Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou
Release Date: April 24, 2013
Running Time: 131 minutes
Rating: 4/5
Mood Indigo is most certainly a defining work for director Michel Gondry, though it is not a masterpiece on the level of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, nor is it as personal as The Science of Sleep. Rather, it is a demonstration of Gondry's style at its purest. I have seen few surrealist films as purely liberated as this one- unlike Gondry's other work, it does not remain tied down by the conventions of a story that takes place in the real world. That is to say, it does have something of a story (adapted from the Boris Vian novel "Froth on the Daydream"), but the world that the story occupies is so surreal it makes Amelie seem down-to-earth. Like Dali's Un Chien Andalou (which is openly homaged in the first two minutes), the characters move about as if in an eternal dream, where the doorbell crawls up the walls like an insect, beams of sunlight appear as white strings of yarn streaming from the window to the floor, and books can be absorbed in eye-drop form. While the film's source material is a social satire on upper-class hedonism, the film itself abandons that entirely and takes us on an imaginative romp through an urban landscape of bizarre inventions and subtle magic. That isn't to say that the film is entirely happy and pleasant, for the story takes place in two acts: a romantic-comic first act, and a romantic-tragic second act. While in the first act of the film, we the relationship of a young couple (played by Audrey Tautou and Roman Duris) blossom with love, in the second act we are forced to watch all the color slowly drain out of the world when the wife suddenly takes ill as a result of a magic snowflake that has floated into her lung. The first portion of the story feels perfectly within Gondry territory, with a handful of whimsical ideas thrown into every scene. But in the second act, Gondry tests himself, and we find that as much of a downer to watch as it is, he can make the most depressing images and events just as surreal and imaginative as the happy ones. The story, the characters, and the dialogue at times can be just as confusing as their surroundings- still, despite having a cloudy substance, this is one of the most daring and unique films I have seen come from "modern cinema", and the most eye-popping thing this director has delivered to us. Mood Indigo is not only a must-see for Gondry fans, but it also promises to be a captivating film for anyone else concerned.
Director: Jennifer Lee
Starring: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad
Release Date: November 27, 2013
Running Time: 102 minutes
Rating: 4/5
Now, to be fair: while I will not deny that Frozen is a good movie, I do not believe it in any way deserves the praise and attention that it has received. I'll try to keep this short, as I don't want to say too much about a movie that has been over-celebrated and picked apart from every angle. Still, there is something to be looked at here. I have been told that the main reason for Frozen's popularity is its deconstruction of the fairy tale. Now I am aware that the film is loosely inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's "Snow Queen", but if you haven't seen the film yet, please expect no similarities. (In fact, the film is better if you view it as an origin story of the Snow Queen.) The fairy tale that Disney deconstructs with this movie is not Anderson's, but rather Disney's own formula- it presents all of the fairy tale elements- a dashing prince, a beautiful princess- and then kind of turns them around, in a "meta" sort of way, I guess. The beautiful princess is a psychologically tortured cryokinetic- and the one who comes to save the day is not the prince, but her meek sister- and she's not even being saved from a monster or villain, but rather, she's being saved from herself. The only problem with praising Frozen as being the first time Disney has critiqued itself is that- well- it's not the first time. The entire point of Enchanted (released in 2007) was a study of fairy-tale two-dimensionality: and they did that with unbelievable success. Tangled, in fact, does the same fairy-tale critique that Frozen did, but way more subtly, in ways most people didn't notice- and it was funnier, more involving, and more colorful and fun to look at. So what does Frozen have that Tangled doesn't? To put it plainly: the catchy songs. The songs (which, in my opinion, are mediocre at best) have somehow lured a vast audience in, and snatching on like fish to bait, children all over the country (along with young-at-heart teenagers and adults) are tricked into thinking this is a better movie than it really is. In summation, Frozen is visually very good to look at and has a story that says both a lot about some things and also very little about some other things. It's a satisfying winter family flick- but don't pretend that it's anything that we haven't seen before.
P.S. I could (and would love to) write an entire article about Elsa being a symbolic portrayal of LGBT youth, but I'm afraid I wouldn't have much more to say, except for what I am writing here. It's an important point about the movie that needs to be touched on, especially as it's a question that has been posed to the writers of the film and they have (smartly) neither confirmed or denied audiences' suspicions. If suspicions are correct, then I must say that they did a very good job with it- the advice that this film gives concerning LGBT youth is that they should learn how to express themselves, but through the help and guidance of people who are capable of administering the right kind of wisdom and love. The importance of Elsa's portrayal of this is that it encompasses far more than this issue alone- it extends to all girls (or kids, for that matter) who are coming of age and are seeking a way to deal with their feelings with self-control and compassion. Judging from the film itself and the film's cultural context, I believe that it was their intention, and I applaud them for it.
Director: Steve McQueen
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbinder, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lupita Nyong'o
Release Date: November 8, 2013
Running Time: 134 minutes
Rating: 4/5
It's hard to attach any kind of numerical rank to a film like this, so as a reminder, let me reassure people that my opinions about this movie bear no correction to my respect for the plight of Solomon Northrup, and by extension the plight of all African-Americans, past and present. Where to begin, though? The story: Solomon Northrup, born a free man, is kidnapped in Washington D.C. and sold into slavery where he works for 12 years on plantations before being rescued and brought back to his family. As this is all based on fact, the film aims to be an unflinchingly realistic portrayal of American slavery unlike any other. Does it do this? I have to say yes. Watching the film, it didn't feel very new- that is, I had been told this story very many times before, through other characters and through other plots- the only difference is that this was the first time the slavery story was being told to me through a big-budget Hollywood picture. And it's an important story. This film needed to happen. My only fault with it is that the medium through which the story is told had more potential- the cinematography, the editing, the mise-en-scene, etc. The movie's key idea as presented in its title is the only memorable thing about it. It's good enough for any immediate problems to be unnoticeable, but it's not good enough to achieve the quintessence it aims for. What I'm saying is that there should be more movies about this important part of America's history, and there should be more: better ones. This film is to slavery what Diary of Anne Frank was to the Holocaust- what we need is a Schindler's List.
Director: Deston Daniel Cretton
Starring: Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Keith Stanfield
Release Date: August 23, 2013
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
If Short Term 12 does not make you cry, search yourself. Your heart is probably missing. That isn't to say that this film is sentimental. No. It is painfully real. But despite its brutal honesty, it doesn't lose its sense of hope. Hence the overwhelming misery of life is met with an overwhelming wave of compassion and positivism. What has attracted the attention of viewers and critics more than anything else in this movie is the breakout performance of up-and-coming actress Brie Larson. Here Larson plays Grace, a supervisor at a home community for troubled youth seeking shelter. Larson's world is interrupted when a new arrival Jayden is introduced, a withdrawn young girl with tendencies for self-harm and malevolent outbursts. Jayden is nothing that she can't handle, but when the young girl begins opening up to her, Grace is reminded of her own scarred past, the shattering truth of which is revealed to us toward's the movie's conclusion. Short Term 12 is smart. Its script displays high levels of realism which its young actors carry forward excellently: you will chuckle at the playful backtalk and constant shenanigans, but then you are constantly reminded of the pain that all of these children are trying to hide. Sometimes the pain comes out through quiet isolation, and at other times it will show itself through loud and uncouth eruptions. But the pain can be overcome. The movie teaches us the same thing that it teaches the kids in the home: that despite all of the horror that exists in this world, we can move forward. Yet it also teaches us to have the kind of compassion and devotion that is demonstrated by the supervisors and assistants in this movie. Short Term 12 shows what's wrong with the human race, but also rekindles your faith in people. It reaches the heart intelligently and truthfully, without losing its aim; and that's a triumph of its own in my book.
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Release Date: October 4, 2013
Running Time: 91 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Let's not kid ourselves. Gravity is stunning. Simply stunning. I think it's been accused by audiences as being another pretentious vehicle for its lead stars to glean awards, but there are a great deal of recent celebrated films that are much more deserving of that criticism, five of them from 2013 alone. So what makes Gravity so special? First of all, it's immersive. When you're sitting in front of the screen in a dark room, you can so easily feel like you're out there in space, looking down at the massive face of the earth stretch out beneath you. This isn't so high up that you're scared to fall. This is so high up that you can't fall. The fear in this movie is a new fear, and it brings with it a new level of intensity: you hang on tight or you're thrusted into an infinite blackness where you will float out further and further away from everything that you ever knew until you suffocate and disappear. Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is faced with this danger when something called the "Kessler syndrome" occurs: that is, when an explosion sends space debris blasting through space at hundreds of miles an hour, causing a domino effect that batters their space station with thousands of tiny metal shards. Hence a struggle ensues for life and death, between existence and the void, as she spacewalks to the safety, encountering one problem after another. It is called a science fiction film- Alfonso Cuaron considers it more of a "drama about a woman in space." I will have to say that he is correct- there is nothing outlandish or fantastical about this film- aside from a few basic scientific inaccuracies, it might as well be taking place above our heads this very second. What Gravity examines is the endurance of the human psyche in desperation, an incredibly old theme, but in a new setting that draws our awareness to human achievement and the great vastness of the universe. It is thrilling, but it is more than a thriller, nor does it fit neatly on the drama scale. It is tense and silent, but intimate, with shots that seem to last for five minutes, and close personal shots of the actors juxtaposed with the enormous vacuum. Ironically is it named Gravity, as most of the film is spent entirely in gravity's absence. In its ability to pull an audience towards it: that, I think, is where the film's true gravity lies.
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli
Release Date: May 21, 2013
Running Time: 142 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Okay. To compare Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty to Federico Fellini's Dolce Vita would only be to state what has been stated before, and show my amateurism and lack of inspiration as a critic. Yet everything about The Great Beauty screams Fellini. It's practically a flipping Dolce Vita reboot. I compare this film to Fellini; but only because Sorrentino invites the comparison. First, similar themes: the world we see is presented to us through the eyes of a central character- Jep Gambardella. Like a balding Marcello Mastroianni, Toni Servillo plays his role with a distracted nonchalance in the posture, a wistful gleam in the eye, and a ferocious wit in the tongue. Throughout the film, Jep struggles to stay relevant in the lavish world of the upper class- "I didn't just want to attend parties," he says, "I wanted the power to make them fail." He is at the center of the whirlwind of the high life- his struggle is to remain there, and throughout the film he illustrates that he knows all the rules of the game. But the age of 65 he is suddenly starting to realize his own ephemerality, and as he recalls his youth and his true ambitions, he examines what he has achieved, what he has lost, and what is truly important to him in his life. Both Fellini and Sorrentino show us the artificiality and futility of the lifestyles of rich and famous psuedo-intellectuals. Yet while Fellini recognizes the sins of the city and condemns them, Sorrentino seems to celebrate the great void in the soul, fixating his camera on the stunning power of the transitory. However, it is this search for redemption amidst the decadence that allows the film to embrace spectacle. The mise-en-scene in each shot is more beautiful than the last, and so we willfully allow ourselves to be submerged into this foreign and tragic world where the surreal is commonplace. Hence, the film flows as a series of episodes leading up to one silent existential question. The defining moment in the film is the small girl who, instead of being allowed to play with other children, is forced to put on an art show for adults because she is a painting "prodigy". The spotlight has enslaved us. A ceiling transforms into a blue ocean, flamingos settle on an apartment balcony by the dozens, people sit in an oddly lit room waiting for their number can be called so they can sit for five minutes with the plastic surgeon. The content is practically the same as Fellini's, but here it presented in a striking high-definition that, through imagery bursting with color, shows us the true wonder of 21st century filmmaking. This is not merely the film Fellini would make if he were alive today- this is the film Fellini would be jealous of, were he alive today.
Director: Shane Carruth
Starring: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth
Release Date: April 5, 2013
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Upstream Color, a semi-abstract psychological drama from the director of the 2003 cult time-travel film Primer, is an easy film to ignore, especially considering how ignored Primer is, and how Shane Carruth didn't release Upstream Color until ten years after his first film. But to ignore Upstream Color is a grave mistake. It is a romance, a thriller, a science fiction, a psychological drama, and an abstract art piece all in one package. The first few minutes are intriguing, but indecipherable- there are vague images of a flower, followed by more vague images of small worms. We see someone practicing a technique of some sort. Suddenly we see a woman dragged out the back of a building; she has fallen unconscious due to poisoning. The next ten minutes are completely horrifying. (To describe what happens would be to ruin everything, so I'll leave it by saying that it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is, but it's probably not for the faint of heart anyways.) After this shocking and strange sequence of events, the woman wakes up with no memory of what's happened and all the money in her bank account missing. Security cameras show her entering and leaving several different banks and speaking with the tellers. All of the transactions bear her signature. Somehow, she's been robbed, and she doesn't know how. By this point, of course, the audience knows what she doesn't; all the we're missing are the finer details. These details are revealed to us slowly throughout the film, so that they don't distract from what we're really supposed to be paying attention to: the relationship that blossoms between two people who have both been attacked by the same predator, who now grapple with living in the empty space that remains after a great loss: not the loss of money, particularly, but the grander loss of peace of mind. Like Terrence Malick, the movie dwells heavily on animal and plant imagery, but unlike The Tree of Life, you won't be shown a flower or an insect just because it's beautiful: every nature shot that you see in this movie means something and is related to an integral part of the plot. Strong and silent (I would wager as much as 60% of this movie is without dialogue), the movie illustrates a vicious cycle of life, death, theft, loss, love, and fear: within this cycle humans, plants, and animals bear complex relationships with one another. These relationships can be understood well enough on a first viewing, but they can be understood better with repeated viewings. Amy Seimetz, in the lead role, works with an emotional color palette of trust, anger, anxiety, and devotion. The romance between her and partner Jeff at times can be just as involving as our search for answers. Both the concept and the presentation of this movie are mystifying and dreamlike. With his second film, Shane Carruth provides a strong emotional weight to his psychological sci-fi themes, proves his talent to the world once more, and solidifies his style as a director.
Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johannsson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara
Release Date: December 18, 2013
Running Time: 126 minutes
Rating: 5/5
I think the basic reason that most people avoided this movie is because of a first-hand misunderstanding of its premise. When trailers for this movie were being released, I could hear people muttering, "So it's about this guy who falls in love with Siri, right?" Yes. At a first glance, Her, by all appearances, is about a lonely nerdy guy who is too incompetent to have the level of love and courage to find a real woman, and instead resigns himself to a delusion, a masturbation fantasy about his own operating system. That is not what this movie is about. In fact, that was the perspective I carried with me through most of the first half of the movie. My perspective on things only changed when I realized that this is not a movie about Theodore Twombley, lonely introverted office worker and owner of the OS. Rather, this is a movie about Samantha, the program. The premise of the movie only works if you acknowledge and understand the concept of Samantha's self-awareness. There is a reason that this story is set at some point in the near future, and not in today's world. It is because it needed to take place in a world where human beings could believably develop an AI so advanced that it doesn't merely simulate consciousness- it has consciousness- and possibly, a soul (to explain this would involve spoilers). If you re-consider this movie with Samantha as the main character, it really becomes a story about a woman that is forced to exist without tangibility, without a physical presence, yet she is dependent upon interaction with physical, tangible humans. She is curious about a world she knows little about, and she is consistently aware of her creators and her purpose. She is extremely young but extremely intelligent, she is trying to be more and more human, but distraught with the fact that she can never be human. Emotions are new to her and she is forever trying to grasp them and understand them, forever trying to experience the world more fully. She then falls in love with someone who can make her feel human in a way that no one else can: through his love for her. And Theodore's life is reinvigorated by his desire to help her experience, understand, and learn about life, this goal to help her find humanity. And that is what makes the story romantic. The beautiful cinematography, the smart and quirky dialogue, the spacious soundtrack, and the clever little details of this not-so-distant future all add to a great emotionally melting vibe. And the ending? It's so perfect and surprising I can't even allow myself to talk about it. I don't hesitate in the least to call this film a modern classic. What I expected was for it to dwell merely on the scientific. In a bold tour-de-force, it has instead addressed the spiritual.
Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon
Release Date: April 26, 2013
Running Time: 130 minutes
Rating: 5/5
Mud evokes elements of many traditional coming-of-age stories, particularly the more popular writings of Mark Twain and the 1986 Rob Reiner film Stand by Me. Yet Mud proves to be more than a mere coming-of-age story. Its regional realism somehow seems more fitting and interesting than the whimsy of the latter two, and it seals the deal with blindingly good performances and edge-of-your seat suspense. We begin with a camera sweeping over the misty water just before dawn, where two boys are heading out on a forbidden trip to a small island in the Mississippi River. Here they find a boat they were told about which, due to a recent flood, has washed up in a tree and to their great surprise they discover signs that someone may be currently living in the boat. This person is soon revealed to be Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a man of humble means who has been camping out on the island waiting for the love of his life (Reese Witherspoon) to come back into town and run away with him. Mud is a man of many superstitions (he has two nails attached to the back of his shoes in the shape of a cross, to ward off evil spirits; he never sleeps in the same place twice; he never loses his good luck shirt, etc), and he appears haunted by a past more murky and mysterious than the bottom of the Mississippi River. For Ellis (Tye Sheridan), the focal point of the film, Mud is too mystic a figure to not look up to. Ellis promises to help him gain back his true love, but in doing so, he runs into Mud's enemies (the law enforcement being among them) and realizes the pitfalls of his strange friend's more simplistic perspective on the world. The film's greatest success is balancing the exciting with the believable. Ellis, Neckbone, Mud, and Juniper seem so physical that we may as well be watching everything in this movie twenty feet away from where it's actually happening. Yet director Jeff Nichols takes the commonplace tragedies you'd hear on the news, and turns them into a wild adventure that transforms the life of the protagonist forever. When Ellis befriends Mud he immediately falls into a world of secrets and forbidden territory; and it's only a matter of time before everyone finds out. So naturally, all that's left it so sit back and watch the tensions rise, culminating in a surprisingly action-packed climax. Mud combines familiar American mythology with a modern twist, and does so to everyone's benefit. Its drama and emotional honesty will appeal to the parents, its adventure and mystery will appeal to the kids, and its suspense and high stakes should satisfy everyone in between.
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver
Release Date: May 17, 2013
Running Time: 86 minutes
Rating: 5/5
In his 1995 debut Kicking and Screaming, Noah Baumbach essentially created "mumblecore", a comedy-drama subgenre marked by the effort to achieve realism through dialogue that seems as unpolished and awkward as the conversations we have everyday. Frances Ha is the masterpiece of the mumblecore movement, and possibly the true crowning achievement of Baumbach's career. There are about a hundred different reasons to like Frances Ha, but for me the foremost of these is that while critics will classify as a drama, it feels more fitting to call this film an anti-drama. Does it deserve such a label? Probably not. But while drama films beef up their characters with pretentious dramatic dialogue, three-act story arcs, emotional buildup, a strict framework of plot-structure, and an emotionally manipulative soundtrack, Frances Ha dispenses with absolutely all of that and simply captures life as it is. There is no plot. In almost any other instance, this sentence would be an insult to the movie. But here, the film has no plot because life has no plot. The film is simply trying to capture a year in a young woman's life, in all of its ups and downs. Trying to describe the plot would be ridiculous. What is it about? Well, it's about someone who wants to be a good dancer, but they can't dance. Oh. Well, do they try really, really, hard and develop amazing dancing skills? No. Does it all come down to one really big dance competition? No. Does she go through a long period of hardship, reach this critical emotional low point and come out of it by achieving something? Absolutely not. And that's why it's so easy to feel comfortable with this movie, you can start watching the movie at any point and you won't feel lost. So then, is the movie boring? No, because life isn't boring. Life has its fast points and its slow points, its cheerful moments and its downer moments. But food, travel, music, friendship, and most of all an awkward self-conscious sense of humor- these are the things that will always be with us, at any point in our lives. And these are the things that Frances Halladay (Greta Gerwig) clings to to keep her feeling that living is worthwhile. And that's what makes her so resilient and admirable as a character. Throughout all the little rocks and bumps that her situation throws at her, she's able to find an upside and be satisfied with some feeling of progress. At the end of a year, despite us feeling like nothing really dramatic has happened (apart from Frances moving from friend's house to friend's house), we feel that Frances has grown and learned something (though we can't say what she's learned, nor can we pin her growth on one specific event). This is how we all grow. In the long term, Frances Ha can be appreciated for its boldness and its humility, for its naturalistic charm and its beautiful cinematography: in short, this movie is real with us.
-Julian Rhodes
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