Ten Awesome 2007 Films You’ve Never Heard Of
March 19, 2008 Best Films of 2007 No CommentsIt’s three months into 2008, and you’re probably still catching up on all the movies you missed last year. Even non-cinephiles have probably heard of No Country For Old Men by now, but what about quality films from last year that were neither heavily promoted nor lavished with year-end awards? Aren’t they deserving of some attention? Absolutely. There’s only so many hours in the week, however, so I’ve pared my personal recommendations down to ten films from 2007 that intrigued and enthralled me. They’re all available by now on DVD, so move them to the top of your Netflix queue today. You won’t be disappointed.
12:08 East of Bucharest (A Fost Sau n-a Fost?)
Most American viewers will overlook the political jabs in this wry Romanian comedy about Nicolae Ceauşescu’s fall, just as I did. No matter. 12:08 East of Bucharest has a sneaky charm. Simultaneously sweet, agonizing, and hilarious, it twists expectations and finds the droll humor in challenging themes. This is the most beautifully shot comedy in recent memory, and the natural, post-Cold War shabbiness of its setting creates just the right absurd tone. The film’s crowning jewel is the marvelous performance by Mircea Andreescu, whose Mr. Piscoci lays claim to one scene-stealing moment after another.
Blame It on Fidel! (La Faute à Fidel!)
One of last year’s best performances came from an eight-year-old French girl. Nina Kervel-Bey dazzles as Anna, whose world of well-ordered contentment is overturned by her parents’ conversion to radical socialism. The political dimension to the film’s plot is fairly incidental. Blame It on Fidel! is no pro- or anti-socialist polemic, but a graceful, empathic film about how children deal with confusing changes in their lives. Persepolis mined similar themes last year with searing autobiographical honesty, but Blame It on Fidel! achieves something equally touching with mature and deft fiction. One of the best films about childhood in a decade.
Deep Water
If you’re neither a Brit nor a sailing enthusiast, you’re probably not familiar with the extraordinary story of the 1969 Sunday Times Golden Globe or the tragedy of this round-the-world yacht race’s most curious competitor, Donald Crowhurst. The tale is riveting on its own merits, but the documentary Deep Water suffuses it with an aura of epic suspense and sorrow that feels completely earned. Intertwining archival footage, interviews, and eerie recreations, Deep Water is a case study in absorbing documentary storytelling. Even if you know how it ends, this film roils with more tension than most thrillers.
God Grew Tired of Us
In God Grew Tired of Us, we meet the Lost Boys, southern Sudanese men who fled their nation as children during its second civil war. The film profiles a handful of these men, selected by a charity for a plane ticket to America and a brief stipend. What begins as a fish-out-of-water story unfolds into something remarkable. The Boys’ journey through a promising, confusing America—and through their own horror and guilt—is moving beyond words. This is a film of commendable humanity, punctuated with moments of such naked emotion that it will pain you to witness them.
In Between Days
An icy jewel of a film, In Between Days captures a short span in the lives of two immigrant Korean teenagers finding their footing in a cold, nameless North American city. Aimie and Tran are best friends, but their relationship is at a crossroads. Their latent sexual attraction simmers as they fidget through a heartbreaking, exasperating dance of affection. (Or is it possession?) Deliberately vague in its setting and details, this authentic romantic tragedy zeros in on the curiously analogous agonies of adolescence and the immigrant experience. Brutal and bitter, In Between Days hurts, but it hurts good.
Into Great Silence (Die Große Stille)
Nothing really happens during the nearly three-hour running time of Into Great Silence. Accordingly, this documentary about the silence-sworn monks of Grande Chartreuse requires boundless patience and an open mind. The monks pray and chant, tend to the gardens, walk the halls, play in the snow. They stare out at us, long and hard. There is no story in this film and almost no dialogue. There is nothing but these men and their world, captured with a breathtaking elegance. This is film as sublime meditation, and one of the finest works of pure cinematic art to emerge from 2007.
Killer of Sheep
It took thirty years for Charles Burnett’s black-and-white, neorealistic drama about life in Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood to reach American theaters. It was worth the wait. The film portrays the exhausted and frustrated Stan, who divides his time between a slaughterhouse job and efforts to keep his house and his household together. Killer of Sheep isn’t so much a story as an utterly credible glimpse into ghetto life, with all its indignities and absurdities. What a pleasure that this unsentimental, earnest, and erotic—yes, erotic!—treasure has finally seen the light of day.
My Kid Could Paint That
My Kid Could Paint That chronicles the swift emergence, ascent, and fall of an unlikely abstract expressionist painter: a five-year-old girl from upstate New York named Marla Olmstead. The story is compelling on its face. Is Marla a prodigy or just a playful kid? Have her parents or art world hucksters coached her? Director Amir Bar-Lev exhibits a keen appreciation for the thorny questions his subject matter raises, but he also boldly entwines his film directly in the controversy. The result is an uncommonly reflective and daring documentary that unfolds as a drama within a drama.
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
In a year strewn with mediocre Iraq War films, Operation Homecoming stands out a laudable bright spot. This stark and apolitical documentary presents the gritty, candid perspectives of the men and women neck-deep in the conflict. Nimbly straddling the uncanny confluence of warfare and artistic expression, Operation Homecoming features short vignettes narrated with prose and poetry written by Americans serving in Iraq. Authentic footage, stylized reenactments, and even animation lend visual life to their words. The film forcefully conveys these amateur warrior-artists’ uncluttered sense of duty as well as their bloody understanding of war’s absurd cruelty.
Private Property (Nue Propriété)
Intimate family drama meets stinging Greek tragedy in Private Property. This cruel tale cuts to the quick in its depiction of the sudden souring and curdling of the close bond between a mother and her two older teenage sons. The impetus for this dissolution is a dispute over their fate of their home, and Private Property embraces the themes of ownership and obligation with a grave demeanor and superb artistry. The liberated French values embodied in Pascale, Thierry, and François slip away to reveal a familial triangle as poisonous as any romantic one.
