Scan and Pan
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Top 10 Films of 2007
***
10. Zodiac - The true story behind the investigation of the infamous Zodiac killings comes to the screen as one of the best films of 2007 so far.
After claiming his first three victims, the mysterious Zodiac begins sending letters to the press, including the San Francisco Chronicle where journalist Paul Avery and cartoonist Robert Graysmith work. Avery begins writing about Zodiac, while Graysmith remains on the periphery at first. When Zodiac kills a cabbie in SF, Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong take charge of the investigation, intersecting with the paths of Avery and the increasingly obsessed Graysmith as Zodiac claims more victims and continues to taunt the police.
Director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) once again demonstrates his meticulous craftsmanship as he melds three related but distinct genres -- true crime, police procedural, and crusading investigative journalist -- into a riveting and complex film. Although Fincher's noted as a visual stylist, this film's story never falls into the ocean of style over substance to suffer the cruel fate of drowning in it. He steadfastly focuses on the characters and the details of the investigation, letting them guide the audience along in an unhurried but never slow manner.
The screenplay by James Vanderbilt (Darkness Falls), based on the book by Graysmith, takes a fairly comprehensive look at the investigation over many years. Fincher and Vanderbilt interviewed all of the surviving participants and victims in order to make the film as authentic as possible, and that level of detail seeps into every scene and every performance. Even the routine details of the investigation become interesting. The script also respects the audience enough to allow them to put the pieces together much as the investigators had to do, and nicely avoids a definitive conclusion.
Harris Savides (The Game, Finding Forrester) contributes highly polished cinematography using the Thomson Viper high definition digital video camera, notably making this the first production to be recorded entirely in the camera's uncompressed digital data format. The images are very filmlike, with the exception of a noticeable lack of grain, allowing Fincher and Savides to gain the advantages of digital video without sacrificing the richness of image usually obtained by shooting on film.
Production designer Donald Graham Burt (The Joy Luck Club, Donnie Brasco) ably recreates San Francisco of the late 1960s to late 1970s, aided by seamless CGI. Composer David Shire (All the President's Men, 2010) provides a good score that recalls the music from the films of the story's era. Some critics have said that the film is too long at 158 minutes, but editor Angus Wall (Panic Room) deftly keeps the pace going strong, avoiding crashing on the rocks of boredom.
The film is filled with quirky but realistic people, and the actors bring them to life with a high standard of excellence, including Robert Downey Jr. as the boozing Avery; Jake Gyllenhaal, who's spot on as the overly earnest Graysmith; Mark Ruffalo as the Columboesque Toschi, Anthony Edwards as Armstrong, and Dermot Mulroney as their captain; Brian Cox as attorney Melvin Belli in a brief but brilliant performance; John Carroll Lynch as the prime suspect and Charles Fleischer as his former friend; Elias Koteas and Donal Logue as investigators from other police agencies; and Chloe Sevigny as Graysmith's wife. There are so many other good actors in small roles that I can't name them all.
Zodiac is as close as you'll get to experiencing an investigation of this magnitude without actually being a journalist or a detective, and it's also a damned fine piece of dramatic filmmaking. Highly recommended.
***
9. Sunshine - In an era where science fiction films too often mean mindless action and visual eye candy substituting for an actual story, this film stands apart as a serious science fiction film, but its seriousness doesn't mean it lacks thrills.
2057. The Sun is dying and humankind faces extinction on an Earth growing colder each day. After a mission to re-ignite the sun with a massive thermonuclear device is lost, a second mission is sent toward the Sun seven years later to complete the task. Since all of Earth's fissile nuclear materials were mined to make the two devices, it's literally a do or humanity dies mission. As the ship Icarus II passes Mercury, its crew receives a signal from its predecessor and they detour to investigate.
Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) tackles the science fiction genre for the first time (although 28 Days Later certainly had some SF elements in it) and proves that he can succeed in seemingly any genre. Screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later) plays loose with the science at times, but overall his script is a carefully crafted story about the greatest rescue mission of all time played out by a crew of disparate men and women coming under increasing stress in a claustrophobic environment.
As with his earlier films, Boyle showcases his style of gritty realism that makes this film feel very real at all times, and there's a certain coldness to the narrative that recalls the films of Stanley Kubrick. Boyle and Garland don't allow the audience to get close to the characters, but they still achieve a result that works on visceral and psychological levels with philosophy, suspense, elements of horror, and an edge of your seat conclusion.
Cinematographer Alwin Küchler (The Claim) approaches the setting of a spacecraft with an underlit look that recalls an airliner or a submarine, using cool colors so that there's a greater contrast between the interior sets and the exterior effects shots. Production designer Mark Tildesley (28 Days Later) presents a spacecraft that looks possible without being too futuristic and creates a sense of claustrophobia that bleeds off of the screen. The score by John Murphy (28 Days Later, Miami Vice) and electronic band Underworld creates an almost hypnotic mood that nicely complements the story. The visual effects by the Moving Picture Company (28 Days Later, Batman Begins) are outstanding.
It's truly an ensemble cast, but Cillian Murphy stands out as the physicist who designed the bomb. He seems like a background character at first, but begins to come to the fore when a fateful decision is placed in his hands by the captain. He's a complex man who mostly keeps his emotions in check, but Murphy's performance allows us to subliminally comprehend the character's depth without having it spelled out. Chris Evans also impresses as the spacecraft's engineer, who makes several hard but necessary choices without flinching. He's all about the mission, and nothing or no one is more important, not even himself.
The rest of the cast is also strong, including Rose Byrne as the pilot, Cliff Curtis as the medical officer, Troy Garity as the first officer, Hiroyuki Sanada as the captain, Benedict Wong as the navigator, Michelle Yeoh as the biologist who loves her plants more than people, Mark Strong as the captain of the first mission, and Chipo Chung as the voice of the Icarus II computer.
Sunshine is the most satisfying science fiction film I've seen in a long time. On some levels it's a familiar story, but in the capable hands of Boyle it rises to another level and succeeds by finding the right balance between ideas and the need to entertain an audience.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
***
8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - This is a very good film, blessed with a veteran director and a great cast working from a strong, character driven screenplay. If that's the recipe for a successful film, then this cinematic meal passes the taste test.
Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an executive with a drug problem and a failing marriage to an unfaithful wife (Marisa Tomei). In need of money, he convinces his similarly cash desperate younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to rob a jewelry store belonging to their parents (Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris). Hank hires a criminal acquaintance named Bobby (Brían F. O'Byrne) to do the actual robbery, but things go awry with tragic consequences for all involved.
Sidney Lumet has been directing television and film since the early 1950s, with credits including 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict. At the age of 83, he adds another quality film to his resume, demonstrating an old school substance over style approach that gets to the heart of an almost operatic tragedy. He tells the story through flashbacks and from multiple perspectives, carefully weaving the threads until they come together with a terrible finality.
The original screenplay by playwright Kelly Masterson presents a compelling and fatalistic profile of human beings whose lives are spiraling out of control by their own actions and the actions of those around them. There are some plot twists that require suspension of disbelief, and a couple of plot threads aren't adequately resolved at the end, but those are minor quibbles. The focus on the characters is what makes this story really work.
Lumet recently declared that the future of filmmaking is in digital video, and this is his first film to be shot in that format. Using the Panavision Genesis high definition video camera (most notably used previously on Superman Returns and Zodiac), cinematographer Ron Fortunato (Basquiat, Catch a Fire) achieves a low-key realism that captures the tone of the story without getting in the way of the performances, matched by the production designs of Christopher Nowak (The X-Files, Find Me Guilty) and the dramatic score by Carter Burwell (The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men).
Lumet always draws out the best possible performances from his cast, and here that includes Hoffman and Hawke as the ill-fated siblings, Finney and Harris as their parents, Tomei as Andy's wife, O'Byrne as Bobby, Aleksa Palladino as Bobby's wife, Michael Shannon as her scheming brother, and Leonardo Cimino as a jewelry fence. Hoffman always seems to quietly deliver great performances, Hawke and Tomei serve up their best work in years, and Finney is spellbinding. The acting keeps the film on track even when the script drifts into occasionally hard to believe areas.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead dives into the darker abysses of familial relationships and takes the audience along for the ride, complete with thrilling plot twists and the rush of watching a master storyteller and skilled actors do what they do best.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
***
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - A poetic film based on the true story of a man trapped in the ultimate prison, his own body, with only the ability to blink as a way to communicate with the outside world.
December 28, 1995. Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the editor of the fashion magazine "Elle", wakes up in the hospital, learning to his horror that he has suffered a stroke and is almost completely paralyzed except for being able to move and blink his left eye. With the help of therapist Henriette (Marie-Josée Croze), he learns to communicate using blinks to indicate letters as the alphabet is repeatedly read out to him. Using this method of communication, Jean-Do dictates his memoirs to transcriber Claude (Anne Consigny) from inside the living prison that his body has become.
Screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist, Oliver Twist) translates Bauby's remarkable memoir into an equally remarkable screenplay that achieves dramatic power and emotional clarity without succumbing to the usual cliches of the 'sick person' genre by telling the story with great honesty. Painter turned director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) transforms it into a piece of visual poetry by crafting a unique first-person cinematic narrative that allows the audience to experience as much as possible what Bauby did. It's a visceral and intimate creation that succeeds beautifully by consistently defying convention.
Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan) brilliantly suggests a haunting waking dream with soft, hazy lighting, while making creative use of the camera to place the audience firmly inside Bauby's head. The score by Paul Cantelon (Everything Is Illuminated) contributes to the dream-like atmosphere.
How much can an actor really convey if he or she is limited to using one eye for their performance? For a gifted actor like Amalric, a single eye is enough to open a window into the very soul of his character, and his voice-overs of Bauby's internal dialog capture the despair, acceptance, patience, courage, and black humor that mark Jean-Do's state of mind. It's one of the more astounding pieces of acting I've seen in the cinema.
Schnabel also directs strong performances from Croze as Henriette, Consigny as Claude, Max Von Sydow as Bauby's father (a moving performance from a veteran actor), Emmanuelle Seigner as the mother of Bauby's children, and Olatz López Garmendia as his physical therapist.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is quite simply a work of art. There's no other way to describe it, but even that description can't do full justice to the film. It's at times challenging, at others terrifying, but always life affirming.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
6. No Country for Old Men - The Coen Brothers' latest film can be summed up in one word: brilliant.
Texas, 1980. Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting when he comes across the results of a drug deal gone bad--several dead men, a truck full of heroin, and $2 million in cash. He takes the cash, which immediately places him in the fatal path of hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who also wants the money. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) investigates the drug killings, coming to the realization that Moss took the money and his life is now in danger.
Screenwriters/directors (also editors and co-producers) Joel and Ethan Coen (Miller's Crossing, Fargo) generally remain faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel while placing their own unique signature on the material. The dialog is sparse but revelatory. The story is bleak but a vein of sardonic humor lurks just below the surface. It's a dark thriller that owes a debt to the film noir and western genres, while it projects itself onto the cinema screen with an unwillingness to conform to a conventional narrative path.
The Coens suggest that exploring the forces of fate that draw the characters into the same orbit is more important than neatly tying things up at the end, and they're correct. Real life isn't as neat as a bow on a Christmas package. Real life is messy and usually leaves us with more questions than answers. So does No Country for Old Men, and therein lies its brilliance.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has collaborated with the Coens since 1991's Barton Fink, captures the nihilistic mood of the material with simple and realistic lighting, along with careful framing of each shot. Production designer Jess Gonchor (Capote, The Devil Wears Prada) and costume designer Mary Zophres (Fargo, Lions for Lambs) credibly evoke the place and time of Texas in 1980. The minimalist score by Carter Burwell (Fargo, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) perfectly suits the starkness of the story.
The cast is superb. Brolin is outstanding as Moss, revealing more about his character through body language than dialog. He remains a sympathetic lead throughout, adding impact to the story as the dark clouds of inevitability form above his head. Bardem is disturbing as the remorseless and seemingly unstoppable assassin tracking Moss. Some of his scenes will send shivers down your spine. Jones is pitch perfect as the aging lawman whose investigation triggers an existential crisis in his life. Also noteworthy for their performances are Woody Harrelson as a second hitman tracking Moss, Kelly Macdonald as Moss' wife, Garret Dillahunt as Sheriff Bell's eager deputy, Barry Corbin as Bell's uncle, and Rodger Boyce as the Sheriff of El Paso.
No Country for Old Men is easily one of the elite films of 2007. It also proves once again that the Coen Brothers are some of the most strikingly creative filmmakers of this era. It's difficult to single out one of their films as the best, but without a doubt this one is a highly qualified candidate.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
5. 3:10 to Yuma - The Western genre makes a triumphant return to the big screen with a searing and suspenseful character study remade from a 1957 classic that starred Van Heflin and Glenn Ford.
Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a disabled Civil War veteran and impoverished rancher in peril of losing his land to the railroad. After Dan and his two sons witness the ambush of a stagecoach by outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his gang, Dan helps the lone survivor of the stagecoach crew, bounty hunter Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda), and is instrumental in the capture of Wade. In exchange for some much needed cash, Dan volunteers to help McElroy and railroad representative Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) transport Wade to Contention City to be put on a train bound for the prison in Yuma, a task that's complicated by the determination of Wade's lieutenant Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) to rescue him from the clutches of the law.
Director James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line) subtly distills all the tropes of classic Westerns into a single film that intelligently explores the moral ambiguities of its characters and the West, and there isn't as much as a single extraneous frame in this tautly executed study of men who are as unpredictable as the landscape they inhabit. Mangold successfully invokes the ambience of a classic Western while employing modern pacing and sensibilities to tell the story. The splendid pacing starts out at a slow burn and builds toward a dramatic climax.
Screenwriters Michael Brandt & Derek Haas (2 Fast 2 Furious) deftly update and expand upon the 1957 screenplay by Halsted Welles, which was loosely based on Elmore Leonard's short story, offering characters that are as complex and vividly drawn as the story is compelling from start to finish, leading inevitably toward a memorable denouement that arrives like a shot to the gut. As a remake, it never once feels superfluous.
Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (Identity, Walk the Line) uses hard, textured lighting to capture a naturalistic impression of the rugged New Mexico landscape where it was filmed. Production designer Andrew Menzies (art director of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Munich) and costumer designer Arianne Phillips (The Crow, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) strive for and achieve an authenticity that instantly transports the audience into the Old West. The brooding score by Marco Beltrami (Hellboy, Live Free or Die Hard) seals the mood.
3:10 to Yuma is an actor's film, and both Bale and Crowe deliver Oscar-worthy performances. Bale always excels at playing damaged men, and he's outstanding here as a man beaten down by life and trying to find a way to redeem himself. He allows much of Dan's inner torment to go unspoken, revealed instead only in his eyes. Crowe is magnificent as he revels in the complexity of a charming, morally ambiguous outlaw. You may love or hate Wade by turns, but you'll always be fascinated by him. Crowe's performance is at once subtle and bravura, vividly etching onto the screen a character who's more than just the sum of his outlaw reputation.
The strong performances don't stop there, with Fonda as the grizzled bounty hunter, Foster as Wade's vicious lieutenant (seemingly in love with his boss), Roberts as the railroad man, Logan Lerman as Dan's rebellious teenaged son, Gretchen Mol as Dan's weary wife, Alan Tudyk as the town veterinarian pressed into service as a doctor, Luce Rains as the Marshal, and Kevin Durand as the local landlord's hired muscle.
Although the heyday of the Western was decades ago, it's a genre that still has a lot to say when done right. 3:10 to Yuma is not only done right, it's a flawless film that instantly joins Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven as one of the rare modern classics of the Western genre.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
4. Across the Universe - The story of the 1960s told as a musical based on the songs of the Beatles. It's a concept that could only result in a film that's either totally brilliant or totally pretentious. In the hands of visionary screen and stage director Julie Taymor (Titus, Frida, Broadway's The Lion King), it's the former, and it immediately ranks as one of the great films of 2007.
Jude (Jim Sturgess) is a young dock worker from Liverpool who travels to the United States in the mid-1960s to find the American G.I. father (Robert Clohessy) he never knew. He befriends the privileged Max (Joe Anderson) and his sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). Jude and Lucy fall in love, and their relationship develops against the turbulent backdrop of the Vietnam War, student protests, and societal upheaval.
Although Taymor's background is in stage productions, all of her films are intensely visual in a way that can only be described as mainlining pure cinema directly into the veins of an audience. She's one of the rare filmmakers who knows how to use all the tools of the visual arts to expand the horizons of cinema. Across the Universe is no different. Taymor and screenwriters Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais (The Commitments, Flushed Away) craft a cleverly complex story told as a series of interconnected vignettes around the songs of the Beatles to explore the 1960s through the eyes of the characters. It never feels anachronistic because its themes are directly relevant to contemporary society. Taymor translates the screenplay into a film that's visually literate, highly metaphorical, and an emotionally powerful artistic statement.
Some controversy arose during post-production after Revolution Studios chairman Joe Roth decided to make his own edit without informing Taymor, cutting out nearly a third of the film. After months of conflict between Taymor and Roth, the studio relented and released Taymor's 131 minute cut. The film's structure is so intricately woven that it's hard to imagine a radically shortened version working at all. Thankfully, Taymor's vision prevailed.
Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie), production designer Mark Friedberg (The Ice Storm, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), and veteran costume designer Albert Wolsky (Grease, All That Jazz) bring Taymor's vision to vivid life in a sense stunning fashion, delicately treading a fine line between realism and artifice. Elliot Goldenthal (Titus, Frida) contributes some original music and is also one of the people responsible for the song arrangements. You've never heard the Beatles quite like this.
There are thirty-four Beatles songs used in the film, mostly compositions of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but also three from George Harrison and one credited to all four band members. As if any further proof is really necessary, it once again shows why Lennon and McCartney were two of the greatest writers of popular music in the 20th century. The musical numbers are brilliantly staged by Taymor and choreographer Daniel Ezralow (Earth Girls Are Easy), and they all work perfectly in the context of the story.
Taymor gets great acting and singing performances out of her cast, including the McCartney-esque Sturgess as Jude, Wood as Lucy, Anderson as the Vietnam-bound Max, Dana Fuchs as the Janis Joplin-inspired singer Sadie, Martin Luther McCoy as guitarist/singer JoJo (inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye), T.V. Carpio as yearning runaway Prudence, Clohessy as Jude's long lost father, U2 frontman Bono as the charismatic Dr. Robert (his performance of "I Am the Walrus" is outstanding), Eddie Izzard as the circus ringmaster Mr. Kite, Salma Hayek as a nurse, and Joe Cocker in three different roles.
It's not often that a piece of cinema raises itself to the sublime level of a work of art, but Across the Universe is one of those rare examples. It's mind-blowing in all the right ways and very highly recommended. It's only the second film this year (the other was The Wind That Shakes the Barley) that I feel is worthy of a full five stars.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
3. Into the Wild - At times it's easy to despair about the state of filmmaking, but then a film comes along to remind you that there are still films that have something to say and say it well. This is one of those films.
It tells the controversial true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), an idealistic young man who decides to donate his college fund to charity and leave behind what he sees as a meaningless existence to wander around the country under the name of Alexander Supertramp with the goal of making his way to Alaska to live off the land, a quest that ultimately leads to his death from starvation in the Alaskan wilderness.
Writer/director Sean Penn (The Indian Runner, The Pledge) transforms Jon Krakauer's book about McCandless into a powerful film that seduces the audience from the very first frame and doesn't let go until the end credits roll. Penn finds both grace and tragedy in the life and death of a remarkable young man, albeit one who was naive and even arrogant in overestimating his ability to survive in the wild. There's poetry in the telling of this story that is as intimate in scale as it is epic in theme, recalling the films of Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven, The New World).
In exploring how one character on a journey touches the lives of others and in turn has his life touched by them, it also makes an interesting companion piece to David Lynch's The Straight Story. In the end, we're defined by the lives we touch and our relationships with our fellow humans. What lends strength to this film is its refusal to judge McCandless or to attempt to neatly explain what drove his actions, showing Penn's respect for both McCandless and the intelligence of the audience.
Cinematographer Eric Gautier (The Motorcycle Diaries) captures the beauty of the natural landscapes McCandless travels through, allowing us to appreciate them in the same way the character does. A combination of music by Michael Brook (An Inconvenient Truth), Kaki King, and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder with original songs written and performed by Vedder results in a soundtrack that matches the story's intensity.
Penn's direction of his cast is sharp, obtaining the kind of electric performances he's known for as an actor. Hirsch's fervent portrayal of the central character burns up the screen, and he goes so deep into his role that only McCandless seems to remain as a charismatic presence that you can't take your eyes off of even for a second. The cast includes William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as McCandless' parents, Jena Malone as his sister, Brian Dierker and Catherine Keener as a hippie couple he meets on the road, Vince Vaughn as a man he works with in South Dakota, Kristen Stewart as a teenaged girl he meets in California, and Hal Holbrook as a lonely retired soldier who takes him in and begins to see him as the grandson he never had. For some of them, this is their best work in years, for others, it's their best ever.
Into the Wild is one of those rare films that works on every level. It's not something that can merely be watched, instead it begs to be experienced and even endured as an ordeal as emotionally draining as it is life affirming.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
2. The Wind That Shakes the Barley - This brilliant and electrifying historical drama, which won the Palme d'Or for Best Film at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, is a masterpiece of political filmmaking that uses a particular historical struggle to draw broader lessons from.
Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney) O'Donovan are brothers from County Cork on two different paths as the story begins in 1920. Damien is on his way to London to attend medical school, while Teddy is the leader of the local Irish Republican Army unit. After Damien witnesses an act of resistance to the routine violence of British soldiers, he puts aside his studies to join his brother in the IRA, fighting in the Irish War of Independence against British colonialism and the Black and Tans, a paramilitary police force. After a treaty is signed which partitions the country and stops far short of economic and political liberation, Damien and other anti-treaty IRA volunteers continue their fight, while Teddy supports the treaty and joins the new Irish Free State military. The Irish Civil War becomes a familial civil war, as the two brothers come into opposition with tragic results.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley represents British director Ken Loach (Hidden Agenda, Riff-Raff, Land and Freedom, Bread and Roses) at his absolute best: a bold storyteller who paints finely detailed, humanistic stories with an unabashedly leftwing perspective on culture and politics. The original screenplay by Paul Laverty (Bread and Roses) is both epic and intimate, with political and class struggle on a wide level represented by a small number of characters, which gives the film great emotional impact. Although it's a fictional story, the events are historically accurate, and it's portrayed with such realism that it feels like a documentary. It's not a dusty history lesson, it's as alive as a modern news report from a war torn country.
Loach doesn't take a single wrong step as he transforms the screenplay into a complex, emotionally draining film that has more edge of your seat tension in scenes of people debating politics than other films have in their action scenes, but it has conventional action scenes, too. It wears its politics on its sleeve, quoting the Irish socialist James Connolly and portraying Damien as a committed republican socialist who understands that the treaty will do nothing to change the distribution of power in his country, but it never idealizes any of the characters. In fact, its refusal to do so is one of its strengths.
The film also unflinchingly portrays how struggles for freedom are derailed so that only the color of a flag changes but those with economic power remain in control. This provides a certain universality to the film's themes, reflecting not only the present day Good Friday Agreement in Ireland, but also any struggle pitting the powerless against the powerful.
The naturalistic cinematography of Barry Ackroyd (United 93) is both bleak and beautiful, capturing the lush greenness of the County Cork filming locations while investing them with a heavy sense of tragedy. Production designer Fergus Clegg and costume designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh (Omagh, Breakfast on Pluto) bring the past back to vivid life. George Fenton (Cry Freedom, The Fisher King) provides a sweeping score that appropriately accents the story's themes.
Murphy's performance as Damien is a finely polished gem, as he grows from a quiet bystander to a committed revolutionary willing to give his life for his principles despite being stripped of his innocence by war. Delaney's Teddy is a born fighter whose war weariness leads him to the most emotionally wrenching act a man could take against his brother, and his chemistry with Murphy is such that one can easily imagine that they really are brothers. He has a scene toward the end that is simply heartbreaking and he plays it perfectly.
Strong performances also come from Liam Cunningham as Dan, a trade unionist and republican veteran who fought alongside Connolly in the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising; Orla Fitzgerald as Sinead, the love of Damien's life and also a committed republican activist; Roger Allam as a British landowner; Laurence Barry as a young man who defiantly refuses to give his name in English when it's demanded of him even though he knows it may get him killed; and John Crean as an IRA volunteer who informs on his comrades and suffers the usual fate of informers in a riveting scene.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a work of art that does what art should do, examines real life and shines a powerful light on the human struggle for freedom. There have been many films that have told stories about this period of Irish history, but this one can truly be called great. Highly, highly recommended.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
At last we come to my choice for the best film of 2007...
1. There Will Be Blood - If you thought American filmmakers had nothing left to say, then this is a film that will renew your faith that there are still inspired American directors with quite a lot to say and who can say it brilliantly.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an oilman who travels around early twentieth century California with his son H.W. (Dillon Freasier), always looking for the next opportunity to increase his fortune. When he learns about the possibility of a major oil field located beneath the remote town of Little Boston, he begins purchasing as much of the town's land as he can, with the dream of finding that oil and building a pipeline to the Pacific Ocean. His presence brings him into conflict with a young faith healer and preacher named Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), and the two vie for dominance over the other.
This extremely loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel, Oil! by writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) is a searing epic that effortlessly spans three decades. Instead of relying on a cast of thousands, Anderson chooses to tell this story as an intimate character study, a choice that proves to be richly rewarding as it unfolds into an uncompromisingly bleak tale of greed, misanthropy, and obsession with competition and wealth acquisition to the point of insanity. His well-honed satirical darts hit the mark every time, while the themes of an oil-hungry society and religious fervor resonate as a powerful allegory. A keenly black sense of humor makes itself known in the second half of the film, adding yet another dimension to the story.
Anderson's craftsmanship as a director is superb, and there's not even as much as a frame out of place. He boldly allows numerous scenes to play out without dialog, allowing images and ambient sounds to move the story along. It's almost like a silent film in that technique, but it only makes the actual dialog, as sparse at it may be, that much more powerful. Anderson has always been a good director. There Will Be Blood surpasses all of his previous works. This, my friends, is how you make a film.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (Syriana, Michael Clayton) finds beauty in stark, naturalistic lighting, making the harsh landscape a character in its own right. Production designer Jack Fisk (Mulholland Drive, The New World) and costume designer Mark Bridges (8 Mile, The Italian Job) vividly resurrect four different periods of time for the film, achieving the effect of being lived in instead of created. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood contributes a richly textured score that perfectly complements the visuals and conveys the underlying themes of the story in scenes that lack dialog.
Day-Lewis adds yet another great performance to his résumé as Daniel Plainview. If he doesn't win the Best Actor Oscar, something is rotten in Hollywood. His charismatic turn as the oilman seduces you into giving him your full attention at all times. He's subtle at one moment and grandiose in the next. It's like watching his body be possessed by the spirits of John Huston and Orson Welles.
Dano brings a terrifying fervor to his role as a faith healer with a growing number of followers, although Plainview sees right through him from the start. First-time actor Freasier is more than convincing as Plainview's son, a shrewd boy raised at his father's knee in the California oil fields.
The strong cast includes Kevin J. O'Connor as a man who claims to be Plainview's half-brother, Ciarán Hinds as Plainview's right hand man, David Willis as the patriarch of the Sunday family, David Warshofsky as an oil company representative, and Hans Howes as a landowner whose initial refusal to sell his land is eventually an obstacle in Plainview's plan to construct the pipeline.
There Will Be Blood is a stunning masterpiece, a label that should never be tossed around carelessly, but one that it fully deserves. Some critics are comparing it to Citizen Kane. At the very least, it may just be the best film to be released in 2007. Yes, it's that good. People actually stood up and applauded as the end credits rolled.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
Honorable Mention: Black Snake Moan, Eastern Promises, Halloween, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton.
This is my entirely subjective list of the top 10 films of 2007, presented in reverse order with my original reviews (and an honorable mention list at the end).
***
10. Zodiac - The true story behind the investigation of the infamous Zodiac killings comes to the screen as one of the best films of 2007 so far.
After claiming his first three victims, the mysterious Zodiac begins sending letters to the press, including the San Francisco Chronicle where journalist Paul Avery and cartoonist Robert Graysmith work. Avery begins writing about Zodiac, while Graysmith remains on the periphery at first. When Zodiac kills a cabbie in SF, Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong take charge of the investigation, intersecting with the paths of Avery and the increasingly obsessed Graysmith as Zodiac claims more victims and continues to taunt the police.
Director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) once again demonstrates his meticulous craftsmanship as he melds three related but distinct genres -- true crime, police procedural, and crusading investigative journalist -- into a riveting and complex film. Although Fincher's noted as a visual stylist, this film's story never falls into the ocean of style over substance to suffer the cruel fate of drowning in it. He steadfastly focuses on the characters and the details of the investigation, letting them guide the audience along in an unhurried but never slow manner.
The screenplay by James Vanderbilt (Darkness Falls), based on the book by Graysmith, takes a fairly comprehensive look at the investigation over many years. Fincher and Vanderbilt interviewed all of the surviving participants and victims in order to make the film as authentic as possible, and that level of detail seeps into every scene and every performance. Even the routine details of the investigation become interesting. The script also respects the audience enough to allow them to put the pieces together much as the investigators had to do, and nicely avoids a definitive conclusion.
Harris Savides (The Game, Finding Forrester) contributes highly polished cinematography using the Thomson Viper high definition digital video camera, notably making this the first production to be recorded entirely in the camera's uncompressed digital data format. The images are very filmlike, with the exception of a noticeable lack of grain, allowing Fincher and Savides to gain the advantages of digital video without sacrificing the richness of image usually obtained by shooting on film.
Production designer Donald Graham Burt (The Joy Luck Club, Donnie Brasco) ably recreates San Francisco of the late 1960s to late 1970s, aided by seamless CGI. Composer David Shire (All the President's Men, 2010) provides a good score that recalls the music from the films of the story's era. Some critics have said that the film is too long at 158 minutes, but editor Angus Wall (Panic Room) deftly keeps the pace going strong, avoiding crashing on the rocks of boredom.
The film is filled with quirky but realistic people, and the actors bring them to life with a high standard of excellence, including Robert Downey Jr. as the boozing Avery; Jake Gyllenhaal, who's spot on as the overly earnest Graysmith; Mark Ruffalo as the Columboesque Toschi, Anthony Edwards as Armstrong, and Dermot Mulroney as their captain; Brian Cox as attorney Melvin Belli in a brief but brilliant performance; John Carroll Lynch as the prime suspect and Charles Fleischer as his former friend; Elias Koteas and Donal Logue as investigators from other police agencies; and Chloe Sevigny as Graysmith's wife. There are so many other good actors in small roles that I can't name them all.
Zodiac is as close as you'll get to experiencing an investigation of this magnitude without actually being a journalist or a detective, and it's also a damned fine piece of dramatic filmmaking. Highly recommended.
***
9. Sunshine - In an era where science fiction films too often mean mindless action and visual eye candy substituting for an actual story, this film stands apart as a serious science fiction film, but its seriousness doesn't mean it lacks thrills.
2057. The Sun is dying and humankind faces extinction on an Earth growing colder each day. After a mission to re-ignite the sun with a massive thermonuclear device is lost, a second mission is sent toward the Sun seven years later to complete the task. Since all of Earth's fissile nuclear materials were mined to make the two devices, it's literally a do or humanity dies mission. As the ship Icarus II passes Mercury, its crew receives a signal from its predecessor and they detour to investigate.
Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) tackles the science fiction genre for the first time (although 28 Days Later certainly had some SF elements in it) and proves that he can succeed in seemingly any genre. Screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later) plays loose with the science at times, but overall his script is a carefully crafted story about the greatest rescue mission of all time played out by a crew of disparate men and women coming under increasing stress in a claustrophobic environment.
As with his earlier films, Boyle showcases his style of gritty realism that makes this film feel very real at all times, and there's a certain coldness to the narrative that recalls the films of Stanley Kubrick. Boyle and Garland don't allow the audience to get close to the characters, but they still achieve a result that works on visceral and psychological levels with philosophy, suspense, elements of horror, and an edge of your seat conclusion.
Cinematographer Alwin Küchler (The Claim) approaches the setting of a spacecraft with an underlit look that recalls an airliner or a submarine, using cool colors so that there's a greater contrast between the interior sets and the exterior effects shots. Production designer Mark Tildesley (28 Days Later) presents a spacecraft that looks possible without being too futuristic and creates a sense of claustrophobia that bleeds off of the screen. The score by John Murphy (28 Days Later, Miami Vice) and electronic band Underworld creates an almost hypnotic mood that nicely complements the story. The visual effects by the Moving Picture Company (28 Days Later, Batman Begins) are outstanding.
It's truly an ensemble cast, but Cillian Murphy stands out as the physicist who designed the bomb. He seems like a background character at first, but begins to come to the fore when a fateful decision is placed in his hands by the captain. He's a complex man who mostly keeps his emotions in check, but Murphy's performance allows us to subliminally comprehend the character's depth without having it spelled out. Chris Evans also impresses as the spacecraft's engineer, who makes several hard but necessary choices without flinching. He's all about the mission, and nothing or no one is more important, not even himself.
The rest of the cast is also strong, including Rose Byrne as the pilot, Cliff Curtis as the medical officer, Troy Garity as the first officer, Hiroyuki Sanada as the captain, Benedict Wong as the navigator, Michelle Yeoh as the biologist who loves her plants more than people, Mark Strong as the captain of the first mission, and Chipo Chung as the voice of the Icarus II computer.
Sunshine is the most satisfying science fiction film I've seen in a long time. On some levels it's a familiar story, but in the capable hands of Boyle it rises to another level and succeeds by finding the right balance between ideas and the need to entertain an audience.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
***
8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - This is a very good film, blessed with a veteran director and a great cast working from a strong, character driven screenplay. If that's the recipe for a successful film, then this cinematic meal passes the taste test.
Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an executive with a drug problem and a failing marriage to an unfaithful wife (Marisa Tomei). In need of money, he convinces his similarly cash desperate younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to rob a jewelry store belonging to their parents (Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris). Hank hires a criminal acquaintance named Bobby (Brían F. O'Byrne) to do the actual robbery, but things go awry with tragic consequences for all involved.
Sidney Lumet has been directing television and film since the early 1950s, with credits including 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict. At the age of 83, he adds another quality film to his resume, demonstrating an old school substance over style approach that gets to the heart of an almost operatic tragedy. He tells the story through flashbacks and from multiple perspectives, carefully weaving the threads until they come together with a terrible finality.
The original screenplay by playwright Kelly Masterson presents a compelling and fatalistic profile of human beings whose lives are spiraling out of control by their own actions and the actions of those around them. There are some plot twists that require suspension of disbelief, and a couple of plot threads aren't adequately resolved at the end, but those are minor quibbles. The focus on the characters is what makes this story really work.
Lumet recently declared that the future of filmmaking is in digital video, and this is his first film to be shot in that format. Using the Panavision Genesis high definition video camera (most notably used previously on Superman Returns and Zodiac), cinematographer Ron Fortunato (Basquiat, Catch a Fire) achieves a low-key realism that captures the tone of the story without getting in the way of the performances, matched by the production designs of Christopher Nowak (The X-Files, Find Me Guilty) and the dramatic score by Carter Burwell (The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men).
Lumet always draws out the best possible performances from his cast, and here that includes Hoffman and Hawke as the ill-fated siblings, Finney and Harris as their parents, Tomei as Andy's wife, O'Byrne as Bobby, Aleksa Palladino as Bobby's wife, Michael Shannon as her scheming brother, and Leonardo Cimino as a jewelry fence. Hoffman always seems to quietly deliver great performances, Hawke and Tomei serve up their best work in years, and Finney is spellbinding. The acting keeps the film on track even when the script drifts into occasionally hard to believe areas.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead dives into the darker abysses of familial relationships and takes the audience along for the ride, complete with thrilling plot twists and the rush of watching a master storyteller and skilled actors do what they do best.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
***
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - A poetic film based on the true story of a man trapped in the ultimate prison, his own body, with only the ability to blink as a way to communicate with the outside world.
December 28, 1995. Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the editor of the fashion magazine "Elle", wakes up in the hospital, learning to his horror that he has suffered a stroke and is almost completely paralyzed except for being able to move and blink his left eye. With the help of therapist Henriette (Marie-Josée Croze), he learns to communicate using blinks to indicate letters as the alphabet is repeatedly read out to him. Using this method of communication, Jean-Do dictates his memoirs to transcriber Claude (Anne Consigny) from inside the living prison that his body has become.
Screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist, Oliver Twist) translates Bauby's remarkable memoir into an equally remarkable screenplay that achieves dramatic power and emotional clarity without succumbing to the usual cliches of the 'sick person' genre by telling the story with great honesty. Painter turned director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) transforms it into a piece of visual poetry by crafting a unique first-person cinematic narrative that allows the audience to experience as much as possible what Bauby did. It's a visceral and intimate creation that succeeds beautifully by consistently defying convention.
Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan) brilliantly suggests a haunting waking dream with soft, hazy lighting, while making creative use of the camera to place the audience firmly inside Bauby's head. The score by Paul Cantelon (Everything Is Illuminated) contributes to the dream-like atmosphere.
How much can an actor really convey if he or she is limited to using one eye for their performance? For a gifted actor like Amalric, a single eye is enough to open a window into the very soul of his character, and his voice-overs of Bauby's internal dialog capture the despair, acceptance, patience, courage, and black humor that mark Jean-Do's state of mind. It's one of the more astounding pieces of acting I've seen in the cinema.
Schnabel also directs strong performances from Croze as Henriette, Consigny as Claude, Max Von Sydow as Bauby's father (a moving performance from a veteran actor), Emmanuelle Seigner as the mother of Bauby's children, and Olatz López Garmendia as his physical therapist.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is quite simply a work of art. There's no other way to describe it, but even that description can't do full justice to the film. It's at times challenging, at others terrifying, but always life affirming.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
6. No Country for Old Men - The Coen Brothers' latest film can be summed up in one word: brilliant.
Texas, 1980. Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting when he comes across the results of a drug deal gone bad--several dead men, a truck full of heroin, and $2 million in cash. He takes the cash, which immediately places him in the fatal path of hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who also wants the money. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) investigates the drug killings, coming to the realization that Moss took the money and his life is now in danger.
Screenwriters/directors (also editors and co-producers) Joel and Ethan Coen (Miller's Crossing, Fargo) generally remain faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel while placing their own unique signature on the material. The dialog is sparse but revelatory. The story is bleak but a vein of sardonic humor lurks just below the surface. It's a dark thriller that owes a debt to the film noir and western genres, while it projects itself onto the cinema screen with an unwillingness to conform to a conventional narrative path.
The Coens suggest that exploring the forces of fate that draw the characters into the same orbit is more important than neatly tying things up at the end, and they're correct. Real life isn't as neat as a bow on a Christmas package. Real life is messy and usually leaves us with more questions than answers. So does No Country for Old Men, and therein lies its brilliance.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has collaborated with the Coens since 1991's Barton Fink, captures the nihilistic mood of the material with simple and realistic lighting, along with careful framing of each shot. Production designer Jess Gonchor (Capote, The Devil Wears Prada) and costume designer Mary Zophres (Fargo, Lions for Lambs) credibly evoke the place and time of Texas in 1980. The minimalist score by Carter Burwell (Fargo, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) perfectly suits the starkness of the story.
The cast is superb. Brolin is outstanding as Moss, revealing more about his character through body language than dialog. He remains a sympathetic lead throughout, adding impact to the story as the dark clouds of inevitability form above his head. Bardem is disturbing as the remorseless and seemingly unstoppable assassin tracking Moss. Some of his scenes will send shivers down your spine. Jones is pitch perfect as the aging lawman whose investigation triggers an existential crisis in his life. Also noteworthy for their performances are Woody Harrelson as a second hitman tracking Moss, Kelly Macdonald as Moss' wife, Garret Dillahunt as Sheriff Bell's eager deputy, Barry Corbin as Bell's uncle, and Rodger Boyce as the Sheriff of El Paso.
No Country for Old Men is easily one of the elite films of 2007. It also proves once again that the Coen Brothers are some of the most strikingly creative filmmakers of this era. It's difficult to single out one of their films as the best, but without a doubt this one is a highly qualified candidate.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
5. 3:10 to Yuma - The Western genre makes a triumphant return to the big screen with a searing and suspenseful character study remade from a 1957 classic that starred Van Heflin and Glenn Ford.
Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a disabled Civil War veteran and impoverished rancher in peril of losing his land to the railroad. After Dan and his two sons witness the ambush of a stagecoach by outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his gang, Dan helps the lone survivor of the stagecoach crew, bounty hunter Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda), and is instrumental in the capture of Wade. In exchange for some much needed cash, Dan volunteers to help McElroy and railroad representative Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) transport Wade to Contention City to be put on a train bound for the prison in Yuma, a task that's complicated by the determination of Wade's lieutenant Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) to rescue him from the clutches of the law.
Director James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line) subtly distills all the tropes of classic Westerns into a single film that intelligently explores the moral ambiguities of its characters and the West, and there isn't as much as a single extraneous frame in this tautly executed study of men who are as unpredictable as the landscape they inhabit. Mangold successfully invokes the ambience of a classic Western while employing modern pacing and sensibilities to tell the story. The splendid pacing starts out at a slow burn and builds toward a dramatic climax.
Screenwriters Michael Brandt & Derek Haas (2 Fast 2 Furious) deftly update and expand upon the 1957 screenplay by Halsted Welles, which was loosely based on Elmore Leonard's short story, offering characters that are as complex and vividly drawn as the story is compelling from start to finish, leading inevitably toward a memorable denouement that arrives like a shot to the gut. As a remake, it never once feels superfluous.
Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (Identity, Walk the Line) uses hard, textured lighting to capture a naturalistic impression of the rugged New Mexico landscape where it was filmed. Production designer Andrew Menzies (art director of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Munich) and costumer designer Arianne Phillips (The Crow, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) strive for and achieve an authenticity that instantly transports the audience into the Old West. The brooding score by Marco Beltrami (Hellboy, Live Free or Die Hard) seals the mood.
3:10 to Yuma is an actor's film, and both Bale and Crowe deliver Oscar-worthy performances. Bale always excels at playing damaged men, and he's outstanding here as a man beaten down by life and trying to find a way to redeem himself. He allows much of Dan's inner torment to go unspoken, revealed instead only in his eyes. Crowe is magnificent as he revels in the complexity of a charming, morally ambiguous outlaw. You may love or hate Wade by turns, but you'll always be fascinated by him. Crowe's performance is at once subtle and bravura, vividly etching onto the screen a character who's more than just the sum of his outlaw reputation.
The strong performances don't stop there, with Fonda as the grizzled bounty hunter, Foster as Wade's vicious lieutenant (seemingly in love with his boss), Roberts as the railroad man, Logan Lerman as Dan's rebellious teenaged son, Gretchen Mol as Dan's weary wife, Alan Tudyk as the town veterinarian pressed into service as a doctor, Luce Rains as the Marshal, and Kevin Durand as the local landlord's hired muscle.
Although the heyday of the Western was decades ago, it's a genre that still has a lot to say when done right. 3:10 to Yuma is not only done right, it's a flawless film that instantly joins Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven as one of the rare modern classics of the Western genre.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
4. Across the Universe - The story of the 1960s told as a musical based on the songs of the Beatles. It's a concept that could only result in a film that's either totally brilliant or totally pretentious. In the hands of visionary screen and stage director Julie Taymor (Titus, Frida, Broadway's The Lion King), it's the former, and it immediately ranks as one of the great films of 2007.
Jude (Jim Sturgess) is a young dock worker from Liverpool who travels to the United States in the mid-1960s to find the American G.I. father (Robert Clohessy) he never knew. He befriends the privileged Max (Joe Anderson) and his sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). Jude and Lucy fall in love, and their relationship develops against the turbulent backdrop of the Vietnam War, student protests, and societal upheaval.
Although Taymor's background is in stage productions, all of her films are intensely visual in a way that can only be described as mainlining pure cinema directly into the veins of an audience. She's one of the rare filmmakers who knows how to use all the tools of the visual arts to expand the horizons of cinema. Across the Universe is no different. Taymor and screenwriters Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais (The Commitments, Flushed Away) craft a cleverly complex story told as a series of interconnected vignettes around the songs of the Beatles to explore the 1960s through the eyes of the characters. It never feels anachronistic because its themes are directly relevant to contemporary society. Taymor translates the screenplay into a film that's visually literate, highly metaphorical, and an emotionally powerful artistic statement.
Some controversy arose during post-production after Revolution Studios chairman Joe Roth decided to make his own edit without informing Taymor, cutting out nearly a third of the film. After months of conflict between Taymor and Roth, the studio relented and released Taymor's 131 minute cut. The film's structure is so intricately woven that it's hard to imagine a radically shortened version working at all. Thankfully, Taymor's vision prevailed.
Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie), production designer Mark Friedberg (The Ice Storm, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), and veteran costume designer Albert Wolsky (Grease, All That Jazz) bring Taymor's vision to vivid life in a sense stunning fashion, delicately treading a fine line between realism and artifice. Elliot Goldenthal (Titus, Frida) contributes some original music and is also one of the people responsible for the song arrangements. You've never heard the Beatles quite like this.
There are thirty-four Beatles songs used in the film, mostly compositions of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but also three from George Harrison and one credited to all four band members. As if any further proof is really necessary, it once again shows why Lennon and McCartney were two of the greatest writers of popular music in the 20th century. The musical numbers are brilliantly staged by Taymor and choreographer Daniel Ezralow (Earth Girls Are Easy), and they all work perfectly in the context of the story.
Taymor gets great acting and singing performances out of her cast, including the McCartney-esque Sturgess as Jude, Wood as Lucy, Anderson as the Vietnam-bound Max, Dana Fuchs as the Janis Joplin-inspired singer Sadie, Martin Luther McCoy as guitarist/singer JoJo (inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye), T.V. Carpio as yearning runaway Prudence, Clohessy as Jude's long lost father, U2 frontman Bono as the charismatic Dr. Robert (his performance of "I Am the Walrus" is outstanding), Eddie Izzard as the circus ringmaster Mr. Kite, Salma Hayek as a nurse, and Joe Cocker in three different roles.
It's not often that a piece of cinema raises itself to the sublime level of a work of art, but Across the Universe is one of those rare examples. It's mind-blowing in all the right ways and very highly recommended. It's only the second film this year (the other was The Wind That Shakes the Barley) that I feel is worthy of a full five stars.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
3. Into the Wild - At times it's easy to despair about the state of filmmaking, but then a film comes along to remind you that there are still films that have something to say and say it well. This is one of those films.
It tells the controversial true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), an idealistic young man who decides to donate his college fund to charity and leave behind what he sees as a meaningless existence to wander around the country under the name of Alexander Supertramp with the goal of making his way to Alaska to live off the land, a quest that ultimately leads to his death from starvation in the Alaskan wilderness.
Writer/director Sean Penn (The Indian Runner, The Pledge) transforms Jon Krakauer's book about McCandless into a powerful film that seduces the audience from the very first frame and doesn't let go until the end credits roll. Penn finds both grace and tragedy in the life and death of a remarkable young man, albeit one who was naive and even arrogant in overestimating his ability to survive in the wild. There's poetry in the telling of this story that is as intimate in scale as it is epic in theme, recalling the films of Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven, The New World).
In exploring how one character on a journey touches the lives of others and in turn has his life touched by them, it also makes an interesting companion piece to David Lynch's The Straight Story. In the end, we're defined by the lives we touch and our relationships with our fellow humans. What lends strength to this film is its refusal to judge McCandless or to attempt to neatly explain what drove his actions, showing Penn's respect for both McCandless and the intelligence of the audience.
Cinematographer Eric Gautier (The Motorcycle Diaries) captures the beauty of the natural landscapes McCandless travels through, allowing us to appreciate them in the same way the character does. A combination of music by Michael Brook (An Inconvenient Truth), Kaki King, and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder with original songs written and performed by Vedder results in a soundtrack that matches the story's intensity.
Penn's direction of his cast is sharp, obtaining the kind of electric performances he's known for as an actor. Hirsch's fervent portrayal of the central character burns up the screen, and he goes so deep into his role that only McCandless seems to remain as a charismatic presence that you can't take your eyes off of even for a second. The cast includes William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as McCandless' parents, Jena Malone as his sister, Brian Dierker and Catherine Keener as a hippie couple he meets on the road, Vince Vaughn as a man he works with in South Dakota, Kristen Stewart as a teenaged girl he meets in California, and Hal Holbrook as a lonely retired soldier who takes him in and begins to see him as the grandson he never had. For some of them, this is their best work in years, for others, it's their best ever.
Into the Wild is one of those rare films that works on every level. It's not something that can merely be watched, instead it begs to be experienced and even endured as an ordeal as emotionally draining as it is life affirming.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
2. The Wind That Shakes the Barley - This brilliant and electrifying historical drama, which won the Palme d'Or for Best Film at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, is a masterpiece of political filmmaking that uses a particular historical struggle to draw broader lessons from.
Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney) O'Donovan are brothers from County Cork on two different paths as the story begins in 1920. Damien is on his way to London to attend medical school, while Teddy is the leader of the local Irish Republican Army unit. After Damien witnesses an act of resistance to the routine violence of British soldiers, he puts aside his studies to join his brother in the IRA, fighting in the Irish War of Independence against British colonialism and the Black and Tans, a paramilitary police force. After a treaty is signed which partitions the country and stops far short of economic and political liberation, Damien and other anti-treaty IRA volunteers continue their fight, while Teddy supports the treaty and joins the new Irish Free State military. The Irish Civil War becomes a familial civil war, as the two brothers come into opposition with tragic results.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley represents British director Ken Loach (Hidden Agenda, Riff-Raff, Land and Freedom, Bread and Roses) at his absolute best: a bold storyteller who paints finely detailed, humanistic stories with an unabashedly leftwing perspective on culture and politics. The original screenplay by Paul Laverty (Bread and Roses) is both epic and intimate, with political and class struggle on a wide level represented by a small number of characters, which gives the film great emotional impact. Although it's a fictional story, the events are historically accurate, and it's portrayed with such realism that it feels like a documentary. It's not a dusty history lesson, it's as alive as a modern news report from a war torn country.
Loach doesn't take a single wrong step as he transforms the screenplay into a complex, emotionally draining film that has more edge of your seat tension in scenes of people debating politics than other films have in their action scenes, but it has conventional action scenes, too. It wears its politics on its sleeve, quoting the Irish socialist James Connolly and portraying Damien as a committed republican socialist who understands that the treaty will do nothing to change the distribution of power in his country, but it never idealizes any of the characters. In fact, its refusal to do so is one of its strengths.
The film also unflinchingly portrays how struggles for freedom are derailed so that only the color of a flag changes but those with economic power remain in control. This provides a certain universality to the film's themes, reflecting not only the present day Good Friday Agreement in Ireland, but also any struggle pitting the powerless against the powerful.
The naturalistic cinematography of Barry Ackroyd (United 93) is both bleak and beautiful, capturing the lush greenness of the County Cork filming locations while investing them with a heavy sense of tragedy. Production designer Fergus Clegg and costume designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh (Omagh, Breakfast on Pluto) bring the past back to vivid life. George Fenton (Cry Freedom, The Fisher King) provides a sweeping score that appropriately accents the story's themes.
Murphy's performance as Damien is a finely polished gem, as he grows from a quiet bystander to a committed revolutionary willing to give his life for his principles despite being stripped of his innocence by war. Delaney's Teddy is a born fighter whose war weariness leads him to the most emotionally wrenching act a man could take against his brother, and his chemistry with Murphy is such that one can easily imagine that they really are brothers. He has a scene toward the end that is simply heartbreaking and he plays it perfectly.
Strong performances also come from Liam Cunningham as Dan, a trade unionist and republican veteran who fought alongside Connolly in the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising; Orla Fitzgerald as Sinead, the love of Damien's life and also a committed republican activist; Roger Allam as a British landowner; Laurence Barry as a young man who defiantly refuses to give his name in English when it's demanded of him even though he knows it may get him killed; and John Crean as an IRA volunteer who informs on his comrades and suffers the usual fate of informers in a riveting scene.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a work of art that does what art should do, examines real life and shines a powerful light on the human struggle for freedom. There have been many films that have told stories about this period of Irish history, but this one can truly be called great. Highly, highly recommended.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
At last we come to my choice for the best film of 2007...
1. There Will Be Blood - If you thought American filmmakers had nothing left to say, then this is a film that will renew your faith that there are still inspired American directors with quite a lot to say and who can say it brilliantly.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an oilman who travels around early twentieth century California with his son H.W. (Dillon Freasier), always looking for the next opportunity to increase his fortune. When he learns about the possibility of a major oil field located beneath the remote town of Little Boston, he begins purchasing as much of the town's land as he can, with the dream of finding that oil and building a pipeline to the Pacific Ocean. His presence brings him into conflict with a young faith healer and preacher named Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), and the two vie for dominance over the other.
This extremely loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel, Oil! by writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) is a searing epic that effortlessly spans three decades. Instead of relying on a cast of thousands, Anderson chooses to tell this story as an intimate character study, a choice that proves to be richly rewarding as it unfolds into an uncompromisingly bleak tale of greed, misanthropy, and obsession with competition and wealth acquisition to the point of insanity. His well-honed satirical darts hit the mark every time, while the themes of an oil-hungry society and religious fervor resonate as a powerful allegory. A keenly black sense of humor makes itself known in the second half of the film, adding yet another dimension to the story.
Anderson's craftsmanship as a director is superb, and there's not even as much as a frame out of place. He boldly allows numerous scenes to play out without dialog, allowing images and ambient sounds to move the story along. It's almost like a silent film in that technique, but it only makes the actual dialog, as sparse at it may be, that much more powerful. Anderson has always been a good director. There Will Be Blood surpasses all of his previous works. This, my friends, is how you make a film.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (Syriana, Michael Clayton) finds beauty in stark, naturalistic lighting, making the harsh landscape a character in its own right. Production designer Jack Fisk (Mulholland Drive, The New World) and costume designer Mark Bridges (8 Mile, The Italian Job) vividly resurrect four different periods of time for the film, achieving the effect of being lived in instead of created. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood contributes a richly textured score that perfectly complements the visuals and conveys the underlying themes of the story in scenes that lack dialog.
Day-Lewis adds yet another great performance to his résumé as Daniel Plainview. If he doesn't win the Best Actor Oscar, something is rotten in Hollywood. His charismatic turn as the oilman seduces you into giving him your full attention at all times. He's subtle at one moment and grandiose in the next. It's like watching his body be possessed by the spirits of John Huston and Orson Welles.
Dano brings a terrifying fervor to his role as a faith healer with a growing number of followers, although Plainview sees right through him from the start. First-time actor Freasier is more than convincing as Plainview's son, a shrewd boy raised at his father's knee in the California oil fields.
The strong cast includes Kevin J. O'Connor as a man who claims to be Plainview's half-brother, Ciarán Hinds as Plainview's right hand man, David Willis as the patriarch of the Sunday family, David Warshofsky as an oil company representative, and Hans Howes as a landowner whose initial refusal to sell his land is eventually an obstacle in Plainview's plan to construct the pipeline.
There Will Be Blood is a stunning masterpiece, a label that should never be tossed around carelessly, but one that it fully deserves. Some critics are comparing it to Citizen Kane. At the very least, it may just be the best film to be released in 2007. Yes, it's that good. People actually stood up and applauded as the end credits rolled.
[5 out of 5 stars]
***
Honorable Mention: Black Snake Moan, Eastern Promises, Halloween, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton.
Comments:
Post a Comment
