Power and passion: 10 most compelling films of 2017
With apologies to Pecking Order and Waru, fine homegrown cinema for which no room can be found, here’s a top 10 list of films seen theatrically in 2017.
Sorry too for having missed contenders like Call Me By Your Name, Good Time and Lady Macbeth.
10. Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia, 2017)
A bleak, beautifully crafted expose of contemporary Russia, where domestic affairs are as cold and self-serving as anything conjured by Putin. A 12 year old boy’s decision to run away from bickering parents leads to a full scale search and unforeseen horrors.
The real tragedy is a post-soviet society wedded like the west to materialism and shallow sexual gratification. Self esteem is all about the latest selfie and morality something to be faked for the boss.
9. The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi, Iran, 2016)
A middle class Iranian couple, rehearsing Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesmen, suffer an indecent assault. The victim refuses to report the incident, her husband seeks redress. In Hollywood this would be a revenge fantasy. Farhadi’s more interested in questioning the nature of justice, of examining the connection between masculinity and misogyny, of suggesting parallels between the two men, yet his fundamental humanism ensures there are neither easy answers nor cardboard villains.
8. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, UK/ Ireland, 2017)
With a medical setting, highly formal style and the casting of Nicole Kidman, Lanthimos at first seems to be channelling Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Actually, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is closer to The Shining, a satire on the bourgeois family in which an alcoholic surgeon buys off guilt with pagan sacrifice. Hilariously funny and deeply unsettling.
7. One Thousand Ropes (Tusi Tamasese, New Zealand, 2016)
Remarkable magic realist cinema, set in Wellington amongst the Samoan community, a film about violence that is not itself violent. Maea, a middle aged former boxer, baker and male midwife, is forced to face a past of domestic abuse, confronted by his battered daughter and a demon which has taken up residence in the lounge. Deliberately ambiguous, One Thousand Ropes makes its audience work hard. Worth the effort.
6. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, USA, 2016)
A drama of guilt and grief, finely paced and impeccably acted, a study of working class masculinity and emotional repression. Characters are flawed to the point where they almost lack sympathy but there’s also humour and a refreshing lack of cliche. Only flaw: the misplaced use of classical music.
5. A Ghost Story (David Lowery, USA, 2017)
A ghost haunts the house where he once lived. For centuries, either side of his mortal residency. The year’s slowest film is amongst its most original, more a meditation on love, loss and time itself than a conventional horror.
4. I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, USA, 2017)
An unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin serves as springboard into the history of the United States through the prism of race. Baldwin was so much more than just a writer or activist: he was philosopher capable of deconstructing the entire culture. Peck goes beyond the text, incorporating footage of Baldwin in his confrontational prime. Judiciously chosen extracts from film and television perfectly illustrate the man’s ideas, indicting period personalities and institutional racism.
3. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, USA, 2017)
David Lynch’s 18 hour long, 26 years-in-the-contemplation follow up to his ground breaking 1990s television show should properly be thought a film, having the production values, tone and serious intent of any of his features. Episode 8 is the highlight: a return to the almost abstract imagery and surrealism of Eraserhead, providing a point-of-origin story for the entire Lynch universe.
2. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, UK, 2017)
War not as history but as visceral experience. Nolan’s epic has a highly formal, three strand structure, balancing individual stories on land, sea and in the air against the grand spectacle. Convention and context are avoided: the word ‘‘German’’ is never spoken and the star power of Tom Hardy and Kenneth Branagh subordinated to the whole.
1. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, USA, 2017)
How often is the Academy’s Best Picture selection actually the best film of the year? An incredibly lyrical drama, a three-stages-ofman coming of age tale that touches on race and sexuality, reflecting the specifics of time and place whilst resonating on a universal level.
In other words, you do not have to be gay, African-american or a drug addict to identify with the sense of loneliness or confused identity.