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With the year nearly gone, all I can say is that time flies and never as fast as it did in 2010. As a result I only saw a fraction of the films I wanted to see. Many a blockbuster will have to wait until it gets released on BluRay, in a release either cheap enough for me not to be able to resist it or in a release lavish enough for ehh... me not to be able to resist it!
And like everyone else I have a problem determining what can be considered a 2010 title and what not. Several titles in my list I've seen at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), but as that festival is held in January you can rest assured that every non-world-premiere title shown there is from 2009.
Therefore I've settled upon the following: the films in my list could no sooner than this year been seen in a Dutch cinema (or, if there was no cinema release, on DVD). Meaning all films I've seen at the IFFR, Imagine and Camera festivals count.
So here's my list, but first a note:
Despite being released VERY wide, the two most prominent titles I managed to miss this year were "The Social Network" and "How to Train Your Dragon". I anticipated both, heard good things from friends and relatives about them and still totally failed to see them yet.
So keep that in mind, because they could have been contenders (from what I hear...).
Runners Up:
Man is this top-tenning a hard thing to do. There were so many films this year which I liked or appreciated. I dug "Piranha 3D" despite the crappy 3D, I even controversially dug "Cargo" and I truly believe "Life and Death of a Porno Gang" was far more than the sum of its title.
But even in the runners-up there are a few I'd like to single out, and here they are:
Toy Story 3
The first film I saw together with my son and I really liked it. The Woody-and-Buzz chemistry looked as good as ever and the 3D did not overshadow the film (although it did fiercely enhance the short in front of it!).
And the end choked me up something fierce too...
Kudos to Pixar for making Andy age in real-time between the three films, and even more kudos for making this a true film rather than just an easy cash-grab. I don't see Pixar moving to a number four from this spot, so it was a fitting ending.
Autumn Adagio
A Catholic nun in menopause discovers physical attraction. It sounds like the set-up for a dirty joke but it most definitely is not.
No exploitation, and no open criticism of the church either, "Autumn Adagio" might not be what many expected. In fact the first full-length feature by Inoue Tsuki might story-wise not seem much more than a television movie, but the film contains intelligence, honesty, maturity and a lot of heart. Strongly anchored by an excellent performance by lead actress Shibakusa Rei, "Autumn Adagio" comes highly recommended.
Amer
"Imagine that for the next ninety minutes you're in the skull of a teenage girl and experience the world through her senses!". This was said by directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani during the introduction of their film in Amsterdam. And true words they are, for "Amer" shows just that. Instead of a story you get three giallo-like segments which are totally dominated by sights and sounds rather than plot and dialogue. Not to everyones taste, but mightily impressive.
Finally, my Top 10 of 2010 in no particular order:
1: Inception
Christopher Nolan's high-concept action thriller had big seams which you could pick at, if you'd want. Why does the dream city of two architects look so fucking dreary, for starters?
But a more interesting question would be: how much exposition can a film contain without toppling over into failure, boredom and ridicule? I'm not sure what Nolan's magic is exactly but his movie was riveting, and subsequent viewings have only deepened my respect for what he made. Its quadruple finale is a balancing act few directors will ever be capable of, making this a clockwork puzzle that just keeps on giving.
2: Red, White and Blue
This is a tight little thriller about retribution which looks great, is interestingly scripted and structured, and most of all features stellar acting. I even jokingly called it "Sympathy for Everyone's Vengeance".
The real revelations here are Amanda Fuller as a major talent to keep in sight, and Noah Taylor who through his role as Nate somersaults straight into my shortlist of favorite actors.
Very highly recommended but be warned for strong content: director Simon Rumley pulled no punches. Several scenes had people wincing and there is one home intrusion which caused walkouts despite not being gory.
3: Symbol
This film has a serious thing or two to say about what makes us tick and how we handle learning and experience, but it's all covered with a hilarious slapstick surface which is worth the price of admission by itself.
Hitoshi Matsumoto has created one my favorite films of the year, and the best I saw at the 2010 edition of the IFFR. The combination of highbrow concept and lowbrow humor is unique and odd, and many directors would stumble with it, but Matsumoto has created solid gold here. That the film is technically perfect and looks gorgeous helps too.
4: Summer Wars
Mamoru Hosoda's newest is a very strong, exciting anime and rightful winner of many prizes including the audience award for best animated feature in Fantasia. Here he juxtaposes a large family and the Internet, showing both to be tools for causing and solving many crises.
The whole film combines into a collection of things I liked (it's an ode to Information Management for starters), only executed better than I hoped. When I wasn't nodding in agreement to the screen I was watching it intently with sweaty palms.
5: Tears For Sale
When a small village is left completely without men after one civil war too many, two women embark on a quest to find some new ones.
A sensual fairytale taking place in early 20th-century Serbia, this film stands out with its beautiful art direction and jet-black comedy. Comparisons with Terry Gilliam and Jean-Pierre Jeunet are totally justified, and the film also contains the most beautiful melancholy ghost scene ever: a temporary mass-reunion between the living women and the dead men which is one of the most powerfully emotional scenes I've ever seen in a film.
6: City of Life and Death
Lu Chuan's film concerns itself primarily with showing the 1937 - 1938 Nanjing massacre from the point of view of the civilians and soldiers, both Chinese and Japanese. Surprisingly managing to stay on the right side of exploitation, propaganda and good taste, it offers a bleak look at human behavior and is at the same time a testament to survival.
Although it is not overtly gory (reading up on the massacre shows that the violence was even toned down a little), the film is powerfully shocking at times and definitely not for the squeamish. Those squeamish are missing something though...
7: Splice
Vincenzo Natali's science-fiction horror film can be an uncomfortable watch, and not only because of some nice Cronenbergian scenes of corporeal carnage. You also get a depiction of a couple in a position of extreme work-related stress, who are disintegrating under the added workload of a VERY demanding newborn.
Shortcuts are made, nerves are frayed and self-imposed rules are broken. Natali hits the spot really well, and this adds a bit of spice to the standard Frankenstein tale. Anyone who has ever lost his temper with a child and felt sorry afterwards should be able to relate, never mind if the child was monstrous or not. This is Vincenzo Natali's best film yet.
8: R
Maybe the most harrowing and borderline claustrophobic prison drama I have ever seen, this movie is even more disturbing when you realize this takes place not in some third-world banana-republic, but in a modern Western European country which normally has a reputation of being quite nice. The prisoners have some freedom and a cell of their own each, the guards are not overtly corrupt or sadistic, yet the place still has deteriorated into a little hell on Earth.
Even though its gloomy setting and crushingly bleak authenticity makes "R" a film that is at times hard to watch, it still is one of the best films I've seen this year.
9: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Here in The Netherlands we got this film with such a delay that the English BluRay arrived three weeks after I saw it in the cinema. Well, it was worth the wait. Having grown up in the seventies and eighties I've experienced the rise of videogaming first-hand as a teenager, and therefore I felt like I was exactly the target audience for this weird, crazy but wonderfully overblown film. I loved every minute of it, the jokes all clicked and the performances felt as they should.
I also loved Edgar Wright's previous two films so you can write this one up as an epic hattrick.
10: Technotise: Edit & I
The Serbian film industry kicks serious ass nowadays, but I'll be damned if this didn't hit me out of left field: an animated science fiction film strongly influenced by "Ghost in the Shell" and "Akira"!
While this movie may not feature the most original storyline or the most stunning artwork, its combination of cyberpunk anime and European comic styles is pretty unique and always pleasant to watch. In short: the film is a lot of FUN!!!
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