Out of the 50-odd 2011 releases I’ve seen, these five films have made my year. A Separation and Senna are probably the two I’d put at the very top of the list, having responded quite strongly to them emotionally, while the other three are more aesthetic choices.
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi — Iran)
Superb Iranian drama that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. The acting is superb across the board.
Original blog post => HERE
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Senna (Asif Kapadia — UK)
Thrilling, gripping, moving, gut-wrenching & inspiring. That about sums it up, I think.
Original blog post => HERE
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Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt — USA)
Bleak and austere, beautiful and hypnotic, there’s very little dialogue but plenty of stunning shots & some great acting (Michelle Williams really shines in this and Bruce Greenwood is unrecognizable). This is definitely going to be on my Best-of-2011 list. About the polarizing ending: the last shot is exactly what I had imagined the film would end with.
Original blog post => HERE
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Mysteries of Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz — Portugal)
Full-blown intrigue and romanticism, women at their most delicate fainting right left and center, some awesome tracking shots and camera angles, tons of characters, locations, languages, sub-plots, costumes, and some seriously grandiose interiors. And all that over 4.5 hours.
Original blog post => HERE
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The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr — Hungary)
Gloom, doom and gusty winds.
Original blog post => HERE
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Films of 2011 blogged on this tumblr => HERE
Films of 2011 I saw and liked (not ranked, but listed in some sort of chronological order) => HERE
Mistérios de Lisboa (Mysteries of Lisbon) (2010) by Raoul Ruiz
Synopsis (MUBI):
Mysteries of Lisbon plunges us into a veritable whirlwind of adventures and escapades, coincidences and revelations, sentiments and violent passions, vengeance, love affairs, all wrapped in a rhapsodic voyage that takes us from Portugal to France, Italy, and as far as Brazil.In this Lisbon of intrigue and hidden identities, we encounter a series of characters all somewhat linked to the destiny of Pedro da Silva, orphan in a boarding school. Father Dinis, a descendent of the aristocratic libertines, later becomes a hero who defends justice, a countess maddened by her jealousy and set on her vengeance, a prosperous businessman who had mysteriously made his fortune as a bloodthirsty pirate; these and many more all cross in a story set in the 19th century and all searching for the true identity of our main character.
Matthew Lucas (MUBI):
Labyrinthine epic runs over 4 hours long, yet remains consistently engrossing. Unfolding like a great novel, MYSTERIES OF LISBON centers around a young boy growing up in an orphanage, whose quest to discover his true identity leads him through three decades and multitudes of people, who drift in and out of his life, each telling their own stories. A sprawling and grand literary feast of exotic characters and locales.
+ Superb set design (man-o-man, those interiors are seriously grandiose), full-blown intrigue, hard-core romanticism (women in this movie are so delicate that they don’t simply blush, they faint), some awesome tracking shots and camera angles, tons of characters, locations, languages, sub-plots, costumes. And all that over 4.5 hours.
[Seen @ Curzon Soho, London, on 18 Dec 2011]
