2008 year in film

All hail the arrival of writer/director Eran Kolirin! A bright new film-making talent in the mold of Jim Jarmusch. Outside of that influence, there really is nothing quite like the tone or craft of this film out there. It's simple story of ordinary lives and ethnic relations in a small town in Israel bridges a strange gap between great sadness and hillarious dead-pan humor."The Band's Visit" manages to address the tensions between Arabs and Israelis in a restrained non-confrontational manner that is so tender and unique - a very welcome change in attitude from the current angry and continuosly heated poltical climate that oozes from the media. At the center of Kolirin's refreshing debut is a fully beating humanist heart. Already one of the best films I've seen so far in 2008.

For a film based on a comic book super hero,"The Dark Knight" achieves an atmosphere of mesmerizing, otherworldly dread. It's unquestionably a product of our terrorism shrouded era. From the inventive opening bank heist to Commissioner Gordon's pragmatically optimistic closing dialogue, every element of this post-noir masterwork is fine-tuned to perfection. The two key cinematic weapons (of many) added to Christopher Nolan's filmmaking arsenal for this triumphant sequel to "Batman Begins"(2005) are obviously Heath Ledger's Joker character, and screenwriter brother Jonah Nolan's ability to smack genre upside the head with brains and style. Although their complexly layered script does not exhibit the fragmented narrative of "The Prestige"(2006) or their breakthrough "Memento"(2001), it obtains a perfection identical to both of those art-house hybrids. "The Dark Knight" is essentially hard boiled pulp, a gritty crime story decorated with David Mamet-type tough guy characters, melded with a prismatic series of jaw-dropping action sequences. It's a relentlessly thrilling triumph of sight and sound that abstractly appraises codes of masculine honor - it even shows up many brilliant crime flicks like "The Untouchables"(1987). In more ways than one, this film is faithfully cut from the same cloth of that gangster epic. As in De Palma's brooding mafia/police classic about Elliot Ness' battle against Al Capone, Nolan's film focuses on a lonely, figurative samurai devoted to a governing code. This newer, bleaker, and highly aestheticized direction the Nolan brothers have taken the Batman story goes far beyond most super-hero movie conventions. Beneath its slick genre film exterior lie a series of ambiguous questions about morality, justice, and the price of peace. Set free of origin story demands, this new story deals with Bruce Wayne/Batman, do-gooder Commissioner Gordon, passionate lawyers Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes, and brilliant inventor Lucius Fox's fight against Gotham City's criminal underworld. Batman's fight contains a central paradox that the screenwriters latch onto; a lot of Gotham cities problems wouldn't have risen about if it weren't for Batman's particular brand of vigilante justice. The Joker would never have risen to power had it not been for Batman. "The Dark Knight" painstakingly charts the moral trajectory of our protagonists, whose idealistic good intentions slowly crumble in the face of this agent of chaos. It's fair to say the film's outlook, for most of its running-time, is a cynical one. It's no mistake that Nolan incorporates dark compositions of haunting post-9/11 imagery; an abandoned fire-truck burning, buildings that suddenly burst into flames, a disturbing hostage video, a lone Batman somberly posed in the foreground of fire-men over a building's fallen rubble, etc...The film's nightmare-like aura is greatly indebt to Heath Ledger's brilliantly menacing and nihilistic performance. He returns the Joker character to his dark graphic novel roots (particularly "The Killing Joke" and "The Long Halloween") - and also transforms this once clownish character into a poster-boy for our worst contemporary fears of fanatical extremists. His maniacal crab-like body language, piercingly wild eyes, and his scarred expressionistic face radiate a sinister and a fatalistic resignation to the unalterable nature of how fragile our cozy modern age can be. In a way, Heath Ledger's Joker is just sick and charismatic enough to embody all of the lyrics of The Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the UK " (just switch U.K. to Gotham City). The most exciting passages in the film revolve around this sadistic character's demands and the backlash to them. Every difficult challenge he lays out for the Caped Crusader and Gotham's citizens are a suspenseful doozy, and they all find the Nolan brothers working at the height of their conceptual powers. Like many of the director's previous cinematic puzzle games ("Insomnia", "Following"), this movie cares less about tricking its audience than about plumbing its protagonist's psyche in a way both intensely analytical and thrilling. The screenplay's expertly navigated good/evil/chaos/order balance is epitomized by the fall of people's champ Harvey Dent. After many tragic events brought on by the Joker, his transformative 'Two-Face' story-arch comes to personify a plethora of fallen communal hopes. For a super-hero movie this film is frequently on the level of great tragedy. Aaron Eckhart's performance does take a back seat to Ledger's, but it's still completely amazing in different ways and should not be overlooked. Same goes for all of the other actors; Gary Oldman is amazing as Gordon, Christian Bale once again conveys a level of torment far removed from prior portrayals of Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is excellent replacing Katie Holmes (one of my only problems with the casting of "Begins"). All of the acting coupled with Nolan's entrancing mise-en-scene and Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's driving and thunderous score generate a mood of romantic pessimism. Although not as unabashedly political as Frank Miller's landmark graphic novel "Dark Knight Returns", this film does address a lot of current hot-button issues. I think it has a lot to say about wrath, the current state of violence, the way the free world should deal with zealotry, and civil liberties in the digital age - and I love that the filmmakers were not afraid to play with blurring the lines between right and wrong concerning these ideas. It's that ever-present dissection of reactionary morality and those ideas that justifies the majestically bleak way the film is directed. "The Dark Knight" further solidifies Christopher Nolan's status as a master visual stylist in the tradition of David Fincher (Se7en-1995) and Michael Mann (Manhunter-1986) - oh, did i mention he never once uses boring post-matrix slow-motion? Nolan's craft here is a thing of beauty. His pacing flips from grandiose one minute to measured and patient another, maintaining an intense concentration on the particulars of each character's verbal and physical activities. This clear-eyed focus is married to a cinematographic color palette of chromatically bleak grays, blues, oranges and slightly askew compositions that--shot by Nolan's expert lenser Wally Pfister--seem oddly surreal and familiar. The filmmakers find a middle ground where realism and the entrancingly theatrical seamlessly blend. The brutal and sporadic hand-to-hand combat is on par with fighting in the "Bourne" movies, and the car chases exceed the splendor of John Frankenheimer's "Ronin"(1998)..One of the most memorable sequences is easily a climactic showdown on an empty Gotham street between Joker (via 18-wheeler) and Batman (via Bat-Pod); partially because it has stunningly complex stunt choreography (I mean come on, they made a diesel truck do a fucking hand-stand without CGI), but also because the scene has the audacity to evoke Tim Burton's classic 'Bat-wing VS. Joker hand cannon' stand-off bit from 1989's "Batman"- a sequence that, like a Western pistol duel on an empty street, has become iconic in the Batman mythos. But that whole segment of the old film was distinctly a product of Tim Burton's silent-film sensibilities, which is more Gothic fantasy in spirit. Nolan does with that sequence exactly what he's been doing with his new "Begins" franchise - he brings it down to a more realistic level that shies away from that expressionistic comic-book world. He injects his action with a degree of viscerally jarring intensity that feels more than real at times. This refreshing sociologically charged film is thankfully never a mindless parade of violence. All aspects of "The Dark Knight" perfectly coalesce; its revisionism and critique of formulaic super-hero movies, its narrative twists, and its overt articulations of theme. It is one precise, invigorating portrait of how difficult doing the right thing can be in a chaotic time..

Errol Morris is the Stanley Kubrick of the documentary ---Period. The "director-detective's" latest visual assault is a kinetic meditation on the arcane nature of images in the digital age. Through his trademark craft ---combinations of dazzling cinematic reenactments, first-person confessionals, haunting interludes of archival footage, and atypical theatrical scoring (Danny Elfman replacing Philip Glass here)---, Morris creates an expressionistic collage out of the media-circus that surrounded the Abu Ghraib scandal. "Standard Operating Procedure" provides a buffet of food-for-thought through its many informative angles, but mostly through its compelling interviews with Lynndie England, Megan Ambuhl and Sabrina Harman (and countless others) about how those infamous photographs came to be and how they affected their lives. Morris' dynamic observations become frightening dissections of how those unfortunate grunts (some mean-spirited, some emotionally weak, and some just flat-out dumb-ass ignorant kids) sadly became scapegoats for military higher-ups who encouraged and gave the orders for the despicable acts. Several elements made up the way those still photos were perceived by the media; their contents (obviously), the way they were arranged, and how some of the frames were actually manipulated digitally. Errol Morris inventively illustrates how a lot more than meets the eye went down that month in 2003. The most shocking and eye-opening part of this whole film is this sequence that highlights which of the photographed behavior was considered "legal" or "illegal" by the CIA. It really solidified my understanding of how potentially subjective all images really are. "Standard Operating Procedure" does not ask you to forgive these individuals but it (along with Sabrina Harman's voiced-over renditions of letters she wrote home) does put a depressingly human face on the whole Abu Ghraib mess. This is already one of the best documentaries I have seen in 2008 and it's Errol Morris' best since "The Fog of War"(2003)

Just as "A Bug's Life" invites comparisons to Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", Pixar's latest gem "WALL*E" is a fancy sci-fi riff on Charlie Chaplin's silent 'Little Tramp' pictures, particularly "Modern Times" and "City Lights". You could also mention that this small trash-compactor himself is influenced by many children's cinema archetypes ranging from R2D2 to E.T., but to dismiss "WALL*E"as merely a cute homage is a cowardly evasion - like anything else the Pixar animators dish out, this film has more spark and originality in its frames than most animated films do in a 10 year period. For a corporate children's movie, "WALL*E" speaks volumes about the negative aspects of consumer culture. Behind the film's bleak message about the future of garbage, is a hopeful and romantic portrait of love and kindness. Everything about this mechanical protagonist (with oddly human peepers), and his love interest EVE, paints a romantic picture of the importance of our species collective inheritance. He's learned everything about humans from studying our crap, and (oddly enough) in return glorifies our great redeeming virtues; like hard work, responsibility, creation, fidelity, and the nobility of selflessness. It's kind of sad that the only thing Disney has going for it anymore in the animation field is the possession of distribution rights over John Lasseter's Pixar Studios. The amount of bizarre and imaginative sub-cultures writer/director Andrew Stanton can conjure-up never ceases to amaze me. I will be very surprised if I see a better animated film in 2008.

Among this films thousand identities, it's first and foremost an emotional psychic vision planted on the screen directly from its creator's mind. "The Fall" is an unfiltered visionary work of surrealism in bedtime fable form.


Music video director Tarsem's feature film debut was the science-fiction J-Lo vehicle "The Cell"(2000), which had dazzling hallucinogenic segments inside its serial killer's mind but lacked sorely in other fields. I always wished he could've just made an entire film out of those bizarrely beautiful abstract images...but then what studio is gonna back that type of expression and make a financial gamble of that magnitude nowadays? Heaven forbid you alienate a J-Lo audience.


It was a small American audience that embraced Jodorowsky's "Holy Mountain" in 1973, and today that type of audience is even smaller - films like "The Fall" and "The Fountain" have a pretty limited appeal, and it's usually restricted to the most idiosyncratic hip crowd. Our post-MTV culture makes a film like "The Fall" look pretty inaccessible - its chances of being embraced, or even understood, are slim. But for those brave souls willing to get lost in this earnestly romantic-philosophical endeavor and its hyper-stylized smorgasbord of images, I can almost guarantee you you'll come out happy and excited about the possibilities of the moving image.


"The Fall" is set in 1915 at a Los Angeles hospital, and deals with the story of a depressed and suicidal Hollywood stunt-man named Roy (Lee Pace) who has suffered a career ending injury. He tries to trick a child patient named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) into stealing some morphine for him by way of telling her an elaborate story (most likely lifted from a plot from one of the films he did stunts for) that will involve her interaction.


People keep comparing this film to "Pan's Labyrinth"(2006), probably because of its escapist fantasy elements and because it features an adorable little girl who is distinctly European (Untaru has some serious Shirley Temple charisma!) But i have to say it's never as grim or explicit as Guillermo Del Toro's gloomy war drama. I guess you could say it has more in common with "The Princess Bride" - if the Fred Savage in that film had the imagination of Salvador Dali? That comparison makes a little more sense, only because its narrative also deals with an adult telling a child a story and it's a bit lighter in-spirit than the amazing "Pan's Labyrinth". There really isn't another movie quite like this one - and that's saying something for a film based on another film (Yo Ho Ho-1981) and influenced by many other stylists.


Most of the film is shot from Alexandria's imaginative perception of the stories Roy tells, and director Tarsem uses that narrative vantage point to exploit an endlessly open visual canvas. Different types of people Alexandria comes into contact with at the hospital on a day-to-day basis end up becoming quirky "Wizard of Oz"-type alter-egos in the story-world. The odd band of imaginary heroes in this film make it good companion viewing with Terry Gilliam's "Adventures of Baron Munchausen"(1988) and its humorous pack of characters.


The visual splendor and dynamic craft of "The Fall" is silent-film in spirit, every single economic special effect is ingeniously simple - As far as i can tell, there aren't any computer generated images in its entire running-time. Shocking, I know. If shooting a film in loads of different countries over a 4 year period (as this film was) is what it takes to get a breathtaking work of this magnitude - then so be it. In a lot of ways "The Fall" is the anti "300", its insane style parades front and center; makes use of vibrant colors, different camera frame-speeds, and exotic costumes - But Tarsem's wildly analog film has loads of whimsical story substance that warrant its overt style, the stylistically impotent "300" (unlike "Sin City") adapts Frank Miller in a lazy and uninspired digital manner just for the sake of looking cool. Both pictures are cut from an egocentric cloth, but Tarsem's refreshing film is in the tradition of classic surrealist paintings - Zack Snyder's movie is rooted in the WWE and every boss-level from every videogame. It's like the difference between grape kool-aid and full bodied wine, or softcore porn and hardcore porn. Call me an elitist, I believe forgettable films like "300" are a dime-a-dozen wasted opportunities, and "The Fall" is nothing shy of an avant-garde epic - it strives for a spirituality of the purest nature via an absurdist tale that is profoundly strange but always engaging. It's one hell of a search for genuine sentiment in spaced-out operatic fantasy