Top films of 2006

So - films that were actually released in 2006. I have to admit that I haven't seen that many. I've been alone most of the year and even though you don't talk and concentrate on the film, going to the cinema alone just feels wrong. As such there are several big films from this year that probably should be on this list. These include Cars, Little Miss Sunshine, Casino Royale, The Last Kiss and Munich. So without further sob stories onto the list of films I did see.

Syriana

Penned by Stephen Gaghan, writer of Traffic, comes the film that Got George Clooney his Oscar. Like his previous film based around the world of drugs, Syriana investigates the world around the black gold: oil. In 4 connected, interdependent stories we see the consequences of international demand for oil. The film begins with US oil firm Connex loosing a large contract in the Middle East after the country's Prince Nasir grants natural gas rights to a Chinese firm. As a result Connex lays off it's large immigrant workforce leaving them jobless and penniless in a foreign country. They attend an Islamic school in order to learn Arabic to improve their prospects where they are approached by a friendly cleric. Back in the US Connex merges with small oil firm Killen who have acquired rights to a Kazakh oilfield. The Dept of Justice suspects all is not as it seems. Jeffrey Wright's lawyer character is sent to investigate the deal and make sure the DoJ find no issues. In Europe, energy analyst Matt Damon is appointed as Prince Nasir's economic advisor to assist with Nasir's plan to reform his country and break free from dependence on the US. Concerned at the prospect of loosing their hold over the oil in the Middle East, the CIA appoint Georgy Clooney's character to assassinate Nasir, but when the mission fails they scapegoat him and start planning to rectify their mistake. Lots of people criticised the film as they found it hard to concentrate on the intertwining stories. It's a film that shows you the ugly reality of the west's dependence on oil and the strangle-hold they've got over the Middle East. Matt Damon tells Nasir: "You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other's heads off and that's where you'll be in another hundred years, so on behalf of my firm I accept your offer." Syriana shows that although terrorism is ideologically fuelled by hatred of the west's Middle East policies that suck the area's resources away, it finds its foot soldiers amongst poverty and desperation. The lack of a central character frustrated some, but it is the essence of the issue - there isn't really anyone "in charge" of the oil. The US government is interested in protecting its oil companies rather than the interests of the Middle East, allegiances are forged and betrayed. Up at the sharp end of the large corporations corruption is rife, but who watches the watchers? The film has a downbeat ending that, although tie up all the characters in the film, does nothing to change the situation.

Miami Vice

Now here's a film that split people right down the middle. Some loved it, some hated it. A lot of people were expecting Bad Boys 3 which this certainly isn't. I've never seen the original TV series, but I suspect it's nothing like this. Michael Mann has given this film a certain style - visually he sticks with shooting on digital video giving the film a distinct look - a non-film look and night scenes covered with grain. Story wise we drop in on the lives of a group of vice police headed by Rico and Tubbs. The film begins in the middle of a sting operation and we have no idea what's going on. Indeed, as the film goes on there is absolutely no character progression which have lead some to label this film as being "the death of cinematic narrative". But so what? This film simply covers one of the squads investigations - they are already bonded. Rico and Tubbs already know how each other will react so there's no Lethal Weapon-style unexpected behaviour. The plot involves the pair going undercover to flush out a mole who caused the death of two undercover FBI agents. To accomplish this they set themselves up as drug traffickers and begin to work their way up the drugs food chain. The action is sporadic, but retains the infamous Mann characteristics of realistic sound effects and shootouts. The violence isn't glamorised - there are no slow motion bodies flying through the air - just the realtime results of being shot. The film slowly builds up to the two big action set pieces at the end of the film. The middle of the film is perhaps a bit slow, but it's so beautifully shot and scored that it kept my attention easily. Perhaps one for the thriller market rather than the action market.

The Prestige

Plot twists. Some people spend their entire time whilst watching films trying to work out the plot twist. Personally, unless it's an obvious one I don't bother and just enjoy the film. If it's a good twist that fits the story then I'm impressed, but if it's merely a twist added for the sake of adding a twist then I'm glad I haven't bothered trying to work it out. Whilst watching the Prestige, it seems like the twist is revealed at about the halfway point but - as with the film's content - all is not what it seems. In Victorian London, two magicians perform a good magic act. Performer Angier (Hugh Jackman), his wife and assistant, audience plant Borden (Christian Bale) and the man who makes the tricks a reality - Cutter (Michael Caine). After the on-stage death of Angier's wife in a water-torture trick Angier blames Borden for tying a different knot. The magicians go their separate ways but harbour a rivalry that leads to them sabotaging each others acts leading to Borden loosing half a finger. Borden meets Sarah and they get married. After a while Borden opens a new show with a trick in which he appears to teleport across the stage. Angier and Cutter attempt to copy his act, but can't work out how he does it - it can't simply be a double as both the man going into the "send" box and the man who leaves the "receive" box are missing the same half-finger. Eventually Angier and Cutter hire Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) and copy the trick using a double. As Angier walks through the on stage door, a trap door opens and a lift propels his double behind the other door. As time goes on Angier grows angry that it's his double who takes "the prestige" (the audiences applause) every night whilst he himself is hidden below the stage. After more sabotaging from Borden incapacitates Angier he sends Olivia to spy on Borden and she successfully manages to obtain Borden's diary - which contains the details of his tricks. and states that a machine obtained from Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) makes the teleportation possible. In response, Angier sets out for America to seek out Tesla and aquire a machine of his own. Most of the story is told in flashback - the film opens with Borden sneaking behind the stage to see how Angier's new improved teleporting man trick works. Instead he sees Angier fall through the stage trapdoor into a waterbath and drown. Convicted of murder, Borden is sent to prison to await hanging, but once again - is everything what it seems? As I mentioned earlier, the twist about how the machine works is fairly obvious, but the other twists aren't so clear cut. After they are revealed you immediately see how they were set up. As Cutter comments "Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it because you're not really looking. You don't really want to know the secret... You want to be fooled." and so it is with the film. You want the twist to surprise you. The film takes great delight in showing how tricks were carried out. For example if you want to teleport a bird out of a cage, it's easier to kill the caged bird with a spring-loaded roof and use another one for the prestige. Chis Nolan is quickly becoming a director that can be relied upon to deliver. Whilst other newcomers such as Daron Aranofsky, Zach Braff and Jarod Hess are herelded as the next big thing, Nolan has already directed 4 amazing films - Memento, Insomnia and Batman Begins. Again, there are some spoilers so if you haven't seen the film, please don't read the following!

The presence of Borden's brother is hinted at many times throughtout the film. Does Borden not remember what knot he tied on Angier's wife because it was his brother doing it? We see Borden comment on how magic must be your life to be a good magician after they see the Chinese magician who pretends to be crippled. The repeated question "Do you love me?" from Borden's wife that is met with different answers depending on which brother is "playing" Borden that day is a playful way of suggesting the truth. The nature of Angier's final teleporting man trick makes you think about the nature of conciousness. Every night Angier effectively drowns himself and trusts that the clone that is created will be him. Not someone who has his appearance and memories, but actually him. I used to think about jumping into someone's mind and knowing everything they knew but forgetting everything you new. Would you still be you or would you be them? Would you even know anything had happened? I try not to think about it for too long as it makes my head hurt.

The Departed

I've already mentioned Infernal Affairs as one of the best non-2006 films I've seen this year and here is the US remake. Directed by Martin Scorsese and moved from Hong Kong to Boston, the story retells the tale of the race by moles on opposite sides of the law to uncover each other whilst adding some elements from the HK prequel IA2. Essentially the same story, with mob-man Sullivan (Matt Damon) infiltrating the police force, whilst the son of a crime associate, Costigan (Leo DiCaprio) joins the police force and is assigned to the undercover department run by Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlburg) and sent undercover into the gang of Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). The story plays out with scenes from IA ported over to the a US setting. Extra characters are introduced and a lot more of the backstory of the two moles is explored resulting in an extra hour of run time. It's a fine retelling with some twists not in the original film. Scorsese doesn't mess around with the violence which is a lot more brutal than the original. Perhaps it was needed to keep the western audiences interested. The violence is knocked up a notch compared to the original. Where as in IA we hear a shot and then see a slow-motion replay of the shooting, here we get, with no warning a shot that immediately blows the character's brains onto the wall behind him. At the same time though another character's death is shocking and almost un-expected in IA (the body lands on a car roof with no warning) - here we see the character being thrown off the roof and falling. Nicholson brings a more obvious mean, crazy streak to mob-boss Costello where as the original's Sam is much more calm - a businessman rather than a thug. There is one strange difference between the two versions. More spoilers I'm afraid.

In the original, The mob-mole in the police force decides to go straight and sees killing Sam as a way of accomplishing this - he chooses to be "good". In a way he is "rewarded" by getting away with it (until part 3). In The Departed the reason Sullivan kills Costello is because he finds out that Costello was an FBI informant. His character had no redemption - no decision to be good. However, he doesn't get away with it. The character of Dignam seems to have been created purely to swear a lot and then turn up at the end to kill Sullivan.

Children of men

One thing I love are films that don't pander to the lowest common denominator. Films that don't stop every few minutes to recap the plot for the audience. With Children of men we are thrown into Britain in the near future. Society has crumbled, the government has declared all immigrants illegal and they are being rounded up by the army and police. Society has largely broken down into lawlessness. The film opens with a BBC news report of the death of the world's youngest person - a South American 18 year old. We start to pick up that at some point humans suddenly became infertile. Why, what happened in the immediate aftermath and how society and other countries crumbled isn't explained - we are left to gather what clues we can from the scattered newspapers, government propaganda bulletins and news reports. If anyone has played Half Life 2, then the feeling is very similar to the opening third of that game where you arrive in City 17 not really knowing what is going on wit the population under the control of "civil protection". The plot centres around Theo Farren, a man who, like most people has a nothing life. He's on the verge of alcoholism and like most of the population he has lost hope. One day he is contacted by his ex wife, Julian who is the leader of the Fishes - a pseudo-terrorist group fighting for the rights of immigrants or "fujis". She asks him to use his family contacts to acquire transport papers to allow the young immigrant Kee to reach the Brighton coast. All Theo can acquire are papers allowing Kee to travel along with himself. So Theo, Kee, Julian and fishes Luke and Miriam set out from London. After the group are ambushed, they seek shelter at a fish safe house where Theo discovers Kee's secret: she's pregnant. As the fishes argue over how to use Kee's situation to their advantage Theo, Kee and Miriam escape and try to get Kee to Brighton where, supposedly, a boat from the Human Project - a collection of scientists trying to unravel the mystery of humans' infertility - awaits. Clive Owen is not noted for his his charisma. This worked to his advantage in things like the pulp fiction Sin City and the BMW shorts and so it does again here. Theo isn't a hero - he's just a guy who has lost just about everything in a world where the government distribute anti-depressants and suicide kits. He doesn't have to be the larger than life front man. The supporting actors are used sparingly and as a result shine in their time on screen. Director Alfonso Cuaron is on fine form and his style screams through. The colour palette is muted and the frequent violence is dealt with, like Miami vice in a very realistic matter-of-fact way. Early on we see a terrorist bomb explode in a cafe. As the dust clears we see the survivors staggering around missing limbs, we hear the falling of glass and car alarms blaring and we hear a high pitched ringing. The ringing continues through the title screen and follows us as Theo arrives at work, mimicking the real world effect of being close to a loud noise. The effect is repeated throughout the film. Characters who are fairly major die at the back or far sides of the screen with no almost no attention pad to them. The first scene also sets up the most impressive (and probably most overlooked) aspect of the camera direction: the long takes. Throughout the film there are 3 or 4 long scenes where the camera doesn't cut. We see the characters in the car talking, with the camera panning between all 5 occupants thanks to a specially designed camera rig, before - in the same shot - the car is attacked by a gang and the ensuing panic, escape and encounter with the police are shown without moving to a different camera. In the eightieth minute a group of characters exit from an archway and explore their surroundings before being ambushed and threatened with execution. A firefight erupts between the the ambushers and the army as Theo dives for cover where ever he can find it and chases after Kee. He runs down the street, through a bus after he is attacked from where he witnesses the army lay siege to a building with tanks before running into the building past the plethora of rpgs launched from inside, through the building searching for Kee. When he finally finds her on the 2nd floor, eight intense minutes have passed and the camera has not cut since they emerged from the archway. It's almost unbelievable - not only did they have to get the lines and acting performances right for 8 minutes, but a lot of stunts, pyrotechnics and movement had to happen. In addition, several characters from the start of the scene had to get to their positions for the end of the scene and be in the right place at the right time. Unbelievable stuff. The film had almost no hype because we got in the UK 4 months before the US, so the Hollywood hype machine hadn't started rolling. To back this up, the UK DVD is completely barebones. Boo.

We can guess Theo's fate as it adhears to the "if the hero's love interest dies, they will die after reaching their goal" that was defined in Gladiator. It would have been nice to show Theo finally finding some hope at the end of the film, but nevermind