2008 brought suburban desperation, familial drug abuse and felled gay activism back to the water cooler.
1) Synecdoche, New York It’s the first time ‘and Directed’ was printed in front of his name ‘mdash; ordinarily it’s just ‘Written’ ‘mdash; and tagged to the end of ‘Synecdoche, New York.’ Yet these titles fit together with ‘by Charlie Kaufman’ like floorboards.
With audacious gall, Kaufman’s blend of magical realism and stagecraft yields a film that hurls itself into the bigger questions that most directors are too jaded to attempt. Exploring new narrative structures, visual styles and evidently industry vocations, it’s a visionary epic that launches with the largest ambitions and settles with the most honest.
Following the saga of a theater director transforming his life into a self-canonizing achievement (or so he hopes) on stage, ‘Synecdoche’ soon wheels itself beyond the realism of its first 30 minutes and never quite returns. Though many critics decry its difficulty and thorny exterior, the film supremely models originality. While many other cultural achievements are continuously compacted into easy-to-understand, bite-size pieces by Sparknotes, Wikipedia and even an Arts and Entertainment section, it’s refreshing to encounter a film too ambitious to compact any further.
2) Rachel Getting Married The last time someone made the leap from princess to drug addict, Carrie Fisher lost her career. But when handled with care (and not actual narcotics), drugs can be a safe bet for anyone angling for an Oscar. As Kym, Anne Hathaway sports a choppy, cropped bob and over-applied eyeliner. She plays the bride-to-be’s younger sister on parole from rehab, desperately craving cigarettes and pity for her troubles ‘mdash; and all the while extorting emotional severance pay.
Getting off to a strong start before it even spreads along the screen, Jenny Lumet’s ability to summon a gamut of emotions from her screenplay is the film’s finest attribute. Though your family is probably less eccentric than theirs, the relationships between sisters, parents and family painfully bludgeon familiar bruises.
Compounded by Jonathan Demme’s austere technique borrowed from a belated Robert Altman, and jagged tracking (summoning himself ‘Dogma ’95’ style) to put you in between the feuding family, ‘Rachel’ is a chaotic affair ‘mdash; paradoxically lacerating, affectionate and transcendent.
3) Wall-E If anyone has deftly mastered the delicate art of making warm-hearted children’s films that adult sensibilities can cuddle (and ponder), it’s Pixar. And as the most popular number one of 2008 top 10 lists, ‘WALL-E’ has certainly shown that big profits and critical acclaim can come in small, robotic packages if done right.
On an abandoned Earth that looks like a decrepit L.A. in some 10-odd years, the film follows the self-titled, boxy, trash-collecting droid as he sifts through the oceans of waste excreted by our unsustainable habits. Yet careful not to wag a moralizing finger, Pixar’s allegory uses our inevitable future to nest a witty love story between its acronymic star-crossed lovers, while keeping its speculative criticism to a minimum.
Although not having to hire voice actors was a pleasant relief for casting, ‘WALL-E’s’ reliance on animation is its most impressive feat. With visual gags and camera work used to convey most of its humor, the film glows with animation ‘mdash; energy, creativity, movement and above all, a genuine love for something we all grew up with.
4) Paranoid Park After being released last year to the effete patter of film-festival applause, Gus Van Sant’s return to high school hallways was given a limited release during the Ides of March in the United States, and thereafter quickly translated to DVD. Though most know him for films like ‘Good Will Hunting’ or the hugely successful ‘Milk’ ‘mdash; neither of which he wrote ‘mdash; Van Sant has made his career and reputation on smaller films (‘My Own Private Idaho,’ ‘Elephant’) with far less narrative and a lush feel for time’s slow passing.
In ‘Paranoid,’ the slate and verdigris palette of Portland’s darkly-clouded skies and oxidized roofs frequently tint Christopher Doyle’s cinematography, especially in a city rife with a youth culture equally as glum and dispossessed. With a quiet, soft-spoken Gabe Nevins as the film’s lead, it waxes rhapsodic as skateboards shave the concave floor of parks like petrified kites capriciously ducking left and right. The kids do the same, hoping to miss the punches of adulthood that fall too early.
5) The Wrestler By contrast, Darren Aronofsky wields far less pretentious clout than in his last film, ‘The Fountain’ in a relatively unpretentious change of heart (and style) for the studied di
rector. A gruff, visceral film that is undemanding and straightforward, the brutal melee of overly-tanned brawlers and failed body builders depicts the glamour of professional wrestling by focusing on a pared-down character study of Rodney ‘The Ram’ Robinson.
Rather than alchemizing brutality into poetry as Martin Scorsese had, Aronofsky doubles back on his screenwriter and with a protagonist less introspective than La Motta (at least by the end of his life), the Ram doesn’t find spiritual redemption as easily. Relying on Robert Seigel’s minimalist script instead, Rourke’s acting is given the most weight on the screen, with which he can hopefully pull himself up by his own bootstraps in the next decade.
6) Milk This isn’t Van Sant’s first hagiography of a public patron saint, or his only magnetic success during the award season. Splicing lessons learned from both in a political pill capped with equal parts arts and entertainment, ‘Milk’ radiantly amplifies the aura of gay activist Harvey Milk’s passionately democratic vision.
As a San Francisco populist who began his campaign in the unwelcoming grass roots of a once-conservative Castro Street, Harvey (jovially played by Sean Penn) channels his glowing personality straight through the screen. Along with a list of up-and-coming young actors, ‘Milk’ follows the taxing campaign trail through the failures and disappointments that never seem to impede Harvey ‘mdash; even as he narrates the film from his tape recorder for prophetic fear of an assassination. Trailing a troupe of local journalists and brazen supporters behind him, Milk’s loudspeaker candor is an emblematic emboss of the American politician ‘mdash; who, despite being felled by the family-values crusader Dan White, remains a martyred ghost adorned in a celluloid wreath. 7) The Dark Knight Keeping on with his success in marionetting the dark-winged avenger for a new audience of cynics and comic-book junkies, Christopher Nolan’s studio godsends have collected more than enough money from an eager box office congregation.
Knowing their audience, nocturnal spectacles capitalizing in exploding vehicles, festering corruption and all-too-common criminals are given fodder in any Batman film. But slipping new blood into the formula, two charismatic men enter Bruce Wayne’s life who manage to also steal the show for the remaining film. And yet, as intriguing and ‘thought-provoking’ as their quips and nihilistic pontifications are (investigating their theories through pseudo-philosophical terrorism), Joker and Dent are ultimately flat characters stuffed up with 80 percent personality and 20 percent curious conceit.’
As its title hints, ‘The Dark Knight’ harkens back to the noir textures that first sculpted Batman into the menacing antihero of the film. And with a little help from combustible special effects, both leave audiences spellbound with anticipation for the next issue.
8) Wendy and Lucy The pith of director Kelly Reichardt’s stripped approach to filming ‘Wendy and Lucy’ is undoubtedly her keen ability to sublimate an asphyxiating melancholy from only her frail heroine and the Pacific Northwest. Following a homeless Michelle Williams as she struggles to find her dog, Lucy, before moving on to Alaska, ‘Wendy and Lucy’ abandons the luxury of a polished presentation for simpler tools.
Though the film slipped unheard of during the holiday season, it’s a stony cut outfitted modestly in plainclothes realism that refuses to direct anyone’s feelings anywhere. Stitching scenes together with a mix of long shots, a photographic fixation and few cuts, ‘Wendy and Lucy’ effectively consecrates itself entirely on William’s acting (similar, though more radically to ‘The Wrestler’). That said, Reichardt’s tale of a dejected loner in the wild heart of a spiritually unaccommodating world is a pretty cold character sketch that still manages to seep in and paralyze emotions like quicksilver.
9) Revolutionary Road To say that the 1950s didn’t have its crop of revolutionaries is a tad underrating ‘mdash; it had them, they just settled too early and too easily to shake off suburbia’s crippling sedative after they bought a house.
As two yuppie New York bohemians who did just that, Frank and April Wheeler’s saga investigates the lobotomy of romantic and liberal ideals that bourgeois conformism entreats. Working from Richard Yates’ lauded novel, it isn’t hard for ‘Revolutionary Road’ to choreograph emotions according to narrative strings. However, the film manages to do it while boasting a skillful ply of cinematography and steady control of compositions.
Though the review for ‘Revolutionary Road’ is scheduled for next week, its limited release in the States earlier in the year puts it in competition with other 2008 runners. And while director Sam Mendes has certainly learned to trust his actors a little more and manipulate his scenes a little less, he’s going up against fellow directors not afraid to alienate larger audiences.’
10) Slumdog Millionaire On a sunnier note that takes its cue from Bollywood’s hyper-happy glow, one of the year’s most underrated films follows a diamond-in-the-rough urchin blessed with a ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ shot at love, fame and fortune.
Filming abroad for lack of a better inspirational landscape, director Danny Boyle mines the fibrous, over-populated and lower-income barrios of Mumbai with febrile kinetic energy. Whether the camera is hustling through a city thrumming with life or snooping the dark underbelly of India’s streets, it packs nearly every composition with abundant buzz.
But beyond the bustling street scenes, ‘Slumdog’s’ shiny puppy-love story ushers its sentimentalism with a kitsch crux. Though it’s eastern Romeo-and-Juliet appeal adds forced prostitution into the mix, it centers the film’s uplifting thrust (a first for Boyle) and lends it the perfect touch of heroic climate.