Yea, I never bothered to post this on the main site, but here it is:
My top 10 of 2008 is here:
10) Boarding Gate
Take a potboiler corporate espionage/murder plot and remix it as a patient Euro-art picture and you end up with Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate. The spiritual sequel to his overlooked 2002 film Demonlover has Asia Argento at her most raw, riveting, desperate and sexy. What would normally be a couple minute exposition scene between her and Micheal Madsen (wit the purpose to breaks up a pair of lovers and and set the plot in motion) ends up to be a riveting and significant chunk of the film. Transcending genre into to poetry. Its all in the execution, and really this is one of the most unique genre film entries of 2008.
9) Pontypool
Probably the worlds first semiotic zombie film, the film defies expectations at every turn and plays out much more like a science-fiction chamber piece. A career topping performance from character actor Stephen McHattie, who gets to chew mightily on Tony Burgess’s sharp screenplay. If language and meaning and communication are of any interest to you, look past the Z-word (which is never uttered in the film) and give this one a shot. It is nice to see that there is a number of intelligent genre flicks coming out of Canada.
8 ) The Wrestler
The Wrestler is built kind of like the sport that it is set in. The story is familiar, a bit shop-worn, even contrived, and perhaps a bit faked. While things are playing out on screen, it archives a genuine emotional workout: the best kind of cinematic magic. The film is a weepy and a crowd- pleaser in the best sense of both of those terms. Above all, it shows a talented filmmaker at the pinnacle of his career, working with two actors at the pinnacle of their game. All those rough years boxing and slumming serve Mickey Rourke’s features well in this one, and he carries the film mightily. While it may or may not do any favours to legitimize the modern cartoon that is WWE, it is a strangely positive love-letter to the sport (witness the charming ‘shop talk’ in the Wrestlers greenroom) and those who grind themselves away practitioning it.
7) Let the Right One In
A low-key Swedish vampire love-story with young children that shows Twilight to be merely playtime. The film begin to pick up momentum on the festival circuit and had a modest cinema release, yet was criminally underseen. Perhaps one of the most praised films of 2008 that nobody outside of the usual film circles actually saw. Let The Right One in is delicate, subtle and patient film which is executed with the tone of Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos yet mines similar ‘immortality sadness’ themes as Tony Scott’s (obviously much more bombastic) The Hunger. It is also a fabulous mix of coming of age sweetness with distant emotional storytelling (so often found in Scandinavian cinema). The film has visual smarts (it shows the story as opposed to ‘telling it’) to burn but keeps things always grounded in the story of 12 year old Oskar and his young initiation into love and violence. Let The Right one in insists on keeping the audience on its toes with quiet unpredictability.
6) Che
A highly unconventional Biopic that boasts not only of a key performance from Benicio del Toro, but also a very solid supporting cast that gives not so much a dramatic narrative, but more of an ecosystem of a revolution. This is compelling storytelling and a beautiful movie to boot. The two parts are necessary for the complete story, but do not necessarily have to be seen in a single sitting to get the full impact.
5) White Night Wedding
White Night Wedding is very likely the best film from Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur. The film is a whopper of an ensemble piece that sees a lot of characters who all have many motives and schemes on the go (the film is loosely adapted from a Chekhov play). Everything culminates and collapses and recombines in one of the most intense forms of celebration: The Wedding. It is not often that a dramatic comedy is the ‘full package’ in terms of emotional resonance, humour, wit and pathos. And I now have a new favourite character actor: Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, who entertains in broad strokes as the vibrant best man and piano player in the film.
4) Blindness
Surprisingly Fernando Meirelles adaptation of Nobel laureate José Saramago’s novel was met with either indifference or disdain by the mainstream critics at both festivals and during its not so successful commercial release. Blindness is a rich allegorical fable on support and dependence (and the use of power). All that pedigree may give the illusion that the film that is wearing a dinner jacked and bow tie (Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf is perhaps the closest analogue). When the clothes comes off (literally at points) it reveals the stinking humanity contained underneath and pulls no punches. While I did not care for the last couple minutes of the film (which were unnecessary and perhaps even facile without the film continuing for another act), everything up to that point is stylish, brutal, and above all questioning on how different people utilize a particular privilege (such as sight) when it is handed to them in the strangest of circumstances. The international cast are great, but it is the stylish direction and boiled-down script which seal the deal.
