Top 13 Films of 2014

by James Hansen
Looking at the works on this list, there aren't necessarily many connections. They range from shorts to features, narrative to documentary, Hollywood to experimental. Still, I think lurking below the surface of many of the best works of the year (and recent years) is a unique emphasis on spatial dynamics, both internal and external. Space and the surrounding environment become imbued within the characters, images, and hidden stories of these films. Further, each of these moving image artists shows an awareness of how the feeling of those spaces has the ability to transfer onto and into the viewer's body. At times disorienting, irritating, and/or overwhelming, these films place demands on the minds, eyes, and bodies of their viewers (not to mention their performers), and ask for a willingness to play in games without ever knowing all the rules. Active investigations don't need to end when the movies do. 

Here are my Top 13 Films of 2014. 

1. Goodbye to Language (Jean Luc Godard)

2. The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zürcher)

3. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

4. Sea of Vapors (Sylvia Schedelbauer)

5. Things (Ben Rivers)

6. Story of My Death (Albert Serra)

7. Wayward Fronds (Fern Silva)

8. Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry)

9. Actress (Robert Greene) 

10. Selma (Ava DuVernay)

11. The Dragon is the Frame (Mary Helena Clark)

12. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)

13. John Wick (Chad Stahelski and David Weitch)

Continue reading...

Reviews In Brief: "Birdsong" (Albert Serra, 2009)

by James Hansen

Albert Serra’s Birdsong, a minimalist portrayal of the three wise men’s journey to honor baby Jesus, rests in laurels in textures of lightness and darkness. With only slight references to the scope of their venture, Birdsong remains almost completely void of the extratextual narratological significance of the birth of Christ. Rather, the wise men are portrayed as a trio of bumbling and indecisive fools wandering their way to nowhere. Without choirs of angels singing in exaltation – save the lone music cue of the entire film when they bow uncomfortably bow before Mary, Joseph, and Jesus – Birdsong is quite demanding, but the aimless journey is matched formally by the array of cinematographic choices, most namely the long periods where the frame is filled in almost complete black or white making the wise men oftentimes indecipherable from the textured surfaces and shifting grain. Serra’s formal mastery is never in question, as each shift in color, light, and sound (read: silence) foregrounds a lyrical relationship between the wise men and the audience, both of which become absorbed, oftentimes comedically, in the utter aimlessness and discomfort of the quest. Birdsong requires a deal of patient engagement, but it was impossible, at least for me, to not heed the call.

Continue reading...