What was the state of cinema? Oscar-wise, in 2001 the Academy Awards made some bold nominations, but of course awarded the safer “Gladiator” before Steven Soderbergh’s far superior, “Traffic.” Still, Soderbergh did pull off the feat of being nominated twice in the same directorial category for his drug trade drama and “Erin Brockovich” (he would win for “Traffic” and Julia Roberts would take Best Actress for ‘Brockovich). At Cannes Michael Haneke’s devastating “The Piano Teacher” would dominate (Best Actress, Actor and the runner-up prize), but the Palme d’Or would elude him (Italian picture, “The Son’s Room” took the top award that year). Globally, George W. Bush was elected into office, which would of course bring us 9/11 and the beginning of the Afghanistan invasion (and all kinds of other garbage), but those affects on cinema would obviously not be felt immediately. Perhaps the coolest cultural moment all year? In January, a black monolith measuring approximately 9 feet tall appeared in Seattle, Washington’s Magnuson Park, placed by an anonymous artist in reference to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
10. “The Devil’s Backbone”
While Guillermo del Toro won over the hearts and minds of audiences and critics with his similarly themed and styled “Pan’s Labyrinth” (both fantastical with political overtones) it was this Pedro Almodovar-produced Spanish-language ghost story that cemented him as a filmmaker of unbridled imagination and thoughtfulness. Set at a boys’ halfway house during the Spanish Civil War, with an unexploded bomb in the courtyard serving as a reminder of the peril they all face, del Toro crafted a tender melodrama about the ghosts (literal, historical, and emotional) that torment us all. Though some of the visual effects lack sophistication in retrospect, the sentiment is just as clear and rich as ever.
9. “No Man’s Land”
This 2001 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film is a pitch-black ironic tragicomedy set during the 1993 Bosnian war about opposing wounded soldiers (Serbian and Bosnian) stuck in a trench between enemy lines, with a Bosnian comrade who comes to and finds himself immobilized on a spring loaded bouncing mine. Serious stuff, but director Danis Tanovic uses the dilemma to scathingly illustrate the utter absurdities of war (bureaucratic or otherwise) and the squabbling among different players who descend on the scene — journalists attempt to exploit the situation for their own gain, which in turn draws the U.N., which begets its own kind of handicapped red tape. While the soldiers find common ground, and everyone works towards the goal of getting them out alive, the film concludes with stark bleakness (though there’s nothing ambiguous about the outcome), leaving the viewer despairing despite the demonstration of brotherhood among enemies, and as conflicted about the message as the desperate situation within no man’s land.
8. “Memento”
Credit goes to Christopher Nolan’s second film for keeping us interested once the final revelations occur, not only in the actual truth but as well as the characters’ own warped version. Guy Pearce’s everyman panic helps ground the haunted and afflicted vigilantism of the main character in a reality that Wally Pfister’s sun-soaked cinematography helps illuminate, one of shoddy, paint-worn backroom dealings, dank hotel rooms and hopeless dead-end diners. Using the plot device of anterograde amnesia, Shelby (Pearce) is forced to constantly re-imagine the events around him every fifteen minutes when his memory vanishes. The film uses an ingenious backwards narrative that carefully places clues at the right spots to allow for the viewer to participate in solving what we know is essentially an unsolvable mystery: a man out for revenge against the man who killed his wife, leaving him dazed, confused, and… well, he’s got this condition, see?
7. “Fat Girl”
Provocateur Catherine Breillat certainly has a lot to say about female sexuality, but fans of her work would agree her most abrasive, confrontational film appears to be this tale of two sisters, one a sexually active nymphette awash in thoughts of true romance, and her far more cynical and more rotund sibling. As the older seductress pines for her much-older male paramour, the younger can only think in inflexible terms regarding the bonds between her and family, knowing that the end of adolescence means the beginning of loneliness. “Fat Girl” traces the connection between the emotional disassociation of youth and the loveless call of passionless, selfish sex, creating a lacerating tale of the truth behind our darkest sexual thoughts — it’s as if Breillat is saying, “Come to my film for the cheap thrills, and I will scar you beyond belief.”
6. “Sexy Beast”
Before his directorial debut, Jonathan Glazer was only known for some ghostly music videos (Radiohead, Massive Attack, Blur) and staggeringly inventive commercials (Levi’s, Guinness, Nike), but that would all change with his gangster-trying-to-go-straight tale, “Sexy Beast,” a picture that ironically (and perhaps wisely) would let the visual flair take a backseat in favor of performance, sweltering mood and well, Ben Kingsley. While Ray Winstone is superb as Gal, the gone- lazy and fat ex-criminal trying to retire in his posh Spanish villa, it is Kingsley as the perennially apoplectic, raving lunatic former partner who is sent to fetch his colleague, who is a frightening force of nature (he was Oscar nominated, but never took the prize). The tense, tightly wound drama is also supremely buttressed by UNKLE’s claustrophobically throbbing electro score and the appearance by Ian McShane as a chilling crime boss.
5. “Amélie”
Launching the international acting career of Audrey Tautou and vaulting cult director Jean-Pierre Jeunet into A-list status, “Amelie” was the rare foreign film sensation that both packed theaters and pleased critics. Premiering in North America at TIFF on September 10, 2001 and released in theaters just a few months later, “Amelie” harkened back to a more blissfully uninformed time that seemed lost forever in smoke and fire of that early fall morning. The whimsical, sweet tooth of a story about a charmingly naive and innocent girl who quietly tries to help those around her and stumbles into love was the perfect dose of escapism the world needed. The fact that it’s an enchanting film, with a wondrous sense of comic timing, lovely set decoration and seared with earnest, unaffected hope and optimism is why it continues to endure.
4. “The Werckmeister Harmonies”
Comprised of only 39 shots, many of them in colossally-long 11 minute takes, Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s enigmatic masterwork about a strange circus sideshow — which includes a giant whale and a mysterious and unnatural ideologue named “The Prince” — that produces social unrest, fear and ultimately panic in a decaying provincial town is beautifully grim and unforgettable (and also a challenging film for those that can’t hang or go the distance with the slow-burning pace and bombed-out atmosphere). A young man (Lars Rudolph) hopelessly tries to assuage the restless town’s tensions, but it is to no avail and the moral consequences of the fait accompli self-implosion climaxes with one of the most heart-stirring sequences ever put on film (and corresponds sublimely with Mihály Vig’s dolorous score). Tarr once joked that the 11-minute reel was Kodak’s implicit form of censorship and either way, you can blame his mesmerizing and hypnotically graceful films (and sustaining sequences) for all of Gus Van Sant’s experimental work of the decade; the director named him as a key influence on “Gerry” and every abstract work that followed.
3. “The Piano Teacher”
Leave it to the contemptuous and implacable minister of fear, Michael Haneke, to deliver one of the decade’s most scorching portraits of human suffering and emotional incarceration bordering on a psychic breakdown. Known for his psychologically disturbing works, the misanthropic filmmaker renders yet another austere tale about a submissive piano teacher (a spectacularly emotionally ravaged Isabelle Huppert) who still lives at home, systematically damaged by her malevolent mother. Dignity and humanity practically buried under years of mental abuse, her only reprieve to feel something is ventilated by acting cruel to her students or brutal moments of self-inflicted genital mutilation (“Antichrist” has nothing on this). Things get even worse (if you can even imagine) when she becomes obsessed with one of her 17-year-old students. Abhorrent, yet fascinating, the picture is like a blunt-instrument to the head and something we carefully admire from afar, but never want to be forced to watch again.
2. “Mulholland Drive”
David Lynch’s puzzle box narrative seems to be about a hopeful Hollywood newcomer (Naomi Watts) who stumbles wide-eyed into a haunting mystery to which there are no straight answers. However, the hallucinatory nature of the story gives way to a deeper plumbing of the dreamscape, Lynch inviting you farther down the rabbit hole than you previously thought possible. In the end, the fable, originally created as an ABC pilot, diverges into two distinctly different narratives, one real, and one imagined, but not always in that order. Keep a scorecard handy for Lynch’s scariest film yet.
1. “The Man Who Wasn’t There”
The Coen Brothers’ achingly beautiful neo-noir (filmed in velvety black-and-white) was the polar opposite of their previous film, the jubilant “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Dour, smoky, and draped in period atmosphere (it takes place in the late 1940s), this tale of a barber (Billy Bob Thornton) who gets embroiled in a convoluted scheme involving murder, blackmail, UFOs, and the burgeoning technology of dry cleaning is one of the Brothers’ most inscrutable and underrated films this decade, and one of their most powerful and deeply felt. It’s a movie whose characters are hollow (hollowed out by suburbia, by the war), and the visual texture, enriched by those long, inky shadows, echo this marvelously. It’s a movie whose gorgeous starkness haunts you long after you finish watching.
Honorable Mention:
Perhaps what many will see as a glaring oversight is Wes Anderson’s “Royal Tenebaums” which was a bone of contention amongst some of the staff, but the prevailing Playlist wisdom is that this film isn’t the masterpiece many think it is and suffers from enough caricature-ness (one-note performances, costumes and an ungainly slathering of music) that was enough to keep it off this list, but yes, it does have some heart and is very watchable. Other pictures that didn’t quite make the cut were Baz Luhrmann’s gaudy, yet entertaining musical, “Moulin Rouge,” Alejandro Amenábar’s spellbinding ghost story, “The Others,” starring a strong performance by Nicole Kidman (when you look at the overall decade you realize she’s been in several great films), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s psychological-j-horror film, “Cure” and Todd Fields’ harrowing family drama, “In The Bedroom.”
If you’re wondering where average-to-just-ok-to-overrated films like “Ali,” “Donnie Darko,” “Black Hawk Down” or “Vanilla Sky” are, for example, you’re probably looking at the wrong website as they were intentionally left off this list. Thoughts? Your 2001 picks? — Kevin Jagernauth, Gabe Toro, Astrud Sands, Drew Taylor, Katie Walsh and RP.