It’s mid-December, which could only mean one thing for opinion scribblers: it is time to take all of the culture we have consumed over the past year and rearrange it into tidy “best” lists.
Lots of critics offer undue apologies for this occupational necessity. Best of lists force arbitrary qualitative comparisons about art, they say. Quatsch! I love year end lists. I love how they force you to make value judgements about films that have nothing in common (Hugo vs. Hobo With a Shotgun). I love how arbitrary they seem in the end, and how they often say more about the critic than about the films.
Inevitable, though, winnowing a year’s worth of movies down to a little list of ten or so “bests” leaves some movies on the cutting room floor which are nonetheless enjoyable, for one reason or another. So this year, while I’ll still have my picks for best picture, best actor, and the rest next week, I decided to come up with some additional, slightly offbeat categories to give some other movies their day in the weak December sun. I’ll be rolling out ten such categories each day over the course of the next two weeks, beginning with. . . .
Best Depictions of the End of the World
The end times got a lot of screen time this year, and apocalyptic anxieties have felt appropriate for a few years now. What that is indicative of, I’ll refrain from conjecture. Nonetheless, here are my favorites.
Melancholia – It is fitting that the antagonistically nihilistic Lars van Trier takes up the end times with his latest film, and say what you want about his hackneyed directorial style, his sophomoric misanthropy, and his disingenuousness, Melancholia is an exquisite movie to watch, both its beautiful imaginary and hypnotic pacing. Despite the movie’s soft tone, this isn’t T.S. Elliot’s version of the end of the world; Trier goes in for operatic theatrics. There is something unforgettable about watching birds fall from the sky around a bliss-less Kirsten Dunst.
Take Shelter – Is the end of the world in Curtis’ mind or is he some kind of everyman prophet? It hardly matters in this engulfing psychological thriller powered by a standout performance by Michael Shannon. Read Take Shelter however you like, you can’t deny that it unearths something about the anxieties of everyday life that make the most minor of life’s responsibilities feel apocalyptic.
Contagion – Steven Soderbergh’s well-acted, entertaining medical thriller will inspire you to wash your hands more often, but it’s real thrill comes from how intimately connected it makes the nameless masses seem, the far reaches of the human population separated by only a few, bacteria-infected touches. As Keyser Söze would say, “Like that, and it’s gone.”
Film Socialisme – Jean Luc Goddard’s visual “symphony” sustains a note of profound melancholy as he sifts through images and ambiguous vignettes that touch on themes of love and art, life and death. Typical of his latter year films, Goddard’s work is difficult to unravel, but there is something of an allegory in it, a profound sensitivity towards a civilization that is reaching the end of its shelf life.
The Goat: Drive Angry – Nick Cage furthered his reputation for playing a parody of himself with two dismal movies this year, Trespass and Drive Angry. I suppose you could praise Drive Angry for all things that made me love last year’s Machete, only Drive Angry never finds the right sense of humor and just plays as a sadistic, witless mess. Cage is strung out and sweaty throughout, and when he finds himself in a Faustian pickle at film’s end, complete with shotgun shoot-outs with the devil, we feel like we’re the ones getting sucked into endless torment.
Tomorrow: Most Enjoyable, Ridiculous Bloody Romps
