Best Films of 2013, Part One: Outlaws and Lost Souls

Look at me. Look at me. I’m the captain now.

Captain Phillips

directed by Paul Greengrass

starring Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi

Captain Phillips is a film about pirates, the ships they commandeer, and the forces that try to prevent that. It is also, more broadly, a film about power. It follows the titular Phillips, whose container ship is hijacked by a handful of Somali pirates, led by the quietly fierce Muse. The two captains appear to be near-opposites. Phillips’ authority is granted to him by rank, and he wields it with a paternal sternness, a fondness for procedure and protocol. Muse, however, has gained his position through the respect of his community and maintains it with the threat of violence. Though Phillips and his crew keep the pirates at bay for a while, Muse and his men are shown to ultimately be more clever, as they do eventually take Phillips hostage in spite of the best efforts of him and his crew. This causes the introduction of a third group: the US military in the form of the USS Bainbridge. At this point, the tides begin to turn.

This is a film I can enjoy on multiple levels. First, if nothing else, it’s a well-executed thriller. It’s tightly constructed and Greengrass can create tension like few other directors working today. Tom Hanks gives his best performance in a good while and Barkhad Abdi matches him in every scene. The movie is well-shot, well-edited, and well-acted, and if that was all there was to this, it would still be good cinema, but there’s a subtle commentary to the film that’s all too frequently not noticed. Greengrass has always been a political filmmaker, from Bloody Sunday to United 93, and Phillips is no different. Greengrass and writer Billy Ray grant varying levels of characterization (and thus potential for empathy) to the characters in the film in ways you wouldn’t expect from a film that seems so jingoistic from the outset.

Obviously, Phillips is the main character, the lens through which the American audience can view the scenario, so he’s given a lot of empathy potential from the beginning. And for much of the film, he’s the only character we have any attachment to – there is limited interaction with his crew, and the pirates are obviously the bad guys. But once Phillips enters the life boat with the four pirates, the entire dynamic of the film changes. We see the four pirates’ personalities shine through – the aggressive and brash Najee, the calm but gruff Bilal, the young and scared Assad, and then jaded Muse, whose plan is falling apart before his eyes while he just tries to keep it together. Through their interaction with Phillips, we not only become more familiar with them than we were with any of his crew, but we also learn of their motivations, their predicament. “There must be something other than being a fisherman or kidnapping people,” says Phillips. Says Muse, “Maybe in America.”

The introduction of the Bainbridge in the final chunk of the film establishes not only the place of the pirates, but of Phillips himself. In contrast to Phillips and the pirates, no character from the Bainbridge gets characterization beyond “military.” As an audience, we have no means of sympathizing, at least not as presented. Few of them even have names, and everything they say is pure procedure. Even the people tasked with consoling the traumatized Phillips deliver their calming words with the sincerity of a robot. It’s clear that Phillips is nothing more than an asset, the pirates simply a hazard. To the Bainbridge, these aren’t people – they’re objectives.

This power dynamic is essential to the film – the pirates, who work for their own survival, are more powerful, by necessity, than Phillips and his crew, who are simply cogs with no real personal stake in their work. Phillips, however, being a cog, is important to the United States, and therefore to the military, to the Bainbridge, which is far more powerful than the pirates could hope to be. This is not a spoiler – the outcome was inevitable, accepted and acknowledged long before the movie ends. Ultimately, the Bainbridge wins its fight far easier than the Pirates won against Phillips. The biggest fish usually wins, after all. Phillips is safe, in the end, but is this a happy ending? There’s no march to victory, no overcoming of odds. Just the obvious outcome, delivered as if by a machine. 

There are fierce powers at work in the world, boys. Good, evil, poor luck, best luck. As men, we've got to take advantage where we can.

Mud

directed by Jeff Nichols

starring Tye Sheridan, Matthew McConaughey

When it premiered two years ago, Mud was declared the “Best American Movie in Cannes” by Variety. While that may or may not be true (Moonrise Kingdom was pretty great), you could certainly make a similar argument – it was the most American movie in Cannes. The film follows Ellis, a teenaged Arkansan, who along with his excellently-named friend Neckbone encounter a man named Mud camping out on an island in the middle of the Mississippi. Mud is a fugitive, but he’s more concerned about finding his woman, Juniper, and running off with her. It later becomes clear that Mud’s relationship with Juniper is more problematic than he makes it sound – Mud is obviously more in it for his own personal fulfillment than Juniper’s – but it leaves a profound mark on young Ellis, who’s only just starting to tackle his own adolescent love interests, and he agrees to help him fix his boat and keep his location a secret.

There’s a common trend among reviews of the film that hint at similarities in the film to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Mississippi setting, the young boy-outlaw relationship, the dialect-y language, these all hint towards Huck, but Ellis and Mud don’t match up to Huck and Jim much at all – they’re both a bit like Tom Sawyer. Mud occupies a certain corner of the American Dream: out on the river, got his gun, telling tall tales, gonna go get his girl, ain’t gonna let no law tell him what to do. Ellis meets this figure, seemingly straight out of an adventure book, and it makes a great impression on him; after all, the only man in his life, his father, is on the verge of losing his home over a divorce. Mud seems to have a better handle on his life, at least as far as Ellis can see.

McConaughey’s Mud is possibly the best work of his recent renaissance period, just as arresting as his much-celebrated turn in Dallas Buyers Club. His demeanor is perfect for the character – the rebellious slouch, the effortless way he moves his body, the cigarette usually hanging limply from his lips, the rugged physique… they all add up to a man who seems a lot more impressive than he probably is – enough to capture the minds of Ellis and Neckbone, but not old Tom, who knows Mud’s game, knows he’s a liar and a stubborn fool. Ellis, the poor kid, tries to take after Mud in his romantic exploits, and adopts the mindset that simply insisting on love will make it real. It seems to work out for a little bit, but falls apart before long – going to show just how much of a phony Mud really is, but Ellis doesn’t know that.

The ending of Mud is interesting, and I won’t spoil exactly what happens here. I will say, however, that Mud obviously changes. His priorities are altered, in a way that’s kind of predictable, but the weird thing is that Ellis doesn’t seem to recognize these changes. The climax offers up a perfect storm of circumstances that allow for Mud to, at least on some level, change his ways (it’s up to you whether or not he’s redeemed though), but also let Ellis believe in the legend of Mud. It’s a story about heroes – who they are and how we use them. A reminder that even the most fantastic of those we look up to are only human, more complicated and probably not as admirable as they seem to us, but in the end that doesn’t matter. It’s not the person, it’s the idea.

If you ride like lighting, you’re going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines

directed by Derek Cianfrance

starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Dane DeHaan

The Place Beyond the Pines is a cool film because it contains three separate sequential dramatic arcs that coalesce into a single cohesive film – I promise that’s cooler than it sounds. The first sequence of the film is a crime drama, following Luke Glanton, a travelling stunt motorcyclist who turns to a life of crime to provide for his son to a former lover. The second is of Avery Cross, a police officer trying to make right the corruption of the Schenectady police department. The final act of the film pulls together the rest by telling the stories of the sons of these men, Jason and AJ, and how the relationship of their fathers affects their own. It has this grandiose, epic feel that suits its multigenerational scope, a kind of somberness that feels like Greek tragedy. Even the title, a rough translation of the Mohawk word from which Schenectady gets its name, seems to hold great significance. With a lighter tone (or, unfortunately, a quicker pace), this film wouldn’t work.

The main theme running through Pines is one of inheritance. It also has things to say about, for example, justice, but even senses of justice are passed down. The film presents us with two fathers who want to create a better world for their children, albeit in two very different ways. One wants to provide for his son, give him the resources he needs not to fall into the same trap as he had to, and the other wants to act as a model for his son, even if he fails to foster an actual fatherly relationship as a result. One goes for his son’s environment, the other for his character. Both these methods backfire – Jason romanticizes his father’s outlaw status, and AJ rebels against his father’s upstanding persona. Both sons inherit something the fathers didn’t intend – Jason has a reputation as Luke’s son, and AJ gets some of his father’s more regretful choices dumped on him. It’s karmic – all sins must be paid back. The movie is cyclical, at least in part. Jason inherits Luke’s legacy – the final scene sees him on a motorcycle, setting off across the country, just what Luke was doing at the start of the film. It’s less clear if AJ ultimately follows his father, but given that the last we see of him is standing next to his father in a publicized setting, it doesn’t seem unlikely.

This all sort of makes the epic feel and structure ironic (perhaps even misused, but I’ll give Cianfrance the benefit of the doubt here). For all the noble efforts of the first generation, their sons are bound to repeat their own mistakes, over and over again. The heavy aura of significance the film gives off is sort of countered by the ultimate lack of control its characters seem to have. What few victories they manage are small. This isn’t a pity piece, though, no showcase of smug pessimism highlighting the futility of ambition – all the characters in the film, even the minor ones are heroes of sorts, or at least of a proud and noble bearing. Even though they fail, they fail with a sense of purpose, a great ambition. The film itself can be described this way, too. This isn’t a perfect film – it has issues with pacing and the plotting is a little odd sometimes – but there were few more ambitious and self-assured this past year. A little daring in filmmaking is always welcome, after all.

He’s not a person anymore. No, he stopped being a person when he took our daughters.

Prisoners

directed by Denis Villenueve

starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal

I should start out by saying that my respect for Prisoners is mostly in this kind of weird, conceptual, meta way, and that’s why it’s so far down this list. In fact, it’s my number 20. This is the only one I’m going to be comfortable enough to actually denote.

Prisoners is a schlocky B-movie wrapped up in a first-rate A-movie box. That sounds like a criticism, I know, and while it’s not really praise it’s one of the things that’s so damn interesting about this film. The story is ripe for trashy exploitation fare: two families, the Dovers and the Birches, are visiting each other to celebrate Thanksgiving, and their daughters are kidnapped. As a result, Keller Dover, a gruff survivalist type, goes on a warpath looking for his daughter. Meanwhile, Detective Loki (ugh) is assigned to the case, and must deal with not only any potential suspects but also the rage of Keller. If you described this film to me, I probably wouldn’t be interested; it sounds like a bad cop drama. It does end up being a pretty lurid film, but it manages to keep an even tone most of the way through. The plot’s a little twisty and red herring-ridden, but that’s forgivable.

This movie succeeds on the merits of its execution. It contains an excellent ensemble – Hugh Jackman brings together a wonderful mixture of desperation, determination, and anger as Keller, and the ever-dependable Jake Gyllenhaal, in an unjustly ignored performance, offers a frustrated, persistent foil to Keller as Loki. Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, and Paul Dano also put in good work, but their roles are substantially smaller. This film succeeds in great part on its ferocity and intensity, which the cast brings even to the minor parts of the film. Among the tensest scenes in the film are the standoffs between Keller and Loki, even though they’re on the same side – Keller with his paternal rage and Loki with his cracking veneer of professionalism. But the real star of Prisoners is not any of the actors, but DP Roger Deakins. His camerawork is really what elevates the film, what makes it feel more substantial than it probably is. Deakins gives every film he works on a feeling of significance and urgency - every shot has gravitas and twisted beauty. People forget too often that, at the end of the day, cinema is a visual experience – for all the significance we place on screenplays and actors, not enough attention is given to the cameramen who ultimately decide the tone of the whole film.
Prisoners is a very angry film. Not angry at anything in particular (child abductors, maybe?), but watching it is sometimes sort of like watching a particularly indignant rant, or being between two people who really don’t like each other. I wouldn’t call this movie a procedural, as it’s much less concerned with the process as it is with the people, and it’s not really a mystery, because you only ever know as much as the other characters, who are almost always frustrated with their lack of information. It’s really kind of a strange film, even given its many familiar qualities, because there’s such a disconnect between what we expect from this kind of movie and what we get from this particular movie. This is what I meant by liking it in a conceptual way – it’s just so weird in its presentation, combining beautiful images and subtle performances with something of an eye-roller story in such a way that the former overpowers the latter. The film’s finale has a similar juxtaposition going on: the whole thing kind of got away from me with an arbitrary and kind of unnecessary plot twist, but then the final moments of the film are quiet and even a bit poetic, giving the ending an oddly satisfying aftertaste.

I have to apologize. I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun.

Upstream Color

directed by Shane Carruth

starring Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth

This film is an enigma, probably the most difficult-to-parse film to come out in several years, at least that I’ve seen. It’s a hard film to get a handle on, and perhaps an even harder film to like, what with its whispered dialogue and its ephemeral camerawork. It seems at times like some talented but overeager film student trying his hand at sci-fi, but that’s not really fair to the film. The story, to the extent that it’s made clear, is about a thief who kidnaps people and uses strange worms to hypnotize them into giving him all of their money. The thief kidnaps one woman, Kris, and as a result Kris loses all her assets with no memory of how it happened. Later, she starts to get back on her feet and meets Jeff, who she has an instant, unexplainably strong connection with, and who it turns out has had a similar experience with both monetary and memory loss. There’s also a pig farmer, who extracts the worms from the thief’s victims, and Kris and Jeff both have a psychic connection to the pigs he keeps. It’s… a weird story, yeah. There isn’t all too much exposition going on in the film, either, and Carruth kind of expects you to pick up on most of it yourself. On one hand, the story is convoluted and obtuse enough already, but on the other, that much trust in the audience is refreshing.

 Upstream Color’s style has often been described as a mixture between Terrence Malick and David Cronenberg, which is sort of a superficial assessment. Yes, the camerawork is breezy and there are some minor body horror elements, but that’s far from all there is to Malick, Cronenberg, or this film. Carruth’s style is sort of clinical and cold while also being ultimately optimistic and concerned in spite of its detachment. Upstream Color is much more concerned with its idea and concept than it necessarily is with its characters (Kris and Jeff have almost no real personalities), and some would say this makes for bland or even trite filmmaking. However, there’s a sort of forced empathy going on, as the film is extremely concerned with the emotional states of the characters, and their goals are nice-sounding things like liberation, self-actualization, belonging, and so on. Hell, this is the only film I’m mentioning here that seems to have an unambiguously happy ending. It has a cold, hard-to-read presentation and warm, emotional content – it’s sort of a tsundere film that way. And while I suppose you could read this dual sensibility as one part Tree of Life and one part History of Violence, if you’re name-checking styles that disparate, you’re already talking about a very unique voice.

I’m not even going to touch on what I think the film means or represents – It would be remarkably boring and I need more space and time for that. But more importantly, I don’t want to give anyone any ideas about what the film is shooting for. Upstream Color is a film in the vein of Mulholland Drive or Stalker – one where easy answers are not offered, but one where the viewer is given the chance to figure things out for themselves. It is definitely a difficult film to understand and one that asks a lot of its viewers, and because of that a lot of people will be turned off by it, which is entirely understandable. But these kinds of films are important. Upstream Color is the kind of film that inspires discussion, that pushes the envelope for what kinds of stories we can tell with movies and how we can tell them. It could be that I’m overstating the film’s individual significance, but it’s new, it’s different, and Carruth’s is a kind of vision and effort that we need to keep encouraging and rewarding. It’s what keeps cinema going.

Notes: All of the films here are pretty srsbsns stuff. I promise the rest of the posts will contain some kind of lighter fare.

Also, I know this post took a long time to come out. I’ll try to put the rest out faster, but I can’t make promises.