CineCola's Top 20 Films of 2014

NOTES: Unlike most other top 10s or 20s of the year, this Top 10 is compiled with films that had their official premieres during the course of 2014. This means that a lot of these films will not have been internationally distributed yet. Furthermore, this is a totally subjective list, free from canons that have been set up by previously published top 10s or 20s etc. on other websites, magazines, newspapers and so on. It is also important to note that these films include the films these are films that have been viewed and reviewed on CineCola in one form or another throughout the year, and naturally does not include films that weren't - which would be impossible as CineCola is edited by just one person.

20 - WHIPLASH by Damien Chazelle

The talent and the master. A jazz drummer with great potential enrols in a highly regarded music conservatory and is picked as a member of a mentor's band, a mentor with a reputation for being particularly demanding if not downright bullying. The music is great, the cinematography is precise and the performance by JK Simmons as the mentor, at once malignant and appealing, as well as Miles Teller as the Rocky like cinderella story central subject are amazing and amplify the emotional intensity of the story. Whiplash, is a film of bravado and confidence all around, the type that should be idenitfyable with all great jazz musicians, that kind that are forever to be remembered and loved. It also seems to be an ultimate embodiment of many genres and influences - including jazz music itself - thaty have left a heavy mark on American filmmaking. By the end, the intensity and excitement of the film, will have the audience on the edge of their seat, ready to jump up on their feet with hysteria with the film's final powerful and unforgettable sequence.

Who says young and beautiful actors are ones allowed to play the lead in a hopelessly romantic film? Prieto redefines an old cinematic taboo by telling the story of older and much less attractive than usual characters who unexpectedly fall in love with each other. Despite this, the woman is waiting on her visa to leave Colombia, and this factor threatens to split them up and end the romance before it begins. Beautiful still photography and meticulous mise en scene recall the romanticism of the older silent films where the cameras moved less. Pink Noise is a film that also recalls Abbas Kiarostami and while the structure is pretty well defined and moves at a slow pace, it's hard not to get emotionally involved in the emotionally dense atmosphere that Prieto so perfectly recreates through an audatiously shameless use of melancholic melodrama.

18 - IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE (Kraftidioten) by Hans Petter Moland

With revenge flicks aplenty in today’s cinema, Moland’s attempts at freshening up what could probably be called a film sub-genre in its own right are very entertaining and rewarding. His film In Order of Disappearance tells the tale of a man whose son is killed by a gang of drug criminals and goes out single-handedly looking for revenge. The film misleadingly starts in all seriousness, then proceeds through a coating of comedy and satire that actually sensibly touches on themes such as immigration and integration, themes that are depicted in a surprisingly effective metaphorical way. Nevertheless, it is the small creative touches and an air of unpredictability and collected chaos that make In Order of Disappearance the fun film it is – with a star studded cast that includes Stellan Skarsgård, Bruno Ganz and Pål Sverre Hagen adding to the appeal of insane, crazy and colourful characters.

17 - KUNG FU ELIOTT by Matthew Bauckman and Jaret Belliveau

Every great documentary begins with an interesting and intriguing subject. The subject of Kung Fu Elliot is Elliot "White Lightning" Scott, a man with a goal and a mission - becoming Canada's first ever action film star. Filmmakers Bauckman and Belliveau follow him as he films his latest guerrilla masterpiece and even show us parts of his private life. As the film progresses, we begin to understand the eccentricity of the character and a darker side of his also shows, as well as his own vulnerabilities and imperfections. The style employed does not disregard realism, yet it is shot in a style that makes it seem like fictional work despite everything happening in the film being real. This allows the film great cinematic appeal and almost heightens the surrealism of the world of its central subject, who has downright created a magnetic, charismatic alter ego for himself. Kung Fu Elliot is entertaining, funny but most admirably at the same time respectful of all the people involved not shying away from their own humanities and their inevitable human weaknesses.

16 - '71 by Yann Demange

A young British soldier is thrown into the chaos and mayhem in the midst of the Troubles of Northern Ireland 1971, and finds himself hopelessly lost and dodging violence from both factions of Catholics and Protestants. Great vehicle for Jack O’Connell who delivers an intense and soft spoken performance heightening tension and drama and letting the despair and disorientation of his character shine through. Despite ’71 initially pointing out to a realistic approach, Demange’s film resembles the tension of Jonh Carpenter’s thrillers with its ferocity and suspenseful tension. Nevertheless, its emotions remain quite compelling and rewarding on a scale that remains tastefully sensible to the culture context in which it is set, especially through its driving force that aims to depict the socio political situation of Northern Ireland as a dangerous place where everyone is forced to adapt to the dangers and violence.

15 - LEOPARDI (Il Giovane Favoloso) by Mario Martone

A biopic on ill-ridden celebrated Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi. A faithful examinations on his life of depression and the evolutions of his works, as well as the critiques which this evolution of his works always more subjective and less patriotic, heroic and political garnered at the time. A fascinating display that remains true in its mission to achieve a genuine representation of the man and the artist, a representation that is glorified by a wonderful performance by Elio Germano, who plays Leopardi and meets all the requirements of the level of physicality that the role required. The flow and nature of the film are very naturalistic, and do not aim to please or appeal the audiene in the shallow way of usual biopic – an approach that may alienate some viewers but ultimately makes the feature all the more enriching. Furthermore, there is enough emphasis and importance played on the work of Giacomo Leopardi, that is given the right type of exposure and that might be responsible for stirring interest in popularity in the eyes and minds of the people that are not yet familiar with this important Italian literary figure. 

14 - WHERE ARE YOU BUCHAREST (Bucaresti, Unde Esti?) by Vlad Petri

Vlad Petri takes us right in the middle of a Romanian revolution as he takes the cameras among the hoard of protestors that took Bucharest by storm to let their voices be heard in favour of a better life. A greatly rewarding documentary, Petri allows its audience to not only get an extreme close up of the events but also makes us feel a part of them by revealing sides that often remain hidden away and are never explored by mainstream media or even other documentaries. This means not only showing the anger and frustration but also the theatrical side of it all where, for instance, strange individuals promote their ideas of creating new political parties and strip to their underwear in the middle of a blizzard carrying a national flag for the sake of the revolution. Chronicling the protest from its beginnings to its miserably anonymous demise, Where Are You Bucharest? is a testimony of our times, a time of protests and mass gatherings against the systems that often end disappointingly after their initial vivid eruption.

13 - FALLING STAR (Stella Cadente) by Luis Minarro

The somewhat obscure to downright untold story of Amedeo of Savoy, who once was the unpopular and short lived king of Spain, provides the blank canvas for long time producer and first time director Luis Minarro to unleash a creative and unique type of period drama. Within the confines of the conventional perception of the genre, he plugs in and adds on creatively with a lush art direction, meticulously studied baroque photography and a delightfully unpredictable sense of humour. All this develops in a nonchalant and even deadpan pace and approach that makes the experience all the more rewarding, aiming to set a new language for a tired old genre influenced by popular culture and bits and bobs that influenced the life of the filmmaker himself. One must also note Brendemuhl's meading performance, very imposing and magnetic as the misunderstood leader.

12 - FOXCATCHER by Bennett Miller

Based on one of the darkest pages in the history of American sports, this is a story that gravitates around an amateur wrestler Mark whom we meet down and out at the beginning of the film despite having won a gold medal in the Olympics. One day, he randomly gets a call from the estate of John E. du Pont, a multimillionaire who becomes a father figure to him as he trains him for the next Olympics. However, things gradually begin to get more tense as their relationship is placed under strains, and they do not get easier with the arrival of Mark's brother and he seems relegated to the shadows once again. Having revitalised sports drama in his exciting film Moneyball, Foxcatcher stands as a different kettle of fish. The film is soft spoken and moves as a constant hypnotic pace full of emotional and psychological tension, and nevertheless there is also a lot of thrilling suspense in the dramatic situation that reads as a sophisticated vulcano waiting to erupt. Conveying this meditative and edge-of-your-seat approach is also the camerawork that is immpressively fluid and is able to draw you into the atmosphere of Foxcatcher. This film is also enriched by the excellent performance of the three leading players, who deliver three very different performances that complete a perfect dramatic triangle to perfection. Tatum and Ruffalo are excellent, and yet it is inevitable that Carrell, usually regarded as one the funniest personalities on the big screen, should stand out. Playing the obsessive and psychologically troubled du Pont, he is unrecognisable also on a physical point of view and incredibly magnetic throughout the film.

11 - HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT by Ben and Joshua Safdie

Drug addiction, self destruction and wasteland. Heaven Knows What is a powerful attack on the audience – it is not meant to be pretty. There is almost no time for conventionality of melodrama in the film, which already begins abruptly with tragedy as a girl named Harley slitting her wrists for the love of a manipulative man named Ilya. Their obsessive and bad natured love affair, it is plain to see, is born out of destruction and can only lead to more destruction. Channelling the spirit of the American New Wave, this film is gritty and character driven - rather than following a deductive narrative it follows naturalistic impulses, much like its zombie like characters. The focus of this film is the decadence of the junkie, heroin addicted youth and subculture of New York City, with the merciless urban setting playing a huge role in the intensity of the atmosphere. The Safdie brothers are far from being afraid to take their audience out of the comfort zone, in fact they turn against them quite often juxtaposing tough to watch graphic moments with blasted rave music. Heaven Knows What is really a rollercoaster ride to hell, a brave film that distinguishes itself quite easily (and perhaps even uncomfortably) from the acknowledged new American Indie Cinema of sunlight seen through tree branches and poetic out of field narration.

10 - WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi

Mockumentary about a group of vampire housemates, which follows its subjects in their ordinary struggles with everyday life. What We Do in the Shadows by Waititi and Clement is genial in its simplicity. A refreshing take on the comedy spoof genre, the film’s approach gives way to improvisation that makes the comedy seem a lot less staged and much more spontaneous. This approach also aids the different characters in naturally achieving their own distinctive characteristics through the actors’ own performances – themselves influenced by their own comedic personalities. To add to the overall appeal are some great references to the horror genre that take up back to the good old days when vampires were gothic and cool rather than being the modern day sparkly skinned melodramatic counterparts. Structured around some very creative gags, this film is fun and entertaining. As well as that, by the end of the film, there is also a feeling that these are characters that could easily be brought back to life in various formats, from TV to a sequel.

9 - SOMETHING BETTER TO COME by Hanna Polak

A film about people living outside of society, set in Russia and living on Europe's biggest landfill. Something Better to Come took Hanna Polak fourteen years to compile, taking her camera among the community in an unobtrusive way, setting up a strong bond and high level of trust with her subjects, and allowing them to reveal their colourful personalities as revealing their heartwarming solidarity that gets them through their nightmarish lives and living conditions. The driving force of the film, however, is the tender coming of age Yula from child to young adult. An enriching experience and a remarkable project that aims and achieve to give voice to the voiceless, this film is at once strikingly real and impressively poetic due to its genuine portrayal of the situation of extreme poverty with an underlying sentiment of optimism.

8 - LIFE MAY BE by Mark Cousins and Mania Akbari

Filmmakers Mania Akbari and Mark Cousins, after meeting briefly, choose to stay in contact through a series of video correspondence and by communicating through the language of cinema. This back and fourths of trails of thought is simply inspiring, hypnotic and causes a natural type of interaction with its audience. The sheer simplicity of the guerrilla filmmaking style employed by the two filmmakers makes the videos and ways of expressions all the more intimate and personal as well as more immediate and spontaneous. It’s also great to see the use of letter prose and context tied to the more modern ways of portable video making – a sharp and rewarding contrast of old and new which has arguably never been explored better on the big screen than in Life May Be. This spontaneous nature of the film is also ultimately what is so inspiring about the film, on top of the infectously passionate personalities that Mania Akbari and Mark Cousins are able to explore through this very unique essay documentary.

7 - THE LOOK OF SILENCE by Joshua Oppenheimer

Following the rightful success of the nothing short of groundbreaking previous work The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer returns to Indonesia to talk about the infamous but little talked about Indonesian Communist Purges and digs deep inside the conscience of the perpetrators of such brutality and violence. In The Look of Silence, Oppenheimer sides more blatantly with the victims, through the story of one man in particular – a man whose brother was killed in the sixties and who goes around the village interviewing the men responsible for these unspeakable acts. Aside from this documentary being the type of enriching and intense experience one would expect on a political ground, it is also to be admired as the work of a man who does not believe in the neutrality of the camera. This, in fact, what was so admirable and even shocking to some extents about his previous work where he got the perpetrators of the purges to re-enact their evil deeds on camera. In The Look of Silence, he lets the camera eye linger on the two opposed parties, studying their silences long after they have stopped wanting to say anything else at all. A final paradox is provided by the figures in this documentary, the vast majority seemingly going deaf. This is a metaphorical type of paradox, which represents a see no evil hear no evil outcome that the whole historical event is sadly destined to have.

6 - VIKTORIA by Maya Vitkova

It's hard not to get excited about such an impressively unique vision as Viktoria. Ambitiously covering three decades worth of Bulgarian history, this film is also inspired by the filmmaker's own life and her relationship, or lack of relationship with her mother. The film looks beautiful and spontaneous at the same time, feeling all at once as if employing documentary like realism as well as metaphorical poetry. The cohesion of the visual and the narrative also shows a confidence and maturity by Maya Vitkova that is quite rare to find in a first feature. This might be because of her closeness and dedication to the subject. Nevertheless, Viktoria is also a story with a universal appeal and with plenty of interesting and facinating elements. As well as that, the calm pace of the story allows the emotional sides to sink in with the viewer and makes the film for a priceless and completely rewarding mediatative experience.

5 - VIRUNGA by Orlando von Einsiedel

Set in the midst of a Congolese crisis, this is the story of the last remaining UNESCO world heritage site aqnd habitat for endangered mountain gorillas. An enriching experience as well as a riveting variation on the usual palette of themes and issues exposed in documentaries from African countries. As well as carrying an enormously and possibly overlooked environmental crisis and the dangerously fragile relationship between human enterprise and mother nature, Virunga comes across as bold and daring in its affectionate tribute to the men committed to the preservation of these wonderful animals and in its in depth investigations on the subjects. Filmmaker von Einsiedel here is in his feature documentary directorial debut, and his experience in fiction filmmaking comes in well in making this film as exciting and gripping as a fictional thriller without disregarding the important of the issues which the film chooses to portray. Equally as a majestic is the photography, which totally treasures the beautiful landscape of Congo and even exposes some sides of it that feel unexplored on cinematic levels. In fact, the stunning visuals in all their magnificence are a further proof of the caring and loving approach to the filmmaking and the filming of the beauty of a whole country.

4 - PASOLINI by Abel Ferrara

Under no circumstances should this film be taken like any ordinary biopic. Of course, that is implied as not only is this film directed by one of the most audience splitting directors, Abel Ferrara, but it is also a film about one of the most celebrated and discussed figures in cinema history Pasolini. This film utilises the structure of the last day of Pasolini's life, and make no mistake - it is a subjective vision. An interview, casual interactions with family, friends, and feeding into his unhealthy habit of picking up kids at the train station in Rome. Most vivid is the attempted and audacious downright collaboration Ferrara dares when he brings Pasolini's final documented big screen vision on film, in which we lovingly see the casting of Pieruti's muse Ninetto Davoli. Eccentrically, little attention is paid to accents and disorienting mixtures of languages, but that is a concern that fails to look at the bigger picture - or even consider the fact that Pasolini himself would often cast foreign actors and dub them in his works. The whole film feels more than a tribute, but a daydream that a filmmaker had about his hero and as such it is a priceless and non-conventional and rebellious work that exists to be hated or loved and very little in between.

3 - STATIONS OF THE CROSS (Kreuzweg) by Dietrich Bruggemann

A fourteen year old's coming of age and sexual awakening is abruptly interrupted and slowed down by her traditional and obsessive Catholic mindset of her family. Bruggemann's Stations of the Cross is a fascinatingly thought provoking project for a number of reasons. This beginning with the technical aspect, very stylised as Bruggemann chooses to split the film into twelve parts, well defined by a careful mise en scene and through the use of very still camerawork. This not only influences by the titular stations of the cross, but also makes the film more directly impactful by providing it a more theatrical aura. The acting too is superb, and adds power. Stetter as the priest is the perfect soft-spoken yet dark priest, who messes with the consciences of young children via his radical teachings. But the young girl who plays the central character is also impressive, perhaps because of her acting inexperience that provides even more realism to the story. The overall cohesion of the visual style and the great and skilled balanced of the screenplay makes this film on a number of level, and more than just a compelling representation of the dangers of religious radicalism, which it must be noted is never as exploitational as many other films of the same kind, Stations of the Cross retains a form of ambiguity that is nothing short of haunting and is bound to stay with the viewer long after the credits stop rolling.

2 - PATRICK'S DAY by Terry McMahon

Following his bombshell debut feature Charlie Casanova, Terry McMahon returns to the big screen with a remarkable film that recalls the works by the likes of Douglas Sirk and John Cassavetes. Patrick's Day is about a young man with schizophrenia discovering love through a fortuitous encounter with a suicidal flight attendant. Upon discovering the affair, however, the mother gets in the way and hires a crooked cop to keep them apart. The filmmaker handles the heavy theme of mental illness with care and sensibilities, providing perhaps one of the most rewardingly realistic representations of schizophrenia in cinema to date. However, the film neither starts nor ends with here, and works perfectly well as a universal coming of age drama as well as one that focuses on the right to intimacy. The powerhouse screenplay is flattered by its very real characters, somewhat unembellished in their imperfect natures. They in turn are portrayed perfectly by the cast, particularly Kerry Fox in the role of the mother and newcomer Moe Dunford in the role of the central character - a greatly challenging role that required a high level of credibility. Aside from that, one can equally admire the great cinematography and extensive use of close ups - techniques that often even take the viewer out of a comfort zone and glorifies the amazing emotional and psychological depth of the story.

1 - BOYHOOD by Richard Linklater

An incredibly ambitious experiment that nevertheless manages to avoid feeling like a precious gimmick. Linklater tells the stort of a young boy from age six growing up to college age, and goes through his own personal evolution. The film was shot over the course of twelve years. Despite the nightmare it must have been on grounds of continuity and the many risks that the production undoubtedly had to endure to seem credibly compact, Boyhood ends up feeling like one of the most rewarding and genuine coming of age experiences that one can hope to ever witness on the cinema screen. This is also due to the authenticity of the real physical changes of the main actors involved, where even the wrinkles on the faces of the supporting characters add a genuineness that deepens the dramatic aspect and makes an audience’s connection to story and the people involved in it far more organic than ever. There is a lot of realism within the narrative too, and an avoidance of melodrama that can usually be identified with Linklater’s humanistic cinematic projects and makes Boyhood seem legitimate. Indeed, this is a film that could be interpreted as a vanity project by its creator Linklater, yet ultimately this reading would essentially be missing the point of the complete collaboration and commitment of cast and crew that over the course of the twelve-year production contributed to making such a courageous project come together. The cast adds to the film’s appeal and sensibility with some great performances. This rings particularly true with Patricia Arquette as the mother whose evolution and life-long struggles to look after her family but a leniance towards making constant mistakes is just as significantly fascinating as the central boy’s growing up process.