The end of another year of films and so, as is customary, here is my personal top 10 drawn from newly released films that I have seen this year.
1. Carol which is simply exquisite.
2. Phoenix A film about the most intimate questions of identity and trust which seem almost too personal to be shared; yet the whole motive force of the film is about demonstrating identity to others. It is a masterclass in film making and performance and the final scene will live with me for many a year.
3. By Our Selves Wonderfully strange with as much emphasis on the aural as the visual but with some striking images, many resonant of folk tales, and imbued with a real sense of earthly wonder about the environment through which we pass. It also has an abiding sense of sadness both about how John Clare has been to some extent marginalised as a poet but also about the loss that he experienced summed up in that wonderful line about being 'the self-consumer of my woes'
4. Force Majeure A most striking deconstruction of deception.
5. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence A really extraordinary film. The sequence involving the arrival of a squadron of Charles XII's cavalry in a modern Gothenburg cafe en route to the disastrous Russian campaign was so fantastic I almost levitated. Some of the visual metaphors are deeply disturbing but remarkably resonant and the astonishing ability to keep the whole of the frame in focus invites you constantly to peer into the recesses and the fringes.
6. Girlhood Really fabulous performances and a subtle deconstruction of the complexity and apparent contradictions of behaviour in the same individual. If one only saw some of these behaviours one would form a particular view of her character. But seeing them all and how determined they are by context and power relations and the yearning for independence all of the plurality of experience is illustrated. Absorbing.
7. The Witch If you ever wondered what the worst nightmare of a 17th century New England Puritan would have looked like, go no further.
8. Mistress America Greta Gerwig having one of her very, very good days (which she most certainly doesn't all that often). Very funny and very sharp.
9. Breathe Engrossing. A psychological thriller. Perhaps a little over done at the very end but my goodness it's gripping. Saw this the same weekend as Whiplash. I'd never otherwise have thought about them together but both have the same essential concern about control and insecurity and the extreme reactions that can result from their interplay.
10. Clouds of Sils Maria Flawed but fabulous and Kristin Stewart is just astonishingly good.
There were some others that might have made the cut on another day including:
Amour Fou An hypnotic tale of self delusion, beautifully framed and shot to capture the illusory serenity of day to day life for an over comfortable elite. In such a stifling milieu, freedom seemingly can only be achieved through the grand gesture of suicide. The understandable uncertainty over that choice is played off to comedic effect against the uncertainty of medical diagnoses and the supposed competence of the privileged
Honey Austere but thoroughly engrossing. Unresolved misery arising from simply being alive has rarely been as interesting.
The Dance of Reality Reality as a dance created from our own imaginations; and what an imagination Jodorosky has!
Blind I thought this could well be one of those high concept, beautifully composed but ultimately rather frustrating films where concept and composition win out over content and coherence. It wasn't.
Les Combattants Really enjoyable. The final third works surprisingly well and has a pleasing slightly hallucinogenic quality. Maybe that's what happens when you eat a half cooked fox.
