2008 was not an encouraging year for cinema. Art-house studios like Warner Independent, Picturehouse, and Tartan closed their doors, mighty critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum lost their jobs, not a single foreign or documentary film became a sizeable hit, and Roger Ebert’s old show is now being hosted by Ben Lyons! Anyone who cares about film as an art form cannot be thrilled about the many somber developments of the past twelve months.
The silver lining? 2008 still managed to offer some great movies, and any year that includes strong work by Charlie Kaufman, Michael Haneke, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, and not one but two great Wong Kar-wai films is one to be thankful for. These were my favourite films of 2008.
10. Blindness (Fernando Meilleres)
The mere fact that Fernando Meilleres’ bleak, grueling depiction of a world torn apart by an unexplained blindness pandemic received wide theatrical release is downright astonishing. Based on the apocalyptic novel by José Saramago, Blindness doesn’t shy away from exploring the plausible ramifications of its “what if?” premise, and is directed by Meilleres with exactly the right amount of style.
9. Young@Heart (Stephen Walker)
Young@Heart was not the year’s most important documentary, but it was definitely the most joyous and life-affirming. Director Stephen Walker chronicles two months in the lives of a choir of senior citizens who perform rock music, leading up to a sold-out concert, unraveling more emotional twists and turns than the average Hollywood melodrama. (I fully admit to tearing up more than once.) It’s a film that broke down every wall of critical snobbery I possessed; a real charmer.
8. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)
The Pixar Company, like Chuck Jones, Max Fleischer, Hayao Miyazaki, and Tex Avery before them, knows that making a good film for children also means making a good film for adults. Wall-E might not be their greatest work to date (after all, these are the folks who created The Incredibles and Ratatouille), but it’s definitely their most daring: you won’t see any DreamWorks animated films that begin with thirty minutes of Chaplin-esque pantomime, nor would they contain Wall-E’s subversive satire of American consumerism. Fast-paced chase scenes are squeezed in for the kids, but there’s nothing wrong with that either.
7. JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri)
Jean-Claude Van Damme becomes the fall guy for a bank robbery in Mabrouk El Mechri’s clever yet surprisingly human deconstruction of celebrity culture and action movie machismo. JCVD is a witty film, but also one that takes an ironic premise and approaches it as drama, with El Mechri’s deadpan, visually-savvy directorial style announcing him as a major talent. And, highlighted by a seven-minute improvised monologue about the pitfalls of fame, “the muscles from Brussels” anchors the film with an extraordinary performance. No, seriously.
6. My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar-wai)
Wong Kar-wai’s English-language debut was 2008’s most misunderstood film. Transplanting his signature style into an American setting with Hollywood actors (including Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, Jude Law, and the excellent David Strathairn), My Blueberry Nights is a lovely, lyrical movie that is stylistically consistent with his lighter Hong Kong films. With a signature sense of languid melancholy and beautiful, neon-drenched cinematography, Wong is in such good form that I can’t understand why anyone who liked Chungking Express or Fallen Angels wouldn’t enjoy his latest effort.
5. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
To put it bluntly, Mickey Rourke, in his role as has-been ‘80s wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson, looks like shit. Years of hard living and enough steroids to kill a small goat contribute to Rourke’s weary, lived-in performance as a man whose loneliness increases as his celebrity fades. Darren Aronofsky’s depiction of the behind-the-scenes world of professional wrestling is utterly convincing (we see Rourke and a fellow wrestler shopping for barbed wire, frying pans, and staplers to use as props), and the script by Robert D. Siegel is so emotionally charged that the day after I saw the film I was still hoping things would turn out alright for the old lug. This genuinely heartbreaking film is Aronofsky’s most mature and satisfying work yet.
4. Funny Games (Michael Haneke)
Haneke’s shot-by-shot, English-language remake of his 1997 Austrian film is, surprisingly, just as suspenseful and emotionally devastating as the original. A meticulously crafted and well-acted thriller (Michael Pitt was this year’s other great villain), Funny Games is also a troubling commentary on the dehumanization of violence in the media. By having the killers break the fourth wall and conspire directly with the audience, Haneke dares to imply the gore-loving horror movie audience is on their moral level. Would it be unkind to suggest that certain critics were unwilling to accept a work of art that genuinely challenged their morals?
3. Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-wai)
Buried inside most good martial arts movies is a tragedy, and Wong Kar-wai’s retooled, remastered version of his 1994 epic is one of the only kung fu films to seriously explore the psychological motivations and emotionally stunted lifestyles of the genre’s “lone warrior” archetypes. Adapted from the seminal Chinese martial arts novel The Eagle Shooting Heroes, Wong’s film is not a Crouching Tiger-style action extravaganza (the Sammo Hung-choreographed brawls are choppy and impressionistic), but rather a critical, postmodern analysis of the genre. The plot is complex (to say the least), but Ashes of Time is a dreamy, poetic film that becomes richer and more powerful upon repeated viewings.
2. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)
With his first directorial effort, acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) takes his non-linear storytelling style to the extreme, tackling the subjects of aging, mortality, and the role of the artist in society in his most mind-bending work to date. An acclaimed theatre director in an existential crisis, Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) uses a government grant to mount an “honest” production about humanity—a life-size version of Manhattan staged within a huge warehouse. But can there be such thing as truthfulness in art, considering that the presence of an artist brings inherent subjectivity? Surreal from the get-go, Synecdoche becomes downright dizzying as Hoffman’s character goes to greater lengths to achieve his unattainable goal, to the point where watching the last third of the film is like wandering through a hall of mirrors. Kaufman’s sense of humour and the affecting performances by Hoffman and Samantha Morton make Synecdoche the most entertaining “difficult” movie in years.
1 The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
Christopher Nolan’s epic treatise on vigilante justice, the nature of heroism, and post-9/11 America also happens to the finest film ever made about a comic book superhero, and one of the ballsiest summer blockbusters of all time. The Dark Knight is a violent crime saga; a compelling human tragedy; a troubling political parable; a frightening depiction of urban chaos; and a damn good action movie. Perhaps the first comic book movie to question the ethical implications of its heroes while undermining the fundamental tenants of their mythos (a Batman movie that ends with Batman vilified?), Nolan has created one of the few blockbusters that evokes a real sense of danger by radically subverting clichés (an action movie where the love interest is murdered two thirds of the way in?). And yes, a certain cast member does deserve a posthumous Oscar.
