My Top Films Of The 2010s- Part Nine

There are only four picks left in my award-winning “Best Of The 2010s” series and I have to be honest with you now. Three of them have appeared on quite a few other lists. I never claimed to be a contrarian, not in the last few hours anyway. My selection for the fourth spot, however, was somewhat less than universally praised.

4. mother! (Aronofsky, 2017)

“mother!” captures the gut-wrenching terror of sharing your art with the public, that horrible moment of letting your personal creation go. Even the people who love it (or claim they love it) won't understand it quite the way you do. And as your precious creation gets passed around, cherished or ignored or just briefly sampled as a mid-day distraction, there's a good chance it will get torn to bits, and perhaps you along with it. Yet you continue to create because you don't have any other choice. And it's still better than having nobody else ever see your work at all. Maybe.

“mother!” is a strident environmental allegory. If Jennifer Lawrence is mother! Earth (which she is, among so many other things) we first meet her in her Edenic home with only one other person in sight, her husband/partner Him (Javier Bardem). One stranger intrudes and then another and soon the world population explodes. And damn near every one of these bastards likes to party too, exploiting Mother Earth and her beautiful house, all without considering her opinion on the matter or worrying about wrecking the place, right up until the inevitable Malthusian crash, and the grueling cleanup of the filth they leave behind.

“mother!” vividly depict systemic misogyny stemming from multiple sources, from Christian patriarchal ideology to the pernicious myth of the lone genius male artist and his disposable muse. Maybe she'll be venerated as a saint later, but that's cold comfort to an abandoned Jennifer Lawrence as mother! Mary, valued primarily for her ability to produce one very special baby, or perhaps to help Him publish his latest work and soak up all the glory.

Like Hans Moleman's celebrated “Man Getting Hit By Football” Darren Aronofsky's gonzo screed works on so many levels, and I love, love, love this movie from its lower-case “m” to its ostentatious ! As manic as the film gets at its overcrowded crescendo, Aronofsky and crew frame most of the action with a handful of simple, repeated camera setups, making it a more controlled and rigorous formal exercise than the legions of skeptical critics have given it credit for.

Because this movie really works on so many levels, at least for me. One of the defining elements of my dreams is that I'm rarely able to make a difference – scrub that stain but it never goes away, shovel that coal but the pile never gets any smaller. Maybe that's just me, but “mother!” captures the feel of my dreams in a way I've never seen in a movie before, and I'm especially thinking of the sequence where Lawrence implores raucous party-goers to stop bouncing on her sink, only to find them back at it just seconds later. And I haven't even talked about how this movie so clearly sees the world through the eyes of an introvert for whom true hell is other people.

Lawrence is great. Michelle Pfeiffer is great. I think everything about “mother!” is great. I gave serious thought to making it my top pick of the 2010s. Maybe I chickened out because of the negative reviews, some of which I respect but simply disagree with. I'm grateful that Aronofsky didn't chicken out, and went for broke in every frame of this deranged tour-de-force. 

3. THE TURIN HORSE (Tarr and Hranitzky, 2011)

“The Turin Horse” was billed at the time as Hungarian master Bela Tarr's last film, and so far that's proven to be true as far as feature films go, except for the fact that most critics (myself included) omitted the fact that the film was co-directed (and edited) by Agnes Hranitzky, also the co-director w/Tarr of “Werckmeister Harmonies” (2000) and “The Man From London” (2006). If it really is the last feature film for either director, they sure proved they can throw one hell of a farewell party.

An elderly peasant and his daughter live it up on the old farm where they get to stare at dust clouds through the living room window and eat all the boiled potatoes they could ever want, provided they only want one each. Feel the excitement! The film, photographed in a stark black-and-white that wallows in the tedium, unfolds at the pace of a day per act, though these might well be Biblical days that stretch out for eons. Or perhaps longer for the poor viewer who doesn't dig the glacial rhythm or the nihilistic vibe.

Soon enough it becomes apparent that the world is ending, though it's hard to tell for certain over the constant howl of the scouring wind. Fortunately the starch-fed protagonists have low expectations for life. When the light, possibly all the light in the world, goes out, the daughter responds with a resigned, “What's all this?” Few films grind more mileage out of a black screen. Each day of Tarr's slow-motion apocalypse yields to a slightly degraded copy of the day prior, bits and shreds of existence flaking off until finally there's just not enough energy left to sustain life, or even a film.

I also think “The Turin Horse” is damn funny at times, but I've been told by reliable sources that means I'm crazy. Tarr has described the film as an expression of “the heaviness of human existence” and, really, what could be funnier than that?

My Top Films Of The 2010s - Part Eight

I hope you like documentaries. I sure do. If you don't, you're kinda screwed now.

Here's a link to the previous installment of my series. 

6. 63 UP/56 UP (Apted, 2012, 2019)

Age has worn the “Up” series into a tattered pair of jeans that's threatening to fall apart at its seams. How many times can Michael Apted ask his subjects to evaluate the series' well-known premise (“Give me the child until he is seven, and I will show you the man”) before they slap him away in sheer exasperation? What can they answer? Yes, no, maybe. I dunno, I'm just living my life.

And yet age continues to imbue the greatest of all cinematic universes with increasing power, all of it stemming from the shared opportunity to watch these characters gamely pressing back against the weight of time that crushes us all to dust. Virtually any viewer who got in on “Up” many years ago felt the dread of following Neil on what seemed quite obviously to be his tragic trajectory, only to feel relief bordering on elation at seeing him rally against overwhelming resistance. Tony has transformed from jockey to cab driver to philanderer to devoted husband and father, and it's amazing how many times I've wondered over the past few years what he thought about Brexit. Answer from “63 Up”: about what I thought, but with more nuance than I may have expected.

There's been an extra kick in watching the women of the series not only navigate through life, but also to push back against the sexist questions they've had to endure through many earlier installments. Apted appears to be learning on that front, if frustratingly slowly. And I always knew I would have a rough time dealing with the first death in the series, but even though I had read the news year before, watching it revealed in “63 Up” hit me like ton upon ton of bricks.

I can't think of another film or TV series, fiction or non-fiction, that has made me care so much about its characters. From the working-class heroes to the upper-crust elites, I can't fathom disliking a single one of them and I'll never get tired of checking in on them every seven years. I hate to think “63” might be the final chapter. I'm hoping to stick around for at least “98 Up.” Do I hear “105”?

5. CAMERAPERSON (Johnson, 2016)

I didn't think it was possible for me to admire Kirsten Johnson's “Cameraperson” any more than I did on my first viewing. But with a few years to think about it (and I think about it often) I'm now convinced that Johnson has crafted the greatest non-fiction film memoir I've ever seen. Her movie intertwines the workplace with the personal so seamlessly and leaps across continents and decades with such deftness, weaving it all together into a single flowing narrative, that I can't conceive of a documentary course that doesn't feature this movie on the syllabus.

I'm pretty pleased with what I wrote about the film when it was released by The Criterion Collection, so I'm just going to link you to my review. If I seemed effusive in my praise at the time, I can only promise you that I was underselling the movie.

My Top Films Of The 2010s - Part Seven

We've entered the portion of my list where I think each film could have made my top slot. It doesn't matter, but you already knew that. Today, I bring you two films by quite possible the two greatest European directors of the past half-century, which I figure is a decent place to start.

Here's a link to Part Six, in case you're curious.

8. GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D (Godard, 2014)

No filmmaker has declared cinema to be dead more often and with more schadenfreude than Jean-Luc Godard. With the help of a half-dozen digital cameras shooting at multiple frame rates, Godard proved with “Goodbye To language 3D” that his multiple eulogies for the medium were, as we always suspected, complete bullshit.

I was certainly jolted out of my film festival ennui after I trudged through a rainy, chilly evening to a dreary theater and slipped on my 3D glasses to watch the adventures of Roxy the dog and some humans I only vaguely remember. Tthere's an unhappy couple or maybe two of them – someone gets killed, I think. The story hardly matters. Godard distorts the 2D image almost beyond recognition and then severs the 3D field to present stereoscopic thrills to delight even the most jaded viewer. Close your left eye and you see one movie, close your right eye and you see another one. And now they're both united again. My God, movies really can still be magic!

Godard understands that the optimal use of 3D is not a futile effort to draw viewers deeper into the illusory world of a seamless narrative, but to make them conscious every second of the act of seeing (comparisons to Stan Brakhage are obvious, but overblown). Look what images cinema can bring to you. Really look, and savor the sensual experience for its own sake, not because it can whisk you like a tourist through the museum of a narrative. And let every discontinuity, every abrupt rupture (augmented by the typically jarring JLG soundtrack) jolt you out of your complacency and make you feel alert and alive the whole time. Forgive my histrionics, but this movie really did inspire an excitement about the medium I hadn't felt since the first time I watched “Last Year At Marienbad” many years ago and thought, “Woah, I didn't realize movies could do that.”

Godard's relentless experimentation with image and the unstable (and untrustworthy) relationship between image and sound has always excited me, but I can't deny that he can be tiresomely pedantic at times and that his movies require a lot of work to decipher.“Goodbye To Language 3D”, however, proves that a JLG movie can simply be a total blast to watch.

Of course, you probably won't ever get to watch it. A 2D version exists and is readily available, but I can't recommend it. The 3D isn't a luxury viewing option in this case, but the core of the project. So unless you get to see this at a 3D repertory screening (is there such a thing?) or unless you're one of the eight people in the world with a 3D HDTV, you won't get to see “Goodbye To Language 3D.” Which only makes it that much more special in the era of ubiquitous content.

7. NO HOME MOVIE (Akerman, 2015)

When I selected “No Home Movie” as my top film of 2015, I kept my comments brief: “Chantal Akerman is gone and this deeply personal documentary will be her last movie. That's a terrible thought, but it's another great movie from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I'm not ready to say anything more about it except that Chantal Akerman is irreplaceable and I will always miss her.” Four years later, I'm still tempted to leave it at that, but I suppose I'm ready to say just a bit more.

Chantal Akerman began publicly documenting her relationship with her mother at least as far back as her brilliant “News From Home” (1976) which makes “No Home Movie” feel like a partial career summation for more than just the fact that it was her final movie. In an early scene, Chantal Akerman speaks with her mother Natalia in her mother's cramped Brussels apartment. Natalia's back faces the camera and her body often eclipses Chantal, seated on the other side of the table. The framing is deceptively simple and naturalistic, but evokes the challenges in getting her mother, an Auschwitz survivor, to open up about her past, and the struggle for control of the narrative. For the moment, they limit the discussion to food: potatoes are better with the skin on because that's where the vitamins are stored. You have to start with potatoes before you get to the family history and the flight from Poland and the mistaken belief that Belgium provided a safe refuge.

Like many Akerman films, the documentary features numerous frames within frames – shots through windows and doorways and also on computer screens. Chantal also speaks with her mother by Skype and when her mother asks why, the director replies: “Because I want to show you there is no distance in the world.” Mom is both touched and proud: “You always have such ideas don't you, sweetheart?... When I see you like that, I want to squeeze you in my arms!” Even four years later, I can barely write that without tearing up. In fact, I can't.

I'm relying on notes I took on my first viewing since I don't have a copy of the film right now, so forgive me if I'm paraphrasing without realizing it. I have another note that reads as follows: Chantal to mom: “I'm in a very, very good mood. Let's enjoy it. It's not that common.” And now I find that I'm still not ready to say much more. Except that “No Home Movie” features Chantal Akerman at her peak. Of course peak Akerman was also the only Akerman.

Old Joy

OLD JOY (Reichardt, 2006)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Dec 10, 2019

Review by Christopher S. Long

Call it minimalist or a marvel of economic storytelling, screenwriter/editor/director Kelly Reichardt's celebrated “Old Joy” (2006) doesn't sound like much on paper. Two old friends reconnect and go for a hike to a hot springs bath in the woods outside Portland, OR. They chat along the way, though sometimes they go long stretches without saying much. They bring a dog with them. That's about it. The film runs just 73 minutes, and about twenty percent of the screen time is devoted largely to long, slow shots of the roadway rolling by as they drive further from the city.

So why was “Old Joy” greeted with hosannas from many critics, and hailed by some as a reinvigoration of American independent cinema? In part, “Old Joy” felt like an outlier in an increasingly commercialized and formulaic indie world populated with big-name stars competing to see who could act quirkiest. It was a true DIY micro-budget passion project filmed by a small, resourceful crew, the indie model of “Stranger Than Paradise” rather than “Little Miss Sunshine.”

In addition, “Old Joy” marked the emergence of a distinct artistic voice in the form of Kelly Reichardt. Actually, it was a re-emergence since Reichardt had already earned plaudits for her debut feature, “River Of Grass” in 1994, but she struggled to secure funding for a follow up. She continued making short films, but didn't draw much attention on the festival circuit over the ensuing twelve years.

“Old Joy” showcases a filmmaker working with the supreme confidence of a veteran, never tempted to rush simply to advance the narrative and in command of the subtlest shifts of tone. Adapting a short story by Jonathan Raymond, Reichardt conveys volumes of information with just a handful of shots. Mark (Daniel London) is introduced to the sound of a tinny bell he uses to facilitate his meditation in his comfortable backyard. The peaceful noises of this outdoor space are shattered in a jarring sound edit by the loud churning of a blender operated in the kitchen by Mark's pregnant wife Tania (Tanya Smith). Is that wheatgrass juice or just a suspiciously green smoothie? We're definitely in the land of coastal liberals.

Mark gets a call from his old friend Kurt (singer-songwriter Will Oldham) who invites him for a hiking trip to these totally awesome hot springs he knows about. Mark makes a passive-aggressive offer for Tania to join them, knowing full well his pregnant wife won't accept but heading off any potential argument, and escapes for his dudes-only trip. Well, dudes plus his faithful dog Lucy, the only female who'd want to come along for the ride.

The schlubby Kurt arrives late for their meeting and instantly coded as the arrested man-child, weirdly hauling a used TV behind him in a wheelbarrow. They're delighted to see each other, but divisions quickly become apparent. Kurt stops to score some weed, but Mark doesn't smoke. When Kurt mentions their old buddy Yogi, Mark remembers him as the guy that stiffed them on the rent. Kurt totally forgot about that, and just associates ol' Yogi with parties and good times.

Both leads are wonderful, though Oldham gets the juicier role. The more strait-laced Mark listens as Kurt, sometimes high on pot and sometimes high on just being Kurt, delivers his stoner science lecture (the universe is a falling teardrop...) or relates a rambling anecdote about almost running into an old man with his bike. Once they finally get to the baths, after Kurt gets them lost numerous times, they relax for a while, but an awkward encounter suggests there is no return to Eden. A close-up shot of Mark's hand, wedding ring prominent, dipping under the water is both ambiguous and evocative, and a perfect example of Reichardt's ability to reveal depths through deceptively simple details.

Nature often takes center stage. The very first image of the film is a chirping bird hopping in the gutter along Mark's roof – bird calls feature prominently on the soundtrack. Swarming ants, a scurrying spider, a lazing slug and, of course, the free-roving Lucy, often clutching a giant stick, ground our characters firmly as products of their environment. No doubt these images tugged on the heartstrings of many a city-dwelling festival attendee, only adding to the film's allure. 

Video:

The film is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and from a new 2K digital transfer. The film was shot on Super 16 mm but this transfer was sourced from a 35 mm digital negative made during the film's production. The 1080p transfer looks sharp with a natural color palette, basically the high quality we expect from Criterion.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono track is crisp with no noticeable weak spots. The subtle, seductive original score by Yo La Tengo sounds good on this lossless transfer. Optional English SDH subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Kino released “Old Joy” on DVD many years ago with a feature-length commentary track by Reichardt, cinematographer Peter Sillen, and filmmaker Michael Almereyda. Unfortunately, that commentary track has not been imported to Criterion's Blu-ray release. However, Criterion has included an array of new interviews.

First is an interview with Reichardt (2019, 19 min.) in which she discusses the film's origins, her fondness for Jonathan Raymond's writing, and, of course, her dog Lucy.

We also get a discussion between the lead actors, London and Oldham, which runs 23 minutes.

The disc also includes an interview with cinematographer Peter Sillen (10 min.) who talks about the challenges of working on Super 16 mm and with a small crew, and an interview with author Jonathan Raymond (10 min.)

The insert booklet includes an essay by film critic Ed Halter and a reprint of the Raymond short story from which the film was adapted.

Final Thoughts:

“Old Joy” yielded a new generation of Kelly Reichardt fans, and they wouldn't have to wait twelve years for their next fix. In the twelve years since, Reichardt has directed three of the greatest American films of the 21^st century in “Wendy and Lucy” (2008), “Meek's Cutoff' (2010), and “Certain Women” (2016). For viewers who jumped on with “Wendy and Lucy”, this Criterion release provides a great opportunity to catch up with one of Reichardt's best.