Hobbits and courtesans and David Lynch, oh my!
Movies from Sweden, France and some very weird imaginations enthralled us in 2001.
By Stephanie Zacharek
Dec. 31, 2001 |
10 Best Pictures (somewhat in order, but not really):
"Mulholland Drive" A glorious Hollywood fever dream from David Lynch, in which passion, obsession and ambition twist around one another like tensile tropical vines. They flower into something aromatic and vivid and more than a little dangerous: The love story between starlet-ingenue Betty (the incredible Naomi Watts) and exotic amnesiac Rita (sultry, slinky Laura Elena Harring) is a romance for all time, and for no time. No one has the feel for old Hollywood, and the way it lives on in our dreams, that Lynch does. It's as if he never got over the first time he saw a Hurrell portrait -- or the vision of Hollywood Boulevard gone to seed.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" Big, lush and enveloping, Peter Jackson's adaptation of the beloved J.R.R. Tolkien book strikes just the right silvery tone. Jackson approaches the material not with earnestness but with honesty; he's respectful but never solemn. Those subtle distinctions amount to a world of difference between the dorky for-fans-only movie that "Fellowship" could have been, and the resonant, pleasurable, marvelously crafted tale that it is.
"Moulin Rouge" Baz Lurhmann has made a mess that's more distinctive, more inventive and more passionate than many people's masterpieces. I loved it with reservations the night I saw it; by the next morning those minor misgivings had dissolved away like ether, leaving me with nothing but a wild desire to see it again. If there was ever a movie that invited you to faint in its arms, it's this one.
"Together" Swedish director Lukas Moodysson trains his lens on life in a Swedish commune in the mid-'70s, by which time the ideals, the clothes and the people of the '60s had become tattered, frayed and, in some cases, extremely annoying. But Moodysson loves every one of his characters without reservation, and he makes us feel it, too. He just may be the Swedish Satyajit Ray.
"Sexy Beast" Ray Winstone gives the best performance of the year as a trying-to-retire thief who loves his ex-porn star wife (the wonderful Amanda Redman) much more than any of his ill-gotten gains. Jonathan Glazer's heist picture is stylish and funny, but I love it best for the way Glazer depicts his two middle-aged women characters (played by Redman and Julianne White). He shows them to us with honesty and clarity -- mild crow's feet, slightly rounded bellies and all -- and you can't imagine that they ever in their lives looked more beautiful. There are few women in the movies this year who look as ravishing, or as well loved.
"The Gleaners & I" Agnes Varda gives us a joyously ragged collage-poem of a documentary that's partly about salvaging lost things, but mostly about aging. Watch for the "dance of the lens cap," in which Varda makes the best possible use of a bit of accidental footage -- itself an example of turning human error into a brilliant fillip.
Next page: Wong kar-Wai, "Charlotte Gray" and "Donnie Darko"