Seth Rogen and Michele Williams in TAKE THIS WALTZ
What are 2012’s most overlooked films? Take This Waltz, Elena and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia are on some Top Ten lists, including mine, but they still haven’t gotten the buzz that they deserve. These are three of the very best films of the year. I wish that more women, especially, would experience writer-director Sarah Polley’s work and Michele Williams’ performance in Take This Waltz. Anatolia is admittedly not for everyone, but I think that future film historians may rate it as a masterpiece.
The thriller Deadfall was solid, but got lost among the big Holiday movies. And the brilliantly original satire King Kelly, which I saw on VOD, wasn’t released in any theaters that I know of.
(Note: I’m saving room for some films that I haven’t yet seen, especially Amour and Zero Dark Thirty, which I won’t get a chance to see until mid-January .)
You can watch the trailers and see my comments on all these films at Best Movies of 2012.
According to Metacritic, all of my picks (except Detachment) were highly rated by prominent critics. I did disdain some well-reviewed films, most notably The Master, which made lots of critics’ end-of-year lists.
(Further Note: A Separation won the 2011 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and Monsieur Lazhar was nominated, but neither were widely released in the US until 2012. Similarly, The Kid with a Bike was screened in October 2011 at the New York Film Festival, but was not theatrically released in the US release until March 2012. These films are on my 2012 list because, like most Americans, I couldn’t see them until 2012.)
My top movie pick so far in 2012 - THE KID WITH THE BIKE
Here’s a pre-autumn check in with my running list of the year’s best films – Best Movies of 2012 – So Far. I’ve included six foreign language films, from Belgium, France, Quebec, Iran, Russia and Turkey, and five American and Canadian independent films. That’s par for the course, because I usually call out 23-28 movies on my end of the year list.
The Kid on the Bike and A Separation had very limited US theatrical runs at the end of 2011 to qualify for the 2012 Oscars. But they weren’t available to most Americans until this year, so they’re on my 2012 list.
And guess what – there are zero Hollywood movies on the list. That’s not a huge surprise because Hollywood generally releases its Oscar bait in the fall. The hyped Hollywood fare coming up in 2012 includes Argo, Cloud Atlas, The Sessions and Hyde Park on Hudson (being released by the prestige arms of major studios). The other promising prestige movies (Killing Them Softly, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, etc.) are being released by mini-majors such as The Weinstein Company and Touchstone (the prestige arm of Dreamworks) and by the smaller indie distributors.
Here’s another surprise – there no documentaries on my list so far. Last year at this time, Project Nim, Buck and Tabloid were all on the list. There are several promising documentaries yet to be released (Paul Williams Is Still Alive, Undefeated, The Gatekeepers, Stories We Tell, Mea Maxima Culpa, ), but, as of now, it’s a down year.
Incidentally, you can still find Beasts of the Southern Wild in theaters. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Rampart, A Separation and Monsieur Lazhar are already available on DVD. Detachment, Moonrise Kingdom, Elena and Take This Waltz will become available on DVD in October.
Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon, Thomas Haden Church and Juno Temple in KILLER JOE
Killer Joe, which opens this week, is NC-17 for a reason and will either thrill or disgust you; that notwithstanding, it pops and crackles with excellent performances by Mathew McConaughey and Juno Temple.
The Intouchables is a crowd pleasing odd couple comedy – an attendance record breaker in France.
Farewell, My Queen is a lavishly staged and absorbing French drama of Marie Antoinette’s Versailles at the onset of the French Revolution; it features excellent performances and was shot at Versailles itself.
Dark Horse is an engaging dramedy from writer-director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness); it has his trademark quirkiness, but without the trademark perversion.
The wistfully sweet and visually singular Moonrise Kingdom is another must see. Adults will enjoy Brave, Pixar’s much anticipated fable of a Scottish princess, and it’s a must see for kids. To Rome with Love is an amusing Woody Allen comedy, but not one of Woody’s masterpieces. If you really like Neil Young, then see Neil Young Journeys. The exceptionally popular The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is continuing its long run in second-run houses.
The Dark Night Rises is too corny and too long, but Anne Hathaway sparkles. Magic Mike has male stripping, but no magic.
My DVD pick this week is from Turkey, the long, enthralling and profound Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. I must add that The Movie Gourmet is the only place where you can read about Killer Joe and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia in the same week!
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, one of the best movies of the year and an extraordinary achievement in filmmaking, is too long and too slow for most audiences. That’s okay with its director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who says that it’s just fine with him if audiences give up halfway through. That sounds self-indulgent, but there isn’t a bit of self-indulgence in the film’s 2 hours and 37 minutes. It’s just that the movie demands that you meet it halfway. If you don’t, you’re going to be bored. If you patiently settle in to the tempo of the film, you’ll be as transfixed as I was.
Technically, it’s a police procedural because the cops are solving a crime – and, indeed, by the end, we know who committed the crime and why and how. But those aren’t the most important questions posed in the movie, which probes fundamental aspects of the human condition – love, betrayal, loss and decency.
As the movie begins, three carloads of men are driving at night through rural Turkey. They think that they are wrapping up a murder investigation. Two guys have confessed to killing a man and burying his body out in the sticks. The cops are taking the culprits out in the country to locate the body. But the desolate hills and lonely roads all look alike. One of the killers was asleep on the drive and can’t help find the grave. The other one was drunk, and he only remembers a nearby fountain and, unhelpfully, “a round tree”.
They arrive at a potential crime site, but it isn’t the right place. So they drive to another, but strike out again. One group argues about the best unpasteurized yogurt. The men are becoming fatigued and irritable, and, as we listen to snippets of conversation, we learn about each of the characters. We piece together that they all defer to the prosecuting attorney. He has brought along a doctor to observe the corpse; the doctor is living a rut-like existence in a nowhere town, not able to move on after a divorce. The provincial police chief is burned out but puts in long hours to avoid the stress at home (he has a son with a condition, maybe autism or epilepsy). One affable cop goes to the country and shoots his guns to blow off steam. One man is haunted by an event in his past.
This first one hour and twenty minutes of the film is at night – lit only by the headlights of the three cars. Although nothing seems to be advancing the plot, the story is spellbinding as we lean in and try to deconstruct the characters. By now, the rhythm of the story is hypnotic.
The men take a predawn break in a tiny village. The mayor gives them food and tea, acting out of Middle Eastern courtesy and also taking advantage of a chance to pitch a public works project to the official from the capital. The power goes out, and they sit in darkness. Then a door creaks open and the mayor’s teenage daughter brings in a tray with an oil lamp and glasses of tea. She is modestly dressed, beautiful and lit only by the lamp. As she serves tea to each of the exhausted men, we can see that she looks to them like an angel. They wonder how such beauty could appear out of nowhere and about her fate in such a remote village. It’s a stunning scene.
Now the convoy sets off again, and dawn breaks. We see the Anatolian steppe in widescreen desolate vistas like a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. As in the nighttime scenes, when they get out of their vehicles, the camera shoots the men in extreme long shot, so they are tiny against the endless steppe. The cinematography is superb.
Forty minutes in, a character begins telling an anecdote to another, but they are interrupted. After another thirty minutes, the listener presses the teller to finish the story and weighs in with some questions of his own. Near the end of the movie, the two revisit the story. This time the teller of the anecdote connects the dots and finally understands a pivotal moment in his own life. This moment, drawing on profound acting by Taner Birsel, is raw and searing.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia won the jury prize at Cannes. I felt well rewarded for investing in its 2 hours and 37 minutes. This visually striking movie, with its mesmerizing story, is uncommonly good. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is now available on DVD.
