My Movie Decade
By Edwin Davies
January 3, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
As the decade wore on, that changed. I left home and moved to a big(ish) city that had an arthouse cinema. I also made friends with people who had radically different tastes to mine, and through them was exposed to all sorts of new music, books and film. Plus, I had a student loan and there was no way any of that was going to go on learning materials when I could spend it on DVDs. My horizons broadened immeasurably, and whereas my 14-year-old self would rather lose a thumb than go and see a slow, portentous black-and-white film about life in early 20th century Germany, the 23-year-old me named Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon one of the best films of 2009. And the 24-year-old me pretty much agrees with that decision. Good job, Past Self!
Rather than just list the films that I thought were the best overall, I have broken the list down by year. This is altogether fairer than just paying no heed to the years, since there will always be one or two years in a decade which have a better crop of films, but it also allowed me to rediscover films that I had forgotten about, the sort of great films that would not have leapt to mind unless I was placing such restrictions on myself. Films like...
2000
Chicken Run
Nick Park and Peter Lord's film is an hilarious parody of prison break movies - specifically The Great Escape - which is full of the love of cinema that has been the signature of Park's other great creations, Wallace and Gromit. The stop-motion animation is stunning, the script is peppered with great dialogue (I quote the line "I don't want to be a pie! I don't like gravy" with a regularity that really is not normal) and the characters are warm, likable and hugely charming, even if one of them is voiced by Mel Gibson. It has even had a disproportionately huge impact, since it has often been cited as the impetus for the introduction of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Not bad for such a fowl film (BOOOO!).
American Psycho
Bit of a change of pace; from plucky chickens to Christian Bale murdering people to the smooth sounds of Phil Collins. Bale gives easily my favorite performance of his as Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street yuppie bastard who moonlights as a serial killer (or does he?) and has an obsessive knowledge of the music of Huey Lewis - much like most serial killers. A bleakly hilarious take on the equally dark book, American Psycho is a brilliant satire of a very particular kind of shallow, narcissistic creep, the sort of person who thinks that the lettering on his business card is of more intrinsic value than human life.
2001
Millennium Actress
I only saw this anime film for the first time a couple of weeks ago but I have no compunction saying that it was one of the best films released in 2001. Directed by Satoshi Kon, who died in August of this year at the age of 46, it tells the story of a film crew who go to visit a retired actress to ask her about the destruction of the studio where she made her name. What then happens is that she recalls her life, both on- and off-screen, and the film mixes together fact and fiction as the film crew find themselves acting out the plots of her most famous movies. It's sort of like an animated version of Citizen Kane crossed with Adaptation and it is wholly brilliant.
The Royal Tenenbaums
I've always found Wes Anderson to be pretty hit and miss. I don't think any of his films are bad, but there are some that resonate with me and there are some that leave me completely cold. The Royal Tenenbaums is the former. A hugely funny, deeply affecting film about a dysfuctional family of geniuses, it was my introduction to Anderson and my occasional disappointment with his work since is almost certainly because I'm always expecting him to reach the heights he reached here again.
Spirited Away
If I were ranking films, rather than going year by year, Spirited Away would be my number 2 for the decade without a doubt. It was my introduction to the work of Hayao Miyazaki, a film-maker whose work I have subsequently hungrily devoured (my favorite of his films is My Neighbor Totoro, but we're in entirely the wrong decade to talk about that beautiful, beautiful film) all because this one was so mind-blowing to me. Gorgeous animation, a complex and clever story that creates a new fairytale as it is telling it, and some of the most stirring music I have ever heard.
2002
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
When I compiled my own, non-BOP approved best of the decade list last year, I included the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy because I'm just crazy enough to do it. Also, I didn't break it down by year. Rather than include all three films, even though all three were among my favorites for their respective years, I'll just include the second one because it is my favorite of the three. Freed from world-building of the first installment and without any of the baggy resolutions that weigh the third one down like so many complex carbohydrates, The Two Towers is a triumph of spectacle and storytelling. Peter Jackson leaps nimbly (and that's the only context in which you will ever read that sentence) between the myriad storylines, in the process delivering the most compelling character conflict of the series (Gollum's battle with Sam and himself over Frodo and the Ring) and the most exhilarating action set piece. (The Battle of Helm's Deep)
Punch-Drunk Love
On one level I'm glad that I didn't see this film until I was in my 20s, since I really don't think I would have appreciated it, but on another level I wish I had seen it when I was 16, just because it would have been so hilarious seeing how different the movie I got would be to the movie I expected. "Hey, let's go see the new Adam Sandler movie! Ha, all of his sisters are nagging him at the party and he's getting really frustrated. And now he's...smashing all of the windows. Ha? Oh, he's on a date! This is sure to be hilarious! He's so nervous, he's going to go to the bathroom! And now he's...smashing up the bathroom and it's really, really disturbing." Working with Paul Thomas Anderson, Sandler inverts the stunted man-child that he usually plays and shows what that character would be like if he wandered into the real world - or at least Anderson's slightly heightened world. The real thrill of the film is seeing how Sandler takes a persona that is so familiar to millions of moviegoers and makes it into something dark and strange.
2003
Dogville
Whilst I've found the films of Danish director Lars von Trier to be more miss than hit, he rarely makes a film that is anything less than interesting. Even films like Breaking The Waves, which I can't stand, have something to them which intrigues or fascinates me, and when he combines his vast talent to a good story, the results often make for some of the most scrabrously brilliant films ever made. Case in point: Dogville. Nicole Kidman plays a woman who arrives at the pleasant town of Dogville, and is initially welcomed by the residents. Once they realize that she is on the run from something or someone, they begin to exploit her, and von Trier uses the cruelty of the villagers against the innocent Grace to comment on the darker sides of humanity. What's really interesting about the film is that it was made using no sets and very few props, instead having the action take place on a soundstage with lines to indicate walls, windows, tables etc. The performances are so powerful that the conceit quickly fades into the background, allowing the drama to take over.
The Station Agent
The Station Agent sounds like a film that should be terrible. Peter Dinklage plays a dwarf who discovers that one of his friends bequeathed a cabin to him in his will, so he goes to visit the cabin and, despite his prickly persona, winds up becoming friends with some of the locals. On the surface, it feels like an overly familiar story of people coming together and learning lessons, but writer-director Thomas McCarthy - most recently seen acting in films such as 2012 and The Lovely Bones, which he really is too good for - tells the story in such a low-key, charming and funny way that the film winds up being far more subtle and moving than its premise would suggest.
2004
Bad Education
Discovering the work of Spanish film-maker Pedro Almodovar was one of the great revelations for me over the last decade, and whilst I have a great love of the films he has made since Bad Education, this was the one that had the biggest impact on me at the time since it opened up a whole new kind of storytelling to me. It's a thriller about a young director who meets a man who claims to be a childhood friend and tries to sell him a story about how their lives were shaped by the abusive actions of a priest. Playing with notions of truth and reality, Almodovar created a creepy, sexy and sensual film that plays out like a lost Hitchcock - if Hitchcock had a bicurious phase and decided to ditch the blondes for rugged Spaniards. And whose to say he didn't? Not me, because I don't want to get sued. But if anyone else wants to say it, just go right on ahead and say it, crippling legal fees be damned!
Shaun of the Dead
Along with The Simpsons, the sitcom Spaced has probably done more to shape my sense of humor than pretty much anything else. Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson's show about two directionless 20-somethings who pretend to be a couple in order to rent a flat hit a sweet spot of witty, pop culture jokes and genuinely likable characters that all too few shows achieve. It was no surprise, then, that I would be one of the first in line to see Pegg and Spaced director Edgar Wright's first feature film, a rom-zom-com about a directionless 30-something (see how they changed it up for the big screen?) who finds himself caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Incredibly clever and funny, the film works both for fans of zombie films and for people who just like jokes about dogs not being able to look up, two crucial and vast demographics.
2005
A History of Violence
I am a huge fan of David Cronenberg and this film is largely responsible for that (as well as a long-term love of The Fly, but that's neither here nor there). Taking the (in my opinion) overlong and aimless comic, Cronenberg crafted a lean, mean film about the lingering effects that acts of violence have on those who inflict them. Viggo Mortensen has never been better than here as a man whose past catches up to him when he foils a robbery and becomes a minor celebrity. Cronenberg also uses the trappings of a gripping thriller to explore the idea of screen violence by depicting such scenes as, for example, Mortensen smashing a coffee pot into a man's face, with a complete lack of sensationalism or exploitation, and in doing so creates some of the uncomfortably real images (and sounds) that still shock me every time I watch it.
Kung Fu Hustle
Technically a 2004 film but i saw it 2005 and it's really really good and it's my list anyway so why doesn't everyone just SHUT UP! It's good to let your inner bratty 13-year-old girl out every once in a while. Anyway, watching Stephen Chow's film is, hands down, the most fun I have ever had in a cinema. Chow delights in throwing together cliches from a thousand martial arts movies along with a Looney Tunes sensibility and a commitment to ringing a laugh out of every scene that rivals Mel Brooks or Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker at their height. The story's gossamer thin and barely worth recounting, but the sheer joy that Chow takes in staging his ludicrous fight sequences justifies its place on my list. It's one of a handful of films that is guaranteed to put a huge smile on my face every time I watch it.
2006
Pan's Labyrinth
As someone who has nursed a lifelong love of history and fairy tales, Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece fits very snuggly into the very center of an unusually specific Venn diagram. Del Toro's visuals and story combine beautifully to tell a heartbreaking story of a young girl who discovers a fantasy world which she longs to enter to escape the brutality of the Spanish Civil War (as illustrated by a scene in which a man is killed with a broken bottle, which remains one of those images which disturbs me to this day). When I met Guillermo del Toro at a book signing a few years ago, I told him that the film was one of the first to make me cry in the cinema, and it still holds a very special place in my heart. A haunting and astonishing piece of work.
The Host
Another foreign language film, but one that couldn't really be different from Pan's Labyrinth. This South Korean film from director Boon Jong-Ho (whose most recent film, Mother, should be on everyone's list of the best films of 2010) takes the monster movie format and injects healthy doses of social satire, family drama and clever comedy to create a unique and delightful experience. It feels like six or seven films in one, each of them great, but when combined they form an all more mighty beast.
2007
There Will Be Blood
I've been writing about multiple films per year up to this point, and even though 2007 was probably the best year of the decade for me, I'm only going to write about There Will Be Blood here because it is my undisputed favorite film of the decade, and I'd like to give it a certain amount of respect (though both No Country For Old Men and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly were great, great films released that year). Paul Thomas Anderson's epic tale of oil, greed, family and power does what so many great films do; it comments on the past, on the sort of men who built America, and in doing so comments on the society in which the film was made. It is an enigmatic film that means different things to different people and rewards subsequent viewings, and with its brisk pace and a devastating performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, those subsequent viewings are never a chore. It's rare to sit and watch a film and, almost as soon as the film begins, find yourself thinking, "This is a work of genius." But to have that same feeling sustained from beginning to end? That is nothing short of miraculous.
2008
The Dark Knight
Despite what the rest of this list would have you believe, I am at heart someone who loves big blockbusters. They tap into that reservoir of child-like glee that I always used to feel whenever I would go to the cinema with my family to watch the latest Hollywood epic, and regardless of how terrible those films end up being I still feel sense of excitement every time I sit in a packed multiplex, waiting for the lights to go down. The Dark Knight was one of the best films of the decade for me because it embodies that sort of action spectacle that I have always loved and marries it to an intelligent story that weaves ideas about anarchy vs. control, terrorism and the true notion of heroism. The moment when I realized that Christopher Nolan had the balls to include that sort of subtext in a $185 million sequel was the moment that I knew that he was one of the great mainstream film-makers of our time.
WALL-E
I was tempted to include a couple of Pixar films on my list, but decided to include my favorite of their output from the last ten years to stand in for the rest. (For the record; The Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up and Toy Story 3 are all sublime. Cars, not so much.) I've been a big Pixar fan ever since I was bowled over by the original Toy Story in the theater, and I've eagerly awaited all of their films ever since. The last half of the decade saw them hit a creative peak which even I, an ardent supporter, would not have expected, and the zenith of that peak is, unquestionably, their story of a lonely trash compacting robot. WALL-E is by turns hilarious, bleak, achingly sad and truly uplifting. For me, it represents a pinnacle of computer animation in terms of both visual style and pure storytelling. The opening 20 minutes alone is truly breathtaking.
2009
The Hurt Locker
It still amazes me that Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker won Best Picture - not because it isn't a great film, but because it is so unlike the sort of films that win Best Picture. An unbearably tense film soaked in machismo, Bigelow cemented her position as one of the best directors when it comes to depicting male relationships. The sequences in which Jeremy Renner et al defuse bombs are amongst the most nerve shredding I've ever seen, thanks to Bigelow's fearless direction and a cast that make the inner lives of men doing the worst job in the world just as compelling as the job itself. It inverts the typical concept of an action film; rather than a film about how exciting it is when things blow up, it is about how horrible it is waiting to see if they will blow up.
Thirst
Another South Korean film (it really was a fantastic decade for South Korean cinema), this time from Park Chan-Wook. Whilst his 2003 film Oldboy is held in higher regard, and with good reason, I love the mad ambition behind Park's story of priest who turns into a vampire. Using his thirst for blood as a very, very thinly veiled metaphor for his sexual desire, the film starts out as an intense character study before turning into a ludicrously bloody and sexy story of souls doomed by their passions.
2010
The Social Network
The triumph of David Fincher's The Social Network is that, whilst it deals with themes that are pretty much timeless (e.g. greed, betrayal, the quest for power and/or acceptance) it addressed them in a bracingly modern context. The rise of Facebook is one of those stories that seems like it could be dry and uninteresting, even unimportant. Yet Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin saw that there was a compelling story and a fascinating group of characters at the heart of that story, and they turned those stories into a tragedy rife with dramatic irony (the foundation of Facebook involved one man isolating himself from most of his friends) and full of brilliantly clever, witty dialogue.
Winter's Bone
Debra Gronik's breakthrough film would be deserving of a place on any best of if it was just a great suspense film with a compelling mystery at its heart. What raises it up, though, is that it so beautifully creates a sense of an isolated, closed off community where everyone has secrets that stay buried, lest anyone who asks questions should end up buried along with them. That atmosphere, so important to making a young girl (Jennifer Lawrence)'s search for her missing father so engrossing, is so suffocating that every single scene feels like one in which something horrible could happen. It's one of the most exciting and tense films of the year, if not the decade.