December at paulcarvill.com, the home of Paul Carvill on the web 2009 at paulcarvill.com, the home of Paul Carvill on the web

It’s not a best-of-the-year list, it’s just some films I enjoyed much more than the others I saw (at the cinema) in 2009 and which I also think you would enjoy seeing. Note: this list really only covers the first 6 months of the year. I had a baby in June and we’ve barely been to the cinema since then. This is mostly due to time pressures, but also because any trip to the cinema would inevitably be a visit to that nadir of the film experience — Guildford Odeon. I like a multimedia complete sensory experience as much as the next man, but even I draw the line at trying to watch a film while being startled by the strobe effect of multiple mobile phone displays being repeatedly turned on in order for their owner to check for urgent messages, presumably regarding their whereabouts (“the cinema”), their views on the film (“shit”), their plans for later (“KFC”), or simply to chat with the person seated next to them via Yahoo! Messenger, presumably regarding their whereabouts (“next to you”), their views on the film (“shit”) or their plans for later (“KFC?”).

GOOD FILMS

Waltz With Bashir
Opting for stylistic expressionism over photo realism, this animated account of one man’s memory of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon is haunting, confusing, shocking, surreal and visceral. It possess in bagfuls what most film, animated or otherwise, struggle to achieve — atmosphere. It’s an atmosphere of jumpy paranoia and unsettling dislocation. It’s visual style is dense and hallucinatory, and for once that adjective actually fits the bill.

It feels like anything might happen, and it’s hard to tell which parts of the animated world are ‘real’ and which are adulterated memories. The colour scheme is that of a bomb going off and its choking smoke pouring into your streaming eyes — a burned, acid rain palette. Impressively for a film so soaked in extreme regret, sadness and horror, it’s also punctuated by laugh-out-loud funny bits. One of the most stunning, memorable, cathartic scenes is the one where you discover where the title came from. Politically brave, emotionally powerful and visually stunning, you will want to watch this one again.

Billu Barber
This is when Bollywood finally went post-modern. A retelling of an ancient mythological legend — that of Sudama and Krishna (a poor boy and a rich royal, respectively, whose friendship transcends their economic status, itself an echo of the Christian parable that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’) — it is the epitome of the modern masala movie.

The part of the rich and comfortable royal is translated into that of a rich and hugely famous Bollywood star, Sahir Khan, played here with maximum grandiosity and campness by Shahrukh Khan, himself an extremely rich and astoundingly famous Bollywood actor, the biggest star of his generation. Khan arrives on a motorbike, amid fireworks and a large entourage, in a beautifully shot small south Indian village, set amongst lush green rice paddies, misty mountains and bubbling rivers. His arrival is interspersed with clips from Shahrukh Khan’s own movies, and the village is plastered with posters for the same movies from the real actor’s past, only with the movie’s actor’s name on. One scene shows an endless parade of children and teenagers emerging from the hairdressers with the same jet black, side-parted voluminous hair as both the real and the movie actor’s. It’s a seamless merging of fact and fiction.

The other parts in the film are played to perfection, from Irffan Khan’s sympathetic, poor childhood friend Billu and Lara Dutta’s impossibly glamorous housewife, to Om Puri’s local gangster and Billu’s flamboyant hairdressing rival. Various other local shopowners and community members all add to the authentic, earthy feel of the film.

Several times the film plays with the conventions of the Bollywood masala movie, with scenes cutting between the film itself and films-within-the-film, characters falling out of bed and interrupting the song-and-dance they were dreaming themselves in, and even an item number featuring former Miss World Priyanka Chopra which Billu and his wife watch at the local cinema, and which has the same tune as a song featured earlier in the film. A great introduction to Bollywood, and a playful, genuinely funny take on fame, friendship and small-town mores in India.

Gomorrah
A truly astonishing reportage-style movie uncovering the insidious reach and quotidian nature of a particularly Italian brand of violent crime – the Camorra of Naples. At times it’s is literally impossible to tell ‘real people’ from actors, so consummate is the naturalistic style. At other times the filmmakers have fully exploited the grandiose gesture to fully portray the vast sweep of this social disease – such as the impressive set-piece of the illegal toxic chemical dumping in the disused quarry, with truck being driven by hastily employed children.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

Special mentions also have to go to Watchmen, mainly for the great opening credits and the spectacularly campy Hallelujah-soundtracked sex scene; The Damned United, for the utterly immersive period detail and Martin Sheen’s performance/impression; and (500) Days of Summer, mainly for the cheery song ‘n’ dance number after the main characters get it on (but also for the Pixies karaoke scene)…

STINKERS

And here’s some of the stinkers I sat through in 2009. I don’t advise you watch them.

Duplicity
Some might consider lack of plot a hindrance to a movie achieving greatness. On the other end of the spectrum, a plot so convoluted that what’s happening isn’t entirely clear until the movie’s nearly over is an absolute roadblock to a movie achieving even something like comprehensibility (see also: The International — nice Parallax View style use of brooding, dehumanising architecture, people, let’s include a story next time, shall we?). Add to that a leading couple (Julia Roberts and Clive Owen) who have such a spectacular lack of chemistry they’re bordering on noble gases, and a complete misplaying of most movies’ trump car, the extraordinary, manic, melancholic Paul Giamatti, and you have a film that manages to overwhelm and underwhelm all at the same time. For what it’s worth, Roberts appears to be in semi-retirement, not even appearing in Forbes’ annual list of the highest paid actresses in 2009, Kate Winslet in 15th place having earned a mere $2 million; and while the ‘quality men’s magazines’ swoon over Owen’s rugged good looks and crumpled charm, he’ll always look like an out-of-work plumber to me.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Another one of those American TV sketch show originated movies, whose title is roughly 100% more inventive and funny than the actual film. The key ingredients in this particular comedy stew appear to be: he’s a ‘mall cop’ i.e. a security guard at a shopping centre; he’s fat; err, that’s it. Throw in some hokey old single-parent-family issues and you have about 90 minutes of film that must have kept the writers, actors and director amused for, ooh, at least an afternoon’s worth of writing it and filming it.