30 films from the noughties that impressed me.
- A Ma Soeur
- Antichrist
- Banishment, The
- Battle in Heaven
- Believer, The
- Blackboards
- City of God
- Downfall
- Ghost World
- Hard Candy
- Inland Empire
- Innocence
- London to Brighton
- Machuca
- Man Who Wasn't There, The
- Niña Santa, La
- No Man's Land
- Of Time and the City
- Pan's Labyrinth
- Rabbit Proof Fence
- Red Road
- Russian Ark
- Silence of Lorna, The
- Spirited Away
- Time Regained
- Waltz with Bashir
- Whale Rider
- White Ribbon, The
- Wind That Shakes The Barley, The
- You the Living
Compiling this list made me realize how many films I missed during the last decade, although I intend to put a remedy to it. "35 Shots of Rum" is next in my films to view list, for example. Also, this is not a list of the best films I have seen, but a list of those who left a long lasting impression in me, in spite of some of them being flawed ("The Believer" is one of those). There are also many films which nearly made it.
In a way, this list was compiled in the mode of "Sight & Sound".
My eleven best of the last ten years (sorry, I couldn't eliminate another to make it a straight ten):
ReplyDeleteDe battre mon coeur s'est arrêté/The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Audiard)
Only saw the film this week on DVD, however, it cannot be ignored as a wonderful French drama.
The Bourne Ultimatum (Greengrass)
The fight sequences are near-perfect and set a new standard in fast-paced action thrillers.
Brokeback Mountain (Lee)
The best perfomance Heath Ledger ever did. In my opinion almost on par with anything De Niro or Nicholson ever did at that age.
Cidade de Deus/City of God (Meirelles)
Brilliant storytelling.
The Dreamers (Bertolucci)
A film that makes you yearn to live in another era. Beautiful young actors too.
L'Enfant/The Child (Dardenne)
The Dardennes' second best film behind The Son.
Le Fils/The Son (Dardenne)
Draws you in and doesn't let you go until the final frame. The abrupt ending is frustrating and yet completely perfect.
Fish Tank (Arnold)
Amazing performance from Katie Jarvis. Though you can't take anything away from the director, the cinematographer and sound designer. I felt I was in the same room as the characters on a number of occasions.
Heartlands (O'Donnell)
An underrated, beautiful little film from Shane Meadows's writing partner, Paul Fraser, and directed by Damien O'Donnell (East is East).
Last Resort (Pawlikowski)
An early film starring Paddy Considine. Social realist film about an Eastern European immigrant and her son as they are detained in the miserable costal town of Margate.
This is England (Meadows)
Great music and probably the best acting performance of the decade in Stephen Graham's portrayal of an angry skinhead.
Some honourable mentions: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, All Or Nothing, Open Hearts, The Pianist, The Return, The Banishment, It's A Free World, Sexy Beast, Dead Man's Shoes, Dirty Pretty Things.
Oops, completely miss off the two films I think were the best 'popular' European films at the box office in the last decade:
ReplyDeleteZwartboek/Black Book (Verhoeven)
Verhoeven's best film since 97's Starship Troopers, and perhaps even his best since Total Recall (even though I have a major soft spot for Basic Instinct). A European film by a European director with a heavy slice of Hollywood classicism. More pulpy than The Pianist, but all the better for it.
Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others (Von Donnersmarck)
My favourite foreign language film since City of God. An insightful look into life in East Germany during the 1980's.
I did consider "The Lives of Others", but it didn't make to my final list. Well made, political message too narrow.
ReplyDeleteI will add "The Piano Teacher" as well to my list.
And "The Dreamers" nearly made my list as well: another era, slightly claustrophobic, a vision of youth in the late 60s.
ReplyDeleteI recently saw A Ma Soeur! for the second time two months ago. I first saw it about seven years ago on Channel Four and I really hated it. I thought the ending was too provocative and the characters were repulsive. Nowadays, I still think the same of the ending and of the characters, but in a way that adds to the film. I thought the same of Pasolini's Salo around the same time. Now I see it as a wonderful piece of Italian cinema. Pablo, have you seen Bruno Dumont's L'Humanite? Has a similar mood to A Ma Soeur! with a hint of Bresson. It's a great film, although one I would have probably hated at 18 years old.
ReplyDeleteI saw A Ma Soeur on the big screen a few years ago at Hull Screen, the end is repulsive, but a logical conclusion of the film (C Breillat has been criticised for it, to my mind, unfairly). I also saw Salo (a 70s film) at Hull Screen (then called Hull Film Theatre) in a members only evening (the cinema was partly run as a film society then, necessary as Salo didn't have a general release certificate in the early 80s). It is a "political film (Pasolini was a partisan during the war, if I remember well), it's a study on the premise that "if power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"; that also includes the power to indulge in one's desires without accounting to anybody, a morality based only in the indulgence of desires regardless of its consequences. It was meant to shock, it is not violence for the gratification of the audience (Haneke has said that Salo influenced him). I don't recall to have seen L'Humanite, although I may have done so - I've seen so many films during the past 40 years that some have fallen from my memory.
ReplyDeleteIf you can get hold of a DVD copy, you may well like it. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1999, as well as Best Actor for Emmanuel Schott and Best Actress for Severine Caneele. £5.99 at PowerPlayDirect - http://www.find-dvd.co.uk/dvd/LHumanite/1039841.htm
ReplyDelete