My pick of movies from 2015

These are the best movies I saw last year; sorry for the delay, but all will now be on DVD, plus few theatrical screenings.   

Do I have favourite favourites?   Well;  four very different movies stand out for me.   Brooklyn,  Fury Road,  Bridge of Spies,  and The Song of the Sea.   There are longer reviews of these greasy posted. 

Brooklyn.

Brooklyn was adapted by Nick Hornsby from Colm Toibin’s award-winning novel, directed by the Irish playwright John Crowley, and stars  Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters.     The story is set in 1950’s South West Ireland, and in Brooklyn.   It is a domestic drama with very little drama.   It is also exquisite.    This movie operates at a profoundly human, domestic level.   So do most of us.    We do not need murder, catastrophe or tragedy to move us.    The ordinary lives of other people, if they are presented with credibility and conviction, are enough to rouse our empathy and concern. 

The slow pace and lack of adrenalin allow us to admire the colour palate, the design, costumes, music,  and most of all the acting.  

Saoirse Ronan, who plays Ellis,  has  the ability to hold our attention while doing nothing, her performance is limpid; still and utterly transparent.    Jim Broadbent is a Catholic priest who sheds no darkness.    Emory Cohen is the Italian-American who falls for Ellis, and treats her honourably.      Domhnall Gleeson’s Jim is also a good man.   In fact the only malevolent character is a shopkeeper, who in times of scarcity revels in her power.    When I say that this is good movie I mean that to apply to every level, artistic, technical and moral.  

Fury Road seems to me to be an extraordinarily well made futuristic road movie.    Charlize Theron  gave us a gritty and determined action-movie lead character.   Tom Hardy as Mad Max is initially her unwilling and hapless passenger, but soon joins battle with her against the pursuing hordes.   There is not a lot of dialogue in this movie, but both actors know how to communicate without words.   Nicolas Hoult as Nux provides a pleasing sub-plot.   Many of the characters are truly cartoonish, but others  have subtlety and development.   The cinematography is magnificent, directed by John Seale,  who came out of retirement for this.    Here he matches the visual imaginations of Miller and Brendan McCarthy (the co-writer and Design Consultant)  with great skill.   This is an amazingly visual and kinetic movie,  made with great  technical skill  as unrelenting in its power as the scores of amazing vehicles that hurtle across the post-apocalyptic desert.

Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies  is as masterly as ever - more masterly, I suggest,  than some of his more recent offerings.    It is constructed with immense care,  artfully but unobtrusively set and lit.   Every frame is beautifully composed,  shot by Janusz Kaminski (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List and Catch Me If You Can)  from a sharp script by the British Matt Charman and the Coen brothers.    The evocation of the late 1950’s and early 60’s is spot on.    Bridge of Spies  tells the story of the capture by the FBI of a Soviet spy, Colonel ‘Rudolph Abel’,   who was later swapped for the American U2 spy-plane pilot,  F. Gary Powers.    Tom Hanks plays Jim Donovan, a lawyer  appointed to defend the spy.    Mark Rylance,  plays the spy.     He is perfectly cast here.    Some critics have complained about the film’s length.  I was surprised afterwards to learn that it is 141 minutes .   It did not feel like it.    It is a remarkable movie, and I strongly recommend it.  (If you want to know why I put inverted commas round Rudolf Abel, see my full blog entry.)

The Song of the Sea  is as Irish as can be, an animated movie made with the Cartoon Salon’s unique style,  using a style heavily influenced by the ancient  illuminative scriptures of The Book of Kells  (safely housed in Trinity College, Dublin) and using  the  two-dimensionality of the screen with profound seriousness as it brings together two ancient Irish legends.    David Rawle (Moone Boy)  is the boy with the Silkie sister,  Brendan Gleeson is his Lighthouse Keeper father, and Lisa Hannigan provides a character’s voice - and her own music.     I was simply ravished by the beauty of this movie. 

None of these, nor those that follow are in order of preference.

Ex Machina.   Domhnall Gleason, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaak teamed up with Writer/Director Alex Garland to produce a slick techno-thriller mainly set in the isolated laboratory/home of Nathan, (Oscar Isaac) the billionaire inventor of the world’s largest search engine,  now experimenting  with AI.

This is Alex Garland’s first attempt at directing, and he does a good job,  with help from  three ‘hot’ stars.    The set is brilliant, Nathan’s mountain hide-out constructed of concrete, stone and opaque glass walls.      The glass hides rather than reveals.    I thought it lacked the depth of Spike Jonze’s Her,  a moving exploration of how knowing,  growing, learning and loving  affects humans and may affect an artificial intelligent program.    Taken on it’s own terms, however Ex Machina is an engaging and enjoyable film.

The Martian.    Ridley Scott stepped aside from the Alien prequels to make this realistic account of an astronaut stranded on Mars.      Despite our confidence that the hero would survive and eventually return to Earth, Ridley Scott and Matt Damon maintain the tension and keep us engaged, rooting for our hero’s survival to the end.   There is an able cast, led by Jessica Chastain,  Michel Pena, Sean Bean, Bill Pullman and Chiwetel Enjiofor, and I thought Matt did a great job, bringing humour as well as vulnerability to his role.

SPECTRE’s record breaking box office figures are certainly justified by the spectacular flashes, bangs and wallops it delivers.   The usual kinetic opening sequence is terrific, and the rest of the movie has many well conceived and executed fights and chases with a variety of cars, helicopters and planes.    There is a secondary villain,  a mole, played by the ever-reliable Andrew Locke and  Ranulph Fiennes as the new M earns our respect,  even if we still mourn Dame Judy.   So far so good.   

However, despite Waltz is given the role of number One villain and despite this actor's best endeavors his part is badly underwritten.  He is given a laughable torture scene to play out.   The love interest in SPECTRE is also unconvincing.   There simply isn’t enough screen-time or chemistry  between Craig and Seydoux  to persuade us that the man who loved and lost Vesper would now give his heart to this woman.    Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny is underused.   So while I rate SPECTRE as matching or even surpassing Skyfall  and Casino for pure action it does not seem as engaging as either of them.   

Birdman (or The unexpected Virtues of Ignorance).    I had heard that this  whole film seems to consist of one take.   It does not, of course, but the scarce edits are skillfully hidden.    The movie is mainly set in a New York theatre as a new play is rehearsed, previewed and eventually performed.    Michael Keaton plays the self-referential role of an actor who was a Tent-pole movie hero  twenty years beforehand who now wants to make a comeback in something with more artistic authenticity.  Edward Norton plays another (allegedly) self-referential role as the ‘gifted but difficult’ actor.   Naomi Watts is simply delightful and Emma Stone and Andrea Risborough offer great support.         But the real hero must be the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki,  whose work in Sleepy Hollow,  Y Tu Mama Tambien,  The New World,  Children of Men, The Tree of Life and Gravity puts him up there among the truly greats.

Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil was made in 1958.   Welles’ was hired to play the part of Quinlan, a corrupt cop working on the Tex/Mex border, but he virtually rewrote the original script and, at the insistence of Charlton Heston,  took over the direction.     As soon as it was finished the studio fired Welles and butchered the final cut.     It was decades before it was recreated (much to the credit of Heston) in this,  something like Welles’  version.    I saw it at the Dublin Lighthouse cinema and it was good to see it more or less the way Orson wanted it to be cut,  and on the big screen,  as noir as noir can be.    Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich and Dennis Weaver joined Welles and Heston.

Slow West is set shortly after the end of the American Civil War and follows Silas (Michael Fassbender) and Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they head west.   Jay is in pursuit of his love, Rosy, (Caren Pistorious) who has fled with her father, both of them  wanted for murder.    Silas is a gunman (not quite as competent as he thinks he is) who becomes Jay’s  guide.     The country through which they ride is actually New Zealand, but the Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan films it beautifully.     MacClean has taken a fresh look at the familiar Western genre and despite the authentic and random violence that punctuates the movie it is a rather thoughtful and gentle film.    Jay’s heartful intention drives the plot,  and cynical Silas slowly responds to the foolish, but brave and intelligent, young man.     Fa

Far from the Madding Crowd

I think Thomas Vinterberg’s  adaptation of Hardy’s novel is superior in many ways to the 1967 John Schlesinger film.   It has only one failing, but it is major.  

I think Carrie Mulligan’s reading of Bathsheba is very good, less flirtatious than Julie Christie’s,  less impulsive and more emancipated.    Henry James complained of the novel that Bathsheba  “is a young lady of the inconsequential, willful, mettlesome type," who "remains alternately vague and coarse and seems always artificial."   I think that Carrie makes her much more than that.   She is never vague, coarse or inconsequential, even though she is decidedly willful.    However, Tom Sturridge who plays Sgt. Troy  is not Terrence Stamp.   He lacks the intelligence and charisma of Troy’s earlier incarnation, and he seems sullen rather than heartbroken.     Bathsheba’s  ongoing relationship with  Gabriel (Matthias Schoenaerts) however, properly reflects her growing maturity.    Michael Sheen presents a more sympathetic Boldwood than Peter Finch.  Vinterberg brought his usual cinematographer,  Charlotte Bruus Christensen, to England to shoot Far From, and her images are lustrous,  with misty mornings,  honey blessed sunny days,  unsentimental sunsets and the essential rolling landscapes, honouring Hardy’s love of the country.    It is thoughtfully Directed, beautifully shot, and with a good score.    

I was very impressed by Pixar’s  Inside Out and will write more on it later.  

In The Lady in the Van we have Dame Maggie Smith acting with so much skill, honed over the last six decades, that we do not notice it as she simply ‘becomes’ Miss Shepherd, the woman who lived on Allan Bennett’s front drive for fifteen years in a series of camper vans.   We see two Bennett’s, one of them living the life, the other observing it and writing – or not writing – about it.    Bennett has written the testy interior dialogue and Jennings plays out both  wonderfully.   

I saw three  National Theatre’s live broadcasts last year.

Everyman was a joy.    Carol Ann Duffy adapted this 15^th century morality tale, in which we are all (as Everyman) confronted with the reality of death and the question of whether or not our lives have been well spent.     Duffy’s script is decidedly  21^st century,   using both heightened and demotic language,  sometimes properly vulgar.      Chiwetel Enjiofor as Everyman brings enormous physical and emotional energy to the role.    Dermot Crowley plays Death with relish and Kate Duchene is God/Good Deeds,   deeply unhappy  about what Everyman thinks is success, and by what we are doing to her Creation.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s much anticipated Hamlet  was dominated by Cumber’s intelligence and physical grace.  We were given a clear reading, a well designed set,  and a worthy Claudius (Cierhan Hinds).   The rest of the cast failed to impress me, but this was nevertheless a thoughtful/thought-through production, and Hamlet’s protean quality makes it endlessly open to careful re-examination.    I also saw on television Maxine Peake playing Hamlet a the Manchester Arts Festival.   A very different production, but enjoyable.   I confess that I am predisposed to love everything that Maxine does.  

Gillian Anderson played Stella in The Young Vic’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire,  and fulfilled all of my (very high) expectations.

Among the DVDs I saw last year  I want to praise two admirable children’s films,  Despicable Me 2 and Big Hero 6.   I really enjoyed The Homesman  a Western starring Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones,     Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive,  The Double  and the truly remarkable British sf movie starring Scarlett Johanssen,    Under the Skin.