2013 was an exceptionally strong year in film, so much so that I think every film on this list would be a top film in an average year, and the whole top five could be any other year's Oscar winner. It was a year of dramas, most historical, many intense, which marked a shift away from the more fanciful 2012. It was a strong year for films that dealt with race issues, but a relatively weak year for gender issues in film. Anyways, here's my top thirteen films of 2013.
Also, huge apology to all the films I didn't see this year. This list is necessarily incomplete in that regard.
Honorable Mention:
Honorable Mention:
Gravity
This film had brilliant visual storytelling, by which I don’t simply mean “it was pretty”. Through pure film-making and visual presentation, through positioning and symbolism, it was able to tell its story amazingly well. My favorite example is what I call “the embryo scene”, when Sandra Bullock returns from the absolute terror and danger of outer space into the safety of the space station. She sheds her protective suit and curls up, suspended by a lack of gravity, and the shot makes her look like a fetus in the warm safety of the womb. Bullock’s character’s entire mental state, and the audience’s perception of the relative safety of the space station compared to space, is perfectly carried in that one shot. Unfortunately for Gravity, the script is flat and one dimensional for all but about seven minutes of the film. What could have been a beautifully poetic exploration of life and death (both of which are visually present throughout the film as Earth and the void of Space, respectively) ends up being, dare I say, pedestrian (though I won’t begrudge Alfonso Cuaron winning any Best Director awards, as he deserves them for the reasons I listed above).
Trance
A “psychological thriller” from Danny Boyle that keeps the audience thinking far after the end credits have rolled by playing with our perceptions of reality and truth.
Saving Mr. Banks
An investigation into the ways we use storytelling to reconstruct our past in a way that is happier than reality. Reminds me of a quote I love, by Kurt Godel: “Only fables present the world as it should be and as if it had meaning.”
The Top Thirteen:
13. Iron Man 3
There were some solid pulp films this year: the perfectly adequate Star Trek: Into Darkness, the mythic and entertaining Pacific Rim, and the totally underrated and secretly amazing The Wolverine. But Iron Man 3 tops them all by working through the question raised in The Avengers: what is Iron Man, the man or the suit? The result is a film that is introspective and takes some cues from Iron Man 3 director and co-writer Shane Black’s own debut film, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which also starred Robert Downey, Jr. The film also makes a political statement by revealing that [SPOILER] the obviously foreign, culturally otherized Mandarin is actually a fictional puppet used to distract Americans from the true villain, the American corporate elite.
12. The Great Gatsby
Based on the trailer, I absolutely expected to hate this film. It looked like director Baz Luhrmann would totally misinterpret the original book in order to get to play with fun, over the top materialism in a way that glamorizes opulence. I was totally wrong in my assessment. The film contains as biting a critique of the decadent, empty lifestyle of the 1920s as the book does, and uses its modern soundtrack to carry that critique on to our modern era and lifestyle. Those who misinterpret this film and see only fun-looking parties do it a disservice by omitting its intelligence.
11. Captain Philips
Barkhad Abdi and Tom Hanks both give really great performances in this film, and the direction is pretty solid too. Its true success is in making the audience wonder whether the true antagonists of the tale are the varyingly sympathetic Somali pirates who attack Phillips and his ship in order to survive, or the cold Navy SEALs who rescue Phillips with more than a bit of force. This symbolically represents the struggle between the Third World and American imperialism, which corrupts the former with capitalism.
10. Mud
I remember thinking a lot about what this movie meant after seeing it, and honestly I’ve forgotten what conclusion I reached. I think it had something to do with the way our constructed narratives approach love. At any rate, this is a modern Mark Twain tale and just a really good movie.
9. Frozen
This is without a doubt the best Disney animated film since the Disney Renaissance, building upon the increasing success of recent efforts Tangled and the non-musical Wreck-It Ralph. Frozen offers a wonderful deconstruction of tropes of the “Princess Fairy Tale” genre so often used by Disney, and uses a feminist lens to view and then invert the deeply embedded and harmful misogynistic tropes of the genre. Musically, the film has some good songs (“Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” comes to mind) and some bad songs (I’m looking at you, “Fixer Upper”), and Idina Menzel ends up sounding like she’s singing “Defying Gravity” instead of “Let it Go”. Kristen Bell is amazing in her role as Anna, giving us a somewhat awkward, really normal princess that connects well with the audience. Overall, this film gets my admiration for being the best feminist film I saw in 2013, a year otherwise dominated by films by men, about men.
8. The Fifth Estate
This is my adventurous choice, since it has a 38 on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe film critics found this film too confusing to understand. As a film, it certainly doesn’t do the audience many favors in the area of ‘comprehending the story’, though it has a lot of sequences that were a joy to watch. The Fifth Estate shines more for its political commentary, since it portrays some of the most important events in modern politics: the rise of WikiLeaks and the increasing democratization of information, knowledge, and (hopefully) power. It is certainly the most politically important and immediately relevant film to come out this year, and deserves a spot on this list because of it. Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl also give compelling performances and carry the audience along in the ever present conflict between idealism and pragmatism.
7. August: Osage County
Adapted from the award-winning 2008 play by its playwright himself, Tracy Letts, the film retains the feeling of classic staged drama with things like long, explosive dinner scenes, a staple of the medium. It also contains the best ensemble cast of 2013, hands down. I find that the Oklahoman setting, as written by a native Oklahoman, resonates well with me, as a North Texan. The landscapes look familiar, the house looks familiar, and the people seem like people I could conceivably know (though I’m glad I don't). August: Osage County represents a part of a growing tradition of cultural and artistic expression for the common people living in the South and South-West. Film is so often dominated by narratives coming from New York or Hollywood itself, and the only room for a “Southerner” in these stories is as a stereotyped character whose defining characteristic is always being “country” or a cowboy or some similar one dimensional being. Letts writes us as we see ourselves rather than as we are seen by outsiders, and so gives this film deeper resonance for those living “on the Plains” than if the film was yet another depiction of a dysfunctional Italian-American family living in Brooklyn.
6. The Butler
2013 was, I believe, a strong year for the black community in film-making, and in the wake of mega-hit 12 Years a Slave, this film seems to have been a tad forgotten as having been a part of that success. It is infinitely more political than the more-appreciated 12 Years..., and featured great performances from Forest Whitaker and David Oyelowo, who were joined by a very talented ensemble cast. Though I have to say, Oprah Winfrey was not “snubbed” when she didn't get nominated for an Academy Award; her acting really wasn't much to write home about, to be honest.
5. The Wolf of Wall Street
This film is reminiscent of director Martin Scorsese’s previous Goodfellas, and the fact that the criminals are stock brokers and not traditional gangsters is surely a sign of the changing times. It is capitalism that is on trial in this wildly over-the-top, indulgent depiction of the opulence of the “one percent”. The story gains tragedy when we consider that the protagonist, Jordan Belfort, was born a common man, yet was ultimately twisted by the capitalist system, and by the greed that such a system provokes. We watch as capitalism promises this man everything and leaves him with nothing; we watch as it forces him into conflict with the class of common folk that he has just barely bought his way out of. And to boot, it’s probably the most purely entertaining film of 2013, even with the three hour running time.
4. 12 Years a Slave
This film has brilliant dialogue, brilliant directing, and amazingly brilliant acting. Lupita Nyong’o absolutely steals the show, as her stage training, especially in Shakespeare, shines through and every extended line she speaks becomes pure poetry.
But..
Hans Zimmer nearly ruins this film with a characteristically awful soundtrack. Zimmer and his inability to string more than four notes together, combined with the insane decision to play that same stupid four note progression during every moment with any hint of drama to it,half succeeds in transforming this film from a brutally realistic depiction of slavery and the way it can change a man into a cheap blockbuster caked in sentimentality and designed to steal Oscar gold. Indeed, if this film didn't shine so well in every way I mentioned, Hans Zimmer would likely cost it a spot on this list, singlehandedly. Seriously, that man is guilty for a lot of the sins of music in Hollywood over the past decade or two, and I prepare for the worst whenever his name appears on a marquee.
3. American Hustle
Usually what makes a film great for me are its themes. But while there are themes I could perhaps pull out of this film, none are really much of a large part of what makes it good. In American Hustle and in last years Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell has created pure entertainment (and not in the way we would say of a stupid movie “well, at least it was entertaining”). With amazing use of dialogue, plot, and character, Russell avoids my thematic requirements; American Hustle is just a brilliantly wrought story. Oh and the cast is great too (though the Jennifer Lawrence fans need to chill out a bit, her acting in this film wasn't messianic).
2. Her
I love so many things about this film. I absolutely adore the design of it; the costume design especially was amazing to me in the ways in which it was foreign and futuristic but believable and realistic. Overall, the depiction of the near future was admirable. I also loved the philosophical undertones to the film: what makes a person a person, mind or body? In what ways does our physical rootedness define us as being human? Her asks these questions subtly by showing us a man’s lived experience and relationships; philosophy becomes rooted in the everyday.
1. Dallas Buyers Club
So much is powerful about this film. There's definitely a tone of anti-establishment running throughout it, for starters. And Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto give performances that deserve all the awards in the medium. But what I find most compelling about this film is the way in which it reclaims history, specifically that of the AIDS epidemic and the overall lived experience of the Queer community in Texas, and by extension, the South and South-West. Because honestly, if you got all of your history from the mainstream of entertainment culture, you’d probably think that gays only existed in New York City or San Francisco, and that the history of HIV/AIDS was basically the musical RENT (also taking place in New York City). Popular television shows like “Glee” reinforce a cultural narrative that anywhere besides New York City is a homogeneous backwater, telling us that we should all conform to this one New York culture; films like Dallas Buyers Club show us that people and cultures of all types do actually exist in other places. This film expresses itself through the cultural lens of Texas, and makes the remarkable assertion that not everyone in my hometown is actually a bigoted cisgendered straight cowboy, so for that it has my appreciation.