Last Year in Entertainment

By Brian Biekman     1/9/13 6:00pm

2012 was not a stellar year for movies. The highest-grossing film, The Avengers, was amusing but instantly forgettable. Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Judd Apatow (This Is 40) and Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) all failed to live up to the greatness of their previous films. The once-great William Friedkin (The Exorcist) made the worst movie of the year, Killer Joe. Despite some major disappointments, several films showed why cinema is still the greatest art form.

 

1. A Separation

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While Hollywood became more enamored with big-budget flicks that were heavy on pyrotechnics but light on original dialogue, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (About Elly) blessed audiences with the sharpest, most emotional, most humanistic film of the year. A Separation opens with Simin (Leila Hatami, Leila) filing for divorce from her husband Nader (Payman Maadi, About Elly). Their family has finally received a visa to leave Iran, but Nader insists on staying to care for his ailing father. Simin threatens to divorce him so their daughter Termeh, played by Sarina Farhadi in her film debut, can live elsewhere. Nader accepts the divorce but refuses to let Simin take their daughter with her. Why is Simin so determined to leave Iran that she would threaten her husband with divorce? If Nader accepts the divorce so easily, how strong is their relationship? These are two of the many deep questions raised by the film. A Separation grows more complex when Nader hires a caretaker for his father and ends up charged with the murder of Simin's unborn child. With its endless subtleties, its subversive take on Iranian society and its unsentimental look at the breakup of a family, A Separation is the one film of 2012 that deserves recognition as a masterpiece.

 

2. Life of Pi

Ang Lee is one of the most versatile directors of this generation working in the industry. He has adapted a Jane Austen novel, Sense and Sensibility, and a 1970s suburban family drama, The Ice Storm, into silver screen hits. He has brought wide success both to the martial arts genre, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and to the gay western genre, with Brokeback Mountain. Now he has flawlessly adapted a novel I thought was unfilmable. Life of Pi in 3D rivals Avatar and Hugo in the greatest use of the technology. The bulk of Life of Pi tells the survival story of Pi Patel, played by Suraj Sharma in his film debut, who is stranded in the ocean with a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck kills his entire family. Although stretches of the film have almost no dialogue, watching Pi learn how to survive is as enjoyable to watch as the most explosive action sequences. An adult Pi (Irrfan Khan, Slumdog Millionaire) tells us that his story will make us believe in God. Far beyond that, in Life of Pi, I feel God's presence as he guides Pi through Job-like suffering to ensure his ultimate survival.

 

3. Django Unchained

While talented directors churned out disappointment after disappointment in 2012, Quentin Tarantino loudly returned to top form with his finest film since Kill Bill. Jamie Foxx (Ray) plays Django Freeman, an freed slave who collects bounties with King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds). Together, they decide to free Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington, Ray) from notorious slaveowner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic). Acting against type, DiCaprio plays Candie with a gleeful appetite for evil. Samuel L. Jackson gives one of the best performances of his career as Stephen, Candie's house slave. While most of the slaves despise their masters, Stephen obeys his master with subservience so despicable that by the end, his character rivals Candie's. Although the film has Tarantino's signature ultra-violence and comic relief, what distinguishes Django Unchained from a shallow exploitation flick is Tarantino's ability to blend the mood of a spaghetti Western with the horrors of slavery in America. Tarantino pledges to retire from filmmaking at age 60. Let us hope he is joking; American cinema needs him.

 

4. Lincoln

Leave it to Steven Spielberg (War Horse) to make a 2 1/2-hour film mostly about a political battle over the ratification of the 13th Amendment in the House of Representatives and make it as fascinating as his popcorn flicks. Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) is convincing as a determined but doubtful, humorous but serious President Abraham Lincoln. However, Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) gives the film's standout performance as radical Republican leader Thaddeus Stevens. Both men have to sacrifice a core value to abolish slavery. Lincoln allows the Civil War to continue for months and Stevens has to publicly temper his then-fringe opinions on racial equality. If Lincoln has a major weakness, it is that Jones is so compelling that when the 13th Amendment finally passes the House, I feel like the greatest victory belongs to Stevens, not Lincoln. Lincoln is a major success as a period drama not just because the setting perfectly emulates 1860s America, but also because the characters' attitudes and sensibilities belong to 1860s America.

 

5. Argo

If I had to choose one scene to explain Argo's greatness, it would be the opening title sequence. With comic strips, director Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone) explains why seemingly ordinary Iranians would storm the U.S. embassy: the CIA-MI6 coup to overthrow Iran's elected leader, the installment of a brutal dictator and America's refusal to extradite him after he fled Iran. Too many movies about the Middle East dwell on the motif of the good Americans vs. the evil Middle Easterners. Instead, the operation to rescue six Americans who escaped from the embassy and are hiding in Iran is viewed amorally as America protecting its own interests. The planning and execution of the operation are the meat of the film, which does not contain a boring moment. Tony Mendez (Affleck) plans a fake low-budget science fiction movie to film in Iran. After falsifying Canadian passports, Mendez wants to fly the escapees out of Iran. Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) and John Goodman (The Big Lebowski) provide much-needed comic relief as producers of the fake movie ("Ar-go fuck yourself" might be the funniest line of 2012). Argo uses many of the tropes of a conventional Hollywood thriller, but beyond that, it is a responsible thriller: one that understands that being pro-America does not require demonizing the rest of the world.

 

Honorable Mentions: 

 

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Cloud Atlas

The Sessions

The Dark Knight Rises

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