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! This film list is the product of finally finishing the year 2013. (I have finished other years as well but this is the first year I’ve finished since I started this blog; as of yet I don’t have blurbs or longer analyses for my other lists.) 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 include my favorite documentaries at the bottom of this list. I wish I could devote more time to expressing my thoughts on these great films, but, alas, time doesn’t allow for that at this time. 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!

Favorite Films (2013)

(18) 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, USA/UK)

Instead of conveying why I like 12 Years a Slave so much, because this film received such high accolades and awards (of course winning the Academy Award for Best Picture), I kind of feel like I have to explain why this highly acclaimed is so low on my list. I really do have a high regard for this film; it may be the most powerful and disturbing cinematic slave narrative I’ve seen and I’ve seen most of the cinematic slave narratives made over the last few decades. What this film does so well is of course reveal the utter inhumanity of a people who enslave Others. Perhaps it is the fact that Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is already established as a free American citizen that makes his enslavement all the more disturbing; it is easier for us to relate to him – invest our self in him – and thus to, in turn, put our self in his place when he is enslaved. (And I’m not saying that the enslavement of a free black American should be any more appalling than a free black man from the continent of Africa — both are equally heinous — but rather that even against our will we may unconsciously relate more to a free black American who carries himself or herself in a way that we can more readily identify with.) The sociopathy of Mr. Epps (Michael Fassbender) and his monstrous treatment of Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o) is especially difficult to watch but also to my mind the most interesting thread in the film, for in his extreme obsession with her, we can see both his deeply felt lust and perhaps even love for her and the self-loathing this brings him, projecting onto her his self-loathing via the ensuing cruelties he enacts on her, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. In other words, he hates himself for being intimate with Patsey, that which he loathes, and thus in punishing her, he is really punishing himself. There is probably some overcompensating going on here as well, e.g., in treating her cruelly, he can, in his warped mind, convince others and himself that he is deeply attracted to her, perhaps even loves her, if he is even capable of love. The deeper implication of this profound scenario is that the film gets at the glaring ramification of human beings Othering human beings: By creating this self/Other split, human beings in effect split themselves, forcing such individuals to live a life of not being whole, e.g., in not accepting Others, one rejects some aspect of one’s self, as Mr. Epps does when he cannot bring himself to admit or embrace the fact that he is attracted to and is powerfully drawn to Patsey. In more general terms, what the film also does so well is glaringly reveal who the real savages are, not the men and women in chains but the masters who have enslaved them. Hegel’s master-slave dialectic informs this binary where it isn’t just the slave who is dehumanized, it is the master as well, who forfeits his or her humanity when he or she enslaves Others. In this context, I have always thought it is important to keep these kind of slave narratives coming, as a reminder of this heinous moment in our history, and 12 Years a Slave is as powerful a piece of condemnation as any slave narrative ever made. Having said that, the one thing that lessons the impact of this film for me is that it does what every other slave narrative does, it gives us symptoms and not much else. That is, there is something almost sadistic in these tellings that don’t contextualize why they happened. In this way, the film just redundantly gives us what other slave narratives have given us, the monstrous, heinous treatment of African Americans. I want more than that now from slave narratives. I want a deeper plumbing of why this happened, of the capitalistic element behind this creation of a “race” ideology, a necessary ideology for the creation of free labor for the enormous profits of a burgeoning country. I want the self/Other dichotomy explored in all of its complexities, including the religious element and how Christianity has a lot to answer for. To my mind, I believe (and I could be wrong about this so do let me know if I am!), 12 Years a Slave gave us symptoms not deeper root causes and that just isn’t enough for me anymore. Still…an important film!

(17) Short Term 12 (Destin Daniel Cretton, USA)

The message of the moving Short Term 12 is quite simple, conveyed by Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) to his foster parents, who apparently took in numerous kids and loved and nurtured them: “When I had no one else, you accepted me and showed me what it was like…um, what it was like to be loved.” Of course, this message of love is set against the complementary message of hate in the film, where adults — most often adults close to kids — prey on kids, damaging them in some way, leaving behind a lifelong wreckage of trauma. And that gets at the complexity of the film’s message, where via all sorts of signifiers we see how deep and disturbing this damage is to both the young people we get to know in the film and via Grace (Brie Larson), a beautiful human being who devotes her life to helping damaged young people, in part an outgrowth of her own experience of being sexually abused by her father when she was young. For me the two most powerful moments are when Marcus (Lakeith Stanfield) sings his most recent rap song, part of the chorus echoing his internal torment: “Live a life not knowing what a normal life’s like.” And, then, Jayden’s (Kaitlyn Dever) octopus story is simply heartbreaking, in part because it is clearly allegorical, pointing to her own experience of life, and in part allegorical because it speaks to the predatory nature of the world, where, again, adults prey on the most vulnerable in our society, children, sometimes an adult’s own child. The final inspiring message of the film though — and that becomes the lasting impression I think — is how despite all of the abuse heaped on young people, they can recover as long as they get the kind of compensatory love and nurturing and bonding and overall intimate connections we see given to them by Grace and Mason, reciprocated in kind by the kids themselves. And, in this way, the film ends on a deeply hopeful note, as Grace chooses life — chooses to marry Mason and have her baby — the impending birth suggesting a kind of re-birth for her, as she finally gets the help she needs (we see her going to a therapist and beginning to open up her old wounds, which is necessary for deep healing) and with Mason’s endearing and enduring love, will endure and flourish.

(16) Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée, USA)

I know a lot of writers and activists think that Dallas Buyers Club is a faux progressive film, but while I see their points — e.g., that the film’s focus is squarely on a straight guy (and apparently real life Ron Woodruff was purported to be bisexual not the raging heterosexual he is portrayed in the film) and not the LBGTQ community; and that this same heterosexual guy is ultimately played positively while Rayon (Jared Leto), a transgender woman, is portrayed negatively, as a “junkie” and as “deviant” — I think the film powerfully, and, yes, progressively, gives viewers some transformative life lessons. For one thing, the glaring targets of the film are two glaring ideologies, hypermasculinity and capitalism. In terms of the former, Ron (Matthew McConaughey) begins as a deeply homophobic, misogynistic, hypermasculine “cowboy.” I mention the term “cowboy” because Ron embodies all of the characteristics of the historical representation of “cowboy,” embodying a manifest destiny, white man’s burden sensibility where Others (in historical terms, that would largely be Native Americans though in the film, that would largely be the LGBTQ community) are that which defines them as superior and purely incarnating the American “norm.” In the case of Ron, he sees women as purely objects for his pleasure and the LBGTQ community as abnormal deviants. In the course of the film, what this film does is to my mind quite radical, taking a hypermasculine man, giving him a “gay” disease (as Ron sees it of course), and in the course of his experiences, come to first tolerate LGTBQ people and eventually embrace and care about them. To my mind, few films (Brokeback Mountain comes to mind) take us through the point of view of the hypermasculine man, take on his transformative journey and thus radically deconstructs the hypermasculine persona/ideology by revealing it to be an inhumane, dehumanized humanity. This transformative experience — both for Ron and for us the spectator — especially comes through in our love for Rayon, a complicated trans woman who is also a drug addict and deeply scarred from a family past that was psychologically wounding. Ron and Rayon come to eventually form a complicated bond with each other, the film enacting one of the most powerful spiritual journeys that any human being can go on, coming to see the Other in human terms and in the process discover one’s own humanity. In terms of how the film deconstructs capitalism, many writers have rightly commented on the fact that Ron is a consummate capitalist through and through. But, to my mind, that fact is subordinated to the larger target of the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry in the film, both of which are colored as putting profit before people, preventing viable treatments from other countries out of a desire to protect their own self-interests. And, yes, while Ron too at first uses his newfound business to profit at the expense of HIV infected individuals — no romanticizing of Ron here (!) — he never attempts to gouge his “clients” and as his connectedness to his newfound collective grows, his desire for profit lessons to a point where he obviously cares more about the people he is helping than the profits he is making.

(15) Blue is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, France/Belgium/Spain)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(14) What Maisie Knew (Scott McGehee/David Siegel, USA)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(13) Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, USA)

The power of Fruitvale Station is in it doing what it shouldn’t have to do, build its case for the humanity of young black men. Young black males have been demonized in Hollywood films, political rhetoric (think Willie Horton), and other media discourses since this country first brought black slaves to America. In other words, what this film does is make the case that “black lives matter,” Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) being an imperfect but admirably trying young man, a vital man who deserved to live, not to be cold-bloodedly murdered, by a white cop no less. The film does this through a series of encounters with individuals (and a dying dog), his girlfriend, his daughter, his sister and mother, but also through encounters with “white” strangers who amicably embrace his humanity (a white woman enthusiastically accepts a recipe for southern catfish fry from him). In this way, we see Oscar’s deep well of empathy and love and a desire to be a better father, boyfriend, son, human being. By the time we get to the moment of his killing, we have — or should have — quit seeing Oscar as an Other, e.g., not seeing Oscar as a black man but instead seeing Oscar as a human being. As Oscar and his friends are being brutalized by the white cops, the woman he gave the recipe to is filming the incident. In this way, the film does two remarkable things, suture us into that woman recording Oscar’s murder, her shock and outrage also being our shock and outrage. But, at the same time, via the power of the classic Hollywood style and its suturing effect (e.g., spectators taking on the point of view of characters), we all become Oscar in this ending moment. As the film builds to its incredibly unjust and heartbreaking climax, we feel with Oscar and his friends the injustice of his/their heinous treatment. Mainstream film doesn’t get more powerful than this, in giving us a counternarrative of “walking a mile” in the skin of a black man, all the way to his unjust treatment and murder. If one doesn’t watch this film and feel the horror of what happens to Oscar, you are part of the problem of young black males getting killed by racist cops.

(12) Lore (Cate Shortland, Germany/Australia/UK)

Lore profoundly explores the systematic disintegration of identity. Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) is a young adolescent girl and a rich German Nazi who is thrown into a post-WWII reality where every facet of what she believes in is utterly deconstructed. Lore’s rich lifestyle — part of what constitutes her feeling of superiority over Others — is taken away from her, forcing her to degrade herself by becoming that which she deems lower than herself, an Other. In the process of just trying to survive, she comes to at least partially depend on Thomas (Kai-Peter Malina), a young man she thinks is Jewish. That she begins to have feelings for him creates in her a deeply felt schism of desire and repulsion, her repulsion stemming from her deeply rooted conditioning. That she also has to actually pretend to be related to him — in effect, becoming a Jew herself — forces her to become an Other in a way that is especially repulsive for her, poor and Jewish, the most profound way anyone can realize just how arbitrary and false the self/Other divide is. Exacerbating this thread is the film’s powerful expression of the Holocaust itself, Germans forced to see the monstrousness of their, well, if not deeds, then at least support for an ideology that committed genocide of Jews. Finally, Lore must also see the reality of a degraded humanity in general, her horror exacerbated by the reality that Germans were supposed to be above such degradation, e.g., only such “low” Others as Jews degrade themselves in such a survivalistic way as she sees in the course of travels to get to the safety of her grandmother. Of course, it doesn’t help that Lore lived a sheltered (rich) life where she was sheltered from such dark exposures of the darker side of humanity in general and the monstrousness of Germans (German ideology) in particular. By seeing just how predatory and self-centered humanity could be — and in effect participating in such predatory behavior (e.g., she participates in the murder of a man) — Lore’s innocence is shattered and her identity is so upturned that she can only reject a return to a normalcy where such false identities exist, which is why she rebels against her grandmother’s attempt to re-instill civility back into her and her siblings. Her destruction of the porcelain figurines punctuates all of this, e.g., the figurines represent that elite (Nazi) lifestyle/ideology she used to live but cannot go back to. The hope of the film stems in the last frames, where Lore looks through Thomas’s photographs, Lore now seeing Jews as not Others but as fellow human beings. In this way, the film reveals a deep and profound truth, that through experiencing Otherness — as Lore does and as we do through her — we can empathize with Others as our self and, again, thus see just how arbitrary and monstrous the self/Other divide is.

(11) Mother of George (Andrew Dosunmu, USA/Nigeria)

The greatness of Mother of George is in its remarkable deconstruction of phallocentric ideology, not only in terms of Nigerian culture but just in general, as phallocentric ideology still dominates so much of our way of being in America and around the world. We get this establishment of phallocentrism in the early wedding moment, when so much is centered on the male, e.g., he can cheat on his wife but must always come back to her; he has to “provide her with a good home”; he has to be the impetus of many children — of course, especially a boy — so he needs to “get busy.” And, then, of course, the centering of the male is hyper-accentuated again as Adenike (Danai Gurira) must: ask her husband’s permission to get a job; differs to his disapproval of a transparent American blouse; and begs him to see a fertility doctor, which he stubbornly refuses, ostensibly because he says they can’t afford it, but his indignation at Adenike’s suggestion that the problem might be with him suggests that he has ulterior reasons for not going to a doctor (e.g., he doesn’t want any sign of a “weakness” to rupture his position as the dominate gender). Two lines in the film cement this focus and deconstruction of phallocentric ideology. At one point, Ma Ayo (Bukky Ajayi) says to Adenike, “My son worked hard to bring you here. And he will always provide for you.” This line seems to be an inexplicable veiled threat that Adenike needs to somehow miracle a baby out of her less Ayodele (Isaach De Bankolé) copulate with another woman who can. Of course, that Ayodele would, in this scenario of Ma Ayo, essentially dump Adenike doesn’t negate his duty to “provide” for her, a glaring signifier of the archaic notion that men “provide” for their women, leaving them in servitude to their men. The most powerful moment and line in the film comes from a deeply frustrated Adenike: “Why is it always the woman?” This line specifically speaks to her frustration that it has to be her that is at fault for not producing a child, not Ayodele. In this way, we can see just how allegorical this film is, in that phallocentrism ideology is by definition a signification of the man as the center of our way of being, both physical and metaphysical (e.g., think about how God is gendered male) and thus it is literally not possible for the man to be infertile! That he is infertile only scratches the surface of how this film deconstructs phallocentrism. We get this deconstruction in so many other ways, including by Ayodele, who does eventually accept going to a doctor and, in my reading of the ending, go back to Adenike despite the deeply emasculating thing that was done behind his back, in phallocentric terms that is! We also see this deconstruction with Adenike’s modern Americanized friend Sade (Yaya DaCosta), who, among other things, when confronting her lover and Ayodele’s brother and the biological father of “George,” Biyi (Anthony Okungbowa), tells him of his choice to not refuse to copulate with Adenike, “You don’t have a mind of your own,” a devastating indictment of his lack of agency. I could go on, but I’ll leave it at that for now; this is a film that I want to return to for further analysis at some point. Just one other note: I love the innovative use of the cinematic apparatus in this film; the cinematography, editing, complex mise en scenes and compositions, use of color and lighting, and other innovative uses of form create not just a lyricism in the film but I think complements the film’s themes and deeper meanings, creating a kind of expressionism, where the complex uses of form seem to magnify and actually reveal the interior pain and angst and existential shifts in being of our protagonists, not to mention that these aesthetically pleasing uses of form give the film a feeling of experiencing it more so than just viewing it.

(10) Philomena (Stephen Frears, UK/USA/France)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(9)  Wadjda (Haifaa Al-Mansour, Saudi Arabia/Netherlands/Germany/Jordan/United Arab Emirates/USA)

The powerful thing about Wadjda is that we see how clearly devastating ideologies can potentially crush the fiery, rebellious spirit of a young girl. Wadjda depicts the coming of age of a young girl, Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), in Saudi Arabia, a deeply patriarchal, phallocentric fundamentalist Muslim culture, whose patriarchal, phallocentric fundamentalist religion leaves little room for young girls to exert their will to be who they want to be. The film establishes Wadjda’s rebellious, singular willfulness via many signifiers, including: wearing tennis shoes; listening to American (alternative) music; talking back to adults, including men;  stubbornly continuing to play a game outside despite in view of men (the other kids go indoors); covering for some older girls who also rebelliously break from religiously inscribed norms (giving us a potential for resistance, girls collectively acting to support each other); putting blue polish on her toe nails. The most radical break from the patriarchal, phallocentric, religious norms is to desire a bike, but not only to desire it, to put her hard work for a religious competition (e.g., reciting the Koran) towards purchasing a bike over and above what is dictated for her, to put her money towards the cause of Palestinians. The cause is a good one but because it is part and parcel of determining ideologies, it too becomes part of how these ideologies control Wadjda. Moreover, the bike becomes enormously symbolic, as a way for Wadjda to gain the kind of agency and independence that might perhaps lead to a coming of age where she will go on to further breakthroughs. In a final satisfying move, the film itself registers this potential for radical change for women in Saudi Arabia. That is, throughout the film, we get numerous references to how deeply oppressed women are in Saudi Arabia, where women are second class citizens, at the mercy of men’s interests. We especially see this oppressive existence with Wadjda’s mother (Reem Abdullah), who must suffer both the indignity of depending on a strange man to drive her where she needs to go and the even more suffering indignity of her husband marrying another woman because she cannot bear him a male heir. At one point, the mother buys a vibrant red dress, in the hope that wearing it will keep her husband to her self. In the film’s final act of defiance for an empowering women’s movement in Saudi Arabia, when the husband marries another woman anyway, the mother takes her red dress back and use the money to buy Wadjda the bike she covets, an incredible act of solidarity between mother and daughter and between women. Just before revealing her act of defiance, the mother tells Wadjda: “If you set your mind to something, no one can stop you,” which would seem to be mere empty rhetoric — since up until now, the mother has played the obedient and placid Saudi woman — but when she reveals what she has done (e.g., in effect, trade in her red dress for the bike) — we see that the mother will no longer be directed by these determining ideologies, a message that the film itself ends with. In other words, the mother has traded in the red dress (representing her objectification by men) for the bike, representing a rebellious, empowering spirit of agency. The film ends with Wadjda riding ahead of her male companion, the film isolating her alone beyond the boy, suggesting or punctuating the final message of the film, that Wadjda will stand alone, without a male’s help, creating her own path, not to be stopped by anyone, her riding the bike now signifying her “freedom” from determining (phallocentric, patriarchal, fundamentalist Muslim) ideologies.

(8)  Our Children (Joachim Lafosse, Belgium/Luxembourg/France/Switzerland)

Watching Our Children I couldn’t help but think of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal “The Yellow Wallpaper”; like “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Our Children is a devastating indictment of patriarchy ideology, and like “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Our Children penetrates the psyche in a way few films (or literary texts) do. In terms of the former, Our Children reveals how crushing patriarchy ideology can be when it is so life sucking, when it utterly robs a woman of not only any semblance of agency but again and again degrades her humanity by turning her into a utility object for the men in her life’s needs. In the case of this film, we get Murielle (Émilie Dequenne), a fragile woman who thinks she is entering a storybook romance, only to slowly but surely get the life sucked out of her by two men, André (Niels Arestrup) and Mournir (Tahar Rahim), her self centered husband who I think really does marry her for love but who quickly moves her to a utility position, not unlike how his sister and younger brother get married for citizenship and not love. As the honeymoon period fades and children emerge, Mournir seems to lose his love of his wife and lacks any real love of his children, shifting the relationship with his wife to one of utility object, Murielle becoming nothing more than a mother to take care of the kids and an object to satisfy his desires, which, I might add, only brings more children. The most oppressive force in this film is André, the shady benefactor of not only Mournir but his entire family. It is hinted at that André is gay and desires Mournir, which would explain why he is so hostile whenever Mournir attempts to leave him. In this context, then, André uses Murielle in an even more disturbing way, as a kind of proxy for him to live out some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy of being in Murielle’s place. In any case, André’s overbearing presence and exertion of his will creates a vortex of sucking the life out of Murielle and Mournir’s marriage and especially sucking the life out of Murielle as he dominates and oppresses Murielle in more and more disturbing ways. We see this with his constant digs at her but also in him encouraging Mournir to be unempathetic to his wife, in encouraging him to be self-absorbed and treat her like a utility object, in addition to doing so himself. In this way, we see Murielle used in unspeakable ways, verbally abused, physically abused, sexually abused, and, worse of all, psychologically abused, as both her husband and so-called benefactor subject her to constant belittling, making her feel worthless and insignificant, a nonentity, the worst kind of subjection a human being can be subjected to. Add in that for much of the film, she has to work, care for her toddlers and babies, and still keep up the housework. All of this is a recipe for madness and that is indeed what ensues. But that only begins to get at the complexities of this multi-layered film. For one thing, patriarchy ideology intersects with capitalism ideology, as Mournir and Murielle in effect become something akin to indentured servants as they come to feel (or at least Mournir comes to feel) deeply indebted to André for financially securing him (e.g., giving him a job, a place to live, material comforts, give his family security) and so André can exert his will over both of them even more so. Finally, my sense is that André is made to be such a larger-than-life figure, so indomitable and oppressive in his control over Mournir and Murielle, that he could be seen as an allegorical figure, as a stand-in figure for patriarchy ideology in general, oppressive and authoritarian in his/its presence over the lives of Others, especially women, and especially women who have not been conditioned to cope with and armed with the tools to fight such an embedded and overwhelming force of oppressive and suffocating power.

(7) The Attack (Ziad Doueiri, Lebanon/France/Qatar/Belgium)

To my mind, no film that I have seen captures the complexity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as well as The Attack. Amin’s (Ali Suliman) devastating discovery of his wife Siham’s (Reymonde Amsallem) secret life is as identity shattering as any discovery one human being can experience. Siham hides her terrorist alignment with a Palestinian terrorist group, which ends with her becoming a suicide bomber who ends up killing 17 people, many of which were children celebrating a birthday party. Siham’s monstrous act triggers a series of events that forces Amin to reevaluate everything he believed, about his wife, about his life, and about Israelis he calls friends. That only begins to get at the complex layers that this film explores. I can only begin to scratch the surface of these layers of complexity but I will try to sketch some key ideas out: (1) What the “attack” by Siham reveals is that though Amin seems to be able to integrate himself in Israeli society, his Arab status will forever Other him no matter what heights of achievements he ascends; (2) Palestinians integrating into Israeli society have to be an impossibility anyway since it would mean turning a blind eye to the apartheid and even genocidal drive of Israel; (3) the atrocities by both sides create an irreconcilable bind for any sort of meaningful connections between Palestinians and Israelis, including between husbands and wives. In terms of the first point, I think the remarkable thing about what this film reveals is the unbridgeable boundary between Palestinian and Israeli: Amin may go to extreme lengths to prove his worth to Israelis, become a successful and much respected doctor, save lives–save Israeli lives (!) — participate in Israeli social functions, become close friends with Israelis, including being there for them when they need him, and even be desired as a mate (as I think Kim [Evgenia Dodina] does!), and while all of this may seem ideal, it is all a facade as we see after the attack, when all of these ideals mean nothing because of Amin’s Palestinian descent. In this way — via this extreme example of a Palestinian seeming to have elevated himself as one of “them” — “them” being an Israeli — we can see that such a possibility of a Palestinian integrating him or her self into Israeli society — wiping away his Other status — is an absolute impossibility. With such a reality, we can then also see the deeper implication of this disturbing reality, that this form of racism is embedded so deeply that it will take not just a cessation of hostilities and atrocities between Palestinians and Israelis but that it will then take generations of building up trust and faith in each other. The problem of course is that cessation of hostilities and atrocities are not going to end anytime soon, and thus the already deep hole of hate and persecutory complexes will just keep getting deeper and deeper and deeper, the results being a century long healing effort, if healing is even a possibility.

(6) The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, UK)

The power of The Selfish Giant stems from a core existential choice, between what director Clio Barnard calls “Individualism ideology” and the Swifty-horse motif in the film. At the core of this film is less I think Arbor (Connor Chapman) than Swifty (Shaun Thomas), though of course how Swifty comes to inform Arbor’s being becomes the absolute hope in the film. That is, Barnard creates a horse motif in the film, interjecting shots of horses throughout the film, horses peacefully grazing in a field and horses being used as utility objects – pulling carts for scrapping, used for horse racing. Barnard even gives us horse symbolism, in the horse door knocker on Swifty’s front door and a curious shot of a ceramic horse on a window sill in Arbor’s home. To understand this motif, one must understand a crucial symbolic thread in the film, Arbor killing the foal. After Swifty dies, Arbor goes to the dead foal and mourns its death, signifying I think a crucial parallel, the suggestion that Arbor killing the foal equates to Arbor killing Swifty. But that only scratches the surface of this complex film. Ostensibly the “giant” in the film is Kitten (Sean Gilder), a truly “selfish,” greedy (well, maybe not, maybe it is more about survival, I’m not sure) individual who will exploit kids for his own gain. However, Kitten redeems himself at the end, seeming to show remorse over Swifty’s death and taking the blame for Swifty’s death all on himself, wholly exonerating Arbor of any blame. This is crucial for Barnard getting at the real target of who the real “selfish giant” is. What really killed Swifty is what Barnard calls an “individual ideology” or what one might just call “society” or what I would say an “individual ideology” originates from, a “capitalism ideology.” What the film so glaringly reveals is how something is incubating people to be “selfish,” or mercenary, predatory, whether that be Arbor’s mother or the school or society itself who will just throw drugs at Arbor’s behavorial disorders; or a society who will allow a family to just survive; or a dog-eat-dog, put profit before people, survival of the fittest (e.g., individualist) sensibility where kids are exploited for gain and people will promote stealing and risky choices just to earn money. In this context, it isn’t Arbor who kills Swifty or even Kitten, it is a (individualism, capitalistic) ideology that degrades humanity in general and creates an environment or sensibility where people make other people disposable. The counterpoint to this degrading sensibility is Swifty and his love of horses (or the horse motif). Swifty is one of those generous, loving souls, who sees the good in Arbor and whose love of horses is based on the nature of horses themselves, gentle, peaceful animals who do no harm. Putting the two together, Swifty loves horses and their well being more than he cares about mercenary gains, whether that be getting the valued scrap metal – especially the coveted copper – or in terms of racing for gain. He earns his money and then doesn’t hesitate to give it to his mom. Coming back to the death of the foal and the death of Swifty, we can see the underscoring of these tragic deaths, Barnard suggesting that with the death of the foal and Swifty, we are not just getting the death of innocence (in Swifty’s case, Arbor’s innocence) but the death of good in the world, or the death of something fundamental to a healthy humanity, an altruistic, loving sensibility. If we lose that and succumb to an “individualism ideology,” then we are done as a species. Arbor lovingly grooming the horse at the end of the film is Barnard’s attempt to suggest that Arbor has internalized Swifty into his being, rejecting the mercenary self for the Swifty/altruistic self, perhaps a nod that humanity still has some hope.

(5) The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, USA/UK/France/Germany/Japan)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(4) In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany/Netherlands/Belarus/Russia/Latvia)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(3) The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark/Sweden)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(2) Disconnect (Henry Alex Rubin, USA)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

(1) Reality (Matteo Garrone, Italy/France)

See my blog post on the film for my thoughts on this film.

Other Notable Favorites

Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan)

No (Pablo Larrain, Chile/France/Mexico/USA)

The East (Zal Batmanglij, UK/USA)

What Richard Did (Lenny Abrahamson, Ireland)