This year, thanks to September 11th, the world
of filmmaking was put back in perspective for me. As our peace and security were
disrupted, we tried to comprehend the magnitude of the horrors of mass murder, the loss of
friends and family, and the hatred turned towards America. As a result, movies just
didn’t seem important anymore. They were shown up to be the luxury that they are: a
source of reflection, exploration, and enjoyment that we can only deeply appreciate when
we have the stability, the resources, the time, and attention to do so.
And yet, movies also reminded me just how valuable and
important they can be, providing a haven of relief, escape, and reflection unlike other
escapes. Art, when beauty and truth are at the heart of it, provides a departure from the
harsh realities of our own evils, and then returns us to our world stronger, wiser, with
hope and consolation, with a greater understanding of the evils in the world and in
ourselves.
J.R.R. Tolkien liked to talk about the value of escape
into fantasy and fairy tales. He emphasized that this sort of escape offers relief from
life’s confining pressures and also sends one back to the real world with
consolation. This year’s best films were, in large part, fantasies of that sort.
Others remained reality-bound, portraying harsh truths about this present darkness in such
detail that we were able to see meaning in the madness.
It was also a year of challenging storytelling
conventions. Filmmakers played around with linear storylines, mixing them up and
challenging us to figure out what was happening… or what perhaps wasn’t.
This provoked much post-viewing conversation and debate, a rewarding effect in itself.
Some raised questions about how we can misinterpret signs of the times (Memento,
Vanilla Sky). Another (Mulholland Drive) showed how our sinful desires lead us
to create for ourselves false realities, in which we idolize ourselves and make up excuses
for our self-interested sins. Donnie Darko showed us an angry, violent, cynical
teenager whose world begins, literally, to break into separate realities, and the road to
hope and redemption was the hardest to take. One in particular—Waking Life—suggested
that we are missing out on the signposts all around us that point us toward God and
redemption.
For me personally, the greatest escapes of the year were
imaginative adventures that invited me into outrageously different worlds where, once I
got my bearings, I was able to see things about my own world more clearly. Here is a rough
list of the films of 2001 that have meant the most to me this calendar year. (There are
plenty of 2001’s films that I haven’t seen yet, for one reason or another, and
I’ll update the list eventually to reflect any changes.)
Special
Recognition:
*Apocalypse Now Redux
The second-best experience I
had in the theatre this year was more than two decades old! Coppola's revision of what I
believe is his true masterpiece enriches the film with a deeper sense of history, and with
underlined implications about American arrogance and appetites masquerading as goodness
and heroism. It remains one of the greatest films ever made, and one of my all-time
favorites.
The Lord of the
Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring
As I stated in my review, I cannot write an
unbiased review of this film. I will say as objectively as I can—on every level of
craftsmanship, this is an astonishing, overwhelming piece of work.
-- Performances: first-rate, especially McKellan as Gandalf, Holm as Bilbo, and Bean
as Boromir.
-- Soundtrack: Powerful, complex, suitably dark.
-- Cinematography: exhilarating. Effects: Groundbreaking, awe-inspiring.
-- Script: It brings to life a very complicated text, honoring the author’s
intentions and values, and effectively abbreviating the massive story into three of the
most dazzling hours of celluloid we’ve seen in many years.
I’d have to go back to Star Wars to find an example
of a film that shook up audiences as much as this one did this year, breaking new ground
not only in special effects, but in the quality of the performances and the storytelling
which made it so much more than an effects picture. If you can name a better-made film
made from the fantasy genre, I’ll be surprised.
Now, speaking from my heart: While I have dreamed for twenty
years about what kind of Lord of the Rings movie I’d like to see, I never
really wanted it to happen. Nobody could do it enough justice, I thought. Hollywood has
taught me to expect very little, especially when it comes to literary adaptations. But
Peter Jackson somehow chose designs, actors, and tones that matched the images that had
developed in my own mind over at least a dozen readings of the trilogy.
How did he do that? He depended on the two greatest Tolkien
artists (excluding Tolkien himself) Alan Lee and John Howe. They avoided sleek, polished,
‘movie-ish’ designs and went for a look that gives the film a feeling of
history. And better, Jackson made the brief exchanges between characters as memorable and
important as the gigantic, exhausting action scenes. He made pleasing the fans a priority,
as well as introducing the series to newcomers without suffocating them with too many
characters and episodes.
As a result, the movie does indeed compromise, sacrificing many
of the book’s best episodes. But the scenes that it does include are so well
done that viewers are rushing out in droves to read the books.
Just today I was at an airport, waiting to board a plane,
and I counted four people in the waiting area reading The Two Towers. I greatly
anticipate next Christmas, which will bring us the follow-up feature of that episode,
plus, I’m hoping, a DVD that reportedly includes an extra 40 minutes of Fellowship footage. If Oscar honors Titanic, Gladiator, and Braveheart…
each one an impressive epic but also indulgent, excessive, overlong, and only mediocre in
their storytelling… then The Fellowship of the Ring deserves a new, special
Oscar that signifies the arrival of a work that sets a new standard.
Gosford Park
Robert Altman is a master juggler who
makes it seem effortless. In this film, he masterfully juggles about thirty different
characters, moving them from the hunting parties of the upper-class upstairs in an old
English manor to the things that go on in the servants' quarters late at night. It's a
conflict of class, and in each scene we become painfully aware of who gets to say and do
what. But we also learn that these freedoms have very little to do with the happiness and
contentment of the characters. The rich and free live in prisons of social manner, greed,
and fear, while the servants struggle with humiliation, abuse, ambition, and pride.
The story follows a young maid who learns the ropes at Gosford
Park and, in her bewilderment at the complexity of the operation, frequently gets lost.
During her misguided meanderings through the house, she stumbles onto secrets that will
take on extraordinary significance at the untimely death of one of the party-goers. While
there are echoes of Agatha Christie here, the mystery isn't so important. It is the
catalyst for consequences to finally befall many that have been courting disaster with the
sins they commit behind closed doors.
Altman's film has a charm, a lightness, and a dazzle all its own.
That it maintains it style, tone, and our attention so consistently is a small miracle. I
found every minute of the film a great pleasure, and I'm dying to see it again.
Moulin Rouge
My second favorite film created another
fantasy world, a collage of old movies, Looney Tunes zaniness, over-the-top pop music, and
a self-consciously exaggerated sense of fun. Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge is a
parable about how art and culture express the eternal struggle of true love versus its
opposites—lust, compromise, and fear.
Christian (Ewan McGregor), the aptly named hero of true love, refuses
to trivialize his desire to care for and rescue the beautiful courtesan Satine (Nicole
Kidman). But Satine has lived a life of glamorous prostitution, and if she follows
Christian’s lead then she abandons the materialistic dreams that money can provide.
Will the wicked Duke have his way, buying Satine’s affections? Or will Christian
prevail, convincing her that all the money in the world cannot equal the value of his true
love?
Sound cheesy? It certainly is. Luhrmann brilliantly spins a
timeless tale by crisscrossing time periods, and weaving in pop music motifs from several
different decades. He gives the shallow-minded purveyors of lust opportunities to sing
songs by Madonna (how clever) and the believers in true love a chance to quip lyrics from
U2, Elton John, and Sting. Songs about true love soar, while the dirty dance floors and
backstage corridors of the Moulin Rouge nightclub resonate with the darker sounds of baser
sentiments.
McGregor and Kidman are picture perfect, clearly having giddy
fun, while Jim Broadbent once again proves he’s one of the great scene-stealers,
making the club’s dark lord one of the most amusing devils we’ve had in some
time. The DVD is spectacular, complete with feature-length commentaries by the director,
designer, and cinematographer, discussions that are so enlightening they make the movie a
far richer experience.
The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson outdoes himself this time. Rushmore revealed
the far reach of his talents, and Royal Tenenbaums weaves several Rushmores
together into a tapestry about a family that gives new meaning to the term dysfunctional.
Creating characters too crazy to be believable, yet so full of heart you care for them
deeply, he shows us the consequences of growing up without a father’s love. When
Royal Tenenbaum—Gene Hackman in one of his most delightful performances—comes
home to try and mend the broken strands, his own selfish motives crumble at the sight of
what true healing looks like. While we don’t see any big happy endings, we see the
beginning, perhaps, of one, and that is enough to keep us rooting for the Tenenbaums and
believing that God in his grace can care even for losers like them. Like us.
Waking Life
Richard Linklater loves to
have good conversations. Previous features like Slacker and Before Sunrise
consisted primarily of interesting characters engaging in long thorough discussions about
their lives, their dreams, and their problems. Waking Life is his finest work yet,
a long string of philosophical conversations that would probably bore contemporary
audiences if it wasn’t for the fascinating animation that he cooked up to add fancy
and flight to these tête-à-têtes. You’ll walk away far more questions about your
life, your dreams, and God than you had going in. And in my opinion, that’s one of
the best things a movie can do.
Lantana
Lantana
is one of those rare and
precious cinematic discoveries... a film that is memorable and meaningful without stooping
to audacious tricks or twist endings to achieve its compelling drama. It's the story of a
cop who is unfaithful to his wife. And the more he does his job, investigating crime,
dealing out justice, and administering punishment, the more he is convicted by his own
failure. What impresses me about this film is just how boldly, thoroughly, and honestly it
explores the difficulties of love, faithfulness, honesty, humility, and marriage in a
society that teaches us to follow our base appetities and impulses. All of the actors,
especially the underrated, immensely talented Anthony Lapaglia, turn in impressive work.
Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey make memorable, believable characters by bringing to
life their silences with as much subtlety and complexity as they do their line-readings.
This is one of the most overlooked films of the year ... a quiet, ambitious masterpiece.
The Road Home
One of my favorite big screen experiences
of the year was also one of the simplest. The Road Home tells the story of a son
coming home to help bury his father. He is persuaded to participate in a long, arduous
ritual that will honor the man, carrying him down a long road to his burial. The ritual
seems excessive, superstitious, and expensive, but it's important to his mother. Only when
you hear the story of how his parents fell in love does such a monumental effort make
sense.
And as he thinks it over, we are treated to the story of his parents
and how they fell in love. His mother, a simple girl with a runaway sense of romance,
spies the new town teacher and falls in love with his voice. She determines to win his
heart, and her nearly-crazy dedication to getting his attention becomes a gorgeous parable
about the relentlessness of true love, and the power of hanging on to hope against all
odds. The colors in this film are so bold and beautiful that you’ll leave the theatre
refreshed, as though you’ve been on one of the best two-hour vacations the natural
world has to offer.
Donnie Darko
If God exists, and will be there for us
when we die, how does that change the way we live our lives? Or, if we assume the
opposite, that we are alone, with nobody to catch us when we die, what then?
This is a problem heavy on the mind of Donnie Darko. Donnie is a
cynical, frustrated teenager who sees through the easy-answer, feel-good philosophies of
the grownups in his life. He knows life is hard and that there are no easy answers. Nobody
wants to really listen to him, and nobody believes him when he talks about the
"imaginary friend", 'Frank', who is telling him to use his knowledge to perform
dangerous and violent acts. Lonely, desperate, he can't find any friends or any love. Like
Lester in "American Beauty", he sees the truth about life, and chooses to
respond with violence and anger. That is, until love comes into his life. Is it too late
for him to repair the damage he has done? No. Can he choose a better path? Yes. But
to take the path of love and selflessness is to make himself a living sacrifice.
Christ-references abound in this fantastic, mind-bending, must-see-it-several-times movie
about discerning the voice of God from the voice of evil.
Divided We Fall
(This qualified for Year 2000 Oscars, but didn't
circulate until late 2001.) Josef and Marie are a childless Czech couple living in the
path of encroaching Nazis at the beginning of World War 2. When a Jewish neighbor who has
fled returns, an escapee from the Nazi camps, he begs for shelter. They risk their lives
and the lives of their neighbors to protect him, but reluctantly. And the result is a grim
comedy of close-calls, fear, courage, and forgiveness. I had no expectations walking into
this film, and I came out teary-eyed and smiling. A wonderful, thought-provoking,
inventive story..
Amelie
Amelie is not about the hard road
of love. It’s about the fun road of good-spirited practical jokes and anonymous good
deeds. Amelie is a pixie-ish do-gooder with a wicked streak of voyeurism in her. She likes
to watch for people’s needs, then meet those needs secretly, and sneaks off to watch
them receive their fantastical gifts from afar. Jeunet’s visual inventiveness is so
fast-paced and frantic that I’d hardly stopped chuckling over one thing before
another hilarious escapade was underway. Audrey Tautou is an extraordinary discovery, a
mix of Juliette Binoche’s radiance with Audrey Hepburn’s irresistible charm. The
best way I can describe this movie is this: It’s the best heaping plate of movie
dessert you’ll be served this year. Not much to nourish, but a lot to guiltlessly
enjoy.
(tie) *Mulholland Drive
-and- Memento
I don’t recommend Mulholland
Drive to most people, because it puts onscreen some very disturbing, confusing, and
sickening imagery. But this is, beneath its broken and self-contradicting storyline, a
symbolic journey through the mind of a woman who could find no better dream than to be a
Hollywood star. As we watch Betty, or whatever her name is, plunge from starry-eyed
innocence to a nasty, cruel, jealous villain, we see her dreams souring and her reality
shattering. Her alter-ego represents all that she wishes she was, a vamping manipulative
self-interested beauty, while she remains weak, mean-spirited, and broken-hearted. David
Lynch has taken the remains of a television show about Hollywood, which (ironically) was
itself wrecked by television studios, and reassembled the broken pieces into a movie
that points to just how cruel a game fame, fortune, and studio executives can truly be.
Memento, on the other hand, I’ve
recommended to many, if only for the sheer pleasure of trying to make sense of it. Mulholland
Drive only makes loose logical sense, and that only for those willing to see it
several times and argue over the details. Memento is a less-frustrating puzzler,
but a brilliant puzzle all the same. Leonard has lost his short-term memory, and that
makes tracking down his wife’s killer rough. As we work backwards through his days of
hunting down the criminal, with only post-it notes and tattoos to inform the journey, we
are led to question just how trustworthy our own memories really are, and just how badly
the simplest of messages can be misunderstood.
The Man Who Wasn't
There
A lot of people didn’t care for the
latest Coen Brothers film, and I’ll admit that I find this one to be the least
compelling of their colorful repertoire. But even the Coens’ near-misses are better
than most directors’ finest work. Billy Bob Thornton’s reserved performance is
one of the year’s best, an amazing demonstration of control and wry humor. The script
is off-putting, with its lazy, lifeless narration, but then again that’s part of the
Coens’ intention… to show us the world through the eyes of a man whose ambition
is nearly dead and whose care for others has long since died. Ed Crane may be the
year’s most frightening monster, far more troubling than the in-your-face Hannibal.
Here’s a man who can destroy the world merely by standing still and doing nothing,
caring about no one, and having no interest in his own miserable fate.
*Amores Perros
A powerful collection of moral tales
from Mexico. This is a very difficult movie to watch because it is about very wicked
people. It takes you on a three-story exploration of human depravity, which includes a lot
of violence between humans, and some horrifying abuse of animals. Dog lovers, be warned.
But in each story you can see love standing by, waiting, ready to forgive and to heal and
to redeem. Will any of the characters in this Pulp Fiction adrenaline-rush drama
turn from their wicked ways before it's too late? I was challenged and moved by it, but I
don't know if I would watch it again.
A.I. (Artificial
Intelligence)
Kubrick’s vision for this harrowing
sci-fi nightmare came to the screen powerfully, helmed by Steven Spielberg, in a worthy
tribute to Kubrick’s legacy and to the ambition of this, his last and unfinished
work. Unfortunately, after two hours of dazzling, breathtaking adventure and seriously
spooky developments, Spielberg’s sentimentalism takes over. He takes what on paper
seems to be a horrifying ending-gone-wrong and turns it into a syrupy,
aggressively-tearjerking Hallmark card. Not only does he seem to miss the gravity of the
situation at the film’s conclusion, he seems not to trust his own strengths, and
resorts to sappy tricks. Too bad. That first three-quarters is some of Spielberg’s
finest work.
The Circle
It's like receiving a
desperate plea for help from a princess imprisoned in a tower. This film follows one
woman, and then another, through a neighborhood in Iran, exposing the pressures, fears,
limitations, and abuse that they face daily. Jafar Panahi focuses on single women who are
being punished and hunted for behavior that most women of the free world take for granted.
After you spend some time on these mean streets, you will never again see another new
picture of those haunted, hooded Middle Eastern women without suspecting something about
each woman's hidden broken heart.
Zoolander
My 'guilty-pleasure' of the
year... it was outrageous, sharp-witted, over-the-top, and laugh-out-loud funny. Unlike
most modern satires, the humor is never mean-spirited. Like the best and most outrageous
Steve Martin comedies, and echoing early Woody Allen capers like "Sleeper",
"Zoolander" shows a good deal of affection for its characters, even as its
exaggerations make us nod and see the folly in so much of what is accepted and celebrated
in our society. Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller are an inspired comic duo, and the
relentlessly clever cameos are a riot.
The Widow of St. Pierre
A moving parable about a sinner who is
offered grace, and how the world turns against those who extend that grace.
Flowers of Shanghai
A complex, subtle, gorgeous work of art. In the political maneuverings
of the customers and workers at a brothel, we see just how insufficient amorous love can
be. As we rebuild the world to meet our own desires and needs, we starve ourselves for
lack of true love.
The Vertical Ray of the Sun
Hypnotic, beautiful cinematography is the highlight of this collection of stories from
Vietnam. Like last year's best film Yi-Yi, this one gives us a wide
variety of enlightening stories: We follow three sisters as they learn the
hard truths about their loves and marriages, and as they strive for
honesty, forgiveness, and happiness.
Iris
As artful and indepth a look
at a marriage as I've seen on film, with outstanding performances by all
four of its main stars: Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Kate Winslet, and Hugh
Bonneville.
Other films that impressed me:
Hearts in Atlantis - Gorgeous
cinematography elevates this simple Steven King tale into a surprisingly solid work. As a
man thinks back on the lessons of his childhood, we see a boy learning the value of
courage, childlike wonder, and respect for his elders. Maybe we shouldn't take candy from
strangers, but what kind of world have we made for ourselves by teaching children they
shouldn't even TALK to strangers? Here's a story that chooses trust and courage over fear
and suspicion.
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