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Top Ten Films of 2008

2008 was another good year for film with many solid entries and it was probably one of the easier years for me to come up with a list of favourites for the year and to carefully consider what should and shouldn’t be on the list. Here in roughly descending order are my top ten films: Un Conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale), Synecdoche, New York, Visioneers, Frozen River, Tell No One, Rachel Getting Married, Be Kind Rewind, Man on Wire, Milk, and Slumdog Millionaire. If there are any themes that run through the films maybe it would be love, family, relationships and obsession, which is the stuff our lives are made of. The films looked and sounded gorgeous and were filled with beautiful moments and great performances. Read on for the reasons why these are my favourite films of the year and for the runners up that almost made my list.

Un Conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale)

I eagerly anticipated Arnaud Desplechin‘s Un conte de Noël and was lucky to catch it at the Atlantic Film Festival in September. Ten minutes into the film I thought it was going to be good, and twenty minutes in I was loving it. It’s a sprawling, messy story filled with interesting dysfunctional characters and deep love of cinema. I know I will see it again a few more times and that I’ll make more connections and see more in it. Divided into sections built around the various characters, it takes a while to set up the characters and family dynamics, but then it moves between the characters as they interact in the family home around Christmas as they deal with the matriarch’s recently diagnosed cancer. The numerous threads and subplots multiply and combine like a series of stories told over drinks after a great meal. Filled with some of the most beautiful and touching moments between actors that make it look effortless, it’s a joy to be immersed in the love and tension of a large family with history and secrets. Days later I kept thinking about it and would get chills as I realized different things about the characters, their relationships, and history.

Synecdoche, New York

While A Christmas Tale immerses you in a family, Charlie Kaufman‘s directorial debut, Synecdche, New York goes in the opposite direction and focusses on a narcissistic theatre director and constantly turns in on itself. It’s also an immersive experience, but one that documents an inability to connect with others or to recognize the opportunities that exist. Kaufman explores the ideas about relationships and art from many of his scripts with a laser-sharp focus and obsessive attention to detail. It’s not for everyone, and it’s not an easy film to watch, but as it went on the details blurred as the themes and characters kept cycling round and changing, mirroring the confusion of the main character. The theatre director’s life becomes his art and just as he can’t seem to get on with his life, his art is also stuck as the focus moves to increasingly small details. An intricate and completely self-contained puzzle of a film, it’s something that also manages to somehow be touching and profound below the superficial details.

Visioneers

A melancholy tone runs throughout Visioneers as well as a distinctly odd sensibility within an alternative world that manages to highlight the disappointments of a career and life. Wildly moving between hilarious and sad with an inspired and controlled performance by Zach Galifianakis, it lulls you into a false sense of security and then follows the ideas to logical and bold conclusions. The pacing is deliberate, and mirrors the work day with a virtuoso opening series of scenes that establish the parameters of the world. The debut feature by brothers Jared Drake (director) and Brandon Drake (writer), it’s a unique and truly independent look at a future that is a more coherent and solid one than the funnier (but less successful) Idiocracy.

Frozen River

Late one night at the Atlantic Film Festival I decided to go and see Courtney Hunt‘s film Frozen River. I didn’t know much about it, but I’m very glad that I saw it. Built around an amazing performance by Melissa Leo as a single mom struggling to make ends meet in a border town, it slowly and deliberately builds tension in a naturalistic and almost documentary-like way. With an understated tone that belies that stakes of characters, the film sucked me in as a series of smaller choices lead to bigger ones and an inevitable and heartbreaking conclusion. Shot on digital video in the winter on location adds an authenticity to the film that works very well as the film looks at people who are trapped by their circumstances and struggle to make a better life for themselves.

Tell No One

I’d heard about Guillaume Canet‘s French adaptation of the American novel Tell No One and was hoping to see it at some point and by chance found it at a video store earlier this year as it was being released theatrically in North America. When I started watching it, the film seemed a bit slow and not much of a thriller, but taking time was the best way to go as it slowly ratchets up the stakes after establishing the characters and the mystery. I loved how the film didn’t explain the relationships between the characters at the beginning as it forces you to pay close attention as no detail is wasted. It’s the story of a pediatrician whose wife is apparently murdered randomly. But 8 years later he receives an email and video apparently showing her alive. The very Hitchcockian story then grabs you and doesn’t let go until the end as the plot twists and turns.

Rachel Getting Married

Jonathan Demme went low-budget and intimate with Rachel Getting Married and created a cinema verite style drama about a wedding and the return of a troubled daughter for the event. Stunningly shot digitally by Declan Quinn, it takes time to tell the story which is more about the people than the plot. Anne Hathaway is the troubled sister and her relationship with her parents, her sister and the history that separated her from them hangs over the whole event. The large cast fills the frame and it’s a true ensemble piece as they bring the script by Jenny Lumet to life. It’s great to see Demme move back into smaller and more indie dramatic filmmaking after his recent dramatic feature remakes.

Be Kind Rewind

Michel Gondry has a unique world view and with Be Kind, Rewind he brings his DIY sensibility to the demise of the independent videotape rental shop. While it’s not filled with as much fantasy as The Science of Sleep, he grounds the story in New Jersey and it becomes a populist story in the style of Frank Capra. Jack Black is an odd fit in the film, but Gondry keeps him generally under control and the major theme running through the film just below the surface is a subtle examination of race in films and prejudice in society. The trademark visual inventiveness is throughout the film as the main characters recreate shorter home made versions of their favourite films. At its core, the film is about why we love film and stories that connect with us. Gondry also grounds the film and while he shows the possibilities of people working together, it does operate within the real world and he doesn’t view the world through rose coloured glasses, but just from an optimistic point of view.

Man on Wire

In The King, James Marsh created a tense and disturbing story about a man obsessed with his estranged father and in moving back into documentary with Man on Wire, he tells the story as a heist film. Seamlessly mixing recreations with interviews and stills, he constructs the compelling story of how Philippe Petit‘s remarkable feat of stringing a wire between the World Trade Center towers in 1974 and walking across it. What is even more amazing is that there is very little archival footage of the actual event, but by skilfully using the existing footage and stills it ends up being even more powerful as we see the reactions of the participants to the event. Told in a subtle and economical fashion, it’s gripping and inspirational storytelling.

Milk

Gus Van Sant balanced his experimental and mainstream tendencies perfectly with Milk. Meticulously recreating The Castro of the 1970s, he focusses on the critical and inspirational role that Harvey Milk played in advancing gay rights. Sean Penn is surprisingly good in a performance where he captures the mannerisms and joy of Harvey Milk even though he may not look exactly like him. James Franco turns in a great performance as Milk’s lover, Scott Smith and it’s their relationship that is at the heart of the film. The film doesn’t go very deeply into Milk’s personal life, it skilfully blends the personal and political in a very moving way while avoiding the traditional pitfalls of the biopic.

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle loves a good idea for a film and with Slumdog Millionaire the premise (based on the novel Q & A) is that a waiter from the slums of Mumbai makes his way to the final question of the Hindi version of Who Wants to be A Millionaire. Using the game show as a framework, the film jumps around episodically linking all of the questions with events that occurred in Jamal’s life. Running through it all is also a love story as well as a quite gritty look at the life of the children growing up. Stylishly and energetically shot by Anthony Dod Mantle, it manages to tell a romantic story in a way that balances the good and bad perfectly.

Honourable Mentions

Films that just didn’t make my list would be the animated dystopia Wall-E, the understated Happy-Go-Lucky, the Canadian indie comedy Growing Op, the coming of age story Son of Rambow, and the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

December 30, 2008 2008, filmmaking, lists, top10