La Femme's Top Five...Movies I Saw in 2012

We may already be a quarter of the way through 2013, but I wanted to take an opportunity to write about some of the best movies I saw in 2012.  I don't mean 2012 releases, that post will hopefully come in a few weeks when I catch up on a couple more 2012 movies.  Instead, this is a list of the five movies I saw in 2012 that weren't released that year but were among my favorites that I discovered this past year.  It just so happens that all five of these movies also feature some bravado filmmaking techniques that tie them all together.  I love when that happens!

Submarine:  Richard Ayoade's debut film owes much to a couple other directors on this list. Quirky in a Nouvelle Vague as filtered through Wes Anderson way but never cloying, the coming of age story of Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts, playing the classic know it all dilettante who will grow up to have a blog just like this) captures the idealism and naivete of youth and the heady, overwhelming feelings of first love. We follow Oliver as he falls for Jordana (Yasmin Paige, giving her best insolent teenage version of Anna Karina realness) and tries (and succeeds!) in tricking her into dating him. Once he does and discovers that her mother may be dying and   that relationships might be more than he sees in the movies he tries to figure out the easiest way to extricate himself from it.  Oliver also has to contend with family problems, namely his parents decaying marriage and the new age guru (Paddy Considine, weird and wonderful) who moves in next door and whom Oliver has convinced himself is having an affair with his mother.  Using techniques that can so easily cross from whimsy to treacle, (and that have been abused in so many films that try too hard to have that magical, whimsical edge) such as voice over narration, title cards / chapters and of course the eponymous montage, Ayoade has an easy self confidence and visual wit that makes these filmmaking conventions shine.  Roberts and Paige are charming, startlingly and bluntly funny and have real chemistry of the teenage variety, the kind that makes you cringe and smile at the same time.  The ending is also lovely, and while it may crib a bit too heavily from The 400 Blows, it beautifully captures the freedom and the limitations of being young.

The Arbor:  I am a bit ashamed to admit that I have a bit of a fetish for life crushing stories of poverty and anger that take place in the rugged, desolate North of England (in fact, stay tune for our next marathon, It Sucks to Be British!) and The Arbor fits right into that wheelhouse.  A documentary about playwright Andrea Dunbar, who, despite her talent, couldn't escape the pea soup fog that can permeate not only the sky but the mind of so many Northerners, The Arbor isn't just talking heads.  Well, it sort of is as we hear the voices of Andrea Dunbar's family members but we see actor's portraying them and lip-synching their words (take a look at the trailer I posted).  Combined with both archival footage of Dunbar herself and recreations of her plays performed in the real counsel estate where she lived, The Arbor is a fascinating piece of documentary filmmaking.  Whereas, if the film had been a standard documentary, the movie would have held some fascination for misery porn Anglophiles such as myself, the film instead becomes a transcendent, heartbreaking experience that swings between fact, fiction, the power of art and the utter hopelessness of art to overcome institutionalized poverty. The technique
director Clio Barnard uses of having actor's portray lip sync the interviews works amazingly well; it both distances the viewer in the theatricality and artificiality but it can also be uncomfortably intimate and stirring.  We meet Lorraine and Lisa, two daughters that experienced the same childhood with two very different outlooks.  Lisa remembers her mother as a kind woman who wrote late at night while Lorraine remembers an evil, drunken monster.  With typical Northern gumption / deathly black humor the film isn't nearly as depressing as it sounds and is both a celebration and condemnation of Dunbar.  The film really is a not just a documentary but a biopic of Dunbar that explores her life, death, art  (and from Lorraine's way with words, we can see that she may very well possess some of her mother's talent) and the terrible toll that is wrought on families where alcoholism, abuse and poverty are handed down from generation to generation.  This is England.

Day for Night:   The evocative title, Day for Night or La Nuit Americaine en franchise comes from the filmmaking technique of shooting something in the day but underexposing it so it appears to be at night (once you see it, you will know exactly what I mean) and like the title, the film is about the illusion of cinema and the work it takes to create a film.  Francois Truffaut himself stars as the director Ferrand (did anyone have a kinder face than Truffaut?) who is making a melodrama with a difficult cast: an aging icon (Jean-Pierre Aumont) , a diva (Valentina Cortese), a hear throb (Jean-Pierre Leaud) and a sensitive British ingenue (Jacqueline Bisset).  We see both the struggles to make a film and the drama behind the scenes.  In one of the best sequences we see Serverine, the aging, alcoholic diva, struggle to remember her lines. She is at once ashamed and full of ego and we watch as Ferrand gently, kindly, helps her all while pushing her forward for the sake of the film. Behind he scenes, we see Ferrand try to keep everything under control, for example,  Leaud's (the scenes with Leaud and Truffaut are wonderful.  You can see the paternal, loving relationship they surely had) women troubles (bien sur) as his fiance leaves him for a stuntman and her pursues Julie (Bisett), who is recovering from a nervous breakdown.  Leaud is one of my favorite French actors (although he is terrifying looking today!) and I love the twist on his Antoine Doinel persona that he and Truffaut play with here, insolent, pathetic, angry and invigorated; Leaud is wonderful but I think my favorite performance is the aforementioned Valentina Cortese.  Her Serverine  is powerful and sad, as well as a lot of fun to watch.  The film is filled with wonderful sequences as we see the onscreen film (the day for night scene and the fantastic tracking shot of the set) begin to come together and Truffaut's true love of film shines through.  Like the best films by New Wave filmmakers, Day for Night is alive, exciting and filled with a love of film that only the French can express.

Monkey Business:  I had the distinct pleasure of watching Monkey Business while on my honeymoon. As a cinephile, one of the best parts of going to Paris are the revival films you can see around the city on any given day (We also saw Don't Bother Knocking, which will not be making this list!) and there is something wonderful and magical about seeing an old American movie in this very cinematic city.  Monkey Business is Howard Hawke's 1952 screwball comedy about an absent minded professor Barnaby Fulton, (Cary Grant) who, while working in his laboratory to create an elixir for youth, inadvertently discovers the formula when his lab monkey Esther pours the solution into the water cooler.  Of course, he drinks the potion and leads him to drive fast and spend the afternoon with his boss's very alluring assistant (Marilyn Monroe).  Hijinks ensue as his wife takes the elixir herself and reverts to a petulant schoolgirl.  As more and more elixir is drunk, more ridiculous events roll into motion.  At times, I find screwball comedies excruciating as events get wilder and wilder, but in this film, I thought it worked wonderfully.  The formula (ha!) works perfectly and Hawkes is able to juggle the insanity.  Every cast member is on board with the silliness and there is just enough pathos for us to hold onto reality (barely!).   Grant is hilarious and charming as this absent minded professor but my favorite part of the film was his chemistry and relationship with this wife, Edwina (Ginger Rogers).  The couple truly love each other and have passion for the other even though they have been married for many years.  And while the elixir almost causes irreparable damage in their marriage, they find each other again (although it involves Cary Grant trying to scalp his rival while playing Indians with neighborhood children!).  A testament to lasting marriage, it was a perfect film for K and me to watch at the beginning of ours.

I'll take her whole look please. 

Contempt:  It seems like when you mention one of the two New Wave Giants, the other's name soon follows (we actually watched both of these for a marathon Godard v. Truffaut). You can't have one without the other so if I am going to praise Day for Night as Truffaut's love letter to filmmaking, I had to mention Contempt, Godard's treatise on the creative process of filmmaking (and like Truffaut, Godard does appear in the film as an assistant director.  He does not have the kindest face ever).  While Day for Night is about the creative process triumphing, Contempt is about how the compromises one is forced to make to create a film (and to have a marriage) aren't always worth their rewards.  Michel Piccoli, a writer, is hired  by an American producer (Jack Palance, sneering and sleazy) to re-write a version of Homer's Oddysey, directed by Fritz Lang (as himself).  Paul must travel to Italy with his wife Camille (Brigette Bardot) to re-work the script and watches as she gradually (or maybe not so gradually) loses interest in him, and worse begins to feel the terrible emotion of the title due to his lack of backbone and willingness to sell out his art for lousy money.  Godard as is his wont, shows his filmmaking bravado, with the spectacular opening sequence of Brigette Bardot's nude figure (helped in no small way by Raoul Coutard's lush cinematography.  It isn't hard to make Bardot or Italy look great, but he makes them look spectacular) and the centerpiece fight the married couple have.  We follow the couple through the apartment as Camille's seething anger grows and see them retreat and attack in a seemingly never ending, excruciating fight.  Bardot is Bardot and does what she does best: play the sexy, cold, fickle, alluring, beautiful (no phrase describing her beauty would be enough, seriously), unattainable femme fatal (and please can I have her entire wardrobe on this film, ugh).  A rumination both on Godard's own failing marriage and his relationship with filmmaking and the creative process, Contempt is the very definition of an art film: maddening, confusing and fascinating all at once.

Julie