My Best Films Of 2011

All these films have had a UK release, so there is no excuse for you Brits for having missed any of them!

1) A Separation

2011 was a very good year in cinema and, out of a good bunch, for me, A Separation is unassailably the best. It is an excellent example of the art that conceals art. The story didn't seem like a screenplay, and the people in it didn't seem like actors. It was as though one was in that flat and all these events broke out around one - suddenly people are shouting at each other in the stairwell, or rushing into the street and having huddled conversations at open car windows. The story reverberates with many important departments of life, such as sexual politics and parental responsibility, and the way the plot just thickened from simple beginnings was very satisfying.

2) Poetry

I'm cheating here because I included this film in my list of best films for 2010. This year I've changed my rules and I've tried to limit my best films to those that have been released in the UK in 2011. I first saw Poetry in the 2010 London Film Festival, and it simply blew me away. It is the fifth film by its director, Lee Chang-dong, and as none of his films have been released in the UK I didn't expect Poetry to be released here either. Very fortunately, I was wrong, and it has opened in the UK, so I have an excuse for including it in my 2011 list. It has won many awards, so I know that I am not alone in thinking highly of it. It stars Jeong-hie Yun, who was one of South Korea's most famous and celebrated film stars, with a huge list of films to her credit, and who came out of 16 years' retirement to make this film.  The film's director, Lee Chang-dong, is also a novelist, playwright, theatre director, and has been South Korea's minister of culture. He has the Legion d'Honneur in France!  Needless to say he is unknown in the UK and Poetry is his first film to be released here. He has made five films all of which were interesting and diverse.

3) Oslo, August 31st

This is the second film adaptation of the French novel Le Feu Follet. I am quite a fan of the first adaptation, made in 1963 by Louis Malle, starring Maurice Ronet. This is a story of a man who, after a period in the drug rehabilitation clinic, is allowed out for his first day of liberty in preparation for his return to the community.  He tries to pick up the thread his old life by making contact with his friends and an old lover. He is taken to a party and he has a job interview.  As the day passes he sees how his friends have moved on and now have settled relationships, children and burgeoning careers, and he feels that the current of his life has slipped away and become intolerable. This film is pitch perfect all the way through, being very intelligently scripted, well directed and very well acted. It has a sublime ending that bears comparison with the best Antonioni endings.

As Derek Malcolm put it: "Lie's performance is pitch perfect, and Trier's direction almost flawless. We look at life as it is for this one person within an eloquent framework that never seems either self-regarding or indulgent. The director knows exactly what he is doing and does it impeccably."

4) We Need To Talk About Kevin

This film is being highly praised for Tilda Swinton's performance, but I'm including it so high on my list because I think it is a tour de force of adaptation and direction, for which Lynne Ramsay bears no small amount of responsibility. Tilda Swinton is very good as well.

5) Tyrannosaur

I'm not always very partial to British cinema, particularly when it involves working-class realism, yet here I've included two British films in my top five, one of which has plenty of WCR. Tyrannosaur is a triumphant first film by Paddy Considine, and it stars Peter Mullan playing the part he does so well - a self-loathing and violent man.

Tyrannosaur's strengths, apart from Mullan's performance, are the part played by Olivia Coleman as the woman he becomes interested in, and the sure way in which the film slowly reveals the sources of Mullan's unhappiness. Dog lovers are advised to see The Artist instead of this film.

6) Love Like Poison

This is the first film by Katell Quillévéré. It is a beautiful, intense and thoughtful account of the coming-of-age of Anna, played by Clara Augarde, as she reaches a more adult understanding of her separated parents, of a young boy who courts her and of the local priest. She is seriously thinking of going into the church and the role of the priest (seen in the image), both as a religious figure and as a man, is pivotal.

Her parents are separated, the mother being rather unstable and flamboyant while the father is irresponsible, charming and absent. The formative man in her life is her grandfather. She allows herself to be courted by Pierre who is a link between her rather intense and serious take on life and the more common current of life in the village.

This film is serious, sincere and well judged throughout. The only slight unease I have is with the casting. I felt the grandfather was little too larger-than-life, as though a comedian had been cast in the part. Also the mother, in her flamboyance, with her scarlet lipstick and black died hair, stood out startlingly among the other people of the village.

There are beautiful interludes when the camera is allowed simply to stare at a scene while lovely music plays on the soundtrack, allowing us to fully absorb the atmosphere of this provincial French village. The cast, particularly Clara Augarde and the priest, played by Stefano Cassetti, are excellent, as also is her father, played by Thierry Neuvic.

I saw the British film Submarine shortly after I saw this film and I simply could not take Submarine seriously.  They are both coming-of-age films, one treating it seriously and the other treating is as a vehicle for laughs and entertainment.

7) Margaret

This film, directed by Kenneth Lonergan, has a lot of ideas and concerns loosely structured around the story of a teenage girl, Lisa, played by Anna Paquin, who becomes involved in a road accident. In her immaturity she is not very appealing, at least to me, but as she is drawn through a sequence of events connected with the accident, we see her start to take a more mature view of things.

There is a rich cast including Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo and Jean Reno. The film reaches a very moving conclusion when Lisa, who has some responsibility for the accident, but who has been in denial about it throughout the film, finally accept it.

8) Las Acacias

This film, mainly shot in the driving cab of a lorry, is a triumph of film-making. It is about lorry driver, driving a load of tree trunks from Paraguay to Buenos Aires, who has foisted on him a woman with a baby. It did occur to me to wonder why these tree trunks had to be transported so far because they seem to have plenty of them in Argentina, anyway.  The lorry driver, Rubén, played by Germán de Silva, is initially surly and uncommunicative. Very slowly his attitude softens and by the end of the film we see the possibility of a romance between him and Jacinta, played by Hebe Duarte. The star of the film, without a doubt, is the baby who is utterly and irresistibly charming.

9) Animal Kingdom


I was slow to see this film because I had heard that it is violent. I did not find it more violent than plenty of other films that I have seen recently. 

It is a gangster film about a band of brothers led by their mother. She is a pleasant and appealing person who nevertheless lacks a moral dimension. The brothers lounge around in the family bungalow in Melbourne, flaunting their tattoos. They are in engaged in a sort of war with the Melbourne police, and it is the brother, Pope, (left in the image) who initially seems quiet and self-effacing but who becomes the nastiest as they come under pressure. The film is extremely well made with a slowly tracking camera that pries on the goings-on of the family. 


10) Archipelago


This is the second film by Joanna Hogg, her first feature film being Unrelated. Like Unrelated it is about a family on holiday, this time in the Isles of Scilly. It is pleasant to see the British film which is not about working class people. We see tensions grown as the family members, each spoilt in different ways, struggled to get on with each other while the father, who was due to arrive later, fails to arrive at all.

There is a family friend, Christopher, played by Christopher Baker, who is a painter and he lives on the island. He is in fact not an actor but is a friend of the film's director, Joanna Hogg, who did coach her in painting. The film is well-made and thoughtful rather in the style of Antonioni.

My Best Films of 2011

Unlike last year, I have restricted this year's list to films that have been released in the UK. The order of films is not hugely important, although they do generally go in the direction of best film first.

1) A Separation

I think this film is unassailably the best film of the year. It doesn't seem like a film and the people in it do not seem like actors. It is as though one were there with them and the events break out around one - people shouting at each other in the stairwell, people rushing out into the street in distress. This film was written by the director, Asghar Farhadi, and it is a triumph. I'm very pleased to see that it is gaining recognition that it deserves. 

2) Poetry

I am cheating here because Poetry is one of my best films the 2010! I have included it again because it is a film of which I'm very fond and, quite unexpectedly, it obtained the UK release this year. Quite unexpectedly because this filmmaker, Lee Chang-dong, has made five very good films, and this is the first of his films to be released in the UK.

3) Oslo, August 31st

This film had a lot of impact on me because it is the second adaptation of the novel Le Feu Follet, which was adapted in 1963 by Louis Malle and now has been adapted again by the Danish filmmaker Joachim Trier. I thought this film was strong in all departments - acting, writing and direction, and it is a very moving film. It has a sublime in ending that bears comparison with the best of Antonioni.

4) We Need To Talk About Kevin

Many have praised Tilda Swinton's excellent performance in the main part, but this film is a triumph of adaptation and direction, which I attributed mainly to Lynne Ramsay.

5) Tyrannosaur

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2010)

I was very conflicted when I first heard about this film. On the one hand, here is a remake of a very recent Swedish film, and on the other it is made by David Fincher, who I respect. At least this isn't such a bizarre project as Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho My initial response was that I am not interested in seeing the film made for Americans who are too lazy to read subtitles. But - I can't be so against remakes because I very much like The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Which is a French remake of an American film. Anyway, I did go to see it.

It turns out that this film is comparable in quality to the Swedish adaptation of the novel, and it's pretty similar to it. Daniel Craig, an actor for whom I have much respect, is excellent, as is Rooney Mara, who has the required punk look and rides a mean motorbike. There is also Christopher Plummer, continuing the Indian summer of his career after the very satisfactory Beginners, Stellan Skarsgård, fresh from Melancholia, and Robin Wright, who I fell in love with in that sadly neglected film Stage Of Grace.

This is an intelligent film that does serviceable job of telling the story. One of its strengths is that it is firmly rooted in Sweden without in anyway taking a postcard, or Woody Allenesque, view of the country, and we really feel that it is a cold and snowy place. Daniel Craig, who I learned to like in Our Friends In The North, here plays the part with charm and modesty. One change is that the relationship between Craig and Mara becomes more of a simple romance than I recall it being in the Swedish adaptation of the novel.

The Artist

This film has received a lot of praise and is in some lists as one of the best, and in some cases the best, film of 2011. I went to see it with high expectations that came away a little disappointed.

The film tells a story spanning the years 1927 to about 1932 and is made in the style of a silent film.  It is a story of a silent film star, modelled after Douglas Fairbanks, and a young starlet. She finds success as his career declines because he is unable to make the transition to sound cinema.  The film has many imaginative and effective details. I particularly liked the use of a beauty spot. It has a truly splendid dog, played by Uggy.

I was a little disappointed because the film tells a simple and rather predictable story and ends up being a simple romance. It is as though the filmmaker, pleased with having come up with such an interesting original idea as to make a film that looks like a silent movie, was content then not to seek anything fresh or original in the story. Also, if I were nitpicking, I would say that the two leads do not look very authentically of the late 1920s, and neither does the quality of the image, apart from being in black and white . I am not sure whether this is an important detail. By some coincidence I recently saw again Woody Allen's is Zelig, which has some similarities to this film. Zelig is like a modern documentary about a figure who lived in the 1920s, and it uses simulated images of that character at that time. Of course Woody Allen plays that character and we see simulated images of him in the company of well-known figures, such as Adolf Hitler. I thought those simulated images, created by Gordon Willis, were more persuasive than the images in The Artist.

I found the music in The Artist truly trying and when I left the cinema I had the beginnings of a headache from its incessant and rather tedious quality. At heart The Artist tells a simple and rather sentimental and soft-hearted story. This may, of course, have been deliberately a part of its way of celebrating silent cinema. Nevertheless, 2011 was a very good year for cinema and a film would have to be more ambitious and complex than The Artist to become one of the best films of the year. I can understand that a film articulated around the transition from silent to sound cinema, as is The Artist, may have a special appeal to some film enthusiasts.