Beyond the Multiplex

Dig into Salon's list of the best independent films of 2006 already out on DVD. Now that's something to be thankful for.

By Andrew O'Hehir

Read more: Andrew O'Hehir, Movies, Movie Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Reviews, Beyond the Multiplex

Nov. 23, 2006 | In the last couple of years there's been a bunch of chatter (some of it promulgated by me) about new models for distributing independent film. Major changes are upon us, we have told ourselves, or at least just over the horizon. Maybe the idea that we have to pay money to go sit in some darkened room with a bunch of strangers in another part of town to watch motion pictures is on the way out; maybe it just needs to get dressed up with monkfish, pasta and a nice Riesling.

We have seen the so-called innovation of "day-and-date" release, in which a film is released in theaters, on DVD and/or on pay-per-view cable at the same time. And it has been underwhelming. OK, it meant that Magnolia Pictures found a way to make "Bubble," Steven Soderbergh's sub-Bresson experiment in downscale naturalism, into a modest success. (It was the day-and-date guinea pig last January, generating all sorts of media coverage it did not deserve on aesthetic merits.) But for most of 2006, day-and-date has looked like a dumping ground for films of dubious value with minimal commercial prospects. We already had a term for that, and it was "straight to video."

Don't get me wrong; things really are changing. If there's any kind of consensus in the business right now, it might be this: Theatrical release is still important, but more and more of the adult audience is choosing to watch films at home. Nobody's sure what that will mean in a few years: DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, broadband downloads, high-definition TV, or some device yet to be invented that will beam movies into our subconscious minds while we sleep, so I can wake up tomorrow and already have seen Hou Hsiao-hsien's next film. Most likely it means what it means now, a cobbled-together combination of all of the above, with no consistent or dominant pattern.

Here's what it means for you right now, circa Thanksgiving weekend 2006. Movies come out on DVD faster than they used to, and indie movies with limited theatrical releases generally reach disc within eight to 12 weeks of their first appearance in theaters. For obscure or difficult or niche-market movies that come and go quickly in a few big cities, Netflix and Amazon now represent their main chance to build an enduring audience.

So here's my completely subjective list of the best, and least appreciated, independent films of 2006 that are already available on video (or will be released by Christmas). Some are still, mysteriously, missing. Where is the horrifying documentary "Darwin's Nightmare"? I have no idea. Why is Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows," the best-reviewed rerelease of the year, only available as a European import?

Everything here, with the possible exception of the sleeper hit "Brick," didn't quite find the audience it deserved; some of them, like Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky's hallucinatory, indescribable "4," didn't find any audience at all. So damn it all, watch them.

There's bound to be some overlap between this list and my forthcoming top-10 list for the year, so this one is alphabetical and unranked.

"Agnes and His Brothers" This thrilling, angry and disturbing family comedy from German director Oskar Roehler is a mess: It's partly a vulgar sex farce, partly a rip-off of "American Beauty," partly a political satire and partly a Teutonic version of the Almodóvar-style gender-bending melodrama. It might also be a scabrous take on the prevailing cultural climate of post-Wall Germany -- and it might also be the most exciting film I've seen all year. (To be released Dec. 19.)

"Battle in Heaven" Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' contemplative, slow-moving crime saga opens with a remarkably beautiful young woman on her knees in front of a remarkably fat and ugly guy, and she's not giving him a pedicure. The various real-life sex scenes are memorable indeed (and will probably ensure "Battle in Heaven" a long life on DVD) but the real question is whether Reygadas is Latin America's answer to Tarkovsky or a pretentious poseur. I didn't adore this when I first saw it, but its potent images have never left me.

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