The 10 Best Films I Saw in 2017

Some comedies, some dramas, some adaptations; some from the U.S., some European, one Korean, one Iranian; one documentary and one musical; a few new films and a few 2016 catch-ups - here's a report on the 10 best films I saw in 2017:

Certain Women (2016)

Kelly Reichardt’s smart, introspective, and moving film is a series of three short narratives, based on stories by Maile Meloy, about female protagonists (played really well in turn by Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart) linked only by their shared setting (contemporary South Central Montana), time, and mood. If any filmmaker could tackle Chekhov, I think Reichardt could do great adaptations of a series of his stories.

Fireworks Wednesday (2006) In Iranian

An early work from Iranian writer-director Asghar Fahradi, whose films are as thoughtful and dynamic as great stage dramas - Ibsen or Pinter come to mind - with tremendous family antagonisms against a background of life in a complex urban community. It’s a difficult and sometimes challenging movie that comes together and builds in power and impact as it moves inexorably toward a difficult conclusion (not a resolution).

Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele’s fantastically inventive and surprising film takes on all the black male cliches and stereotypes directly in a way that no white writer-director could possibly have done. All of us in our anxiety about race can see elements of ourselves in this film, in these bizarre or beleaguered characters - clearly one of the best films of the year.

The Handmaiden (2016) In Korean

Korean director Park Chan-Wook’s film centers on a country estate in which the manor is built half in traditional Japanese style and the other half as an English manor house with Victorian-era furnishings and décor – a metaphor for the overall theme. We think we’re embarked on one of the many servant-governess stories so common in English literature (and film) - Jane Eyre, Turn of the Screw, Rebecca, et al. - but suddenly the movie takes a dramatic shift and we’re in a completely different film, in which the characters are underworld figures plotting and scheming, with and against one another.

La La Land (2016)

Damien Chazelle's Hollywood musical draws heavily and consciously on Hollywood musical traditions and makes out of these  something contemporary and lively and entertaining. I'd thought maybe this movie was being over-hyped; it's not - the hype was justified.

Life, Animated (2016)

Roger Ross Williams's documentary is a powerful, emotional, and honest account of the struggles of one young man, Owen Suskind, and his family to help him overcome the severe autism that transformed him into near silence at age 3. The movie is based on the book by Owen’s father, Ronald Suskind; Williams does a great job letting the story tell itself, staying in the background, never intervening in the scenes he's recording, keeping interviews with experts to a bare minimum.

Julieta (2016) In Spanish

This film is another great work with Pedro Almadovar’s signature style and his favorite issues: examining the life of a woman in crisis, and in particular the relationships among women and how they support one another, told in a crisp and stylish narrative style with a sparkling view of life in contemporary, largely well-to-do contemporary Madrid and filmed with extraordinary beauty of color composition (just looking at the backdrops of most of Almadovar's shots and the exciting color combinations is like a trip to a gallery or museum) and  with an unobtrusive yet emotive score.

The Silence (2016)

Based on a 1966 novel by Shusaku Endo, Martin Scorsese’s film is completely engaging start to finish: a smart, disturbing narrative with haunting cinematography and a subtle, mysterious pseudo-Asiatic score. In essence, it’s a spiritual adventure story, as two Portuguese missionary priests working in 17^th-century Japan, together and later separated, endure a series of hardships and dangers; it's also an examination of the nature of faith and morality - Scoraese's best film in years.

The Silence of the Sea (1949) In French

Jean-Pierre Melville’s first film is a simple, austere, tour de force. Based on a pseudonymous novel or short story published in France during the Occupation, the story concerns an elderly man and his 20-something niece who are forced to billet a German officer. Amazingly, the German is pretty much the only one who speaks (other than voice-over narration) throughout most of the film, as he is met with a wall of silence – a metaphor for the French resistance.

Toni Erdmann (2016) In German

This nearly 3-hour "eccentric father-uptight daughter film" is totally entertaining, engaging, and, in the end, moving without ever being sentimental or soporific. It would have been so easy to make this movie dogmatic or schematic - the daughter completely changing her ways, for example, and leaving corporate life behind or providing a new “option” for her client under which nobody gets laid off, etc. But director Maren Ade will have none of that, and the movie ends on a poignant, but still somewhat unsettling, note. Can an English-language remake be far behind?