Eugene weekly., February 19, 2009, Page 13, Image 13

SPLENDID STORIES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE
BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
E
very year, it surprises me how diffi cult, and how personal, this task is. It’s just
a list; it’s just a year’s worth of work, distilled into a few short paragraphs. I’ve
never been one to believe in or care about some notion of “objective” bests,
which is probably why making a top 10 list always feels like putting all my cards
on the table: These are my movies, the ones that stuck with me, that shocked or
surprised or delighted or horrifi ed me in their greatness. They’re mostly foreign, as Jason
noted in his introduction. And despite the usual year-end glut of prestige productions, a lot of
them come from earlier in the year. (Several never played in Eugene at all.)
We had to dig a little farther, this time, to turn up the movies that were something more
than just good. This year, Jason and I agree on far more fi lms than usual, which could mean
there were fewer great movies this year than in the last two — or that the best movies were
simply far greater than the merely good ones. Or it could mean nothing at all; even now,
fi nishing up, this list feels as if it could shift at any moment, a few fi lms slipping off, slipping
on, changing places. But while it holds still, here it is.
1. THE FALL “A mad folly,” Roger Ebert
called Tarsem’s The Fall, a movie about
stories that created legends of its own. The
locations. The years put into the fi lm. The
digital effects that look real and the reality
that looks like digital effects. One lead
(Catinca Untaru) convinced that the other
(Lee Pace) really can’t walk. There ought
to be a book. But for now, there’s simply
the fi lm, gorgeous and striking, simple and
endlessly tangled. A wounded stuntman
tells a story to a little girl. The story is a
bribe; the story is the fi lm. “Storytelling
was always about who you told it to,” the
director told The Guardian last fall. He’s
telling a story to us, to his actors; they’re
telling a story to us, and to each other; every
layer shifts the meanings, shifts the images,
shifts from our reality to theirs to a realm of
the imagination. A mad folly? The Fall is a
mad triumph. (Reviewed 6/19/08)
2. 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS
Director Cristian Mungiu called the tale told
in his bleak, elegantly wrenching fi lm “not an
exceptional story.” But in telling the ordinary,
horrible story of two girls in Ceaucescu’s
Romania, one of whom needs an abortion,
Mungiu certainly did the exceptional.
None of the usual words — shocking,
brave, incredible — do justice to this fi lm,
which is so believable that it feels almost
like a documentary. As the camera follows
Otilila from dorm hall to hotel room to dark
streets, it traces a world in which everything
is curtailed, nothing is easy and even the
freedom to help a friend is uncountably
costly. 4 Months is hard even to talk about; it
leaves you in heartbroken silence as it ends.
Watch. Don’t fl inch. (3/27/08)
3. A CHRISTMAS TALE A remarkable
cast and a quirky spirit make this French
family tale from Arnaud Desplechin so
much more than “Divided family bonds
at the holidays.” Catherine Deneuve is
the ailing matriarch, Mathieu Almaric her
off-kilter son, Anne Consigny the quietly
furious, accidental eldest of the Vuillard
kids; the fi rst son, Joseph, died at six,
but his short life colored those of all his
siblings. Relationships change, secrets are
revealed, other movies and endless music
seep into the story, a lot of wine gets drunk
— yet no one ever gets maudlin. Nor does
the fi lm, despite all the dislike, despite the
THE FALL
A CHRISTMAS TALE
about the dangers of a corporate nanny-
state that would like nothing more than to
strap people into chairs and stuff them full
of junk food, but that’s not what makes
this movie so spectacular. It’s the sweet
romance between a curvy iPod and a square
trash compactor — not to mention that utter
impossibility, an adorable cockroach, and
the unforgettable visions of a trash-covered
Earth — that propels WALL-E into the
stratosphere. (7/3/08)
way history loops around on itself. It’s a
movie as stuffed as a holiday turkey, and
it’s a strange, cranky joy.
4. WALL-E Who but the geniuses of Pixar
could make a largely wordless movie about
a lonely little robot (seemingly equal parts
R2D2, E.T. and Johnny 5) and have it turn
out to be one of the most beloved fi lms of the
year? Sure, there’s a good bit of commentary
WALL-E
PARANOID
PARK
5. MAN ON WIRE Philippe Petit’s
highwire act on a rope strung between the
two towers of the World Trade Center may
be the best art prank ever pulled off. At the
very least, it’s the best I’ve seen captured
in a documentary fi lm. Man on Wire is
playful, clever, creative and as much a
work of art as Petit’s “coup” atop the WTC.
May it inspire a new generation of puckish
artists and talented pranksters. (9/18/08)
6. TELL NO ONE This precise French
thriller may have taken its title as a
direction: Tell the audience nothing. Just
let hints, clues, snippets of information
fall into fantastically natural dialogue until
the elaborate and involving mystery pieces
itself together. (8/21/08)
7. PARANOID PARK Sure, Milk is lovely,
a sleek biopic with a pristine ’70s sheen and
a remarkable cast. But Paranoid Park was
Gus Van Sant’s quiet triumph of 2008. With
Milk, he took an inspiring, heartbreaking
story and made a good movie; with Park,
he took a middling novel and turned it
into a fantastic fi lm, dreamy and interior
yet involving and dark. Simply, it’s the
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story of a teen whose life goes wildly and
indavertently off the rails. Through journal
entries read in voiceover, Super-8 images
of skateboarders, a muddle of picture
and sound and the occasional moment of
clarity, an idea, a vision, emerges of what
it’s like to be in this one messed-up, uttery
ordinary kid’s head. The ordinary once
again becomes extraordinary. (4/3/08)
8. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY I expected to hate
cheerful, easygoing Poppy Cross. But Poppy
isn’t perky; she’s interested in things. She
means well. And she’s nicely balanced by a
dry roommate, a sulky sister and a handful
of fully believable dilemmas, most of which
seem as if they could happen in any given
week. That’s the beauty of Happy-Go-Lucky:
With the exception of her altercation with an
angry driving instructor, it doesn’t seem as if
this is a particularly dramatic moment in the
life of Poppy. There will always be troubled
children and bitter couples and the possibility
of romance. Poppy just never takes them for
granted. Too many movies would spell this
out for us; Mike Leigh just lets it happen, and
strikes gold. (11/13/08)
Continued on p.15
EUGENE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 19, 2009 13