Best Memories of 2007
In reminiscence of 2007, July is a month worth remembering, when the journey towards finishing viewing IMDb top 500 list ended, and I became one of several hundred few worldwide who had done that, or put it another way, one of the most masochistic viewers around the world.
Besides, I also finished viewing other movie lists, or the vast majority on the lists, say, TiME magazine 100, AFI top 100, Oscar best pictures over the years, and past Best Foreign picture winners, etc......
As far as Top 10 list of 2007 is concerned, only those films first released in the year of 2007 will be considered.
Regretfully, by the time this article is written, I have not yet watched the following films, which seem to be the strong candidates to make the top 10 list of 2007.
Across the Universe (2007), Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Juno (2007), There Will Be Blood (2007), Tropa de Elite (2007), Cassandra's Dream (2007), Into the Wild (2007), Paranoid Park (2007), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
Chances are the top 10 list may be a trifle different after I have watched all of them.
Anyway, if there is any variation of the list, you can check it out here.
10. No Country for Old Men (2007, Coen Brothers)
This picture is a nihilistic chase story about an ex-welder stumbling upon a drug deal gone sour and a suitcase full of cash, which makes him being tailed by an unrelenting killer.
While to those familiar with Coen Brothers' body of work, it's practically nothing new, just a mixture of Coen Brothers' former works: the crazed hunting of Blood Simple. (1984), the brutal atrocity of Miller's Crossing (1990), the bloodshed and gore of Fargo (1996), the story never runs short of unanticipated twists and switchbacks, tense and grasping on one hand, breathtaking and stirring on the other. The audience are thrown into a territory swamped with violence, carnage, blurred values and everything is bleakly subject to the whims of fate.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins, Coen Brother's long-term partner since Barton Fink (1991), does a stupendous job providing gorgeously crafted photography and an array of empathy-inducing images, which captures the lives and growing tensions between the hunting and the killings.
The acting in this film is remarkable throughout, especially the killer, played by Javier Bardem, who is a versatile actor, from a troubled policeman in Live Flesh (1997), a complext poet in Before Night Falls (2000), a tenacious paralysed victim in The Sea Inside (2004), to a barbarous killer in this film. He is utterly believable in every role.
9. Control (2007, Anton Corbijn)
A dramatized account of the troubled singer of Joy Division, Ian Curtis, from his student era to the formation of post-punk outfit Joy Division, until his final years when his epilepsy and personal problems get the best of him.
Shot in bright monochrome, infused with nihilism and darkness, and also the sweetness and charisma, plus newcomer Sam Riley's eerie performance, which embodies Ian Curtis perfectly, a lively Ian Curtis appears in front of the audience, just as Jamie Foxx inhabits Ray Charles in Ray (2004), director Anton Corbijn's debut feature captures the general atmosphere of that era in persuasive detail, pays proper homage to the enigmatic lead singer and enduring music of Joy Division.
This film is definitely far better than another bio-pic, I'm Not There. (2007, Todd Haynes), which looks back at the different aspect of Bob Dylan's life and work, personified by six characters. On the bright side, it embodies a multi-faceted Bob Dylan, on the dark side, only two out of six characters worth mentioning, Christian Bale's fantastic black-and-white Dylanesque photographs and Cate Blanchett steals the show by adopting the transvestite role as Dylan, on the darker side, Heath Ledger as Bob Dylan is awful, almost as cheesy is Julianne Moore as Joan Baez. The movie is too fragmented and looks like a parody rather than a tribute to a legend like Bob Dylan.
8. Atonement (2007, Joe Wright)
After the successful interpretation of Pride and Prejudice (2005), Joe Wright returns with another adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement, and it tops all films with seven nominations at the announcement for the 65th annual Golden Globes, including Best Picture and Best Director. The feature seems worthy of the nominations since it successfully interpretes the novel.
Atonement (2007) tells of the romance between Cambridge-educated Cecilia and a housekeeper's son, Robbie Turner, unfortunately jeopardised by Cecilia's younger sister, Briony, who falsely accuses Robbie and seperates the lovers out of jealousy and misunderstanding. The separated lovers die in woeful conditions respectively later. The now notable Briony as a writer, in order to make amends for her past misbehavior, depicts the love story between the two in an imarginary way by making it a paradisaic reunion at the Dover seaside so that they can have some finest euphoric moments that was actually forbidden to them, and through this literary writing, her guilty conscience can be eased.
The juxtaposition of a fine score by Dario Marianelli to create an alluring effect with pivotal moments - especially the one where the young Briony transforms into an old guilt-ridden lady, the clacking sound of the typewriter is a rhetorical exposition of her writing career and the march of time from young to old.
Some scenes in the movie are portrayed twice, once from Briony's perspective and once from an impersonal point of view, this is a sensible move that the audience can realise why Briony mistakenly perceives what happened around her.
Apart from the spectacular location, prominent sets and lighting, the casting is superb, the transition of the character Briony from 18-year-old (Romola Garai) to the old and dying (Vanessa Redgrave), is natural and persuasive, owing to the resemblance between the two actresses in their appearance and temperament.
7. The Kite Runner (2007, Marc Forster)
Many people are yearning for the good old days, but nostalgia may not always be sweet, sometimes recalls bitter moments, sweet yet bitter. Such is the case in Kite Runner (2007). Beginning in 2000 in San Francisco, and instantly flashing back to 1978 in Afghanistan, the film tells a story of two 12-year-old kite runners, Amir and Hassan, who were confidants in spite of their class differences. Jealous of his father's compliment towards Hassan and out of cowardice, Amir did nothing when he watched Hassan being brutalized and even sodomized by teen bullies. Years later, when the despicalbe Amir learned Hassan's son was in danger, he flew home to help because he saw this as redemption of his past wrongdoings, a way to be good again.
This movie is a tale of guilt and redemption, about what is right and wrong.
Throughout human history, the worst of human nature manifests itself not only in wartime, but in normal times as well if you let your moral sense be caught off guard.
We will always have to contend with hatred, racism and fear to be good again. Right and wrong are not things that happen to us, they are things that we can choose.
6. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007, Cristian Mungiu)
Romania in the 1980s', the last years of Romania's Ceausescu dictatorship, Otilia, a young, female university student, sets on a journey to hire an abortionist to perform an abortion for her roommate, Gabita, in a hotel room. After an interminable argument, the wretched abortionist extracts an unexpected price out of Otilia due to her deficient abortion allotment. The film finishes when Gabita's fetus is successfully aborted and disposed of through a building's garbage pipe.
Filmed in documentary style, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is a searing allegory of the human condition in 1980s' Romania, a testament to a forgotten, recent past, a caustic narrative of despair and loss, poignantly told in subtle actions and spare words.
This film has its share of haunting moments and images, the bloody baby foetus is one of the most lurid scenes in film history. The dark, grim streets with dogs barking somewhere are a figurative expression of gloomy claustrophobia, thought strangulating of Romanian lives, whereas in the last section of the film, Otilia groping her way through the building amid the darkness suggests our heroine's move towards emancipation parallels Romania's own impending, tardy, and painful rebirth. It won the Golden Palm Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the distinction is deservedly earned.
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007, Julian Schnabel)
Based on the self-portrait of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle - an autobiography about his real life catastrophe, which leaves his whole body paralyzed except his left eye and blinking is his only means of communication with others.
It's an unusual package and an unusual feature, simply on the surface, the series of first-person camera style, the unusual visuals would make for challenging viewing. The wondrous integration of first-person and third-person cinematographic techniques conveys how the protagonist's soul flys free like a butterfly, albeit trapped in his diving bell-like paralyzed body. This visually striking, thought-provoking feature incorporates occasional agonizing moments, subdued humor and internal monologue in connection to his reactions to external occurrences.
The majority of the scenes transpire through the victim's left eye, and the film is at its most touching in those moments, the audience are brought to feel what it is like to be paralysed from the eyes down, only your left eye is left to be watching like a normal person. Similar subject matters like The Sea Inside (2004), Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) remind us how fortune we are to be able to live like a normal person, there really is always somebody worse off than ourselves, maybe being in a state of normal is already blessed. Every normal daily life should be held dear.
4. California Dreamin' (Nesfarsit) (2007, Cristian Nemescu)
This picture works well as a gripping social-document of a particularly dismal period in Romania, it cuts back and forth between Romania during the second world war and what happened at the outskirts train station in recent time, the picture presented of Romania is bitingly specific: a dysfunctional country where corruption seems to be the rule and the young have no ideal but craving for American, there's no shortage of dystopias in this chaotic country.
This motion picture is a piercing satire that American is no savior at all, from the second world war, up to Nicolae Ceauşescu's rule, anytime in Romanian history, no American ever came to Romanian rescue when needed, even now, American unit on its way to the NATO war scene in Yugoslavia brings disasters rather than peace to Romania. Americans are referred to, somewhat disparagingly throughout the film, as shabby folks.
Approached differently, this could very easily have been a self-righteous, social-realist trudge but Cristian Nemescu is too much a director for that to ever happen; his masterful use of flashbacks and handheld camera unleashes a documentary-esque realistic description of the sufferings and the recent status quo of Romanian.
His approach is accessible to anyone wishing to delve into studies of Romanian lives. He's to be applauded for constructing a very dynamic topic with fluid camera motion.
Flashbacks in the film also typify lessons from past sufferings, which must be learned if Romanian wishes to take giant step towards a hopeful future.
3. Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)
At first glance, Zodiac (2007) seems like an excellent choice for David Fincher's sixth directorial effort. David Fincher has achieved huge success in crime and thirller genre with Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999), although his other works The Game (1997) and Panic Room (2002) were received mixed reviews, only moderate success both at the box-office and with critics, I personally thought they were solid and intricate.
In Zodiac (2007), David Fincher worked with sharp digital effects to convey the the film's nightmarish scenario about the real-life infamous Zodiac, a serial killer who menaced San Francisco and got away with it during the 1960s and 1970s. Ruffianly and devastating like always, Zodiac (2007) is a splendid presentation of seat-grabbing tension and Fincher captures human dismay and fear at their most primal. Some impatient viewers might quetch this film is overlong and too subtle, but remember, this is a portrayal of a true crime, rather than an titillating action thriller. An elaborate chronicle of the procedure and a perplexing maze of facts are essential to make this a profound and engrossing film. The accuracy in every detail, from newspaper office to everything else on the set, gives the film a touch of quasi-documentary and proves Fincher is a topflight filmmaker unsparing in his demands for perfection.
2. Sicko (2007, Michael Moore)
Even after more than 15 years of documentary making, Michael Moore remains a tiptop documentary maker to distinguish himself form his peers -- partly because of his comic outrage, multi-dimensional perspective, more importantly, because of his courage, spirit and fascinating insights into not-so-funny matters.
After examining the culture of guns and violence in the United States and probing Bush's administration in the post-911 America, Michael Moore comes back with Sicko (2007), an in-depth look into the American health care system, where profit-obsessed pharmaceutical companies ostensibly collude with morally compromised bureaucracy to generate profits than provide proper medical care. Patients who are unable to pay the medical bills are unfeelingly denied treatments. Michael Moore compares U.S with those countries, like Canada, Great Britain, France, and Cuba, where universal health care is provided, shows how tragic the U.S citizens are when they have to pay the overpriced medical coverage, and how ironic when accused 911 attackers get better medical treatment than 911 rescue volunteers.
For those who are seriously ill or wounded, the illness alone leaves them in rather poor shape, not to mention a large sum of medical expenses waiting to be paid. The torment of illness and the burden of expensive prescriptions aggravate the precarious situation a patient is in. Huge medical bills are severe blows to seriously illed patients. As was common in his other works, the film is impregnated with a degree of amusement, good blend of laughter and poignancy. After the film is ended, the thought occurs to most viewers that the basic right of universal health care is needed in every country.
1. Blind Mountain (2007, Li Yang)
Inspired by a news report, Blind Mountain (2007) sets in early '90s, a university graduate finds herself held captive and becomes somebody's wife after being tricked into a remote village to sell medical supplies. As the months gone by and attempts to escape failed, the hapless heroine becomes hopeless and helpless, falls into darkness and despair.
This film depicts collective thoughtless consciousness in urban areas, where there is no norm of right and wrong, arising from distorted value, having no sense of responsibility. Likewise, a dysfunctional society is in a terrible mess when there is no traditionally accepted standards of decency or modesty. In the heroine's attempts to break free from dehumanizing conditions, the local cadre and drivers' indifferences prevent the plan from succeeding. It's an austere indictment of the role that the public's passivity and tacit acceptance plays in allowing evil to prosper. The bystanders' apahty simply increases the incidence of these horrendous crimes. The postman, the local cadre, the drivers, these intermediary categories of participants neither take delight in the wife-buying/kidnapping activities nor oppose them. They simply watch passively. The worst horrors are not perpetrated by the ablest rascal, but by the apathetic and cowardly.
Director Li Yang is China's Vittorio De Sica, both physically (his appearance) and thematically, characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and sometimes primary roles. Both Li Yang and Vittorio De Sica have acute social observation and draw superb performances from non-professional actors.
There is a darker version of this film where the heroine cannot escape in the end, reaches for a knife to fight, the film abruptly ends at that terrifying moment, leaving the audience in shock. The film received a lengthy standing ovation when premiered at Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2007.
