Images, lines, gestures, moods from the year’s films
By Richard T. Jameson & Kathleen Murphy
• A Christmas Tale: In a house otherwise teeming with family, a black dog appears in the empty sitting room, then lunges out, curling the corner of the rug as it goes….
• In TheEdgeofHeaven, a brown ribbon of road glowing under the last shrinking patch of blue in a lowering, end-of-day sky…
• On a static-riddled miniature screen, and through the eyes of WALL•E, a scene from the 1969 Hello, Dolly takes on a grandeur it never had….
• Daisy (Cate Blanchett) dancing in silhouette on a backlit pavilion in TheCuriousCaseofBenjaminButton, her gorgeous youth and passion as yet too much for the middle-aged man (Brad Pitt) watching her
• InBruges: the twinkle and the glower: first views of the “Belgian s—hole” by, respectively, Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell)…
‘In Bruges’
• With voluptuous abandon, TheDarkKnight (Christian Bale) plunges off a Tokyo skyscraper into an ebony abyss … what the fall of God’s most beautiful angel must have looked like….
• “It’s very difficult for me to do everything in one shot. I’m 47 years old.”–But he just did it. Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD…
• In Che, the most romanticized revolutionary ever (Benicio del Toro) staggers up a steep wooded hillside, wheezing with asthma….
The reading of the Oscar nominations marks the unofficial (and long overdue) end to the season of Top Ten lists and year-in-review pieces and various awards bestowed by every group who wants to add their stamp to the passports of Oscar hopefuls. So as a postscript, I gather a few lists and remarks from Parallax View contributors and friends, along with those published by Seattle top critics, as a snapshot of the way see 2008.
Sean Axmaker
A Christmas Tale
1. A Christmas Tale (France) (dir: Arnaud Desplechin)
2. The Edge Of Heaven (Germany) (dir: Fatih Akin)
3. WALL•E (dir: Andrew Stanton)
4. Let The Right One In (Sweden) (dir: Tomas Alfredson)
5. Wendy And Lucy (dir: Kelly Reichardt)
6. The Fall (dir: Tarsem Singh)
7. The Dark Knight (dir: Christopher Nolan)
8. The Class (France) (dir: Laurent Cantet)
9. The Secret Of The Grain (France) dir: Abdellatif Kechiche
10. My Blueberry Nights (dir: Wong Kar Wai)
I also saw six films at various film festivals that could easily have made the list, were they eligible under most Top Ten guidelines (i.e.: a theatrical release). Some of them have been set for a 2009 release, a couple still await distribution.
Four Nights With Anna (Poland/France) dir: Jerzy Skowlimowski The Hurt Locker dir: Kathryn Bigelow L’heure d’ete (Summer Hours) (France) dir/scr: Olivier Assayas Of Time And The City dir/scr: Terence Davies Still Walking (Japan) dir/scr: Hirozaku Kore-Eda Ain’t Scared (France) dir/scr: Audrey Estrougo
Robert Cumbow
(in lieu of a list, Mr. Cumbow put together his Observations, Reflections, and Ruminations from 2008 for Parallax View here)
1. In Bruges (comedy, gangster; on DVD)
2. The Edge of Heaven (multi-narrative drama; on DVD)
3. A Christmas Tale (comedy, family)
4. Pineapple Express (comedy, stoner/bromantic, crime, action, Ninja; on DVD/Blu-ray)
5. Wendy and Lucy (heartbreaker)
6. Let the Right One In (comedy, tweener love story, horror)
7. Still Life (comedy, romantic/industrial; on DVD)
8. Chop Shop (docudrama; on DVD)
9. Shotgun Stories (Southern Gothic; on DVD)
10. The Fall (comedy, Western/Eastern fantasy adventure; on DVD/Blu-ray)
11. Che (instructional documentary, with re-enactments)
John Hartl
The Edge of Heaven
(more or less in order)
The Edge of Heaven Man on Wire WALL•E Waltz With Bashir The Pool Milk Taxi to the Dark Side Boy A Frozen River
and the most interesting SIFF film I saw that hasn’t been released: Tony Barbieri’s Em
1. The Edge of Heaven
2. The Duchess of Langeais
3. The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
4. The Dark Knight
5. Wendy and Lucy
6. Married Life
7. Priceless
8. In Bruges
9. Forever
10. Let the Right One In
Richard T. Jameson
2008 was one weird film year for a variety of reasons, and trying to throw a Ten Best list around it has seemed a fool’s-errand. This fool’s latest version of one, for the editor of Germany’s brave Steadycam magazine to post online, should be the last I hazard … though it, like its predecessors, ignores some half-dozen first-rate films seen at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and unreleased as yet Stateside.
In Bruges
1) The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)
2) A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin)
3) The Secret of the Grain (Abdellatif Kechiche)
4) I’ve Loved You So Long (Philippe Claudel)
5) Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
6) Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
7) In Bruges (Martin McDonagh) … hands-down favorite!
8 ) WALL•E (Andrew Stanton)
9) A Girl Cut in Two (Claude Chabrol)
10) Tell No One (Guillaume Canet)
Kathleen Murphy
1. The Edge of Heaven
2. In Bruges
3. A Christmas Tale
4. I’ve Loved You So Long
5. Wendy and Lucy
6. Let the Right One In
7. WALL•E
8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
9. Vicky Christina Barcelona
10. Man on Wire
Andrew Wright
Let the Right One In
1. The Dark Knight
2. The Edge of Heaven
3. Let the Right One In
4. Burn After Reading
5. OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
6. WALL•E
7. Redbelt
8. Encounters at the End of the World
9. Fear(s) of the Dark
10. JCVD
U2 3D Milk, W., Frost/Nixon The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button The Reader The Visitor Cassandra’s Dream/Vicky Cristina Barcelona Iron Man, The Dark Knight Valkyrie Slumdog Millionaire WALL•E
1. The Edge of Heaven
2. Synecdoche, N.Y.
3. Boy A
4. I’ve Loved You So Long
5. Man on Wire
6. Funny Games
7. Towelhead
8. Wall•E
9. Rachel Getting Married
10. (tie) Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight.
