An annual requirement and this year easier than has often been the case. So here is my list with a very short and often specific explanation of just why ...
1. Blue Is The Warmest Colour simply the most wonderful piece of film making, 3 hours slips by in a flash, you want another 3 hours and then more but there are also bravura pieces of directing which are breathtaking. For me the sequence when the two main characters are first sitting on the bench which recurs as a setting throughout the film is astonishing. They move closer and closer together in real time but time is simultaneously suspended. Heart stopping.
2. The Great Beauty provides yet more swoon inducing cinematography and a main character who is fascinating as much in what he doesn't say as what he does; an increasingly acute and self-reflective observer of a world gone mad as the privileged pursue their obsessions and ignore the rest.
3. Museum Hours on which I have already said my piece ...
4. 12 Years A Slave which is shocking for the acute observation of exploitation not just in the most obvious ways but in other insidious forms, particularly in respect of gender. For me, it also suggests (and I use that phrase carefully because I am absolutely not positing any kind of equivalence with slavery as shown in the film) some things about the current trend towards workers surrendering of all their rights as a the price of simply having a job.
5. Gloria which is simply glorious and has the courage to take head on the love lives of the middle aged in a completely frank way. The dance sequence at the end of the film makes you leave the cinema smiling broadly even as the cheesy soundtrack booms around the auditorium. The central performance is jaw dropping
6. A Field In England which is astonishing in its audacity, is 'set' in the English Civil War but channels some much deeper themes about the weirdness of the land and just how dangerous it can be when civilisation falls away. Aided by some hallucinogenics the visceral nature of nature comes to the fore. And it contains one of the single most worrying and chilling sequences in any film that I have ever seen
7. Before Midnight a fitting conclusion to a great trilogy (or will it be just one more step in a longer sequence of films) and one of the most sophisticated and mature takes on relationships that I've seen. The acting is top notch and the film is compulsive viewing. And for those of us who have grown up with the characters and see ourselves getting old with them it is even more emotional ...
8. I Wish (not quite sure whether I saw this in 2013 but anyway ...) a fantastic central conceit, heart warming and brilliantly observed and boy does it make you root for the characters
9. Lore is grim but great. The period right at the end of the Second World War as it is clear that Germany has lost and the allies are closing in not often portrayed on film from the perspective of those who have been part of the Nazi regime and are now cast adrift in a world that has changed utterly. The experience of Lore guiding her siblings towards possible safety with relatives and starting to come into contact with those who they have been taught to hate is extraordinarily well handled.
10. Suzanne which may not be released in the UK but is a second film by Katell Quilevere who made Love Like Poison which was in last year's top 10. Its another fantastically well observed piece, compulsive and superbly acted. You really don't know where its going next. And given that the information on ImDB is almost completely lacking here's a review from a probably less than surprising source.
And that's it for 2013.
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