Movies of 2013 Part 3: 100-81

We delve into the lush verdant valley of the top 100 with this post.

100) Les Misérables (2012, Tom Hooper)

Haha, I almost accidentally typed ‘Tobe Hooper’ then. Tobe Hooper doing Les Mis! This HAS to happen. However, Tom Hooper’s Les Mis really was a polarising experience, and from the scuttlebutt around at the time I think that applies to most people, not just me. Anne Hathaway’s I Dreamed a Dream was undoubtedly one of the standout scenes of 2012 cinema, and I was pretty much in raptures every time Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham-Carter appeared on screen. One of the reason I was in raptures, though, was because their presence often seared nicely through Eddie Redmayne’s fluffy wagging tail or Amanda Seyfried’s fluffy lack of discernible talent. I didn’t mind Russell Crowe’s singing as much as most did, but at the same time I found his portrayal of Javert utterly without menace, which was the other big letdown of the film. I haven’t ever seen a stage production so it’s possible the edge is taken off the character just by having him sing everything, but as one of my favourite literary villains I have high standards for his characterisation.

99) Broadway Danny Rose (1984, Woody Allen)

Oh, deary me. More Woody coming in low down the list. But it cracks the top 100, so hooray! There’s actually nothing too wrong with this film: it falls right in Woody’s wheelhouse – harebrained plot of misunderstandings; gangsters; struggling Broadway talent, and a juicy part for himself as some form of ‘nervous fella’. The only thing I can really say in defence of its spot is that in a sea of similar sort of films, I found this one just less laugh-out-loud funny than the others. Not necessarily because the jokes don’t work, but because they felt a little familiar and predictable.

98) Los Olvidados (1950, Luis Buñuel)

Bunuel is a filmmaker who hasn’t come up yet, but another like Woody Allen, Danny Boyle and Kenji Mizoguchi, whose filmography got a fair viewing by me this year, and it’s obviously testament to my deference that his lowest-ranked film still cracks the top 100. This is a fairly bleak story of a group of wayward youths being led far astray and manipulated by the Macchiavellian young El Jaibo. The only reason this didn’t resonate with me was that it came fairly late in my Bunuel retrospective, and gritty realism aren’t the things I go in expecting, so I left feeling unfulfilled. The sketchy quality of the camerawork and some of the younger performers just gave it a slightly amateurish feel as well, which took me a bit out of the verisimilitude.

97) Street of Shame (Akasen Chitai, 1956, Kenji Mizoguchi)

Speaking of Mizoguchi... One thing Mizoguchi really seems to enjoy, and this seems extremely obvious from the small portion of his filmography I’ve seen, is prostitutes. Some background/further reading into this interest of his might be interesting, because working in 50s and 60s Japan I’m not sure there would have been much coverage of this subject elsewhere. But they’re present in each of his films I’ve seen, and in none more prominently than here. This has the slight multilinear overtones that also didn’t resonate with me in Ugetsu Monagatari, only here it’s more multiple stories of a bunch of characters (all prostitutes of course). This one succeeds in being more dramatic, albeit fairly preachy on the subject of the sex trade, but I still felt a little detached by watching many different tales unfold concurrently. The only real common thread seems to be “prostitution is bad but prostitutes deserve your sympathy/respect, shame on everybody” without any real central plot.

96) To Be or not To Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch)

So basically I caught up with two Ernst Lubitsch films this year and they’ve both so far been on my list. There will be more of him coming across my viewing eye but I guess I didn’t love what I’ve seen so far. This is a mildly amusing wartime comedy but one that could just as happily be in the format of a half-hour sitcom. It’s disguises and mistaken identity, dramatic irony, jealousy and romance. All in good fun but it gets very samey after an hour and a half. The only thing I really enjoyed was the ‘walkout’ (without spoiling anything), but even that could just as easily have been done as a running gag in a sitcom.

95) The Triplets of Belleville (2003, Sylvain Chomet)

For those who don’t know, I am unashamedly a proponent of the Pixar model of animation storytelling – that is, stories that have the imaginative wonder to appease the kids but could otherwise be totally aimed at an adult audience. There are two other main schools: the one directed unapologetically at kids (like the old Disney classics model, or bad Miyazaki), and the pretentious-arty. This is definitely in the latter category, and it’s not a bad example. There’s wry humour throughout and a very good-looking sepia wash across the whole thing that makes it appreciable as a work of filmic art. But without dialogue, without a very coherent narrative, it doesn’t really get my attention. Another example I guess of ‘good film, just not for me’.

94) Limelight (1952, Charles Chaplin)

A film that comes with the recommendation of my brother is often a bit of a coin toss, because he and I tend to disagree completely on films about half the time (generally whenever he’s completely wrong about a film). While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he’s completely wrong about this film, he certainly seems to have had a far more profound viewing experience than I did. Aside from being far, far too long, I thought this film was very bludgeon-happy with its blunt emotional object, hammering the highs and lows into your face like there was no tomorrow. The funny thing is I just think this is how Chaplin worked, except that in silent pictures, suspension of disbelief is earned by adept physical comedy and subtle attention to detail. The way he writes dialogue just seems to lack that subtlety (because it’s so much easier to get the point across by just telling us the point), so his talkie films always seem more ham-fisted to me.

93) A Woman Under the Influence (1974, John Cassavetes)

One of these days I will make it through my entire Cassavetes collection, but that day probably won’t be until I’ve climbed Everest with both legs tied together, because that seems like a more manageable ambition. It’s not that I don’t like Cassavetes films, but agh, he’s not only a depressing filmmaker but a really challenging one due to the improvisational nature of his films. They make it necessary to pay close attention, and even then I feel I sort of miss things, because it’s never as clearcut and polished as a well-scripted scene would be. The funny thing is that A Woman Under the Influence feels actually like his most redemptive and most cohesive story, even while it’s emotionally erratic and horribly bleak. I’d even go so far as to call this one a great film, but one that really isn’t my cup of Prozac.

92) Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot, 2002, Chan-wook Park)

So evidently, Oldboy is the best  offering from Park Chan-wook. In my top ten two years ago with that and languishing with two films outside the top 90 this year. It’s hard in many ways, because I go into Korean films with such high expectations these days. And this, well it sort of has a foot in both camps of Korean cinema as I see them (with limited knowledge, mind you): the ethereal/artistic school and the uncompromisingly vicious school. Overall I didn’t mind this so much but there was very little to draw me into the characters, as well as very few standout memorable moments – which Oldboy, and other Korean films like 3-Iron and even I saw the Devil have in spades. Moral ambiguity is the main thing this has in common with its filmic cousins, but it really just lacks the artistic spectacle.

91) Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch)

Ah, David Lynch, you magnificent beast. I watched this beauty while I was off work sick for two days with a bout of gastro, and thankfully the incoherence of this film had me quickly shitting bricks. So I don’t know if others have written about this, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire forming kind of a trilogy, but it definitely seems that way to me. This has much of the same nightmare Lynch qualities, but being the first film released is tamer, more coherent and just has more of a mainstream cinema feel to it (such as it is). As much as it doesn’t have the satirical sparkle of Mulholland Drive it does have a really good vibe of impending doom. Unfortunately it also has Bill Pullman in it, who frankly doesn’t ever belong  in a lead role, or in any film ever in any capacity.

90) Holy Motors (2012, Leos Carax)

Hahaha! I could not have planned this segue better. Lost Highway incoherent? Hahaha. Oh, boy... *wipes eyes* So Leos Carax was obviously the one kicked out of David Lynch’s film school for being too avant-garde, although having not seen any of his other works I can’t really comment on him overall. This one, though. It’s been eight months and I’m still digesting it: it’s a film essentially comprised of multiple short sketches that have virtually nothing in common, except they all feature Denis Lavant as one of the main agents. It runs the gamut of genres, and makes one run the gamut of emotional reactions, at the very least from quizzical to utterly bewildered. There’s so much just in the concept of this film to take in that I could never really love it, but the viewing experience was at least a unique one, and never dull.

89) Pierrot Le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)

Jean-Luc Godard was one of the filmmakers on whom I really, really wanted to complete a retrospective this year. The main reason is I just don’t ‘get’ a lot of his films that I have seen, and as a result I don’t have a very good handle on him as a director. Pierrot le Fou was the first of a couple I managed to see this year, and a reasonably enjoyable experience. The central performance from Jean-Paul Belmondo is good, if a little enigmatic, and the fated romance plot chugs along nicely. Unfortunately towards the end there’s a little too much jumping around the place, and this stopped the story being compelling, as it was a little hard to grasp at all. I think I enjoyed about 80% of this film, but it certainly didn’t help me get a better understanding of Godard; he remains elusive.

88) Baghead (2008, Jay Duplass/Mark Duplass)

The Duplass brothers are a couple of completely off-my-radar filmmakers brought onto it by the adulation of Filmspotting, so I tried this one out for size. It has a real indie feel to it, but it’s certainly not without its charms. Kind of a meta-comedy, four friends retire to the woods to write their perfect slasher horror flick and then find themselves embroiled in the very slasher horror flick they’ve conceived. It’s notable firstly for introducing me to the wiles of Greta Gerwig, but also because it’s ultimately quite an unassumingly simple comedy. The only problem I have is I feel it could have done more with itself, satirically as well as pushing the envelope conceptually.

87) Ringu (1998, Hideo Nakata)

Hmmm, so I avoided this movie for years, for two major and related reasons: number one, I’m a complete wuss when it comes to horror films; and two, because this one in particular I’d heard was enough to make you claw your own eyes out halfway through. So in a spate of completely uncharacteristic bravado, I sat down to it. And you’ll notice it’s made it only so high as 87 on my list. The reason it’s down so low is because it didn’t have me clawing my eyes out; in fact I didn’t lose any sleep over it at all, which frankly is the one benchmark when it comes to this type of movie. To add further insult, it’s actually higher than it necessarily would be because I actually found it a pretty good yarn. That is, I actually enjoyed this movie and its story. O the chagrin! Given I was expecting to want to go on a pre-emptive murderous rampage after watching this, the fact that I had FUN with it? Shame, shame!

86) Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985, Hector Babenco)

Those who follow me on Twitter and/or are into beer may know that I believe the editor of Australian Brews News, Matt Kirkegaard, bears a striking resemblance to a young William Hurt. The reason I mention this now is just to emphasise how awkward it was for me to see someone bearing a striking resemblance to my editor campily swanning around a prison cell in his kimono in this film. That awkwardness aside, this film (for which William Hurt won best actor) is actually quite a compelling watch for the most part. I’m not big on Raul Julia but Hurt’s performance in the lead is outstanding. The whole fantasy element to this, the ‘escape’ through the magic of narrative, I feel is a little over-ambitious, but it’s woven in well to an otherwise great bit of storytelling.

85) Le Plaisir (1952, Max Ophüls)

I watched this film in anticipation of Filmspotting’s Max Ophüls marathon, and then to my chagrin they didn’t even include this film as part of it. This is I guess another in that narrative style that Mizoguchi used, of multi-storytelling, only this is simply three separate stories told in sequence, all revolving around characters seeking ‘le plaisir’ in one way or another. This suffers a similar fate to Mizoguchi’s of the same style in that in short form, there’s only so much engagement I can get. The difference with this is that the middle story is about twice the length of the other two, so as a result I also got far more from the middle story. Not perhaps a great film to come to terms with Ophüls but an enjoyable film nonetheless.

84) Strange Days (1995, Kathryn Bigelow)

Caught up with this one early on this year, and possibly one of the inspirations behind my director retrospectives, after deciding I should catch some of Bigelow’s earlier work. This film, despite its tenuous grasp of ‘the future’ is definitely one up my alley. Dystopian Los Angeles, a sense of virtual reality and messing with one’s perception, it doesn’t quite deliver the knockout punch to the online world that it might have done. However, there is a saying I have which indicates the saving grace of Strange Days. There are two types of movies: movies that aren’t as good as they could have been, and movies with Ralph Fiennes in them. Thankfully this has the good sense to have Ralph Fiennes in it, and it goes without saying he’s great.

83) Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993, Woody Allen)

Wow, OK… There really is going to be a huge void of Woody Allen films in the middle of this list because so many seem to be congregating around the bottom. Even enjoyable, amusing ones like this, I think when you see a bunch of them in one year you start to get the formula, so when it comes time to sort it’s hard for them to distinguish themselves. This film is lots of fun, not just because it’s amusing but because there’s an actually quite intriguing murder mystery at the heart of it. Where I think it falls down mostly is that I’m not a huge fan of Diane Keaton, in particular when directed by Woody (which I know seems counterintuitive since most would argue she did her best work with him), so the amount of agency and screen time she has here started to grate by the end. I do, however, enjoy  the pomposity of the character Woody always gets Alan Alda to play, and this is no exception. Oh and I was also pleased to recognise the final showdown scene from The Lady From Shanghai which is referenced in this film, and which will come up later in my list.

82) Sisters of the Gion (Gion no Shimai, 1936, Kenji Mizoguchi)

We might find, as well, a bit of a void of Mizoguchi in the middle of this list as well. An early film from him, it deals with a pair of sisters who work as construction site labourers… no hang on, that doesn’t sound like a Mizoguchi film… oh yes, I was mistaken, they work as Geishas. This film gives us a highly enjoyable character in the form of Omocha, the younger sister with machinations to dispose of her sister’s poor lover and set themselves up with wealthy patrons. What kind of blew my enjoyment is the fact that the older sister Umekichi is such a stiff, untextured character, and the fact that Umekichi kind of wins, in the end. It sets up another of Mizoguchi’s somewhat preachy messages, and I would have enjoyed a bleaker, more cynical conclusion.

81) Red Cliff (Chi bi/Chi bi Part II: Jue Zhan Tian Xia, 2008/9, John Woo)

Now I know it makes sense to take Red Cliff and Red Cliff II as two separate films, thus taking my grand total this year up to a neat 150, but I simply can’t separate the two. I really think they need to be watched together as part of the one epic story, because you can’t watch part one and go “Oh, great, the good guys won a battle, but the enemy is regrouping to continue the war. That’s some pretty shit-hot closure right there. I’m done with this story now”. So please note I’m using the term Red Cliff to refer to part one and two together. This is pretty much your run-of-the-mill colourful epic, with a lot of spectacular battle sequences and other memorable bits of staging. It doesn’t fall into the trap that House of Flying Daggers tripped, sensibly casting Tony Leung, who frankly could make hanging the laundry out into compelling viewing. With all that said, I feel like this came so close to being the epic saga that everyone was begging John Woo to make, if only for the fact that nobody had actually been begging John Woo to make an epic saga.