My friend Nathaniel, who administrates my favorite website for film-awards
junkies and movie obsessives, is pretty adamantly opposed to year-end Top Ten lists that start squeezing in more than ten
movies. I understand his beef, and in most cases I share it. After all, which part of "ten" is so hard to understand?
Two important things struck me, however, about this year's best movies. One was just how many of them there are—Million
Dollar Baby, Crimson Gold, Dogville, The Incredibles, and Spring,
Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring would all have been easy Top Ten material in 2000 or 2003
but barely make the cut of my Top Twenty this year (and that's with a whole clutch of late-breaking releases and arthouse
esoterica still yet to screen in frosted-over Ithaca, NY). What stands out even more about my favorite 2004 films
are the uncanny resonances of theme, form, and tone that seem to unite so many of them. I suddenly
wound up with a list full of ties because as great as Maria Full of Grace and Osama both are individually, their
joint portrait of young women struggling to endure in impossible societies is even more potent. And how about those two luminescent
odes to plaintive, nearly sublimated love that culminate, sort of, in the Parisian streets? Or the shot/countershot of global apocalypse that
contagiously haunted a studio-funded Hollywood rookie and a leading provoc-auteur of the new European cinema?
Am I persuading you yet, Nathaniel? Others? These ties aren't born out of laziness, but out of my own sense of how, at long
last, an annual crop of movies not only provided an abundance of rich artistry but a sustained set of ideas, preoccupations,
and anxieties, laying waste to some old myths but also bravely, even optimistically supplying some new ones. Even the films on this list that aren't billed as ties are indelibly well-matched. I
♥ Huckabees could easily have been titled The Corporation. Since Otar Left and The Return showcase
new forms of visual poetry arising in the former Soviet Union, despite that long shadow of failed communism which, moving a
little eastward, continually fascinates Godard. And of course, the Gondry and Winterbottom movies could spend the rest of
human history gleefully erasing each other from their respective memory banks, while Jason Bourne hopscotches all over our quaking world
trying to recover his own blurry past. The year in film, like the year in American politics, revolved around the theme of
amnesia, and indeed, one is tempted to say that the only things worth remembering, much less cherishing in 2004 were the movies.
This absurdist dirge for an impossible love is also a sweet testimony to the power of trying,
an ensemble celebration of eccentricity and pique of all kinds, and a furtive tribute to extreme technical proficiency even
in a film that appears to critique technology gone awry. The performances all seem heavily improvisatory and yet keenly well-directed
and gorgeously balanced all at the same time. An old-time movie lover will immediately recognize that Eternal Sunshine
is the first American romantic comedy in ages to capture the same sophisticated silliness that lay in the heart of such genre
classics as His Girl Friday, Ball of Fire, or Holiday, even though Kaufman's script, Jon Brion's music,
and the unobtrusively jaw-dropping special effects couldn't feel more contemporary. An egghead cinéaste will be instantly
reminded of Stanley Cavell's lovely encomiums to the screwball "comedies of remarriage" in his book Pursuits of Happiness;
Sunshine looks every bit as full and textured as It Happened One Night or The Awful Truth, and it'll
keep scholars and undergraduates busy for years. Popcorn-munchers, digital video enthusiasts, bleeding-heart romantics,
dyed-in-the-wool Eeyores, pot-heads, mad hatters, and the Friends of Alexander Pope finally have a movie they can enjoy
together. Maybe the biggest irony afoot in Eternal Sunshine is that the film works in exactly the opposite fashion as
the Lacuna procedure that catalyzes the conflict: you actually remember more and more of the movie as time passes, and literally
every sequence feels like a perfect, gleaming face on an unimprovable jewel. (Full Review)
South Korean cinema has lately been dazzling festival-goers and attuned movie-lovers the
way Iranian films did in the mid- to late-1990s. Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring emerged this
year as Korea's first real hit on the arthouse circuit, and it's a lovely, memorable movie. But Lee Chang-dong's Oasis
turned one of the most questionable premises since Boxing Helena into an altogether riskier, nervier, craftier, and
more deeply emotional experience. Lead actors Sol Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri stand tall among the year's freshest and most
daring performances, but it's a testimony to Lee's consistent brilliance as a director that two such striking characterizations
anchor the film without ever overwhelming it. Several key set-pieces burn themselves immediately into your memory: the
disruption of a movie crew, the late-night pruning of a tree, and the two scenes of sex, each uniqely uncomfortable in its
own way. Just as impressive, though, is the anxious, borderline lurid, yet weirdly romantic tenor of the film in its least
story-driven sequences. Exquisite in capturing two polarized versions of outsider existence, as well as the breathless and
sometimes self-interested exasperation that families often feel for their neediest member, Oasis is accessible in any
number of ways without ever relinquishing the weirdness at its core.
The past two years have comprised an enormous groundswell in the popular regard for
documentary filmmaking. Time and again, nonfiction filmmaking of various stripes has been scoring with audiences, and even
if Capturing the Friedmans, The Fog of War, and that
little film Michael Moore made about George W. Bush could all have benefitted from a little more
"there" there, The Corporation (like last year's Love & Diane) is a masterly piece
of work that justifies all the documentary hype. It's only too bad more people didn't see it. Flip-flopping liberals who
questioned the fine points of Michael Moore's rhetoric but welcomed his accessible style might find the best of both worlds
in this Canadian epic. Men and women of nearly every stripe—CEO's, enemies of globalization, industrial spies, marketing
cogs, scholars, historians, and Michael Moore himself—all lend their voices to a film that feels both polemical and lucid
in its well-earned mistrust of the self-perpetuating corporate beast. Yes, The Corporation is massively entertaining;
check out what happens when one of England's toniest white-collar emperors placates a group of anti-globalization radicals
with a front-lawn buffet of tea and crumpets. The movie is also enlightening, sad, horrifying, and even practically instructive:
if you're concerned by what you see, hear, and read, there are things you can do. Renting the film is a good first
step, whenever its much-delayed DVD release finally comes to pass.
Global politics are critiqued just as prominently, though less directly, in these two
fascinating films by first-time directors. Siddiq Barmak's Osama, filmed in Afghanistan just after the fall of the
Taliban, nonetheless describes a representative life as lived under that soulless regime. Foregoing melodrama in favor of
something like pure panic, Barmak's screenplay and his camera follow a young girl who masquerades as a boy in a state-controlled
school-cum-training camp. The prospect of her exposure is a horrible risk throughout, but unlike many film characters in
analogous predicaments, Osama's "protected" life seems just as dire as the one she is fleeing, a ritual blending of religious
zealotry, self-infatuation, and utter listlessness. The lead character in Maria is just as stuck between two intolerable
existences, and though we expect her misadventure to go badly, Marston, like Barmak, surprises with how, when, and why it
goes badly. These movies humanize and specify the miserable lots of two young women who in different ways defy our assumptions
of how they are at risk and what options they have for resisting their fates. Maria was a hit while Osama inexplicably
wasn't, but they both merit attention as serious, nuanced, and formally precise films about urgent and heart-rending issues.
FYI: Fans of either film might appreciate Chandra Talpade Mohanty's recent book Feminism Without Borders, which offers
both a generous survey of the various obstacles women and girls are still encountering across the modern world as well as a
useful set of correctives to the kinds of martyrizing stereotypes that Western liberals sometimes impose on the real, richer
lives of the women in question. (Full Review of Maria) (Full Review of
Osama)
Code 46 and Notre musique (Our Music) are a less obvious pair than the movies
at #4, and yet they strike me as speaking in compatible ways to the blending of cultures, the pains of history (repressed and
otherwise), and a dogged optimism about the future even as present conditions don't imply anything good. Movie lovers are
often vulnerable to the na?ve belief that a world which yields such forceful and fascinating art must surely be redeemable,
and it's true that my battered heart warmed a little to see the eternally undervalued Winterbottom and the suddenly rejuvenated
Godard express their dismay at perverse, self-annihilating societies in such imaginative, oblique, and sometimes teasing ways.
Despite the quasi-star power of Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton, Code 46 was destined not to be the crossover hit that
some Winterbottom fans wanted it to be; more happily, and more importantly, its bravely cool presentation of an ostensible
"romance" and its rigorous blend of pathos and politics gave low-budget science fiction an even better name than Primer
did. Hopefully it's a movie people will come back to, even if it went virtually undiscovered in its commercial release. Godard,
for his part, whipped up a three-part essay on the aftermath of human violence that both obeyed and frayed its seemingly
schematic structure. The Hell chapter sure looks hellish, but the improbably verdant fantasy of Heaven (an Edenic garden
"protected" by camouflaged Marines) was just as worrisome. Still, this isn't just a growly rant. Beyond the predictably
potent editing and the defiantly chiastic dialogue, the verbal and facial expressions of grief, curiosity, knowledge, need,
and hopefulness compelled you to dig into all the philosophizing. Compared to the inflated lecture it could easily have been,
Notre musique is as elliptical as Code 46. Your guess about the world's future is as good as Godard's, though
his is probably more impressive to behold.
The lead characters of Before Sunset first met in Vienna and are now reunited, via
equal parts destiny and ardent determination, in the bookshops and sidewalks of Paris. As in Before Sunrise, the
city is eloquently invoked as something more than backdrop: its mood and character seems to seep into the liaison itself,
flavoring Céline and Jesse's relations in ways they may or may not be aware of. If Before Sunset feels both precious and
sincere, luminous throughout but with a peripheral tinge of morbidity, it's hard to imagine another city that could so
readily provide the dappling of sunlight and so easily sustain the heartfelt debates over emotional life and death. Richard Linklater
limns the beauty of Paris but doesn't overdo it; he evinces both the fascination and the mature restraint of a sophisticated
outsider. First-time director Julie Bertucelli hails from Paris, but when the final chapters of Since Otar Left
leave the unglamorously bucolic Republic of Georgia for a sojourn to the City of Light, she evokes a vision of the city similar
to Linklater's: admiring but a little distracted, appreciative in a way that isn't quite intimate. You don't get better, less
ostentatious location
photography than you find in these two films, but they have even greater virtues, which also invite comparison. Though the
love at the center of Before Sunset is romantic and that in Since Otar Left is mostly familial, both movies tease
out that peculiar, delicate sadness that infuses an idealized love. Céline and Jesse's dreams and projections of their
thwarted romance may or may not be a realistic match for the people they really are and the bond they truly have. The titular
but invisible Otar is, respectively, a treasured son, an eclipsing annoyance, and a role model to the three generations of
women in Bertucelli's film. Where Before Sunset and Since Otar Left achieve greatness—abetted by the superior
performances of their small casts—is in rendering spry, full-bodied, and compassionate portraits of their characters by delving
so sensitively into the people they love, the places and ideals they long for, and their mature but panged acceptance of the
lives they have built. If you somehow aren't converted over the course of these movies, the pitch-perfect endings of both
should seal the deal. (Full Review of Before Sunset)
Its detractors made plenty of fair points. The game ensemble didn't always seem in full
control of their script, nor were their styles of performance perfectly syncopated with each other. The oscillations between
planned moments of kookiness and face-saving improvisation were more than evident, and a couple of jokes that should have
counted for more, like Shania Twain's cameo, almost instantly fall by the wayside. But where were the film's champions? The
film is a workout for the audience as well as the actors, uniting us all in the attempt to navigate a wide series of tones,
to make something clever and jaunty out of WalMart-era dismay, and to wrestle with some intellectual dilemmas that still feel
weighty no matter how much you boil them down. Huckabees essentially does all of this, sometimes with delirious ingenuity,
winning laughs for centerpiece sequences (like the priceless meal at Jean Smart and Richard Jenkins' house), sustained gimmicks
(the chicken salad story, Albert's barely latent desire for Brad), and even small gestures like Lily Tomlin's obstacle-course
sprint through a nest of lawn sprinklers or Dustin Hoffman's sublime reading of the line "there is no such thing as you or me"
as though it is some kind of avuncular assurance. The musical score is packed with wonders, and K.K. Barrett, Spike Jonze's
regular production designer, combined bland spaces and inspired tchotchkes in the same way the script fuses silliness and
Socratic inquiry. Laden with some of the best comic performances of the year (and, in Mark Wahlberg's revelatory turn, one of
the best performances, period), Huckabees will deserve every bit of its hopeful future career as a cult-movie cause
cél?bre.
Big-budget sequels often open with bigger numbers than the movies that inspired them, but
as devotés of the original quickly gorge themselves on the leftovers, box-office and word-of-mouth typically begin to fade.
But with this powerhouse film, the imminent Bourne franchise feels like it's just gotten going. A deeper, darker, and
more expansive take on the core material—in the tradition of such stellar follow-ups as Aliens and The Empire Strikes
Back—The Bourne Supremacy takes what felt like conceptual ingredients in the first film, like Jason's amnesia and
his longing for personal connection, and it muscles them up into legitimate character points and thematic concerns. As he
scuttles around the world and off the grid, his life riven with doubt and new layers of vengeful anger, Bourne gets exactly
the antagonists he deserves, an unsolidified alliance of power brokers, snipers, Neros, and bureaucrats who are all as sharp
as tacks. Newly hired director Paul Greengrass clenches the movie like a fist, moving his cast and his cameras around the
vast chessboard of the script with the same kind of ferocity we see in Joan Allen's whipsmart operative and Brian Cox's ruthless
puppeteer. The photography, the locations, the endless cutting, and the music are kept just this side of frenetic abandon,
and when the movie finally culminates in the very best in a decade's worth of car chases, the power lodged into every aspect
of the movie seems to erupt all at once—yet still without any sacrifice in directorial control. Easily the best cash-cow of
the year, which was saying something in a year full of surpassingly good sequels. (Full Review)
Movies about the end of the world, however stark on the surface, are usually subtended by
a secret belief that someone will survive, some galactic risk will pay off, and a new day will come. That Zack Snyder's Dawn
of the Dead and Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf refused these kinds of assurance with every fiber of their being
is not in itself a credit; a hopeful movie can be just as good, and often better, than a nihilistic one. In these two cases,
however, the lack of tonal compromise was a hint you could trust all the way to the films' conclusions. You may have seen
these stories before (and in Dawn's case, we literally had seen this story before), but the rigor of the photography
and the disciplined compression of information alchemized what could have been pure redundancies into stunning and wholly
disconcerting experiences. The chief plaint filed against both movies was that the characters were not as developed as, say,
the trio of holdouts in last year's 28 Days Later, but it's hard to imagine when or where in
these scenarios would have been the best time for a full-cast meet 'n' greet. The controversial speediness of Snyder's zombies
made sense in a world where everything—even contagion, even death—is swifter than ever, and now that Time of the Wolf
is available on DVD, its cauterizing vision of marooned societies and frayed nerves may speak to the desperate, circumstantial
communities now being formed among terrorized Iraqi civilians and displaced tsunami victims. Time of the Wolf was
rather indifferently received at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, while Dawn of the Dead was a surprise invitee for a
Cannes screening in 2004. In both cases, the Croisette probably isn't the right venue for these proficiently bleak films.
Try the Catacombs. (Full Review of Dawn)
The last two movies on this list are curious cases, because both Birth and The
Return herald brilliant careers for directors who still have some things to learn. Jonathan Glazer, for whom Birth
was a long-in-coming follow-up to 2001's Sexy Beast, has a way of privileging virtuoso
editing, stylized photography, and scrupulous performances in a way that defers audience involvement and can seem a little
self-congratulatory. Andrei Zvyagintsev, the young Russian helmer behind The Return, betrays his influences just as
obviously and has a film student's appetite for portentous montage and attention-grabby tracking shots. But like last year's
#10 film on my list, Jane Campion's In the Cut, both of these movies are audaciously impressive
technical exercises that everyone should have been seeing, admiring, and debating instead of just ignoring. There isn't any
question about the quality of the acting in either picture. Despite being asked to spend an entire movie with an unresolved
skepticism about a stranger's identity, Nicole Kidman in Birth and Ivan Dobronravov in The Return are powerhouses
in their roles, each prone to massive waves of emotion and each keeping the audience guessing as to what their characters will
possibly do next. What works in both movies works in a way that surpasses even some of the higher-ranked members of this
list: when Kidman's Anna has an internal epiphany at the symphony, or when The Return's seemingly affected motif of
heights and depths leads to unpredictable payoffs, I promise you'll be nailed to your seat. In truth, Clint Eastwood's deceptively
anachronistic Million Dollar Baby might deserve this slot on the Best List even more, but based on my experience with
Mystic River, I'm uncertain how well the movie will age, even in the coming months. Rather than endorse an old pro's
movie about a muscular neophyte, why not champion real-life upstarts who may need some more training but still packed more
punch in 2004 than most of their seasoned counterparts? Like the cryptic visitors in their films, I suspect that Glazer and
Zvyagintsev will keep us guessing for a long while to come.