1. Lilya 4-Ever. (dir. Lukas Moodysson; with Oksana Akinshina) This import from Norwegian writer/director Lukas Moodysson is a melodrama about a teenage girl living alone in Russia who loses everything, piece by piece. To call this tragic drama deeply affecting is not quite accurate, it feels more like having your heart ripped from your body -- something you would never forget. But that’s a good thing.

2. Lost in Translation. (dir. Sofia Coppola; with Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson) With a streak of melancholy that likens it to the work of Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Being There), this winning comedy about an almost-romance between an older man and a younger woman, both adrift in their solitude in a foreign country, resonates warmly -- and more deeply than director Sofia Coppola’s debut, The Virgin Suicides. This (along with the presence of Bill Murray, granted) seems the reason for this modest film’s great success. Fingers crossed for Roman’s second feature.

3. Kill Bill, Volume 1. (dir. Quentin Tarantino; with Uma Thurman) The biggest blast at the movies this year. Widely misrepresented as a relentless gore-show, this is the closest thing today’s Hollywood movies get to pulp fiction (ignore the pun). Despite the shame now befallen me for saying similar things about The Matrix series, I am more than willing to believe that the supposed narrative deficiencies of this movie will be cured by the addition of Volume 2 in February. Also, the artistry and the unadulterated love of movies and moviemaking on display in this episode lead me to wonder if these detractors saw the same movie I did… since what I saw is wonderful.

4. Raising Victor Vargas. (dir. Peter Sollett; with Victor Rasiuk) A much sweeter coming-of-age story than Lilya 4-Ever, Raising Victor Vargas is a highly enjoyable, beautifully photographed expansion of Peter Sollett’s award-winning short film about first love in New York’s Lower East Side. Almost a quintessential low-key slice-of-life-type independent film, it
remains unaffected, if only through the performances of its young amateur actors.

5. Triplets of Belleville. (dir. Sylvain Chomet) This is the sort of wacky French film Jeunet used to make back when he still worked with Caro. The main difference here is that Triplets is animated and, much like the work of one of this film’s other obvious cinematic godfathers, Jacques Tati, features almost no dialogue. Long on gags and short on plot, Triplets is a brief souffle, but excellent souffles are not easy to make and, these days, quite hard to come by.

6. Gerry. (dir. Gus Van Sant; with Matt Damon, Casey Affleck) A completely useless art object posing as a hip indie film. More about beauty and movement than anything tangible, the film also features a hilariously protracted sequence in which Matt Damon tries to get Casey Affleck to jump down from a huge boulder which Affleck has mounted through circumstances mysterious to both parties.

7. The Company. (dir. Robert Altman; with Neve Campbell, James Franco) A meandering look at a year with the Joffrey Ballet, broken up by assorted enchanting dance sequences, this film is typical (if not remarkable) Altman. But in a year with as few movie gems as this one, typical Altman is better than nothing.

8. Lost in La Mancha. (dir. Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe) A behind-the-scenes documentary about the unmaking of Terry Gilliam’s film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Despite prior knowledge of the cancellation of Quixote’s production due to only slightly fewer plagues than befell Egypt in Moses’s time, watching this document of Gilliam’s slowly unravelling dream, pitfall by pitfall, is still saddening.

9. In America. (dir. Jim Sheridan; with Samantha Morton, Djimon Hounsou) Pure schmaltz I should be ashamed for liking, but I am not. This family melodrama based on director Sheridan’s own experiences of moving to America is a bit of a button-pusher and, yeah, probably a bit cliché, but the entire cast is so charming that the schmaltz goes down easy and the tears don’t feel so cheap.

10. Girl With a Pearl Earring. (dir. Peter Webber; with Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth) A fictional imagining of the artist Vermeer and the subject of the painting which gives this film its title. Almost a 17th century, heterosexual Gods and Monsters, the movie is about unrequited longing and its translation in art. The film is deliberately paced (too much so, in some opinions) and features fine performances from Johansson, Firth, and Tom Wilkinson, as Vermeer’s sinful patron.

Other Films Worth Mentioning

• And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (dir. Bruce Beresford; with Antonio Banderas)
• Elephant (dir. Gus Van Sant)
• Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns (dir. AJ Schnack; with They Might Be Giants)
• Hukkle (dir. Gyorgy Palfi)
• Laurel Canyon (dir. Lisa Cholodenko; with Christian Bale, Frances McDormand)
• Masked and Anonymous [for the first hour or so] (dir. Larry Charles; with Bob Dylan, John Goodman)
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (dir. Peter Weir, with
  Russell Crowe)
• Monsieur Ibrahim (dir. Francois Dupeyron, with Omar Sharif)
  
• The Station Agent (dir. Tom McCarthy; with Peter Dinklage)

                                                                 © FILM JOURNAL 2002