In the ‘80s, Americans found a new brand of movie hero that corresponded precisely with Reagan-era conservative values. Ripped, vengeful and violent, action stars like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson and a beefed-up Bruce Willis helped reestablish myths of rugged individualism, militarism and machismo through an awesome display of fire power and pectoral muscles.
The bang-bang decade that saw the releases of “First Blood,” “Die Hard,” “Lethal Weapon,” “The Terminator,” “Robocop,” “Top Gun,” “Batman,” “Predator” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” may seem like a distant memory in these leaner Obama days. But the superheroic display of tough guys wreaking havoc continues to have resonance—particularly for the legions of boys whose impressionable minds were shaped by the time, and who are now, some 25 years later, playing out those fantasies once again on screens (with a limited budget).
Let me make a plea as the new decade begins: Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” deserves U.S. distribution. I don’t know what kind of release would best suit the film, but I do know that it was the best English-language movie I saw last year on the festival circuit: After watching it at the New York Film Festival, I posted an inital response on my blog, writing that the film “may be the most thorough, penetrating and profound accounting of post-9/11 America and the nation’s utter and dysfunctional lack of compassion…. its haunting images and lingering sadness continue to stay with me. Actors Charlotte Rampling, Allison Janey, Paul Reubens, Ciarin Hinds and young actor Dylan Snyder all deliver individual moments of intensity and pain that I won’t soon forget.”
Months later, and many of the film’s images are still with me. The ghostly faces of Reubens, Hinds and Rampling; the dilapidated half-naked bodies of Allison Janney and Michael Lerner post-coitus; the darkly sardonic line “Nothing will get inside you ever”; the way the pastel color palette morphs from kitschy to intensely surreal and discomforting; and that mysterious culiminating shot, full of melancholy and the yearning of a young boy who wants his father back, no matter his crimes.
More than any other Solondz film, except for perhaps “Happiness,” “Life During Wartime” got under my skin.
And I’m not alone in my admiration for the film. Undoubtedly, Solondz’s style isn’t for everyone, but there are plenty of critical fans—a diverse group including Todd McCarthy (perhaps the biggest surprise), Deborah Young, Mark Olsen, Richard Corliss, Mike D’Angelo, Eric Kohn and others.
After I write this, I suspect someone will send me an email with the good news that the film has already been acquired. If not, then why not?
I’ve seen top ten lists of everything from best conservative movies, black films, Japanese films, Chinese films, performances, film critics, even Facebook updates—the ubiquity of such decade-ending lists, missives, favorites and cultural touchstones of all sorts makes one’s own list feel particularly small. I would argue that the Internet’s much-heralded democratization of social and editorial space that has happened over the last decade has made people like me—and my views—less necessary. How does one make one’s voice heard among the multitude of voices and tweets? Who cares? Maybe it’s not about being heard, at all, but just about recording one’s own thoughts for posterity and narcissistic satisfication.
I don’t know what the best films of the decade are any more than the hundreds who’ve come up with similar lists. But here is a group of films, countries and people that for me defined the decade, at least—its social, economic and political upheaval—and for whatever reason, personally, ripped me inside out, either emotionally, intellectually, or in the best of cases, both. I have also restricted this list to foreign-made films, for no good reason really, except perhaps to distinguish my list from others and it’s simplified the task of choosing the “best,” and that these films are probably the most marginalized and tragically underseen on these shores, and yet somehow, more effectively portray our current human condition than anything to come out of the U.S. industry.
I had initially only wanted to write about one film, call it my #1, Laurent Cantet’s 2001 chilly existential masterpiece “Time Out” (L’emploi du temps”). In depicting the excruciating lengths to which one downsized corporate suit goes to keeping his joblessness a secret from his family, from his friends and from himself, Cantet has crafted an enthralling, eerily prescient portrait of unemployment and denial. Veteran stage thespian Aurelien Recoing is the self-deluded Vincent, a half-smiling/half-guilty bourgeoisie grifter, whose wayward S.U.V. journeys into adventure and isolation foretells everything that would go wrong in the decade to come. With its cool veneer of glassy reflections and white expanses, the movie reveals such spaces of clarity and cleanliness as ultimately shallow and paranoid, a perfect visual metaphor for a decade built on the lies of unlimited economic and imperialist prosperity.
This notion brings me to the entire decades’ worth of work of (#2) Jia Zhangke. Beginning with his epic-length “Platform” in 2000, followed by “Unknown Pleasures” (2002), “The World” (2004), “Still Life” (2006), “Dong” (2006), “Useless” (2007) and “24 City” (2008), there is arguably no more important filmmaker to emerge from the past decade. A mixture of the trenchant and the radical, postmodern pastiche and neorealist impulse, documentary and fiction, Jia chronicles his country’s blind rush towards capitalistic excess with a wry, exquisite eye that transcends artistic and national boundaries—and in so doing, has made a body of work that speaks to a global irresponsibility that can only end in collapse.
Jia may be only matched by the (#3) Dardenne brothers’ decade output with “Rosetta” (okay, 1999, but it was close), followed by “The Son” (2002), “The Child” (2005) and “Lorna’s Silence” (2008), all profoundly humanistic, wrenching tales of the pained, conflicted and/or dispossessed, while always paying, detailed, nerve-rattling attention to the daily work that we must do to stay alive.
As long as I’m cheating with the numbers, this is also the decade of (#4) Romanian film. If Jia was the auteur of the decade, the post-totalitarian country was the ‘00s national art cinema surprise, exemplified by “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” (2005), “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” (2007) and “Police Adjective” (2009). On the 20th anniversary of the country’s liberation from despotic rule, we can now look back at a grouping of films from a fucked-up land that says as much about them as us: with universal meditations on death, exploitation and oppression both challenging and gripping at the same time.
As long as I’m talking national cinema, I must also give a shout out to another nation that’s recently attempted to uncover its history of lies, civil strife and pockets of political oppression: (#5) Korean Cinema. So many great directors came to our attention: From Bong Joon Ho’s “Memories of Murder” (2003) and “The Host” (2006) to Park Chan Wook’s “Joint Security Area” (2000) and “Oldboy” (2003) to Lee Chang Dong’s “Peppermint Candy” and “Secret Sunshine” (2008) to the ultra-auteur works of Hong Sang-soo, these are films of scathing self-examination, acerbic irony, entertainment value and supreme violence—the spectacle of a schizoid people, caught between West and East, capitalist embrace and critique.
Here are the others:
(#6) Lars von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark” (2000), whose technological innovations and neo-melodramatic formulations miraculously mix together to create a tear-jerking groundbreaker that left me a sniveling mass after seeing it for the first time jetlagged in Cannes;
(#7) Michael Haneke’s “Cache” (2005), a potent mix of new media tropes and post-9/11 politics that taps into the zeitgeist with remarkable acuity and dread;
(#8) Alfonso Cuaron’s “Y Tu Mama Tambien” (2001), a deceptively light-hearted sex romp that has more to say about economic disparity than most contemporary documentaries (I’d add Cuaron’s post-9/11 thrilling dirge “Children of Men,” too, if only that rescue ship didn’t emerge out of the nebulous fog at the end);
(#9) Lukas Moodysson’s “Lilya-4-Ever” (2002), the most transcendent, trenchant movie about child prostitution you’ll ever see, evocatively set against a gloomily beautiful backdrop of Russian concrete and heavy metal music;
(#10) two from Pawel Pawlikowski (whatever happened to him?); his 2000 debut “Last Resort” probes the plight of a refugee mother and son in the wake of post-Communist breakdown, which we all seem to be hurling towards nowadays (see #4 and #8); and “My Summer of Love,” a deceptively intimate coming-of-ager about lies, self-deception, class, and how things like love, money and religion can not save us. That, for me, encapsulates the decade as much as anything.
For the Village Voice, I’ve written one of those big summation pieces about the state of independent film. Looking back at the decade, the article is very much linked to my 2002 story, “Ghost in the Machine: Mourning has risen for independent film,” which looked at the situation during the early years of the decade when indies were being co-opted by huge corporations. What hath that buying spree wrought? Well, as the new article states: “Financial and technological shifts have disemboweled the indie industry that corporations and investors had spent the decade puffing up.”
After talking to about a dozen representatives from the industry, there were a number of quotes that I couldn’t fit into the print story. So here, for your reading enjoyment, are few of my other favorite observations that didn’t make the final draft:
Eamonn Bowles: “The biggest thing that I miss is the way audiences have turned: Things that are purely cinematic – like an exciting new director – are not a compelling financial thing anymore. The marketplace has not responded to a great new director or if it’s just incredibly good filmmaking. That aspect as an element of marketing doesn’t have value anymore.”
Ted Hope, on “Crouching, Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” “Here is a film that works worldwide, but the experts in the agency business and in the studio business, all dismissed it initially, and said go off and make your little film. And then it completely captures the imagination and shows how people aren’t restricted to demographics. Whether it was Crouching Tiger or Fahrenheit or Passion or Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity, people thought those films were theirs, and they made things happen. We think of cinema as a product rather than a community experience. That’s what we’re finally waking up to. And that’s where the change is going to come from.”
David Fenkel: “Just because DVD sales are down doesn’t mean you’re screwed. You just buy the movie for cheaper. Producers and financiers aren’t screwed; they just shouldn’t pay that much money to make a movie. Everyone has to make an honest assessment of what’s really viable.”
Antonio Campos: “Even if the label “independent film” dies because it’s just not bankable anymore, or at least not bankable in the way it was years ago, the spirit of independent film won’t die. DIY cinema, Auteur Cinema, Art-house, low-budget, maverick cinema, outsider cinema—whatever it is, it’s just a label. And even without a label, filmmakers will find a way to tell the story they want to tell. And hopefully people will watch it. And I think they will. And with the community of filmmakers growing in the US every year, maybe we’ll figure out a way to become more tight-knit and help each other more. The fact is that it’s getting easier and easier to form connections and develop communities with people not only all over the country but all over the world.”
Mark Urman: “There’s a liberation. A lot of the things that we’ve spent our creative capital, ego and money on were these vainglorious image-related things fueled by the studio specialty divisions—all the Oscar stuff, and we’re going to sit at the grown-ups table. That lost a lot of people a lot of money and sealed the fate of some of these companies. Now I’m releasing a film for awards consideration, but I’m doing it in a very sober way, It’s amazing how much money you don’t have to spend. There are still some companies throwing a lot of money around. And they’re going to be sorry. They can win and they’re still going to be sorry. It’s really become a game where if you win you lose. I know for a fact and I’ve been through it.”
I do not share my fellow critics’ enthusiasm for “The Hurt Locker,” which was just picked as the best film of the year by the New York Film Critics. Back in September 2008, I saw the film at its Toronto fest premiere and I’m re-posting a blog post from the time, which sums up my criticisms.
If Kathyn Bigelow weren’t at the helm of the most testosterone-fueled movie of the year “The Hurt Locker,” my criticisms would probably be more scathing of the much-hyped Toronto picture. Still, I can’t help but take a few moments here to counter some of the positive buzz. Sure, “The Hurt Locker” is not like other Iraq war films; for one, it’s an edge-of-your-seat thriller that has nothing to do with the war. But that’s the problem.
It’s pretty easy to transplant maverick, bomb-defusing renegade Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) for Patrick Swayze’s maverick surfer criminal renegade Bodhi in “Point Break.” He’s the wild, charismatic lead, whose reckless behavior is the fascinating object of the audience and its surrogates, whether Keanu Reeve’s FBI agent or, in “The Hurt Locker,” Anthony Mackie’s by-the-book Sgt. Sanborn. With Bigelow, you get to examine the possibly homoerotic and aggressive dimension of these competitive male relationships. But moreover, you get Excitement! Thrills! Explosions! I don’t disparage Bigelow’s filmmaking skills—she knows how to raise the tension and keep the viewer clenched—but I don’t trust her politics, neither gender nor global.
If, like many war movies, “Hurt Locker” tries to leave the audience with a sense of the horrors of battle and how it can damage its participants, such insights are a mere band-aid over the film’s overwhelming mission: To entertain the audience with scenes of suspense, one after another, with little plot development. I leave a discussion of the script construction to other critics.
But “The Hurt Locker” is most offensive in its depiction of Iraq itself and the Iraqi people. A strange foreign culture, with images of grotesque gutted pigs and screaming, hysterical women, Bigelow’s Iraq is a Fox News Broadcast. Every five-o’-clock shadowed Arab is a potential threat and every cellphone is a ticking time bomb. The single sympathetic Iraqi in the entire film is a hustling kid; everyone else is treated as Al Qaeda. This might best mirror the protagonist’s American tunnel-vision perspective, but it’s also grossly xenophobic. I enjoyed “Point Break” as much as the next guy, but when it comes to a political statement, Bigelow should stick to those set in California.
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