MY TOP TEN FILMS FOR 2006
By Joel Johnson
In the past, I have written articles
about my list of favorite films in January of the following year. The result
has been that I’ve not been able to see many of the highly regarded films
that were released in the waning months of the year and had not yet made it
to a theater near me. Therefore, my list would include some holdovers from
the year (for this article that would mean 2005) prior to the one I was
assessing. This article is a belated list of favorite films that I saw
and/or were released in the U.S. during 2006. Since critics (who really are
cinephiles) have a notoriously hard time to limit their lists to ten, I
think it is noteworthy that there are only ten films on this list of top ten
films. However, for those who may be looking for a few other films to check
out on DVD, here are a few honorable mentions: The Last King of
Scotland, Notes on a Scandal, Copying Beethoven, Death
of a President, and The Painted Veil. Some
additional honorable mentions that I was fortunate to see in 2006 that I
hope will soon make it to a theater near you are Geoffrey Wright’s
adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth; Laurent Herbiet’s
adaptation of a Costa-Gavras story, Mon colonel; Jan Hrebejk’s
Beauty in Trouble; Shane Meadow’s reminiscence of his youthful brush
with skinhead culture in This is England; and Tata
Amaral’s Antonia, about a girl group trying to make it in the
Brazilian music scene.
1) LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA:
Twenty, thirty, or even fifty years from now, 2006 will be known as
the year that Clint Eastwood’s Japanese Iwo Jima films (the flip side of his
Flags of our Fathers, for those who recall vinyl records) were made.
This is a powerful film that addresses the most extreme form of human
behavior—war. For Americans, it makes us identify with Japanese soldiers—the
same ones who were dehumanized and demonized during World War II and in
countless films about the war since. Beyond that simple reversal of
perspective, Eastwood’s film shows us the good and the bad, the cruelty and
the compassion that comes with war. As much as we desire it and train our
troops to refrain from reprehensible atrocities, it is inevitable and
belongs to all of us. The film shows us how for the amorphous cause of
“national interest,” individuals who would otherwise be friends engage in
deadly combat and wanton killing. While the subject matter has an immediate
corollary in the wars currently being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, this
is a film that will be timely for as long as men and women are called to
take up arms against other men and women. The film is, therefore, timeless.
2) PAN’S LABYRINTH: Director and
screenwriter Guillermo del Toro has created an incredible work of art. It is
beautiful, horrific, and thought provoking in mixing the grim postlude of
the Spanish Civil War and a dark fable of a lost princess. Pan’s
Labyrinth features some of the best known actors of Iberian cinema in
Sergi López, Ariadna Gil, and Maribel Verdú, but the film really rests on
the small shoulders of young Ivana Baquero, who plays the central character
Ofelia. There is excellent supporting work by the entire cast, but Doug
Jones is especially memorable for his prosthetic-encased dual roles as is
López as one of Franco’s most ruthless henchman who happens to be Ofelia’s
malevolent stepfather. This film is most remarkable for the way del Toro
integrates both realism and fantasy in his story. These frequently mix like
oil and water, but here he blends them together, creating a powerfully
compelling spectacle of war’s brutality and the fable’s grotesquerie. The
film is circular, beginning exactly where it ends but offering its audience
the opportunity to shape its meaning.
3) VENUS: Roger Michell’s latest
film tells the story of an aging actor (Peter O’Toole), his undimmed
appreciation of female beauty, and the young woman (Jodie Whittaker) he both
adores and mentors. This is a bittersweet film that shows love, desire, the
approaching end-of-life, and life’s limitless possibilities. The film boasts
a terrific performance by Peter O’Toole. Newcomer Jodie Whittaker delivers a
fine performance, showing growth from a sour, prickly teen to a responsible
and loving adult. These two central performances receive outstanding
supporting work from Leslie Phillips as O’Toole’s prissy compatriot and
Vanessa Redgrave as O’Toole’s estranged wife. Using a wise script written by
Hanif and ably directed by Michell, the result was a terrific film
experience—at least for those who have or those who respect those that have
a fair amount of life experience.
4) LITTLE CHILDREN: Actor-turned-director Todd Field joins
forces with novelist-turned-screenwriter Tom Perrotta (who previously wrote
the novel on which the 1999 film Election was based) to produce a
follow-up to Field’s Oscar-nominated first film (In the Bedroom).
There is clearly no evidence of sophomore jinx. In this film showing the
ugliness roiling beneath the pristine perfection of a New England town,
Field again shows that he clearly has a gift for dealing with the shadings
in our humanity. This film has deeply flawed characters (adulterers,
vigilantes, and a child molester), but they never seem less than fully
human. He knows how to attract fine actors (Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly,
Patrick Wilson, and Jackie Earle Haley), give them strong material, and let
them use their talents to the fullest. This film meanders a bit, but that
just helps it feel more like real life. This is an outstanding film that
stays with the filmgoer long after the credits roll.
5) DAYS OF GLORY: The Algerian
film Indigènes, released in the United States under the title Days
of Glory, was a finalist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It
presents World War II from a perspective that most American viewers have
probably never considered—Algerian recruits in Free French forces. The film
shows how their sacrifices in military service were seen as a means to
earning the rights and privileges of full citizenship. This story of
indigenous Algerian troops volunteering to fight for France against the
Nazis should resonate with Americans familiar with the experiences of black
American World War II veterans. When their sacrifices on the battlefield
didn’t translate into full citizenship, the result was the vigorous civil
rights struggle that developed in the United States during the 1950s and
1960s. For France, the seeds were sown for the costly Algerian war for
independence and unrest amongst Algerian immigrants to France even today.
Rachid Bouchareb and his coscreenwriter Olivier Lorelle meticulously tell
this story of bitter discrimination and sacrifice unrewarded but do not
stint on the heroic combat sequences. This is technically superb filmmaking
and terrific ensemble acting that makes every frame seem vivid and
unquestionably real.
6) BLACK BOOK: Paul Verhoeven
returned to Holland to film a complicated story about the Nazi occupation
and Dutch resistance. The main character is young Rachel Stein (Carice van
Houten), who simply wants to survive the Holocaust. When her family’s plan
to escape goes tragically awry, she stops laying low. She sings at Nazi
parties, fraternizes with them, works in their headquarters, and then passes
information to the resistance. However, the classic good guys versus bad
guys conflict soon becomes extraordinarily complex. Some of the good guys
really aren’t good, and some of the bad guys aren’t that bad. The film’s
plot twists and shifting loyalties illustrate the extraordinary moral
challenges endemic to war. It brings out the best and the worst in human
nature. There are a lot of different things in this one woman’s story, but
that’s because the script has used the experiences of three different women.
The film holds a mirror up for the Dutch to see how war’s strain exposed
their humanity and its flaws, but not even the Canadian forces that
liberated Holland emerge with their heroism unsullied. This has stellar
performances throughout, but Ms. van Houten gives a terrific Oscar-worthy
lead performance that truly carries the film.
7) FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS: This is
the American half of Eastwood’s films about the battle for Iwo Jima. The
film eloquently shows the power of images and how they can be used to
manipulate people. The particular image in question is the iconic picture
taken by war photographer Joe Rosenthal of the flag raising on Iwo Jima’s
Mount Suribachi. Eastwood has created a powerful film about war, the horror
of its violence, our human need for images and stories that give it meaning,
and the way that they can be used. It is based on a true story originally
chronicled by James Bradley, the son of one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers.
Eastwood’s film has a complicated structure. The film’s focus moves between
James Bradley’s posthumous discovery of his father’s role in the flag
raising and then gathering testimonies for his book, the events leading up
to and during the battle for Iwo Jima, and then what happened back in the
States on the war-bond promotional campaign highlighting the flag-raising
“heroes of Iwo Jima.” Eastwood has made an outstanding film that has an epic
sweep and a complicated, very thought-provoking perspective on war and the
nature of heroism.
8) THE QUEEN: Stephen Frears’s
film about the Royal Family’s response to the sudden death of Princess Diana
has provided a tremendous stage for one of the best actresses working
today—Helen Mirren. She won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film
Festival where The Queen premiered and basically led wire-to-wire as
the favorite to cop the actress prize on Oscar night. Mirren is terrific in
playing a character that nearly every audience member has seen and heard. On
top of the challenge of sounding and appearing like Queen Elizabeth II,
Mirren has given a credible humanity to an individual whose life has been
devoted to playing the head-of-state and not a real person. The film
revisits the biggest celebrity event since the much-ballyhooed wedding
between the same Diana and Prince Charles. Again, these events of not quite
ten years ago are events with which the audience has some familiarity. The
filmmakers—particularly the editor Lucia Zucchetti—have cleverly spliced
archival footage with the film’s own footage. Where necessary, the film’s
own new footage has been made to look like the archived television
broadcasts. The efforts of Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan have been
aided by an outstanding ensemble of actors behind Helen Mirren. This is, of
course, a film that has clearly hit its moment. The memories of Princess
Diana and all the events surrounding her death are still reasonably vivid,
yet the pain of the trauma has faded. This is the perfect time for a film
that earlier may have aroused resentment for making people suffer the trauma
all over again, and yet, in just a few years, it may seem an arcane event
worthy of merely a footnote in history.
9) THE HOUSE OF SAND: The
cinematography of Ricardo Della Rosa immediately announces that the The
House of Sand is a special movie with its sensational opening aerial
shots of northern Brazil’s coastal desert. The film is a three-generation
story by Elena Soarez, Luiz Carlos Barreto, and director Andrucha Waddington
written for real-life mother and daughter Fernanda Montenegro and
Fernanda Torres. They play mother, daughter, and granddaughter in three time
frames from 1910 to 1969 and deliver terrific performances. They are well
supported by the work by the rest of the cast. Mother, daughter, and the
fetal granddaughter are dragged to this forbidding land by the daughter’s
husband, who has sunk all his wealth into a large tract of desert land. His
abrupt death leaves the women bereft and abandoned in a sea of sand. How
they cope and become part of this land they had never desired to visit much
less make their home is the story of the film. The storyline for this film
and its deliberate pace does raise concerns that the audience could feel
that they had been stuck in the desert for fifty-nine years. However,
Waddington and company give the film a steady pace that never lets the
audience feel the film is spinning its wheels in the sand. This was the one
film from the Maine International Film Festival that swept me away with both
a moving story and the filmmaker’s craft.
10) BABEL:
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his writing partner Guillermo
Arriaga have created yet another dark themed triptych film to follow their
films Amores perros and 21 Grams. Their interconnected stories
don’t fully resolve or, at least, don’t resolve in comforting ways. Their
characters are flawed humans under duress making decisions with tragic
consequences. We are exposed to their humanity with their own sets of needs
dealing with the impingement of powerful forces. We watch their
communication failures—the film’s overarching theme—and see them get into
trouble. The actions follow the subjective logic for each character. The
success of this kind of film depends on making the audience care about the
characters. I, for one, have found myself very affected by Iñárritu and
Arriaga’s characters. I care about them; I worry about how they cope with
the situations they are in; and I want to know what happens to them after
the credits run. The characters are related, despite their individual
stories unfolding in Morocco, Japan, and on both sides of the US-Mexico
border. Iñárritu assembled an outstanding cast that includes major
international stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, and Koji
Yakusho. The film has likely helped Supporting Actress Oscar nominees
Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuch become international stars. However, a
number of fine performances are turned in by novice actors such as the two
boys playing the sons of a Moroccan goat herder. Their rash actions
precipitate the tragedy that reverberates through all the locales. The film
makes us look differently at concerns that have intruded into our daily
consciousness: Islamic terrorists and illegal immigrants. However, we are
less aware of deafness—the biggest impediment to humanity’s primary means of
communication—speech. Deafness plays a significant role in the Japanese
segment. This film makes its audience think about things we may not want to
think about and to feel for people we may tend to dismiss. This is a very
powerful and unsettling film.
