According to Chinese astrology, the Year of the Rat ended on January 25 and the Year of the Ox started on January 26. However, in terms of new releases in British cinemas, the “Year of the Ram” had already begun on January 16 – the day on which Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece The Wrestler power-slammed its way onto our screens, setting a standard which nothing in the intervening months has threatened to match, never mind surpass.
For my money, one of the top half-dozen feature-films of the decade, never mind the year, Aronofsky’s rousing fable of perdition and redemption is based on a script by Robert D Siegel (remarkably, his first big-screen credit), and built around what’s quite literally a powerhouse performance by a heartbreaking and justifiably Oscar-nominated Mickey Rourke.
Rourke lost out to his pal and fellow 1980s’ survivor Sean Penn in what must have been a very tight race all the way to the wire. Marisa Tomei, Rourke’s co-star, was always a long shot against hot favourite Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) for Best Supporting Actress.
At least they were nominated. Future generations will surely be baffled by the omissions of Aronofsky and Siegel from
their respective categories, along with cinematographer Maryse Alberti and editor Andrew Weisblum. The Wrestler was always about much more than Rourke’s performance. Brutal and hilarious by turns, it’s an analysis of American success – and its painful downside – that cuts just as deep as more obviously high-toned fare such as There Will Be Blood and Raging Bull. It’s still shockingly rare to come across a relatively mainstream film from this country that deals so intelligently and unpatronisingly with individuals at the rougher end of the socio-economic spectrum.
In trying to come up with a top 10 for 2009, I could find only seven more features that I would call especially outstanding. Another in my top three, Revolutionary Road, came out two weeks after The Wrestler, but Sam Mendes’ savagely uncompromising adaptation of Richard Yates’ classic novel set in mid-50s Connecticut suburbia somehow got lost in the awards season rush.
It notched “only” four nominations at the BAFTAs and three at the Oscars, despite being the kind of prestigious, well-mounted fare that traditionally appeals to such bodies. This year the awards panels opted for supposedly grittier fare in the shape of the Mumbai fairytale Slumdog Millionaire – a competently-made little film which could share the “most overrated of 2009” gong
with Swedish vampire love-story Let the Right One In.
Like The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road had premiered in 2008 in the United States, as did James Gray’s superbly-modulated Two Lovers, a kind of romantic/psychological drama which came and went with dismayingly little impact at the end of March. In France, Gray is regarded as the next Martin Scorsese. In English-speaking countries, he’s still Joe Soap.
We had to wait even longer for Werner Herzog’s outlandishly entertaining documentary, the Oscar-nominated Antarctica travelogue Encounters at the End of the World – pick of the year’s non-fiction releases, ahead of Agnès Varda’s The Beaches of Agnès; Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! – The Story of Anvil; Gideon Koppel’s sleep furiously; and Robert Cannan and Corinna Villari-McFarlane’s Three Miles North of Molkom. It debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in September in 2007, but didn’t make it to British art-houses until the end of April.
Let’s hope there isn’t a similar delay until British audiences get to feast on Herzog’s deliriously unhinged Nicolas Cage collaboration, Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans, which promises to be one of the multiplex highlights of 2010. Summer has long been popcorn season and this year the mid-year’s mainstream-oriented deluge included a trio of particularly noteworthy engagements with genre.
Dennis Iliadis’ expectation-confounding remake of Wes Craven’s gore-classic The Last House on the Left and David Twohy’s gleefully self-deconstructing thriller A Perfect Getaway both wildly surpassed what were admittedly somewhat meagre expectations. Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 was something else again: a violent and cruelly funny example of politically-engaged science fiction that played like some dream collaboration between Nigel Kneale and Paul Verhoeven. It’s the third of my personal big three. District 9 also featured an astonishing, entirely improvised central performance by Sharlto Copley, who had reportedly never acted in any capacity before landing the role and whose alien co-stars were added in later via the magic of computer-generated imagery.
Rooted very much in the realm of the human, the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man may not be their very best work, but it’s not far off. It features a truly sensational last shot (their finest such since Blood Simple) and brilliant, movie-stealing supporting work from the previously-unheralded Fred Melamed.
Among 2009 releases, other top-drawer performances came from the aforementioned Rourke (The Wrestler) and Shannon (Revolutionary Road), plus Timothy Olyphant in A Perfect Getaway, and Rebecca Griffiths as the little sister in Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank. The latter was one of the standouts in what must be reckoned a somewhat ho-hum year for British cinema, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson, Michael Winterbottom’s Genova, Duncan Jones’ Moon and documentaries sleep furiously and Three Miles North of Molkom were all rock-solid, but nothing that you could really label world class.
Speaking of which, while it’s still a little early to have a proper overview of the decade, for me there were half-a-dozen genuine masterpieces released for the first time in this during 2000-2009: Elephant by Gus Van Sant (2003), A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005), Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002), United 93 (Paul Greengrass), plus Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich (1999), which was released here on St Patrick’s Day 2000. And, of course, The Wrestler.
Neil Young
