The Pagan Agenda

My best of list for 2007, taking into consideration that it was within this calendar year that I saw these films (some may have opened outside of this time frame) and that I select according to the degree with which I was personally affected by the work, factoring in secondarily the particular ‘cinematic’ significance of the film. Those films I reviewed are hyperlinked below.

1) Inland Empire

2) Silent Light

3) Once

4) No Country for Old Men

5) I’m Not There

6) Zodiac

7) Gone Baby Gone

8) Control

9) Alexandra

10) A Mighty Heart

Inland Empire (David Lynch) – I was predisposed to hate this film knowing its stylistic parallels to Mulholland Drive a film I loathe with rare zeal. To be honest, I do not remember what circumstances lead me into the theater to see Inland Empire, but there I was, enraptured for the entire three hours of its uncoiling psychosis. I fell deep into this film, teetering on unconsciousness and swept away by the nightmarish scenarios set before me. I remember stumbling out into the night with a sensation like drunken abandon as my senses slowly returned.

Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas) – My favorite film at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, a film I had not even originally shortlisted to see. A powerful musing on the paradoxical nature of love that genuinely moved me.

Once (John Carney) – as I wrote in my review: as precious as a mix-tape made by a lover or intimate friend. Pure joy.

No Country For Old Men (The Coen Brothers)– Absurdity run amok in wide open spaces, a surprisingly pensive subtext for a film that is fundamentally a crime story.

I’m Not There (Todd Haynes) – Not the masterpiece I wanted it to be but a sprawling approximation. This is the future of the biopic genre, ‘Art Film’ with a capital “A”. I caught this twice in the cinema, still not fully registering the minutiae of biographic details that it unloads on the unsuspecting viewer, alas. There is a truly beautiful moment near the end of this film where Cate-as-Dylan is giving a speech on not being a folksinger: he/she is sitting in the back of a car and the response seems categorically Dylan in its esoteric elusiveness, but then suddenly there is a real directness, perhaps the first of the entire movie, and you feel like finally something is being said, and with that Cate-Dylan looks directly into the camera and gives a Mona Lisa smile that sent tingles down my spine.

Zodiac (David Fincher) – A movie one can live within, saturating an era.

Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck) – Second only to Silent Light in its mature rendering of an ethical dilemma. Drama for adults, by Ben Affleck no less.

Control (Anton Corbijn) – while situated within the conventional music biopic format this expose of Ian Curtis short-lived life raises above the par with its stunning black and white cinematography (director Anton Corbijn is best known for his still photography and it shows) and buoyed by the best performance of the year in Sam Riley’s channeling of Ian Curtis.

Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov)– Sparse tale of a burly grandmother in amongst the warfare of her grandson’s station. Just brilliant

A Mighty Heart (Michael Winterbottom)– I’m not sure what I am more impressed with: the note-perfect performance of Angelina Jolie as the wife of a captive journalist in Karachi, or the masterful employment of suspense through the fragmentary storytelling of Michael Winterbottom and his Oscar-worthy editor. This year’s United 93.

Honorable Mention: The Darjeeling Limited, Atonement, Paranoid Park, Into the Wild