With the 2010s' candle burning out, I thought it worth looking back on
my favourite movies of the past ten years. It may have been a relatively
uninspiring decade for mainstream cinema, but even the weakest year had
a few standout releases worth celebrating. This post covers entries seven and six.
7. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (Dir: Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
The
divergent relationship between cinema and reality has been a defining
characteristic of Quentin Tarantino's filmography, from his use of
non-linear storytelling and multiple perspectives in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp
Fiction, to full historical revisionism later on. If Once Upon A Time
In Hollywood is to be the final entry in his directorial oeuvre - grains
of salt, though - it is an appropriate swansong not only in knitting
together the director's most prominent themes and motifs (the dirtiness
of Margaret Qualley's prominent feet is a very funny cap on a
long-running and much beloved joke) but as both a tribute and lament to
the end of an era of Hollywood filmmaking which above all others
inspired Tarantino.
I could talk about how Once Upon A Time's
cathartic rewriting of the Manson murders doubles as a deconstruction of
the modern masochist obsession with the True Crime genre, or how
Tarantino's melding of the real and unreal reflects how fact and fiction
have become intertwined in the way we remember historical events and
people. Worthy talking points all, but the real pleasure of Once Upon A
Time is simpler: the oft-neglected joy of enjoying a beautifully made
movie simply for the sake of it. From the sun-dappled cinematography to
the lovingly detailed set design, it is a luxuriant snowglobe in which
two-and-a-half hours passes in a snap.
The script is witty and
sharp, but in a less obvious way than Tarantino's usual patois. Instead,
the film's myriad scenes of unbroken conversation are underscored with
meaning and suspense by careful character writing: a scene in which a
young hippie offers a stuntman a blowjob while he drives is (ahem)
frothily enjoyable on the surface, but given an undercurrent of danger
by hints at her being a member of the Manson cult and rumours of him
having murdered his wife. The film plays out in such vignettes, most
heartbreakingly in a scene where the (seemingly) soon to be murdered
Sharon Tate sneaks into a cinema and is quietly overjoyed at the
audience's celebratory reaction to her performance.
At the end, rather than leaning into the dread lingering beneath so much of his film, Tarantino turns it into a moment of ecstatic, violent hilarity. So what if it's not true, he says. For a few small hours, cinema is a place where the Jews can kill Hitler, a former slave can gun down the estate of a masochistic plantation owner, or a murdered actress can live long beyond one terrible night. In real life, violence is horror. On Tarantino's screen, it brings salvation. Tarantino is to the cinema as Prospero is to his island, casting his magic first for revenge, but ending with hope. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is the stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life rounded with a sleep.
At the end, rather than leaning into the dread lingering beneath so much of his film, Tarantino turns it into a moment of ecstatic, violent hilarity. So what if it's not true, he says. For a few small hours, cinema is a place where the Jews can kill Hitler, a former slave can gun down the estate of a masochistic plantation owner, or a murdered actress can live long beyond one terrible night. In real life, violence is horror. On Tarantino's screen, it brings salvation. Tarantino is to the cinema as Prospero is to his island, casting his magic first for revenge, but ending with hope. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is the stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life rounded with a sleep.
#6: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (Dir: Wes Anderson, 2014)
Everything about Grand Budapest Hotel should be completely insufferable. It draws notice to its own construction at every opportunity, from its diorama establishing shots to the garishly bold, clashing colours of the cinematography and hard punctuation of the camera movements. The framing device - the film being a visual representation of a novel by a recently deceased, much loved author from the Republic of Zubrawka (on the farthest eastern boundary of the European continent), who also introduces the film - would be bottom-tier children's book cliché in the hands of anyone else.
What makes Anderson perhaps the only writer/director who can not only sell such weapons-grade whimsy, but make it irresistible, is not that he's in on the joke, but that the whimsy isn't the joke at all. He undeniably has fun with it, getting consistent laughs in counter-balancing his lavishly decorated sets by shooting them in such an austere, controlled manner. His characters are no less deliberate in their design than his sets and he relishes seeing their immaculately constructed fronts collapse into panic. Anderson understands and wallows in the comedy value of breaking the thin barrier protecting order from anarchy.
What he doesn't do is comment on the world itself. As far as his characters know, the hyper-designed world in which they live is simply reality. They are all blissfully unaware of its strangeness. Anderson's worlds are constructed, but not artificial. They have integrity. Without it, the jokes would fall flat. As noted, the central gag in much of Anderson's work is showing the chaos beneath pristine order. Were the order itself disorderly, there would be no punchline. As it is, the immaculately tailored Gustav H. is one of the decade's great comedic characters because everything he does is in service of maintaining order, yet he fails miserably at every turn. Recall the magnificent sight gag of him realising he's about to be placed under arrest and rather than politely cooperating, simply running away. Ralph Fiennes is glorious casting not only for his immaculate, and hitherto unrecognised, comedic timing, but as a heavyweight dramatic actor playing dry, but very silly comedy. Order into chaos.
Many of the films on this list evoke great questions about the human condition or the world we live in. Grand Budapest doesn't bother with that. Themes about manners and authoritarianism can be drawn out here and there, but as with the best of Anderson's work, it inspires spiritually rather than intellectually. Grand Budapest is nothing less than completely delightful from beginning to end. To intellectualise it is not only to miss the point, but to engage in the sort of snootiness it so savours in reducing to havoc. Sometimes it is enough to simply be able to say: this is wonderful.
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Top Ten Movies Of The Decade: Numbers 5 - 4
Everything about Grand Budapest Hotel should be completely insufferable. It draws notice to its own construction at every opportunity, from its diorama establishing shots to the garishly bold, clashing colours of the cinematography and hard punctuation of the camera movements. The framing device - the film being a visual representation of a novel by a recently deceased, much loved author from the Republic of Zubrawka (on the farthest eastern boundary of the European continent), who also introduces the film - would be bottom-tier children's book cliché in the hands of anyone else.
What makes Anderson perhaps the only writer/director who can not only sell such weapons-grade whimsy, but make it irresistible, is not that he's in on the joke, but that the whimsy isn't the joke at all. He undeniably has fun with it, getting consistent laughs in counter-balancing his lavishly decorated sets by shooting them in such an austere, controlled manner. His characters are no less deliberate in their design than his sets and he relishes seeing their immaculately constructed fronts collapse into panic. Anderson understands and wallows in the comedy value of breaking the thin barrier protecting order from anarchy.
What he doesn't do is comment on the world itself. As far as his characters know, the hyper-designed world in which they live is simply reality. They are all blissfully unaware of its strangeness. Anderson's worlds are constructed, but not artificial. They have integrity. Without it, the jokes would fall flat. As noted, the central gag in much of Anderson's work is showing the chaos beneath pristine order. Were the order itself disorderly, there would be no punchline. As it is, the immaculately tailored Gustav H. is one of the decade's great comedic characters because everything he does is in service of maintaining order, yet he fails miserably at every turn. Recall the magnificent sight gag of him realising he's about to be placed under arrest and rather than politely cooperating, simply running away. Ralph Fiennes is glorious casting not only for his immaculate, and hitherto unrecognised, comedic timing, but as a heavyweight dramatic actor playing dry, but very silly comedy. Order into chaos.
Many of the films on this list evoke great questions about the human condition or the world we live in. Grand Budapest doesn't bother with that. Themes about manners and authoritarianism can be drawn out here and there, but as with the best of Anderson's work, it inspires spiritually rather than intellectually. Grand Budapest is nothing less than completely delightful from beginning to end. To intellectualise it is not only to miss the point, but to engage in the sort of snootiness it so savours in reducing to havoc. Sometimes it is enough to simply be able to say: this is wonderful.
NEXT ARTICLE
Top Ten Movies Of The Decade: Numbers 5 - 4
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Top Ten Movies Of The Decade: Numbers 10 - 8
Top Ten Movies Of The Decade: Numbers 10 - 8
