Best Movies, 2008

Movie viewing has indeed been exciting for me this year as I have had the opportunity of watching some of the best new films and also of visiting some classics for the first time, after having waited for long. I am particularly indebted to the UTV World Movies channel on television, that has showcased some of the finest films from around the world, especially from Europe and South-east Asia. This year also saw the theatrical releases in languages like Spanish, German, Turkish and others as NDTV Lumiere distributed them at the multiplexes of the major Indian cities, including Kolkata.

Here is a listing of the ten best films seen this year, albeit listed on the basis of personal preference:

1. Into the Wild (2007)

2. Atonement (2007)

3. Persepolis (2007)

4. My Blueberry Nights (2007)

5. Solino (2002)

6. Todo Sobre Me Madre/ All About My Mother (1999)

7. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

8. Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008)

9. Aamir (2008)

10. I'm Not There (2007)


[Beyond the aforementioned Top 10, there were plenty more seen this year that got me mesmerized or hooked to the screen, small or big, like... naming a few of them, randomly,
'Michael Clayton', 'Changeling', 'Igby Goes Down', 'Rendition', 'October Sky', 'Chapter 27', 'Black Snake Moan', 'Southland Tales', 'Secrets & Lies', 'Lost in Yonkers', 'The Merchant of Venice', 'Eastern Promises', 'Memoirs of a Geisha', 'No Country for Old Men', 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford', 'A Mighty Heart', 'Juno', 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street', 'The Lookout', 'Scaphandre et le Papillon'/ 'The Diving Bell & the Butterfly', 'Iluminados por el fuego'/ 'Blessed by Fire', 'American Gangster', 'Ladre di Biciclette/ The Bicycle Thief', 'The Jane Austen Book Club', 'A Good Year', 'Hostel', 'The Hottest State' 'When Niezstche Wept', 'December Boys', 'Lions for Lambs', 'Cassandra's Dream', 'Eyes Wide Shut', 'The Machinist', 'Lords of Dogtown', 'The Tracey Fragments', 'Leatherheads', 'Young People F***ing', 'Invisible Waves', 'Riri Shushu no subete'/ 'All About Lily Chou-Chou', 'Rendez-vous', 'Cadillac Records', 'Caramel', 'Rock On!!', 'A Wednesday', 'Magonia', 'Fa Yeung Nin Wa/ In the Mood for Love', 'Bacheha-Ye Aseman/ Children of Heaven', 'Amores Perros/ Love's a Bitch', 'Janghwa, Hongryeon/ A Tale of Two Sisters', 'Das Leben der Anderen/ The Lives of Others', 'Le Dernier Métro/ The Last Metro', 'There Will Be Blood', 'Khuda Kay Liye', 'Ramchand Pakistani', 'Body of Lies', 'The Happening', 'Day Night Day Night', 'Mumbai Meri Jaan', 'Wanted', 'Kung Fu Panda', and 'Wall-E'.]

'There Will Be Blood'

'Into the Wild'

'Into the Wild' is not a film that is easy to make. It is also not a film that is easy to distance oneself from. As a viewer, I am too attached to this film. I just saw it yesterday. And I know not how to write about it as a reviewer. It is too intense. It took me on a journey, a parallel journey that is much like the one that the protagonist of the film, Christopher McCandless a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp, undertakes. The film is like nothing I have ever seen (and I have seen far too many movies!) and I was completely hooked by the step-by-step progress of Chris in his search for purpose, meaning, truth and self-identity; making a statement by relinquishing material pursuits, for the sake of imbibing the true spirit of an adventurer and taking on the world.
The breathtaking and beautiful film is a treat to watch. It is very much like watching a master artist create a piece before our very eyes, a laborious endeavour that culminates with the creation of quite a masterpiece. Director Sean Penn demonstrates his very best as a maker in this 2007 film! The imagery combined with the top notch performances of actors like Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook make this film a contemporary classic.

The film is an adaptation of the book by Jon Krakauer. The story begins with an unhappy family, proceeds through a series of encounters with the lonely and the lost, and ends in a senseless, premature death. But though the film’s structure may be tragic, its spirit is anything but. It is infused with an expansive, almost giddy sense of possibility, and it communicates a pure, unaffected delight in open spaces, fresh air and bright sunshine.
Christopher Johnson McCandless, the young adventurer whose footloose life and gruesome fate, is at the same time impulsive, brave and disturbed; yet he is also a dedicated spiritual pilgrim. He does not court danger but rather stumbles across it — thrillingly and then fatally — on the road to joy. In letters to his friends, he revels in the simple beauty of the natural world. Adopting the pseudonym Alexander Supertramp, rejecting material possessions and human attachments, he proclaims himself an “aesthetic voyager.” After graduating from Emory University in 1990, he sets off on a zigzagging two-year journey that took him from South Dakota to Southern California, from the Sea of Cortez to the Alaskan wilderness, where he perished, apparently from starvation, in August 1992.

The film is noteworthy for its disarming sincerity, emphasizing Chris's capacity for love, the gift for fellowship that, somewhat paradoxically, accompanied his fierce need for solitude. Though he warns one of his friends against seeking happiness in human relationships — and also rails incoherently against the evils of “society” — Chris is a naturally sociable creature. This is a reflective, regretful, serious film about a young man swept away by his uncompromising choices. Two of the more truthful statements in recent culture are that we need a little help from our friends, and that sometimes we must depend on the kindness of strangers. If you don't know those two things and accept them, you will end up eventually in a bus of one kind or another.

The movie is so good partly because it means so much, I think, to its writer-director. It is a testament like the words that Christopher carved into planks in the wilderness.

Penn, in tandem with the superb cinematographer Eric, captures the majesty and terror of the wilderness in ways that make us catch our breath. And Eddie Vedder's remarkable songs sound like the voice of Chris' unconscious. Since his death, admirers have made the arduous trip to that bus. But Into the Wild celebrates the person, not the myth. Mistakes didn't make Chris unique, his courage did. Through Penn's unmissable and unforgettable film, that courage definitely endures.