Your Film Professor

If you read my “About” blurb, you know that part of my project for this blog is to relate my thoughts as I try to prioritize screening the most important films for each year, hopefully going all the way back to the earliest films, though at the rate I’m going I don’t know if I have enough life left in me to accomplish that! (I have completed the years 2009-2012 but they preceded this blog so I haven’t written blurbs for them yet, in large part because I am going to have to re-watch most of those films again and I have too little time to do that right now! So far, I have only finished one other year for this blog, my favorite films for 2013.) This film list is the product of finally finishing the year 2014. As you will see below, I have written blurbs for some films and longer analyses posts for others; I’ve provided links to previous analyses of those films. Also, in terms of the number of films selected, I don’t adhere to a set number (e.g., a “top 10” or a “top 20”), instead choosing the films that I most admired, the final number not mattering. In terms of the ordering, let me just say this: I enjoy lists but I also realize that they are pretty superficial; I suspect that if I watched each of these films every year, my order of them would change somewhat. Also, I don’t include documentaries to this list, not because I don’t like documentaries — I love documentaries — but rather because I will be creating a separate list for those films. One other note: In terms of how I categorize films by year, I’ve decided to roughly put them in years where they were released in the USA. Sometimes that is challenging since some international films were kind of released in one year via festivals in the USA and then in another year with “limited” official screenings in America; some international films were never “officially” released in the US, only getting exposure via film festivals.

Oh, and though I try to catch every film considered important for each year, invariably, I will miss some; if you think I’ve missed a film, do let me know!

(19) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Anthony Russo/Joe Russo, USA)

Okay, so, yes, I am a fan of superhero films. To my mind, the best superhero films are not just action oriented but inject a kind of Shakespearean exploration of the human condition to some degree. I plan on doing a post on “deep” superhero films at some point so I’ll leave it at that for now. Remarkably, three of the better superhero films that have been made were released in 2014, the other two I discuss below. In terms of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, now while I do have some issues with this film (e.g., to my mind it is a little overstuffed with headache inducing action and at times it gets a little overly melodramatic), I have to say that the Russo brothers have created a really slick and smart and deep film. They have said that the film was influenced by all of the great conspiracy films from the 70s (e.g., Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, The French Connection, to name just three key 70s conspiracy films) and that really comes through in a big way in this film. Renowned Marxist scholar Fredric Jameson has theorized that conspiracy theories in general and the conspiracy film in particular is a ramification of our inability to fathom or “map” the globalized, transnational capitalistic apparatus at work in the world today. This element is especially allegorized in this film via HYDRA penetrating and permeating SHIELD, a not to subtle analogy to how transnational corporate/Wall Street power has also penetrated and permeated every facet of our own lives including nation state governments. That HYDRA (via hiding behind the face of a security government agency, e.g., in this case SHIELD) wants to put into place “Insight Helicarriers” to oversee and control the world and in fact eliminate any threats to its rule speaks to how superpower entities (e.g., America, Russia, China, terrorist organizations, and capitalist entities such as the World Bank) are moving more and more to a controlling authoritarian sensibility, not to mention how that includes surveillance and military technologies to control and eliminate enemies (e.g., for example, drone warfare). The face of HYDRA is the unscrupulous Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) who cogently gives us the super sophisticated sophistry at work today, where many powerful figures have learned to use sophisticated rhetoric to manipulate and exploit others. Into this mix is Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), who only wants to “do the right thing,” which comes through when he says this:

“For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right. I guess I’m not quite sure what that is anymore. And I thought I could throw myself in and follow orders. Serve. It’s just not the same.”

Captain America believes in an America that lives up to its lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, justice for all, and equality, but that America doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. In lieu of this lack, Captain America becomes the living embodiment of what America purports to be, what it could and should be. In this way, he is a deeply allegorical figure, utopian in his dogmatic purity to live up to these lofty ideals of an American conception that is an enlightened, evolved state of being, at least on paper. Set against the worst of times, where America has truly lost its way to mercenary (transnational, globalized corporate/Wall Street, authoritarian) interests, Captain America is the oasis for us, the hope that we can somehow materialize what Captain America embodies. That’s what comes through in this film, the dichotomy of America’s corrupt direction and Captain America giving us the hope that we can materialize a better direction, a utopian direction where our American ideals are actually realized.

(18) Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, USA)

So, I’ve got to say that I just adore the two Guardians of the Galaxy films. I think the second volume might be one of the most purely enjoyable times I have had at the movies! And I do think that the second “volume” is a cut above the first one, but I also think the first Guardians film is still superior entertainment. I would also say that the Guardians films are somewhat deep as well, especially the second one, which I’ll write on at a later time. In terms of both of the films, and in terms of science fiction (or should I amend that to science fantasy???) films of this space opera variety (e.g., of the Star Wars and Star Trek fare), there is a deep element that may be unintentional, e.g., how these films break down, well, at least the self/Other divide in real day terms. I qualify this because these types of futuristic space films also explore the self/Other dynamic via alien species who then become the new Other, though that also conveys why these type of films are really quite invaluable for this dynamic, e.g., they break down the self/Other divide in two ways, via evolving us as a species beyond our own present day self/Other divide, by collectivizing humanity, e.g., humans are now not set up as a collection of differences (at least in racial/ethnic and gender terms) but rather collectivized as all just human, making “race” and “gender” what they really are, obsolete ideological (arbitrary) conceptions. These type of films also break down the self/Other divide by allegorizing alien species, making them an Other and then exploring why this self/Other dynamic is so self-destructive. I explore this element a bit more below in my analysis of X-Men: Days of Future Past. In the case of this film, that Peter (Chris Pratt) grows up with this kaleidoscope of alien species — and sees them as the norm — goes a long way to breaking down our own self/Other divide, e.g., that differences are not a measure of some sort of hierarchy of being but rather just a diversity of equals that can enrich us by those very differences. And that, then, gets to the other deep element in the film. James Gunn gives us four deeply scarred characters, four characters who have suffered from loss and/or suffer from their differentness, which is especially pronounced with Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) — a genetically engineered entity who is literally singular in his being — and Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who, through no fault of her own, has been adopted by one of the most feared and monstrous entities in the universe, Thanos. These four figures have isolated themselves from the rest of the world (excepting Rocket, who already reveals a soft side in his bonding with the benevolent and endearing Groot), putting up those defensive blocks that prevent them from bonding in any meaningful way with Others. As they are forced to interact with each other and as they see just how similar they are to each other — gradually recognizing their own pain and suffering in each other — they gradually drop their defenses and allow themselves to begin the bonding that will eventually create a really interesting alternative family, which, by the way, also speaks to the deep element that families need not be “nuclear” to be healthy, e.g., there are many variations of how families can be formed. Perhaps the most poignant moment in the film is when Drax (Dave Bautista) “pets” Rocket — he is trying to comfort Rocket after the death of Groot — and we see Rocket at first bristle at the touch, but in needing that comforting, and in knowing that he isn’t being “petted” (e.g., degraded by an Other) but rather being loved by a loved one, Rocket lets the touch happen. The other moment is of course when Drax, Rocket, and Gamora reach out to hold hands with Peter, a deeply symbolic act (and perhaps an act that saves Peter’s life), signifying their bond with Peter, cementing their collectivity. The second film explores this deeply felt and authentic-organic familial element more deeply but it is here in the first film where we get the seeds of this development, a profound movement that we don’t see so well actualized in superhero films or for that matter in any films period.

(17) Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland/Denmark/Frane/UK)

Like so many others, I found Ida to be just an exquisitely shot and composed film. The choice of filming the film in black and white perfectly rendered the spaces and people even more bleak, appropriate for a film that wants to give us the historical specter of the Holocaust. More pointedly, Pawel Pawlikowski breathtakingly creates an expressionistic environment, where the bleakness of at least part of this story’s core focus — Polish Jews betrayed by their Christian brothers and sisters, and loved ones coping with this reality — reflect the interior state of these characters. Actually, I would make the case that the expressionistic elements in this film don’t just reflect our two characters’ state of mind but, as these two characters become allegorical figures — especially the deeply tormented Wanda (Agata Kulesza) — they come to represent a general aftershock sensibility, the post-Holocaust aftermath of dealing with the reality of what actually happened to Jews during the war. For me, that’s why Wanda’s storyline becomes much more vital, because she displays all of the symptoms (chain smoking and drinking, casual sex with strange men, a vocalized bitterness towards Others) of the most deeply alienated, alienated not only because she lost her sister and young son, nor because she wasn’t there to at least try and protect her son or be with him when he was slaughtered like an animal, but because she now has to live with the very people who did the slaughtering or at least participated in the zeitgeist of this genocide. We are also informed that Wanda, or “Red Wanda” as she is known, sent many people to their death in her capacity as a judge, probably part of the Stalinist purge of “enemies of the people,” which then becomes both a move to exercise her own feelings of hate towards the Polish people who had betrayed and/or killed Jews/her family and perhaps a misguided belief in Stalinism. But, then, ultimately, this too perhaps drives her state of alienation, as killing human beings may not have given her the solace that she had hoped for but in fact perhaps made her that which she hated, a monster who killed Others. Anna’s (Agata Trzebuchowska)  thread is at least initially almost as compelling, as she must come to grips with her new reality outside of the protective (more on this in a moment) convent, where she must deal with her real identity — her real name is Ida and she is a Jew — and she must interact with her bitter and deeply cynical Aunt (Wanda), not to mention the unfolding reality of what happened to her parents — the glaring reality of what happened to Jews in general — and just her exposure to real world interactions, including meeting Lis, an attractive young man who is clearly infatuated with Anna/Ida. (Interestingly, this exposure to carnal desire may have triggered her real desire for women, as we get a later moment when Anna/Ida seems to gaze at another woman longingly!) The potential for a shattering schism in her self — and her two names would suggest this of course — is potent and Pawlikowski does at least suggest that Anna/Ida wrestles with her two identities, her Christian self and her Jewish/real world self, e.g., Anna clearly struggles with her newfound reality, rendered through the many moments of Anna desperately trying to hang on to her Christian faith in God and humanity, not to mention of course that she is gradually drawn into the real world, which is especially explored after her aunt’s suicide, when Anna seems to try on her aunt’s lifestyle, smoking and drinking and having sex with Lis. For me, the most potent manifestation of Anna’s wavering sense of a Christian self is subtle: After she has initially returned to the convent, while eating she slightly laughs for no apparent reason, her laughter stemming perhaps from something she remembers from her time with her aunt or perhaps just at the ridiculousness of her returning to such an austere and cloistered lifestyle after experiencing life in its fullest and darkest. All of this, and more (I’m just scratching the surface of this complex film), is what makes this film such a powerful experiential film for me. Having said all that, for me personally, Pawlikowski’s choice of how to end the film weakens the film a great deal for me. The film ends with Anna turning her back on being with Lis and living in the real world, instead choosing to put her habit back on and presumably return to the convent. Our last shot of Anna is her walking…where? Pawlikowski gives us a shaky camera to I presume suggest that Anna’s world has been shaken more than even she would like to admit, her return to her nun’s habit perhaps not as definite as she or we might think. Pawlikowski has also said, though, that the ending is a kind of statement that despite the bleakness of her experience, Anna/Ida will not succumb to it so to speak, meaning that she will not become her aunt and leave the hopeful and spiritual world of her Christian faith.  For me, though, this dichotomy is a false one, since Anna’s choice need not be between the austerity of her Christian faith (represented by the equally austere space of the convent) — which, for me, is akin to an escape or living in a protected vacuum, cut off from the unpleasant realities of the real world — and her aunt’s deeply bitter and self-destructive way of being. Like the majority of the world, she could have found a third way, a way of being that would have addressed her newfound identity, including her losses (e.g., her loss of her aunt but also her loss of innocence as she experiences the shattering darkness of the real world), and addressed a way forward for her that was hopeful. For me, the bottom line is that having experienced the Real of the world (e.g., the Holocaust and all that entails about humanity), how in the world could she ever go back to what amounts to the sheltered space of an unquestioned faith?

(16) Manuscripts Don’t Burn (Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran)

The power of this extraordinary film — extraordinary in part because of the very fact that it even got made, which, in turn, stems from the risks of making it — resides in it so disturbingly and poignantly registering how torturous Iranian society is for not just people in general but especially for artists, intellectuals, and activists who want to freely exercise their means of expression. At one point, in response to Forouzandeh not understanding why his book has been so badly censored and that he would rather “die” than publish it so badly censored, Kian says this: “If, after all these years, you still don’t know what life is like here, dying isn’t a bad idea.” In other words, what this film communicates is that for some artists, intellectuals, and activists, to not be able to freely express themselves amounts to not really being able to be who they are and thus live a kind of torturous existence or a kind of living death. Interestingly, part of Kian’s deeply felt cynicism and angst stems not only from the state who will not let him and his fellow intellectuals and activists be whole but also from the people who are so caught up in their consumption habits that they have become anti-political, which amounts to them letting this censorship, surveillance, torture, and murder state happen. Finally, the other key damning component to this film is religion. We see how one of the hired killers in the film has reconciled his actions by attributing them to God’s work. When his murderous colleague tells him that he needs the money, he responds, “Everything I do, I do to please God!” Mohammad Rasoulof makes this otherwise despicable figure actually sympathetic because his son is severely ill and perhaps could die. And so the ostensible reason for him killing is for the money it is going to take for him to get his son the very expensive treatment his son needs. There may be a commentary here as well, e.g., that Iran has great wealth but it isn’t covering the needs of the people. But that he insists that he isn’t killing for money is peculiar but then again maybe not, because to admit to himself that he is killing for money would be too hard for him to live with. But, then, that he can convince himself that he is killing for God speaks to a deeper sickness in a society that even associates a God with sanctioned killing by the state. In other words, when you can use religion and God for your ulterior purposes (in this case, again, censorship, surveillance, torture, and murder) and people accept this as okay, then your society is a deeply sick one who has lost all morality. But, of course, this veil of denial is a thin one and when this killer’s wife says that it is his job that is making their boy sick, he starts to wonder if that is true and tries to get out of his more murderous acts. But his partner in crime won’t let him off the hook and coerces him to participate in more atrocities, including the killing of a young boy, who, though the father doesn’t participate in the killing, leaves the scene knowing that his partner will do the killing, a killing that can only resonate more deeply with a father whose son — in this moment, now associated with someone else’s young son — may die. In this way, Rasoulof may be pointing to the fact that an authoritarian state can dehumanize people in more ways than just breaking their will through physical and psychological torture, such a state can also turn good people bad via their desperate need for money, their fundamentalist belief in their religion (Islam in this case), and/or through coercive tactics, with the veil of turning the power of the state on them. Perhaps the most ominous moment in the film comes after the film is over and we astoundingly see that everyone except the director who had something to do with this film chose to remain anonymous because this film is so revealing that it also may put their lives in danger, which is a further testament to the power of art/film, to resist power in all of its manifestations and perhaps even participate in changing society.

(15) X-Men: Days of Future Past (Bryan Singer, USA/UK/Canada)

The power of the X-Men franchise in general is in its stress on the self/Other dynamic that is at the heart of so much that is wrong with humanity. More pointedly, the X-Men franchise allegorizes the mutants, making them represent Jews in particular, especially via its allegorical images of one of the worst Other atrocities in human history, the Holocaust (see above). In this way, the franchise can put front and center this core issue that has caused so much conflict and suffering since the dawn of civilization. For me, the X-Men film that best realizes this self/Other dynamic is this one, the really terrific X-Men: Days of Future Past. The film begins with truly disturbing images of rounded up mutants and mutant defenders in “concentration camps” and, most horrifying, piles of dead bodies. Add in later images of mutants being experimented on and we have our most potent analogy of the Holocaust. But the film doesn’t limit itself to allegorically making the mutants represent Jews but in fact Otherness throughout history (see above for a key example of this). In this way, the film explores a core source of hate and conflict in general, e.g., when human beings Other human beings we get the domino effect of begetting a dehumanization process that leads to dehumanization, whether that be in terms of Others getting oppressed in one form or another or a dominant social order doing the dehumanizing, which, in the Hegelian sense of a master/slave dynamic, dehumanizes the master as much as it dehumanizes the slave. Of course, this dehumanization process also leads to never ending cycles of hate and conflict and sometimes worse (e.g., wars and genocide), not to mention the many societal and individual ills that come with such a cycle. One need only look at the myriad of present conflicts (Israeli/Palestinian, Kurdish/Turkish, and the many, many other Ethnic, tribal, and religious conflicts going on in the world) to see how this works in the real world. Of course, we get many examples of the implications of this self/Other dynamic in the film, though especially via the fear and distrust and hate that the less human looking mutants entail, which we especially see when Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) materializes in front of a crowd of people and we see their horrified reactions (see above). That the main instigator of the annihilation of the mutants is an Other (Dr. Bolivar Trask/Peter Dinklage) adds an ironic twist to this whole picture. In another interesting deep element in the film (and the franchise), we get two very different engagements to this attack and oppression of mutants, in the form of Eric/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy), a kind of Malcolm X versus Martin Luther King Jr. register, with Raven/Mystique becoming the mediating factor between the two. When Raven/Mystique must choose between the two guiding philosophies (e.g. violence/war versus non-violence/peace) — when she must choose whether to fire the gun and kill Dr. Trask — she becomes all of us; when she drops the gun instead of killing him, we can see which way of being we need to follow if we are ever to break down this self/Other divide. As Charles Xavier narrates at the beginning of the film:

“Are we destined down this path? Destined to destroy ourselves like so many species before us? Or can we evolve fast enough to change ourselves? Change our fate? Is the future truly set?”

Note that Charles breaks down the self/Other divide by just making it “we” instead of “us” and “them,” which is surely the terms Eric would have used. Moreover, in this narrated soliloquy to us the audience he truly does state the core point for us in the real world, whether we can change our self-destructive path or stay on it and destroy “ourselves.”

Side note: I have to also say that the whole Peter/Quicksilver (Evan Peters) thread in the film is just too precious for words!

(14) Boyhood (Richard Linklater, USA)

In many ways, Boyhood is a remarkable film, in its incredible span of encompassing so much about childhood and growing up and experiencing the truly traumatic (see above) and joyful moments of childhood, all that informs “coming of age.” That Richard Linklater filmed Boyhood over the span of the child actors actually growing up gives the film an organic feel that is totally unique among such coming of age films. The film is overwhelming in the depth of its exploration of so many facets of growing up, too much for me to even attempt to cover here in a blurb. (At some point, I would like to try and do a close analysis of this rich film.) Instead, to illustrate how the film richly registers the experiences of growing up, I will focus on just one moment in the film, when Mason (Ellar Coltrane) learns that his father (Ethan Hawke) has sold his beloved GTO, a car that Mason says he was promised. This shattering moment for Mason becomes an extremely painful life lesson (one among many!), one that I suspect we have all gone through: For Mason, he saw this promise made by his father—who probably made the promise flippantly, impulsively, without thinking—as something akin to the Holy Grail of promises, since the GTO both inflamed his childish sense of what epitomizes “cool” and embodies his father’s persona. Add in that by making this promise, his father was investing something profound in their bond, a sense that this special object that Mason Sr. loved and cherished would be marked for his son, making Mason singled out as special in turn. In this way, his father reneging on this bonding promise is shattering to Mason, which I don’t think his father fully appreciates. (To my mind, while I understand the father’s side of this decision, I think he should have at least been more sympathetic to Mason, see how important this promise was to him.) In this way, this life lesson is yet another negative one (as I say, Mason has many such negative, traumatic life lessons in his life), where Mason is forced to see that promises are sometimes not honored, even by his parents, that people (parents!) don’t necessarily place as much importance on moments as Mason does (and thus, his father didn’t put this promise in his long term memory), and, most importantly, that disappointment is part of life – part of what makes people fallible. Fortunately for Mason, because his father is a loving, nurturing, giving father, a father who has given Mason a lot in life, Mason has that as a counter to this moment of anger and hurt at his father. Moreover, this disappointment isn’t one in a long line of disappointments, which at least somewhat offsets the pain of this moment.

One other thought: While I love Boyhood and still think Linklater is a great filmmaker, I think he – and Boyhood in particular – has some blind spots. For one, I just don’t think Linklater did a good enough job getting at the real consequences of all the traumatic situations Mason (and Samantha) went through. Moreover, my one uncertainty about Boyhood in particular and Linklater in general is whether Linklater gives us root causes for why we have so much dysfunction and mental illness, so disturbingly on display in the film. He does seem to touch on root causes (e.g., he mentions Olivia’s financial insecurity and as I suggest in the above images, he at least shines a light on toxic masculinity) but I don’t think he really develops these lines of thought, though I am open to being wrong about this.

(13) Selma (Ava DuVernay, UK/USA/France)

For me, Selma is an important film for its documentation of such a critical moment in time. I have to admit that I find the film a little lacking in terms of any aesthetic gusto, though I have to add that it also has one of the most disturbingly jarring moments in film: That early opening moment when the African American young girls are just being normal everyday, wonderfully innocent young girls and then a bomb shatteringly explodes them in a macabre cascade of bodies is as devastating a moment as I have ever experienced. And I think the moment is so disturbing that it casts a shadow over the ensuing events, to the point where when we hear that Martin Luther King Jr’s (David Oyelowo) kids have been threatened, we can’t help but think of these poor girls and then just how insanely real the threat is. The problem (for me!) is that from a purely aesthetic and symbolic point of view, the film never really measures up to this extraordinary cinematic moment. Still, the film is nonetheless an incredibly important film because it becomes such a powerful document for a number of reasons, most obviously being a reminder of the enormity of the struggle for African Americans to get their “civil rights,” especially the right to vote. But the film also does something else that I find so special, including turning the tables on white supremacists. That is, the power of the classic Hollywood style is to get us the spectator to relate to and even idealize the protagonists of a film (via taking on their point of view, getting sutured into their very self), and thus we walk in the footsteps of blacks literally fighting for not just their natural rights but in the fighting, fight for their very lives. In this way, we see how extraordinary blacks are, in that they have endured so much and yet still keep on fighting for their rights. That white supremacists cannot see this only furthers their inferiority to blacks. The other interesting and subtle thing this film does centers around the biopic element in the film: The film very much wants to humanize Martin Luther King Jr, by revealing his human weaknesses (e.g., he had affairs with other women) and in revealing his doubts and uncertainties. But in the latter element, we see how Others around him fill him back up with the strength he needs to carry on. In this way, the film clearly wants to emphasize that this civil rights movement was not a top down movement but a bottom up movement where though King — as brilliant a writer an orator as ever was — was instrumental in this movement, the movement never really was just him, or largely him, but rather a conglomerate of many courageous individuals. The other more disturbing point is how the film reveals just how it feels to be a martyr, someone who knows he is literally putting his life on the line on a daily basis, such an unbelievably courageous thing to do for any individual. I can’t but come away from a film like Selma really feeling so much love and inspiration for all of these courageous individuals who stood on the firing line to fight for their rights but especially King who more than anyone put a bullseye on himself for something he believed in. Finally, I just have to say something about the power of the media, something we take for granted now, but in re-realizing how the images of the brutality of those brutalities on the Selma bridge became a clarion call for all right minded individuals, speaks to how experiencing such brutalities so intimately inflames one’s sense of right and prompts one to act for the cause of Others.

(12) Horses of God (Nabil Ayouch, France/Belgium/Tunisia/Morocco)

Horses of God powerfully gives us the root causes of one of the most monstrous acts a human being can commit, suicide bombing. Director Nabil Ayouch begins with our main protagonists as young children, beginning with them playing soccer, and this early emphasis on them is indeed about focusing on their “innocence,” at least in terms of being coded as children like any other children, with the same desires and behavior as any other children. I put the term “innocence” in scare quotes because that is to my mind a too simplistic way to put it, since the other crucial element that Ayouch focuses on is the cruel poverty that these kids have to experience every day, with their parents not able to making a living wage, the children then forced to work at a young age, many forced to work illicitly and forced to dig through the garbage dumps hunting for anything that might make them money. The other element here is how Ayouch focuses on the predatory and mercenary behavior of adults, planting the seeds of predatory behavior in them. As the film shifts to these kids’ adolescence, we see how much harder it is on them as they must find a way to make a living just to survive. Our main two protagonists are two brothers, Yacine and Hamid. Hamid deals drugs to survive but doesn’t let his brother Yacine work with him, strategically anticipating something happening to him. After Hamid is indeed arrested, he comes back a radical Muslim and immediately begins recruiting his brother and his brother’s friends. Part of the process of this indoctrination entails giving the deeply alienated young men a sense of meaning, purpose, and direction in their lives. They give them something they have never gotten before, a sense of self-worth and a feeling of belonging to a group who purport to love and nurture them. By enveloping them in the seeming warm embrace of Allah and a religious belief system that promises them “martyrdom” and all that comes with it, e.g., the whole “40 virgins” bit, and the aggrandizement of them and the promise to take care of their family, not to mention that the higher up figures of Islam constantly stroke their needs by carefully and gradually courting them, which in itself gives the young men a sense of something they have never gotten before, a feeling of importance and belonging, a wiping away of their working class “sins” and their feeling of insignificance. Alongside this sophisticated sell job, the young men are also given something to hate, a way for them to channel their internalized anger and overall feelings of degradation developed over years. All in all, the film does something quite extraordinary, show us how poverty and the attendant lack of self-worth and deep alienation such a degrading state of being entails, how such a state of being is fodder for extremists ready to exploit them for their own destructive purposes.  I would contend that films like this are perhaps our most valuable films, because they map out the root causes of a monstrous reality. All we have to do is take what we are taught and do something about it.

(11) Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée, USA)

To my mind, the power of this tremendous film can be coalesced around three quotes in the film:

Cheryl’s Mother: “I was always…a mother or a wife. I was never even in the driver’s seat of my own life.”

Another woman hiker: “I just need to find something in myself, you know? I think the trail is good for that. I mean, look, this has the power to fill you up again if you let it.”

Cheryl (narrating at the end of her “journey”): “It took me years to be the woman my mother raised. It took me four years, seven months, three days to do it. Without her. After I lost myself in the wilderness of my grief, I found my way out of the woods. And I didn’t even know where I was going until I got there on the last days of my hike. Thank you, I thought over and over again, for everything the trail had taught me, and everything I couldn’t yet know. How in four years, I’d cross this very bridge. I’d marry a man in a spot almost visible from where I was standing. How, in nine years, that man and I would have a son named Carver, a year later, a daughter named after my mother, Bobbi. I knew only that I didn’t need to reach with my bare hands anymore. That seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. That it was everything. My life, like all lives, mysterious, irrevocable and sacred. So very close. So very present. So very belonging to me. How wild it was…to let it be.” 

In terms of the first quote, Cheryl’s mother (Laura Dern) sums up the lives of so many people, especially women who live under the specter of patriarchy, a determining ideology that tells women that they are required to form their identity around the lives of Others, their husband and children. The shattering tragedy of Cheryl’s mother is that just as she begins to self-actualize her self, she dies. For the film, the message is clear: Don’t make this mistake; take the “driver’s seat” of your life before it is too late. The second and third quotes inform each other, how the trail “fills” people up “if they let it,” which Cheryl (Reese Witherspoon) does. In this context, it isn’t just that Cheryl sets off to hike this grueling trail — that in itself is an extraordinary accomplishment — but that the trail becomes so much more for the self-actualization of self, which, I think we can gather is different for each individual. For Cheryl, she hikes the trail as a way to find a healthy way to exercise the pain of her grief, a healthy alternative to her self-destructive path of having serial sex with strange men and taking heroin. But even in that ostensible reading of what the trail does for Cheryl, we only scratch the surface of what the trail means for her. What Cheryl understands at the end of her hike (transmitted via the ending narration I cite above) is that the trail becomes her own personal “journey,” where the torturous adversity she faces on the trail (desert heat, dangerous cold, ripping dead toe nails out, predatory men, to name just a few of her adversities) become an analog to her real world adversities, her shattering grief just being one of them. We learn during her hike that at times Cheryl degraded her mother, e.g., denigrating her love of author James A. Michener and then snobbishly telling her mother, “That I’m just so much more sophisticated than you were at my age,” Cheryl looking down on her working class mother, which, now, and especially in the wake of her mother dying, racks her with guilt. (We also learn that she had to put down her mother’s beloved horse and live with the additional guilt of hurting her husband, who she genuinely loves.) But, of course, the driving force in Cheryl’s life is her grief, and how her response to that becomes numbing her pain via heroin and casual sex. That becomes the other and deeply profound meaning of the trail for Cheryl, how it becomes her “journey” to find herself. The trail gives her that by letting her be free of the distracting and self-denying diversion of external life (drugs, sex, husband, etc.). In this way, the trail is like a form of meditation, forcing Cheryl to confront her grief and the guilt of not treating her mother better while she was alive. In this way, she can exercise her guilt through confronting the self that was so terrible to her mother and perhaps more importantly not appreciative of her mother and what her mother went through, but also, in finally exercising the guilt, begin to celebrate her mother, as her mother’s sublimity materializes in the process of Cheryl’s “journey.” At least part of that sublimity is to understand something her mother tried to teach Cheryl, e.g., the worst part of our lives can also be a positive thing if those regrettable part of our lives materialize something positive, which is what Cheryl learns, that the self-destructive choices she made ended up leading her to the trail and something quite profound, self-actualization, or not letting herself be determined by drugs or casual sex or her grief but rather become the “driver” of her life, her overcoming the enormous adversities of the trail symbolically punctuating that this is what she has done. 

(10) A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, USA)

This wonderfully atmospheric, gorgeously photographed, and cogently symbolic vampire film immediately shot into my favorites horror list. But its visual splendor isn’t the only thing that makes this film sublime. Ana Lilly Amirpour offers us a wonderfully subversive film as well, especially as she re-codes the (arguably!) oppressive signification of the hijab (headscarf), suggesting the latent power of women within this patriarchal symbol. That isn’t the only marker of patriarchal oppression; Amirpour doesn’t only give us a wish-fulfillment narrative – of a woman who can both “walk home alone at night” and do so utterly without fear or anxiety – but also a woman who acts as an avenging specter over all of patriarchy as she looms large striking down phallocentric, hypermasculine men who objectify and dehumanize women as well as offering up “scared straight” lessons to young males. Symbolically, Amirpour also offers us up even more supporting illustrations of the destructiveness of patriarchy and phallocentrism, the metaphor of the oil dirges “penetrating” the earth and “sucking” the life out of it for profit and power, emphasizing how we are in effect lost to our singular self destructive consumption lifestyles, a contrast to our vampire’s consumption appetites (e.g., predatory men!), making the men she consumes allegorical, her consumption of them being more than about consuming phallocentric, hypermasculine men (not men in general as she falls in love with a man!) but about consuming – or vanquishing – what these men represent, a history of patriarchal, phallocentric, hypermasculine oppression, objectification, dehumanization of women.

(9) Still Alice (Richard Glatzer/Wash Westmoreland, USA/UK/France)

For some films, analyzing becomes secondary. Some films become important for personal reasons. For me, Still Alice is that film. As a caretaker for my mother, who has dementia, Still Alice hits home like few films do for me. Though not the same thing as Alzheimer’s disease (the focus of Still Alice), like Alzheimer’s, dementia erases the self, making both diseases as devastating as any disease. I’ve watched Still Alice twice now and both times found myself tearing up off and on throughout the film. Alice’s (Julianne Moore) loss of self is much more devastating than what is happening to my mother, since her loss comes at a much younger age and happens at a disturbingly accelerated rate. Having said that all that (e.g., conveyed the personal element for me), I would say that the film is a favorite not just because it’s a personal film for me but also due to a number of other elements. For one thing, the film is beautifully crafted, especially in its poignant use of what looks like home video footage of Alice when she was young, with her mother and sister who died in a car accident. The film begins this element strikingly, e.g., we get a transition from a photo to a moving, living memory. In this way, the film not only gives us a deeper and fuller picture of Alice’s life but gives us a fuller and deeper picture of what Alice is losing, her most precious memories, that which largely defines who she is. In a strange sort of way, these memories become a kind of stand-in for all of her personal memories. Couple that with the signification of the nostalgic texture of these shots and the feeling is one of intense loss, loss of self, as if these nostalgic images also signify Alice herself, an Alice that is as much part of a lost past as the images literally are, which is probably why I get so choked up during these moments. The film also has some deep elements as well. Films such as Still Alice especially reveal the power of the classic Hollywood style, a style that in short “sutures” audiences into the story world, especially taking on the persona of the main characters, a powerful way for people to not only empathize with the main characters — in this case Alice — but in effect walk in her shoes and experience what she experiences, a profound way for people to better understand a difficult to deal with disease such as Alzheimer’s. Finally, I just have to comment on the one element that just made me extremely frustrated, the way that the husband (Alec Baldwin) seems to largely put his career before his wife. While his wife is still largely her self, the husband continues to pursue his career with gusto, instead of devoting himself to Alice’s last days. Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that it isn’t always easy to put your life on hold for any reason, even to be with and/or care for a loved one, but Alice is going quickly and I would think that if you only have a short time with a loved one, you spend that time with them while you can.

(8) Locke (Steven Knight, UK/USA)

I have to say that I just adore this interesting little film! For one thing, if you want to see a tour de force performance by one of our great contemporary actors — the incomparable Tom Hardy — this might be his best performance. The film is set only in a car and part of that challenge is Hardy holding our interest for an hour and twenty minutes, which he does, through developing a complex character, a character I came to be thoroughly fascinated with and that stems from Hardy’s extraordinary performance. Ivan is so fascinating because he is so complicated. Informing his complex character is the intersection of his character with some deeper layers of meaning in the film. To properly unpack this complex film, I really need to break it down from beginning to end; for now, let me try to summarize what makes this film so special: Ivan is faced with a monumental and life changing decision and choice in his life: Be there for the birth of his son — birthed from a woman he had a fling with and hardly knows — or not be there and save his job and perhaps his marriage. In terms of his job, Ivan is about to oversee the concrete pour of his life — an “historical pour” we are told — and choosing not to be there for it costs him his lucrative job, which he anticipates. And being there for the birth of his child also means not being there to watch an important soccer match with his two sons and perhaps save his marriage. (Presumably, he was going to tell his wife about this affair so she may have left him anyway but I wonder if him going to the birth of his child and being there for this woman didn’t affront his wife even more?) So, why did he do it? Why did he make a choice that I suspect many (most?) men wouldn’t have made? Intercut into his juggling of phone calls to Donal, who is now in charge of the concrete pour, his wife, his sons, and Bethan, the woman who is having a difficult birth, is an interesting internal dialogue with his deceased father (he talks to him as if he is sitting in the back seat of the car). In this monologue with his father, we discover that his father was what sounds like a truly awful father (at one point he says that his father is in Hell) and Ivan has spent his whole life proving to himself that he isn’t his irresponsible and hateful father. In this context, we learn that Ivan is an exemplary manager, who has been literally flawless and faultless for his nine years on the job. His wife has some issues with her husband — apparently he is too dedicated to his job and doesn’t pay his wife enough attention — but from what we gather, Ivan is still at least a dutiful husband and good father to his boys. Interestingly, he is as surprised as those who know him that he has gotten himself in this difficult situation, but as we come to learn, he may have been intimate with Bethan because he felt sorry for her — he felt that she was a deeply lonely woman who needed him in the moment, e.g., in other words, he slept with her because he felt it was the right thing to do in the moment. What becomes an irreconcilable reality for Ivan is that he can’t do the right thing for all concerned — Bethan is having the birth in the same moment of his historical concrete pour and before he has had a chance to discuss his affair with his wife — and so he must make a choice of what “right thing” takes precedence. He is of course torn that he has to negate some “right thing,” anathema to who he is (though of course Ivan seems to at least think he can do good for all concerned, e.g., still oversee a successful pour and take responsibility for his mistake and make amends to his wife), but in his psychologically traumatized mind, he is driven most by this internalized feeling of being judged by his father (a truly unhealthy superego!), meaning that whatever he thinks his father will most judge him on is what will determine his choices, not to mention that Ivan feels that he cannot let his child be born without his father being there for her or him, apparently one of many of his father’s failings. That all of the people he must face lambaste him with their anger only makes Ivan’s torment all the more unbearable to him, which comes through in his anguished looks and at times primal screams. Coming through with all of this, at least for me — why I came to feel SO invested in Ivan — is that Ivan is truly doing a courageous and impeccable act, being their for Bethan, who has no one to help her through this difficult birth, and that Ivan’s own internal torment comes through, a man who has clearly endured abuse by an abusive father. Yes, he has had an affair — which he is going to pay a steep price for — and yes there is a sense of a man who takes on a veneer of control and discipline that I’m sure in most other times make him unpleasant. In this moment, however, he becomes a good man I can root for. I should add here that despite not being there for the pour, he still makes sure that the pour goes smoothly, even after he has been fired! But that only begins the complexity of this film, as the film itself measures Ivan’s act with the millions of dollars at stake in this concrete pour, pitting monetary value against human value, both Bethan’s need to have Ivan with her and Ivan himself, who has put so much of himself in his work and still gets fired after just one act of lack. The film itself creates all sorts of interesting symbolisms, including mirror shots, reflections, and interesting dissolves, all speaking to Ivan’s fragmented state of being in this life changing and life challenging moment for him. The “drive” itself is deeply symbolic (for one thing, Ivan himself constantly stresses the word and his act of “driving”), which I gather speaks to his desire to be in control and make the personal responsibility choices he feels he needs to make, no matter the consequences of them. Close to his destination, Donal exclaims (via Stefan) that, “You’re the best man in England,” and I think we see the slightest trace of a slight grin come across Ivan’s face — or at least a look of satisfaction — suggesting that despite his losses, that is what is most important to him, that he is a good man doing the right thing.

(7) Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, USA)

Let me just say right off that this film is just a virtuoso display of filmmaking, Alejandro Iñárritu giving us a dazzling cornucopia of innovative and aesthetically pleasing uses of form, including of course his often mentioned ingenious seeming one long take (the film was actually a series of many long takes, the cuts disguised) but also the interesting direct address shots, incredible compositions in general, and the incredibly complex mise en scenes (everything in the frame). And the score is ingenious. I can’t possibly do this complex film justice in a blurb so I will try to stick to some of the core essentials: At the core of this film is Riggan’s (Michael Keaton) existential crisis, where he is faced with the reality of his life, a meaningless existence that includes doing meaningless superhero films and not being a good father and husband. At this late juncture of his life, Riggan tries to put meaning and purpose in his life, via directing, adapting, and starring in a Broadway play (adapted from a Raymond Carver story) while also trying to make amends and be an integral part of his daughter’s (Emma Stone) life. For Riggan, this moment in his life is truly indeed an existential crisis since he believes that living a meaningless and purposeless existence means not living at all, not existing. Punctuating this psychological struggle is Riggan’s internal battle with himself, his ego literally split in two, between his sell out self — represented by his alter ego “Birdman” — and his desired self, the “serious” actor and artist Riggan. This internal battle is reflected in both numerous mirror shots and Iñárritu giving us a “Birdman” persona, who constantly and militantly challenges Riggan’s direction in life, and, intersecting with this, his self-worth, telling him that he isn’t a theatrical actor but rather needs to get back to his Birdman (sell-out) persona. But the film isn’t just a study in psychology, it is also giving us a deeper commentary on the state of our world, where we slip further and further into artifice, choosing the meaningless over the meaningful. The most obvious element that testifies to this is of course how the film focuses again and again on the recent popularity of the superhero genre, though there are enough toss-offs (The Hunger Games is mentioned) to cast the net wider to encompass the blockbuster/franchise film in general, where the goal is stimulation and entertainment — and of course uber profits — instead of anything more substantive and enriching. (And as has been mentioned elsewhere, it isn’t a coincidence that Iñárritu cast Michael Keaton, who infamously played “Birdman,” uh, Batman in two different films, Batman and Batman Returns.) The other facet of our superficiality is how “power” stems from an image of Riggan in his underwear, which goes “viral” (an act that skyrockets Riggan into popularity) and how it takes Riggan shooting himself to give himself mega-“popularity,”  the commentary of course being that we are becoming a more and more shallow, emptied-of-meaning, purposeless people, more interested in stimulating ourselves and popularity and what we will do to get that popularity than meaningful and enriching pursuits, such as creating art that is meaningful and purposeful. Now, while I love this film, I also have some minor issues with it. The principle one is this: As I convey above, the film wants to posit an existential choice between being (via meaning and purpose) and non-being (via meaninglessness and purposelessness) and while I am with the film in this commentary, the film’s choice for “being” is to my mind questionable. That is, the play itself — something about “love” and needing to be “loved,” how to be “loved” — doesn’t seem too terribly deep or interesting. I wish the film had given us something more profound, e.g., that Riggan had chosen some deep and deeply vital project that invested itself in the plight of self and Others, a real counterpoint to the sea of “popular” dreck that permeates our lives. And I would just also add this thought: Iñárritu seems to want to re-install the old fashioned dichotomy between “low” and “high” art, positing blockbuster films as the very “low” and theatrical plays the very “high.” But not all blockbuster films are junk (for one, I would make a strong case for Batman Returns being a deep and interesting film, and I could make this case with many other superhero films — see three above [!] — and many blockbuster films) and not every play is some wellspring of deepness. Finally, just a brief thought on the crazy, much talked about ending. Here is my reading of it: Because we know that Riggan is imagining his super powers (e.g., signified by the taxi cab driver wanting his fee and Riggan’s bloody hands after he has destroyed his room), I just think this ending is more of the same, Riggan giving us his internal state of mind via his imagined reality, e.g., he has stripped his “Birdman” mask off once and for all (symbolized by his bandages), put his “Birdman” alter ego behind him, and, due to self-realizing his self (e.g., he has successfully created an artistic masterpiece that has moved people), he has — or rather, his newfound self has — taken flight, not literally but metaphorically, which is cemented by him imagining his daughter’s love and pride of him, the final punctuating point being that he is whole now, his professional and personal life back in order and him now existing once again.

(6) The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, Australia/Canada)

The power of this amazing film is to realize at least one of the greatest potentialities of the horror genre, to recognize that the most horrifying monsters are the ones in our minds (if you check out my “Favorite Horror Films” list, you will see that many of my favorite horror films exploit horror tropes to this end). In this case, Amelia (Essie Davis) suffers from some kind of mental illness, probably dissociative personality disorder, stemming apparently both from the loss of her beloved husband (who she conspicuously deposits in her basement, locking the door, beginning her unresolved issues with his death) and the challenges she faces with her challenging son Samuel who seems to have some behavioral issues himself including some violent tendencies and a too close attachment to his mother, who, as we come to see, sees his clinginess as parasitical and possessive, a further engulfment fear by her. The Babadook creature then is not only a manifestation of her traumatic bereavement issues but also a mechanism that frees her from her symbiotic (from her mentally disturbed point of view) son, another deeply disturbing truth of child rearing that parents encounter and often cannot confront in a healthy way.

(5) Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, USA)

To my mind, Foxcatcher is extraordinary for a couple of reasons: First, we get a complex rendering of two disordered minds, Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and John du Pont (Steve Carell). Both of these men suffer from psychological issues and in each other find at least what seems like possible relief from their suffering. For Mark, in du Pont, he thinks he has found a way out of the shadow of his big brother Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), not to mention that in du Pont, Mark seems to have found the mentor and father figure he is looking for. Actually, I think the film hints that Mark’s issues go even deeper than that, Mark desirous for an identity outside of wrestling, to have a friend and to have purpose and meaning outside of just being seen as an elite (“gold medalist”) wrestler. For du Pont, the much more seriously damaged of the two — indeed, as we come to see, du Pont is a borderline case, seeming to suffer from antisocial personality disorder — he finds in Mark a way to create a narrative for himself, one where he can be everything he desperately wants to be but cannot be, a mentor, leader, father figure, a man who also desperately wants to create his own identity outside of his mother’s shadow. du Pont is a deeply insecure individual who desperately needs to be seen as important and aggrandized. In this regard, du Pont is probably a narcissist, unable to actually love Mark though canny enough to create this pretense so as to suck Mark into his orbit. du Pont’s real target is Mark’s brother Dave, a man who is everything du Pont wants to be but cannot be, the leader and mentor of other men that du Pont so desires to be. du Pont wants Dave to come to live and train on his estate so as to get Dave’s obeisance, which he is used to getting from others who of course condescend to his wealth. But Dave is his own man and as Mark at one point tells du Pont, Dave can’t be bought, though it isn’t clear if Dave is actually finally bought (du Pont says he will pay him whatever he wants to bring him to this estate) or if Dave comes to the du Pont estate because he is worried about his brother. In any case, Dave immediately sees du Pont for what he is and never allows du Pont to master him as du Pont masters others. That Dave will not bend to his will and that Dave is a constant reminder that he is everything du Pont desires to be but can never be, du Pont’s final act is not entirely surprising. To punctuate this thread, I think of that ending moment when du Pont is watching a marketing video of himself (see above), which speaks to the real tragedy of du Pont, that he didn’t have this marketing video created to so much boost his image or sell his image but rather he created it because this is the image he wishes was true. Second, and this element in the film is where to my mind the film’s true radical nature is revealed, we also get a striking American motif in the film. That is, from early on in the film, where we get images of Washington crossing the Delaware and the Valley Forge references, to throughout the film images of American icons (especially the American flag and colors) to the final provocative chant to Mark entering a mixed martial arts match, a chant of “U.S.A! U.S.A.!” In this way, the film creates an extremely complex structure that intersects with signifiers of eliteness in general (the mother at one point says that she doesn’t like wrestling because it is a “low” sport and we keep getting a hyper emphasis on portraits of elite aristocratic figures). Perhaps most striking is that opening home footage of a fox hunt by past elites (from which the estate gets its name, “foxcatcher”). Most striking of all is that cut from the release of the hunted fox to Mark, the suggestion being that du Pont will prey on Mark, which he does and Dave too. To my mind, the deeper implications of all of these signifiers seem to suggest that American ideology is equatable to eliteness and predation, or how American history is replete with elites preying on Others, which we see beyond Mark and Dave, in that du Pont constantly uses his wealth and power to degrade others, which is especially on display when he “wins” a wrestling tournament that he has bought and paid for; in this tournament, we see one individual expressly humiliated as he lets du Pont defeat him. The other element in this regard is how part of American ideology is this stress on American “exceptionalism,” which I think we could link to both du Pont’s and Mark’s (and Dave’s!) singular stress on competing and being a champion, being seen as “exceptional,” which of course du Pont is especially victimized by. When one’s whole being is dictated on being “exceptional” — living up to this quintessential American ideal — such a state of being becomes oppressive since then not living up to that mantle becomes a shattering of the self. Finally, the other critique here is how wealth and power are potentially dangerous in another way, e.g., it is clear the du Pont is mentally ill and needs help but his power and wealth protects him from anyone getting him the help that he needs. Indeed, his wealth and power allow him to force others to enable his mental illness by playing along with his disordered choices and behavior.

(4) Pride (Matthew Warchus, UK/France)

There is a moment in the film Pride where Joe (aka “Bromley”) (George MacKay) and Steph (Faye Marsay) are in bed talking and Steph says this: “This is when we’d kiss.” But of course that is not going to happen since they are both gay. Instead, they laugh at the notion and clasp hands, filmmaker Matthew Warchus cutting to a close-up shot of them clasping their hands. This image echoes what to my mind is the most crucial image/signifier in the film, an over 100 year old union banner of two hands coming together in a collectivized clasp (see above). In both cases, the clasping of hands profoundly symbolizes the coming together of Others in mutually supportive solidarity. In the case of the two friends, it is about letting each other know that despite their differences, they are going to be there for each other and support each other unconditionally. In the case of the union image, we get with this image a symbol of the solidarity among workers, who could not stand up to the power that is railed against them without being able to count on each other. At the end of the film, the working class miners bring this image to a  gay pride parade, a way to extend this powerful message, the overarching message of this amazing and joyous film: Others (working class, LGTBQ people. women, etc.) need to stand with each other against the powerful oppressive forces arrayed against them; if they stay divided, they will fall. Or perhaps it is better to put it this way: When an Other’s Otherness is manifested, it brings into light one’s Otherness, which, in turn, extraordinarily, opens up a liminal connection to other Others, that moment when one doesn’t see a working class miner or an LBGTQ person but an Other, a fundamental link to each other, which, in turn, creates the possibility of a connection that could not otherwise have been created. In this case, of course, it is the LBGTQ community coming to the aid of the working class miners, who, in time, come to see them as comrades-in-arms against a power that wants to destroy them. In the course of forming this alliance, the working class miners reciprocate and come to the LGBTQ community’s aid when they collectivize to express their own solidarity against ideologies who want to keep them marginalized and oppressed. In this way, this film does something extraordinary, it gives us a utopian moment — a potentiality — where all Others negate their differences and ideologically informed prejudices and stereotypes (and for many of the miners, who have been indoctrinated to be deeply homophobic, this is a considerable breakthrough) to come together in an alliance of Otherness, which is, finally, all that matters, since their Otherness is defined as their humanity and in that they are the same people under the yoke of power and oppression trying to exercise their self-determination, a breaking free from an alienated state of being.

(3) Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, USA)

If I were to make a list of the most underappreciated films, Nightcrawler would be on that list. The film got good reviews but was shut out of any major awards and never really got the prestige of other praised films of this year. And to my mind that’s a crime. This film is simply unbelievable. To get at why I think this film is a vitally important film, let me posit Robin Wood‘s theory of the “Return of the Repressed.” In short, Wood argued that the monster in the horror film represented the “return of the repressed” of society, e.g., that which society “represses” come back in distorted form. Now, while Nightcrawler isn’t a horror film per se, the film has elements of the horror film, most especially in the character of Lou (Jake Gyllenhaal), a complex sociopath. The film begins with Lou attacking a security guard who catches him stealing metal, in all probability killing him. I say that because while Dan Gilroy cuts away just after the attack — so technically we don’t know what Lou does to him — we see in the next shot that Lou has taken a large part of a fence — suggesting that he spent a good deal more time at the site — and because Lou leaves nothing to chance (as we come to see, Lou is methodically exacting in all that he does), I can’t imagine that he would leave the security guard alive after he has seen Lou’s face and after Lou takes his watch and the fencing. The film begins with this opening attack to stress that Lou is a man who has zero compunction to eliminate threats if he has to, eliminate those who get in his way. Intersecting with Wood’s theory of the “return of the repressed,” Lou — the “monster” in the film — is more than just a killer or violent sociopath, he also comes to represent a deep and dark animus in our society. As we see in the film, Lou becomes the perfect figure for corporate media news who need “graphic” content to get its high ratings, though the “graphic” content needs to be of a very particular nature as this exchange between Lou and Nina (Rene Russo) signifies:

Nina: “I want you to contact me when you have something.”

Lou: “Something like this.” [Lou has just given Nina his first footage, of a dying (bloody) man getting attended to by medics]

Nina. “That’s right.”

Lou: “Bloody.”

Nina: “Well, that’s only part of it. We like crime. Not all crime. Carjacking in Compton, for example. That isn’t news now, is it? We find our viewers are more interested in urban crime creeping into the suburbs. What that means is that a victim, or victims, preferably well-off, and white, injured at the hands of the poor or a minority.”

Lou: “Just crime.”

Nina: “No. Accidents play. Cars, busses, trains, planes. Fires.”

Lou: “But bloody.”

Nina: “Well. graphic. The best and clearest way that I can phrase it to you, Lou, to capture the spirit of what we air, is think of our newscast as a screaming woman, running down the street with her throat cut.”

Lou: “I understand.”

As this dialogue suggests, Nina reveals the dark mercenary nature of corporate news (and the racist nature of corporate news and society in general!), her final thought speaking to the violence (“screaming woman, running down the street with her throat cut”) embedded in their programming, which also corresponds to Lou’s sociopathy, his lack of compunction to not only seek out and film with glee the “screaming woman, running down the street with her throat cut” but who might actually do the “cutting” to get the footage, if he could get away with it. In this way, we can see that this is a perfect union of monsters, Lou, the sociopath, and a mercenary corporate media. In terms of Nina, as we come to find out, she is an aging woman who has bounced from one job to the next, never getting that consistent ratings grab that can propel her to higher heights up the company ladder. Lou can get her that but for a steep price, Nina literally selling her body and whatever she has left of her morals for Lou’s footage. On the footage end, because Lou is a sociopath — because he literally has zero degree empathy — he will literally do anything to get highly desired stories, including getting innocent people killed. In this way, we can then see how Lou becomes the “return of the repressed” of these corporate media news discourses, e.g., like Lou, who will put gain before people, these corporate media news discourses will also put ratings and monetary gain before the well being of people. The deeper implications of this are profound. Corporate news media discourses are merely one of many capitalistic enterprises, Lou then embodying , or making manifest, the Real or “return of the repressed” of capitalism itself, e.g., like Lou, a mercenary, predatory, survival of the fittest individual, capitalism too is a mercenary, predatory, put profit before people, survival of the fittest system (ideology) that both breeds figures like Lou, or, more pointedly Nina, and actually fosters, encourages, rewards figures like sociopath Lou, which we see by the many sociopath corporations and CEOs. In short, Lou is the “return of the repressed” of capitalism itself, e.g., both are sociopaths.

(2) Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre Dardenne/Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy)

The power of Two Days, One Night stems from how well it captures the dog-eat-dog reality of capitalism. That is, what this film does so well is show — in an extremely complex way — how work places pit workers against workers. In this case, workers for a company must choose between their bonus and Sandra (Marion Cotillard) keeping her job. Part of the complexity stems from the fact that the Dardenne brothers don’t put the onus on the company forcing the workers to make this decision. Though supervisor Jean-Marc acts in a predatory way, the main boss (owner?) of the company, M. Dumont, seems fairly reasonable and not predatory or mercenary. The company is a small one and is only acting in its best interests, seeing that they can run the company with 16 employees instead of 17. In this way, the Dardenne brothers’ don’t want to just put the onus on some evil predatory, mercenary company but instead make this about a company not being entirely unreasonable but rather playing by the rules set out by a capitalistic system, e.g., companies are not charitable organizations and must attend to their bottom line less they don’t survive. That the company is even giving out a bonus suggests that the company is trying to keep their workers happy, despite apparently not paying them enough to make ends meet. And that gets to the second focus of this smart, provocative film. The Dardenne brothers also don’t want to make this about greedy, selfish workers. Yes, some of the workers are pretty awful and choosing their bonus purely out of greed and clearly without any regard or sympathy for Sandra. However, most of the workers telling Sandra that they are choosing the bonus over her make it clear that their financial situation is bleak and that they need the bonus, in some cases desperately need the bonus. One such worker, Dominique, sums up this thread in the film when he says this to Sandra: “He’s willing to lose his bonus but I’m the only breadwinner here. I’d love to help but I can’t make ends meet.” The Dardenne brothers do get in a dig (a dig at the workers who choose the bonus over Sandra that is) with at least one worker who also badly needs the bonus but chooses Sandra anyway because it is the right thing to do. However, despite that slight dig, overall, the Dardenne brothers seem to be pointing elsewhere as to who or what is to blame for this horrendous scenario where workers must choose between their co-worker, a fellow human being, and their own livelihood. In this way, I would contend that the Dardenne brothers are suggesting a deeper culprit for this monstrous reality forced on the workers, e.g., a system that creates this scenario in the first place. Behind a company’s survival need and/or need to create more profit and behind people’s survivalistic needs is the system that engenders such states of being. In short, capitalism is a dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, put profit before people system and such a way of being filters down to the most microscopic levels, as we see unfold in this film. That’s what makes this film so remarkable, because it “cognitively maps” capitalism itself. I would add just a couple of other elements in the film: Though M. Dumont seems relatively benign, Jean-Marc is not; that is, Jean-Marc personifies the more typical ruthless capitalist, actively campaigning against Sandra, calling workers and trying to talk them into voting against her. He goes so far as to implicate Sandra’s mental illness in this vote, suggesting that Sandra could no longer be depended on, could no longer do her job as well. In this way, the Dardenne brothers make Jean-Marc allegorical, in that he not only personifies the typical ruthless capitalist, he also allegorically personifies capitalism itself, a system that puts profit, growth, and expansion before people, making people disposable, taking the humanity out of our humane and familial interactions with each other. In this way, the film makes an even deeper implication, suggesting that we are normalizing this self-centered, mercenary, predatory way of being, making this the norm for future generations. The respite from all of this bleak view of a humanity degraded by a degrading system are those handful of figures who maintain their humanity by supporting Sandra. Ironically — and this element is the Dardenne’s brilliant final irony — Sandra herself must choose between herself and an Other, e.g., she is offered her job back though at the expense of another worker on a “fixed-term contract,” which I think presumably means Alphonse, who finally courageously voted for her despite his precarious position in the company. Of course, she chooses Alphonse and loses her job but it is the final stirring victory not just for Sandra but for humanity itself, still revealing a profound collectivity despite a disconnecting capitalism. Finally, I just want to comment on Sandra’s mental illness, her depression and perhaps anxiety disorder. I don’t think the film ever suggests why she has become mentally “sick” but it is interesting that while we are seeing her campaign for her job — fighting against the system — we see the toll this takes on her, suggesting I think that while it may not be entirely at fault, at least part of why Sandra is mentally ill has to do with a system that grinds people down, whether that be from having to maintain a difficult job or just trying to make ends meet. A truly vital film.

(1) Snowpiercer (Joon-ho Bong, South Korea/Czech Republic)

To my mind, the dystopia film Snowpiercer (2013, Joon Ho Bong) is just such a invaluable film due to its incredible capacity to cuttingly capture — or “cognitively map” – how our current and future dystopian milieu is informed by our (globalized) capitalism system. In her “pretrauma imaginaries” work, E. Ann Kaplan captures the power of dystopian works: “Anxiety about the future incited by such [dystopian] fantasies may produce traumatic emotions similar to those of PTSD and a disabling uncertainty about one’s own future. But engaging in such fantasies may, on the contrary, offer what I call ‘memory for the future,’ less a disabling anxiety than a productive warning to bring about needed change” (18). Like Kaplan, for me, dystopias are incredibly valuable if they reveal the very real dystopian elements presently in our present reality, by showing us the potential (and probable in many cases) endpoints of such elements.

Renowned science fiction studies scholar Darko Suvin similarly – and famously – pronounced what would go on to be thought of as perhaps science fiction’s most vital role: “SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (7-8). In other words, science fiction – and here I think this especially applies to dystopias (and utopias!) – “estrange” us from our present reality, give us an “alternative” reality in which to compare and interrogate our own reality (or, in the case of more positive representations of the future, an “alternative” reality which we can actually contemplate as a desired way of being) and force us to see our reality in all its dysfunctionality and self-destructiveness, and, then, hopefully, spur us to change course. No science fiction film dials up this sensibility as well as Snowpiercer.

For more, check out my full analysis, “Snowpiercer: A Cognitive Map of (Globalized) Capitalism.”

Other Notable Films I Really Liked:

Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, Sweden/France/Norway/Denmark) (Ah, but the ending moments kind of ruined this otherwise provocative and interesting film for me!)

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, UK/France/Germany) (No one creates a character study like Mike Leigh!)

The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, USA/UK) (Too glossified and manipulatively [melodramatically] plotted for my tastes but I love stories about historical figures we should know more about; the ending is devastating.)

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, Switzerland/UK/USA) (For my thoughts on this film, check out my “Short Take” blog post)