Something Wicked This Way Comes: 2004's Top 10 Films And Beyond.
Feb 17 '05
The Bottom Line 2004's best films: When everyone is super... everyone is.
The pivotal line in the best film of 2004, released all the way back in March, is, "No, what they had done was not good enough." And for much of the year, that line cast a pall over the cinema: 2004 certainly felt like a terribly weak year for film, with precious few efforts striking as particularly worthwhile. But while the year may have lacked depth of quality-- determining the entrants in this top 10 list wasn't especially difficult, though I saw over 100 films last year from which to choose-- the best films of 2004 don't just hold their own against the best recent films, they frequently surpass them. Referring again to the year's most outstanding film: as illustrations of what it means to be human, these are insightful and incisive works. And they expand upon the thematic issues raised by the films of 2002-- the implications of the artifice inherent in filmmaking-- and 2003-- the pursuit of identity in an increasingly dangerous world-- in often fascinating ways.
The films of 2004 tackle the questions of personal identity in a similar manner as did many of the year's best albums, and, despite a hostile sociopolitical climate, they find causes for joy in the act of creation itself. They also frequently address the role of memory tampering of both literal and figurative varieties in that creation, which raises the impossibly loaded question of what, exactly, our culture is so eager to forget. Looking just at this past year, there's an obvious political outcome that left just under half of the population reeling and appalled. And, for those who look to pop-art not only for escapism but for some further cultural perspective, there's also the most godawful crop of "prestige" films (the dishonest Ray, the simpering, maudlin Finding Neverland, the frying-pan subtle Hotel Rwanda, the self-congratulatory and horribly written Kinsey, the garish The Phantom of the Opera) to come along in nearly a decade-- certainly worth forgetting and most of them sure to be a decade from now.
The best of 2004, by contrast, offered much-needed diversions from an all too depressing reality while still presenting challenging ideas in a manner that respected their audiences' abilities to hang such weighty material. If 2004 celebrated mediocrity and groupthink elsewhere, its strongest films respected and indeed championed intellect and subversion, which only made those films seem all the more essential.
The Top 10 (Technically 11) Films of 2004:
10. I Heart Huckabees, d. David O. Russell.
Of the three country superstars to make their film debuts in 2004, it was Shania Twain's self-effacing cameo in David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees that had the most potency and was of the greatest benefit to the film itself-- though Tim McGraw acquitted himself well in Friday Night Lights and it's not as though professional cipher Faith Hill really had to act to make for a convincing Stepford Wife. It's to Twain's credit that she was willing to toy with her own larger-than-life celebrity status in a film whose critical reception suggests that entirely too few people picked up on its vicious satirical streak-- and that those who did pick up on the element of satire completely misread it as an attack on Wal-Mart. Which isn't to say that Wal-Mart, perhaps the most powerful emblem of sprawling corporate greed, isn't ripe for satire-- just that the targets of Russell's brilliant "existential comedy" are less obvious.
I Heart Huckabees is read most productively as an indictment of various forms of pretense, and anyone who's ever encountered an undergraduate Philosophy student should note the sharp insights and keen observational eyes displayed by Russell and co-writer Jeff Baena, as should anyone who approaches the cult of celebrity with a level-headed degree of skepticism. That the cast isn't overwhelmed by Russell's take on their celebrity is a testament both to their intellect and the magnitude of their talents; I Heart Huckabees is an "ensemble piece" in the best possible sense of the phrase. Jude Law answers critics who accuse him of overexposure-- quite the accomplishment, really, given the sheer number of films in which he appeared in 2004-- with a complex performance that doesn't hinge entirely on his character's eventual comeuppance, Naomi Watts turns in her best work since Mulholland Drive, and Mark Wahlburg, playing a character who essentially amounts to the voice of reason and is also the most fully-realized take on the tattered post-9/11 psyche, gives definitive proof that he's a truly exceptional actor.
What makes I Heart Huckabees such an exceptional film, though, is not simply that it's willing to take the idea of pretense to task, but that, in doing so, it recognizes the necessity of a certain degree of pretense in the formation of personal identity. In other words, I Heart Huckabees manages the difficult feat of simultaneously laughing at and still having respect for the ideas that drive it. In that regard, it's the antithesis of Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love. When Wahlburg's character asks, "How come we only ask ourselves the really big questions when something bad happens?," I Heart Huckabees instantly distills the theme of alienation and personal disconnect that has driven so many of the great American films of the past five years. That this question is the heart of a "comedy" makes I Heart Huckabees all the more difficult, and it likely goes a long way in accounting for its commercial failure. Rating: **** 1/2 out of *****.
09. Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban, d. Alfonso Cuaron.
A line that's repeated in the flat-out brilliant third installment of the Harry Potter franchise serves as a sharp bit of auto-critique-- "I swear, I'm up to no good." That Alfonso Cuaron, taking over following Chris Columbus' lackluster job with the first two films-- the deadly-dull The Sorcerer's Stone and the casually racist The Chamber of Secrets-- intends on steering the film in a far more subversive direction is clear from the outset, in a thematically loaded dinner sequence in which Harry's visiting aunt says of the deceased Potters, "If there's something wrong with the b1tch, there's something wrong with the pup." For a film that trades in a young man's confrontation with the idea that his parents may not have been the people he's idealized, it's a deeply cutting line of dialogue given only more weight by the Roald Dahl-inspired manner in which the contemptible woman who speaks it is given exit from the film. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is among the most accurate meditations on the emotional instability of adolescence in recent memory, and it's all the more refreshing because it's a film that respects the audience to which it is chiefly marketed while offering a wealth of material to adults who look for deeper development even in "family" films.
And, really, what does it say about the state of the films marketed to children that a film as smart and thematically rich as The Prisoner of Azkaban has to be seen as subversive? Cuaron has already proven that he's an exceptional director of children's films with A Little Princess, another film that is, sadly, the exception to the rule that "it's just a kid's movie" somehow means that it's allowed to be of markedly lesser quality. That Cuaron makes The Prisoner of Azkaban fit into his own catalogue-- the most singly subversive moment in a film chock-full of them is a shot in which he positions Harry, Ron, and Hermione in precisely the way that the characters stand in the key moment of his Y Tu Mama Tambien-- and also gives the Harry Potter franchise the heft to justify its popularity are the kinds of achievements that give credence to the term auteur. It's impossible to imagine-- particularly now that hack director Mira Nair has been attached to the fifth installment-- that the franchise will ever equal The Prisoner of Azkaban, and it's the most pleasant of surprises that the film fully justifies its inclusion with so many other statements about the influence of selective memory on the nascent identity.
Harry Potter and Harry Potter truly come into their own in The Prisoner of Azkaban, and the film's climactic scene, in which Harry finally recognizes his own powers and puts them to their most self-preserving use, is remarkable for its resonance as the moment in which adulthood, and all the implications thereof, first asserts itself. Harry Potter may be up to no good, but he's finally making such decisions as empowered by self-actualization. Which makes The Prisoner of Azkaban as dense a post-modern narrative as any in recent memory, enriched to an impossible degree by its compelling performances-- this is the first of the films in which the child actors hold their own against the likes of Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson, and Gary Oldman-- and by Cuaron's striking visual aesthetic. Rating: **** 1/2.
08. The Aviator, d. Martin Scorsese.
The only one of the aforementioned cesspool of "prestige" films to merit any serious discussion whatsoever, The Aviator finds Martin Scorsese crafting a film that makes the most out of auteur theory and is given weight by two of the year's most deceptively complex performances. The dramatic tension of The Aviator is borne from the conflict between the tangible passion, the naked ambition to create and the often crippling desire to be taken seriously. There's no reason to think that a Best Director Oscar is going to legitimize Martin Scorsese's career-- he's more than justified himself by now, and no one who knows anything about film thinks lesser of Hitchcock or Kubrick simply because The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences never gave them a statuette-- but, at least in terms of the marketing of his recent films, that elusive Oscar has turned into a cloud that hovers ominously over his work. In the case of The Aviator, that self-doubt gives Howard Hughes' story-- as presented in the film, historical liberties notwithstanding-- an endlessly fascinating autobiographical subtext in what it says about Scorsese.
And Scorsese, particularly in the film's spectacular aerial sequences, is often at the peak of his craft throughout The Aviator-- whatever doubts the frankly terrible Gangs of New York might have justly raised about his diminishing skill are put definitively to rest. Scorsese is matched in his virtuosity by Leonardo DiCaprio, silencing detractors who worried that he was miscast as Hughes. It's the fourth performance of his career to prove that DiCaprio is perhaps the greatest talent of his generation, in spite of the post-Titanic backlash. He brings to his performance of Howard Hughes the same crucial element he brought to What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and it's something that distinguishes him from nearly every other actor currently working in Hollywood. DiCaprio approaches mental illness not with self-congratulatory, awards-baiting grandstanding, but with a fundamental dignity. Even when John Logan's otherwise rock solid screenplay undermines Hughes' obsessive-compulsive disorder by blaming it on his mother-- though even that liability can be recontextualized as appropriate for the era in which the film is set-- DiCaprio's performance respects both the illness and the character charged by it. It's impossible to imagine any other actor besting DiCaprio's turn as Hughes. And, as Katherine Hepburn, Cate Blanchett is fully his equal. Blanchett, who had been coasting on Elizabeth for entirely too long, is simply exceptional in a performance that, like Jamie Foxx's deservedly-lauded turn in the otherwise awful Ray, transcends mere imitation or caricature. Though Hepburn's actions are not spun in the most positive light, Blanchett's performance gives the character a complexity it likely would've lacked in the hands of a less capable actor-- Kate Beckinsale's Ava Gardner serving as the best and most immediate example.
Still, as remarkable as DiCaprio's and Blanchett's performances are, The Aviator remains Scorsese's show. It's too easy-- and, heading into an Oscar homestretch that has come to favor a far lesser film, too frequent-- a criticism to brand Scorsese a sell-out for making a film of wide populist appeal that happens to celebrate Hollywood's would-be Golden Era. It's easy to read what The Aviator says about Scorsese's desire to infiltrate Hollywood's in-crowd, but it's in what the film states is the reward for doing so-- Hughes ends the film in the company of Scorsese's other famous antiheroes-- that The Aviator turns into something far more subversive and brilliant. Rating: **** 1/2.
07. The Five Obstructions, d. Jorgen Leth and Lars Von Trier.
Essentially a stunt performance by not one but two notoriously difficult directors, The Five Obstructions is perhaps the year's most audacious success. Leth describes his own gimmick as "Faustian," demonstrating that he fully grasps what it is he's attempting to accomplish with the stunt, in which he challenges another director with a rigorous, difficult aesthetic-- Von Trier, the man behind such CGI enhanced crowd-pleasers as Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark-- to re-make his experimental short film, The Perfect Human, five times, with each reiteration the subject of ever-more arduous "obstructions." The most difficult of the obstructions, from a purely technical standpoint, is a version that re-sets the film in Cuba and in which every shot must span precisely twelve frames of film. Despite such self-imposed barriers, The Five Obstructions, like The Aviator and The Incredibles, emerges as a film that mines the thrill of creation that filmmaking represents. The film's final segment stands as easily the most unabashed expression of actual joy in Von Trier's catalogue.
The film also confirms both Leth's and Von Trier's artistic integrity multiple times over, to the benefit of both men. Leth's work is not especially well-known in the United States, and Von Trier's reputation is built on frequently ill-founded accusations of unchecked sadism. That Von Trier comes off as petulant isn't surprising. That he comes off as so insightful and fundamentally honest should give rise-- particularly post-Dogville-- to some critical revision of his work. Which ultimately positions The Five Obstructions among the year's many other artistic statements about the fluidity of identity. But it's also the year's most aggressively unconventional film, billed as a documentary but playing out as something more akin to a fiercely competitive game between two men with incompatible takes on what the rules of said game are. One man thinks he's playing mancala, while the other thinks he's playing chess. So it's impossible to say who has the upper hand, and such distinctions are ultimately irrelevant to the reasons they're playing the game at all.
The Five Obstructions is the type of film that only a filmmaker or, by proxy, a film geek could enjoy. To which I say, And?. Rating: ****1/2.
06. Code 46, d. Michael Winterbottom.
Perhaps the most singly clever moment in any film of 2004 occurs early in Michael Winterbottom's Code 46, in a blink-and-you-missed-it cameo by former member of The Clash, Mick Jones, singing "Should I Stay or Should I Go" in a karaoke bar even more depressing than the one in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. It's a sequence that seems funny at first, then turns sinister as the film progresses only to reveal that the Jones is fully in on Winterbottom's joke, and that it's at your expense if you assumed it was just a winking pop culture reference. Thematically, it's probably an even better use of a song than was Bill Murray's rendition of "More Than This." Which is really saying something.
Arguably the best pure science fiction film since Blade Runner, Code 46 succeeds because it makes its broader social commentary through its striking images-- Winterbottom's vision of the future is unnerving in its sterility, compared to, say, the cluttered cityscapes of Spielberg's Minority Report, which also features Samantha Morton-- and through the characters' actions, rather than through its dialogue. It's a dense, challenging film that, in terms of its take on selective memory alterations, is the nihilist counterpart to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And, in its final act, the film presents an exceptionally confrontational action that's among the most difficult scenes I've ever sat through and which gives the film a remarkably fertile layer of subtext about the continually changing frontlines of sexual politics.
Code 46 is tremendously heady stuff, establishing its groundrules before the title cards have even run their course and giving no reason to recant on the suspension of disbelief necessary to successful sci-fi films. That's due largely to Winterbottom's unobtrusive, slick direction and Frank Cottrell Boyce's exceptional screenplay, but also to a career-best performance from Tim Robbins, fresh off his utterly undeserved Oscar win for Mystic River, and yet another stunning performance from the incomparable Morton, who continues to compile evidence that she's hands-down the most gifted actress working today. Rating: *****.
05. Hero, d. Zhang Yimou.
Derided my many American critics as anti-war propaganda because the idea that any film, even those produced across the Pacific Ocean, could possibly be about anything other than the United States and its interests robs them of any other way to contextualize a film, director Zhang Yimou's Hero is so deeply rooted in Asian social constructs that it isn't merely a foreign language film, it is in many ways a full foreign cultural experience. The story of Hero-- of how Emperor Qin was targeted by a nameless assassin on the eve of the unification of China's warring city-states-- is one that's been told many times in the Chinese cinema, but the greater emphasis of Zhang's version on the assassin's story makes Hero more than a simple war film. Instead, it champions the nobility in putting aside personal vanities-- sexual jealousy, pride, ego-- in favor of a hypothetical "greater good," in order to find both internal and external peace.
It's a thematically beautiful, sensitive film, in other words. And Zhang, assisted by cinematographer Christopher Doyle, ensures that Hero is easily among the most visually stunning films ever made. Todd Haynes' gorgeous Far From Heaven looks washed-out and underlit in comparison to what's on display in every frame of Hero. Color symbolism is an easy out for visually awkward filmmakers-- Sam Mendes' American Beauty providing the most didactic example-- but Zhang's astonishing visual aesthetic transcends its limitations using some exceptional "wire-fu" choreography on balance. And balance is key to Hero's success, in its skillful blend of a martial arts blowout with compelling interpersonal drama amongst a trio of intricately drawn, thoughtfully performed characters. Assassins aren't the easiest sell as sympathetic protagonists, but that's yet another point on which Hero subverts traditionally "Western" expectations of film.
That it took Miramax nearly two years to get Hero into theaters after acquiring its distribution rights speaks to everything wrong with the US film industry and the extent to which it ghettoizes foreign films. A film that fully merits the comparisons it has drawn to Rashomon shouldn't have to fight for an audience, and that Hero, upon its final theatrical release, was a box office hit couldn't be more encouraging. Rating: *****.
04. Mean Creek, d. Jacob Aaron Estes.
The profound, probing film that Larry Clark keeps failing to make, Mean Creek is easily one of the year's best films, and, sadly, one of its least seen. Landing between David Gordon Green's George Washington and Gus Van Sant's Elephant, Mean Creek somehow manages to resonate as even more elegiac and poetic than either of those exceptional films. It is, in many ways, a film that captures the state of disease that exists at the peculiar point equidistant from the extremes of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The impending doom is palpable in every frame of Mean Creek, and Estes' astonishing first screenplay actively grieves for his characters' lost innocence. Beautiful and restrained as it is, Mean Creek is a heartbreaking film.
And, of those characters, Mean Creek crafts perhaps the most realistically drawn group of adolescents ever committed to film. In its refusal to make excuses for its characters or to apologize for their naiveté, Mean Creek is diametrically opposed to simpleminded, didactic tripe like thirteen or Clark's Bully. Though it is anchored in a "revenge" plot, Mean Creek is never accusatory either of the victims or the perpetrators of the plan. The film derives much of its power in that its would-be bully, George (Josh Peck, phenomenal), is revealed as an aggressively typical kid-- as are the other kids he torments, Sam (Rory Culkin, outclassing any of his siblings by an impossible degree) and Millie (Carly Schroeder, a standout in even an exceptional ensemble). Rounding out the group are Sam's older brother, Rocky (Trevor Morgan), and Marty (Scott Mechlowicz, fully meeting the challenge of a character both vulnerable and feral), who come up with the idea for the ill-fated revenge scheme, and Clyde (Ryan Kelley), subject to ridicule when other sources fail for living with his homosexual father. There's not a clichéd character arc to be found anywhere in Mean Creek, a fact that's only enhanced by the cast's uniformly unaffected, raw performances. In a year that offered Dogville, I Heart Huckabees, Sideways, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, that Mean Creek is the most consistently well-acted film of the year couldn't be higher praise.
Because it's of the too-rare school of screenwriting that makes its larger thematic points through its character development, rather than through dialogue or voice-over narration, for the film to succeed so well, the performances would have to be stellar. A fascinating companion piece to The Prisoner of Azkaban, Mean Creek is firmly grounded in reality, leaving its characters to use only the meager resources at their disposal to try to assert themselves, even as the world collapses around them. That the film ends without a false optimism-- though, make no mistake, there is a glimmer of hope to be found throughout Mean Creek and, again, it's in the strength of these characters-- establishes Estes as one of the most daring first-time filmmakers to emerge in years, suggesting that he may even surpass the likes of the similarly-themed Green or Richard Kelly. Which might sound like hyperbolic praise if Mean Creek didn't merit the comparisons. It is simply a brilliant piece of filmmaking. Rating: *****.
03. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, d. Michael Gondry.
Possibly the most irrefutable piece of evidence to the greatness of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the second (and infinitely superior to its predecessor, 2002's decidedly not-good Human Nature) collaboration between screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michael Gondry, is that its two central allusions-- one to Alexander Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard", the other to Neistche's Beyond Good and Evil, Part IV-- are quoted by the likes of Kirsten Dunst... and that she sells them with authority and conviction. Eternal Sunshine is an unqualified success along every filmmaking parameter.
For all of its endless cleverness and whimsy, Eternal Sunshine is anchored in a remarkably simple conceit-- the film plays as a sustained montage of a man's reflections on key moments of a powerful relationship rendered immediately before those moments are eradicated from his memory. And, if this construct is undeniably melancholy in tone, it's a testament to the film's greater thematic arc that Eternal Sunshine asks and then answers incisive questions about why we fall in love at all. It's a Romantic film not in the Meg Ryan sense, but in the literary sense. And the ideas it presents in regard to both the malleability and the fallibility of memory are challenging in their implications. A scene cut from the film-- and rightfully so, as it would have been too great a third-act distraction from the film's central love story-- takes the final act of retribution committed by Dunst's character to a most unsettling end, as she's confronted by a woman who had no regrets for having undergone the selective memory deletions. What elevates Eternal Sunshine ever-so-slightly above the thematically similar Code 46, beyond its technical advantages, is that it's rooted in a fundamental hope, even in face of outside influences that might suggest that hope is ephemeral.
In just five short years, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has established himself as, without question, the most vital voice in American film, surpassing even his most frequent collaborator, director Spike Jonze, or film ubergeek Todd Haynes. With each subsequent screenplay-- again, disregarding Human Nature, his lone moment of weakness-- Kaufman has delved more deeply into the queasy intersection between self-doubting neurosis and sexual behavior, without ever sacrificing his wit, candor, or mastery of the broad implications of post-postmodernism. But what makes Eternal Sunshine such a powerful film is that Kaufman has finally gotten outside of his own head. "Unversality" is the bane of legitimate criticism, but Kaufman's screenplay isn't universal. It's simply his most accessible, emotionally open and vulnerable work to date. That he's matched by Gondry-- great as his music videos are, it's hard to envision him besting his work here-- and by the film's all-star cast, particularly by Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey as the couple who have each other erased, but also by Dunst (who proves that her performance in The Virgin Suicides wasn't entirely a fluke), Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood (playing decidedly against type), and Mark Ruffalo, only cements Eternal Sunshine's status as one of the absolute best films of this or any year. Rating: *****.
02. The Incredibles, d. Brad Bird // Kill Bill, Volume Two, d. Quentin Tarantino.
Pulp fictions elevated to the levels of high art, Kill Bill, Volume Two and The Incredibles are politically timely in their explorations of difficult confrontations in non-traditional families and in how those confrontations ultimately reaffirm moral codes that are shocking not for their subversion but for their simplicity. The films become inseparable in Kill Bill V.2's final act, in which the titular Bill (David Carradine, the year's most egregious Oscar snub, despite the outcry from Paul Giamatti's fanclub) monologues about the deeper appeal of the Superman mythology, in that Clark Kent is Superman's true "costume"-- which is the very idea that drives the entirety of The Incredibles' central conflict. And it's impossible to believe that the pending big screen revision to the Superman legacy will match the insight either of these films brings to this ethos of fundamental alienation.
While each rates handily among the year's most visually arresting films, the strengths of both The Incredibles and Kill Bill, V.2. are in their screenplays, which give their writer-directors room to share their seemingly boundless joy in their chosen profession. Bird's memorable supporting performance as Edna E. Mode, the costume designer for The Incredibles and their superhero peers, gives a concise statement on the particular brand of exhilaration to be found in creating for superheroes, serving as a witty auto-critique of the film itself. For the obvious debt it owes to the heroes of the D.C. and Marvel universes, The Incredibles is fully self-sustaining. It transcends simple homage, and it represents the best in children's entertainment. Dismissed by a handful of critics who mistook its subversive take on modern America's rampant anti-intellectual streak as a variation on Ayn Rand's would-be philosophy, The Incredibles' oft-repeated mantra is, "When everyone is super... no one is." It's to Bird's credit that, in terms of the larger social implications of such a statement, he respects his target audience enough to assume they'll recognize that not as a given but as the challenge he intends it to be. A children's film that respects and challenges both children and adults to such an extent-- and Bird's own The Iron Giant also qualifies as such-- isn't just another "kids' movie." It's a treasure, a film rich and engaging for its value as entertainment but moreso as intellectually demanding art.
Kill Bill, V.2., by contrast, is given further depth in the way it challenges the expectations not of particular social mores but of the underlying mythology as developed in its predecessor. So, like The Incredibles, Volume Two is fully self-sustaining, which is not something it had any real right to be. If not as viscerally engaging as Volume One-- with its series of spectacular battles that continually one-up what came before-- the violence of Volume Two is perhaps more potent for how condensed it is. The Bride's showdown with Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah, doing career-best work) lasts only a few short moments, but its impact is not the least bit diminished by its scant running time. Nor is Budd's shocking introduction of modern weaponry into the fray. And the manner in which The Bride does eventually kill Bill is powerful in its intimacy-- having already broken his heart in metaphor, her ultimate revenge finishes the job in the physical sense. Tarantino understands visual symbolism better than any other American director working today.
The two films are powerful statements about what sacrifices people are willing to make-- both for The Incredibles and The Bride, these sacrifices are most productively read as, at various points, a profound denial of the self-- under the guise of the preservation of "family." That both The Incredibles and Kill Bill, Volume Two arrive at the conclusion that this preservation ultimately demands the full embrace of one's true character-- The Incredibles' decision to come out of hiding; The Bride's redemption coming through a series of assassinations-- grounds the film in a deep understanding of morality. That understanding, sadly, strikes as atonal with a political climate that mistakes evangelical dogma for moral fortitude, but it reaffirms the artistic value of The Incredibles and Kill Bill, Volume Two all the more. Ratings: ***** to both.
01. Dogville, d. Lars Von Trier.
Exceptional as the year's best films might be, the enormity of the chasm separating Lars Von Trier's Dogville even from the likes of Eternal Sunshine or Hero is nearly incomprehensible. It isn't simply the best film of 2004, it's possibly the best film of the decade thus far, an uncompromising and audacious artistic statement as demanding and powerful as it is divisive. Dogville is not a pleasant film by any means, finding its greater value, instead, in its insistence that the medium of film is limitless in its power as a narrative form.
To say that Dogville is a film of literary depth actually undersells its critical fecundity, as the film fully supports an unrivaled number of legitimate analyses, none of them less fascinating than any of the others. It's Von Trier's means of baiting and then responding to the frequently unfounded criticisms of rampant misogyny and sadism that have plagued his career to this point. It's a parody of the Dogme95 school of filmmaking Von Trier helped to found, but whose rules he's followed precisely once in his career. It's Von Trier's most successful homage, both in structure and theme, to his idol Carl Th. Dreyer's masterful 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. It's a wicked, subversive explosion of Thornton Wilder's beaten-to-death Our Town, bringing renewed relevance to a play well past its prime. It's a retelling of Euripides' Medea in modern America that demonstrates how little has changed about compelling drama over two millennia. It's an open and phenomenally well-executed attack on a uniquely American brand of "Christian" sanctimony.
Dogville's thematic depth runs the complete gamut from an intensely personal, autobiographical statement from its auteur to a potent screed against the social mores of a country said auteur has never actually visited in person. It's a film that demands active, intellectual engagement, though it's dense to the extent that it's nearly inscrutable. Anyone who finds Dogville dull or simpleminded isn't trying very hard. At all.
Von Trier, on the other hand, is at the top of his game-- for better and for worse. Not even his most ardent fans would consider him humble, but it's no coincidence that he has the most repellent character in his entire catalogue, Tom Edison (Paul Bettany, never better), repeatedly apologize for his "arrogance" in trying to make an "illustration" out of Grace (Nicole Kidman, also doing career-best work, which is high praise, indeed). But it's ultimately the things that he doesn't apologize for that make Dogville such a gripping drama, and when Von Trier subverts the expectations of his typical third act, the film concludes with the most alien of responses-- a catharsis twinged with guilt. Suffice it to say that Grace is not the typical Von Trier martyr. When she concludes, "If there is any town this world would be better without, this is it," it's one of the few lines of the film that doesn't function as an actual auto-critique. The world may be better off without Dogville, but it's all the richer for Dogville. Rating: *****. And then some.
Farther Along:
11. Noi, d. Dagur Kari.
Just like Napoleon Dynamite. Except funny, insightful, sensitive, intelligent, poetic, well-written, well-directed, well-acted, not racist, Icelandic, and, most importantly, good. Rating: **** 1/2.
12. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, d. Mamoru Oshii.
That the chorus to Brandine's "Oops! I Did It Again!" serves as a near perfect post-modern synopsis for Ghost in the Shell 2 should probably undermine its standing as one of the year's best films more than it does. Rating: ****.
13. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, d. Wes Anderson.
Arguably his most consistently "funny" film, Anderson's The Life Aquatic turned out to be divisive amongst both critics and Anderson's fan-club, even as it fits logically and comfortably into his small but essential catalogue. Rating: ****.
14. House of Flying Daggers, d. Zhang Yimou.
If not for a completely unexpected shift in tone in its final ten minutes-- let's just say that Takeshi Kaneshiro is no Ewan McGregor-- this surely would've ranked higher. As is, it's an endlessly dense exploration of sexual politics disguised as pure eye-candy. Rating: ****.
15. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, d. Rawson Marshall Thurber.
The most consistently hilarious mainstream comedy in ages-- precisely two of its jokes don't fly, but the throwaway lines ("Let the schadenfreude commence!," most notably) make up for them-- that masks an insightful commentary on America's dysfunctional relationships with food and body image, Dodgeball is a far smarter film than most realized. Rating: ****.
16. Spider-Man 2, d. Sam Raimi.
As deserving a blockbuster as any in recent memory, Spider-Man 2 matches its predecessor's high-pulp escapism with some much-needed subtextual development. Sam Raimi? Is kind of a genius. Rating: ****.
17. Shaun of the Dead, d. Edgar Wright.
The inevitable American rip-off starring Kate Hudson and Ryan Reynolds should be fascinating, seeing as how they're already professionally dead-eyed. Not counting the courtship of Spongebob and Patrick, it's the year's most fully-realized traditional romance, but with zombies and Coldplay. Rating: ****.
18. DiG!, d. Ondi Timoner // Aileen: Life And Death of a Serial Killer, d. Nick Bloomfield and Joan Churchill.
Twin portraits of the interpersonal ramifications of certifiable mental illness. Scary that only the latter was intended as such. Ratings: **** to both.
19. Before Sunset, d. Richard Linklater.
Yeah, Julie Delpy, he totally thought you were fat before. And shut up, Ethan Hawke's facial hair. A film that's simple to like, but much harder to care about thanks to the non-fictional navel-gazing. Rating: ****.
20. Friday Night Lights, d. Peter Berg.
Fascinating, really, that the last two mainstream films to maintain such a consistently well-developed tone of subhuman cruelty-- alongside the better-than-it-had-a-right-to-be remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-- are set in Texas. Makes the idea of a certain mandate even harder to buy. Rating: ****.
21. The Machinist, d. Brad Anderson.
A pitch-perfect and pitch-black homage to Hitchcock's second-tier material, and with the year's most singly horrifying gimmick to boot: Method Actor is the new Atkins. Rating: *** 1/2.
22. Rick, d. Curtiss Clayton.
Buoyed by a career-best performance from Bill Pullman, Rick also definitively proves that Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler can write for grown-ups, too. Rating: *** 1/2.
23. The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, d. Stephen Hillenburg.
Hard to justify that it's a great art film, but it draws comparisons both to Dogville and Kill Bill in how it devises and then refuses to stray from its own internal (il)logic. Gleefully irreverent in precisely the way Dreamworks mistakenly thinks the two Shrek films are. Rating: *** 1/2.
24. Baadasssss!, d. Mario Van Peebles.
Mario's love letter to papa Melvin is far more "interesting"-- for its meditations on how little has changed regarding the film industry's brand of racial profiling-- than legitimately "great"-- some of the dialogue is indefensibly stilted-- but the magnitude of the former trait certainly trumps that of the latter. Essential if imperfect viewing. Rating: *** 1/2.
25. Maria Full of Grace, d. Joshua Marston.
And also, at one memorable juncture, of grapes. Hee! I'm twelve! Rating: *** 1/2.
Still Subject to Revision Pending: Vera Drake, Tarnation, The Woodsman, Bad Education, The Sea Inside, Primer, The Motorcycle Diaries, Amelie Gazes Wistfully at WWI, Notre Musique, Goodbye Dragon Inn, and Moolaade.
And there we are. For as much selective forgetting as they represent, 2004's films leave nothing short of an indelible mark on the memory. They're exceptional artistic statements certain to be remembered across generations, both celebrating the best and lamenting the worst of the culture at an impossibly tricky point in history.
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