KVETCHFEST 2013 - KVETCHFEST... NO MORE!

THE LIST.

Hey there, stranger! Where have you been these last twelve months?

2013 has been a strange year professionally. While I didn’t make a short film of my own this year, I began the year in a rather alien position for me -- shooting ‘B’ camera on my good pal Shane Dunlop’s sitcom LEONGATHA (which screened on C31 in Melbourne and Sydney mid-year). I say “alien” as I’ve rarely been a Camera Operator outside of one of my films or a school environment. It was a fantastic experience, working with a lovely crew on a fun, fast-paced shoot. I learned a lot, got some nice footage -- and the shoot introduced me to the glory of the 50mm lens, for which I shall be forever grateful. So a huge thanks from me to Shane, Luke Morrison and the Sengsouvanh (aka Scallions) brothers for having me along. It’s a funny show, too, and all available on YouTube.

Then, thanks to the gale-force powers of Rubia Braun, I lent my services to the Armed With The Arts Peace Crane Project, shooting some footage of origami cranes and kids playing in Melbourne for the Australia arm of this excellent project. Supported by the United Nations, no less, the project aims to get children all over the world engaged in artistic pursuits, and exploring its potential to understand other cultures, start a conversation and find alternative ways to express emotions and resolve conflict. It’s a brilliant initiative, and the video we shot in the US, India and Australia was screened in New York, before the UN. Here it is, and it’s pretty darn cute.

There was also the usual work of shooting and editing pitch videos for friends’ TV projects and actors’ showreels... but the most exciting development for me this year was writing my very first feature film screenplay. I’ve been developing my “inverted slasher film”, MENTOR, for a little while now, but finally put Courier New to Final Draft (the new “pen to paper”, in case you’re wondering) this year and, by September, was able to hold an 88 page printed document, that included a beginning, a middle and an end, in my hands. Needless to say, this was a massive thrill for me. Literally decades of starting feature film scripts and hitting the wall at page 30 are now over. It feels like a new era has begun. I’ve since started work on my “official” first draft, cleaning the script up and turning it into the movie I want to make. It’s going slowly... but brilliantly. I’m even surprising myself, which is nice. I’m looking to have this draft locked in by March 2014, which is when things will start to get really exciting!

But enough about me. I know you’re all here for...

If I had to vote for a collective cinema MVP of 2013, it would be American Independent Cinema. The US Indies have killed it this year, showing more than ever that you don’t need a big budget, special VFX or even a script to get to the truth: you just need to find your own way there, in the way that speaks to you. Films in among my favourites this year include a midnight movie take on the 1%/99% divide, a completely improvised comedy of unresolved tension between friends, possibly the greatest feminist rom-com ever made and a look at a care facility for at-risk kids that manages to dodge all sentimentality for beautifully lived-in truth - and breaks your heart anyway. What’s more, 2013 is also the year where the spearheads of the so-called “mumblecore” film movement -- Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, Andrew Bujalski -- finally graduated with honours, making films that were funny, touching, inventive, scarily relatable and beautifully crafted. 

As always, this countdown arrives with disclaimers:

1. My list is restricted to films that had their premiere screening to the Australian public (whether in cinemas, on home video, online or at film festivals) during the 2013 calendar year.
2. The #1 film I saw this year won’t be appearing on this list, as it doesn’t officially release in Australia until January 16th. (But let’s just say the Coen Brothers have outdone themselves.)

145 films enter... how many will leave?

Honourable Mentions

2013 began with a deluge of 2012 awards contenders... but it was a 2012 festival title, Abbas Kiarostami’s mysterious Japanese-set investigation of romantic lives, LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE, that seduced me with its beguiling mystery, commentary on what different forms of love mean to us, touching observations and gorgeous visuals. But what really makes it soar are little snapshots -- a girl too ashamed to face her grandmother, who waits alone and patiently for her, a bereft old man tentatively inviting a young escort to his flat for some semblance of company, a young man with love and passion to give but no maturity with which to handle it -- observations that burrow into your head and stay there. 

At 77 years old, most actors are fading gracefully into retirement, let alone appearing in every frame of a physically gruelling survival tale... but Robert Redford isn’t “most actors”. ALL IS LOST is a gripping, terrifying yet almost meditative examination of humanity’s boundless struggle for life in the face of near-divine hopelessness, told without dialogue, exposition or other cast; just JC Chandor’s taut direction and intelligent writing plus one great movie star -- quietly, stoically, poignantly standing against insurmountable odds. 

Andrew Bujalski has been at the forefront of the so-called “mumblecore” group of independent American filmmakers since the early 2000s, but his aggressively awkward, observational style has never come together for me before until COMPUTER CHESS, where his sublimely lumpy B&W VHS visuals underscore the film’s emotionally stunted, ultimately loveable tech-obsessives and the nervous dawn of a changing landscape, a new era they may finally fit into. It’s also funny as hell, playing on egos and social mores of the time, as well as a clever look at how we express ourselves through technology -- even long before social media - before taking a turn for the deeply weird. 

Ethnographic documentaries set in remote villages can often be dry and clinical, but VILLAGE AT THE END OF THE WORLD -- with its look at Niaqornat in North Greenland, one of the most isolated villages on Earth -- proves they don’t have to be. Director Sarah Gavron’s crew follows a charming handful of the country’s 59 citizens over a year as they go about their lives, and finds an inspiring collective both surprisingly fluid and powerfully resolute in the face of impending modernity.

At 82 and having not made a film since 1990, it seemed quite reasonable to assume that Chilean surrealist tearaway Alejandro Jodorowsky was done as a filmmaking force. But the fact the ridiculously spry trickster managed to return to the screen with a big, bawdy, bonkers, autobiographical effort like THE DANCE OF REALITY shouldn’t come as a surprise, either. The thing that is surprising about this colourful, hilarious, warm-hearted film is how utterly sweet and straight-forward it is, and I don’t mean that pejoratively. This may disappoint fans bracing for the indecipherable, balls-out insanity of The Holy Mountain or the mordant grotesqueries of Santa Sangre, but I’m here to tell you: the weirdness is still there -- this is Jodorowsky, after all -- but he’s being reflective this time, thinking about his past and, in casting his freakishly lookalike son, the future. At his age, I reckon the guy’s earned it, don’t you? 

While it may have been made for US cable TV giant HBO, we all know BEHIND THE CANDELABRA is Steven Soderbergh’s cinematic swansong (for a while, anyway) -- even down to its climactic Liberace exit scene -- and what a glorious finale it is. Michael Douglas is remarkable as the flamboyant, emotionally manipulative but fiercely publicly closeted pianist and Matt Damon damn near matches him as his immature but heartbreakingly sincere lover, Scott Thorson. Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z Burns could’ve made Liberace look like a monster, but they and Douglas really humanise him, even if the results are rarely pretty. But while sadness underpins every scene, the film is also often uproariously funny, and I won’t lie: it’s awesome to see two straight major movie stars dive into gay roles with such enthusiasm. 

As someone who lived next to the Italian-Australian suburb of Carlton for a long while, I was curious to find what LYGON STREET: SI PARLA ITALIANO would tell me about this much-documented suburb that I didn’t already know. The short answer was “plenty”, but what really knocked me for six was the parallels the film subtly makes between these pioneering 1950s immigrants and today’s refugees -- the Italians of Carlton changed not only Melbourne, but Australia, in such a deep, fundamental way that we can scarcely imagine life without them -- and it’s important to consider what positive impact the African and Middle Eastern migrants of today will have on our landscape, if only we have the humanity to give them the room and encouragement to flourish. 

Three decades of sifting through reams of footage to juxtapose sound and image in music video -- not to mention his Zelig-like omnipresence in the UK pop cultural firmament -- seemed to have prepared Julien Temple for this moment, as he pulls off an astonishing, herculean feat of montage in his stunning feature-length collage LONDON: THE MODERN BABYLON. Comprised of often jaw-dropping footage -- cut with toe-tapping tunes both scathing and affectionate -- of London over the last 100 years, I’ve never seen a filmmaker so utterly encapsulate the truth of a city -- good, bad, ugly -- and end on a note of genuine hope that, hey, maybe this constantly turbulent, implosive, resilient mass of humanity may actually work this whole society thing out. It’s nothing less than a major document of one of our planet’s great metropolises. 

Somber, meditative Soviet films set during World War II aren’t usually my bag, but there’s something urgently terrifying about Sergei Loznitza’s IN THE FOG that grips right away. Perfectly capturing the insidious paranoia of the wartime psyche, turning lifelong friends against each other because of a stupid assumption, a lie, a word said out of place, the film launches you into the gentle protagonist’s nightmare as he goes from respected family man to unjustly captured traitor in the blink of an eye. The film splits its focus between the man and his captors -- and while it does fall off slightly in the second half, as one character isn’t nearly as interesting as the other two -- it nails the compromised moral quagmire that wars create, encourage and almost never repair. 

Has there been a cinematic image as utterly blissful as a monochromatic Greta Gerwig leaping down Manhattan streets to the booming beats of Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’ this year? Thing is, the rest of FRANCES HA is pretty damn wonderful, too; a sweet, sharply observed look at what it’s like to fumble around trying to find your place in the world, largely failing miserably, only to try and try again because, well, what choice do we have?? Gerwig is simply incandescent, surrounded by terrific, lived-in performances, in a film whose lightness of touch is defied by the humanity it shows its characters who, in lesser hands, could have been annoying, self-absorbed, privileged jerks. The fact that Noah Baumbach’s film (co-written with Gerwig) makes us laugh through recognition, then break our hearts a little at unexpected moments, feels more like a magic trick each time I think about it.

PAUL ANTHONY NELSON'S TOP 20 FILMS OF 2013

20) MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Working under the huge shadow of Kenneth Branagh’s glorious 1993 screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s fanciful, farcical play, Joss Whedon decided to invite his affable, ever-growing repertory company of actors around to his house to shoot his own version -- retaining the Bard’s text -- over a couple of weeks he had free during post-production on Avengers. Was this lunacy or genius? All the mythologising in the world would have been all for naught if the cast weren’t up to it, or Whedon was just serving up a self-indulgent folly... but what resulted was a little bit of magic. Despite being a fan of the cast in general, their skill with Shakespeare’s dialogue still surprised me. The film is effortlessly charming, beautifully shot, a great modern take (Whedon’s decision to have the characters constantly imbibing is genius, as their wild assumptions and flights of fancy finally make sense!) and shows that, every once in a while, even Americans can get Shakespeare right.

19) OH BOY
A black-and-white portrait of a young man out of sync with his city, what appears a German companion piece to Frances Ha is actually far more. What elevates Jan Ole Gerster’s film over Baumbach’s is its deft allusions to the act of emotional and psychological evolution through first reconciling one’s past. As Niko, our protagonist (the excellent Tom Schilling), finds himself being pulled along by old friends, awkwardly encountering old flames and confronting the lies he tells his father -- all the while on the seemingly impossible quest to find a coffee -- we get a picture of a very familiar, very real crossroads of anyone who’s been through their twenties... until, in the film’s final act, it drops an emotional bomb on us that shows Niko that his own struggle to evolve is reflected, and eclipsed, by Berlin -- and Germany -- itself. It’s a quietly devastating moment that reminds us that by facing and forgiving who we were, we have a real shot becoming who we’re meant to be. 

18) PROMISED LAND
A sharp, perceptive and surprisingly balanced look at oil company representatives (played by Matt Damon and Frances McDormand) campaigning for the hearts, minds and -- most importantly -- land of a small American town, the people who stand in their way (Hal Holbrook and John Krasinski) and those caught in between (Rosemarie DeWitt). Corporate greed, the global economy, the separation between what one does and who one is, and even pro-environmental lobbying come into question in one of the year’s most intelligent, even witty screenplays (written by Damon and Krasinski, clever dicks both). While some critics have maligned the film’s third act twist, it’s actually a bracing reminder of what multinationals will do to get what they want. It’s great to see big stars and a director like Gus Van Sant take on these huge issues in such an crisp, accessible fashion. Like most of the films on this list, it deserves a much bigger audience. 

17) SHORT TERM 12
It’s been a superb year for American indies, and this touching, funny portrait of a young woman supervising a foster home for troubled teens feels so real it stings. Brie Larson is excellent as Grace, a committed, empathetic rock for these kids, but an unreconciled mess inside. John Gallagher Jr is a sweetheart as Mason, her co-worker, boyfriend and her own rock, and the teens themselves are beautifully well-drawn and complex. The whole film is crafted with winning sensitivity -- but never, ever sentimentality -- from debut feature writer/director Destin Cretton, and the result is a window into broken hearts but spirits unbowed, but with humour, heart and a punky, scrappy attitude that makes this film an emotional, unexpected pleasure that will leave a bruise or two. Beautiful stuff. 

16) REWIND THIS!
Well, this is just geek nirvana right here. A feature-length oral history of the birth of home video, the seismic impact the humble VHS cassette had upon the way film would be consumed and the way it would inspire impressionable young film loving minds, this documentary is a compulsively watchable delight from start to end. Filmmakers, critics and video company honchos who were there at the ground level cheerfully share their memories of the VHS explosion -- how it democratised all possible strata of films and filmmakers, the lost art of evocative (and frequently fraudulent) video box art, the weird and wonderful delights that only this format could make possible and the rush of going to your video store and having all of film history at your fingertips for the first time in history. For any film buff, or any kid who grew up renting tapes from your local, this is a wild, hilarious, insightful and exuberant trip down memory lane. 

15) THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES
After breaking my heart with Blue Valentine, director Derek Cianfrance nearly repeats the effort with this poignant, compassionate emotional epic of moral consequences, thinly disguised as a crime drama. Once motorcycling bank robber Ryan Gosling crosses paths with rookie cop Bradley Cooper, their lives -- and those of their children -- are changed forever. There’s a bold, big-hearted scope to this film which elevates it above others working in this territory, as it’s more interested in how our choices today can reverberate through time -- what seems right now may destroy someone later, and what an enormous responsibility we carry to ourselves and those we love. Yet its real power is frequently delivered in small moments: a line, a look, a gesture. In a year of stellar Bradley Cooper performances, this may contain my favourite, but the searing, damaged soul of this beautiful, multi-layered drama is contained in the sad, drawn face of Dane DeHaan. You’ll see.

14) GRAVITY
For years, we’ve been hearing how the effects for this film would mark a new level in visual effects storytelling. Boy, did it ever live up to the hype. But what I didn’t expect is what a powerfully primal, almost spiritual experience seeing it on the biggest screen possible, in 3D, would have. Through the most basic of escalating survival narratives, in the most unforgiving environment known to humanity, director Alfonso Cuaron and his son/co-screenwriter Jonas Cuaron have fashioned a tale of one woman’s rebirth through complete despair, as stirring as it is broad. Sure, the screenplay gives us a little more exposition than we need, and plays it a bit too cute at times, but any deficiencies are obliterated by the soulful, rock-solid performance of Sandra Bullock, who has never utilised her natural relatability and star power better than here. Bullock, Alfonso Cuaron’s meticulous vision and the often startlingly immersive work of his crew and VFX team are the juice behind this refreshing reminder of the raw power of the big screen experience. 

13) THE SELFISH GIANT
Just when you think British social realist cinema has outdone itself, someone else comes along and redefines the form. Clio Barnard made a striking debut with her docudrama bio of playwright Andrea Dunbar, The Arbor, but she takes a quantum leap toward greatness with this disquieting, deeply sad tale of child grafters in Bradford. She never wastes a shot, her characterisations are sublime and her cast -- particularly her child leads -- are scarily, heartrendingly perfect. Watching these children, on the cusp of their teens, seeing their potential eroded action by action before your very eyes, driven by the cyclical circumstance of the environment they’ve inherited, is one of the distressing things you’ll see on screen this or any other year. Brilliant, honest filmmaking. 

12) DRINKING BUDDIES
This was just a delight. Joe Swanberg has directed/co-directed sixteen feature films since his 2005 debut, KISSING ON THE MOUTH, forging a loose, freeform improvisational style which hunts relentlessly for cinematic truth, with mixed results at times. Which is why DRINKING BUDDIES feels like a graduation film of sorts. The method is classic Swanberg: wholly improvised dialogue, framing a story assembled from snatches of life... but the actors are better -- it’s his biggest name cast yet -- the shooting is assured and the all-too-real shifts and nuances of personal relationships captured here hang together as a wonderful story. We know actors like Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston can bring it, but Olivia Wilde is the revelation here. Her sheer physical beauty has seen her shoehorned into all-too-conventional hot-girl roles that don’t exploit her intelligence, humour or adorably rangy presence, but Swanberg just gets it, and lets her run, uh, wild. It’s a star-making performance, as her and Jake Johnson (an actor I’ve seen little of) are note-perfect in this look at two friends whose long-ignored sexual tension reaches a crucial point. How much of their friendship is attraction? Would they even work as a couple? Playing like the WHEN HARRY MET SALLY of its generation, but with even more bone-deep honesty and less sentiment, DRINKING BUDDIES is a winner. Oh, and you may fancy a drink afterwards, too.

11) ANTIVIRAL
Where the Cronenberg family are concerned, it seems the pulsating apple doesn’t fall far from the fleshy tree. With his father David having now abandoned the distinctive brand of twisted body horror sci-fi he invented, ANTIVIRAL announces the arrival of Brandon Cronenberg to pick up the mantle -- and how! More of a stark, Kubrickian stylist than his dad, Brandon creates a chilling, all-too-believable world, not too far from our worthless celebrity-saturated culture of TMZ, where fans can purchase the diseases, bacteria and re-grown living tissue of their favourite celebrities. Get closer to your favourite pop idol by sharing their herpes. But it’s also a brilliant, scathing satire of the managers, marketers and TMZ-like forces that perpetuate this culture that fools people into giving over their own lives to follow and approximate the apparent lives of exalted others. But it’s not all metaphors and white vistas splattered with red: Brandon inherits the old man’s gift for visceral bodily eruptions and creepily invasive terrors as well -- as brilliantly icky as any seen since VIDEODROME. It’s nice to see the Cronenberg name is in good hands.

10) IN A WORLD…
Lake Bell has been an actress I’ve liked for a few years now, cursed with the continued indignity of gracing middling projects that weren’t up to her charm or ability. So it’s a pleasure to see her take the reins as writer/director/star and smash it out of the park. But not only has Bell created one of the funniest, sweetest films of the year, but also one of mainstream film history’s most cogent feminist statements. She has the genius notion to set the film in the little-explored but famously male-dominated world of movie trailer voice-over artists (hence the film’s title) and casts herself as the daughter of an industry legend, trying to break in. With deft skill, Bell packages a rousing, relatable feminist manifesto as a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. Men need to see this, and listen up. The cast (stocked with US comedy royalty) are uniformly excellent, Bell’s script is witty and on-point, and her direction seamlessly navigates the path from laughs to tears and back again, never compromising the gravity at her film’s core. In a world where cinematic entertainment as art gets its due, Bell would be lauded as a thrilling new American independent voice.

9) MAGIC MAGIC
Since Roman Polanski nailed the paranoid-fantasies-of-a-socially-repressed-woman subgenre with works like Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, few filmmakers have managed to capture that delicate balance of mania, reality and empathy those films achieved... but Sebastian Silva may have cracked the code. MAGIC MAGIC is a gradual nightmare of social discomfort that digs deep into your brain and flatly refuses to leave. It sets up its situation quickly and clearly, drawing us into the fragile psyche of Juno Temple’s Alicia -- one of the year’s best performances -- far from home in Chile, as the group around her seem forever in on a cosmic joke she’s not privy to. Even when her hosts try to reach out to her, or Alicia to them, watching their dynamic decay and distort is all too unsettling for anyone who has ever felt socially awkward, unwelcome or out of their depth. Also worth mentioning is Michael Cera -- as the lecherous, sexually ambiguous Brink, his performance hilarious, sadistic and ultimately sad. But the scariest thing about MAGIC MAGIC is that every situation here feels so plausibly, unnervingly natural, that when Silva keeps twisting the screws ever tighter to the film’s startling conclusion, you’re left breathless, speechless, hopeless. Chilling stuff.

8) DJANGO UNCHAINED
As I’m sure you’re all aware, I’m a massive fan -- nay, acolyte -- of Quentin Tarantino’s work. His patient storytelling, graceful craft, explosive violence, movie mixmaster sensibilities and deeply personal take on cinema are like catnip to me. DJANGO UNCHAINED, with its fierce spaghetti western rebuke to slavery and the Confederate South, doesn’t disappoint. It’s a finely crafted triumph of the genre, full of savage imagery, witty asides and rousing comeuppances, but also has the testicular fortitude and -- it must be said -- sincerity to flip off Old White America in a big bad way. Django (an effectively taciturn Jamie Foxx) may be a hero for the Old West, but his nonchalance and fuck you insouciance are forged from very modern rap/hip-hop culture. He’s an individualist focused on rescuing his love (the adorable Kerry Washington) -- not out to lead or inspire his people; if that’s a happy side effect, great, but Django’s out to get his own life back. What happens after that, we’ll see. But as badass a hero as Django is, there are three incredible performances in this film that eclipse him: Christoph Waltz’s lovably honourable yet hubristic Dr Schultz, Leonardo DiCaprio’s hideous Calvin Candie and -- perhaps the most stunning of the lot -- Samuel L Jackson’s insidious Stephen, major domo to Candie and perhaps the most dangerous “Uncle Tom” the screen’s ever seen. DJANGO may be Tarantino’s most straightforward “popcorn picture” to date -- and certainly entertains like one -- but the sheer rage steaming from every pore certainly makes it the year’s most deeply felt blockbuster. 

7) SLEEPWALK WITH ME
Perched somewhere between Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and Jon Favreau’s Swingers, comedian Mike Birbiglia and actor Seth Barrish’s hilarious, poignant, endlessly engrossing directorial debut is -- in the tradition of great American indie cinema -- so distinctly odd and personal, yet somehow manages to resonate with damn near everybody. Ostensibly a feature film extension of Birbiglia’s longform stand-up performance, detailing his struggle to find his voice as a comedian whilst battling a chronic sleepwalking disorder that starts off cute and funny, until it winds up threatening his life. Weaving these real-life events into the metaphor of “sleepwalking” through one’s life could’ve been painfully on-the-nose, but Birbiglia, Barrish and his co-writers Joe Birbiglia and Ira Glass (yes, that Ira Glass) manage it so deftly, imbuing the film with such an immediate, authentic anecdotal approach, that you don’t draw that thread until well after the film ends. Birbiglia makes an insanely affable screen presence and his supporting cast (welcome back Lauren Ambrose! Carol Kane! James Rebhorn! Marc Maron!) are terrific. Co-writer/producer Glass’ radio show This American Life presents stories of ordinary people that take on a fascinating, unique, unpredictable shape, and this is no different, and no less beguiling. Birbiglia’s gift for oral storytelling translates so naturally to the screen that a long and brilliant Albert Brooks-style career awaits him, if he wants it. 

6) BLUE JASMINE
While many filmmaker/comedians have followed in the style of Woody Allen, BLUE JASMINE is here to remind us that there is still no substitute for the man himself. Woody’s cockeyed New Jersey riff on A Streetcar Named Desire is his best film since 1997’s Deconstructing Harry, marrying hilarity and pathos in the sublime fashion of his very best works. But this stunning exploration of class divisions and delusions in modern day America is given its true power and haunting resonance through the performances of Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins. The stellar supporting cast are wonderful, too, but these women are something else entirely. Watching Blanchett’s broken, strident protagonist trip and fall over her fantasy of the privilege she once had is heartbreakingly great. Hawkins is the film’s stealth missile; her character lives her life honestly and morally true to herself, yet she is scarcely more powerful than her sister. As well as a wonderful comedy-drama, it’s also a strong look at what today’s society still does to women -- the choices it forces upon them, the options it robs them of -- and all the more alarming as it’s written and directed by a 77 year old man. As wry as it is dark, yet not averse to a hilariously silly aside or two, it reaffirms Woody Allen as an American cinematic treasure. 

5) CHEAP THRILLS
God damn. This film is one knuckle-dusted sucker punch from outta nowhere. On one hand, E.L. Katz’s stunning directorial debut plays like the ultimate midnight movie: hilarious, bawdy, vicious, violent and allegorical. But on the other hand, it’s also a brilliant microcosm of how debased modern day capitalism has become, the extremes of what people will do for money and the blurred lines between who is more to blame -- the “haves” setting these dehumanising terms, or the “have nots” willing to go along with it? And can this balance of power ever be shifted? Not that you have any time to chew on this during the film, as the creeping dread of the laugh-aloud funny first half cedes to terrifying, unceasing tension in the second. David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga’s script is a marvel of angry satire, cheeky invention and dead-on, plausibly evolving characterisation. The cast are superb, from Pat Healy’s put-upon everyman and Ethan Embry’s edgy brute, to Sara Paxton’s dead-eyed hedonist and David Koechner’s gaudy, alpha male manipulator. It doesn’t play nice or fair, but is a breathlessly visceral treat from its all-too-real beginning to its mordant, pitch-perfect ending.

4) CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
A shocking thing happens in the opening minutes of this film: the first two scenes, depicting Tom Hanks’ Captain Richard Phillips suiting up, then talking about everyday mundanities with his wife (Catherine Keener) while driving to the airport, are straight-up awful. Wracked with robotic dialogue and hack-handed exposition, these first few minutes had me terrified: was this going to be the worst kind of Hollywood cinema? Then, as we meet the Somalian village from whence the eventual pirates will emerge, and Phillips arrives upon the deck of the his ship, the Maersk Alabama, a magical thing happens. Director Paul Greengrass’ trademark verisimilitude with camera, performance and dialogue take over, Hanks disappears into his role -- and the rest of the film becomes the very best kind of Hollywood cinema: Constantly, unbearably tense, brilliantly acted, large-scale yet claustrophobic, directed with total control. But what one doesn’t expect are its thoughtful, even-handed depiction of both the Somali pirates and American crew -- the Somalian characters, in particular, are drawn with distinctive personalities and motives -- its small character nuances, attention to minutiae of life on a container ship, anti-piracy measures and how a post-Iraq-war SEAL operation is executed. The film is not in any way a celebration of anything -- US military might or committed terrorism -- but rather a depiction of how and why a situation went down: a symptom of fundamentally ill global disparity. Never is this collision of pain and confusion more apparent than in Hanks’ final scene; he destroys you with the finest acting moment of his long career. Those first two scenes aside (I don’t recall ever seeing a film do a 180 so quickly and dramatically), this may also be Greengrass’ finest hour. 

3) LAURENCE ANYWAYS
First, let’s get something out of the way: Where the HELL does a 23 year old kid get off directing a film this sprawling, emotional and ambitious?? Seriously, I’m baffled. Okay. Ageist rant over. I’ve not seen a Xavier Dolan film before, but I’m damn sure up for anything he makes after this. Laurence (Melvil Poupaud, injecting as much wry humour and spirit as pathos into his brilliant performance), a straight schoolteacher dating the impetuous, artistic Fred (the amazing Suzanne Clement), arrives at a life-changing decision: he’s a woman born as a man, and will seek gender reassignment. He still loves Fred, and wants to continue their relationship, but he can’t live as a man any longer. From there, Dolan’s film tracks the peaks and considerable valleys of their decade-long relationship: Laurence’s slow journey to becoming the woman he needs to be, and Fred struggling to adapt and moving through various phases of acceptance, rejection and reconciliation. The emotional maturity of the writing is startling, even more so considering Dolan’s age. We are so in love with both of these characters, and watching them conflict and rise and collapse and back again was the most moving, complex and transcendent relationship on screen this year. What’s more, the film is boldly, brashly cinematic: shot in classic 4:3 ratio, bursting with flourishes of colour, music (including the best use of Visage’s ‘80s hit ‘Fade to Grey’ ever) and slightly surreal imagery leap out at you, but feel completely diegetic to the film’s 1980s/90s setting. It’s an emotional epic on a scale I’ve not seen since Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. Think Almodovar meets Fassbinder meets Van Sant (who “presented” the film in the US) and you’re getting close to the glorious journey Dolan has created.

2) STORIES WE TELL
It sounds like the most self-absorbed idea ever: An actress makes a documentary about her family. Good thing for us, the decidedly not self-absorbed Sarah Polley is behind the lens, crafting one of the most bewitching documentaries -- and most stringent examinations of the form -- ever made. Starting as what she calls an “interrogation” of her family history -- focusing on her loving, bereft father, and her lively, quixotic mother who died when Sarah was a child -- becomes an affectionate memoir of her parents’ relationship, evolving into a bittersweet recollection of her siblings growing up with said parents... then, as recollections begin to differ wildly and offer more questions than answers, things start to get really interesting, culminating in a revelation that proves fundamentally confronting to Polley herself. If the film simply played like a great episode of This American Life, it would still probably make this list, but it actually evolves into something much greater: through memory, inconsistency and artifice, it turns into an exploration of narrative -- in particular, personal narratives: why we create them, what we leave in and shut out, whether we create stories to reinforce truth or assuage ourselves. In some way, STORIES WE TELL is almost to documentaries what Cabin In The Woods is to contemporary horror films; a reconstruction and investigation of the form, as well as the motives of the makers, a comment on all documentaries that have come before while being a bloody great and absorbing doco itself. Polley has long been creative and somewhat precocious, but we can mark this as the moment we all learned she was a proper genius. 

1) THE ACT OF KILLING
The film of 2013 for me was a film -- truly, no hyperbole now -- unlike any you’ve ever seen. (And, hopefully, will scarcely see again.) After hearing about the mass murder of over one million communists in 1965-66 Indonesia, co-directors Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn went to speak to the survivors of this little-known holocaust. Strangely, they found them silent and uncooperative -- at least publicly -- before discovering why: even today, the genocide was still celebrated by Suharto’s Indonesia. A real-life exemplar of “history is written by the winners”, they found the leaders of this movement, former gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry, and those beneath them, all-too-willing to boast loudly about their war crimes. (Imagine a world where the Nazis won WWII, the Hitler Youth continue to hold rallies and Hermann Goering appears on morning talk shows to chat about what a service he did by killing the Jews -- that’s what this is.) But the form the film takes is even more startling: how do you even begin to persuade these murderers that they’ve done something so wrong, when they lack even basic empathy for their victims? Anwar and his cohorts were all huge movie fans -- they used to sell black market movie tickets before spearheading a genocidal death squad -- so the directors decided to conduct what amounts to art therapy on an epic scale: Getting these gangsters and paramilitary stand-over men to reenact their crimes in the idiom of classic movie genres. They gave them cameras, extras and only the most limited assistance to film their ghoulish deeds in musical/western/war/noir fashion. Watching this startling, weirdly-amusing-despite-itself, yet fundamentally distressing footage is as confronting, conflicted as anything you’ll see, and will leave you pondering all manner of ethical questions. The scenes are interspersed with Anwar and co showing us around their everyday errands; going on TV, walking the streets like heroes, shaking hands, shaking shopkeepers down. It’s like seeing Goodfellas: Indonesia Style, but chillingly real. Also intriguing is the variation of responses from the war criminals involved, running the gamut from internal struggle, to moral justification, to unshakeable belief. We’re shoved, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, into a front row seat to the crass humanity and banality of cruelty, and makes us watch for 159 gruelling minutes... but something amazing happens toward the end of the film. I won’t say what, but it will stay with me forever. As a tragic postscript to the legacy of the Suharto regime, Oppenheimer and Cynn make sure to include the hundreds of “Anonymous” credits in the final scrawl: Indonesians who helped make the film but still can’t be credited due to fear of persecution -- hoping to see a day when their names can finally be reinstated. A singularly horrific, fascinating and important film, THE ACT OF KILLING is nothing short of a landmark documentary work. 

Thank you for joining me again (or, if for the first time - welcome!) for my annual epic journey into my movie year! Hope you found my picks interesting, and are encouraged to seek out the films here you’ve not seen! Have a happy, healthy and cinematic 2014!

Viva la cinema!
P