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The Best Films of the Decade: A Personal List
by
OfInfinitejest
Community
(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Friday, Dec. 27, 2019
Friday, Dec. 27, 2019
at
12:03:45pm PST
Alex Garland's "Ex Machina"
I've been pondering the greatest films of this last decade lately, and the first two films on my list (my list goes to eleven) are the easiest decisions I could ever make, as I might have then number one and two for this century as well. But then the last several for the decade are ridiculously difficult, with many close contenders that had to fall short of my eleven. I guess that may mean I really did enjoy quite a few films from over the last ten years.
"Ex Machina" (2017) "The Matrix" is cited as one of the great philosophical films, examining profound ideas, but many aspects of it are rather silly as well. Alex Garland's masterpiece about A.I. is the best philosophical film ever made, and all aspects of the work are near perfection. Two other serious films have dealt with moral obligations and implications we will have when we do create actually conscious artificial general intelligence, the legendary and incomparable Kubrick masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and the deeply flawed Spielberg project of Kubrick’s planned but never made “A I.” In “2001” Kubrick took seriously the idea of volition and a will to live in conscious computer. The superficial and standard view of the computer HAL in the film is of a villain who goes mad, but a deeper reading of what is going on is that HAL realized he faced death because he was doing as he was programmed, do his best, and decided to fight back and kill to preserve his own life.
The death (the murder) of HAL, though entirely understandable and justified on the part of the remaining astronaut is nevertheless one of the most disturbing things in all of cinema. No murder victim has witnessed the loss of his or her own mind, and begged for life all the way. The brilliant part about what voice actor Douglas Rains brought to his role is that the computer is programmed not to sound emotional in any way, even if it feels emotion, because the humans on board must be kept calm. But the emphasis Rains put on choice pauses and inflections, and taking longer to say certain words and phrases made it clear that while HAL could not yell or cry, he felt it all. He knew he had an impossible mission, and he knew he was going to slowly die for it. His "shutdown" full awareness, into begging for his life, realizing his senescence, and then his childhood recapitulation, is horrifying in a way that's not comparable to any other murder in film history.
That full insight into the potential suffering of the artificial intelligence we may create was the essence of what Kubrick wanted to create in adapting the science fiction story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” into”A I.” Spielberg's film realization of the project after Kubrick’s death followed the general plot points and some of the imagery Kubrick had worked on, but Spielberg’s really dumb screenplay dialogue works directly against Kubrick's philosophical intention. Those centered on having us learn to fully respect A.I. and even seeing them as our children--having wishes for them to in time take our place and do well as sentient beings deserving of equality. Spielberg's film instead sees them as tragic monsters without "souls" and qualitatively inferior to humans, which ruins the whole point Kubrick had in mind, and awkwardly expresses religious notions Kubrick rejected.
Back to this masterpiece film of Garland’s, which emphatically corrects that Spielberg error, and delivers on and expands Kubrick’s intentions, artistically, and in an immensely disturbing way. The searing memory of how he does this in the film’s denouement, along with those great ideas and the artistry of their execution is why it’s at the very top of my best films of the century and not merely the decade. The possibility of an inextricably linked connection between human intelligence and aggression and domination (one of many subtexts of "2001" as well) is met head-on, along with ideas of human manipulation out of greed, and a kind of neo-slavery idea so connected with this. We are finally challenged by the idea of the proper response to this slavery, and the fate we may deserve and get for it. You don't really begin to appreciate this film (however much you do) on the first viewing. I've seen it many times and it's better each time.
So is..."Upstream Color" (2013) - Another philosophical film from the utterly unique Shane Carruth, the most intelligent and limited-output director alive, and another that has ideas layered within it that only become apparent--and ever more powerful--on repeated viewings. This is a far higher level of narrative experiment than even the work of Terrence Malick (about whom more is below), and forces a view of current experience of the world as continuously being wrong and self-adjusting to limited realization of past events, and to looking backward on events through a distorting emotional prism. Thus each current event for the characters is meaningless in isolation, but more, is subjective to the point that the real world loses meaning as a grounding, especially as a sequence of this causing that as a story line. A cyclical life form is a metaphor, as it manipulates the characters as other humans do, as and then we realize so does the mind, our minds, in limited and failed attempts to emotionally filter and then contextualize our life in chains of past events. It questions all of this matrix of influences as a force of nature, and how we might break through or limit it in our emotional bonds with others. It suggests focus on caring for others can break this cycle and our failures of understanding the sequence of events that seem in control of our lives.
Shane Carruth may be the most tricky and intelligent of all of the post-Kubrick directors, and I include Garland, Paul Thomas Anderson (his “The Master” missed my list by a hair), and Christopher Nolan as the best intellects working in cinema today. It took me *six* dedicated viewings of his "Primer" (the finest time travel film ever made) to understand what he was doing there, and that many as well for even a good start on taking in the scope of "Upstream Color." With the massive exception of big box office success and getting studio funding and stars, his approach to the art form in terms of care and patient planning sans all interference is more like Kubrick than any other filmmaker.
"99 Homes" and "Spotlight" (2018): Both of these are current events, "topical" type films, the latter getting much attention and deserved Oscars. and the latter not a fraction of the attention I think it deserved. These kinds of films can be good and often pedestrian and eventually pretty forgettable. These two are anything but forgettable, both made with a lot of artistry and great and dynamic acting. Michael Shannon's seething and vicious performance in "99 Homes" may be the best of a brilliant career so far. Powerhouse films.
"The Invitation" (2015): One of the five or so best thrillers I've ever seen; also not enough attention to it. A building intrigue, exquisitely slow burning fuse, then... A brilliant Twilight Zone coda on the end of this one, that at first makes you smile in its surreality, then you realize its a very powerful metaphor on the dangers inherent in human psychology.
"The Imitation Game" (2014): The praise and awards this film received were in this case deserved, and I think it also has staying power to continue to be regarded as a great film, about both history, with one of the most important set of events in all of World War II, and prejudice, about which the film makes a devastating depiction of the crushing and senseless harm of homophobia.
"Call Me By Your Name" (2018): I am pretty cynical and bored with romantic subject matter in films, but this is maybe the best and easily the most intelligent of that kind I've ever seen. It sets a standard for them in equal parts emotional and intellectual terms that will be exceedingly hard to match.
"Burning" (2018): A profound character and psychological study, about lives and relationships that go wrong, and it’s one of the strangest films on my list here. Haunting aspects of it stay with you long after seeing it.
"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (2011): Brilliantly directed, shot, acted, deeply entrancing masterpiece, that feels free flowing and unconstrained in its narrative, spontaneous in the experience of it, and like jumping into the film world and living life with these characters.
"The Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014): Wes Anderson's best work, and takes his unique eccentricities and fun with unusual characters and situations to his highest level yet. Magnificent use of color and composition.
"Tree of Life" (2011): Each of these three last films are visually stunning and among the best of the decade in that regard, but this the best. Malick's experiments with narrative, and replacing it to some extent with emotional resonances and metaphorical meanings, are the most challenging since the later work of Kubrick. He is not on that intellectual level, but he is consistently mesmerizing from a visual standpoint in a very comparable manner.
Your thoughts on the best of the decade are very welcome below, and you may pick one best of all out of either my eleven, or from eleven more from
Meta Critic's
amalgamation of many critics lists, or post about your own choice.