Films that I loved/hated this year

To wrap up my cultural highs and lows of 2013 I’ve put together a short list of my least and most favorite films of this year.

Please keep in mind that I am just writing a few spontaneous sentences here and don’t try to analyze or review anything in detail. I just want to reflect a bit on what I saw and why and how I liked it or not.

Five films that I loved this year:

Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland)

Although this was technically a film from 2012, it’s official release in Germany was in 2013 and that’s why I am making an exception here. Rarely has a film surprised me like „Berberian Sound Studio“ did. I knew little going into it and actually was expecting more of a sleazefest I must admit but it’s not just an excellent hommage to the italian gorefests of the sixties and seventies, it’s also a very lynchian descent into madness that has a very concise handwriting of it’s own. Not showing the audience a single frame of the obvious gorefest that our protagonist Gilderoy has to dub in the very dark and daunting studio is a very clever stylistic choice and helps to let the viewers imagination roam free. The recording studio becomes a microcosm with lots of allegoric and expressionistic potential since our protagonist becomes a more and more unreliable narrator. It’s a film about being subjected in many ways and it makes an interesting statement about the power of the art of cinema via it’s beyond excellent sound design and moody images.

Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón)

„Gravitiy“ has been criticized for it’s very esotheric and cliché ridden plot about being born again and being able to let go, for not really being anything of value but I think that in this case it’s journey is the destination. There never has been a film about space that made me actually feel like being in space and that feeling was addicting to me. It’s plot might not be something special but it managed to be an emotional rollercoaster with many highpoints that still worked over repeated viewing. It’s on the spot, fast moving yet very calm and made me want to experience it over and over again.

Only God forgives (Nicholas Winding Refn)

Probably one of the most difficult and anticlimatic films of 2013. This one is not about being concrete but more about abstraction. „Only God forgives“ isn’t the probably by most people expected follow up to the previous „Drive“, it’s more or less a „f**k you“ to everyone who was expecting another crowd pleaser (if you can call „Drive“ that) at this point. Refn isn’t out to repeat himself and doesn’t want to be pleasant, yet still he manages to keep the distinctive stylistic features that give his films an unmistakable signature. He seems to be constantly moving towards abstraction while reducing everything tangible constantly. The metonymy of his characters and an eye to the visual storytelling that is being done here are the keys to finding access to his work and that is especially true with this one. 

Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

Probably the most subversive fun that I had all year. Korine’s „Spring Breakers“ is a film about the emptiness of a degenerate hedonistic culture that has become a oversexualized, repetitive and sensless nightmare of escapism tinted in neon colours. From it’s first to it’s last frame this film acts as a mirror for everyone who recognizes himself in these self-destructive actions of escapism and people that seek confirmation of this lifestyle and expect to find it here will be disappointed. Korine woos you with attractive female lolita-types and promises lots of mindless excess. But instead he tells the story of an incorporated and commercialized revolution that is suggesting being nonconformist while in truth being the most conform.

The World’s End (Edgar Wright)

Another hit by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This is a more than worthy followup to the first parts of the Cornetto trilogy and one of the most entertaining films I saw all year. Where films like the awful „This is the End“ stick to a very classic formular while pretending to be more, Wright and his crew take these formulars out for a spin and that’s why their works feel authentic and wholeheartedly. Wright is a brilliant director with an nearlessly flawless feeling for good timing and his attention to detail is beyond amazing. There’s lots to discover, fun to be had and lots of ideological criticism. This one might seem stupid on the outisde but it’s smart on the inside.

Three films that I hated this year:

Evil Dead (Fede Alvarez)

Pointless, stupid, soulless, not atmospheric in the slightest …

The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie)

Citing your idols only works if you understand them and quit casting your wife because she’s hot.

Elysium (Neill Blomkamp)

Lazy, uninspired, ugly and poorly written.