Somnopolis

Tis the season to deck the halls, pinch Rudolph’s nose and……write best-of lists fit to make Nick Hornby’s eyes bleed! Open any of the broadsheets, tabloids or magazines on the shop shelves and have a look at the  best of the Noughties lists therein (and why consensus settled on that moniker for the decade….I don’t really know).

So here’s my humble attempt, a list of the top ten films from the past decade in my opinion. Obviously this is a list of the films I have seen that I consider note-worthy. There were many releases I did not see, such as Downfall, Crash, Million Dollar Baby and 2046. I am not a professional film critic. Also cinematic re-releases such as Jodorowsky’s El Topo or Robert Aldrich’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane are not included, or classic films I only saw myself for the first time between 2000 – 2009. Otherwise the list below would be as follows. Bringing Up Baby, Bringing Up Baby, Bringing Up Baby and finally Bringing Up Baby.

My criteria was to select films that I felt changed me in some way, altered my thinking on a particular subject, or expanded my understanding of what cinema can achieve. Believe it or not, as pretentious as that sounds, Anchorman almost made it to the final cut. “I love lamp!” Some other almost-finalists included the controversial Battle Royale; one of the most astonishing documentaries of the post-9/11 era The Revolution Will Not Be Televised directed by Irish film-makers Kim Bartley and Donncha O’Brien, capturing on film the attempted US backed coup against Hugo Chavez; Donnie Darko, the appeal of which has been damaged by Richard Kelly’s subsequent director’s cut; and finally The Fantastic Mr Fox, which I wrote about here.

Finally so, here is my list of the ten films from the last decade that I enjoyed the most:

Moon – what an incredible debut. Duncan Jones flawlessly interweaves an impressive acting showcase from Sam Rockwell into a science fiction plot detailed enough to stand beside Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and the haunting The Quiet Earth by Geoff Murray and writer/star Bruno Lawrence. All of these films expose our frailty as humans in the face of total isolation and question what is it that makes us who we are when we are separated from family, friends and society. Rockwell’s lunar miner is a cog in a corporate machine, reduced to a purely functional relationship with the machinery on the Moon’s surface, seemingly abandoned by his callous employers on Earth. To say more would spoil what can only be described as a heartbreakingly sad, yet exhilarating cinematic experience.

Uzumaki – The so-called J-Horror genre that started with Hideo Nakata’s exemplary riff on Koji Suzuki’s novel Ringu opened up the Western market for weird oddities such as this Japanese horror flick. We have had haunted video tapes, phones and even a wig(!), but this film based on Junji Ito’s manga goes a step further and associates circles with a dark, corruptive force for evil. Yes circles. And they’re everywhere, from household machinery, to school-room educational tools – even your ear, or finger tips. An episodic plot that lends itself to weirdness for its own sake, gives me some hope for the long awaited Black Hole adaptation.

Save The Green Planet – what a shame that Douglas Adams died two years before this South Korean film achieved what the numerous adaptations of his Hitch-Hiker’s series have failed to do. Capture the casual absurdity of aliens threatening the destruction of the Earth. The plot concerns itself with an apparently mentally ill worker kidnapping his boss, whom he is convinced is an alien invader. The terrified victim is interrogated and tortured, but continues to protest his innocence. Finally it emerges that our hero Lee Byeong-gu is still traumatised by the death of his mother, who was also employed by the man’s company. Is this all a delusional response to the tragedy of his childhood, or could his boss really be an alien? Hilarious, sad, thrilling and finally blissfully absurd, this is the film Adams deserved.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston – As noted above, I wanted to include a documentary in this list. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised radicalized me; My Country, My Country confronted the lies of the Iraqi regime change; and Slavoj Zizek’s Pervert’s Guide to Cinema was a fascinating riff on the hidden meanings we attach to film. Only Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary on the life of Daniel Johnston broke my heart though. Its subject is a bipolar outsider artist from Austin, Texas, who has achieved limited cult fame due to his numerous recordings (mastered on tape in his parent’s basement) and cartoonish art. Obsessed with the Beatles, plagued by delusions of possession by Satan and devoted to the memory of a girl he met many years ago, his music is the sole remaining fragile thread of sanity that he can cling to. Feted by figures such as Tom Waits, Kurt Cobain, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth, he has survived the debilitating effects of his disorder and though heavily medicated, even travelled to play a gig in Dublin two years ago, which I attended. To all the alienated and disaffected poseurs of the grunge era complaining of how tortuous existence is – this is the real deal.

Spirited Away – Some people cry when Bambi’s mother is shot. I cry during this film’s scene set on a ghostly train. No one dies. Nothing really happens actually. The music swells and my eyes leak salt-water. Every time. This is a special movie, from the master of Japanese animation Hayao Miyazaki.

Let The Right One In – Horror has an unusual relationship with cinema. Gore hounds despaired at Kubrick’s coldly austere adap of The Shining, avoiding Stephen King’s blood and grue for the most part in favour of quiet, creeping unease and existential disquiet. Vampires were catapulted onto the big screen by the double whammy of  Murnau’s Nosferatu and Tod Browning’s Dracula (what’s the hell is that armadillo doing in that shot!), but the subtext and spiritual horror of Stoker’s novel were quickly lost. Fangsters were soon biting and gnawing their way through cinematic middle America, with only occasional relief such as George Romero’s disturbing Martin. Let The Right One In follows the Pittsburgh native’s lead in focusing more on the relationships of ordinary people confronted by the undead. Are Oscar and Eli in love? Or is the elderly soul trapped in a child’s body grooming the young boy to become her next Renfield? I dread the oncoming remake.

24 Hour Party People – Michael Winterbottom is quite simply the most interesting young director in Britain today. Kinetic, wildly improvisational and fearless in his love of experimentation, here he marries the origins of the British punk scene to the later rise and demise of Madchester rave culture that was born in the Haçienda club. Following the efforts of television presenter Tony Wilson to bring the music to the people of Manchester, this anarchic film eschews reverence for its muso subjects, such as Ian Curtis, Shaun Ryder and the Happy Mondays. Steve Coogan plays the Yeats quoting would-be impresario as a neurotic, self-obsessed intellectual manqué, with a habit of addressing the camera during proceedings: “I’m a minor character in my own story”. It is also made clear that most of what we are being told is invented for the purposes of the film, but as Wilson himself declares “Given the choice between the truth and legend, print the legend”. Mad, fun and too clever by half.

Zatoichi – The eponymous blind ronin is a standard figure in Japanese cinema, a Robin Hood of ancient Japan, helping ordinary folk fight the corrupt land-owners and vicious gangs that plague the countryside. Beat Takeshi’s film is both a homage to the movies of his childhood and a thrilling innovation. Music builds throughout the picture, with labourers in a field digging the earth in time to the soundtrack, Zatoichi’s stick chiming in as he walks the treacherous country roads. The plot is traditional in its confrontation between the hero and a powerful local crimelord, yet Takeshi fashions out of this a witty, romantic fable, that is both intimate and thrilling.

Shortbus – Winterbottom’s 9 Songs was much derided on its release for attempting to take porn and open it up for mainstream cinema. The act of sex on film has been for too long the lone province of exploitative pornographers. The depiction of it heavily censured and hidden away. Where Winterbottom failed though, John Cameron Mitchell, fresh from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, triumphs. Shortbus is a polysexual celebration of the act, funny, winning and finally heart-warming. Porn? Definitely. But also sweet-natured and in search of a kind of truth.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman. A match made in heaven. Another ‘unfunny’, Jim Carrey vehicle (some might sneer they all are), Eternal Sunshine… is a surreal Annie Hall for the 21c. A relationship drama courtesy of Salvador Dali.

So that’s it! The ten films I have most enjoyed over the last decade.