The Best Films of 2006 (Version One)
Published January 18, 2007
"Seen any good movies lately?"
It's a sign of 2006's artistic timbre that this was probably the most flummoxing question I heard all year. Inevitably, the answer was either, "No, not really," or, "Well, such-and-such was decent, I guess..." Even when I did see a film that impressed me, I'd often have to qualify it somehow. I still get funny looks when I tell people my favorite film of the year.
That's the kind of year it's been - not necessarily terrible, just plum weird. Thus, my picks for the year's finest cinematic achievements are a mixed bag: a couple expected choices, a couple obscure ones and at least two that seem to invite a response of "You're kidding, right?" So it goes.
(And yes, this is version one. I'm still catching up — I haven't yet seen, for instance, A Scanner Darkly, Old Joy, Little Children, Notes on a Scandal or either of the films Clint Eastwood put out this year — so, as always, I won't feel completely satisfied with this until mid-March. But people just think you're off your nut if you wait that long.)
The Best:
10) Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro) and Tideland (Terry Gilliam)
Unlike, say, Kenneth Turan, I'm not generally the type to shoehorn two films into one slot and call it kosher. I can't deny, though, that Pan's Labyrinth and Tideland are kindred spirits. Both are dark little fairy tales (heavily indebted to tropes identified with the Grimm Brothers) wherein little girls escape/deny adverse living conditions by receding into an imaginitively-rendered fantasy world, and both have singular lead performances from their youthful charges. Del Toro's film is one of the best reviewed of the year; Gilliam's is one of the worst. Go figure - I think they're equally excellent. Labyrinth, a gorgeous and gruesome Gothic phantasmagoria, allows its heroine to live on a separate track from the rest of the world around her until reality cruelly crashes in on the fantasy; the heroine (and, by extension, director) of the eye-poppingly mordant Tideland doesn't allow that such a separation exists, deciding instead to shape reality in her head. Which, in the end, is more frightening?
9) Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer)
I continue to suspect that Tykwer is only as good as the sum of his influences on any given project, but he's at least chosen some fine influences here. Through careful editing and expressive cinematography, he manages to convey a reasonable impression of scent, that least cinematic of senses, while also staying fairly faithful to the tone of Patrick Süskind's novel (which I'm currently reading). He saves his most impressive material for last, though; in rendering Süskind's grandly insane climax, Tykwer gets closer to the rude, earthy mastery of late-era Pier Paolo Pasolini than anyone since Pasolini himself.
- The Best Films of 2006 (Version One)
- Published: January 18, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Action, Video: Art House, Video: Comedy, Video: Drama, Video: Foreign Language, Video: Suspense and Mystery
- Writer: Steve Carlson
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Comments on this articleComments
Interesting list. A few I still need to see, and some I disagree with. Lists are good for nothing if not disagreement!
Very good list and your number one is fine by me. Certainly one of the best times I had at the movies all year. Also, good to see Altman get a mention because his film was wonderful. When did Tideland come out? I kept hearing about it, but never saw it had been released.
Eric: Aw, thanks. Gawrsh.
Chris: Hey, I'm all for fostering debate. Personally, I look at the bright side - at least my pick for Film of the Year was actually released in America this time.
Bicho: It cheers me up every time I see someone taking the Jackass boys seriously - at this point, they genuinely deserve consideration as some sort of weird artistic force. (Admittedly, it helps my convictions to have a few friends react much the same as I did.)
And Tideland opened at the IFC Center in New York City last October. I don't know if it went any wider (or, indeed, opened anywhere else) - the reviews were pretty poisonous. Owen Gleiberman of Enetertainment Weekly tagged it as the worst film of the year, which I don't understand at all. But then, he has in previous years handed that dishonor to Irma Vep and Dogville. So maybe he's just nuts.
i gotta be honest here, those movies kinda sucked, none of them had any female nudity and none of them had jessica alba in them. if u want to win awards, get jessica alba to go nude
Hell, I don't even like Jessica Alba. But if she ever decides to strip her kit off, I'll be there with bloody bells on.
(Also, Perfume had whole bunches of nudity. The last twenty minutes alone have more nudity than probably all other films released this year combined. Hooray for boobies in my opinion.)
Mostly refreshing list until that last headscratcher. Lady Vengeance is morally rotten but the widely emulated, dangerous antics of Jackass Number Two are applauded? Is self-torture really performance art and, if so, is it responsible to release it in 3,000 theaters?
Enough quibbling though, I was especially glad to see Down in the Valley on your list. It's a very affecting, well-performed film. Another in that vein that came out in 2006 was The King which I found probably equally as good but I don't think I want to revisit either anytime soon.
Hey, thanks for the compliments. Down in the Valley needs more fans, darn it. I didn't see The King, but I heard good things. I'll give it a look down the line.
See, I think the difference is that there's no morality involved in Jackass - it is what it is. It exists outside of morality, which is why I can endorse it and not Lady Vengeance. I still can't believe that the cheerful, bloodthirsty latter film came from the same man who staged the agonizing river confrontation in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
Furthermore, it's not like Knoxville and the others WANT people to imitate them. They're rather insistent that you DON'T do what they do. There's an awareness that what they do is stupid and harmful and hey don't be like these guys 'cause they get paid to do this!
And I do believe that self-torture can be valid performance art. Just ask Bob Flanagan, G.G. Allin or Otto Muehl.
Borat and Jackass better than Lady Vengeance? Who cares if it verged on being morally corrupt, it was so stylishly done that it makes some of your choices seem like kiddie fodder; it was the ideal third part of the director's trilogy. At least you had the good grace to include Pan's Labyrinth.
Sorry, I fail to be impressed by shiny surfaces unless they're tied to something worth watching. Just about anyone these days can make a film that looks good. Hell, Michael Bay's films, from a visual standpoint, are impressive. So yeah, maybe Borat and Jackass (or hell, even Lynch's Inland Empire) don't look as bright and shiny as Park's film. But at least they're not trying to convince me that the brutal torture and murder of another human being is a wonderful and necessary thing worthy of celebration.
Also: No, Lady Vengeance is not the ideal third part of Park's made-up-on-the-fly trilogy. If anything, it's the worst possible finale - it is, in fact, a repudiation of everything for which the other two films stood.
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Steve -- what a glorious and fun and intelligent romp through 2006, great great stuff !