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Europe2008 in the arts: A fine year for war, exile, violence ... and old men
The tone for the year was set in its first weeks by three deeply serious films: the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, and Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. All based on celebrated literary works, they featured performances of great intensity from, respectively, Javier Bardem, Daniel Day-Lewis and Mathieu Amalric. The title of the Coens' film was to be challenged by the 84-year-old Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and the 99-year-old Manoel de Oliveira's Belle Toujours: the cinema can indeed be a country that welcomes old men.Much of the year's seriousness was to be found in the numerous pictures about the morale-sapping wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the turbulence in the Middle East. Every few weeks there was a feature film or a documentary, ranging from Nick Broomfield's docudrama Battle for Haditha to Mike Nichols's bitterly comic Charlie Wilson's War. The best documentary was Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side, which skewered the demon prince of the political pantomime, Dick Cheney, as did Oliver Stone's disappointing Bush biopic, W. The same issues leaked into every genre, including Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, Ed Harris's western, Appaloosa, and the new Bond, Quantum of Solace. Gomorrah, Matteo Garrone's movie on organised crime in Naples, alerted us to terrible things going on elsewhere, while fine films of exile like Couscous, The Edge of Heaven and The Visitor reminded us of the consequences of colonialism and war. In this atmosphere animators tackled urgent current concerns in memorable movies as different as Wall-E, Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir. On the other hand Hollywood comedy hit the dreck in a succession of vulgar, witless farces, of which I've seen more than I can shake a withered slapstick at. Horror thrived, Juan Antonio Bayona's remarkable debut, The Orphanage, being the year's highpoint. The French cinema picked up a little, especially with I Loved You So Long. The British produced much that was mediocre and a few movies of distinction: I admired Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Martin McDonagh's In Bruges; I respected Steve McQueen's Hunger and Terence Davies's Of Time and the CityTop ten1 Appaloosa (Ed Harris)2 Changeling (Clint Eastwood)3 Couscous (Abdellatif Kechiche)4 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel)5 The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)6 Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)7 In Bruges (Martin McDonagh)8 Man on Wire (James Marsh)9 No Country for Old Men (Ethan and Joel Coen)10 Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman)Turkey: Cassandra's Dream (Woody Allen)Awards The John Sergeant Prize for Strictly Selfless Contributions to Song and Dance Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth in Mamma Mia!.The Sarah Palin Half-Baked Alaska Award for Unrequited Hype Quantum of Solace.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:05:57 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article
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