes. In no particular order: Elephant and Gerry. He's back. After three hugely disappointing features (the sentimental Good Will Hunting [1997], the inexplicable Psycho [1998], and the execrable Finding Forrester [2000]) Van Sant redeems himself and those still in his corner with a pair of challenging, uncompromising films. Elephant, especially, was a “film” in the best sense of the word, showing how our understanding of images can be deepened, skewed, expanded, changed, or confused based on how much or how little visual information we receive. It's a beautiful and harrowing film that succeeds despite a major flaw (the scene in which three girls vomit their lunches in adjacent bathroom stalls at the same time). About Schmidt. Jack Nicholson ditches his famous persona and becomes a real human being again in this flawed but wonderful road movie set in the criminally ignored locale of my home state, Nebraska. Morvern Callar. A mysterious film, visually and narratively, that used music better than any other this year. I felt great warmth for Samantha Morton's character, even when her actions mystified or worried me.
Spider. What seemed at first a good but slight film from the Canadian master has creeped back into my head repeatedly since seeing it, and Ralph Fiennes' performance is a subtle piece of genius. The Man Without a Past. Finland's finest returns with another slice of deadpan, absurdist comedy that breaks your heart. Cinemania. What could have been an exploitative, mean-spirited freakshow – a documentary about a handful of New Yorkers whose obsession with seeing as many films as possible has completely usurped any semblance of a personal life – is instead transformed into a funny, engaging, and warm treatise on the nature of obsession. Christlieb and Kijak have so much affection for their subjects that even the cringe-inducing moments aren't patronising. American Splendor. I loathe bio-pics, but this one blew me away. It helped that I was a big fan of Harvey Pekar's comics, but even if I wasn't, I think this mixture of documentary, animation, and dramatisation of the life of Pekar would have excited me anyway. It's a cynical, hard-edged film with a sweet heart, and an inspiration to anyone stuck in a dull job who longs to create art. Lost In Translation. I wanted to hate this movie. A rich girl with a famous director father makes a film about a famous movie star and the wife of a famous photographer going through life crises in a swanky hotel. In the end, I was overpowered by a wonderful, honest film about people, Bill Murray was great, and Coppola didn't sabotage her film by forcing Murray and Scarlet Johansson to have sex. Kill Bill: Volume 1. What did this film teach me about life? Nothing. What emotions did I feel for the characters? None. Is the film in my thoughts every day? No. However, I can't deny that I had more fun watching this film than I did any other all year. Tarantino's latest is the uber-guilty pleasure, a bag of Halloween candy plopped next to the fine cuisine of the rest of my list, and it is one of the best action movies I've ever seen. Bad Santa. Though it may seem slight compared to Zwigoff's three previous features, Bad Santa continues the director's battle against the ghost world of strip malls, convenience stores, junk pop culture, and the commercialisation, drudgery, and soullessness battering down on average American lives. It's also the funniest and most vulgar comedy of the year. Pistol Opera (Seijun Suzuki, 2003). I don't know what it all means, but this hyperkinetic mishmash of action and avant-garde left me reeling. My favourite revivals of the year: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. A haunting elegy to the mythic Old West, and in Slim Pickens' final scene in the film, one of the most moving death scenes in cinema history. Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1987). A beautiful, mysterious, difficult, and inviting film, rich in detail and vision. Fury (Fritz Lang, 1936) and Human Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954). Lang's dark and pessimistic view of human behaviour is tempered by his beautifully simple way of stripping everything from the films but passion, intensity, and the ever-lurking threat of violence. These are two of his best. A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder, 1948). This woefully underrated postwar comedy was a surprise and a delight, especially in Jean Arthur's hilarious performance. Outer and Inner Space (Andy Warhol, 1965) and The Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol & Paul Morrissey, 1968). These two films (the former 33 minutes long, the latter nearly four hours) stood far above the others in a Warhol retrospective in Austin. Warhol makes it possible, by projecting two reels simultaneously on one screen, for the audience to make up its own mind about what to look at. It's a freedom that feels unnatural at first, but once the viewer begins to feel orientated, it presents a whole new way of looking at film while challenging us at the same time. Chance plays an important role, too, for the film is changed by how long it takes the projectionist(s) to get both reels going, ensuring that both films, especially the latter, play differently every time they are shown. Return to the 36th Chamber (Lau Kar-Leung, 1980). A Shaw Brothers martial arts comedy that is exciting and graceful in both the action scenes and the almost Keaton-esque physical humour. Bande à part (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964). Possibly Godard's most playful film and a huge influence on two generations of independent cinema. It still plays better and fresher than its imitators. Worst film of the year: I'm sure there were a whole slew of Hollywood blockbusters that were even worse, but the worst film I paid money to see this year was Karen Moncrieff's directorial debut, Blue Car (2003) a boring, pretentious film with a hackneyed, forced script that, combined with its flat direction, made it feel more like a TV movie of the week. What little worth the film had was due to the fine performances from its principal actors. Josh Krauter is a writer who loves film. He lives in Austin, Texas.
I didn't see a lot of current films because of my schedule and didn't attend any festivals this year for the same reason, but I loved Elephant, Lost In Translation and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and I was very impressed with Andrew Repasky McElhinney's new film, Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye (2003) which is so far visible only in Philadelphia (like “Etant donnee...”), and Dan Sallitt's All the Ships at Sea (2003) which hasn't had a festival screening yet, but is a 2003 film on a very important contemporary topic. You can add The Hulk to my list, too, and Identity, the latter for both script and direction. Additional mentions:
Spider Bill Krohn is the author of Hitchcock au travail (1999), available in English as Hitchcock at Work (Phaidon Press, 2000). He has also been the Hollywood correspondent for Cahiers du Cinéma since 1978.
As usual, many of the best films are rarely distributed in cinemas, thanks to laziness and apathy. The distributors blame the public's taste, the public hates reading subtitles, and cinephiles suffer. But thank God for film festivals, art-house cinemas (dwindling every day), cable (World Movies), SBS television, and of course, the advent of DVD.
Marc Lauria is a F.C. (Freelance Cinephile) whose other obsession is writing. He has two scripts in development, with producers having options on both. Hopefully one will get made. He has two cats.
James Leahy is a film historian and screenwriter, and has worked with Nick Ray, Ken McMullen (he co-wrote 1871, an official selection at Cannes in 1990) and Med Hondo. His writings on cinema have appeared in The Guardian, Sight & Sound, Cahiers du cinéma in English, Vertigo and PIX.
This year my overall view of cinematic developments was more limited than previously. Circumstances dictated that I was able to go to the cinema much less frequently than in recent years with the result that I missed out on practically all the big studio multiplex releases and, unfortunately, a few other potentially exciting films such as Dolls and Time of the Wolf. Hopefully video or DVD will redeem this situation before too long. The same for some other films that didn't get a screening in Cork such as The Son, demonlover and La Vie Nouvelle. But these omissions bring up with renewed urgency the question of what constitutes a film of 2003? By the time I get to see the aforementioned films, will it be too late to include them on a future list? And do some truly wonderful films of the immediate past that didn't get a theatrical screening around here but I caught up with on TV – Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, 2000), What Time is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001), Platform (2000) – or at belated film club showings – The Pornographer (Bertrand Bonello, 2001) – count on such a list? On the other hand, maybe worrying about such limitations to this list is an error. Maybe it would be better to throw it open to the many sometimes surprising discoveries encountered among the treasures of older cinema. Some of them, such as Sergio Corbucci's spirited and imaginative swashbuckler The Man Who Laughs (1966) or John Brahm's haunting period noir Hangover Square (1945) or Ivan Zulueta's disconcertingly intimate A mal gam a (1976), are, after all, not nearly as well known as they deserve to be. Or maybe the most fruitful course would be to discuss the true cinematic highlight of 2003, the sublime season of Laurel and Hardy shorts that played on television. Or my belated discovery of Miike Takeshi, whose Dead or Alive (1999) and Dead or Alive 2 (2000) felt more thrillingly fresh than any films properly of 2003. Or the outstanding big screen experience of the year – not a new film, but Melville's astonishing The Red Circle (1970) which transforms robbery into a sort of surrealist occult ritual. However, the year wasn't exactly devoid of cinematic delights. Here's a magnificent seven for '03:
Abel Ferrara: Not Guilty. Rafi Pitt's exhilarating portrait of Abel Ferrara (on the subject of which, does Ferrara's never been released in this part of the world R Xmas [2002] – or, for that matter, New Rose Hotel [1999] – count for '03? If so, they'd both go in pretty near the top of the list.) Big dislike of the year: Irreversible, a bad joke at the expense of audience gullibility. If viewers are actually willing to take this laughably adolescent exercise in pseudo-philosophical bad faith as seriously as many people seem to have, then Noé deserves every success with it. And a special mention for a very special film, Fergus Daly and Pat Collins' Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living (2003). Not only is it an admirable and intelligent account of the rich achievements of Kiarostami's filmmaking but it is particularly gratifying for me to see Irish filmmakers for once participating so substantially in a dialogue that encompasses international film culture at its most vital. This is definitely a step in the right direction for Irish cinema. Maximilian Le Cain is a filmmaker and cinephile living in Cork City, Ireland.
It's puzzling to think how most of my daily discussions about my life's true passion occur with people I've never met in person. It's created a secondary (heaven help me if it's primary!) existence that I often have trouble reconciling with my “real” life (though I live in the cine-Mecca known as New York City I have few film fanatics as offline friends). Perhaps my uncertainty about what this vast, anonymous network means to me as a film lover (as well as a human being who wouldn't mind having more face-to-face relationships in life) is why many of my favourite films of 2003 were those I found most attentive to the idea of community. By this I don't mean the shallow, cliquish, self-congratulatory sense of community implicit in mainstream alternative fare like Lost In Translation or Kill Bill, but films that give rigorous critical attention to how people connect, or fail to connect. In a world where the administration of the most powerful nation threatens to rip the world apart with its divisive policies and its failure to empathise with those beyond its borders, what could be more critical? So, with tremendous gratitude for all the people whose opinions and ideas throughout the past year challenged and inspired me, I offer the following: Special mention goes to Abbas Kiarostami's groundbreaking Ten, which would be on this list had I not seen it in 2002.
Special mentions: Marion Bridge (Weiber von Carolsford, 2002), Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002), Cold Mountain, The Magdalene Sisters (Peter Mullan, 2002), Oasis (Lee Chang-Dong, 2003), Angels in America (Mike Nichols, 2003), To Be and To Have, Spellbound, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (Rithy Pran, 2002), PTU, Pistol Opera, Mystic River, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Sweet Sixteen, Crimson Gold, The Station Agent (Tom McCarthy, 2003), Raising Victor Vargas, Hukkle, The Triplets of Belleville. Favourite performances: Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean; Robert McNamara, The Fog of War; Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider; Oksana Akinshina, Lilya 4-ever; Sol Kyung-gu, Oasis; Tim Robbins, Mystic River; Miranda Richardson, Spider; Kati Outinen, The Man Without a Past; the Friedman Family, Capturing the Friedmans; the ensembles of Dogville and Raja. Memorable moments from the New York Film Festival:
Commercial releases only:
Tim Lightell has a BFA in Film Production from NYU and an MFA in Screenwriting from Chapman University. His first experimental digital feature, The Lauren Epic, is currently playing in festivals around the country. He will write & direct for food.
I am a bit frustrated on this matter, since a number of the films I have most wanted to see this year – from Mystic River to The Barbarian Invasions to City of God – have not made it to Singapore yet. I would like to put in for three small films that I enjoyed very much: Whale Rider (which overcame my aversion to uplift), Swimming Pool, (for the subtlest and funniest tease of the year as well as two smashing lead performances), and the delightful German film Mostly Martha (Sandra Nettlebeck, 2001) (because the Germans' natural gift for romantic comedy is often underrated). OK, the last one was made in 2001 and released in 2002, but it only got here in December 2003. Arthur Lindley teaches literature and film studies at the National University of Singapore, where he founded the film program. He is on the Editorial Board of Screening the Past.
All contributions © the individual authors, January 2004 To Part 1 To Part 3 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
contents great directors cteq annotations top tens about us links archive search