Top Ten Films of 2014

Choosing the top ten films of the year has become a complex task, not because there are many masterpieces to choose from, but because the production and release years of films often differ, creating many challenges for selection. For example, the acclaimed film "Ida" by Pawel Pawlikowski is from last year, but it only had a couple of screenings in 2013 (including at the London Festival; I wrote about it in last year's top ten films), yet many global critics have only watched the film this year, thus placing it on their 2014 lists, as well as in the initial nominations for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar. On the other hand, films like "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence" premiered in September at the Venice Festival and had little screening afterward—except in Sweden—so many critics have likely not seen it and it may find its way onto their lists next year; similarly, a film like "The Fool" received attention at the Locarno Festival. Leviathan (Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev) is another masterpiece from Andrey Zvyagintsev (creator of "The Exile") and part of the new wave of Russian cinema that has produced some of the most remarkable films in recent years; it tells the story of a man's gradual downfall—who initially has everything: a beautiful wife, a house, land, and a good friend—but ultimately loses everything step by step. The camera becomes an observer that patiently captures the often static scenes in a remote area of northern Russia, placing its main character in horrifying yet accessible situations that can occupy the viewer's mind for a long time. Wild Tales (Director: Damián Szifron) is a captivating and engaging film from Argentine cinema that went unnoticed by the Cannes jury but may have a good chance of winning the Best Foreign Film Oscar; it is an absurd comedy that challenges all norms and ethics, even the audience. The film, composed of several episodes, challenges all rules and morals from the very first scene on the airplane (where a pilot gathers all his friends and acquaintances on the plane and intends to commit suicide) to create a madcap comedy that peaks in the final section (where a bride at her lavish wedding ceremony discovers her husband's affair with one of the women present at the party and disrupts the ceremony in an unforgettable manner); with brilliant performances and direction. Winter Sleep (Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan) is another brilliant film from the most acclaimed Turkish filmmaker, who rightfully won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Festival; it is a long, dialogue-driven film that is not suitable for impatient viewers addicted to Hollywood, but for serious and patient viewers, it is an astonishing example of the power of cinema in its philosophical form about humanity and the concepts of truth, goodness, and salvation, which can blend the coldness of the surrounding world with the main character's doubts about life through meticulously calculated mise-en-scène and admirable lighting that shares the various inner faces of each character according to the different situations they find themselves in. Calvary (Director: John Michael McDonagh) begins with a shocking scene: a man whose face we do not see confesses to a priest that he was raped by another priest in childhood and now intends to kill him for revenge; an astonishing revelation about the concept of faith and salvation, a journey through the filth and degradation of the world around humans that engages the viewer in a new situation that is rarely found in this genre, which can challenge established moral concepts with such clarity and power. The Tribe (Director: Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi) is a unique experience in cinema: two hours and ten minutes with deaf-mute characters (and actors) without subtitles that deafens and binds the viewer's hands to participate in a deeply bleak and dark apocalyptic world where no hope remains and everything escalates into extreme violence (including in the final scene where the violence becomes unbearable and perhaps the only flaw of the film); a film heavily reliant on form with a candid camera that is a neutral observer of its characters' complex conditions that have turned into dangerous gangs, and the viewer does not need to understand all their dialogues; the imagery is engaging and horrifying enough. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Director: Roy Andersson) is a new masterpiece from the acclaimed Swedish filmmaker who makes films every few years and this year rightfully won the Golden Lion at Venice: a strange combination of surrealism and realism that places his quiet, odd characters—who could only inhabit Scandinavian countries—in even stranger situations where the camera, positioned in a corner of the room at unusual angles, is merely an observer; observing human loneliness and contemplation about existence, which challenges all existence from the very beginning by showcasing three scenes of absurd deaths. White God (Director: Kornél Mundruczó) is an engaging film from Hungarian cinema that rightfully won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this year; it poses the engaging question of whether animals can be more vicious than humans? The result is a poetically—and at the same time violently—crafted film that narrates the battle between rabid dogs—actually made rabid by humans—and humans, depicting the concept of love in its non-clichéd dimensions; with dogs that are the main actors of the film—and all are astonishing—and when they take over the city, everything beautifully approaches surrealism until in the final scene, humans and animals reconnect through art. The Fool (Director: Yuri Bykov) is another astonishing film from the new wave of Russian cinema; a story similar to Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" in which goodness and kindness have no place, and its representative, a simple plumber and engineering student, stands up against power to save "the people"; a people that in the final scene seal a bitter fate for him; with a symbolic narrative about a crumbling building that can be generalized to a society, and the filmmaker sees the existence of "fools" like the film's hero as a glimmer of hope for saving that society, albeit with a bitter ending that easily brings tears to the viewer's eyes. Of Horses and Men (Director: Benedikt Erlingsson) is a stunning poetic film from the growing and remarkable cinema of Iceland in recent years that delicately unites nature, animals, and humans, using breathtaking visuals of Icelandic nature—not just as a visual element—in the film's theme and creating charming love characters in a warm and intimate environment where horses have their own unique ways and become an important part of human lives (while also symbolically depicting the relationship between humans with each other); a brilliant example of a local film. Birdman (Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu) is another captivating effort from Iñárritu (creator of "21 Grams" and "Babel"), an unparalleled Mexican filmmaker for narrating the inner state of a character; this time a former hero who shone in the role of Birdman (which is a nod to the actor in the film, Michael Keaton, and his previous roles as Batman) who now tries to create a new experience on Broadway in New York with a different and intellectual theory. Iñárritu's camera astonishingly follows his character, with long takes in hallways and rooms that share the sense of the main character's confinement with us, and in a scene where he steps out of this hall and behind the scenes, we witness a kind of liberation—with his nudity on display—and in another scene, the jazz musicians of the film—who are heard throughout the film—are sitting somewhere on the street playing, blending the different worlds of the film—the real world, the dream world, and the world of theater/cinema.