'Black Swan': My interviews with Aronofsky, Cassel and Kunis...

Hooray! The brilliant 'Black Swan' is out today in the UK. It was my favourite film of last year after I saw it at the Venice Film Festival and a few months later I was sent to a fancy London hotel for a press junket where I interviewed the director, Darren Aronofsky, as well as two of his stars: Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis. My review of this masterpiece is up on Obsessed with Film along with those three interviews. Here are the links below:

'Black Swan' review
Darren Aronofsky
Vincent Cassel
Mila Kunis

The film is destined to be nominated for a shed load of Oscars and I fancy Natalie Portman to win Best Actress - something I predicted as soon as I left the première screening on the Lido in September. I noted down all my Oscar predictions earlier in the week.

'Black Swan' is out now and playing at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse. It has been rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Blue Valentine' review:

Stills and posters don't do 'Blue Valentine' justice. It looks too smug and indie, even a little high on itself with its brooding, handsome leads locked in a po-faced embrace. It seems self-consciously "cool" and "stylish", flaunting various garlands on the poster stating that it played in Cannes as well as the hippest international film festivals: Toronto and Sundance. It comes from the shamelessly Oscar-nomination-savvy Weinstein Company and the knowingly trendy soundtrack is composed by indie darlings Grizzly Bear. It was also subject of a high-profile age rating controversy in the US which was over almost as soon as it began, leading the more cynical to speculate that the whole thing might have been a publicity stunt to raise the film's profile (certainly nothing in the film warrants the original 'NC-17' rating from the MPAA). Worse still, I've heard people say things like "it's this year's '(500) Days of Summer'" - which is the worst thing anyone could ever tell me about a movie (except maybe "it's like a Michael Bay directed episode of '24'").

Forget all that though. 'Blue Valentine' is sensational and the performances of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling searing. It is an emotionally raw, sexually frank and honest movie about relationships, with rounded, multifaceted adult characters and a nonjudgmental attitude. There is something in this movie for anyone who has ever been through romance. But it doesn't stop there. A lady sitting next to me wept during one scene in which Gosling's character, who works as a removal man, helps a lonely old person move into a nursing home by organising the frail gent's photos and war memorabilia around the small, impersonal room. In another scene Michelle Williams' character talks to her ailing grandmother about the decline of her parents' marriage. Another harrowing scene sees her confront the physical process of having an abortion. It's a film that will resonate strongly with people who've been through any of these experiences - not just a painful break-up.



It's not all doom and gloom however. The shade wouldn't have any impact if not for the bright light that shines on half the movie, which flicks back and forth between the happy beginning of the relationship and the fraught end of the couple's married life - prompting those unfair comparisons with the superficial, winking atrocity that is '(500) Days of Summer'. This narrative structure isn't employed for its kookiness however, as the film plays these moments against each other for contrast and often for a change of pace and emotional gear. The salad days of the relationship are probably harder for the film to get right than the sadder stuff. It's relatively easy to do bleak and receive acclaim, whilst genuine romantic warmth is hard to convey and all too often it can read as cheesy, grating and cloying. But when Gosling flirts with Williams, when he sings to her and plays the ukulele, it is properly lovely and wholly sincere.

Director and writer Derek Cianfrance strikes this balance so wonderfully that 'Blue Valentine' avoids becoming a blandly anti-romantic "isn't love bullshit" movie and is instead something much more complex and truthful. "Honest" is perhaps the best adjective to describe the film, in its depiction of sexuality and love. And as with the very best films, in 'Blue Valentine' it is always possible to take any character's point of view and empathise with it. There isn't really too much moral grandstanding here. Nobody is ever obviously in the wrong. Yet at the same time you can understand why they might appear to be in the wrong to the other party. I'd also wager that anyone who watches it will encounter a situation or even an entire conversation that has literally happened to them at some point - for me it was the argument during which Gosling attacks the notion of "potential" (as invariably measured by economic success).



If I had one mild criticism it would be that male sexual gratification is never shown positively and the only scene we see of intimacy between Williams and Gosling is one of cunnilingus. Male sexual pleasure is aggressive and potentially destructive - something to be either put up with or resisted by women. This is only a mild criticism though and I certainly wouldn't advocate an additional love-making scene specifically to tick some sort of affirmative box. What we do see is well handled: tastefully filmed and extremely intimate, and always in service of the characters and their emotional journey (what a turgid, overworn phrase, but I can't think of a better one). It would also be hypocritical of me (given my attack on the Apatow comedies) not to mention that Gosling's character is the typical modern movie male (an overgrown man-child) who just wants to drink and have fun, whereas Williams is the stern, career-minded one who lays down the law with their daughter. But here it is done so well that it rings true and doesn't feel like standard 21st century Hollywood sexism that it perhaps is.

'Blue Valentine' isn't that sad little emo poem of a movie you might think it is from the poster. It's a riveting film that says as much about love and romantic relationships as any other film I've seen as it bravely and skilfully jumps between emotional extremes with great economy and even subtlety. If it doesn't resonate with you on some level then I can only surmise that you haven't ever left the house. It's one of those movies that makes two hours feel like twenty minutes and leaves you feeling satisfied by the art form you love so much, despite the fact it so often breaks your fragile little heart.

'Blue Valentine' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out now in the UK.

'The Green Hornet' review:

Masked-vigilante movie 'The Green Hornet' has taken a mighty walloping from film critics since its release on Friday. The action-comedy, which stars Seth Rogen and is directed by Michel Gondry, had a troubled production history which saw the original director and co-star Stephen Chow leave the project citing "creative differences". Added to that has been the lukewarm to negative reaction given to the choice of casting comedy actor Rogen in the lead role as Britt Reid (AKA The Green Hornet), as well as the generally unenthusiastic response to the first trailer released last summer. You could be forgiven for not having heard of it too, with minimal publicity being afforded the film (I haven't seen a single TV ad or billboard) by Columbia Pictures, who are seemingly keen to cut their losses and move on - a sign that nobody had much confidence in this movie to begin with. Slap on the much-maligned retrofitted 3D and this movie practically has "avoid" written in big letters all over it.

With crushingly low expectations I went to see it on the opening day last week, mainly because I've admired all of Michel Gondry's previous films. Aside from 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' none are perfect, but all of his films are rough gems, with lots of interesting in-camera trickery and generally fairly interesting themes. His first two films were written by Charlie Kaufman, but even his subsequent works ('The Science of Sleep' and 'Be Kind Rewind') had a Kaufman-esque high-concept and a lovable off-beat sensibility. This spirit and his directorial ingenuity even carried through into his recently released lo-fi and very personal documentary 'The Thorn in the Heart'. Even so, I expected an absolute train wreck of a film in 'The Green Hornet'. I certainly didn't expect to see something so utterly entertaining.



Any misgivings I had about 'The Green Hornet' disappeared during the opening scene, in which crime boss Benjamin Chudnofsky - played by Christoph Waltz who won an Oscar last year for his role in Tarantino's 'Inglourious Basterds' - confronts a flashy, young mobster played by the excellent James Franco (in an uncredited cameo) who has made the mistake of setting up on his turf. The dialogue in this opening exchange is hilarious and both actors are fantastic to watch. Franco is sleazy and cocky, whilst Waltz seems insecure and looks genuinely hurt by accusations that he doesn't know how to dress stylishly (a barb that will become a preoccupation for the remainder of the film). The German actor underplays his role and makes it funnier, but also adds some depth to his character. Chudnofsky isn't a typical mad villain who bumps off his own henchmen (although he is that too), he is also amidst a serious mid-life crisis and is quite pathetic, something Waltz does rather well.

Rogen plays an equally unconventional hero: a spoilt, selfish, arrogant son of a millionaire who does nothing but party. We've seen that before in Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark or even in Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, but Rogen's hero isn't charming and erudite - he is an obnoxious oaf and by and large stays that way right the way through the film. Rogen's delivery - of dialogue he penned with writing partner Evan Goldberg - is superb too, in all its underplayed, mock-macho brainlessness. The relationship between Rogen and Jay Chou, who plays his sidekick Kato, is the centre of the movie and fun to watch. The film also boasts quite an impressive supporting cast. Aside from Franco's aforementioned cameo, there are also roles for Tom Wilkinson as Rogen's father, Edward Furlong as a guy who runs a meth lab and Edward James Olmos as a newspaper man, as well as Cameron Diaz as a brainy criminologist who (for some unexplained reason) takes a temp job as Reid's secretary.



Michel Gondry has done well to put his stamp on the troubled project too. The colourful and exaggerated world his characters inhabit could hover uneasily somewhere somewhere between 'Mystery Men' and 'The Fifth Element', yet it is tonally consistent and very broad without ever jumping the shark. The director's stylised approach as ever includes sequences of animation and eye-catching, innovative in-camera set pieces which show off his preference for practical visual effects. One single-take tracking shot uses several different actors as Kato in silhouette in order to imply his great speed and agility, whilst another shot slowly pans 360 degrees around a garage full of expensive cars as Rogen, in fastforward, enters each of them with a lady he has met at a party. Great time and care seems to have been taken over the films 3D conversion too, and the result is an effect which is far better than that seen in 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'Clash of the Titans'.

As funny and winsome as I found much of 'The Green Hornet', Rogen is clearly from the Apatow stable. This manifests itself not only in the type of comedy on offer (a lot of which wouldn't be out of place in a film like 'Pineapple Express'), but perhaps most tellingly in the treatment of Cameron Diaz's love interest character. Rogen and Goldberg just don't know what to do with her and she isn't in very much of the film. The sexism of Apatow films like 'Knocked Up' (itself a Rogen vehicle) is in some ways evident here, with men again cast as lovable man-children and women as joyless shrews, patronised as "mature" or "smart" in order to get away with it. Instead the emphasis is as always on "bromance", here between Rogen and Chou. Likewise, Reid's absent (apparently long-dead) mother casts no shadow over the film or her son's character, though the death of his father is a catalyst for the film's action and Reid's transformation into a superhero. That said, there is a reason for Rogen's continued errant man-child persona: it is funny.



For a film that is so resolutely playing the superhero movie for comedy, 'The Green Hornet' is surprisingly full of exciting action. Jay Chou's martial arts work - filmed by Gondry in an interesting video game style which recalls 'Oldboy' - is fantastic, but the really brilliant thing from an action perspective is the "Black Beauty", a modified car which serves as Britt Reid's equivalent of the Batmobile. It's got so many gadgets, missiles and guns on it that, basically, if you were ten years old again you'd want a toy of it for Christmas.

There is something to be said for entering a film with diminished expectations. Maybe I wouldn't have been so positive about 'The Green Hornet' had I seen it prior to all the negativity. But even then I can't imagine slating it. It was funny, with some interesting visuals and solidly entertaining action. It has Christoph Waltz in it. I didn't even mind the 3D. I can't see it being too many people's "film of the year", but all the same: if this ends up in a few "worst of 2011" lists we'll have had an ok year at the movies.

'The Green Hornet' is out now in the UK and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'The Thorn in the Heart' review:

If there is one word that sums up the feature film work of Michel Gondry it is probably nostalgia. His next film is 'The Green Hornet', a modern take on a character which made his debut on the radio in the 1930s and who was made most famous by his 1960s TV incarnation (which co-starred Bruce Lee). His last film 'Be Kind Rewind' was equally backward looking, taking its inspiration from VHS cassettes and cinema of the 1980s - with Gondry recreating lo-fi versions of such films as 'Ghostbusters' and 'Driving Miss Daisy'. The Frenchman also directed 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' which looked at the importance of memories and 'The Science of Sleep' which looked at the significance of dreams (through the eyes of a childish nostalgic played by Gael Garcia Bernal), whilst his first film 'Human Nature' was in some respects the ultimate look back as it followed Rhys Ifans as a primitive man raised by apes.

It is entirely fitting then that Gondry has chosen to shoot a documentary about his elderly aunt Suzette, a former school teacher. The film looks back at her life, and in the process that of Gondry's own parents and childhood, by way of a great deal of Super 8 film footage (the ultimate resource of the nostalgic?) as well as some very intimate interviews. The interviews are warm and Gondry comes across as thoughtful and kind-natured whilst managing to coax some quite poignant, heartfelt reminiscences - which mostly relate to the turbulent relationship between Suzette and her son Jean-Yves. It is from these interactions that the film's title is taken as Suzette describes her son as the thorn in her heart. Yet as you might expect from a Michel Gondry film, there is also a great deal of good humour and a sense of fun over a lot of the documentary.



In his typically inventive and inspired lo-fi style, Gondry uses animation to bring some of his aunt's recollections to life. In one playful scene, which had me in stitches, Gondry re-enacts a moment that his cameras have missed staging an incident in which Jean-Yves became "trapped" in a bathroom after a small clothes horse fell against the door. Opening the door ajar, Gondry has a member of his crew replicate how Jean-Yves poked his head through the gap and whined for his elderly mother to move the small laundry-drying apparatus blocking his path. In another innovative and charming sequence, Gondry makes a class of school children run around wearing green screen cloaks which he uses to make them appear invisible. As they charge around the playground with only their heads and feet visible, there is a great feeling of experimentation and spontaneity as the director looks to excite the children about the possibilities of his medium.

But the best "stunt" of his in this low-key film happens when Suzette takes him to the site of a demolished school where only an old projection box remains standing. Gondry and his crew decide to turn the space into a cinema once again and fashion a screen out of a timber frame and some bed sheets before taking an old projector into the old projection box and screening an old film for Suzette and some of her former students, now themselves middle-aged. It is a joyful and moving moment in a film full of such moments.



The film's crowning achievement is that whilst Gondry is always on friendly terms with his subjects (whom he clearly loves dearly) he does manage to get a lot of truth out of the exercise. His aunt is depicted with great admiration and respect, yet Gondry also manages to convey how she has perhaps neglected her son - possibly on account of his homosexuality - in favour of attending to the generations of school children who came through her classroom, all of whom seem to look on her more fondly than Jean-Yves. The relationship between Jean-Yves and his deceased father is similarly troubling. Yet this is counterbalanced by more jovial scenes, such as the opening in which Suzette tells stories about her husband over a big family dinner, during which she is incapacitated by laughter.

The family as depicted by Gondry is complex: equal parts beautiful and damaged. This balance is something which Gondry seems to portray so effortlessly without it ever feeling like he is manipulating his audience or his subjects. The film may even seem to suffer from the fact that it is so relaxed and slight - it could almost look like Gondry hasn't done anything at all. Though I think 'The Thorn in the Heart' is a really wonderful and personal piece of filmmaking from a director consistently so adept at looking backwards without compromising either his judgement or his artistry.

'The Thorn in the Heart' is rated 'PG' by the BBFC.

'127 Hours' review:

In theory Danny Boyle might just be the perfect choice of director to make a mainstream film about the graphic, but nevertheless quite boring, story of Aron Ralston - a climber who got trapped in a rocky crevice in an isolated part of Utah in 2003 and only escaped by severing his right arm below the elbow. I say boring because although Ralston had to hack through his own flesh and bone with a blunt knife before he was free, he spent five days prior to that sitting in the dark, talking to his video camera and drinking his own urine. However, in Boyle's hands you know that the story will be punctuated by his trademark blend of hyperactive editing and energetic music, with even the smallest moments - such as taking a sip of water - afforded flashy, hi-octane treatment with bravura use of camera.

This ceaseless, self-consciously hip treatment is exactly what the Academy Award winning director of 'Slumdog Millionaire' has brought to the table in his film '127 Hours', which stars James Franco as Ralston and is co-written with regular partner Simon Beaufoy. It begins with a fast-paced, split screen montage of archive footage showing people in big social groups (on the stock market floor; or at a sporting event) making elaborate use of their arms. Boyle, never one for subtlety, is ramming home the point that we use our arms a lot in communication with others. By going it alone and neglecting his friends and family (he doesn't return their calls or tell them where he is canyoneering) Ralston will loose one of these important social instruments, though ironically he will emerge a better, more socially minded individual as a result. Ralston might spend most of the film trapped in one tight space, but he does at least venture on an emotional journey. As every poster for the film tells us, this a "triumphant true story": something intended to be every bit as "feelgood" and "heartwarming" as 'Slumdog'. It's a motivational tale about survival and how we, like Ralston, can turn great adversity into a positive life-changing experience.



That is the theory anyway. Instead, for me at least, Boyle's heavy-handed and fidgety style of storytelling detracts from the humanity of the piece, as he shifts uneasily from crisp digital landscape photography, to grainy handheld shots, to cameras showing the POV of a hand or the inside of a drinking straw. Sometimes it's lo-fi and gritty and sometimes it feels like an expensive Michael Bay directed music video. It is the same restlessness and tacky excess that characterises the director's entire filmography, though with it's hallucinations and dream sequences, '127 Hours' also features the surreal touches and moments of genuine invention as seen in his best work: 'Shallow Grave' and 'Trainspotting' (and for me 'A Life Less Ordinary'). Yet these flourishes now feel overwrought and verge on self-parody. It also doesn't help that the self-indulgent form and fast-cutting of Boyle's film is consistently set to the most horrible of musical selections.

The cumulative effect of the distracting editing and the over-the-top soundtrack is that the film's most pivotal, climactic and talked about sequence - that of the amputation - is almost funny rather than horrific. I'm quite squeamish and I can't watch so-called "torture porn" films, so I was expecting to have to resist the urge to cover my eyes during the final moments only to be underwhelmed. It's no fault of the special effects and make-up department. The wound looks real (at least to someone like me lacking any frame of reference) but it is badly filmed. Perhaps the moment wasn't supported by the obvious and cheesy writing that preceded it, which had already dented my enthusiasm for the movie by that point. "You're going to be lonely" a former girlfriend flat-out tells the climber in a flashback (no need to think about what you're seeing for yourself). In another scene the same love interest lays a hand on Franco's chest and asks all-too earnestly "how do I get in here? What is the combination?" "If I told you I'd have to kill you" he replies predictably. Through those scenes I was left saying under my breath "go on: lop off the arm already and end this film."



'127 Hours' is at its most watchable and alive when Franco "does a Gollum" and videos himself playing both sides of a question and answer session. James Franco is a good choice to play this role and is rapidly establishing himself as one of the more courageous and interesting male leads around. He just about holds your attention during most of this one-man show with a performance that combines playful humour with despair and anguish. He is also a convincing physical performer as he scales the canyons before he is involuntarily indisposed. It is to the film's detriment that Boyle's busy audio-visual style prevents any moments of sincere and quiet introspection for Franco's character.

It is at least refreshing to see that Franco's Ralston doesn't start off the film with any sort of major personality defect - unless you take ignoring one answer phone message (left as he's preparing to leave the house) as shorthand that he's not nice enough to his dear old mum. He seems a likable if slightly cocky guy, described by two girls he meets before the accident as "fun". And he is fun: showing the lost pair which way to go and taking them to a a beautiful subterranean swimming pool where they all lark about for a bit. He is charismatic and he seems driven by a love of the outdoors rather than a selfish (and self-destructive) desire to be left alone. The character change he undergoes is more the organic and relatable response to a near death experience (to cherish your loved ones and take nothing for granted) than the contrivance of the needs of film structure as explained so well by Brian Cox in 'Adaptation'.



I will say that Ralston's real-life experience is genuinely incredible. No matter what was at stake, I'm not sure I could saw though my arm without anesthetic and with only a crummy little penknife and a makeshift tourniquet at my disposal. It is a testament to the guy that he managed to do that rather than passing out and dying of dehydration alone in that deserted rock face. It was never something I needed to see on film however and Boyle's loud, chaotic telling of it has failed to convince me otherwise. Maybe a smaller, more intimate and disciplined film would have worked better for me, though I can see that many will find Boyle's more excitable approach compliments its thrill-seeking central character.

One small caveat to end this review would be that in a fairly empty screening there were two or three people who applauded as the credits rolled. I also saw that many people were more effected by the amputation scene than I was, covering their eyes and so on. I haven't enjoyed any of Danny Boyle's films of the last ten years either. So if you found 'Slumdog Millionaire' to be as brilliant as many film critics (and indeed the Oscar voters) did, then maybe there is something for you in '127 Hours'. There just wasn't anything in it for me besides a winning central performance and a couple of breathtaking shots of the Utah landscape.

'127 Hours' is out now in the UK and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'On Tour' review:

There are no less than two movies about burlesque entertainers doing the rounds in UK cinemas at the time of writing. The more heavily promoted and starrier of the two is 'Burlesque' which features Cher and Christina Aguilera in what looks like a brassy and tongue-in-cheek hybrid of Bob Fosse with 'Moulin Rouge' via 'Coyote Ugly'. The other is the self-consciously high-brow 'On Tour' (or 'Tournée') which snared its director and star Mathieu Amalric the best director prize at the most recent Cannes Film Festival. It is unquestionably the more authentic film, with its cast comprised of a real-life troupe of American burlesque performers who play themselves and perform to real audiences as they tour the coast of France with their fictional manager (a former French TV producer played by Amalric).

The scenes of performance are the film's strongest. There is an energy behind them and the women stage routines of real wit, the highlights being a routine which sees a dancer pantomime with a disembodied hand and another which sees a lady inflate and then climb inside a huge balloon. Whereas 'Burlesque' looks to define the form as "pop songs performed in lingerie" (up market stripping for the "Dirty" generation), the burlesque of 'On Tour' is every bit as knowingly parodic and grotesque as it ought to be. And whilst Aguilera and Cher are more traditional examples of female beauty (the latter arguably now defined by her eternal quest for physical perfection), the ladies of 'On Tour' are proper burlesque performers: brazen, unapologetic and unconventional as they confidently work against the idea of what the mainstream considers femininity.



The women tell a journalist that they are practitioners of the "New Burlesque" with the dances choreographed by the women themselves and not tailored specifically to titillate men. It is telling that Amalric has the most typically attractive woman picked out to do a television show despite the fact that she is regarded by the rest of the troupe as the least spectacular (or even competent) performer. The real burlesque, he is telling us, isn't shown in the mainstream media. It's curvier, racier and more vivacious than all that. The ladies are highly likable too. Especially Mimi Le Meaux (real name Miranda Colclasure) who seems vulnerable and a little sad beneath her vibrant and confident stage persona. When Amalric's producer has her remove her false eyelashes and make-up, all light and colour seems to leave her entirely.

Colclasure is the heart of the film and the most interesting character. It is a shame then that the film centres on Amalric's character and not the world of burlesque for most of its running time. Amalric is a really interesting actor and a charismatic presence, but the energy of the live performances, and the high spirited fun that characterises every scene involving the performers off-stage, gives way to a more introspective and melancholic atmosphere whenever we follow his character, as he attempts to reconcile with his two young sons. There is little to fault these scenes, which rival anything in 'The Father of My Children' in terms of pathos, other than the fact that you feel they are getting in the way of the fun and slightly tacky film you wanted to watch.



It is ultimately the tale of an isolated tour manager: a person who is surrounded by sex and drinking and laughter but is not involved in any of it. He constantly, somewhat desperately, insists that he is closest to these girls and that they are his real family, though this sentiment is not really convincingly reciprocated by the women themselves who seem to resent him entirely, bemoaning their poorly run tour which does not even include a gig in Paris.

Like 'Up in the Air', 'On Tour' is a film about a man on the road running away from making meaningful connections, and if approached on those terms it is successful and even insightful filmmaking. When the film ends, with a solitary Amalric miming an energetic howl to a soaring rock and roll number, there is no question that it is ironic. The problem with 'On Tour' is that Amalric intermittently opens a window onto something more fascinating and exciting than all that, yet never long enough for us to get a proper look, making it feel like a missed opportunity.

'On Tour' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out now on a limited release.

'The Way Back' review:

'The Way Back', director Peter Weir's first feature since 2003's naval epic 'Master and Commander', is inspired by disputed memoir The Long Walk which recounts the dangerous journey of a Polish man who escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1940 and walked all the way to India, across the Gobi Desert and over the Himalayas. Weir dedicates the film to three unknown men who are supposed to have survived the ordeal, but says that his film - which he co-wrote - is fictionalised. In Weir's version Jim Sturgess stars as Janusz a young Polish inmate imprisoned by the Soviets after being labelled an anti-communist agent thanks to the testimony of his tortured wife. Once in the bleak and perilously cold surroundings of Northern Siberia he is pressed into harsh manual labour alongside undesirables from all over Eastern Europe as well as an enigmatic American known only as "Mr. Smith" (played by Ed Harris).

Realising that he and his fellow inmates won't survive long working in such conditions, Janusz decides to escape during a blizzard, taking with him a number of his friends along with Smith and one of the prison's most violent criminals Valka (Colin Farrell). Not long into the journey the men encounter Irena, a Polish orphan girl who is herself on the run and who is played by the rising star of 'Atonement' and 'The Lovely Bones' Saoirse Ronan. Amidst the walking we hear the sad tales of how each of these people came to end up in this situation. After the films pre-credits dedication to three survivors, you are immediately aware that many of the party will die in the course of the 4,000 mile walk, most likely as victims of the extremes of temperature and lack of provisions. The central question is "who will make it?"



Weir's ponderous, boring trudge of a film has the misfortune of coming out whilst two far superior works with similar subject matter linger in my recent memory. In Venice I saw Wang Bing's 'The Ditch' which depicted the bleak existence of ideological prisoners held in a work camp in Maoist China. Like much of 'The Way Back', 'The Ditch' is also set in the Gobi Desert but it feels far more real in its depiction of human beings rather than broad national caricatures (there is little to separate Farrell's Russian accent and broken English from that of a certain car insurance hawking meerkat) and with the reality of starvation and the desolation of the landscape much more visceral.

'The Way Back' is by contrast a sanitised account in which starving, thirsty people who have walked for several weeks in horrible cold and extreme heat show very little physical evidence of their ordeal beside chapped lips and dirty clothes. When people drop dead it is only foreshadowed by their character suddenly wearing a pained expression and talking in a softer voice. Furthermore, 'The Ditch' - though uneventful and slow moving - creates a much more coherent sense of the passing of time than Weir's film where we only learn how much time has passed from scene to scene when we are told ("it's been two weeks"). This has the effect of making what should be an epic journey feel at times like it has taken no time at all (paradoxically over an interminable two hour-plus running length).



The other film with which it compares unfavourably is Andrzej Wajda's 2007 film about the Katyn massacre, 'Katyn'. That harrowing Polish drama showed the brutal reality of what lay in store for young Polish servicemen captured by the Soviets during the Second World War. Again, it is a less clean, more emotional picture than anything painted in 'The Way Back'. French film critic Michel Ciment once asked Stanley Kubrick why he didn't consider 'Schindler's List' a great film about the Nazi holocaust, and the director is supposed to have replied that the holocaust was about ten million people being killed whilst Spielberg's film was about a small number of people being saved. That sums up 'The Way Back'.

It is the gulag/Soviet purges equivalent of 'Schindler's List' in that it is ultimately an uplifting human story of survival and not a questioning or difficult film about the complicated, sometimes frightening, reality of the human condition. Again here, the bad things we are all capable of are dismissed as the work of cruel, even evil, individuals - the human experience told with all the moral complexity of a Saturday morning cartoon. Of course, both 'Schindler's List' and 'The Way Back' are based on "true" events, but it is telling which true events filmmakers are drawn to tell stories about and how they choose to tell them.



'The Way Back' is blandly made and generic fare, with cliché-ridden dialogue and insincere performances worthy of an ITV melodrama. People say all the things you'd expect them to say in such a story and little else, spouting hackneyed phrases like "go on without me" and "what are you going to do when you're free?" There are slow-zooming shots on weeping actors as the film strains for poignancy amidst the hammy accents and romanticised vistas. Mark Strong turns up on Janusz's first day at the camp and gives him the obligatory guided tour. Peel back the pretense of real dialogue and what he tells Janusz boils down to him informing us: "don't trust Colin Farell" and "Ed Harris is a wilfully enigmatic American". The reality of life at the camp is peculiar too, as Janusz and Smith are assigned to work in "the mines" where they do very little but sit around chatting, without the guards seeming at all put out.

'The Way Back', with its simplistic grasp of history, politics and the human condition, is just another uplifting story about the overused buzzwords of "hope" and "freedom" that again fill in for anything genuinely profound or inspirational in the telling of the story or in the filmmaking itself.

'The Way Back' is out in cinemas across the UK now and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Catfish' review:

Chances are if you asked somebody if they'd seen "the film about Facebook" they'd probably think you were referring to David Fincher's 'The Social Network', a film about the site's founder Mark Zuckerberg and the litigation surrounding the origins of his now omnipresent creation. Yet for Fincher's thriller that is perhaps a misleading moniker, with the film actually more of a Shakespearean tragedy about power and betrayal. Really the film about Facebook itself is the documentary 'Catfish', directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman.

'Catfish' follows photographer and brother of one of the film's co-directors, Yaniv "Nev" Schulman, as he receives a painting of one of his photographs done by a talented eight year-old girl named Abby. Nev befriends Abby's mother Angela on Facebook and soon "friends" the entire family on the social networking site. He is particularly taken with Abby's older sister Megan, a model, dancer, photographer and musician, and begins an intimate long-distance relationship with her. However, when Megan sends Nev some of her music he becomes suspicious of the whole family after finding that the clips had been taken off YouTube. Then the documentary turns from taking an innocent look at Nev's relationship with this multi-talented family to trying to uncover the truth behind who these people are.



The reason I suggest 'Catfish' is about Facebook (at least in part) is that, as immediately evident from the Universal logo at the start redone in the style of Google Earth, the film is overtly interested in the mechanics of how we interact online and why. It looks at social isolation and depression as one of the causes of using the web as a tool for escapist fantasy. It looks at the pitfalls of considering the internet as a place to meet people and make real, lasting connections. Also, it showcases the relative ease and sophistication with which people can now fashion convincing, fully realised fiction about themselves - something which 'Catfish' manages to take to its creepy (though not unexpected) conclusion.

The film is not only actually about the phenomenon of social networking and online dating, but it is also interestingly told using the websites themselves. We witness Facebook correspondence, are introduced to people via their "tagged" Facebook photos, whilst Google Earth and Street View are used extensively to establish locations. As the investigation into the truth behind Megan and her family gathers steam, we watch the filmmakers using search engines to research the family, at one point surfing real estate websites in the family's area to verify elements of their story. As much as this is Nev's story, it is also the story of what the internet has become in our lifetime: with the original novelty value of online shopping and news now just a matter-of-fact part of our existence (do-able even on most mobile phones) the internet is morphing into something more voyeuristic and even Orwellian.



Part of the joy of 'Catfish' is the uncertainty surrounding the "truth", so I won't write too much more about it here. Except to say that it is a highly compelling, dramatic and at times sinister film with as many laughs as awkward moments. Some have questioned its authenticity as a documentary, though I was pretty convinced by it. But even if it emerges that it was faked to some degree, I think there is still truth in it as a story that is probably playing out around the world (even if not to this extreme). In the end the film felt a bit like a Louis Theroux film about strange people. Though whereas Theroux is a little insincere and smirky with his subjects, the filmmakers here are actually refreshingly sensitive to the situation as the quest comes to a head. Whatever confrontations occur in the end are reasonable and handled sympathetically. This is where the film is at its best, as it packs a surprisingly emotional punch and tells an ultimately quite tragic story when it could have simply mined the situation for laughs and freakdom.

I never thought 'The Social Network' was the "film about Facebook" its detractors (or quite often those who didn't take time to watch it) tried to paint it as. But now that a film about Facebook is here, and is also very good, that line of argument seems all the more redundant.

'Catfish' has been rated '12A' by the BBFC and can be found playing in select cinemas across the UK. The film is also due out on DVD from January 10th.

Merry Christmas readers!

It's Christmas Day today, so hope you're having a good one. I thought I'd just say "merry Christmas" to you all to thank those of you who've supported this blog over the last year, through feedback or just from reading my musings on the last year of cinema.

I've had a decent day, made even better by my having received a pile of blu-rays and DVDs of films from the "top 30" list I published earlier in the week. They include Romanian drama 'The Happiest Girl in the World', Herzog's 'Bad Lieutenant', 'Greenberg', 'The Father of My Children', 'Life During Wartime', 'Mother' and 'Dogtooth'. I'm looking forward to re-watching all of those soon and settling down to reappraise 'Toy Story 3' with my girlfriend and her family.

If you missed it, here are links to my list of my personal top 30 films of 2010:
30-21
20-11
10-1

Also, in the Christmas spirit, I reviewed the latest Narnia film yesterday.

I hope you enjoy all that and the rest of your holiday!

'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' review:

Colour me ungrateful, but as much as I am happy to enjoy the capitalist gift-giving rituals of Christmas time I am actually not too keen on celebrating the birth of magical Mr. Christ. So for me the forgettable 'Chronicles of Narnia' film series, based on a set of twee, allegory-heavy children's novels by C.S Lewis, are about as much fun as an afternoon spent in a hot classroom being talked at by an especially pious R.E teacher determined to sex-up the bible for impressionable youngsters.

In these fantasy adventure films, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', 'Prince Caspian' and now 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', Liam Neeson voices everyone's favourite Jesus-Lion hybrid Aslan and teaches us about the great virtue found in unquestioning, zealous belief and the sanctity of birth-right. (The messiah parallel is less subtle than ever in 'Dawn Treader' as Aslan tells the children at one point, "In your world I have a different name." Wink wink, viewer: can you guess what it is yet?) The first two films starred four, plumy future David Camerons, though that number has been halved for this new adventure as only Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) return from the original group - as they still have moral lessons to learn from an animal that should, by rights, be eating their gormless faces off. However they are joined by a new young companion in the form of their cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) who is somehow three times as posh and about a billion times more irritating than his relatives.



Eustace (we are told but never shown) is obsessed with all things "logical" and with "facts" gleaned from books, which causes him to reject fantasy and belittle his cousins' fondness for the lovely and perpetually war torn land of Narnia. He represents the evils of science and is Lewis' attempt to win his ongoing theological arguments by ridiculing his opposition. You see, Eustace is never actually logical or intelligent. He's instead a whiny, cowardly imbecile who questions Narnia even when it is right in front of his nose. The whole concept doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny: in a world where Narnia is real the logical, even scientific, position would be to accept that. Lewis has turned the tables and is charging that the rational are in fact the irrational. Surely Eustace is a more accurate analogue for religious faith than his cousins? What's more, how is Aslan able to test the faith of Lucy and company, when he is so omnipotent: benevolently powerful at every turn? This film isn't an advert for "faith" but for "accepting that stuff you've just seen is in fact real".

The film's (or the book's) philosophy on things is at best confused and at worst the exact opposite of the teachings of Christ. For instance, when Eustace falls over Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) quips to Lucy and Edmund: "And you're certain he's related by blood?" Jesus - so we're told by The Bible - used to hang out with the lowest in society and had little time for the rich and powerful. However the Narnia films are quite openly pro-monarchy tales in which the worth of our heroes is assumed to be related to their bloodline as "sons of Adam" and "daughters of Eve". In this sequel its Edmund's turn to repeatedly recite his older brother's self-important catchphrase "but I'm a king!" at every turn. The children, with the possible exception of amiable young Lucy, are complete assholes from beginning to end in every film. We are told they've grown somehow, but there is precious little evidence that the spoilt, bickering twits have learned anything.



Also, wouldn't Jesus normally advocate a "turn the other cheek" policy when it comes to violence? Apparently not in the Narnia films where everything is ultimately resolved with the clanking of swords and the firing of arrows (well, at least before they inevitably summon Jesus as if he's the ultimate form of the Power Ranger Megazord). The film's moral messages are a bit messed up too, as warmongering, anthropomorphised mouse Reepicheep is constantly urging ten year-old Eustace on towards battle and a valiant death telling him to "never turn away from adventure". He could do with reading Dulce et Decorum est or sitting down and watching a thoughtful John Pilger documentary so he can stop being so bloody keen on homicidal acts of violence.

There is an old fashioned mentality that you find in these stories, perhaps not surprising given that they were written in the 1950s. Girlish Lucy spends 'Dawn Treader' wanting to be prettier so she can attract boys, whilst Edmund wants to prove that he's a manly man with a big sword. Perhaps the increasingly tepid response to these film adaptations from audiences is in part down to their lacking any relevance to twenty-first century children? Walden Media certainly won't make their intended fourth installment following 'Dawn Treader' failing to meet even the meagre expectations of 20th Century Fox (who saved the series after Disney canned it in 2008).



But even if you are one of the 468,916 people that "like" God on Facebook (correct at the time of writing) and worship the Narnia stories, 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is a tedious telling of this story. Andrew Adamson made a handsome job of the first two entries, with 'Prince Caspian' quite a polished and surprisingly scary film in places (such as when snarling occultists try to lure Caspian into reviving Tilda Swinton's White Witch). It was also action-packed, with Adamson writing in new battle scenes not present in the ponderous source text. They were also shot on location in New Zealand and around Europe, giving them an epic grandeur. However, Michael Apted has stepped in for the third film and made something much blander. He isn't aided by the fact that a lot of this story takes place at sea and not amidst sweeping vistas, but even when action does take place on terra firma, many of the locations are much more obviously the result of CGI than in the other two films. The result is that even though the set pieces are on a grander scale - with a dragon battling a huge sea serpent around an elaborate galleon on a tempestuous sea at the film's finale - they actually feel smaller and less tangible.

The film's pacing is also amiss, as the characters are each presented with moral trials which are overcome far too quickly and easily, the film just jumping from event to event without conveying any feeling of significance or genuine peril along the way. It also suffers from Apted's decision to replace Eddie Izzard with Simon Pegg as the voice Reepicheep. Izzard brought a debonair, swashbuckling charm to the character in 'Prince Caspian', whereas Pegg's voice work is less sincere and fun. My girlfriend's description of the change was that "because you have the other voice in your head, it just feels like he has a cold or something." That about sums it up. Caspian's voice has also changed, with Barnes presumably told to drop the faux Italian accent his people had in the last film, but whilst this might be sensible in some respects, it does break the films' internal continuity and he returns as an unfamiliar character.



Narnia, as a concept and as a literary world, clearly isn't a place I want to take my imagination. But even with that in mind, it is difficult to see that fans of this series will be too upset when an adaptation of the next book, 'The Silver Chair', is not forthcoming. In truth it's a series that wanted to be a high-profile, fantasy spectacle in the mould of 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Harry Potter' but has ended up feeling more like 'The Golden Compass'. Unlike Potter or Rings, the Narnia films have only a very loose overarching continuity and, with the series' most enduring story ('The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe') over and done with straight away, it seems people weren't really moved to come back for seconds, let alone thirds. Or maybe those people have started going to church for their sermons and not the multiplex? Just a thought.

'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is rated 'PG' by the BBFC and is out on general release.

My Top 30 Films of 2010: 10-1

The earlier parts of this top 30 can be found here:
30-21
20-11

10) Of Gods and Men, dir Xavier Beauvois, FRA

What I said: "Any good film is a film of ideas, even if those ideas are transmitted through seemingly disposable entertainment. But rarely are films so consciously about ideas whilst remaining so unpretentious... 'Of Gods and Men' lives up to its billing as one of the year's strongest films, with its sombre, contemplative mood as captivating as it is a profoundly moving experience."



The most recent entry into my top ten, I saw (and reviewed) 'Of Gods and Men' very recently after it's UK release earlier this month. 'Of Gods and Men' is a sober and thoughtful film based on the true story of a group of French monks who lived in an Algerian monastery until they were apparently beheaded by Islamic militants (though their actual killers are disputed). The film doesn't detail their deaths, but rather spends its time observing the conversations the men have as they ponder whether to stay or leave. It's a film about ideology and the idea of morality. It is also full of beautifully composed images and the use of the monks' Gregorian chanting (actually performed by the terrific ensemble cast) is haunting and powerful.

9) Ovsyanki (Silent Souls), dir Aleksei Fedorchenko, RUS

What I said: "It never out-stays its welcome and always has something new and interesting to show you, in its slow, deliberate and beautifully banal way, sometimes with an odd and unsettling atmosphere. Silent Souls also has plenty to say about culture, tradition, belief and love. Many films today say far less over 3 hours than this film manages in 75 minutes. Which isn’t bad going."



A strange Russian film about ritual and tradition, set in a remote part of the country and following a forgotten people with a distinct set of cultural practices. It's a film of long, still takes in which we are left to observe these curious ceremonies in real-time. One such scene sees a bereaved husband and one of his co-workers cleaning the dead body of his young wife. How the lady died is never mentioned (was she sick? Did she commit suicide? Was she murdered?) with the film just focusing on the final journey of her body as the two men embark on a sort of macabre road movie - and we are invited along on a sort of sedate, malancholic cultural safari. All the while there is the sense that it is about more than the passing of one man's wife, but about the death of an entire culture - which we are almost lead to believe is only being practised by these two stern and quiet men. For such a slow and simple film, 'Ovsyanki' is also full of surprisingly bravura shot choices. For instance, director Aleksei Fedorchenko executes a amazing panning shot which takes us 180 degrees around the inside of a moving car. 'Ovsyanki' was one of the major highlights of this year's Venice Film Festival and a film that I sadly can't see receiving any sort of UK theatrical release.

8) Police, Adjective, Corneliu Porumboiu, ROM

What I said: "[Police, Adjective] quietly paints a picture of urban decay, bureaucracy, and even seems to have fun satirising the conventions of the police procedural genre. There is no action or excitement here: no gun wielding, no interrogations, and [the protagonist] doesn’t even have a partner to accompany him on his long, eventless stake-outs, following a child suspected of a petty crime. There is also a great awareness of the hypocrisy of his task, as he offers one child (an informant) cigarettes and alcohol – arbitrarily deemed socially acceptable drugs... As the title suggests, the film is also concerned with the nature of language, specifically as a route to meaning. The final exchange between [the cop] and his superior is magnificent, ending a mostly silent film with a terrific scene of funny dialogue and top-class acting."



The 'Un Certain Regard' section of the Cannes Film Festival was especially good in 2009. All four of the chosen films found limited releases in the UK this year and all four of those films have been in this top 30 ('The Father of My Children' #22, 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' #14 and 'Dogtooth' #13). But for me the pick of the bunch has to be the Romanian police procedural 'Police, Adjective'. Never has the "procedural" part of that genre been so heavily emphasised - not even in brilliant TV shows like 'The Wire'. In this film there is no action, no major crime bust in operation. There is just one Romanian cop doing seemingly endless paperwork in the pursuit of the most juvenile of offenders at the insistence of his pedantic superiors. Like 'Ovsyanki', this is a patient film of long, slow takes and the most exciting scene is one sustained shot as three men defer to a Romanian dictionary in a discussion of ethics and the social purpose behind policing. Totally absorbing and entirely brilliant, with a wicked, dry sense of humour that seems to characterise the New Romanian cinema.

7) Greenberg, Noah Baumbach, USA

What I said: "The most breathtakingly beautiful moments of the film are those that follow [Greta] Gerwig as she sings along to Paul McCartney’s “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” in her modest studio flat or gets dressed after a one-night stand. When she impulsively asks Greenberg “could you ever love me?” the moment is profoundly moving and totally honest, never becoming saccharin... Greenberg is also impressive in the way that it depicts anxiety, ageing and social awkwardness (by now a sub-genre in itself), in a way which is just as precise and heartfelt as The Squid and the Whale."



Many will just flat-out hate Ben Stiller's title character, a self-obsessed, delusional and whiny loser, but I found 'Greenberg' immensely moving and poignant - never more so than when Rhys Ifans' character (whose music career was curtailed by Greenberg's selfishness) tells his friend that "It’s huge to finally embrace the life you never planned on." 'Greenberg' is a film about damaged people who haven't necessarily gotten what they expected from life. As a screenwriter and director, Noah Baumbach has come to specialise in this sort of sympathetic portrayal of these sorts of fully-developed and deeply flawed characters. Ultimately, I love these kinds of films that are honest about human frailties yet never resign themselves to ever-fashionable apathy or hopelessness.

6) Mother, Joon-ho Bong, ROK

What I said: "The film is suspenseful and tense, but also darkly funny throughout... Joon-ho is supremely skilled at mixing genuine tension with humour in this way. Maybe Sam Raimi and the Coen Brothers strike the same delicate balance when working at the peak of their powers, with these filmmakers able to inject absurd, black comedy into horrific events without detracting from their impact. Like those American directors, Joon-ho is also to make his scenes of graphic violence extremely visceral without verging anywhere near the "torture porn" end of the spectrum."



In retrospect I don't know that I think 'Mother' is as good as his last film 'The Host', but Joon-ho Bong has now established himself as one of the directors to watch in "world cinema". His films are so witty, so packed with satire and so very mad whilst always somehow just clinging to credibility. 'Mother' is a sort of detective thriller, where a lone middle-aged woman embarks on a fight against the odds to prove that her mentally handicapped son is not guilty of the murder he has been imprisoned for. It is at times quite jumpy, but the stand-out aspect of the film is the overriding creepiness Bong creates as we see the disturbingly close relationship between the mother and her son. As well as featuring many of the director's ongoing preoccupations (including the portrayal of South Korea as a seedy and corrupt place with a mobile phone fetish and overzealous media), the film works as a powerful meditation on the idea that a mother's unconditional love can work as a force for evil as much as good.

5) Another Year, Mike Leigh, UK

What I said: "[Another Year] moved me close to tears with Leigh's customary blend of well observed, wonderfully acted human drama. As always, even the smallest roles in Leigh's film feel imbued with real depth."



'Another Year' has a stunning cast, which includes Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville, who bring to life another banal, slice of life story from Mike Leigh - without doubt my favourite living British director. It's a film of wonderfully observed moments and rich, three dimensional characters that resonate with you on a gut level. One of the film's great strengths is that its characters are fully formed people who can be taken in many different ways. I have spoken to several different people about it and hear contrasting reactions to each of the characters. Some see the central couple (Broadbent and Sheen's comfortably middle-class Tom and Gerri) as being judgemental and even hateful, whilst I saw them as being tender and quite accommodating (trying their best to help their friends but finally accepting that there is nothing they can do to help people who aren't open to the idea of happiness). Lesley Manville's overbearing Mary was someone I felt was tragic and very real, whereas I have heard people say that her character is too extreme and too unlikeable.

As with a number of other film's on this list, such as 'Greenberg', 'Life During Wartime' and 'Submarine', enjoyment of it is subject to how much you can tolerate the idea that the life you lead owes a lot to luck and that almost everyone is a fuck up in one way or another. It also depends on how accepting you are of those people when you can see their many, obvious character defects. If you're the sort of person that just wants to slap them or tell them to "get over it", then you'll find this film (and many others on my list) infuriating. However, I found 'Another Year' to be deeply humbling and incredibly sad, with Leigh's bittersweet, gentle brand of humour (which hones in on small character moments and speech patterns) as effecting as ever.

4) 13 Assassins, Takeshi Miike, JAP

What I said: "Miike is less enamoured with the ancient traditions and the bushido warrior code than Kurosawa was. It is true that Seven Samurai does express – through Mifune’s peasant – a critical view of the samurai class, comparing them to bandits (something this film also does in its own way). But the tone and resolution of 13 Assassins, make it quite clear where Miike’s sensibilities lie. At one point, the most typically formally beautiful character – the bad guy and a Lord – comments on the great “elegance in fighting one on one” during a climactic duel. Miike then cuts to the warriors feet, shuffling through the mud. He continually employs touches like this to undermine Japanese traditions of formal beauty and a culture that finds nobility in violent death."



'13 Assassins' is prolific Japanese director Takeshi Miike's insane take on the central idea behind Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai': that one noble, old samurai must protect the weak by forming an elite gang and staging an epic all-or-nothing battle against an overwhelming adversary. There are three major differences though that set this film apart from that old classic. Firstly, it is graphically violent in the extreme. Secondly, the set pieces are much more high-octane, exaggerated and cartoonish (but in a way which thrilled me immensely). And thirdly - and most crucially - this film is far more critical of the samurai class and Japanese tradition than even Kurosawa was. In fact the film could be seen as the sort of direct challenge against the old guard that was typified by the Japanese New Wave of the 70s. This film has no respect for tradition and ceremony - or in the bushido code of the warrior - although it depicts all of that stuff in meticulous detail even as it sneers at it.

There is a lot going on in Miike's playful film (in terms of commentary on class, violence, beauty and on movies themselves), but its single best feature is that it is so very entertaining and inventive from start to finish. As soon as the credits rolled I wanted to see it all over again and I am more excited about re-watching this one than any other film I've seen this year.

3) The Happiest Girl in the World, Radu Jude, ROM

What I said: "[The Happiest Girl in the World] provoked an incredibly visceral response from me whilst I sat watching it. I felt like I wanted to shout at the girl for being so selfish and giving her folks such a hard time. I wanted her dad to be able to get her signature and sell the car before the day’s conclusion. At times I was gripped with suspense uncommon in this sort of quiet, low-key film as I genuinely worried about what decision the girl would make. But the biggest strength of all is that I wasn’t led to feel that way particularly (or at least I don’t feel as though I was, which is just as good). I can just as easily imagine people wanting the girl to keep her car and I can see people thinking badly of her parents for pushing her into selling it for them."



A brilliant little Romanian film about a small town girl who journeys into Bucharest with her parents to collect a brand new car that she has won after entering a competition on a soft drink label. Her pragmatic mother and father, who have lived through the more frugal communist years, want to sell the car and use the money to invest in a business that will see them through retirement. However, the girl just wants to ride around in her car with her friends. It's another excellent piece of slow cinema, with long takes and little action. Most of the film takes place on the set of a soft drink commercial the girl must complete before she can collect her prize. In the advert she must repeatedly say that she is "the happiest and luckiest girl in the world", with increasing irony as she argues with her parents about the prize between takes and becomes quite sulky and miserable. There is a lot of fun to be had from watching the filming of the commercial itself, as the director battles with the girl's incompetence and bad attitude, combined with the pushy, interfering executives of the soft drink company, who keep insisting on changes which slow down the shoot.

There are so many dynamics at work in 'The Happiest Girl in the World', which can be seen as a tale about young Romania versus old Romania, the small town versus big city, communism versus capitalism and also about filmmaking, and this is what makes it is such a rich and enjoyable film.

2) The Social Network, David Fincher, USA

What I said: "I have some sympathy with business writer Andrew Clark at The Guardian when he asks: "does a 26-year-old businessman really deserve to have his name dragged through the mud in a murky mixture of fact and imagination for the general entertainment of the movie-viewing public?" Probably not. But whatever the "truth", and whatever the moral implications of this type of dramatised treatment of very recent history, 'The Social Network' is a quite brilliant piece of entertainment and a wonderful example of American cinema at its very best."



I saw this film twice within twenty-four hours and it was even better a second time, mainly thanks to the joy of listening to Aaron Sorkin's famously quick and clever dialogue. Everyone speaks like they are a genius, which given that most of this film's characters are Harvard students and top lawyers is probably not too much of a stretch. This writing is coupled with Fincher's restrained and tight directing which has the effect of making a film about nerds suing each other feel like an intense thriller. Everyone is superb in it too, from Jesse Eisenberg - as Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook - to Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. My favourite exchange of dialogue is this one:

Lawyer: Mr. Zuckerberg, do I have your full attention?
Mark Zuckerberg: [stares out the window] No.
Lawyer: Do you think I deserve it?
Mark Zuckerberg: [looks at the lawyer] What?
Lawyer: Do you think I deserve your full attention?
Mark Zuckerberg: I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition, and I don't want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no.
Lawyer: Okay - no. You don't think I deserve your attention.
Mark Zuckerberg: I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing.
[pauses]
Mark Zuckerberg: Did I adequately answer your condescending question?

After saying those words there are shots of everyone in the room, including Zuckerberg's own lawyers, looking embarrassed (presumably as much for him in his arrogance as for themselves at being outwitted by him) accompanied by an ominous note on the soundtrack, which itself deserves a mention. Along with Hans Zimmer's resonating tones from 'Inception' and Robbie Robertson's innovative work on 'Shutter Island', the film features one of the year's best scores, written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

'The Social Network' is not that "film about Facebook" everyone wrote off a year or so ago. It's a powerful document of the world we live in (where huge wealth and power rests in the hands of the likes of Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs), yet also a timeless Shakespearean tale of friendships broken by betrayal and ambition, where the protagonist - in trying to become so popular - in fact becomes even more lonely: ironically a symptom of the kind of social isolation brought about by the same Facebook Zuckerberg helped to invent.

1) Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, USA

What I said: "Aronofsky said, at the post-film press conference, that he always likened Black Swan to The Wrestler in his own mind... But that he felt it properly combined his earlier, perhaps more experimental and less literal style, with that later film’s more realist documentary aesthetic. I think that maybe a key ingredient behind this film’s success. It is the perfect marriage of those two styles and the real beginning to Aronofsky’s claim to true greatness. Time will tell if he can do it again. But regardless, Black Swan is a towering achievement. Both as cinema and as an unadulterated emotional ride."



'Black Swan' is my favourite film of 2010, narrowly defeating 'The Social Network', but way ahead of everything else. I was absolutely stunned by it, and at times gripped by intense fear, when I saw it on the opening day of this year's Venice Film Festival. It comes out in the UK in the new year and I suspect it will at least be nominated for every major category at next year's Academy Awards, though I predict it will lose out on the big prizes to 'The Social Network' (with its mighty "95" rating on metacritic) and 'The King's Speech'.

Natalie Portman is simply amazing in a physically demanding role which required her to spend the last few years learning ballet to a high standard. This central performance is complemented by a film that is a perfect blend of sound and image. Not overly literal or dialogue heavy, 'Black Swan' pushes at the boundaries of what cinema can be as a sensory experience. It feels as though there isn't a flabby, unnecessary shot (let alone scene) in the whole piece, which is about as meticulously crafted and tightly directed as it's possible for a film to be. Like the title character, it goes sublimely from being as delicate and beautiful as bone china, to being horrifying and bone-crunchingly brutal - a fitting analogue for ballet itself, with its mannered public face hiding years of disfiguring, back-breaking effort within a world of jealousy and intense rivalry.

So that's 2010. In an outstanding cinematic year I couldn't even find a place in the top 30 for films as strong as 'Shutter Island', 'The Kids Are All Right', 'Sons of Cuba' and 'Post Mortem'! I hope 2011 provides the same problem with as many really excellent films. If you didn't read the first two sections of this top 30 list, then they are available here:
30-21
20-11

My Top 30 Films of 2010: 20-11

This is the second part of my 2010 top 30 films list. If you haven't already read through entries 30-21 then do so here.

The final top 10 is available here.

20) Capitalism: A Love Story, dir Michael Moore, USA

What I said: "‘Capitalism’ is a fiery essay, delivered by a master propagandist and manipulator, but it is never less than compelling and exciting, and is a skillful piece of documentary filmmaking. Even if you come away unconvinced or even angered by Moore’s opinions, I for one am very glad he is airing them in this way. Especially on this subject which usually goes un-discussed, yet has such total and invisible control over our everyday lives. The fact that Moore can turn this discussion into populist entertainment is his unique gift and I for one applaud him for it."



Nothing this year has left me feeling as enraged or as energised as Michael Moore's documentary on world capitalism. Moore's critics point to a lack of "balance" or "objectivity" in his films, but for me they work for this reason. They take a view and argue that point. I don't particularly like the wacky stunts he pulls, such as closing off Wall Street with crime scene tape, as these moments have the effect of trivialising the other more serious points he is making, of which there are many. What I really liked was the sequence that linked the rise of Reagan to the rise of capitalism and advertising, and the bit where he talks about FDR's siding with striking workers over the police, sending the army to protect them (a moment that actually made me punch the air with joy). It is populist and manipulative in the extreme, but "the left" needs a voice like this in a world where shamelessly biased, right-wing media organisations like Fox News dominate the ratings on American cable news.

19) Ponyo, dir Hayao Miyazaki, JAP

What I said: "I loved ‘Ponyo’. It was purely and immensely joyful and if my fandom of Miyazaki has in any way compromised my judgement and rendered me unable to find any negatives in this film, then I am entirely happy with that outcome. In an age where most children's films have a post-modern, knowing cynicism about them, it is really refreshing to find something so sincere in its unabashed enthusiasm and childish naivety."



Miyazaki's most childish film since 'My Neighbour Totoro', 'Ponyo' is a little undiluted capsule of raw fun. It takes place in that recognisable world of his where the sky is the brightest blue and the grass is the lushest green and where there is no such thing as "evil" or "bad guys". As in all Miyazaki films - with the exception of one - the villain of the piece is redeemed rather than killed and everyone is more or less decent. He also continues to be one of the keenest observers of the behaviour of young children in all of cinema. His last film 'Howl's Moving Castle' is richer and more detailed in terms of storytelling, but it is great to see a film aimed a really young children that is so respectful of that audience and brimming with imagination.

18) Lebanon, dir Samuel Maoz, ISR

What I said: "Of course, the film is anti-war, but without seeming like a polemic. Maoz doesn’t stand on a soapbox: he simply presents the events to us as he saw them and in doing so we come to share his viewpoint. You could not sit through that experience and come to any other conclusion than war being a terrible exercise... But the strength of Maoz’s picture is that, confined to the men in the tank and bereft of any political context or discussion, we just see the humanist plight of people in a nonsensical situation asked to wreak violence upon their fellow man."



Sam Maoz documented his personal experiences, during his compulsory time in the Israeli army during the first Lebanon war, in this film which takes place entirely within the confines of a tank. All we see of the world outside is what we are permitted to see by the vehicles viewfinder. As you'd expect the result is tight and claustrophobic. It's a film about the horrible things men do to each other and the immense pressure put on young people to do them - usually for reasons they don't understand.

17) Submarine, dir Richard Ayoade, UK

What I said: "Rarely in a debut feature do you find a director so in command of the form, as you sense that everything in 'Submarine' has been carefully played out in its director's head and translated exactly that way onto the screen... 'Submarine' is as sweet and at times unsettling as it is beautifully made and wonderfully acted. It is funny - but not too funny - and also melancholic and above all truthful, in spite of that fact that it takes place in a reality heightened by its narrator's ego."



Richard Ayoade's debut feature film reminded me equally of Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick. It has all the detail and French New Wave inspired mise-en-scène of the former, but with the narrator - a Welsh teenage boy with delusions of grandeur - sharing dark thoughts in a cheerful and amoral way that channels Alex from 'A Clockwork Orange'. It is witty and at times bizarre, yet at its core it's a very sincere family drama and a heartfelt coming of age story.

16) Tangled, dir Byron Howard/Nathan Greno, USA

What I said: "For years I've been a hand-drawn snob who felt that by going over to computer animation Disney had lost their way - along with all of their charm. 'Tangled' has won me over wholeheartedly, putting a recognisably Disney style into computer animation for the first time. If they keep this up, the studios identity crisis might finally be over and the problem of differentiating Walt Disney Animation Studios from their more lauded cousins PIXAR might finally be solved."



My favourite animated film of the year, which is no small feat when you consider 2010 saw the UK releases of superb return to hand-drawn animation 'The Princess and the Frog', as well as Miyazaki's 'Ponyo'. Not to mention the charming likes of 'Chico & Rita' and 'The Illusionist'. (I didn't care much for Pixar's slide into sequel excess, 'Toy Story 3'.) Walt Disney Animation Studios has finally made a decent computer animated film, something I thought would never happen. The secret seems to be that they have moved forward with the technology (the best hair, water, light and fabric effects I've ever seen), but looked backwards with the storytelling. Like all classic Disney it is a fairy tale (based on Rapunzel). It is also a Broadway-style musical to rival the best of the Disney renaissance from the 90s. The whole thing feels like a hand-drawn Disney movie pulled out into 3D, rather than the sort of charmless, personality-free stuff that came to typify their output of the last decade.

15) Four Lions, dir Chris Morris, UK

What I said: "Whilst nobody in the audience is encouraged to agree with the measures Omar takes to try and register his political dissatisfaction as a British Muslim, in ‘Four Lions’ we are given a humanistic picture which demythologises the bogeyman of the evil suicide bomber. This is arguably a laudable aim if, like me, you see empathy and understanding as crucial to finding a future peace... ‘Four Lions’ will certainly not be to everybody’s taste, with some scenes destined to make audiences uneasy, but long term fans of Morris will find it to be a satisfying and devastatingly funny experience."



"If they're about to blow themselves up in wrong place, you've got to make sure they blow themselves up in the right place" counsels the wife of a disillusioned British suicide bomber on the verge of giving up. The couple's young son is equally encouraging in a scene that reminded me of something from director Chris Morris' unsettling sketch show 'Jam'. I love the way that scene plays on movie convention, as Morris' film picks apart the recognised formula of a Hollywood narrative (here the "hero" has a crisis and is helped by his family) by transposing it onto a group of would-be terrorists. I expected 'Four Lions' to be clever and funny, being from the maker of 'Brass Eye' and 'Nathan Barley', but I never expected it to be so tender and moving as it was in the final minutes.

It is also a deeply humanistic film that looks at the different reasons people go along with Omar's plans: one is brainless, another younger man wants to be seen as a radical and thinks it'll be cool, another guy (Barry) is just homicidal and wants to blow people up and is using his shaking grasp of Islam as an excuse. Omar himself is motivated by sincere conviction, but even then he is not shown to be a dedicated Muslim, but is instead driven by a misguided sense that terrorism is some kind of ultimate form of anti-consumerism. Characteristically, Morris doesn't pander to anyone or sanctify anything, so the practicing Muslims are also satirised, keeping their wives in a cupboard ("it's not a cupboard, it's a small room") and playing football in impractical clothes. The police are equally nonsensical, with a sniper shooting the wrong man during the London marathon ("is a wookie a bear?") Like his frequent collaborator Armando Iannucci (who directed 'In the Loop'), Morris plays up basic human absurdity with a straight face. To both men incompetence and ignorance can be found at the root of all "evil".

14) No One Knows About Persian Cats, dir Bahman Ghobadi, IRN

What I said: "Aesthetically, the film sometimes looks a little amateurish and the music video sequences (whilst clever) can seem a little cheesy. But that said, ‘No One Knows About Persian Cats’ is an enjoyable and at times poignant look at a modern Tehran, which provides a really good insight into the social and cultural life of that city. The film tantalisingly blurs the line between fact and fiction in many ways. For example, the lead actors boast the same first names as their characters and the bands they encounter are real bands playing themselves. But more relevant and interesting is the movie’s opening scene in which a character talks of a great movie that will be made about the underground music scene in Iran. After seeing ‘Persian Cats’ I was left in no doubt that this is that great movie."



An interesting look at the hidden artistic life of a secretive and fascinating country, 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' looks at the great variety and vibrancy of the music on offer in Tehran for those who know where to look. It is a film that shows young people in Iran referencing Western movies and 60s rock music, which reveals something both wonderful and tragic: there is vibrant, modern youth culture here, but it is being stamped on by an authoritarian regime. As you'd expect for a film made on location in Iran which features real footage of underground musicians performing banned music, 'Persian Cats' at times feels amateurish and cheap - with the extended musical sequences looking laughably unsophisticated as they try to ape Western music videos without the glamour or the technology. Yet as a film it is ultimately every bit as hopeful and heart-breaking as the modern Tehran it presents so vividly.

13) Dogtooth, dir Giorgos Lanthimos, GRE

What I said: "For something so thoughtful and demanding of close analysis, ‘Dogtooth’ is also more purely entertaining than it has any right to be: equal parts harrowing family drama and subtly amusing black comedy. The film is sometimes tense, occasionally funny and often disturbing. The performances are perfect across the cast, with Mary Tsoni and Aggeliki Papoulia particularly effective as the two daughters. They imbue their young-adult characters with childlike mannerisms, particularly in one scene where they perform an excruciatingly bad dance for their parents. All the actors transmit a certain coldness and convey that the characters have no real understanding of how to be affectionate."



An incredibly rich film that you could probably read as being "about" three thousand different things. For me it was about the arbitrary nature of language and meaning, as it looked at three "children" (now adults but still treated as infants by their parents) who have never left their high-walled family home and whose socialisation has been left entirely to their strange parents. They are taught different meanings for any words that imply an outside world. It is explained to them that cats who enter the garden are dangerous and evil creatures and that passing airplanes are made of paper and thrown into the air by their parents as a game. It all goes "wrong" however, when the father invites an outsider into the house to teach his son about sex. Soon the siblings are consumed with a curiosity to discover more about sexuality and this mysterious outsider. 'Dogtooth' is unsettling, darkly funny beautifully shot.

12) Micmacs, dir Jean-Pierre Jeunet, FRA

What I said: "[If] you are one of those who didn’t get swept up in the whimsical charms of ‘Amélie’, then I would suggest you will not find much more to enjoy in ‘Micmacs’. If you hated that film's sensibilities (as a great many seem to do) then I don’t think this is the film for you. Conversely, I think fans of that film will find much to recommend about ‘Micmacs’, as it has the same oddball sensibility, along with many of Jeunet’s familiar visual motifs and thematic preoccupations."



Like ever other Jeunet film before it (including 'Alien 4'), 'Micmacs' follows a set of quirky oddballs - social misfits who find strength in banding together. It feels like exactly the sort of film Terry Gilliam would be making if he was French and if he was given money and control. It's a highly visual modern fairy tale about a group of homeless people fighting to destroy two major arms corporations - a sort of slapstick, silly 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington' for the modern age. It's sweet, warm and sentimental (just as Capra was), and its heart is so definitely in the right place, that it is just such good, uplifting fun from beginning to end. Along with del Toro, Gilliam and Burton, Jeunet is a modern auteur who fully embraces imagination and the possibilities of cinema as a visual medium. Also, French comic star Danny Boon is brilliant in the lead role, especially during one pantomime scene of which any of the great silent clowns would be proud.

11) Life During Wartime, dir Todd Solondz, USA

What I said: "By far the best reason to see ‘Life During Wartime’ (aside from the performances, the drama and the directorial precision) is for the riotous black comedy. As with Chris Morris’ ‘Four Lions’, some may squirm uncomfortably in their chairs, but I personally found it struck the right note throughout. Solondz never pulls back, never flinches. We are always taken right to the dark core of his chosen subject matter and we laugh along the way. It is often said that if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry – that laughter is the best medicine. In Solondz case this is true, as he examines difficult social problems which, without his wonderfully comic writing, might prove too much to bear."



Chris Morris and 'Four Lions' is perhaps the best point of comparison for Todd Solondz 'Happiness' sequel. Both directors take a knee-jerk social issue and run at it head-on, seemingly without fear. For Solondz that subject is arguably even more controversial than a comedy about Islamic terrorism: he is looking at sex in suburban America and even paedophilia. And just as Morris aimed to understand the terrorist by looking at him as just another flawed, complex human being, Solondz give a matter of fact representation of a paedophile as a man driven by desires that have ruined his life (time in prison, break down of all his family relationships and shattering of his reputation). Again, as in 'Four Lions', we are not asked to sympathise with or support the vice itself, but to feel some empathy for the man who (for whatever mental reason) commits that act. Finally, both men use razor-sharp comedy to look at these issues, to get to the core of the absurdity at work in the human psyche and to avoid the despair that would otherwise accompany such an honest look at what lies within all of us. In Morris' film that takes the form of more obvious jokes and wordplay, whilst Solondz gets laughs from social awkwardness and a very real desperation which operates at the heart of all his very sad characters.

It's not an out and out comedy, but rather it's funny because people are funny, even in their blackest moments. The film is equally a visceral punch in the guts, especially in a key scene in which the paedophile attempts to reconcile with his now adult son.

The final part of this list, detailing my top 10 films of 2010, will be online tomorrow. If you haven't read the first part (films 30-21) then you can do that here.

If you want to see the top ten, then that is now available here.