The days of 2010 have come and gone, but what shall remain are the memories. In this case, memories of the best films the year had to offer. Last year, I opted out of a Top 10 list in favor of a Top 10 Overlooked Films list, and here I am with another batch of movies that deserved to be bigger than they were. After all, who wants yet another Best Movies of the Year list peppered with Inception and The Social Network and Black Swan?
The criteria I went for last year is that the movies selected have to be 2010 US theatrical releases that only had limited releases and never went wide (more than 400 screens). So I'm sticking with that.
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Top Ten:
1. Enter the Void
Visceral, uncompromising and just a tad beyond the pale; it's easy to see why Gaspar Noe's latest artful shock-theater had no chance of penetrating the mainstream. Not so much because of the graphic depiction of an abortion or the surreal sex scenes than it is the insistence to let strange, ethereal images guide the loose narrative. It's vignettes of past, present and afterlife for nearly three hours with little in the way of exposition or explanation, telling the tale of a drug dealing American teenager's ghostly visions after his death at the hands of Japanese police. Like a drug high, it maintains a baseline of intrigue and keeps you wanting it to go on and on, even as it reaches the point of rambling.
2. Dogtooth
This bizarre—and I mean bizarre—Greek film about a family of five that engage in lewd, abnormal behavior around the house appears to be trading in shock value, but is actually a terse vindication against home schooling or parental influence in general. Never mind the weirder, more violent scenes: the way the parents purposefully teach the kids the wrong meanings for words is the key for control; subverting information about and desire for the outside world ("sea" is just a chair, "phone" is salt). Despite the exaggerations, the film argues that one should never consider parents as gospel, because an interaction with the world at large can always offer more. Not a message everyone is ready to hear, but obviously one that cannot be stressed enough. Not to mention that the stranger Dogtooth gets, the more forcefully compelling it is.
3. Never Let Me Go
A horrific science-fiction premise sets the stage for an Austenian love triangle in this stunningly bleak romance set in an alternate timeline where clones are farmed to harvest their organs. Aside from the exquisiteness of its visuals, tone and performances from the three leads (Carey Mulligan, Andrew Lincoln and Keira Knightley), the film is shrewd in using its sci-fi concept. It's found a way to tell a story of lifetime regrets and missed experiences, stuff of middle-aged drama, using young people's enthusiasm and curiosity. Even in their twenties or early thirties, these characters already accept their eventual early deaths from organ donation and act accordingly. The result is a film that's unique, chilling and powerfully sad.
4. I'm Still Here
It's regrettable that many took this movie simply as a farce, where Joaquin Phoenix attempted a hoax and failed. It's far more deceptive than that, though. Phoenix and director/co-writer Casey Affleck banked on the doubt that the extremity of Phoenix's weirdo act would cause in the media. It's more experiment than hoax, documenting how the public would react and then launching off of that to devise the "Joaquin Phoenix" character's arc. They've hit jackpot, as the public did play right into their hands with the relentless jeers and accusations of hoax. Through Phoenix's sheer convincing performance, the film shows the could've-been-real other side, including the chaos that led to the disastrous Letterman interview and the depressing aftermath. The film isn't about Phoenix's career—it's about how comfortable our celebrity culture is to omit full stories in favor of our own jaded impressions on public figures. It worked.
5. Blue Valentine
The spirit of John Cassavettes is alive in this ripcord of a movie that until recently was slapped with an NC-17 rating that perplexed anyone who has seen the film. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams delivered two extraordinary performances as a married couple rocked with problems. The idea of juxtaposing the happy dating days and the miserable marriage life of the same couple isn't particularly new, but extremely effective when displayed side by side. It's even sadder that the problem isn't even specific—just an inevitable falling out of love. The real tragedy of the film, though, is the realization that this fictional story has happened in a million homes across America, over and over throughout the years.
6. Catfish
This is the movie people had in their heads when Aaron Sorkin said he was writing a "Facebook movie." Whereas The Social Network depicts the explosion, Catfish deals with the fallout. Why is the foundation of Facebook being made into such a big deal? Because it results in stories like these. Even before the "twist," this documentary shows us the type of modern cute-meets that now undeniably exist in our culture. The way the filmmakers concoct their findings into this sort of linear narrative for the sake of tension might be highly questionable given the eventual subject matter, but as filmmaking goes, its effectiveness is potent. Catfish starts out really sweet, then turns into something really suspenseful, before closing in a sad but powerful comment on life that unfortunately cannot be discussed without spoiling the experience.
7. Rabbit Hole
A kind of surprise from John Cameron Mitchell, director of transgressive films like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus. For one thing, this is a low-key PG-13 drama without the exuberant joy found in those two movies. Taking it in for what it is, though, reveals touches of the things Mitchell was always really good at: playing with bottled emotions, hidden needs and personal sensitivity. It's about a married couple (Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman) coping with the loss of their small child in a car accident, but not the immediate aftermath that dramatists love to exploit; the film actually begins 8 months after the accident, focusing on the difficulties of ending the mourning period and resuming normality. A harder section to dramatize. Depressing but truthful, Rabbit Hole is one of the most honest depictions of grief on film in a while, with none of the usual blames, desperate actions or cathartic releases—just people moving slowly away from where they were before, not knowing if they're getting somewhere.
8. The Trotsky
Featuring a magnetic central performance by Jay Baruchel (easily his strongest role to date, despite the fact that it's once again a character tailored for his neuroticism), The Trotsky is about an intellectual Montreal high schooler who's convinced that he's the reincarnation of Marxist hero Leon Trotsky. The movie's plot starts as a pun. Student Union is already a familiar concept in mostly universities and many high schools; its function is for organizing social and extracurricular activities, but what if it operates, according to the name, more like a labor union? And try to transfer power from the ruling class (faculty) to the proletariat (students)? Its points are blunt and the way they argue them is too loose to stick, but there's an enthusiasm for politics that's infectious and admirable. The film, after all, isn't urging kids to become communists and activists—though there is a strong level of sympathy displayed towards those ideals—but to dislodge apathy and take more interest in their own well-being.
9. Four Lions
A dark British comedy hailed as 2010's In the Loop, Four Lions is not as witty or consistent as the former, but it's still one of the funniest movies of the year. Though it often comes across less like a political satire and—since cursing and ribbing on one another remain the primary source of humor—more like a Judd Apatow movie where the bros have traded their bongs for bombs, it doesn't take away what the film accomplishes. Four Lions takes on radical Islamic terrorism brilliantly by robbing it of its biggest weapon: Terror. By lampooning suicide bombers and portraying them as lovable idiots, it strips Al-Qaeda of the frightening rep they never deserved in the first place, dropping them into a position they do deserve: pop culture fodder.
10. Get Low
A painful story where the pain flows out gradually. Set in rural 1930's Tennessee, it starts out with an almost comedic premise: an unfriendly hermit (Robert Duvall) with a bad reputation one day descends into town and pays a struggling funeral home owner (Bill Murray) to arrange a funeral party for himself, while he's still alive, where everyone's invited. As he makes his final arrangements, the sad truth of why he became a hermit comes out. Duvall is excellent at playing a man who's carried a single guilt for decades, the weight of his sin visible in the way he moves, while Murray turns in his now-rare comic chops as a money hungry but honorable businessman. Not much at all happens in Get Low, but a curiosity of the past keeps the pace steady, heading towards an expected yet still poignant end that deals with regret, shame and the eventual forgiveness.
5 Honorable Mentions
Exit Through the Gift Shop
It's the most talked about movie in some circles, yet still largely ignored by most. Many gravitated to this for no other reason than because Banksy directed it. For that reason alone, many question the credibility of the story of overnight success Mr. Brainwash, suspecting a Banksy prank. It doesn't really matter, because Exit Through the Gift Shop is still a damning criticism of art trends and the commercialization of all art, regardless of Mr. Brainwash's story being fictional or not.
Vengeance
As far as Johnnie To flicks go, Vengeance isn't as creative or challenging as he's capable of getting, but it's a very simple story done in his stirring elegant style. A French cook with a dark past goes to Macau and offers to sign over his restaurant to three hitmen if they help him track down the men responsible for the slaughter of his daughter's family by the local mob. With typical left-field twists and a one-note system of honor among thieves, all the film really has going for it is To's mastery of poetic gun battles, which are so tasteful that they erase whatever ills the film has otherwise.
Animal Kingdom
A bleak portrait of a family steeped in crime, this grit-heavy Australian film, about a 17-year-old kid learning about his grandma's dingy empire of petty felons, is the anti-thesis to a mob movie like The Godfather, where family is everything (at least at first). The masterfully acted Animal Kingdom does away with that pretense immediately, showing how the criminal mind plus self-preservation would supersede any love and obligation. Furthermore, its crime family is not bathing in luxury like the Corleones, but drowning in deglamorized filth instead.
Everyone Else
If Blue Valentine shows the beginning and the end of a relationship, Everyone Else is about the in-betweens. Toes-tipped on the fine line between frustratingly unwatchable and absorbingly real, this German realist drama is a fly-on-the-wall account of a mismatched couple's vacation—and nothing else. He is quiet and refined, she is explosive and blunt. Because this is a movie, you might be expecting a catalyst to throw a wrench into the mix, but none appears. What you get is a portrait of a couple everyone has in their circle of friends: the one that love each other dearly but cannot stand in the same room together without bickering about the most mundane of things.
Looking for Eric
Sort of like the middle-aged version of Sidekicks, Ken Loach's lightest picture yet has a depressed postman smoking his son's pot stash and hallucinating his greatest hero in life, the famously philosophical Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, appearing and giving him life advices. It's a magical realist drama that's part grim urban slice of life, part wish fulfillment fantasy; that challenges but ultimately idealizes the sort of warmth that family and friends can give you in a time of need.
