Bah, the purposes of this list is to make mention to the best and hopefully bring attention to films that may have been missed, though no one really missed 'The Dark Knight', did they?
11. Funny Games U.S.
Haneke’s original ‘Funny Games’ has been a favourite of mine since I discovered it following ‘Hidden’, I didn’t really go into the director’s own English remake with any preconceived notion of it going one way or the other, I found the film near as good as the original, it still packed the same punch with the careful craft work by Haneke, the only thing I would say against the remake is that Arno Frisch played Michael Pitt’s character much better in the original. The other great thing about this film was the circumstances under which I saw it, at the Sydney Film Festival, on the big screen (which I have never seen the original on), and as the end credits rolled people either heckled the film or defended, I yelled out defenses, quite fun.
10. Gone Baby, Gone
I don’t care for Ben Affleck as an actor, but I was certainly knocked over by his first effort as a director, creating a thriller that could rival anyone else working in the genre today, his more intense sequences are comparable to the cinema by Michael Mann, certainly he is helped along by the excellent performance by his younger brother Casey Affleck, I look forward to the next Ben Affleck film.
9. You, The Living
This film is hilarious, a deep satire of the small things that humans do, a film underlined with anger, but it would be hard to argue that Roy Andersson isn’t looking for something beautiful and something he loves about the human character throughout this very Swedish skit-film.
8. Hunger
Hunger is a shining example of body horror in its most pure form, in terms of sophistication from the filmmaker it far excels recent example of genres (Hostel, Saw), but in truth it is interested in the human body in the same way the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was interested in the human body, but in Hunger Steve McQueen layers political meaning and ideological strength into the torture of the body, creating a film that will easily stay with you for a long time.
7. The Dark Knight
This is a film that will show up in many lists at this time of the year, it certainly raises the bar for superhero films, Nolan and Ledger managed to craft the most capturing character created on screen this year, The Joker is unrivaled as cinema’s only true super villain, which is surprising considering how many superheroes films have been churned out lately.
6. The Edge of Heaven
This film could have been higher on my list, actually thinking about it now it should have been in my top four, but I am too lazy to readjust now, a cross-border human drama of the highest order, Faith Akin gets immigrant culture between Turkey and Germany in a way American filmmakers never seem to get the USA-Mexico relationship (see: Babel).
5. Stranded, I've Come From A Plane That Crashed In The Mountains
Everyone knows the story that this documentary explores, or at least they know a little something about it, most of the knowledge would come from the fictional American film, Alive, inspired by the events, a plane crash in the mountains that led to cannibalism for survival, this documentary gives the voice to the survivors, their words to describe what they went through are powerfully put together here.
4. The Wrestler
Sometimes I can get bitter and pretentious about films that get more love then I perceive them to deserve, this is certainly true of ‘Requiem of a Dream’, my pretentious anger is fueled even more when the ‘Requiem’ die-hards show no interest in Darren Aronofsky’s first film, the far superior ‘Pi’, now everyone is rallying behind the call that with ‘The Wrestler’ Aronofsky outshines anything he has done before and it is one of the best films of the year, this calms me as it is true and valid.
3. The Class
None of these films on my list really need a recommendation as critical acclaim and various awards have been bringing attention to all of them, perhaps this film needs a recommendation least of all, winning Cannes outstrips winning Best Picture at the Oscars (see: Crash), so it was with high expectations that I saw this film and I am happy to say it delivered, a touching film with perhaps the strongest and realistic characters of any film this year.
2. Let The Right One In
This has been a surprisingly hard film to sum up in my recommendations to friends, saying it is a pre-teen, vampire love story makes it sound like something similar to Twilight, in reality it is a very adult story (indeed you would probably be hard pressed to get into the cinema if you weren’t an adult), the best achievement in horror cinema in recent memory and I have the feeling that the US remake won’t be as successful as Funny Games.
1. Waltz With Bashir
I was surprised when I listed my favourite films of the year that I placed this in number one, I feel it is one of the most well crafted and original films of the year, it took the documentary in a direction that it has never gone before – animation, and to great effect, crafting a devastating anti-war film that will have a lasting impact on its audience.
