Since I’ve now got time on my hands, I thought I’d do some top tens for 2010 to 2013, before the blog was alive. I’m not gonna write about the films I’ve already reviewed but there’ll be a link in the titles.
Honourable Mentions: Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa; Before Midnight; Behind the Candelabra; Big Bad Wolves; Captain Phillips; Fire in the Night; Inside Llewyn Davis; The Last of the Unjust; Locke; Night Moves; Philomena; Sacro GRA; Side Effects; The Tale of the Princess Kaguya; Under the Skin; We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks; Why Don’t You Play in Hell?; The World’s End;
10. A FIELD IN ENGLAND
directed by Ben Wheatley; written by Amy Jump; 90 mins
9. THE WIND RISES
adapted and directed by Hayao Miyazaki; 126 mins
Amid a filmography full to bursting with beautiful images, for me, this must be Miyazaki’s most good looking movie. A loose retelling of the life of aeronautical engineer, Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane, The Wind Rises is itself a flight of fancy. Blending dreams and animated reality to really get inside the head of its main character, Miyazaki discusses the marriage of artistry and technical ingenuity, really getting to grips with the intricacies of how the planes were built. The main character is perhaps too wholly good but at least the movie discusses the morality of building warplanes. There is some controversy, from critics on the Allied side, about the film being a sympathetic biopic of someone who aided Japan’s war effort but there isn’t really space here to fully discuss it. For now, all I’ll say for now to those critics is this: Winston Churchill.
8. THE PAST
written and directed by Asghar Farhadi; 130 mins
Another consummate portrait of live-in strife from the international master of the social drama, Asghar Farhadi. Nominally, The Past tells the story of Marie, a French woman whose husband, Ahmad, is visiting to finalise their divorce. She’s now living with a new man, Samir, his troubled kid, Fouad, and stroppy teen, Marie. In the course of Ahmad’s stay, a maze of interpersonal strife is thrown up and anyone could be in the wrong. Like The Salesman and A Separation, this domestic drama is essentially a detective story wherein the central crime is a family. Everyone is in the wrong but everyone has their reasons. Even the initially slappable, annoying child, Faoud, has you ultimately wanting cuddle the poor little sod. Farhadi, mercifully avoids Parisian landmarks during his trip to France and all the actors acquit themselves stunningly, including and especially Bérénice Bejo, who totally deserved that Cannes best actress prize.
7. THE GOLDEN DREAM
directed by Diego Quemada-Díez; written by Lucia Carreras, Gibrán Portela and Diego Quemada-Díez; 108 mins
6. TRANCE
directed by Danny Boyle; adapted by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge; 101 mins
5. THE STONE ROSES: MADE OF STONE
directed by Shane Meadows; 97 mins
This was the film that, more than any others in 2013, put a smile on my face. I wasn’t a fan of The Stone Roses before I saw this movie but I was completely converted. Shane Meadows’ most recent cinematic venture is a love letter to his favourite band as they confounded the world and reunited for a tour that would see its share of ups and downs. Like the best rock docs, Made of Stone absolutely makes you see the brilliance of a band whether you like them or not. Taking a fan’s eye view of the tour alongside a potted history of the band themselves and an army of cameras at the gigs, Meadows creates a truly immersive movie which had me smiling from ear to ear. His last two TV miniseries haven’t made it to NZ yet. I’m dead keen to see them but please make another movie!
4. 12 YEARS A SLAVE
directed by Steve McQueen; adapted by John Ridley; 134 mins
I know this’ll sound stupid but honestly, for all the atrocities we see play in horrific detail throughout 12 Years a Slave, the shot that most sticks in my mind is that long, long take just looking at Chiwetel Ejiofor’s face. Everything we’ve seen thus far, played out again in, presumably, the two minutes he has to himself that day, in a more successful echo of the corridor cleaning scene from Hunger. Adapted from Solomon Northup’s autobiography of his time in slavery, director Steve McQueen’s iron hand on the steering wheel of this movie is unquestionable. This movie could not have been better made by any director. From the trappings of New York’s duplicitous high society to the sinister tranquility of Louisiana, the film imbues everything with a sense of chilling danger. Final word again to lead, Ejiofor, who really doesn’t get enough praise for his enormous strength as Solomon Northup.
3. STRANGER BY THE LAKE
written and directed by Alain Guiraudie; 100 mins
2. IDA
directed by Paweł Pawlikowski; written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Paweł Pawlikowski; 82 mins
I actually like this jointly with Only God Forgives but the negativity about that film means it’s going at number one. Polar opposite, though, Ida is a very quiet, unobtrusive film about a nun living 1960s Poland, before taking her vows is advised to spend time with her hard-living aunt, Wanda. In the course of that trip, she discovers she is actually Jewish and is invited to be sinful before she devotes herself fully to the church. Apparently, Pawlikowski needed to recalibrate after 2011’s The Woman in the Fifth, having lost his way, creatively. He came back, in force, with Ida and what I like most about it, curiously, chimes with OGF: it feels like a complete vision. The square-framed, black & white tale of religious and personal rediscovery against a bleak hinterland really feels like a director saying; “I don’t care how unfashionable this is – I’m gonna do it, anyway!”
1. ONLY GOD FORGIVES
written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; 86 mins
READING FILMS 