The characters in David Fincher’s Zodiac obsessively poured over minute details of an aged but unsolved murder mystery in a futile attempt to find new answers. Like them, the movies of 2007 returned to explore well-worn genres and tired tales, in the hopes of revealing something fresh and enlightening beneath the surface. For the most part, where Fincher’s characters failed these movies succeeded.
2007 turned out to be a great year with a surplus of standouts. While the most prominent didn’t pave new roads, they revisited old ones with innovative perspectives that reflect current sentiments.
Old genres—the western in particular— gained prominence, either by spit shine (3:10 to Yuma), obsessive deconstruction (The Assassination of Jesse James), or through soul searching that took the form of a self-induced death and reincarnation (No Country for Old Men). Examine P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and you’ll find a primitive American fable older than Citizen Kane, hard-wired with an intoxicating and fatalistic aesthetic.
It was a year of “review” in every sense of the word. And if these flicks could talk, they would quote P.T. Anderson: “You may be through with the past, but the past is not through with you.”
10) Sweeney Todd
It takes a little while to get in tune with Johnny Depp’s sonorous Sweeney Todd, a vengeful barber who raises hairs when he draws blood. However, when heads begin to roll, Tim Burton’s opulently gothic adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical carries you away with its ravenous indulgence in harmonious gore.
9) The Savages
A father’s collapse into senility weighs heavily on his middle-aged children, who can barely get past their own unresolved issues to put him to rest. Tamara Jenkins’ witty and sardonic screenplay is proof that a dysfunctional family comedy need not rely on the off-the-wall. Jenkins’ work combined with the endearing performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney turns growing old with the Savage clan into teary-eyed hilarity.
8) Offside
Since girls in Iran are banned from all sporting events, the Tehrani misfits of Offside disguise themselves as boys to gain entry into a soccer stadium. Discovered and rounded up into a makeshift cage, the girls begin a verbal sparring match with their boy soldier captors. Jafar Panahi’s bittersweet gem keeps a critical eye on Iran’s politics but still maintains affection for both the boys and girls held captive to age-old customs.
7) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Director Andrew Dominik and his star Brad Pitt rewrite Jesse James as a man whose knack for unnecessary violence, paranoid demeanor, heroic whimsy, and hazy moral standing define the America infatuated by him. The film is a myth deconstructed in Dominik’s lyrical elegy.
6) Eastern Promises
Cronenberg crafts a moody, deceptive, and cultivated genre piece where the smooth (often tattooed) surfaces are boiling over with the grime just below. Viggo Mortensen delivers a composed performance as a Russian mob driver who aids a British nurse (Naomi Watts) in uncovering the sordid roots of a dead immigrant, an investigation that decides the fate of a newborn child. The plot is both a pretext for a portrait of London as an immigrant hub—where the money and blood of outsiders flows freely but never amounts to a permanent home. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the infamous bathhouse scene, where Viggo’s manhood almost meets a sharp edge.
5) Killer of Sheep
Although it’s been 30 years since Charles Burnett’s thesis project for UCLA began touring the festival circuit, this unrequited American classic didn’t get a public exhibition until last summer. In Killer of Sheep, vignettes of black youth and adults, rummaging through the crush of daily life in L.A.’s Watts ghetto, ride a gritty bluesy vibe with shades of neorealism, making for a haunting portrait of African- American strife.
4) No Country For Old Men
A creaking, pulsating, darkly humourous, and masterfully executed neo-Western, the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men mars genre convention just far enough to leave a mark. At the centre of *No Country *is Javier Bardem’s riveting turn as a ghostly assassin hunting for stolen cash. Toting a Beatles moptop, cattlegun, and a skewed set of principles, this apparition of American malaise ushers the death of the old west with a silencer on his shotgun.
3) 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days
Cristian Mungiu’s Palme D’Or winner is a raw and uncompromising tourde- force that leads us through a day where one girl sets out to obtain an abortion for her friend. The polar opposite of the buoyantly optimistic Juno, pregnant girls situated in communist era Romania face an immediate dismal reality. Mungiu disavows cinematic gimmickry, allowing the drama to unfurl in long takes of overwhelming force.
2) Zodiac
David Fincher’s masterpiece is a thoroughly detailed and deliciously frustrating account of the men who went catapulting down the rabbit hole of a media-fuelled obsession. Zodiac delivers a discourse on the nature of human fixation, the dangers of the press, and the impossibility of absolute knowledge, all while remaining an absorbing thriller from start to finish. With pitch perfect performances, a magnificently adapted screenplay, and stalwart directing from Fincher, it was difficult to not give this one top honours. But …
1) There Will Be Blood
P.T. Anderson’s bold vision of the turn-of-the-century California petroleum boom is akin to Citizen Kane à la Stanley Kubrick. This sprawling epic tells the classic tale of a greedy capitalist (Daniel Day Lewis is spoton) competing with an opportunistic Christian fanatic (Paul Dano) to bleed the land and workers dry to make his fortune. Anderson wrestles together a cinematic stunner, where absorbing visual compositions and Jonny Greenwood’s jarring score constructs an apocalyptic experience that is quintessentially American—disorienting, brutal, and picturesque.
