The Best Films of 2011

Let’s talk about the films of 2011.

Below is my top ten list of the best films of the past year. What qualifies as a 2011 film? Any film that was released in South Africa in 2011, either cinematically or on DVD, or any film that rolled over from late 2010 into 2011 either cinematically or via a January DVD release. Also, any film that came out in cinemas internationally in 2010 and had DVD releases in 2011 but never got any sort of release in South Africa. It’s unsettling how many great movies never reach SA screens or stores, but I sort of understand the thinking: who’s going to watch a Thai spiritual meandering on the big screen? I have never understood why non-American reviewers use an American release table for their lists.   

Honourable mentions

Javier Bardem was quiet and sensitive in the downbeat Biutiful, a trying but rewarding Spanish film about death that could only be made by Inarritu. Juliette Binoche was luminous and vital in Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, a film that cleverly plays with itself and audiences as it complicates the relationship between its two central characters – or does it? I’m still not sure. 

David O. Russell’s The Fighter was far more than just another sports movie, with Christian Bale winning an Oscar and Amy Adams doing supporting work. I still think that the film was too condescending towards some of the female characters though. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II was the perfect finale to a great franchise, and Alan Rickman deserves special mention for what he does with the character of Snape. If Part I was all tension and build-up, Part II is a Helms Deep showdown featuring characters we’ve invested in for over ten years. The year’s best animated film is Sylvain Chomet’s heartfelt, almost dialogue free The Illusionist. It tells the story of a stage magician who is left behind by the world and its many new innovations and technologies, and his new friendship with a young woman who finds herself traveling along with him. It’s sad and beautifully animated – hand drawn.

The funniest film of the year was Brit Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop, a rollercoaster political satire of great sophistication. The British had a considerable Oscar presence in February, with Tom Hooper’s  delightful The King’s Speech taking Best Picture and Director, as well as Best Actor for Colin Firth. It’s the kind of film that the Brits make best: a character-focused period drama with a sure positive payoff.

I have fallen in love with South Korean cinema, and Boon Jong-ho’s Mother is one of the best, a gripping thriller about a mother (never named in the film) driven to prove her mentally challenged son’s innocence as he is arrested for the brutal murder of a young girl. The animated titular lizard of Rango starred in the year’s second-best animated feature; any film that so closely studies the conventions of the western and has time to reference Apocalypse Now and Hunter S. Thompson is worth the effort. Another type of animation featured in the rousing Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a better-than-it-should-have-been prequel to one of the most famous science fiction films. It features Andy Serkis as lead primate Caesar, and the great John Lithgow as a father struggling with Alzheimer's while his scientist son (James Franco) looks for a cure.

Finally, The Social Network is a near great film – a pity that the final third runs out of steam as it fails to maintain the energy that the first two thirds of the film showed. Fincher’s framing is, as always, worth seeing in itself. 

I do not have a “worst of” list, but surely the most disappointing film of 2011 considering the talent involved is Joe Wright’s Hanna, aka The Bourne Bore, aka I Was a Teenage Killer And Also I Can’t Blink.

And now, the best films of 2011 – that is, the best films I saw in 2011 that coexist on a list where their positions might change in a day or a year from now (with the exception of the top three, which will in all probability stay the top three in that specific order). The list below proves again, and it should come as no surprise, that the most fascinating films happen when the psychology and philosophy of characters and viewers are engaged.  Keep in mind that it is impossible to see every single film, and I have missed many, including such potential greats as Incendies and In a Better World. So be it.

          

10. CARLOS 

Edgar Ramirez is the star of Olivier Assayas’ film about the infamous international terrorist. The five-hour plus film does not glamourise its subject, nor does it pander to action or thriller conventions. 

9. SKOONHEID 

The best South African film in years, Oliver Hermanus’ drama about desire and repression is unsettling and thought provoking. I know of many people who do not like the film at all; I have a suspicion it’s more about these peoples’ feelings towards the film’s content than the film itself. Seek it out, but not for sensitive viewers.

8. THE CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH

Harrowing Chinese anti-war film about the Rape of Nanking; the black-and-white imagery is uncompromising, and the film not easily shaken. Again, not for sensitive viewers, but as with Skoonheid, nothing is sensationalised.   

7. DRIVE

A smooth, meticulous action thriller featuring the return of the mythological hero (Ryan Gosling). As usual, the hero’s trouble begins when he pursues a relationship with (literally) the girl next door (Carey Mulligan). One of the most beautifully shot films of the year, and with a fitting soundtrack. This bodes well for director Nicholas Windig Refn. The film's most memorable asset is Albert Brooks as the cold blooded Rose. May the Oscar come his way.

6. BLACK SWAN

Natalie Portman received a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the steadily-losing-her-mind ballerina. This nightmarish and claustrophobic thriller demonstrates that Darren Aronofsky remains one of the most exciting contemporary American filmmakers.

5. OF GODS AND MEN

Xavier Beauvois’ Cannes favourite is a moving, human tale of ethics, religion and politics set in an increasingly unstable Algeria in the 1990s. Some have criticised the film for what the characters do towards the end, but to do that denies the quiet force of one of the most visually impressive films of 2011. It is a film to revisit and cherish.

4. DOGTOOTH

Greek filmmaker Giorgios Lanthimos has made, I think, the definitive dysfunctional family drama. The less you know about the film beforehand the better, and with its themes of incest and the gross manipulation of others, it makes for selective viewing. Of all the films on my list, this one is the least likely to work for anyone. Watch at own risk. Whether you adore or detest it, you won't be able to forget it.

3. UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES

I gave Uncle Boonmee a negative review earlier this year, and the joke is on me, the egg on my face: it is, in fact, a masterpiece. It was my own lack of understanding and, I suppose, my mood at the time of the original viewing that lead to my initial negative write-up. I’m not going to re-review the film, or edit my original review, so I’ll say it here: I was wrong, and now I can see. Uncle Boonmee is deeply spiritual (mortality, reincarnation, the presence of the dead among the living) and as deeply concerned with an increasingly materialistic Thai society in general. From now on, I’m rooting for Team Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

2. TRUE GRIT

Can the Coen brothers do no wrong? No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading (which gets even better the more you watch it), the existential hilarity of A Serious Man, and now this gripping remake of a John Wayne original. One the one hand True Grit is a well-crafted western with The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, proving an unconventional and flawed heroic figure for young Hailee Steinnfeld’s spunky protagonist. On the other, True Grit is a typically Coen film in terms of quirkiness, characterisation and framing, which results in a genre film littered with moments of death and hilarity. It happens to have my favourite opening and closing scenes of all films on this list.

1. TREE OF LIFE 

Malick’s autobiographical-cosmological family drama is the most divisive film since Antichrist. Either people loved it, and loved it deeply, or they hated it, and hated it with much passion. I’m not going into the debate here except for saying that I understand where and how the film loses so many people, and that they all have my sympathy. An ambitious, life-affirming masterpiece by a master filmmaker. 

             

Don't call him Jackal

One of my favourite late 1990s action movie surprises was the unassuming Aidan Quinn starring The Assignment, about what happens to the man recruited to act as infamous terrorist Carlos the Jackal’s double. It was a well-made, suspenseful feature that shrouded the terrorist in an air of mystery. Now, Carlos is Olivier Assayas’s multilingual, globe-spanning fictionalised history of Ilich “Carlos” Sanchez, the man who would in the 1970s and 1980s become one the world’s most wanted terrorists. There’s a lot of story to tell, and Assayas retains the integrity of Carlos’s story be telling it over a five hour experience – it was shown on French television as a mini-series before the footage was re-edited into a reportedly gripping two and a half hour movie. I cannot imagine watching Carlos in any other form than its mini-series; I have no idea what one would leave out during editing.

When the story begins, Carlos (Edgar Ramirez) is already a champion for his cause, the liberation of Palestine, and has no problem resorting to bombings and attacks to secure the inviolability of the Palestine state. We see Carlos the family man as well as Carlos the terrorist mastermind, and the film has many characters – all introduced by their name and title for the viewer’s convenience – moving in and out of the story to create a dense narrative; some characters never return while certain others become more prominent. Here, Carlos is also painted as a heedless womaniser, and it becomes clear that he surrounded himself with a string of submissive women who would tolerate much to be in some kind of relationship (mostly sexual) with their Marxist leader.

In a way the second part of Carlos tells of his fall and eventual re-establishing in the world of idealised violence and revolution, while the third part brings the story to an end. Part II spends nearly an hour on the film’s centrepiece: the OPEC raid, a tense, well filmed hostage situation that never becomes “action” and is spellbinding. Part III shows the inevitable: how in terrorism, loyalty is always contingent on political climate, and that Carlos’s vanity as celebrity freedom fighter was as much a driving force for his actions as “Das Kapital”.

Assayas is a sometimes uneven filmmaker – I was barely able to get through Boarding Gate – but here he is a master of his subject. Much of what we see are meetings and discussions, yet Carlos is never boring, always moving forward. Assayas shows restraint in the action oriented parts by often only showing the lead-up and aftermath of an attack, with news broadcasts to fill in details. But the anchor of the film is Edgar Ramirez, who as Carlos creates a believable fictionalised persona of the man, aging twenty years through the course of the film and remains distinctly Carlos. It is one of the best performances in recent memory, with Ramirez never resorting to De Niro-like mumbling or Pacino-esque wild haired shouting.

Carlos is very long but very rewarding. Those who liked Munich would do well to seek it out.