The Last Word on 2011: The Best and the Brightest

Here (at last!) is my tribute to the best of film in 2011, skating in just a mere 30 hours or so before the Oscar nominees are announced.  I can only say that I like to take my time (at least the first couple weeks of January) to see as many of the previous year's films as I can before pronouncing judgments.

Even so, there are a few qualifications with regard to what you're about to read.
For 2011 honors, I only considered films that were first released in the Chicago area from 1/1/11 to 12/31/11. This means that many of the films popping on other reviewers' "Ten Best" lists and awards slates weren't available for me to see, and so weren't in the running.  These include: A Separation, Corialanus, Pina, Pariah, The Iron Lady, Albert Nobbs and We Need to Talk About Kevin.  Conversely, some of the films you see below were actually honored by awards givers last year, but weren't available to me till 2011.

And then there are the ones that got away.  Despite my best efforts, I manage to miss some highly acclaimed films every year, and sometimes don't see them till months - or years - after their initial release.  Sometimes my attention is focused elsewhere while they're in theatres, sometimes their availability in this area is so brief and limited that I just can't get to them. (Or sometimes, no matter how many breathless raves they receive, I can't muster any desire to see them - and I'll let you guess what film(s) that applies to in the following list.)  Anyway, 2011's unseen films include: Drive, Mysteries of Lisbon, Shame, Incendies, War Horse, The Mill and the Cross, Margaret, Take Shelter, Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

But here's the good news. I had a very difficult time winnowing down the2011 honor roll to a "Ten Best" list, so much so that I've published a "Ten Second-Best" list as well.  It was an exceptionally rich and rewarding year for cinema, although most of my favorites here have been ignored by the awards givers almost entirely.  And most aren't likely to show up on this week's list of Oscar nominees either.

Here are my Ten Best Films of 2011, in ascending order:

10. Bridesmaids

Not just raucously funny, it also got the tricky dynamics of female friendship and the details of class differences among its central characters exactly right.  If they'd just left out the food-poisoning-at-the-bridal-salon scene, it'd be ranked even higher.

 

9. Jane Eyre

Here's a little secret: I've never been a a fan of the Bronte sisters, their books or the film adaptations of them. (Go ahead, lecture me sternly on this;  my high school English teacher certainly did.) But Cary Fukanaga's film blew the dust off a too-often filmed English lit chestnut and made me understand- for the first time - why Jane and Mr. Rochester really belonged together. 

8. Certified Copy

Abbas Kiarostami's enigmatic, shape-shifting film is a fascinating fugue on the nature of authenticity in art and relationships.  And if that sounds intimidating, be assured the film is not.  An engrossing brain teaser with a lovely, emotionally supple performance by Juliette Binoche.

7. The Tree of Life
Terrence's Malick's impressionistic and unspeakably beautiful meditation on creation, families and parenthood.  A little screwy in places (the dinosaurs, the not-quite-satisfying coda), but the eccentric moments are easily forgivable in light of how powerfully Malick captures life in mid-20th-century Texas family, remembered in moments and images.

6. A Dangerous Method

A film that dares to be "talky" and to trust its audience to be intelligent and sophisticated,  A Dangerous Method delineates the ideas that (in the memorable words of a friend) led to "the birth to the twentieth century." David Cronenberg's drama of the interconnecting relationships between Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jung's patient,Sabina Spielrein -  brilliant in her own right and an underappreciated influence on both men's work - was a film of ideas, driven by superlative performances.  It's thrilling even when it's doing no more than reconstructing actual correspondence between the doctors; Cronenberg finds a visual rhythm that keeps these frequent epistolary passages from stopping the film dead. the And yes, there are spanking scenes, but please - Cronenberg's film is anything but dirty-minded.


5. Poetry
Leisurely and lyrical, Poetry takes us into the life of an aging South Korean woman who, in the midst of caring for her surly teenage grandson and experiencing the first signs of dementia, takes a poetry class.  And in the process of learning to see the world through a poet's eyes, she finds a moral courage within herself she may not have previously possessed.  Director Lee Chang-dong works in an indulgent manner reminiscent of Mike Leigh, lingering over mundane details of the characters' lives but without ever once being dull.  Poetry moves slowly, but is unexpectedly transfixing as it moves towards a quiet but emotionally devastating denouement. And actress Yun Jung-hee is unforgettable.

4. Of Gods and Men
A group of French monks in North Africa are caught between peaceful friendship with their Muslim neighbors, the violent activities of an encroaching Islamic terrorist group and a corrupt government.  Should they stay in their monastery and face whatever fate awaits them, or should they flee?  This is the question at the heart of this film, and it is not approached in any traditionally suspenseful way, but rather through a respectful and detailed depiction of the rituals of monastic life and the ways they shape and strengthen the men's faith. Even if you already know the outcome (the film is based on a true story of French Cistercian monks taken hostage by terrorists in 1996 Algeria), the quietly building emotional power of this film is likely to haunt you long after the closing credits roll. 

3. Hugo

Martin Scorsese adapts a Caldecott Medal-winning children's book in 3-D and manages to make it feel intensely personal, even autobiographical.  No mean feat, that.  Not only charming and imaginative, but a multi-layered tribute to the early pioneers and familiar tropes of early silent cinema - to my mind, a better informed and far more fitting tribute to silent films that the year's much more ballyhooed entry, The Artist.

2. Another Year

At first glance, not much seems to be happening in Mike Leigh's portrayal of a year in the life of a happy marriage.  But, as is the case in Leigh's best work, there's a lot going on beneath the surfaces of things, and the brilliance of the ensemble cast brings them sharply to light.  Tom and Gerry, long and happily wed, have the kind of cozy, companionable relationship their single friends envy and wish to be around.  But Leigh and his actors gradually peel away the couple's apparent beneficence to reveal the smugness and condescension behind their dinner invitations and glib tolerance of the lonely, unattached people who gravitate towards them.  A just barely detectable undercurrent of class tension simmers throughout.  Another Year is the kind of film that richly rewards repeat viewings, and shows Leigh's reliable repertory of players (Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville) doing some of their finest work yet.

1. Melancholia

While I don't wish clinical depression on anyone, I can't deny that it's done something valuable for Lars Von Trier's work.  Since emerging from a serious bout of depression, Von Trier seems to have stopped creating masochistic constructs for his actresses to play and started to write full-bodied, recognizable female characters.  If those characters are usually in great psychic pain, at least Von Trier appears to empathise with them now; post-depression his films seem far more compassionate and thematically rich than ever before.

Having said all that, Melancholia offers us not only two indelible female leads, but a film filled with stunning visual imagery both beautiful and terrible to behold. Two sisters (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) face the end of the world, waiting out the approach of huge, deadly planet that will slam into and obliterate the Earth from the illusory comfort of a rambling estate house.  And as they do, they appear to exchange personalities, with Dunst's severely depressed sister becoming calm and nurturing as her controlling hausfrau sister falls apart. 

No other film this year has dazzled, bothered, obsessed  and fascinated me so much as Melancholia.  And in a year of cinema like 2011, that's saying a powerful lot.

The Ten "Second Best" films of 2011 (in no particular order): Hanna, Barney's Version, 50/50, Win Win, The Descendants, Moneyball, Margin Call,  The Trip, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Artist

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:  Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre)

He'll likely get an Oscar nomination for the film I didn't see (Shame), but Fassbender was everywhere this year, and in both these films, delivered phenomenal performances.  I might go so far as to say that his Mr. Rochester is the best one on film - but I'd need to see a few more versions of Jane Eyre in order to say that definitively and I'm just not willing.

Honorable Mention:  Jean DuJardin (The Artist), George Clooney (The Descendants), Michael Parks (Red State), Jim Broadbent (Another Year), Paul Giamatti (Win Win, Barney's Version), Lambert Wilson (Of Gods and Men), Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life, Moneyball)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Lesley Manville (Another Year)

In a year of many strong leading actress performances, it was damn hard to choose just one favorite.  But Manville, playing a woman in denial of almost every aspect of her life (her age, her drinking, her loneliness) unravelled onscreen with a startling emotional nakedness.  On first glance, the performance seemed over the top, but repeat viewings of Another Year only underline how courageous Manville's work really was, not to mention honestly heartbreaking.

Honorable Mention: Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn), Juliette Binoche (Certified Copy), Mia Wasakowski (Jane Eyre), Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia), Yoon Jeong-Hee (Poetry), Saoirse Ronan (Hanna), Viola Davis (The Help)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Viggo Mortensen (A Dangerous Method)



Another tough category to call (and Mortenson just barely edged out Christopher Plummer for me).  But Mortenson's canny, understated portrayal of Sigmund Freud was the perfect counterpoint to Michael Fassbender's Jung, exuding a kind of relaxed confidence perfectly befitting the "master" in a master/student relationship.  You truly forgot you were watching Mortenson at work.

Honorable Mention: Patton Oswalt (Young Adult), Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Hunter McCracken (The Tree of Life), Christopher Plummer (Beginners),  Matthew Lillard (The Descendants)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Eva Green (Cracks)

Cracks, a moody, atmospheric thriller set in a secluded Scottish boarding school, was too little seen, as was Green's electrifying turn as the charismatic teacher who becomes obsessed with a beautiful student.  Green was definitely in Prime of Miss Jean Brodie territory (with a soupcon of Heavenly Creatures thrown in), but she made the role her own, creating a character both haunted and haunting.

Honorable Mention: Rosamund Pike (Barney's Version),Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life), Berenice Bejo (The Artist)