My Top 20 Films of 2015: Part 2

My 10 favourite films of 2015. And find films 20-11 here.

The ones I missed: Crimson Peak; Slow West; A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence; Eden; Steve Jobs; Jurassic World; Amy; The Look of Silence; 45 Years; John Wick; Taxi Tehran; Appropriate Behaviour; Pasolini; Love Is Strange; The Forbidden Room; Sunset Song; Brooklyn; The Good Dinosaur; Mistress America; While We’re Young; The Wonders; Love & Mercy; Far from the Madding Crowd; Trainwreck; Clouds of Sils Maria; Chappie; Spy; Ant Man; Straight Outta Compton; 99 Homes; The Martian; Bridge of Spies; Macbeth; Foxcatcher

10. Catch Me Daddy (Daniel Wolfe, UK)
I was so impressed with this rugged and fierce low-budget thriller, where so many elements are stripped back to make something so very urgent and shocking. It follows Laila (Sameena Jabeen Ahmed), a young woman who has run away from her Pakistani family to live a meagre existence with her boyfriend in his trailer. The family tracks her down and her brothers and several bounty hunters chase them through the night onto the Yorkshire dales, as the couple fights to escape.

The depiction of the Pakistani family could be said to border on an offensive stereotype, but at the heart of this film is a desperate survival thriller where the limitations of setting and plot work to create a claustrophobic verisimilitude, full of restrictions. It’s set over a single night, and the small scale helps infuse a sense of dread over every scene – you can’t possibly imagine how they can they could escape when everything seems weighted against them. The ending scene alone is brutal and terrifying. It’s beautifully filmed with some interesting stylistic choices that actually makes this an almost hypnotic experience.

9. The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Ukraine/Netherlands)
A teenager is sent to a Ukrainian boarding school for deaf children where he quickly falls into the vicious criminal gangs that run the dormitories and terrorise the younger children and local residents. What’s remarkable is the entire film is told in sign language without subtitles. As a formal experiment about the amazing ability of cinema’s visual language to tell stories and convey themes, this film is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The filmmaking is impeccable – there are long takes here that rival Birdman for sheer audacity and achievement, and I learnt a lot about how important sound design is to immerse you within diegetic worlds.

The Tribe is also a fascinating allegory for Ukraine’s displaced position within Europe, and a depiction of the harmful conditions caused by poverty. It’s an incredibly tough watch with scenes that rank amongst the most disturbing I’ve seen all year. I honestly don’t think I’d ever want to watch it again, but I’m glad I’ve seen it.

8. Ex Machina (Alex Garland, UK)
At a time when so many sci-fi films are massive mega-budget epics, it’s invigorating when an unashamed genre picture makes the decision to remain low-key. Essentially playing out as a chamber piece with four characters, Ex Machina is a fascinating allegorical story which plays with modern fears of rapid progress and technology, and feels like a classic even as you are watching it.

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a young computer programmer, wins a competition to meet elusive CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac), who gives him the task of performing a Turing test on his newest creation, an AI robot called Ava (Alicia Vikander), to determine whether she could pass as human. It’s a wonderfully simple premise, which expands in ways I never expected. It plays out like a futuristic Gothic horror, with its isolated mansion full of secrets causing a descent into fevered paranoia, and characters who never appear as they seem, not least Ava as the Frankensteinian monster. There’s solid performances all round by a cast very much en vogue this year, not least a starmaking turn by Vikander, who graces Ava with a balletic otherworldliness.

7. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marielle Heller, USA)
A wonderfully refreshing and frank movie on what it is like to grow up, what it means to be a woman, and how sex can leave you giddy with emotion, Diary of a Teenage Girl had me grinning throughout both from sheer recognition and relatability, and because it’s a wonderfully written movie, very funny with an incredible fearless performance by Bel Powley as Minnie. Set in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, we follow Minnie as she first explores her sexual desires, beginning a secret affair with her mother’s boyfriend.

The most remarkable thing about this film is the balance of tone it achieves. No act or emotion is shied away from, but the film never falls into the pit of judgement or shaming. Minnie is entirely unashamed by her actions and it refreshing to see a film which takes risks with potentially controversial themes and produces something honest and universal. This is a noteworthy debut and Marielle Heller is a name worth remembering.

6. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)
I’ve always struggled to read any Thomas Pynchon, as much as I’ve desperately wanted to engage with his work. Often brimming with dozens of characters, heaps of cultural references and quotations, and wild shifts in tone and voice, Pynchon’s work doesn’t seem adaptable for the screen. So I think it’s a huge achievement that Paul Thomas Anderson was able to translate Inherent Vice and create something so complete and so assured.

A beguiling mixture of film noir and stoner movie, Inherent Vice follows the multiple investigations of “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), an LA county private detective and dopehead. It’s a deliberately dense and mystifying experience, capturing the essence of a time in place in transition – the end of 60s-era hippieism and idealism and rise of corrupt politics and paranoia. Yet this never stops it from being a genuinely funny and farcical romp, and one of the most unexpectedly entertaining adventures of this year. The way all aspects from the production design to the mellow dialogue and Jonny Greenwood’s lush soundtrack completely immerse you in this world is awe-inspiring and left me feeling a little dazed (and a little blazed too). The convoluted plotting and sheer weight of material can be demanding and deserves multiple watches, but I’ll be a bit controversial here in saying I think the film makes perfect sense as challenging yet conventional detective story. Inherent Vice also has the honour of being the only film since university that I’ve gotten to see projected in 35mm, which gave it this gorgeous grain and texture which only improved the evocation of the 70s.

5. Mommy (Xavier Dolan, Canada)
The latest by the sickeningly talented Xavier Dolan (he was 24/25 when it was being made) is his most mature yet. It feels both epic and intimate, following the lives of those normally considered quite small and unimportant and raising them to a pedestal of high drama and high emotion.

We see widowed mother Di (Anne Dorval) struggle with the task of raising her troubled son Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), who has ADHD, is prone to violent outbursts and has just been released from an institution. With help from shy and repressed neighbour Kyla (Suzanne Clément), they work hard to get by. It’s a simple premise, but brimming with such heartfelt emotion and positive energy that makes this a tough but rewarding, moving and entertaining watch. It’s obvious Dolan deeply loves his characters and he throws every stylistic trick at this to make something which feels very special.

4. Inside Out (Pete Docter, USA)
Proof that Pixar works best when taking risks, Inside Out is the strongest film they’ve made in years and surely one of the most ambitious – a challenging study of the mind of an 11 year old girl which simultaneously appeals to both adults and children with a broad array of jokes, insights and titbits. There have been articles bemoaning the flaws with the depiction of emotions in Riley’s mind, but… come on, this isn’t a documentary. What we have is a vast concept attempting to depict how our minds work in a way that everybody can appreciate, all beautifully designed and performed.

The sheer weight of ideas and bases covered can get a little frenetic, but the way the story is able to tie the stresses of a family moving to a new city with the gradual breakdown of a young mind is pretty incredible. Kudos too for making a film which shows the necessary importance of sadness, and how we cannot experience the truest forms of happiness without it.

3. Carol (Todd Haynes, UK/USA)
Probably no other film this year has come with such a formidable wave of critical appreciation and as such a huge weight of expectation. Thankfully, Carol delivers on every front. What an extraordinarily transcendent film this is, where the slightest gestures and minutest details are magnified to create this enveloping and magnetic sensation of feeling almost drunk with adoration for someone.

It is named after Carol (Cate Blanchett), the object of desire of young Therese (Rooney Mara) who is true anchor of this story. Both their performances are so true to life, their conversations scattered with these wonderful little asides and moments of silence that conveys the scenario of two women both discovering feelings from one another that they’ve never experienced before. The chemistry is amazing. It’s the simplicity of the story and sheer amount of thought and care that has gone into every detail from the costumes and to the swoon-worthy soundtrack (seriously, how has Carter Burwell never been nominated for an Oscar?) that truly gives this film its power.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, Australia/USA)
This film is omnipresent on pretty much every ‘best of’ list of 2015 but that’s for bloody good reason. Jesus Christ, it’s a hell of a ride. Essentially playing out as one giant chase scene, Fury Road is surely one of the greatest action films ever made – experiential cinema of the purest kind, with a completely fully realised world, complete characters with an unusual amount of depth and drive, some wonderful artistic asides (including the lovely silhouettes of the night scene in the middle) and bold creative choices.

All aspects of the production design are just gorgeous, with an embrace of the grotesque and a sheer cacophony of detail and visual splendour that makes the film exhilarating. All aspects from the editing to the special effects to the stunt work is mind-blowing, although perhaps what is most respectable is the focus given to characters and themes. The film has roots in Western frontier films about the need for a place to call home and where survivors have to fight hard to make their lives matter. It explores environmental disaster and the consequences of political conflict and vengeance. And as many have pointed out, it’s an action film which dares to explore themes of female empowerment and give varied autonomous roles to women. It all boils down to the most extravagant, sense-numbing, over-the-top two hours of madness I’ve probably ever seen, a tense thrill ride that is rare for truly giving us something to root for.

1. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritania/France)
It feels like a rare treat these days going into a cinema totally unknown and unprepared for what’s coming. Other than the word of one good review I saw, this was how I went into Timbuktu. And what a fine film it was: a humanist masterpiece which explores difficult subjects with concern, honesty and humour.

Inspired by the real life takeover of Timbuktu in Mali by Islamist extremists in 2012, and the news story of the stoning of an unmarried couple, Timbuktu is a documentary-like collection of interconnected stories concerning the struggles of the ordinary people under the dictatorial regime. Terrorists on motorbikes pronounce the new rules over loudspeakers: sport and music is forbidden, women must dress appropriately, unmarried men and women cannot be in the same room. The residents remain defiant in wishing to live as they always had done, and in exposing the absurdity of the new regime. A woman at a fish market argues with a man forcing her to wear gloves. Another man is forced to remove his trousers in the street because they are too long. Others don’t get off so lightly.

Timbuktu’s real strength lies in its ability to present such a wide range of stories with maturity and compassion, all the while imbuing it with a sense of truth and drama that makes it feel vital. It displays the propensity for absolutely anyone to perform cruel or noble actions. It depicts the importance of individuality as well a sense of Islam as a community, where lives can come together and live peacefully and fruitfully. People are inherently contradictory – the invaders break as many rules as they enforce. But this truth about our flaws is never presented in a way that is patronising or lecturing. The terrorists are depicted neither as monsters or heroes

There’s long been this sense of Timbuktu in Western culture as being a mythical place of bounteous riches. Instead, it’s a poor, but historically important town on the edge of the Sahara. But it’s films like this that perhaps offer a sad indictment of Western ignorance to plight of many ordinary people, and can offer us a glimpse of these lives in a way that is searingly honest and humane, yet also entertaining and charming in its own way. It’s a tragic film, but not one without hope. A scene involving a game of football is especially magical. It’s because of films like this that I love cinema’s ability to show lives and stories so new to me and make them feel real.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

2015
Writer/Director: Marielle Heller

The thing I love most about cinema is how it can so completely immerse you and engulf you in the lives and emotions and experiences of characters who may not be at all relatable or similar to you, and it does this to an extent that few other art forms can achieve so readily. This was how I felt leaving The Diary of a Teenage Girl, a seriously excellent exploration of the life of a 15 year old girl that just feels so believable and engrossing, I was surprised just how into it I got.

Bel Powley fearlessly and convincingly plays Minnie Goetze, a normal schoolgirl living in a wood-panelled townhouse in 1970s San Francisco with her bohemian mother (Kristen Wiig), and who is beginning to explore the emergence of her sexual feelings and desires. She often laments how no one loves her the way she wishes they would, and frequently feels insecure about her body. The camera frequently focuses intently on her roundish face and big expressive eyes which often makes her look even younger than she is, as she wrestles with the conflicting feelings she experiences as a girl wanting to explore her sexuality and wanting to feel secure. Her thoughts are expressed via her intimate voiceover or when she talks to her cassette audio-diary. Despite her self-doubts, she’s beginning to get more desiring attention from boys, not least her mother’s 30-something year old boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard). He’s tall, handsome, more than a little goofy, and takes her seriously as a grown woman and an object of desire – it’s no wonder she’s drawn to him, and they begin having sex regularly.

The basis of the story is Minnie’s discovery of herself, and her struggles to realise what she wants. What does come clearly to her is that she enjoys sex, she feels entitled to it, and she’d like to keep having it. Like many teenagers, her messy period of self-discovery leads to lots of conflicted feelings and regretful mistakes. The film never shies away from expressing the enormity of her emotions and the sometimes awkward consequences they entail. From the onscreen animations which visualise both her innermost thoughts (similarly to the few episodes of My Mad Fat Diary I have seen, which equally creates a fantastic insight into a highly developed character) as well as effectively displaying her certainty of wanting to be a cartoonist, to the hyperbole of her language, the film does an incredible job of portraying a character who is at once confidently mature and plainly naïve, who is both in control and easily swayed. I loved the complexity of her relationship with Monroe and the fickleness of her feelings, going from pure lust to begrudging affection, as well her inability to fully understand Monroe’s (often selfish) intentions, let alone her own (sometimes selfish) intentions.

What I admired was how the film shows that all the major characters, no matter their age or experience, similarly often struggle to comprehend the complex interplay of their emotional and sexual feelings. We hear Minnie articulate her doubts about whether her feelings and relationships are healthy or normal, but we realise too that Monroe, who is 35, sees the potential problems with their meetings, yet cannot resist going back to her and is strung along by her as much as he leads her astray (a scene with Monroe having a bad drug trip seemingly confirms the repression of his own self-doubts, as he hallucinates dangerous people are watching him). Even Minnie’s mother, who exudes self-confidence, is drawn to reckless behaviour, seemingly because she still hasn’t learnt that she doesn’t have to depend on getting other people to love her in order to love herself.

At certain points, Minnie is referred to as a ‘slut’ or a ‘nympho’. One boy becomes intimidated by the intensity of her sexuality. Yet admirably, the film never judges or trivialises her actions, nor exploits the potentially taboo nature of her sexuality. Instead, it offers an amazingly immersive study of a character in transition, one who is learning and who has no qualms in seeking what makes her happy. It achieves this through striking a fine tone – the film is often very funny, and addresses the issues in Minnie’s life in a clear unbiased way that makes her thoughts and actions feel truthful. I also loved the little moments and sensations that makes this story so believable – the little buzz you get when someone touches your skin, the heady thrill of drug-taking, even those uncontrollable moments when just the smallest things make your emotions explode, like when hearing stern words from Monroe leaves Minnie sobbing on the floor, or her times with her friend Kimmie (Madeleine Waters) where they dance and scream because they feel like it. I especially loved a scene where Minnie and Monroe lie in bed together, having agreed to talk seriously about what’s going on, until the feeling of their bodies touching can’t help but make them want to touch and grope one another – the camera watches their faces from the side as they lie, the little gestures in their faces and eyes the other can’t see that really shows the mad rush of uncontrollable thoughts they’re having.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a seriously excellent movie that often left me smiling through whole scenes at both the witticisms of the dialogue and the charming authenticity of so many of the scenarios, even when some of them become recognisably uncomfortable in their explicitness or relatability. The soundtrack is pretty kick-ass too. Admittedly, I found the animated sequences at times a little distracting, and there are some moments which ring a little overly-contrived, but these are minor quibbles. Kudos to writer/director Marielle Heller, for taking what could have been a potentially exploitative premise, and instead creating a warm, beautifully made film that embraces moral complexity of real life, a film “for all the girls when they have grown”.

Two more points before I finish here: first, this is the fourth new film I’ve seen this year that has been directed by a woman, after Selma (Ana DuVernay), The Falling (Carol Morley) and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour) (I missed out on seeing Girlhood (Céline Sciamma) which I really wanted to see). Whilst this doesn’t sound substantial, it’s still the most I’ve ever seen at the cinema, and all were bold admirable films with strong visions. It’s definitely worth noting how many more films by great female filmmakers are getting more substantial mainstream coverage and recognition, and this is all fine progress towards making our cinema output even more wonderfully diverse. The Diary of a Teenage Girl definitely and faithfully presents a distinctly feminine approach to character which makes the film all the more remarkable for it.

Second, to my own recollection, this has actually been the third new film I’ve seen this year that has prominently featured a female protagonist embracing their sexuality, after It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) and White Bird in a Blizzard (Gregg Araki) (The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland) is also noteworthy for its unflinching portrayal of female sexuality, although I’m talking more about teenage characters here). I have to admit I was actually pretty disappointed with It Follows – I guess the hype may have raised expectations too high. But I did admire its pitch-perfect tone and its thoughtful and innovative approach in revisiting classic horror tropes, not least in reconsidering the figure of the Final Girl by making the lead (Maika Monroe) a girl who is threatened because she has had sex but one who is never ashamed of what she has done and one who the film doesn’t seem to judge.

On the other hand, I couldn’t understand the generally negative response critics had to White Bird, a film which is undeniably Araki’s safest, most conventional film but one which I was genuinely fond of. Araki’s ear for believable and funny teenage dialogue is spot-on, the story is engaging on the level of both character and plotting, and Shailene Woodley gives a fantastic performance as a girl discovering her sexuality whilst dealing with the confusing issues of her missing mother and her sense of self.

I couldn’t help noticing this trend in all three films and am hopeful that this is a sign more films and more creative directors are happy to not shy away from a fact that many aspects of society choose to ignore – that women of all ages can enjoy sex and can instigate encounters and be aware of their desires as much as men. I can’t help getting annoyed reading comments under the White Bird trailer where lots of people describe Woodley as a slut, and do wish viewers can really engage with films and realise that characters can reflect an amazing range of traits and features which often fall outside accepted notions of behaviour.

What does intrigue me about all these films is that they all have a period setting (White Bird is set in the late 1980s; It Follows is ambiguous in its setting but proudly embraces homages to 1970s design alongside contemporary features). Is it somehow safer for films to depict content like this if it places it in a bygone era where different attitudes can be more comfortably explored? Or am I reading too much into this? Are there other films which do depict teenage femininity non-judgementally in a contemporary setting which I’m not thinking of? Do tell me if you have any ideas!