This post is a milestone post of sorts. This post not only celebrates its first year anniversary (many happy returns to readers who have been with me from the beginning) it also is the 30th, not that significant while I think about it but it’s a nice round number. I’m so happy that I come this far, delighted to be building a group of dedicated readers who enjoy what I write even if they don’t necessarily agree. Makes it all worthwhile and pushes me to do more. Thank you!

As promised here is part two of my best of 2013 list. Just a gentle reminder that I’ve had some people ask why some films that have appeared on other best list on other blogs are absent here. My choices are not about being contrary to the status quo but more of a case of release date confusion. At the time I created this list I may either have seen a film within the last year, loved it but it wasn’t officially released in the UK until 2014 or I haven’t seen it yet at all to pass any kind of judgment. I like to adhere to some kind of time rule and because, again, I don’t get paid to do this and on account of having to do other things like work and live, I don’t always get to see everything that comes out.

Without further ado, here are films I did manage to see and love:

I Wish

Hirokazu Kore-eda is fast becoming one of my favourite directors currently working. Seemingly as prolific as Woody Allen in his output, his work is still full of nuance, quality and heart (something Allen can’t be always be accused of having). In his most sentimental film yet, this is a touching tale of two brothers separated by their parent’s divorce. Forced to live with each parent in different cities, the brothers fight to adjust to their new living circumstances while maintaining their brotherly bond. They decide to test the lore in one of the brother’s schools that any wish is granted if one makes that wish at the exact spot two speeding bullet trains pass. They decide to make their journey to that spot in order to wish  for their parents to get back together so the whole family can be reunited.

The film is sentimental but not saccharine. This is down to the direction of the child actors the natural performance coaxed from them. Kore-eda is particularly adept at getting nuanced performances from his child actors, 2004’s Nobody Knows being a perfect example and now I Wish. The two leads Koki and Oshiro Maeda, real life brothers, comfortably extend that bond to the camera and the rewards are plentiful. At 129 minutes, the film might seem daunting for a children’s film, but it’s an absorbing piece that allows for the audience to mature with the young actors. Kore-eda like in previous features is able to capture a certain intimacy between character and audience. It’s a delightful fare reminiscent of American slice-of-life cinema, think You Can Count On Me, yet it is also quintessentially Japanese.

Stuart Hall Project

I have now seen this film twice and on both occasions different things have entranced me about this absorbing documentary about Academic and founder of Cultural Studies Stuart Hall. Serving two functions as a rich biography of its subject from his birth in Jamaica to his education and flourishing career in the UK and as  an archive piece about the immigrant experience in the UK, on both fronts the film succeeds. It gets to the heart of the man not just through using just his words and works but also to the powerful soundtrack that adds rich texture to his story – the works of Miles Davis – whose music Hall himself describes as “putting a finger on my soul”. The musical is integral to the film and while on my first viewing it personally took some getting used to, by the second time around, I found it was an essential component to the tone of the film. The only other John Akomfrah film I’ve seen is Nine Muses which too elevates the soundtrack to having the same importance as the visuals.

What also got my rapturous attention was the archive footage. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know of my fondness for archive footage. Personally archive footage if obtainable is a documentary maker’s best tool in recreating the past. It holds a certain truth that is harder to obtain through reconstructions and or talking heads. There are no talking heads in this film. It’s purely about the footage on screen of Hall in his youth, Hall talking in his own words on TV shows, of Jamaica and of the UK from the 1950s to present time.

This film however is not just about Hall. It first and foremost aims to introduce the audience to Hall’s theories behind Cultural Studies and more specifically the idea of identity. From his experience as an immigrant from Jamaica to the UK in the 1950s, the film provides a unique look into the immigrant experience in the UK, race relations and modern British and European history.

Like Hall’s opinion the film demonstrates how confusing the subject of identity can be, the conflict that can arise from this confusion – from both the immigrant and the host country they go to – but also highlights how futile this discussion can sometimes be because in Hall’s words (words I find hard to disagree with) identity is fluid and very complex. It’s rare that someone will give one answer as to what is their heritage or where they’re from. That in itself causes conflict because others want to subscribe those unlike themselves into defined neat boxes that determines people’s positions in life. When that cannot be done, the frustration manifests itself into actions of anger and violence especially for those whose sensibilities are being threatened so quickly and so forcefully (the Windrush of the 1950s is an example of this) which much of the footage demonstrates. Although Hall initially worked from a race perspective, he later related his findings to other aspects of identity including gender, sexual orientation and class, which the film briefly acknowledges at the end.

It’s a unique documentary that’s distinctly Akomfrah. As much as this is an exploration into a man and his theory, it also serves as a journey of discovery for Akomfrah. It’s obvious Stuart Hall’s work is of importance to the director and Akomfrah demands the audience to be more interactive with the film in order to see and understand this. Using your ears as much as one’s eyes Akomfrah aims to present the richness of Hall’s theories. In a sense as  result of the demand for audience participation, the film seems intimate because of the experience it creates. We get not only a great sense of Stuart Hall as a man, but we also understand just how much he means to the filmmaker and the audience and how his work influences some of the ways we view the world.

Act of Killing (Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer)

Upstream Colour (Dir. Shane Carruth)

I Am Devine (Dir. Jeffrey Schwarz)

Much Ado About Nothing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3zfYrcV0hw

I will admit it. I am a Josh Whedon believer, the man, in my eyes, rarely puts a step wrong. Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel shaped my teens, Firefly broke my heart when it was cancelled halfway through its first season, Dr Horrible introduced me to Neil Patrick Harris and The Avengers Assemble convinced me that Whedon is not only a master of the small screen but the silver screen too. Much Ado About Nothing trumps all his previous work by providing a refreshing, sweet and possibly best adaptation of my favorite Shakespeare play. He also scores extra points for reintroducing me to frequent Whedon players such as Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion and Alexis Denisof. 

Shot at Whedon’s picturesque home over a week, watching Much Ado felt much like catching up with old friends in an impossibly picturesque location (did I mention how picturesque his home is?) I don’t know if nostalgia is clouding my judgement but I enjoyed this interpretation so much that it made me review the earlier adaptation – the Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh 1993 fare – on a much more critical light. To me the earlier version now seems, garish in tone and scenery (although still very pretty), loud and silly despite the latter being more lighthearted. Revered theatre players are choke a block in he 1993 version, and their thespian ways make a bad transition to the screen which gives it an uneven tone when standing alongside the measured performances of Denzel Washington (who looks a little bewildered by all the Brian Blessed shouting and dramatics). I still like the 1993 version if not for the stunt casting of Keanu Reeves as Don Jon. Perfection.

Whedon’s version has seasoned television and film actors who he has developed such a professional report that the acting seems easygoing and effortless, setting the right tone for one of the Bard’s most famous comedies.

Despite my complaints about a year when films seemed to all want to film in black and white like everyone had regressed to their pretentious film school selves, the black and white – like Nebraska – seems fitting. While monochrome serves to add texture to the vastness of the scenery in Nebraska, in Much Ado, the sense of intimacy is heightened. It’s surprisingly unshowy in being filmed in black and white but it makes the audience well aware that they are witness to a performance – a personal one – rather than a tale laced in reality.

Nebraska (Dir. Alexander Payne)

Stories We Tell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ytq4VZ2Nyxg

This for me was a bit of a revelation. I didn’t have much of an opinion on the film’s director Sarah Polley. Her acting credits while quite extensive, I only remembered her from The Sweet Hereafter. Her directing credits, while more familiar, left me nonplussed. Away From Her has been on my Lovefilm watchlist since I opened an account and watching Take This Waltz made me leave it there, heading part of the ‘great unwatched’ as a result of my abject apathy towards the latter.

What drew me to Stories We Well was the fact that it was a documentary first and foremost. And in a year where I’ve devoured more docs than fiction, I was intrigued. The subject matter was however a little off putting as the little that I knew about it made me think of my days working in libraries and being completely exasperated at the flocks of customers asking the library to help them trace their family tree after one too many episodes of the totally uninteresting Who Do You Think You Are?  (I honestly think it should be retitled Why Do You Think We Care?) I personally can’t seem to muster up much interest in the familial ins-and-outs of people I don’t know. I barely have interest in my own (just kidding). However after watching the trailer  my interest was piqued. The trailer was as mysterious as were the opinions of people who’d had watched it and implored me to see it. It’s mysteriousness reminded me of Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son from a Father. A film that had such emotional impact it managed to change laws in Canada. I still have quite moments of devastation thinking about it.

While Stories We Tell isn’t quite as sensational and devastating in its unfolding, it is still a film that left me quietly impressed. To the extent where I may be persuaded to push Away From Her to the top of my ‘will definitely see’ watchlist and to give disappointments like Take This Waltz another try. Who knows, maybe I’ll have a better understanding of what she was going for in the latter.

Stories We Tell is an intimate biography of a family, Sarah Polley’s own family to be exact. The film develops from being a fitting tribute to her late mother, to an investigative piece about family secrets and dysfunction. The film is specific but at the same time universal. From the film it is obvious that Polley like so many adult children come to view their parents as human beings. Human beings with faults, secrets and other personalities that they reserve only for themselves or the world outside of the immediate family.

Stories We Tell also stands out for being one of those rarities where reenactments work seamlessly in a film. Reenactments it seems are part and parcel to making documentaries about past events. They are there for a multitude of reasons including breaking up the more informative parts of a doc (usually talking heads) into bite size pieces, creating mood and structured narrative or to just jazz up a documentary to maintain audience interest. That’s all well and good, but it takes a director with certain expertise to make sure their reenactments are a) necessary b) useful c) good. I still find myself confounded by potentially great docs being undone by the misuse of reenactments. They are either fill too much time space to pad an initially brilliant but thin story while adding absolutely nothing to the final piece (ultimate culprit – Dreams of a Life), they are used to manipulatively to change the original story into a more acceptable narrative or they are filmed so manically and are so aggressively it disjoints the whole thing (the manic Imposter comes to mind).

Stories We Tell falls into no such trap as the reenactments work seamlessly into the narrative. It may well be because of the personal nature of the subject matter or the competency she has as a director but it took a good while before I realised there were even reenactments. The detail is so great and the performances beautifully cultivated the audience feels folded into the family and therefore worthy recipients of their secrets.

It’s a film I had thought would not appeal to me but I find myself so enamoured I greatly appeal to you to go see it.

Spectacular Now

Second treat from the same director that gave us 2012’s underrated Smashed, James Ponsoldt explores the same territory as it’s predecessor  looking at young people’s sometimes destructive relationship with alcohol. Not your average boy-meets-girl comedy in many ways, this outing serves as a part Fast Times at Ridgemont High escapade, part family drama a la You Can Count On Me (second favourable mention) with some stark realities of alcoholism poured in for good measure. The script may be witty and the film’s lead Sutter (a tremendous Miles Teller) charismatic and quick with the one liners but the devastating reality is the portrayal of one of the most troubled characters I’ve seen in a film all year.

I loved Smashed  and it’s succinct depiction of the lives of young alcoholics trying to coming to terms with their addictions (it’s a film I believe is available on Lovefilm and  I would wholeheartedly recommend), Spectacular Now follows a similar path but takes this addiction to the next level making it even more heartbreaking to see the symptoms of alcohol problems in someone so young. Self-realisation is encouraged in the film for both the character but also for the audience. The film made me realise how easy it is to dismiss evident drink problems in others just because of their age. After all while at university I can think of a couple of people who were just like Sutter. But the idea of alcohol problems in people so young is usually simply dismissed as the follies of youth. While if someone were to engage in similar behaviour a few years later, they’d be deemed to have a  drink problem. The film goes to great strains to suggest that the dangers and the outcomes are the same regardless of age.

Never is the film easy to watch yet it succeeds in never being preachy. Its message is insidious. The audience watches with their hearts in their throats as the tender, all-consuming, spectacular (see what I did there!) relationship he has with inexperienced Aimee (Shailene Woodley of Descendants fame) sees her picking up similar drinking habits to her beau. In the frank expression of their relationship, Ponsoldt explores the idea of peer pressure and coming-of-age, of the strength and destructive nature present in some relationships both familial and romantic. What makes the story more poignant and complex is that Sutter seems genuinely a nice kid with deep-rooted problems that have led him to where he is.

While the personal essay at the end tries to tie up the story a little too neatly, I appreciated the adherence to realism with the way the film addresses the root of Sutter’s problems. The film ends not with a recovery but presumably at the beginning of the next stage of Sutter’s life. Ripe for a sequel if I ever saw one. I’d sure to be rooting for Sutter to reach whatever goal he has in mind when the film leaves him. Poignant and nuanced this was a surprising experience for me. Popular at the London Film Festival when I saw it, I assumed it would get some sort of cinema release however limited like Smashed. As of yet there is no new of an official theatrical release date and because of that I included this little gem in my 2013 list because I simply just couldn’t wait.

Here are my honourable mentions. Films I enjoyed but unfortunately didn’t quite make the list. I’ve included one word/sentence reviews:

Lore (Dir. Cate Shortland) – Atmospheric

Gimme The Loot (Dir. Adam Leon) – Bustling fun

Valentine Road (Dir. Marta Cunningham) – Stunning yet shocking documentary that has no winners

 In A World (Dir. Lake Bell) – Fun times

 Blancanieves (Dir. Pablo Berger) Visually arresting if a little weak on plot points

Milius (Dir. Joey Figueroa, Zak Knutson) – Engrossing look at an engrossing man

What Maisie Knew (Dir. Scott McGehee, David Siegel) – Absorbing central performance by Onata Aprile

 Drinking Buddies (Dir. Joe Swanberg)  – Entertaining mumblecore

 Before Midnight (Dir. Richard Linklater) – Fitting third instalment to a great trilogy

So that is what I loved about 2013. I hoping 2014 will be just as fruitful and by the looks of things I’ve seen already (and soon to be reviewing for you) it’s going to be a good year.

Thank you again for bearing with me with this milestone post. Here’s hoping there’ll be plenty more!