Best Feature Films of 2011

OK, buckle your seatbelts. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

I have to start with my probably obvious disclaimer that I’m not a professional film critic, and since I hold a full-time job doing something other than watching and writing about movies all day, I unfortunately don’t get to see everything. I guess there is a silver lining to that fact: at least I was spared the pain of The Smurfs, Chipwrecked, Zookeeper, the most recent Twilight, The Beaver (what was Jodie Foster thinking?), Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill, and that lame gnome version of Romeo and Juliet—most of which my six-year-old either saw with his mom or wants to see. Thank you for indulging him, Tracy. It makes me shudder just thinking about them, and I sort of feel sorry for professional film critics who have to see stuff like that. Unfortunately, I was not spared the pain of a few truly horrible blockbusters. I’m thinking specifically of Cars 2, Battle: Los Angeles, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I’ll never get back those six hours!!

A few notable films I didn’t see yet include Shame, Drive, The Skin I Live In, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Take Shelter, United Red Army, Margaret, and A Separation. If they are good enough, I might write about them later.

Also, this year I decided to split my “best of” list into two and remove the documentaries from this one. There are several docs I really liked, so I’ll work on that one soon.

Here’s my list:

1. Hugo. Directed by the brilliant Martin Scorsese, Hugo tells the story of a young orphan boy living in a Paris train station in 1930s. His goal is to repair a mechanical man his late father worked on. Based on an award-winning book by Brian Selznick, the film is also a fictionalized account of Hugo’s relationship with the great Frenchman Georges Méliès, whose Trip to the Moon and other magical and surreal films of the early 1900s established him as one of the earliest and most revolutionary filmmakers in the history of cinema. Méliès was almost completely forgotten by the time the film takes place with nearly all of his films seemingly lost and film historians thinking him dead. The film added to the excellent novel by including a couple of minor romantic pairings and fleshing out the book’s cruel station master, making him a comedic but more fully human character played by the surprisingly restrained Sacha Baron Cohen. What is truly memorable about the film is that in addition to its compelling story, Scorsese demonstrates with images, music, and editing his great passion for the silent films of the early 1900s (The Artist also does this, and while I liked it overall, I didn’t feel its middle quite matched the amazing beginning and ending). I have to say that it’s a contagious passion because immediately after seeing the film with my six-year-old, Wyatt said, “Dad, we should watch some Georges Méliès.” And we did! He loved most of the films and even watched nearly a whole 2-hour disc without me. Visually rich, touching, and quite funny, Hugo isn’t to be missed. I can’t recommend it highly enough. And this is one of those films that you want to see in 3D; Scorsese utilizes the technology to enhance the story and not for showing off the effects.  

2. 13 Assassins. Since I wrote about this elsewhere on this blog, I won’t say much here. This is quite simply an excellent samurai film directed with (mostly) untypical restraint by Takashi Miike.

3. Poetry. This Korean film tells the fascinating story of an aging grandmother who enrolls in a poetry class as she finds herself in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Living with the grandmother is her apathetic and self-centered grandson, and she struggles to maintain a relationship with him beyond merely cooking him dinner or whisking him off to school. It’s a moving story about aging, generational conflicts, deep moral questions, and the creative process. Poetry becomes a metaphor in the film for coming to terms with life and all of its unsavory and seemingly meaningless aspects. If my description makes it sound boring, trust me, it isn’t. There’s a whole complicated plot about the rape (not shown) and suicide of a young girl, so it’s not just a film about old people sitting around writing poetry—which, I should add, I would probably enjoy. It’s a film about life, love, family, art, and death. It’s about what it means to be human.

4. Tree of Life. I’ve written twice about this film elsewhere, so I will just say that even though parts are slow and certain elements are confusing, this is on the whole one of the most beautiful and thought-provoking films I have ever seen. I need to see it again.

5. Certified Copy. Directed by the renowned Iranian Abbas Kiarostami, Certified Copy unfolds the mysterious story of two people, one is a British writer and the other a French art dealer (played by the always exquisite Juliette Binoche). The writer has just published a book titled Certified Copy—it’s about the idea that a copy is just as beautiful and important as the original and the silliness of our society’s frowning upon copied art. I won’t give anything away, but I will say that about half way through something very interesting is said that calls into question our very understanding of this couple and their relationship. A film about art, love, relationships, and the past, Certified Copy is an engaging and enlightening film that takes us in unexpected directions.

6. City of Life and Death. A powerful black-and-white film about the Japanese conquest and occupation of Nanking in China in 1937. It’s an unconventional film in that it doesn’t follow a single story line—though there are several characters—and doesn’t really have much of a plot. I suppose the best way to describe it would be to call it a poem, a poem about the horrors of war. Controversial in China when it was first released, City of Life and Death does not demonize all of the Japanese nor does it romanticize the Chinese.

7. Crazy, Stupid Love. I’m surprised this groundbreaking comedy isn’t showing up on more (or any?) top-ten lists. Ryan Gosling, who is possibly the greatest living American actor, is paired with Steve Carell, who normally underwhelms me but in this case he was just right. It’s a hilarious movie (also starring Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, and Marisa Tomei) that walks a fine line between being conventional and breaking lots of rules. I put it on this list because it thoroughly entertained me but also because it said some insightful things about relationships and what it means to be happy as a human being. Steve Carell’s character is a bit like Siddhartha in his search for happiness and enlightenment. Think about it.

8. The Descendents. This is George Clooney’s best role. It’s interesting how “normal” he can look and act. Normal hair, normal clothes. In this film he is a normal guy, a guy with two kids who finds out after his wife has been in a terrible accident that she was cheating on him. On the surface the film is about his discovery of this information and what he decides to do with it. But it’s also about his coming to terms with his less-than-mediocre parenting skills and taking small steps to becoming a better father—and a better person. Directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt), The Descendents is what Payne himself has called a “minor” film, but that’s what I liked about it. It’s a small film about a small family crisis. There’s nothing outwardly deep or philosophical or showy about it. But there is something moving and profound in its small way about Clooney’s character’s realizations and actions. He’s a normal guy who has to choose whether he’s going to do the right things. Also, Shailene Woodley, the 20-year-old actress who plays Clooney’s daughter, is a revelation.

9. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I was a little surprised how much I liked David Fincher’s new film. I had read the books and enjoyed them—though not as much as some people. That is, I thought they were fairly entertaining and Lisbeth Salander was truly an original, but to me they were merely genre fiction and didn’t really transcend any literary boundaries. (I realize how snobby that sounds). I started watching the Swedish film version of Dragon Tattoo but stopped after about ten minutes. I was bored. So, I went into the new American version with very low expectations. Fincher’s version, perhaps not surprisingly if you’ve seen anything else by him, is much darker than the earlier film or even the novel. The lighting, the overall mood, the near total lack of humor. Even the sex has a dark edge to it. And I should add that this is a very adult film with a couple of very brutal rape scenes and several serial-killer aftermath photos. Watching it just confirms what I have felt for years: that David Fincher is one of the greatest living American directors. The film is very well constructed, beautifully (and darkly) shot, and well paced. This is what all Hollywood films should be like.

10. Melancholia. Lars von Trier is a pretty arrogant and annoying person, but with Melancholia he’s made a philosophical and provocative film. A film about melancholy, dysfunctional families, quite possibly the worst imaginable wedding-reception ever, and an impending collision with a huge planet, Melancholia is ultimately about the need to find human connections in a world that pushes us toward isolation. I’m pretty sure it’s also a metaphor for embracing melancholy and not treating it like an illness.  

Other independent or art-house films I enjoyed: Le Quattro Volte (a completely wordless and poetic film about the transmigration of the soul); The Artist; Incendies (a French film about two grown twins discovering their family history in the war torn Middle East); Jane Eyre; Ides of March; Midnight in Paris; A Dangerous Method (Keira Knightley was a bit too much for me, but who can pass up the story of Freud and Jung?); Win, Win (one of the greatest sports movies ever!); Red State (Kevin Smith makes a horror film that also makes a total mockery of red staters), and The Trip (has three or four of the funniest scenes in any movies I saw this year).

Other blockbuster/popular films I enjoyed: Moneyball (Brad Pitt is great and it’s simply an inspiring story about how hard it is to break free of conventional thinking), Kung Fu Panda 2, Bridesmaids (hilarious at times; pretty crude in others), X-Men: First Class (I thought this was the best of the X-Men films and the best superhero film this year), Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (not a great film but it has some seriously amazing action sequences), Super 8, Point Blank (a French action thriller about a male nurse on the run for a crime he didn’t commit), and Limitless (a smart and gripping mainstream film).

The Book of Job and Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life

Tree of Life begins with a quote from the Book of Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth...When the morning stars sang together?” It’s God speaking to Job at the end of the story after God has allowed Satan to test Job’s faithfulness. Satan begins by destroying all of Job’s many possessions and children. After this first assault, Job reacts faithfully—if mechanically—and says, “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” So Job does not curse God, and Satan loses the first round. With God’s permission, Satan then curses Job with a terrible skin disease, Job’s wife tells him to “curse God and die,” and Job’s friends arrive. Instead of comforting Job, Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz lecture their friend and tell him to repent, for he must have done something wrong, something to really anger God. After all, they believe, we are only punished when we do evil. God rules a just and orderly universe.



William Blake, Book of Job



Most of the Book of Job consists of a series of dialogues between Job and his friends. Job defends himself vehemently, even arrogantly. Indeed, the cliché about Job being patient is clearly not true. As early as Chapter 3, he curses the day of his birth and wishes he was dead. Later he insults his friends, questions God, challenges God to face him in a legal battle, and whines—probably justifiably—about once being respected where now people spit at him and sings songs about how pathetic he is (I’m not making this up.). When God finally appears in Chapter 38, he arrives in the form of a whirlwind, probably a painful reminder to Job that God is the powerful force that took his family away. Instead of answering Job’s question (why is this happening to me?), God asks Job a series of questions like the one above. The point of the questions is obviously to show Job that he is small and insignificant when compared with God. Job is nothing, so he repents in “dust and ashes” to show his nothingness and to remind us where we will all someday return. For this, Job gets a new wife and family and possessions and lives a really long time. One hundred and forty years, to be exact.

So, why does Malick begin his film with the Book of Job quote? I think part of the answer has to do with themes both works share. Both deal with a seemingly random and meaningless tragedy, both explore the nature of human suffering, both show the mysteries of the universe and the decidedly human quest to find answers to life’s questions, and finally, both highlight the power of God and, conversely, the smallness and insignificance of humankind. Now, I don’t really think Malick believes in God, per say, for him God is nature, the universe itself. He’s clearly a neo-Romantic influenced by Wordsworth, who also found God in nature—at least in his early works like “Tintern Abbey.” But for Malick the universe has both positive and negative connotations: it is paradoxically beautiful and ugly, peaceful and violent, serene and frenzied, rejuvenating and destructive—or any number of dichotomies. The Sean Penn character is also a kind of Job figure, a man searching for justice in what seems to be an unjust world. Possibly one interpretation of Jack’s work as an architect is that, like Job, Jack is also trying to reach the heavens and confront God. Maybe Jack creates buildings and structures that remove him further away from God (nature) because he does not want to be close to the force that killed his brother. Maybe the buildings are emblems of Jack’s attempt to create order in a chaotic world.

One of many striking images from Tree of Life.

Neither Job nor Jack gets his answer to the question of why (this isn’t ever directly asked in Tree of Life, but it is implied). But I think the answer is pretty clear: for no reason at all. Terrible things happen to good people, and auspicious things happen to bad people. There is no justice. What Jack might learn is what fundamentally makes us human. We are weighed down with suffering, tragedy, guilt, and shame.  But we shoulder these burdens and move on. That’s the miracle. Think about Oedipus. He doesn’t kill himself as most people would expect. After he discovers that the prophecy has already been fulfilled despite his futile attempts to circumvent fate, he stabs himself in the eyes and becomes a wanderer. I’ve always thought he does this to show the gods that they can’t control everything. We can determine our final ends, not the gods. So Oedipus, Job, and Tree of Life are all saying that we are nothing next to God, but there is a kind of nobility in our insignificant mortality. We experience something the gods cannot. We live.

Let There Be Malick: Tree of Life

And God said, let there be Malick, and there was Malick. And God saw Malick’s Tree of Life, that it was good. Winner of the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes, Tree of Life—a film about creation, life, suffering, death, and the meaning of life—is only Terrence Malick’s 5^th film in 38 years. So it goes without saying that Malick is anything but prolific. His most ambitious and experimental film, Tree of Life feels like an art film, especially the first 45 minutes and the last 20. Of course, Malick disregards conventions in all of his films. From Badlands to Days of Heaven and now to Tree of Life, his films scream idiosyncrasy, independence, and romantic imagination. They are all—whether you like them or not—powerful artistic statements about what it means to be human.

The story (if you can call it that—there’s not much of a plot here) takes place in Waco, Texas.  Jack is the oldest of three boys growing up in the 1950s. Tragedy strikes, and Jack grows up to what appears to be an architect (it’s never quite clear), a lost, alienated man living in a modern world that boxes him in tall skyscrapers, empty boardrooms, and glass elevators. But Malick is more interested in fleeting images of domestic life, waves crashing, volcanoes erupting, and the sunlight shining through trees than he is in telling a story about Jack’s family, so there are lots of gaps here.  Like the French director Claire Denis and her predecessor late-19^th-century-painters Monet and Manet, Malick’s work is aptly called impressionistic. Malick provides us impressions of life and nature in the film. Snapshots in a photo album that serve as an aesthetic counterpoint to the realism or stylized realism presented in most films.  But his work might just as easily be labeled expressionistic since he uses the music and images to express his inner emotions and ideas about modern life and its complexities.

Regarding its cinematography, Tree of Life contains possibly the most beautiful images ever put to film. Ever. Bob Mondello of NPR said, “There's not a frame of The Tree of Life—not one—that I wouldn't love to have hanging on a wall in my home.” But I would go further and say that watching this film is like walking through a museum and gazing awestruck at a van Gogh or a Vermeer. One of the most visually striking shots utilizes an upside-down camera to frame several distorted shadows of boys playing, possibly a metaphor for the darkness within our souls. In the scenes from our modern world, the camera almost constantly tilts upward, looking through the glass roofs of modern buildings, looking to the heavens, searching for an absent God, searching for hope. The beautiful images and sounds (we hear selections from Bach, Brahms, Berlioz, Mahler, and others) are so powerful that we can’t help but feel the spiritual power while we watch. But for Malick the transcendence is not a result of religion; it’s about the sacred in the secular, the sacred in nature. There are also lots of gorgeous images from the Hubble telescope when Malick flashes back to tell the impressionistic story of the creation of the world. In my view, these early creation shots, though beautiful, went on too long and were pretentious, but this is a minor complaint in an otherwise powerfully affecting film.

While the cinematography is probably the most memorable element in the film and I was left with lots of images seared on my brain, the acting is nothing less than astounding.  It depicted convincingly realistic portrayals of sibling interactions, and mother-child, father-child relationships. Much of the emotional impact rests in the hands of a pair of wonderful child actors, who are natural, raw, and real. This is probably Brad Pitt’s strongest performance, too, and Jessica Chastain, who plays the mother, is also excellent. In a whispering voiceover, Jack says, “Father, mother, always you wrestle inside me,” and I suppose the parents are meant to represent polar forces in our world. The yin and yang of nature and society. She is ethereal, soft, luminous, smiling, watchful, full of what she calls grace. There’s even a scene of her floating and dancing in mid-air. He is earthy, loving but hard, driven, intellectual, stern, and sometimes explosive like the volcano we see in the early days of creation. Walking on the grass and teaching his son to tend the garden and lawn, he connects himself to the earth and savors his time treading on land, even though he works in aviation and aspires to soar to the heavens like Daedalus. He demands respect and wants his sons to love him. But for him respect is more important than love. He also wants his sons to be strong and hard, prepared for the real world, and in one scene encourages them to punch him in the face. They merely stand and stare.  

There is no easy-to-comprehend message in this film, which is both frustrating and fascinating. You have to work pretty hard at figuring things out. And even after thinking about it for a while, the answers will probably still be out of reach. But this is typical of Malick’s films. He’s a skeptic who is not really sure about answers to life’s big questions, so he is certainly not going to simplify things for his audience.

The ending feels incomplete and in many ways it is dissatisfying, but I suppose that’s part of the point. We only get a series of snapshots from this family and we are left to fill in the blanks on our own. We can’t and won’t ever have all the answers to everything. We can’t know all of the beginning and the end.

Here's the official trailer from Youtube:

Here are several other takes on the film, both positive and negative and in between:

Wesley Morris's slightly negative review from the Boston Globe.

Bob Mondello's review from NPR.

Kenneth Turan's negative review from The LA Times.

A.O. Scott's positive review from The New York Times.

Anthony Lane's positive review from The New Yorker.

Todd McCarthy's review from The Hollywood Reporter.

Roger Ebert's review from The Chicago Sun-Times.