Comments on: Best of the Decade Derby POLL: Best English language film from 2000

By: Car Insurance Comparison

Car Insurance Comparison — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:17:40 +0000

Fantastic is the word, recently watched it and found it really very interesting, I would watch it again!

By: Eric Eiserloh

Eric Eiserloh — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:17:26 +0000

Haven't seen House Of Mirth, and while I enjoyed most of the others to some degree or another (though perhaps not as much as Snatch), Dancer In The Dark is by far the most daring and original, and a film every film lover needs to see, and I'm not sure I can say that about the rest.

For foreign films in 2000, I would say definitely say that about Mood For Love, but was also very impressed by Amores Perros, and Code Unknown, and even Together, among others…. still hoping to to see Werckmeister Harmonies, and Yurika one day soon…..

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:12:08 +0000

My personal favorite – and perhaps the only Von Trier film I'll stand behind at this point – is Breaking the Waves, for somehow managing to wield an unflinching critical faculty towards its own devastating melodrama even as it unleashes it on the audience. I suppose one could make the same case for Dancer in the Dark, but I mostly I remember the film drowning in a sea of gimmickry. The part where the cop gets bashed in the head with a money box was I guess the tipping point, never mind the 100 cameras (about 99 more than anyone really needs to make a masterpiece).

By: vadim

vadim — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:43:40 +0000

Mm. I guess I think that to categorize all of Von Trier's work as of one piece is kind of a mistake; I think Dancer in the Dark is fantastic, but find Dogville interesting only kind of abstractly. Dancer In The Dark is Von Trier's most viscerally brutal and effective movie, though in service of what is debatable. I'd take Zooropa (or whatever it's called these days) and The Kingdom over that first, honestly.

By: Matt Noller

Matt Noller — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:10:02 +0000

Vadim: My vote is for Dancer in the Dark, as well.

By: alsolikelife

alsolikelife — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:24:52 +0000

I've lost enthusiasm for von trier over the decade. Dogville was a top ten of it's year for me but now I have no desire to revisit it. Same goes for haneke. But as always I'm open to persuasion.

By: vadim

vadim — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:45:00 +0000

I'm the only person who'd even consider Dancer In The Dark? Wow.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:09:07 +0000

I think that the main problem with Traffic is its huge range of interests don't allow it to look at any in-depth. The huge amount of characters don't allow us to get close to any of them. Dennis Quaid gets some top billing, his character gets a floaty head on the poster, but after seeing the film twice I still have no idea what the hell his character was about.

The relationships between the characters suffer from this. You never get a true sense of the relationship between, say, Wakefield and his wife, Rodriguez and his partner, Caroline and Seth, beyond the artificial (they are fighting/they are friends/he gives her drugs). What we're seeing are types occasionally bumping into each other, and that just doesn't engage me.

The same lack of focus falls on any kind of theme or message. The nearest we really get to something is in the middle of the film, when Wakefield visits the border and we get a series of lectures that basically amount to "it's kind of a hopeless situation" and leaves it at that. That sums up the movie for me: lecture points. Drugs are bad (though we never really see why drugs are bad), Mexican drug dealers are evil (in the most unspecified ways), and that's about it.

Requiem is microcosmic compared to Traffic: four characters, three apartments, you could almost turn it into a chamber play if you found a way to make it work without the hip hop montages (more on those in a sec). This sharper focus allows me more interest in the characters' highs (hardy har har)and lows (which is not to say that these characters are super deep, but deeper then Traffic).

But what really puts the film in the win catagory for me is the point of it all: the symbology we use for drug addiction is inadequate, it's either grossly inaccurate (Reefer Madness) or isn't powerful enough (in Traffic, Caroline basically becomes a hobo-zombie or something and Seth is just a prick). What Aronofsky does is boil drug addiction down to it's strongest symbols and presents them via hip hop montage: pills in hand, pills in mouth, eyes widen, let's watch TV.

I guess I should boil it down too: Requiem is specific, Traffic is not, and I much rather prefer specific.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:06:13 +0000

That…. is not something I considered before… :/

By: Bob Turnbull

Bob Turnbull — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:48:51 +0000

I'll chip in a vote for “Almost Famous”. In many ways it's comfort food for me – the topic (damn I wanted to be that kid), the music, the flow and pace of the film – but I think Crowe was really hitting on all cylinders in how he presented things. The cut from the young William Miller spinning “Tommy” for the first time to him three years later fully engrossed in the music always gives me some goose bumps (OK, Townsend's music helps in that regard too). The little details (the backstage conversation about loving the little things in music like “Woos” and mistakes) and bits of humour (Russell Hammond nodding Yes to go to a local party while Miller is shaking his head No) are everywhere. Even the music for the band Stillwater was perfect – exactly what you would hear from a “mid-level band”: the couple of FM radio tunes that get replays and the, ahem, deeper cuts from the album.

And the performances and characters are superb.

The best of the year? No idea. I love it though.