4 MONTHS 3 WEEKS 2 DAYS       Dir. Christian Mungiu

Following one day's horrific events in the lives of two young Romanian women as they set about securing an illegal abortion, director Mungiu's appallingly mesmerizing film is really about the limits and deprivations of living under Communist law (it unspools in the waning days of the Ceausescu regime ). Obedient to the seedy demands of the domineering abortionist (whose requests are profanely exploitive and degrading), the girls do what they can to retain their humanity in the midst of an experience that conspires to wring them of all grace and dignity. Mungiu's precise, live-wire observation lends the film the dimension of a thriller, and he convincingly lays bare the bleak details of exhausted lives so that the audience can understand the ways in which all the characters have become compromised by choices good and bad (the film plays out as a continuous sequence of visual entrapment). A superb Annamaria Marinca anchors the film morally with an implacable and inviolate loyalty and devotion as the beleaguered woman's friend who, with great resourcefulness and rigor, guides the less capable woman through the crisis. She's the concept of service incarnated, and it's her selfless actions that gives the film, despite its subject matter, an oddly uplifting sensation. A final look with which she locks the audience is intriguing in its ambiguity-is it admonition, sympathy, pity, challenge? The answer is left teasingly dangled.

 

CLIMATES    Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylon

A Turkish man unable or unwilling to commit himself to the woman he loves is the subject of this bruising and unsparing effort from eminent director Ceylon (it's given an extra kick of resonance by the casting of Ceylon himself as the main character and his real-life wife as his object of desire).  The couple's troubled relationship, its emotional conflict, is established in an impressively staged opening sequence (near wordless) set in the environs of a towering archaeological ruin, where a subtle dance of presence and concealment signals the ill health of their relationship. This is a couple who increasingly challenge one another in dysfunctional ways. Ceylon is unflinchingly candid in regards to the man's unparalleled reserves of self-absorption and self-regard (and, in a mid-section sex scene, his capacity for misdirected rage and despair, the rough surface of which betrays lack of self-respect). His eventual pursuit of his estranged girlfriend plays uncomfortably like a form of stalking, which reveals something sad about the abilities of the man to properly and maturely relate to a woman. Ceylon is truly one of the last authentic art-house auteurs (along with Bela Tarr and Emir Kusturica and Theo Angelopoulos), blessed with the ability to invest stunning tableaux with emotional and spiritual weight, to use landscape to comment psychologically on his characters' states of mind. He's also masterful at using sound to indicate swathes of meaning. Just indulge the unbearable poignancy of the final image, a seemingly serene woman's face holding great emotion in check as snow gently sweeps around her, the sound of a retreating airplane suggesting the finality of possibility. It's great cinematic language.

 

DARATT     Dir.  Mahamat Saleh Haroun

As civil war rages in Chad, a young man is tasked with a mission: his grandfather demands he seek out the man who killed his father and exact revenge by taking the man's life. With a remarkably assured, patient economy of means (precise use of off-screen space and sound and piquancy of image), director      

Haroun is able to suggest the larger social conflict his low-budget prevents him from fully realizing. Rather than becoming yet another helpless victim to a long-standing and perpetual patriarchal cycle of violence (once his interaction with the man and his family demands a more complex look at his intended prey), the young man devises a way to both satisfy his grandfather and to make a personal stand to break the convulsive, spiralling crisis of retribution. Far from the noise and compression of the city, in the vast landscape of the surrounding desert, a possibility other than violence or loss is achieved. Some may call this the most na•ve form of humanism, but I choose to regard it as a thoughtfully revolutionary form of philosophy, convincingly and tenderly rendered.

 

IMPORT EXPORT         Dir. Ulrich Seidl

A major step forward, at least sympathetically, for Austrian director Seidl, whose previous film "Dog Days" unsparingly glared at the worst excesses and grotesqueries of its characters, retributively staring at every exposed and sweaty pore in the unremitting heat of a savage summer. Here, Seidl narrows the focus onto two individuals, both of whom he regards with a fair degree of compassion at their plight as aspirational immigrants. Economic hardship and limited opportunities have displaced each character, and, as Seidl follows their sometimes treacherous, sometimes absurd paths, always with a mordant sense of humor, he attributes great resolve and strength to both the man and woman, suggesting strongly that neither will ultimately be chewed up and disposed by the realities of the new market system now at play in Europe (due to the opening of borders in the EU). As we accompany these two characters on their journey through struggle, Seidl subtly unveils the current map of socio-political Europe, where individuals chafe against exploitation and abuse, where human beings can still be the casualty in wider social machines. The film concludes on a remorsefully haunting note, one word uttered in repeat by a patient in a dark hospital room, a statement that Death is the greatest leveller of all, quite beyond good or bad, rich or poor, moral or immoral. With this effort, Seidl does Michael Haneke one better, by actually crafting characters who are not merely to be reviled as absolute sociopaths or bourgeois dilettantes.

 

LONGING      Dir. Valeska Grisebach

A happily married man on a weekend retreat with his fellow volunteer firemen inexplicably sleeps with a random woman, setting off a chain of devastating personal crises and damnation in this quietly rigorous examination of the ineffable nature of human action by talented director Grisebach, who stares alertly at this great mystery and offers no answers. Nothing in the interaction between husband and wife prior to the troubling event suggests hidden faultlines in the marriage, no buried resentments or unresolved conflict. The most radical and terrifying idea posited is that no categorizible reason exists: lapses like this just happen, unfolding at some unquantifiable sub-atomic level beyond any means to understand. The action itself, of course, does not exist in some philosophical void, and its consequences are far-reaching and soul-shaking: both cuckolded wife and eventual mistress demand the man be responsible to the situation and the feelings of both. The man must also be responsible for his own moral failure. Grisebach quietly charts the disintegration brought on by ever-tightening despair and fury, queasily staging even the most self-destructive actions with an unemphatic softness that suggests their absolute inevitability. An abrupt shift in perspective at the end to a group of adolescents breathlessly speculating as to the thoughts spinning through the mind of the occupant of a speeding car (they unanimously reason it's romantic turmoil that has led the car driver to such action) establishes a sudden mythic realm that lends the preceding story the flavour of a skewed fairy tale-or it intriguingly states that even as supposedly more informed adults, we aren't far removed from the heightened, melodramatic, wildly wanton thoughts that afflict the adolescent mind. As a sequence, this closing frame echoes disquietingly with the car crash that opens the film. Grisebach grieves at the unfathomable gulf of knowable human behavior.

 

MICHAEL CLAYTON     Dir. Tony Gilroy

Director/screenwriter Gilroy's film boasts the sleekest, most efficient screenplay of any film in 2007-it's a marvel of balance and tone and concision. George Clooney investigates the more world-weary aspects of his glib screen persona, the cynicism that underlies his usual badinage fully exposed, as an increasingly conscience-stricken fixer for a big-city law firm who starts to bristle at the rot and despair he is so often called upon to cunningly clean up. Tom Wilkinson fascinatingly haunts the fringes of the film proselytizing as a woeful Lear-like character, a colleague of Clooney's gone off the deep end. Tilda Swinton rounds out the trio of magnificently delivered central performances as Clooney's nemesis, a tensely insecure corporate lawyer awakening to the depths of her own bottomless malfeasance. There's a fierce concentration and commitment to the filmmaking, as layer after layer is slowly and precisely revealed, a full picture emerging from the intriguing parcels of information given as the film progresses. A final confrontation between Clooney and Swinton crackles with suspense, and an earlier scene in which Clooney exhorts his young son to continue to nurture what he sees as the virtue in him, to respect it, is heartbreaking-it's a film so concerned with detail that even minor characters are extended enough nuance to register in memory. The film harkens back to the studio days of the seventies, and hopefully is a prototype for a new movement in cinema to come: established stars and directors who personally fund more intimate films in which they invest their passion and grit. If the result is an unfussy, attentive adult piece like this, I'm ready for more.

 

ONCE      Dir. John Carney

Tartly realistic and wildly romantic at the same time, this plainly told tale haunts and lifts the spirit in equal measure. The almost-love story between an Irish street musician and a betrothed Eastern European woman who briefly find communion in a shared love of song (eventually recording a demo tape with a group of fellow buskers), the film reflects and freshens the tropes of the classic Hollywood musical, using the structure to develop the emotional lives of the lead characters. You need look no further than the early scene wherein an improvised duet on a showroom piano illustrates a growing attraction between stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (both novice actors who manage to create an endearingly realistic dynamic; the two consequently fell in love during the making of the film) to get an idea how the film is inventively tweaking the format. The filmmaking itself may be fairly homely and unadorned, but its low-budget works to its advantage by presenting the grit and grinding routine, the near-subsistence level of these hard-luck dreamers; next to this very convincing stagnancy, the thrill of stumbling across a stranger who somehow ignites one's inspiration and passion has the power to transform a world, however ephemeral the moment may be. Although it allows its characters to achieve what may be an impossible goal (but not without great tenacity and hard work), the film never betrays the larger and cumbersome social reality of the man's and woman's lives, which gives a tremendously bittersweet resonance to their final scenes together. A final image of Irglova at a piano in her apartment, awaiting the arrival of her fianc?e, wistfully staring out a window imagining a different life far off with Hansard, is truly heartrending. It's a love story presented without guile-you don't have to feel guilty for succumbing to its vast charms.

 

PLOY    Dir. Pan-Ek Ratanaruang

This new phantasmagorical effort from the formally clever Thai veteran tracks one long drift of night in a jet-lagged couple's life, and the psychic crisis engendered by the husband's ill-formed decision to invite a nubile young woman back to the hotel room he shares with his wife, ostensibly to give the girl a place to rest while she waits for the arrival of her parents the following morning. From this point (and it isn't at all clear if this titular character is even real), the film abandons temporal logic and any clear sense of linearity, and instead surrenders to the illogical dictates of paranoia. It's as if the couple has fallen through the hole of their worst anxieties and fears in relation to the other. The director majestically captures the languorous creep and sway of a somnambulant state, the way in which significant events seem to be taking place just outside of conscious grasp, exhaustion compromising sensible thought. The couple's emotional distance and reserve speaks of profoundly unresolved issues inherent in their relationship; as their neurotic fantasies grow in violence and catastrophe, a sense of impasse settles in (it's clear the couple are no longer comfortable with each other). In a final shot, rapprochement is uneasily, uncertainly tendered. It's quite an achievement of sustained psychological mood that somehow comments on the fundamental principles of cinema itself as a dream state of sorts.

 

SILENT LIGHT     Dir. Carlos Reygades

Bad-boy festival darling Reygades's latest work, in which the choice to commit an adulterous affair brings not only personal conflict but cosmological ramifications, nearly defeats conventional constraints of criticism instead operating as an intriguing example of some arcane form of ethnography (in a Bressonian touch, he relies upon mostly "found" performances from "non" actors, a trait shared by a good deal of the entries on this top ten list). In an obscure German Mennonite community in northern Mexico, a simple farmer internally reels over the fact of his infidelity, the consequences of which begin to bleed out to not only his immediate family but a wider celestial world. The script's spiritual concerns slowly disrupt the temporal fabric of the film itself, especially following the wife's lyrical reaction to her husband's confession (in a harrowing sequence at the side of a threateningly busy highway)-from this scene through to an astonishingly rendered funereal process (fascinating in its cultural specificity), the unlikeliest people become bearers of possible miraculous abilities, and forces in the world conspire to allow second chances. Signs and wonders are folded into the quotidian flow of life, coexisting quite comfortably. Being a member of a society in which the disposable has become commonplace, it's refreshing to confront a worldview in which breaking a fundamental human law still carries great philosophical and spiritual weight, that being unfaithful occasions tremendous distress. Two stunning extended shots bookend the film, one of the dawn slowly rising, the other the world again retreating into the contemplation of dusk-they perfectly establish (and reiterate) the pace and rhythm of the story the audience watches unfold, and the characters' relation to the cycles of nature and the earth. It's an awe-striking transmission from a world I didn't even know existed.

 

WAITRESS      Dir. Adrienne Shelley

Certainly the most devastating celebrity death of 2007 for me belongs to Hal Hartley stalwart Adrienne Shelley who was found strangled to death in her New York production offices - but it's not misdirected sympathy that leads me to award this fine film a place on my list. Shelley leaves as her legacy this tender-hearted, gracious work concerning a small-town diner server who endeavors mightily to break free of an abusive boyfriend and find her own way in the world - her passion and comfort is found in baking pies. She ascribes to them inspired names based on the particular emotion afflicting her at the time of creation, based upon her most immediate experiences. From her mentor, Shelley has inherited the finest traits: a cock-eyed generosity towards the misfits in society, a propulsive verbal energy and drive, and a healthy respect for the unconventional dreams of quirky individuals. She's nowhere near as playful with form and structure, but there's nothing to forgive: her addictive, sweet whimsy extends to all the character's foibles and fumblings, and she sustains a tart humanity throughout even contrived situations. Keri Russell is charming in the lead role-she inspires great compassion as her character steadily charts her destiny, in the end beholden to no one but herself. Shelley suggests that there is romance even in the sense of self and one's own efforts. In a way it's an update on "Ruby In Paradise", another example (perhaps a bit tougher) of a woman declaring her independence not only from men but from conventional societal definitions of femininity.

 

And just because there must always be a few honourable mentions, here goes: THE BRAVE ONE, even though critically reviled, remains with me. Neil Jordan's urban nightmare certainly operates on a bit too much contrivance and calculation, but I appreciate its defiance to provide bromides and tidy endings. Jodie Foster's taut performance boldly illustrates the grinding, disintegrating psychic pull of being the victim of a seriously violent crime, how it must entangle one in a disorienting, alienated state of mind, one from which, as the final scene indicates, may be forever impossible to fully extricate the self (and which may blacken anyone with whom you come in contact). The lingering and troubling reality is that the victim is permanently shifted to a different track of existence, estranged absolutely from the untouched. It's sickening in the most instructive way; WOLFSBERGEN is a tasty and candid take on the dysfunctional family drama that seems seriously indebted to Vermeer in look and design; THE SAVAGES has the beautifully detailed dynamic between Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as siblings grappling with their elderly father's decline, and some blunt and tough dialogue that wounds and enlightens in the same breathe, always undercut with profane humor.