My top 20 movies of the year... so far (part #1)

Blimey, those six months just sped by, didn't they? And with them lots of very, very good films. I don't know whether we've had a stone-cold classic yet but with the likes of Todd Haynes' Carol, Michael Fassbender starring in Macbeth, and Crimson Peak from Guillermo del Toro scheduled for later in the year, there's still plenty to look forward to in 2015. Of all the films I've seen there is only one I can honestly say I hated – American Sniper – but that was more about its lousy politics than Clint Eastwood's skill as a director or the merits of Bradley Cooper as an actor. 

Anyway, the rules here are simple: all films under consideration had to have had a UK cinema release between January 1 and June 30 2015 (to prevent moans of 'But surely that was out last year', I've even included each film's official UK release date, courtesy of launchingfilms.com). No straight to Netflix/Amazon Prime or straight to DVD/Blu-ray movies were considered (sorry, Starry Eyes). 

Not being a professional critic, there are dozens of films I've yet to catch up on that have been released in the last six months (The Falling, White God, and Slow West to name but three) but of those I've seen – 59 as of this morning – these will be my 20 21 favourites. Let's start with numbers 20-11, shall we?

=20. Selma
(Director: Ava DuVernay UK release date: February 6)
The fact David Oyelowo wasn't nominated for an Oscar for his astonishing portrayal of Martin Luther King still sticks in the craw. The rest of this civil rights drama doesn't quite hit the heights of the British actor's performance but is powerful, heartfelt stuff nevertheless.

=20. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
(Director: Roy Andersson UK release date: April 24)
Bizarre comedy following the antics of two dour salesmen as they attempt to flog a range of hopeless novelty items. There isn't a coherent plot as such, just a string of loosely connected sketches each commenting on some aspect of human existence. Gloriously odd.

19. Blind
(Director: Eskil Vogt UK release date: March 27)
Fantasy and reality merge in this extraordinary Swedish film from a first-time writer/director about a young blind woman struggling to come to terms with isolation and paranoia. Boasts a great central performance from Ellen Dorrit Petersen (below)

18. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
(Director: David Zellner UK release date: February 20)
Terrific but elliptical drama charting a young Japanese woman’s quest to find the briefcase full of cash buried by Steve Buscemi’s character in the movie Fargo. Is the titular Kumiko mentally ill or merely so alienated from modern life that taking refuge in fantasy is her only option? 

17. Inherent Vice
(Director: Paul Thomas Anderson UK release date: January 30)
Vague and sprawling, this adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s similarly opaque novel features Joaquin Phoenix at the top of his game. Perhaps a difficult film to truly love but it is nevertheless enormous fun.

16. Jauja
(Director: Lisandro Alonso UK release date: April 10)
A weird and woozy ‘western’ set in the wilds of 19th Century Patagonia and starring Viggo Mortensen (below) as a Danish engineer on a quest to find his missing daughter. I’d be surprised if I saw a more visually stunning movie all year.

15. Wild
(Director: Jean-Marc Vallée UK release date: January 16)
Reese Witherspoon is terrific as an emotionally shattered young woman hiking a thousand miles up America's west coast in a bid to come to terms with her mother's death and the downward spiral it has plunged her into.

14. Foxcatcher
(Director: Bennett Miller UK release date: January 9)
Haunting adaptation of a true story featuring superb performances from a strong cast. Steve Carell is creepiness personified as John E du Pont, the unstable multi-millionaire who founds a wrestling academy to train US Olympic hopefuls. Suffice to say, it doesn’t end well...

13. Wild Tales
(Director: Damián Szifrón UK release date: March 27)
Argentine portmanteau featuring six stories about rage and vengeance. The final sequence centring on the meltdown of a couple’s relationship at their wedding (below) is a tour de force of bleak humour and brutal emotion.

12. The Duke of Burgundy
(Director: Peter Strickland UK release date: February 20)
BDSM and lepidoptery (the study of butterflies and moths) make strange but beguiling bedfellows in this eccentric and gorgeous lesbian relationship drama. Not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

11. Mad Max: Fury Road 
(Director: George Miller UK release date: May 15)
Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, pictured at the top of the page) returns to the post-apocalyptic Aussie badlands in a movie for which the term high-octane was surely invented. Charlize Theron’s badass Imperator Furiosa steals the film out from under him though.

Numbers 10-1 coming later in the week...

Jauja: An atmospheric western full of beautiful visuals and baffling plot twists

Review

Jauja
Director: Lisandro Alonso
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Ghita Nørby, Viilbjørk Malling
Running time: 109 mins

There are moments in Jauja – pronounced How-ha – where you could hear a very tiny pin drop. Director Lisandro Alonso’s woozy, surreal western has long sequences that are so silent and still, I wondered at times if I’d hit the mute button by mistake. Rather than being off-putting, however, the disarming quiet adds to its peculiarly haunting atmosphere, something that is at first alienating (the lack of a musical score is especially noticeable) but eventually sucks you in.

This Argentine story of Danish engineer Gunnar Dinesen (Mortensen) desperately searching for missing daughter Ingeborg (Malling) in the wilds of 19th Century Patagonia isn’t an easy watch. The sub-titles would be enough to put off some on their own but add to that the languid pace, a boxlike 1.33 aspect ratio (see trailer below) and bonkers final 15 minutes, and you’ve seemingly got the very epitome of a film it would seem easy to dismiss as pretentious and impenetrable.

But please trust me when I say there are a great many things to treasure here.

For a start, there’s the look of the film. Cinematographer Timo Salminen ensures each frame is bathed in colour and it really is a visual treat – from the sharp scarlet of an army lieutenant’s uniform to the lustrous green of the grass and sea-slicked lichen, every detail is a genuine feast for the eyes. Rocks, brush, sky, water, clothes, animals – you simply don’t know what to look at first.

The vibrant visuals reach their apex in a night scene. Stars twinkle like diamonds in a vast bruise-blue sky and Mortensen looks longingly at a toy soldier (a gift from Ingeborg). It is just achingly beautiful, especially when we get a rare burst of music to accompany the moment’s already powerful sense of melancholy.

Jauja’s squarish aspect ratio – with the edges of the frame rounded off like an old photograph – works nicely too. It lends a film set in the boundless open spaces of the Patagonian desert an intimate, almost claustrophobic quality that it certainly wouldn’t have otherwise. It also helps emphasise Dinesen’s terrible isolation as he stumbles alone, hungry and exhausted, through the wilderness (Mortensen does hollow-eyed and desperate with some aplomb).

Eschewing the widescreen format also feeds into one of the film’s themes – that so much in life is hidden and unknowable. Stuff is happening outside of that boxed-in 1:33 ratio but we aren’t privy to its nature. We are surrounded by mysteries that, should we get too close, slip quickly and quietly away from us. For Dinesen the riddle is stark and simple: what has happened to his daughter? But it’s the nature of his very existence that ends up being Jauja’s biggest enigma as the film slides into a strange and perplexing final act. 

I called Alonso’s film – his fifth, and the follow-up to 2008’s Liverpool – a western but it’s like no western you’ve ever seen. The “man searching for lost girl” plot is straight out of The Searchers but that’s where that particular similarity begins and ends. In John Ford’s 1956 movie, John Wayne had to rescue his niece from a tribe of Native Americans. Here, Dinesen’s daughter has taken off of her own accord with a soldier. Aboriginals (many thousands of whom were massacred in late 19th Century Patagonia) stalk the desert to steal and kill but Dinesen has little interaction with them. He’s no action hero, no great gunslinger. Just a man whose biggest enemies are his own limitations and the rugged, alien terrain he is trying and failing to negotiate.

As I’ve mentioned, proceedings take a turn for the bizarre in the final scenes. Dinesen follows a mangy dog to the home of an old woman who, it turns out, might well be an aged version of his lost daughter. What follows this sequence is stranger still and, to be honest, not a little jarring. Is he a character in a dream? Is he in some kind of Lost-like Purgatory? Has he stumbled across a place so remote and strange that time ceases to follow the rules of physics there? It’s a bold, brash move that in some ways detracts from what we’ve seen before whilst offering an entirely new perspective on it. I’m not sure it totally works but I appreciate Alonso’s sheer brass balls for trying to pull it off in the first place.

Rating: WWW

Jauja is now showing in select UK cinemas and streaming on Curzon Home Cinema

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful