10 Best Movies of 2011

It takes a bold and daring artist to make a film that tackles nothing less of a subject than the creation of the universe and the afterlife. It takes a clear-eyed, generous and emotionally open artist to make an intimate and personal family drama, seeing everyone for their faults but with compassion just the same. It takes a visionary artist to combine all of those aspects into one film. And yet that is what Terrence Malick has done with this, his most towering achievement. Yes, there are overpowering images throughout, courtesy of Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, in the creation sequences, the afterlife sequences, and elsewhere. But you also get a movie that captures both the joy and disappointment of childhood, as well as the dreams that sustain us and the ones that never quite pan out. Add to that Malick's expert staging of his usual theme of man's relationship with the natural world (expressed here as the battle between the way of nature and the way of grace), a beautifully evoked look at Texas in the 1950's, and a never-better Brad Pitt as the firm yet caring father (matched by Jessica Chastain as his wife, as well as the actors playing their sons), and you have what I would call a masterpiece. It expanded my view not only of the world, but what could be accomplished with film, and art, itself.

If "The Tree of Life" shows you the possibilities of motion pictures as an art form, then Martin Scorsese's new movie is an exhilarating tribute to those possibilities, and to the people who showed us those possibilities early on. Yes, it's an homage to the great silent film director George Melies (well played by Ben Kingsley), and Scorsese stages those sequences with his usual verve. But he pays just as much attention to the story of Hugo (Asa Butterfield) and his attempts to finish his late father's work, as well as the supporting characters such as Sascha Baron Cohen's stern but lonely train station inspector and Chloe Moretz as Hugo's friend. And whereas Scorsese is known for his portrayal of urban nightmares, this shows him to be just as skilled at putting dreams on film.

The superhero, action, and fantasy genres seem to be the go-to genres for fairy tale or mythic elements in movies, but while there were some pretty good examples of those films this year, none of them were as exciting to watch, or as involving, as this film, from an unlikely source in the form of director Joe Wright. Not only does he stage the action scenes with thrilling verve, particularly a train station fight done in one take, but he also gets us caught up in the story of the title character (Saoirse Ronan), who may be a killing machine but is also naive about the world and eager for human connection, and making what amounts to a modern-day fairy tale (albeit a somewhat twisted one). And that's not even mentioning Cate Blanchett in a deliciously over-the-top performance as the CIA agent hunting Hanna down.

There's been arguments in print, and even on film, about whether a film can truly convey the horrors of genocide and mass murder without trivializing it in some way. To all of those people, I say simply they should see this movie. It's about the rape of Nanking - when Japanese soldiers invaded the Chinese capital in 1937, killed hundreds of thousands of people and raped thousands of women and children - but instead of telling the tale through any Westerners who tried to help (as with "John Rabe" and "Flowers of War"), it instead puts the focus rightly on the Chinese themselves. Director Chuan Lu puts you right into the horror of the event, as well as the confusion and chaos, and yet is also able to capture the shards of humanity that did exist at the time.

There's been nostalgia lately for the Cold War, at how much clearer things were then as opposed to now. Fortunately, in adapting John le Carre's landmark novel, director Tomas Alfredson indulges in none of that, but reminds us just how confusing and malleable those times were, especially in the world of spies and secret-keepers. And though Gary Oldman has some awfully big shoes to fill in taking on the role of George Smiley, so memorably assayed by Alec Guinness in the original miniseries, he gives a quietly commanding performance as someone who, both personally and professionally, has seen far too much.

Kelly Reichardt's slow-moving but graceful film is theoretically a Western, but not like one you've ever seen before, even though it follows a wagon train through the Oregon territory as the settlers search for home and, more immediately, water. Instead of panoramic shots of vistas, Reichardt and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt emphasize how constricting and forbidding the landscape is. The guide, Meek (Bruce Greenwood) is more braggart and bluster than the idealized lone gunslinger of our mythology (though Reichardt and Greenwood do give him dignity after a fashion). The Indian (Rod Rondeaux) whom Meek captures is neither a savage nor a symbol, but alien to the settlers yet, in his own stubborn way, himself. And the settlers, among them Will Patton, Michelle Williams, and Paul Dano, aren't idealized either, but contain the normal fear and desire of anyone in that situation. Williams has been getting noticed this awards season for her work in "My Week with Marilyn", but I think her work here as the settler who gradually becomes the unofficial leader of the settlers through nothing but her quiet determination is more deserving of praise.

You'd expect a movie featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, more or less playing themselves, to be funny, especially when they do dueling impressions, and it is, often hysterically so (no scene made me laugh harder this year than the one where the two of them do dueling Michael Caine impersonations). What you don't expect is how this film from director Michael Winterbottom, his third with Coogan (after "24 Hour Party People" and "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story") has an unexpected melancholy tone, as both Coogan and Brydon take stock of their lives, though Winterbottom avoids the mawkishness of many mid-life crisis tales. There's also a tour of the North Country of England and of its many restaurants that's engaging without becoming precious. The result of all this is the funniest movie I've seen all year, yet also surprisingly touching.

At heart, Asghar Farhadi's drama is basically a "he-said-, she-said" story, though the particulars - Nader (Payman Moaadi) is filing a complaint against Razieh (Sareh Bayat) for mistreating his father, whom she's supposed to be taking care of, while Razieh claims Nader caused her miscarriage - are a little different. But within the framework of that simple story, Farhadi is able to explore in a simple yet powerful way, without ever getting didactic, the changing nature of Iranian society, as well as class warfare, gender conflict, family dynamics, and the elusive search for truth.

Speaking of movies both funny and touching, Alexander Payne's latest has been called his most conventional, and while that might be true, it's also his most deeply felt. George Clooney's work as a director may still be problematic, but he continues to get better as an actor, giving one of his best performances as a man whose life is thrown into turmoil when his wife goes into a coma after an accident, and when he finds out she was having an affair. Just as good is Shailene Woodley, a real find as his oldest teenage daughter, and Payne is another filmmaker who can film in a beautiful area - in this case, Hawaii - without getting pictorial.

Both of these films are melodramas both tightly controlled yet entertainingly lurid and over-the-top. The former is a remake of a 1960 film, also from Korea, but while they both share a similar plot - the title character getting involved with her boss - this remake by Sang-Soo Im ups the stakes by (1) making the class commentary even more pronounced here than in the original, and (2) instead of having the pregnant wife be an entirely passive character, as in the original, she's much more active and enters into a war of wills with the housemaid. This made it more interesting while still standing as superior melodrama. As for the latter, as I've said elsewhere, this is without a doubt the most *beep* crazy movie I've seen all year. Unfortunately, I still don't know a lot of people who have seen it, so it's hard to really talk about without giving away anything. All I can say is this is the mad scientist movie to end all mad scientist movies, that Pedro Almodovar proves once again how good, and distinctive, he is as a director, and that Antonio Banderas picks up right where he left off as the scientist in this, his first movie with Almodovar in 20 years.