Although several of these films were released internationally in 2014, this list cover films which received a theatrical release in the UK in 2015.
10. Best of Enemies (Documentary) (Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, USA)
Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley seem like bickering twin brothers who are poles apart. Vidal was seen as a totemic figure for the left, Bucley was one for the right. They went head-to-head in a series of debates for the Rebulican presidential nomination in the run-up to the 1968 election. They were both consummate WASPs and public intellectuals. They were verbose, incredibly pompous, upper-lipped, patrician and supercilious. Although they both came to embody a certain economic class, politically they were diametric opposites.
The film, like many of these type of documentaries, is fast-paced and great fun to watch. The visuals and the talking-head formula are a little staid. However, the film is very interesting in the way it explores how Vidal and Buckley informed the arguments we have today. The debates might seem like a very obscure moment in history, but the directors make the effort to make them relevant. Vidal, ultimately, won the social argument. Socially, we are very liberal. His ideas about sexuality and transgenderism, based on ideas from antiquity, were very original and are now common-place. Buckley, undoubtedly, won the political and economic argument. Vidal was weary of the increasing power that multinational companies were already enjoying. Buckley was leading these debates with his magazine National Review and ultimately helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House.
For purely entertainment value, this makes it into my list. Seeing the debates in the cinema was great fun. (I had seen them on You Tube before - whilst procrastinating, usually!) Vidal and Buckley were learned wordsmiths and this hence made for great theatre. The debates usually degenerate into ad-hominem attacks. This is most notable when Vidal calls Buckley a 'crypto-nazi' and Buckley simply loses it - polysyllabically! The film ends by claiming that this lowered the standard of debate and that it foreshadowed news outlets like Fox News. Political debate, ultimately, became more partisan and binary. This does strike me as a little tenuous to be honest. These debates were led by far more colourful and learned men than, say, Bill O'Reilley.
9. Queen and Country (John Boorman, UK)
When I first saw this in the cinema, it struck me as an ok period drama. The reviews in the media said as much. Images of the film lingered in my mind and, having seen it for a second time, I realised that it was so much more than this. Whatever its flaws, I am certain that it will be reassessed in the future.
The film is drawn of memories that Boorman has of being in his twenties in the early 1950s. Everyone had to do military service at the time and he was hence conscripted to fight in the Korean war. What made the film especially moving to me was the fact that these are actual memories of someone who lived through the period.
The film documents a lot of the social changes going on at the time. The central character is based on Boorman. There is a sense that a kind of deferential society is being overturned. The young characters are especially contemptuous of the officers who, with their plummy voices, represent an ageing patriarchy about to be overturned. At what point the main characters snaps back at one officer something along the lines of 'your England has now ended.' There is a sense that new economic freedoms have arisen. The character has a keen interest in film. New careers in new sectors for all classes seem possible. Also, although not a permissive society, the characters are keen to defy any kind of moralistic attitude towards sex. The death of the king and the anointment of the queen is the symbolic of the way in which this patriarchy of plummy old men had given way to a new generation of idealists.
Boorman looks back on a 'lost love.' It is interesting that these memories are clearly subjective. The character, dubbed 'Ophelia' after the Hamlet character, is beautiful and exceedingly intelligent. Constant mention is made of the fact that she is 'too good' for him. After the passage of more than half a century, Boorman has clearly idealised this woman. The period is idealised and evoked nostalgically and this is what makes it a special film for me. It is one person's subjective account of the post-war years. It is perhaps a bit over-acted and episodic, but it's still a great film.
8. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, France/Mauritania)
This is a drama exploring the hold that Muslim extremists have in Mali. It is a melodrama of sorts. The film, appropriately, employs a lot of humour as well. Groups such as Boko Haram and Isis are ultimately comprised of silly and asinine young men. I heard a pundit recently make the analogy that a lot of them go there so that they can re-enact video game 'shoot-em-ups' in real life. The film, appositely, humanises them and shows them to be stupid. Still, the film is a bit overwhelming to watch in that it doesn't flinch from portraying how normal people are affected by their authoritarian ways. There are some pretty lurid shots of stonings. The film shows how the Islamists clamp down on any type of expression, including music. It shows that their standards are completely arbitrary and that they are theologically illiterate when it comes to Islam.
The film is really nicely shot. There is a sense of joy when we see the inhabitants enjoying moments of reprieve, be it through playing football or playing music. (Malian music is really lovely.) There is a lovely tracking shot of a group of people playing football without their confiscated ball. When discussing Islamism, it is tempting to view it abstractedly. In this film, everyone is human. As such, you have a mixed bag of emotions. There is terror, there is reprieve, sporadic moments of joy and utter grief. This is the most appropriate treatment. The story is resolved with the central character being executed, which perhaps emphasises the utter sense of hopelessness and despair in the region.
7. The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, Ukraine)
This film is entirely in Ukranian sign language. This has a Brechtian effect, where you are distanced from the events taking place. The director mentioned that deaf-mute people themselves have been alienated from films from time immemorial and this is the first time that 'normal' people have had the same experience.
The film, thankfully, is easy to follow. I found it to be extremely visceral and stimulating. To use a crass metaphor, it's somewhat like being punched in the face, only in a good way. The film shows how deaf-mute students become embroiled in gangs, street-fights, sex and abortions. It's like this is a grimy subculture of another grimy subculture. This is where the Brechtian element comes in. Abortions, street-fights and under-age drinking are endemic in Ukraine. Through the use of sign language, it alienates you from it and makes you see it from another angle.
The cinematography is also wonderfully inventive and often shows many events taking place concurrently. This is another 'alienating' technique. The film is emotionally involving, but it stirs your emotions in a way that other films don't.
6. The Look of Silence (Documentary) (Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark/Finland/Indonesia/Norway/UK)
This is Oppenheimer's sequel to The Act of Killing. Tellingly, the film received a 'silent' response and didn't receive anywhere near the amount of adulation that it predecessor did. Whereas the first film was a deliberately histrionic and flamboyant affair, this one is more quiet and introspective. The first film was staggering because the killers did not exhibit the slightest compunction, even when re-enacting the murders of alleged communists in Indonesia. This film is from the perspective of the victims. The son of one of the victims finds out how his father was tortured. He tracks down several people and awkward exchanges ensue. We see snatches of guilt. However, the film shows the sense of regret and injustice that the victims have experienced. The son of the victim frequently presses them and often starts a lot of moralising. He tracks down as many accomplices as he can. However, there is a sense that their mood of blithe indifference is too entrenched. His own son is shown in school where he is taught how the US-backed coup had a benign influence. They are taught as to how communists used to slit people's throats and cause havoc.
The tone here is one of quiet introspection tinged with rage. We probe a lot deeper into the minds of the killers, too. If the previous film left me feeling a little sick, this one provides a bit of vindication.
5. Pasolini (Abel Ferrara, France/Italy/Belgium)
This film recreates Pasolini's final days in the mid 70s, where he was murdered by a homosexual gang. The reasons why he was murdered are unclear. He was a raconteur, a Marxist and had just directed a gruesomely pornographic adaptation of 120 Days of Sodom.
Pasolini was a poet, short story writer, journalist and novelist as well as a film director. I am particularly interested in films that imaginatively recreate the writing process and this is one of them. Scenes of Pasolini working on his desks are interwoven with recreations of his short stories. There is a sense of apocalyptic gloom in the air. Pasolini has ideas about an imminent collapse of the global economy and, by the time he is murdered, it seems like a voluntary attempt at martyrdom.
The film is nicely shot and I liked the use of Bach. (It something of a cliche to use Bach in arthouse cinema, but nevermind. It works.) I have read that it is helpful to have prior knowledge of Pasolini, though I was taken by the recreation of his fantastical short stories and I am not familiar with his work. Defoe's performance is appositely subdued. The causes of Pasoloni's death are still subject to interpretation. Defoe's Pasolini is reserved and doesn't give anything away. Ferrara, apparently, believes several conspiracy theories about the murder. For the film, however, he leaves everything clouded in a miasma of ambiguity.
4. 45 Years (Andrew Haigh, UK)
Cinemas are something of a secular temple for me. I have grown especially fond of 'slow' cinema. It has an almost mystical effect, especially when seen in a cinema. The world is fast and frenetic, flooded with news and social media messages. Slow cinema, perhaps more so than any other creative media, has the potential of slowing everything down and make you contemplate.
This is a film about a week in the life of an ageing middle crust couple. They are shown coping with a revelation the husband makes. They have a celebration for their anniversary. The film ends.
This is perhaps a British equivalent of Ozu. It shows the nuances of a certain class and a certain type of relationship. It doesn't spoil it with too much narrative. It is a very life-affirming film of a very ordinary type of relationship.
3. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)
They finally did it. They brought Thomas Pynchon to the screen. Anderson's adaptation is joyously convoluted and meandering ride through late 60s America. The lead character is a stoned hippie who is also a private detective.
I loved the way the film retained Pynchon's bizarro humour and the perennial presence of vague subplots you don't quite understand. There is a therapist who encourages teenages to take on 'sensible drug use.' There is a strange mystical sect. A stash of drugs is held by a yacht. It is clearly set in a post-modern world where everything is askew and artificial. Yet, strangely enough, it seems somewhat feasible in that it might well be the memories of someone who was too stoned to remember them.
Pynchon is clearly nostalgic about the era, its sense of humour and its misplaced idealism. The hippie dream collapsed on itself because it was not sustainable. Anderson shares this nostalgia, with saturated shots and a wistful soundtrack. There is a sense throughout the film that the idealism has lapsed into a type of drug-induced paranoia. The love generation, aided by its prodigious use of drugs, was about to lead towards Charles Manson. Pynchon's novels are suffused with a sense of paranoia about government agencies and secret sects. Here the paranoia is drug-induced. Everywhere the lead character turns, there seems to be some sort of conspiracy and it all appears to be led by the government or forces beyond his control.
2. Carol (Todd Haynes, USA)
The film is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. It is set in the 1950s and deals with a lesbian relationship. It is a highly puritanical society with normative values about heterosexual relationships. Interestingly, the film doesn't see the idea of sexuality as being innate, which is the view we normally hold now. Sexual identity almost seems willed as a way to defy a conformist society. Although films of the time were definitely 'male gaze,' this film is simultaneously 'queer gaze' and 'female gaze'. The shots definitely are mediated through the perspective of these oppressed characters.
The mise-en-scene perfectly recreates the period of the epoch. Cate Blanchett's performance is flawless. This is a film that would overwhelm anyone.
1. The Salt of the Earth (Documentary) (Wim Wenders, France/Brazil)
This is a documentary about the Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado. It tracks how he left a comfortable career in finance for his photographic pursuits. He travelled across South America and later East Africa to document his ethnographic interests. Later on he developed an interest in nature.
This film works on so many levels. There is a somewhat of a philosophical undercurrent. Salgado has been turned into a pessimist by his travels. In his travels towards 'the heart of darkness,' he finds malnutrition, decay, death, etc. He says that this development can even arise where living and education standards are better, such as Yugoslavia. All this took place during 'the end of history,' which reinforces the utter blitheness and utter carelessness of the term. Humans are ultimately powerless when compared to immensity of nature and the hold that multinational corporations have over us. The film works on a anthropological level, with Salgado's photographs acting as a kind of document of the codes and practices of certain tribes. It also works on aeshetic level, with his photograph of the war in Kuwait revealing an element of the sublime with the depiction of the destruction of an oil rig. There is also definitely a personal element, as Salgado recounts the difficulties of having to live apart from his wife and son. There is also a moving account of how he grew to have affection for a child he had who was born with Down's Syndrome.
Everyone who saw this in the cinema was absolutely taken aback by it. It worked on a lot of levels and it was beautiful to look at. There is a sense in the end of what a fruitful existence Salgado has had and also of the limitless experiences to be had with several cultures and with nature.
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