20 - The Counsellor
Most of the films on this list have received the critical acclaim that their quality merits, but The Counsellor is the exception to that rule. Ridley Scott's best film in at least a decade was met by howls of derision, which is hardly surprising given the film's lack of narrative clarity, cast of despicable characters and long exchanges of philosophical dialogue. This is very much a Cormac McCarthy film, in other words, and the veteran novelist has made no concessions to writing for a new medium, with Scott often amusingly appearing to be perplexed by the film's many static conversations. The director is on firmer ground when tasked with staging individual sequences in which something actually happens; an ambush on a motorcyclist, a bloody assassination in London or – most notoriously – a bizarre sort-of sex scene on the windscreen of a car. The Counsellor is surely the most wilfully perverse studio release for many years (surely a recommendation in itself) and it's a film that seems designed to get under people's skin. It certainly got under mine, but in a good way, lingering in my thoughts long after many of the year's more 'respectable' films have faded into irrelevance.
19 - Gangs of Wasseypur
Anurag Kashyap's Indian gangster epic was released in two separate 2½-hour chunks, but I saw the whole film in a single 5-hour screening, and I'm glad I did. I wasn't bored for a second as the film charted a tit-for-tat blood feud that spans generations, with Kashyap's ambitious storytelling and visual flair ensuring its running time is fully justified. There's a swagger and confidence about his dynamic camerawork and eclectic use of music, but what's most impressive is his assured storytelling, as he unfolds a saga across seven decades and incorporates a large ensemble cast without ever allowing confusion to reign. The film is frequently spectacular and violent – with one strikingly filmed murder being particularly memorable – but there is also a rich vein of comedy running through the movie, and a roster of excellent performances, led by the consistently impressive Nawazuddin Siddiqui. No film in 2013 offered more bang for your buck than Gangs of Wasseypur.
18 - Stranger by the Lake
Stranger by the Lake is set entirely at a single location; a secluded
lakeside spot populated by naked men, who occasionally disappear together into
the bushes. For the men who spend the sunny days swimming, sunbathing or
hooking up, the spot appears to be paradise, but Alain Guiraudie's film makes
us aware of a lingering sense of danger, whether through unprotected sex with a
stranger or falling in love with a man who may be a killer. With just a handful
of characters and one location, Guiraudie has delivered a psychosexual thriller
that Highsmith or Hitchcock would surely be proud of. Claire Mathon's strikingly
composed cinematography maintains a distance from the action while Guiraudie
imposes a steady rhythm on the film, allowing the tension to sneak up on us
until – in the heart-stopping final moments – it exerts a vice-like grip.
Stranger by the Lake is a stunningly accomplished suspense film and an
involving, unsettling love story; an erotic thriller that genuinely works on
both levels. It also acts as a very funny comedy of manners on the etiquette of
cruising, with poor old Eric the Wanker being one of the most endearingly pathetic
characters of the year.
17 - The Broken Circle Breakdown
A chronologically muddled opposites-attract love story driven by bluegrass music, built
around the death of a child and incorporating an angry political screed against
the Bush administration's prevention of stem-cell research – The Broken Circle
Breakdown really shouldn't work, and there are times when it threatens to fall
apart completely. Against all odds, director Felix Van Groeningen and his cast
hold it together and deliver a knockout punch that resonates long after the
final credits have rolled. In telling the story of a couple's first meeting and
the subsequent loss of their daughter to cancer, Van Groeningen and his star Johan
Heldenbergh (who co-wrote the original stage play) cut back and forth in time,
slowly building a cumulative emotional force that grows overwhelming by the
film's midpoint. The Broken Circle Breakdown is a film full of beautiful
moments and heartbreaking ones, and Van Groeningen lines them up side-by-side, successfully
maintaining a sense of balance and preventing us from getting lost in the
fractured timeline. He is aided enormously by his two leads, Heldenbergh and
the stunning Veerle Baetens, who throw themselves fearlessly into these
challenging roles, and by the terrific musical numbers.
16 - Her
Set in a near future that's extrapolated just far enough from our own to
be plausible, Her is love story with a sci-fi twist that feels startlingly
modern. Spike Jonze's tale of a lovely divorcee (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in
love with the voice of his computer's new operating system (given vocal life by
Scarlett Johansson). As in all of Jonze's films to date, he uses a fantastical
premise to explore simple, universal emotions, and he finds unexpected depths in Her
as he explores the nature of real and artificial relationships. There are moments
of comedy here, of course, but what lingers is the sense of longing and the
deep desire to make some kind of connection with another soul, even if that
soul doesn't appear to be real. Her is a film that could easily be viewed as a dark
cautionary tale about our fixation on technology (the very familiar sight of
crowds walking with eyes cast downwards at their phones makes it eerily
relatable), but Jonze has made a tender, beautiful and melancholy love story that
is simultaneously futuristic and old-fashioned, and enormously satisfying.
15 - All Is Lost
JC Chandor received a lot of acclaim for his debut film Margin
Call, but I don't think even that picture's most ardent fans could have
anticipated a follow-up like this. After making a dialogue-driven ensemble
drama, Chandor has changed gears completely for All Is Lost, an almost wordless
drama that stars just one actor. That actor is Robert Redford, playing an
unnamed sailor whose yacht is damaged in the film's opening minute and who then
spends the next ninety-odd minutes simply trying to survive. That's about all
there is to All Is Lost, but it is a remarkably gripping experience thanks to
Chandor's economical direction and Redford's commanding presence. We watch as
this resourceful protagonist works silently to stay afloat, but is he simply
delaying off the inevitable? All Is Lost is both a gripping man vs. nature
survival thriller and a quietly moving meditation on life and death, with the bold
choice Chandor makes at the film's close elevating the whole picture to another
level.
14 - The Selfish Giant
Loosely adapted from a
story by Oscar Wilde, Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant takes
place in the less-than-Wildean surroundings of working-class Yorkshire, a
society destroyed by poverty. The setting may resemble so many grim
kitchen-sink dramas of the past, but the grace and tenderness with which
Barnard handles this material allows it to transcend our expectations of such
pictures; there is a stark beauty amid the bleakness here. This may be a more
conventional film than her genre-busting debut The Arbor, but her ability to
view this landscape and these characters with a fresh eye is crucial for the
film's success. First-time actors Conner Chapman and Shaun Thomas are
unforgettable as the tearaway kids illegally stripping copper to secure cash
for their struggling families, and Barnard draws us so deeply into their
experiences that when tragedy strikes, it lands with an impact that will leave
you reeling.
13 - Blue Is the Warmest Colour
Although the sex scene in Blue Is the
Warmest Colour may be unusually long, it hardly deserved to dominate
conversation about the film in the manner that it did this year. There's so
much more to this tale of first love and broken hearts, which uses its
three-hour running time to immerse us into Adèle's world and allow us to view
her tumultuous relationship with Emma with unguarded intimacy. Blue Is the
Warmest Colour is a film that attempts to replicate the feeling of being in
love, capturing the dizzying, passionate highs before plunging us into the
wrenching lows. Kechiche's approach is far
from subtle, but it has a messy, raw energy and immediacy that I found
irresistible. Given the acrimony that exists between the stars and director
now, we will never get the further instalments promised by the film's French
title La vie d'Adèle - chapitre 1 & 2, but that doesn't really matter;
there's a lifetime's worth of passion and intensity in this movie.
12 - Beyond the Hills
After 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Cristian
Mungiu's Beyond the Hills again uses a female friendship as a means to explore the strict rules and contradictions of a community, and he has again crafted a gripping, moving
drama. Set in a remote Orthodox convent, the
film reunites two young women who once had an intense relationship at the
orphanage they were both raised in. Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) is now a nun,
devoted to her duties, while Alina (Cristina Flutur), having come to seek her
friend's help, wants to rekindle the relationship they once shared. A
slow-burning, ambiguous piece of filmmaking, Beyond the Hills gradually
tightens its grip as Alina's actions come into conflict with the practices of
this religious house, and the film moves into shocking territory later on as
the resident priest (Valeriu Andriuta) resolves to deal with Alina's illness. Mungiu
handles all of this with the skill of a filmmaker in full command of his craft,
once more showing his mastery of long takes and staging a number of wonderful
ensemble sequences in his perfectly composed frames.
11 - 12 Years a Slave
Steve McQueen's skill as a visual
filmmaker has never been in doubt, but in 12 Years a Slave he marries that
skill to a strong narrative and supports it with a depth of emotion that has
been absent from his previous work, and the result is extraordinary. By recounting the tale of Solomon Northup, McQueen can build his film on a
powerful redemptive narrative while showing the myriad ways in which slavery
corrupted all those who were tainted by it. In this way the film feels worthy of
comparison to Schindler's List, in the way it finds a balance between bring a
painful subject to the attention of a wide audience, without softening the
cruelty of the age. McQueen's approach is intelligent and measured. He knows
that this material carries an inherent power, and all he has to do is render it
honestly and without adornment. The film keeps simmering quietly for almost its
whole running time until, in an shattering closing scene, all of that anger,
pain and despair finally overflows.
10 - Frances Ha
Nobody has quite known how to best
utilise Greta Gerwig's unique screen presence, so thank God she decided to do
something about it by co-writing this gorgeous film with Noah Baumbach. Her
input appears to have had a rejuvenating effect on Mr Baumbach too, as Frances
Ha is far less caustic and bitter than his earlier works, which is a very
pleasing development. This portrait of a 27 year-old New York dancer struggling
to work out where exactly her life is going will resonate with anyone who has
felt lost and confused in a big city, and who has felt like they are failing at life
while their contemporaries move forward and become "a real person,"
as Frances puts it. The film is so light on its feet, and so effortless, it's
easy to overlook the skill that has gone into its filmmaking, with its superb
cinematography and jaunty rhythms recalling the spirit of the French new wave. Every
scene rings true, sometimes painfully so, and the film has a timeless quality
that suggests we'll look back on it in years to come with the affection we have
for early Woody Allen films.
9 - Paradise: Love / Paradise: Faith / Paradise: Hope
Ulrich Seidl's Paradise trilogy
occasionally exhibits the director's worst instincts, but taken as a whole
these three films represent his most accomplished filmmaking achievement to
date. Each film boasts a tremendous performance from its female lead and
typically striking compositions (Ed Lachman and Wolfgang Thaler's
cinematography ranks among the year's finest), and each film is filled with the
kind of long, uncomfortable, unpredictable sequences that only Seidl can
produce. But what really distinguishes these films is the compassion evident in
Seidl's handling of these tales. I found Love's portrait of a middle-aged
woman looking for love in a place where sex and money are all that matters to
be painfully moving, and while Faith is the weak link in this triptych, it
still contains a number of powerful moments and two fascinating performances. However,
the real surprise here is Hope. An Ulrich Seidl film set in a teenage
fat camp sounds like a recipe for disaster, but he confounds all expectations
by producing a sensitive and touching portrait of a teen's unrequited crush on
an older man, which ends his trilogy on a surprising high note.
8 - Before Midnight
It is a rare thing indeed to find the third film in a
trilogy on a number of 10-best lists, but then Richard Linklater's Before...
series is no ordinary trilogy. Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke (who
co-wrote) have let nine years elapse between each of their sequels to 1995's
Before Sunrise, allowing the characters time to grow and change, and ensuring
that we find them in new circumstances every time we visit them. These films
have created a portrait of a relationship that is quite unlike anything else in
cinema, and they have done it largely through dialogue, as each film focuses on
the long conversations that Jesse and Céline share. Before Midnight again
follows this couple as they wander the streets and discuss matters both large
and small, but this time the tone of the conversation is more fractious and
combative. If Before Sunrise was a film about falling in love, and
Before Sunset was a film about second chances, then Before Midnight tackles the
difficulty of keeping love alive. The argument that rages between them in the
film's second half is vividly real, but so is the depth of affection they share
with each other, which is mirrored by the rapport that we have established with
them over the course of these films. Before Midnight is fluid, witty, probing
and perfectly performed by two actors who know their characters – and each
other – intimately. Will we see Jesse and Céline again in nine years? Who
knows, but it's reassuring to know that they're still out there, enduring
life's ups and downs together.
7 - To the Wonder
Once upon a time we would wait years for
a Terrence Malick film, but here we are, having just recovered from The Tree of
Life, with the gift of To the Wonder in our hands, and with a couple of other
Malick films in various stages of production. It seems that finally unburdening
himself from his long-gestating project has revitalised Malick, and To the
Wonder is a film made by a man following his instincts, wholly rejecting narrative
convention and searching for nothing less than a new cinematic language. A sad
love story about displaced characters losing their grip on each other, To the
Wonder is largely expressed through body language and movement, with Olga
Kurylenko's former dancer being the perfect Malick muse. To the Wonder is a
film about loss, about people living with a void in their lives, both emotional
and spiritual, and trying to recapture something they once had but will never
hold again, and Javier Bardem's conflicted priest is a deeply moving figure. As
ever, Emmanuel Lubezki's camerawork is totally attuned to the director's wavelength,
rushing headlong around the characters at times and then pausing to find beauty
in the most apparently commonplace sights; fittingly, the film's opening line is, "Newborn, I open my eyes".
6 - The Wolf of Wall Street
The Wolf of Wall Street feels like a
spiritual successor to Goodfellas and Casino, and while it would be a big task
for most 71 year-old directors to recapture the energy of pictures they made
two decades ago, Martin Scorsese attacks it with a ferocity that is
exhilarating to witness. This portrait of Jordan Belfort's life of excess and
criminality is one of Scorsese's most audacious films; a richly entertaining
three hours in the company of repellent characters. The film doesn't explicitly
condemn Belfort and his swaggering buddies for their behaviour (in fact, it
aligns itself with Belfort's point-of-view, with DiCaprio acting as an
unreliable narrator), it simply presents their decadent, amoral lifestyles to
us and allows glimpses of the consequences for those who fell victim to these
loathsome men. Scorsese is firing on all cylinders here, with his amped-up
camerawork and editing being perfectly suited to Belfort's drug-fuelled misadventures. The Wolf of Wall Street is also, by some distance, the funniest
film of 2013, with a number of side-splitting performed by a cast clearly relishing the opportunity to cut loose in this way. Although it runs for three hours The Wolf of Wall Street doesn't feel like it contains an ounce of extraneous material, and forty years after Mean Streets, it is astounding that Scorsese is still making films as exhilarating, troubling and hilarious as this.
5 - At Berkeley
You might not have thought that we
needed a four-hour documentary that went behind the scenes at the University of
California, Berkeley, but then Frederick Wiseman went ahead and made one and
the result feels absolutely essential. Wiseman has always been
fascinated by the workings of institutions and this picture allows him to see
what happens both in the classroom and in faculty meetings, with his typically curious
but unintrusive cameras apparently having free reign to explore all areas of
the campus. The most fascinating aspects of the film surround the problems
faced by administrative staff who have to maintain standards while facing
deeper budget cuts in a worsening economic climate. The film essentially boils
down to a simple question – what price do we place on education? As heartening
as it is to watch students engaging in debate and attempting to push themselves
to a higher level, we are always conscious of the problems being discussed
concurrently that may prevent the university from maintaining their core
values. At Berkeley is entirely engrossing, consistently thought-provoking and far
more universal in its reach than its title might suggest. It is a late-career
masterpiece from one of the truly great documentarians.
4 - Ida
After his disappointingly sketchy The
Woman in the Fifth, I was hoping for a return to form from Pawel Pawlikowski
with Ida. Instead, I got much more than that – an unexpected artistic leap
forward from a director displaying a whole new set of filmmaking tools. Pawlikowski's
first film in his native Poland is set in the early 1960s, in a country still
recovering from the war. Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a young nun exploring her
past with the help of her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), and in turn questioning
her own beliefs. It's a simple story rendered in stark terms by Pawlikowski,
who creates a number of breathtaking images with the assistance of his
brilliant young cinematographer Lukasz Zal. Every black-and-white frame is
stunningly composed and lit, with the images frequently being framed slightly
off-centre. Ida recalls the work of great masters such as Dreyer, Bergman or Bresson,
not only because of its vivid imagery, but because it is a serious study of
faith, made with a quiet intelligence and curiosity, and not one of its 80 minutes
feels wasted.
3 - Inside Llewyn Davis
The Coen brothers' latest success is a
film about failure. Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a talented singer-songwriter trying
to eke out a living in the bars and cafés of Greenwich Village in the early
1960s, but he hasn't made it big, and we suspect he never will. He lacks that
special, indefinable quality that turns a good singer into a great one, or
maybe it's simply a matter of timing, with Llewyn plugging away before the New
York folk music scene really took off. This portrait of a struggling artist is
one of the Coen's most beautifully realised and resonant films. Their depiction
of many setbacks and indignities that Llewyn faces feels so specific and true,
and while the film is often very funny, it is marked by a melancholy undertone that
reminded me of John Huston's great Fat City. Is there anyone to touch the Coen
brothers when they are on this kind of form? Inside Llewyn Davis is flawlessly
shot and edited, superbly cast, and every minor tonal fluctuation is judged to
perfection. It is one of their very best films.
2 - The Act of Killing
The Act of Killing is an unforgettable
film, although you might feel the overwhelming desire to scrub your brain clean
after watching it. Joshua Oppenheimer's film gets up close and personal with
men who have committed multiple murders, and who will smile and laugh as they describe
exactly how they did it, even as they sit with their grandchildren on their
knees. This singular documentary took a hell of a risk when it gave ageing former
members of Indonesian death squads the opportunity to restage their past crimes
in whatever filmic style they chose, but the gamble paid off with some of the
most extraordinary scenes I've ever witnessed on screen. The Act of Killing is
a troubling, surreal, fascinating, shocking and ultimately devastating piece of
filmmaking. It allows us a glimpse into the minds of evil men, and exposes for
us a society in which past crimes have not only gone unpunished but are proudly
discussed. It also poses interesting questions about our relationship with
cinema, and what it means to see violent acts enacted rather than simply spoken
of, with the effect of this experience being powerfully evident in the film's
extraordinary final moments.
1 - It's Such a Beautiful Day
The best film of the year by a million
miles is an animation that runs for just over an hour and has as its
protagonist a simple stick man, the kind a child would draw. That description
doesn't prepare you for the philosophical scope and emotional heft of It's Such
a Beautiful Day, though. In the hands of Don Hertzfeldt, Bill the stick man
becomes one of the most expressive and moving characters in any form of
contemporary cinema. It's Such a Beautiful Day is an anthology film of sorts,
consisting of three 20-minute shorts made over a number of years, but taken
together it stands as a piercing examination of one man's crumbling health and
mental fragility, with memories and everyday experiences being thrown together
in an emotional maelstrom. This is a stupendously ambitious piece of work,
focusing both on the most intimate details of Bill's character and
contemplating this everyman's place in the universe, all of which is brilliantly
captured by Hertzfeldt's boundlessly imaginative artistry. It's hard to
describe the impact of It's Such a Beautiful Day, as many of its effects may
sound banal shorn of context, but the handcrafted quality that Hertzfeldt
brings to the film makes every minute feel full of humanity, compassion and
wisdom. It feels like Hertzfeldt's whole career has been building towards this
masterpiece, and it deserves to be considered among the greatest films – not just
animated films – ever made.
