The 18 Best Films of 2011

Films in blue will not receive a US release in 2011. Nonetheless, I saw them in 2011 and, as you can see, they are very much a part of the film landscape for this year. It's 18 because that's the number of As, A-s, and B+s I gave. I have not gotten around to seeing a number of films that may have made an impact on here, among them "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," "Hugo," "The Adventures of Tintin," "Carnage," "The Arbor," and "Le Quattro Volte." From my reviews of them (if and when I do end up seeing them), you should be able to tell if and where they would have fit on this list.

A special mention goes to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "World on a Wire," which blew me away during a Janus Films rerelease this year. And a huge omission based on release is Abbas Kiarostami's "Certified Copy," which I included at #8 on my Top Ten list last year and would place at #5 on the first list and #3 on the second. I didn't want to include it in multiple years as that wouldn't exactly be fair.

Dishonorable mentions to "We Need to Talk About Kevin," "Shut Up Little Man!" and "The Man Who Fell to Earth," my three least favorite films that I saw this year (the last in a re-release). "Tyrannosaur" (minus Olivia Colman) is down there too.

18. Pariah (Dee Rees)

Rees showcases her remarkable way around a scene, allowing able actors to give their best in a movie that only really falters when you pull back to survey the entire (uneven) picture. The cinematography is extremely evocative, perhaps even too much.

17. City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan)

Some sudsy subplots dilute the greatness here, but what works emotionally is magnificent and truly devastating. If Lu Chuan can harness the transcendent power given off in fits and starts by this movie and make a fuller film, the results will be breathtaking.

16. Pina (Wim Wenders)

If only Wenders had elected to make the film completely dance-based. The 3D is wonderful, and it helps create a beguiling, enjoyable experience unlike anything I’ve ever seen (even though there are apparently other movies about Bausch’s troupe).

15. Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan)

An exuberant, opulent film that moves adeptly between relaxed and quietly upsetting modes (knowing when to step on the narrative gas pedal and when to kick back and just let the images roll by). Dolan makes it quite entertaining, both by being in it and filling it with wowing design.

14. Cold Weather (Aaron Katz)

Katz takes humorous and incisive jabs at slackers with this well-made, slow-paced, strongly-acted piece. I hope to see Cris Lankenau and especially Raul Castillo again in later films; they rank high among my acting discoveries this year.

13. The Myth of the American Sleepover (David Robert Mitchell)

Enjoyable and with strong cinematic qualities, “Sleepover” disarms with its engaging characters and the smart screenwriting decisions of developing director Mitchell. I wouldn’t call it exactly indelible, but surely meaningful and diverting.

12. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

The most beloved foreign film this year, “A Separation” doesn’t quite live up to the colossal hype in my view. But it’s still very good, with four extremely affecting performances that should shake anyone and certain scenes (especially the ones with the judge) that heave with relentless, powerful emotion.

11. Weekend (Andrew Haigh)

Naturalism is tricky, but Tom Cullen ends up hitting all the right notes as the real lead in “Weekend” (as the film is essentially viewed from his POV). Chris New provides the ideal support, as do Haigh directing and Urszula Pontikos shooting, and the result is a terrific character study that looks at being gay in today’s world.

10. The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

The last scene is what lingers most to me, but “The Kid With a Bike” is absorbing from beginning to end, built on an exceptional performance from child actor Thomas Doret. The casting is exquisite and the storytelling is conventional but wonderfully spiraling a la “Bicycle Thieves.”

9. Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

More watchable and less uncomfortable than fellow Greek New Waver “Dogtooth,” but just as observant and unsentimental. Ariane Labed puts on a disturbingly dedicated act in the lead. Friendships and father-daughter relationships have rarely been as weird, but both speak profoundly.

8. Footnote (Joseph Cedar)

I had extremely low expectations going into this film, which was a second choice at the time of the viewing, due to some bad buzz from critics I respect. Yet I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Cedar’s gripping, transcendent, deeply moral movie about the nature of winning features an excellent performance from Lior Ashkenazi and a screenplay that should win more than just a prize at Cannes. I found the stakes to be very high (the relationship of a father and a son is hardly inconsequential), and the ending shot as haunting as anything I’ve seen this year.

7. Beginners (Mike Mills)

Attacked for being too cutesy, I found it to be sweet and loved it in all of its radiant, blissful, and tragic turns. Mills strikes a superb balance between these different modes. Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent, Mary Page Keller, and especially Christopher Plummer are an ensemble to be reckoned with, but they’re not the only ones: the supporting cast is startlingly good as well. I’m sad that I haven’t had time yet to see it again.

6. Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)

What do you want from a Herzog documentary? You might not be totally satisfied with “Into the Abyss” if you’re looking for the usual Herzog personality, though there are some of his hallmarks. He’s reined in many of his quirks here to deliver some of the most potent moments of his career. Taking apart a Texas town, he closely examines a continuing history of felony that doesn’t look to be ending anytime soon. Not only is “Into the Abyss” wrenching with its intense personal scenes, it’s also an exceptional example of pristine nonfiction craft, beautifully assembled. It’s easily his best film in some time and a strong work of emotional, empathetic, precise journalism.

5. Shame (Steve McQueen)

One of my most anticipated films of the year when I saw it at Telluride, and for me and many other critics at that festival and Venice, it did not disappoint. However, once it hit Toronto (after buzz had started to build), things changed; many of the Twitter tastemakers who are now championing “Margaret” as a cinematic messiah bared their teeth. The film was turned very fast from a superb follow-up to an overhyped piece of Oscar-bait. Now the film isn’t really taken seriously anymore (see the Film Comment and New Yorker reviews, which, due to a quirk of release, both tackily compared it to Julia Leigh’s “Sleeping Beauty”), and I doubt McQueen’s future films will be seen in the same light.

Admittedly, I’m developing apologist tendencies for McQueen, but it must be said that the man is making unique, powerful, atmospheric, artistically sound works about intensely interesting subjects. Though “Shame” appears to be more domesticated due to its urban setting, it’s as alive as “Hunger” was, even as it follows a man falling deeper and deeper into himself. And even though certain parts are vague (which, as I see it, is intended), I doubt many filmmakers working today could make a film with the candor of “Shame,” with regards to both relationships (familial and otherwise) and sex. Oh yeah, and Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan and Nicole Beharie are all astonishing. I have some quibbles about a certain scene (cited by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and Blake Williams as well) that has some weird connotations, but otherwise, this really isn’t a movie to just toss out. Just like McQueen isn’t a director to just forget about.

4. The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr)

Black and white movies to me provide many of the most memorable and often times excruciating film experiences. “The Turin Horse,” perhaps Tarr’s final film, may eventually come to be seen as the king of the relentlessly colorless. Due to brilliant means of evocation (wonderful sound design, dulling cinematography), the uncompromising director gets his point across and does so while leaving many behind. Definitely not recommended as entertainment (as it serves a similar purpose to “Jeanne Dielman,” a title wisely invoked by Mike D’Angelo that used many of the devices “Turin” does), but as a valuable film that invades viewers and throws them into the windblown environment of its characters.

3. Outbound (Bogdan George Apetri)

It’s hard to understand the lack of distributors chomping at the bit for this formal masterwork. Attention must be allotted to it. Working from an albeit formulaic idea (there were at least a couple of other movies using the same race-against-time device at New Directors/New Films, where I saw it), Apetri employs his incredible craft and tension-building skills to create the year’s strongest, most despairing thriller. I hope this isn’t the last from this amazingly talented director, though his future efforts have much to surpass.

2. Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman)

Guzman’s extraordinary, revelatory exploration of the human and solar galaxies deserves inclusion in the short list of significant documentaries (like “Waltz With Bashir”) to sit alongside “Shoah” in the canon of remembrance cinema. Among patrons of the independent, this got some attention, but, due to a number of factors (including time of release), it received nowhere near the reverence that it truly commands.

1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

I don’t think it’s perfect. I can understand some of the arguments against it. But I couldn’t possibly ignore “The Tree of Life”’s unprecedented achievement and the overwhelming feelings of wonder it inspired in me. The bar was set so, so high, and, even if he didn’t satisfy everyone, Malick surely delivered, in that he created a work of historic technical virtuosity and ambition. A film that could have died out as a little project called “Q” but instead came bursting to the best sort of life possible.

A more proper (w/r/t US release dates) Top ten list might look like:

1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

2. Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman)

[Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)]

3. Shame (Steve McQueen)

4. Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)

5. Beginners (Mike Mills)

6. Weekend (Andrew Haigh)

7. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

8. The Myth of the American Sleepover (David Robert Mitchell)

9. Cold Weather (Aaron Katz)

10. Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan)

Best performances of the year coming at later date.

Telluride 2011, Day 1: The Turin Horse; Pina

Though many (including myself) arrived a day early to the 38th Telluride Film Festival, it didn't really get started until today. The first films were projected, the middle of the town was converted into an enclosed dining area, and the jovial atmosphere of the day before was infused with a shot of festival adrenaline. Today is the only day where breathing room is alloted; Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, it'll be full speed ahead.

It appeared when I was first looking over the details of the festival that programming would begin after the celebrated Opening Night Feed, which would mean further possible scheduling conflicts when it came to planning what I would see. Luckily, this was not the case, and I was able to catch Bela Tarr's "The Turin Horse", one of the films to which I was most looking forward, before events really got under way. I'd never seen one of Tarr's films all the way through, but what I caught from "Satantango" and "Werckmeister Harmonies," plus Tarr's great reputation, plus the fact that Tarr is supposedly never going to make another film, was more than enough to convince me that this was going to be something.

Seeing any black and white picture on the big screen is a captivating experience, but especially when the film is one that takes an emotional toll on the viewer. I remember vividly viewing Michael Haneke's punishing "The White Ribbon" and feeling as though all color had been drained from the world. Yet, however exhausting and affecting that movie was, its overall impact ultimately doesn't hold a flickering lantern to Tarr's suffocatingly evocative work.

Over the course of 146 minutes, Tarr brings us palpably into the world of Ohlsdorfer (Janos Derzsi, a Tarr regular) and his daughter (Erika Bok). They own the titular horse, who, as the subject of abuse at one point, deeply affected Fredrich Nietzsche (enough to spur him to never speak again). We watch as the two struggle with sustenance during an extremely harsh gale. Life for them has no pleasures anymore; it's now just a series of chores, each one shown by Tarr many times. Even eating potatoes and drinking alcohol are things done simply to keep going.

The film, from one of the earliest shots (of which there are apparently 30), establishes a parallel between the humans and their animal counterpart, from their windblown appearances to their fruitless labors. It also pits many different philosophies against each other about the storm at the center of the story, from the literalism preached by the narrator and Ohlsdorfer, to the Christianity evident in the daughter's reading of a bible, to the atheistic, eternal-cycle belief of a third character named Bernhard (Mihaly Kormos). Tarr gives his views the most screen time, and I'm pretty sure I know from outside knowledge that this is the philosophy with which Tarr seems to sympathize most. However, Ohlsdorfer's waving off of this talk makes me think that Tarr might be trying to voice his contempt of theorizing about and trying to find a point in what's happening in his film. Still, I think the film does purvey a stark message (although many will think otherwise), and I feel like this is the movie that I wanted out of Bresson's "Au Hasard Balthazar." Also, unlike "Balthazar," the film displays a very admirable dedication to its tone, and I find that an attribute essential to its success.

Also big is Tarr's use of nuance in sound design. According to the producers, much of the short script was devoted to how the wind in the background would sound. One can see why. It plays on the soundtrack throughout the film, alongside a orchestral snippet that Tarr employs in a way that reminds me of William Basinski's "Disintegration Loops." Since these sounds are such a given, they act as a sort of canvas, giving the noises of the characters and their actions a far more striking impact than usual. We learn a lot about the characters from how they manifest themselves in these moments.

One always knows the cinematography in a Tarr film will be special. The opening shots are quite attractive (especially the first one, where Fred Kelemen's camera pulls back and makes the scene look as if it is animated), but later on Tarr has us empathize with the characters by almost totally de-romanticizing and dulling the photography. This makes the film borderline unendurable (some people left early, some checked out audibly from their seats, and everyone exited as soon as the film ended), and I almost wanted to turn away from the screen as it drew towards its close. However, there is so, so much here. "The Turin Horse" is probably going to be one of the most thoughtful and empathetic movies to be shown in the next couple of years. I felt my patience tested, but it was worth it. If you couldn't deal with "The Tree of Life," though, this one's definitely not for you. A-

I came out of "The Turin Horse" spilling my theories out to all who would listen, assuming (as one of the festival directors said might happen) that the next film I would see would be meaningless in comparison. Not so. I found Wim Wenders' "Pina" as riveting as he said he found Pina Bausch's performances. It uses 3D in lovely ways, fully absorbing you in the startling set pieces that Bausch put together (before she died). It's hard to believe that someone could come up with dances so outlandish yet so resonant and enjoyable.

The film draws from four main performances and sprinkles in asides of individual or duo dances. Some of them are viewed as if you are watching over the heads of an audience; others are set in places where only a camera could take you. The aforementioned artifice of the play-within-movie often creates a few annoying anachronisms: for example, how can actors just change into other actors? This, along with including pointless interviews with dancers talking about what it was like to being around Pina, is the film's biggest mistake. I wish Wenders had elected to just show the dancing and allowed us (through them) to draw our own conclusions about the person behind them. Alas, the film is prevented from the heights it's perfectly capable of reaching, though it's definitely worth seeing for the mind-blowing and satisfying acts on display (don't let them get spoiled for you). B+

I will be seeing more in the next couple days. Stay tuned.