Films Of 2014

It was a year of censorship, taboo-breaking, and revelation; painful portraits of the past, and terrifying glimpses into our present. These secrets and uncoverings came in all guises; in fiction, documentary and behind-the-scenes machinations; and addressed themes of sexuality, abuse, slavery and surveillance. Oh, and there was also a lot of cock. Yes, on the lighter side of taboo-breaking, 2014 was all about the penis. Finally unshackled from its flaccid home in comedy, the erect member was all over our cinema screens. While no-one was surprised by Lars von Trier’s typically indulgent and excessive exploration of sex in Nymphomaniac, Jonathan Glazer used the erections of Scarlett Johansson’s victims in the stylish sci-fi Under The Skin to challenge the male gaze.
Though Johansson, held up as an ideal of male sexual fantasy, undresses in the film, it is the men who are left vulnerable; it is their bodies that transport the film from a typical, femaleobjectifying erotic fantasy into a nightmarish reality. Ben Affleck’s “did we really see it?” moment in Gone Girl sent viewers flocking to pause and scrutinise YouTube clips; while Spike Jonze’s Her took a more romantic approach to finally answer the question that has been plaguing us all for years: how does a man have sex with his computer? Taboos were also broken around female sexuality and bodily autonomy, thanks to Gillian Robespierre’s hilarious, sweet and unflinching comedy about a young woman who believes an abortion is one of the best decisions she’ll ever make. However, Hollywood was still restricting examinations of abuse, both in the press and on its screens. While Bryan Singer and other Hollywood executives were accused of the sexual grooming and abuse of young men, Amy Berg’s documentary An Open Secret attempted to address the issue. However, the documentary was shut down after just one screening, as distributors wouldn’t touch the film, fearful of supporting something that indicts powerful men of devastating abuse.
This protection of powerful men is not only disturbingly reminiscent of the rampant sexual abuse in the BBC, but also of the bubble of protection that has surrounded Bill Cosby for years. One of America’s leading spokesmen on respectability politics, allegations of rape and abuse have followed Cosby for decades – but it was only this year that the press finally stopped shaming these women and finally began to listen. The irony of Cosby having spent years instructing young black men to be unimpeachable citizens while allegedly using his privilege to rape dozens of young women has not been lost on American audiences, who have lost not only a seminal figure of their childhoods, but a role model. The struggle of black millennials and the variety of insidious forms racism can take was tackled onscreen in Justin Simien’s much-needed satire Dear White People which, even in its (ironically) white-washed state, showed just how limited modern cinematic discussions and portrayals of race can be.
This lack of representation of the black experience made Steve McQueen’s stunning and harrowing 12 Years A Slave all the more important, and its unflinching and emotive examination of slavery was justly rewarded. But while it took a fictionalised adaptation to address the darker side of American history, it was a Laura Poitras documentary that addressed the more terrifying aspects of its present. Following on from last year’s Wikileaks: We Steal Secrets, her Citizenfour further delved into the secrets being kept by the American government, this time following Edward Snowden’s uncovering of the government’s illegal mass surveillance of its citizens. Among all the examination, exploration and dismantling of historical, political and cultural secrets and taboos, there was also incredible entertainment. From historical dramas, to heart-pulsing sci-fis, coming of age stories and progressive comedies; here’s my selection of the best of this year’s films. Enjoy arguing with me!

10. Stations Of The Cross
Based around and inspired by the fourteen stations through which Jesus cragged his crucifix, Dietrich Brüggemann’s film combines thematically on-point visuals with intriguingly layered subject matter to create a subtly funny, deeply unsettling portrayal of faith and humanity. Presented in precisely created tableaux, the brilliantly cold, distinctly clear film follows the personal journey of Maria (Lea van Acken), a young woman whose oppressively religious upbringing leads her to self-destruction. Isolated at home, school and determined to offer her life to God in exchange for the improved health of her younger brother, Maria combines the mixed messages of her split life – religious ideas of “sins of the flesh” and the objectification of the teenage girl’s body – into a form of self-martyrdom.
Filmed in fourteen stunning shots, the technical rigour complements the restrictive themes, and the theatricality if this enclosed world. Through Maria’s strained relationship with her hateful mother (Franziska Weisz), her impossible quests to avoid rock music and boys, and her priest’s endless monologues, you feel the desperate emotional lengths she is going to, in order to uphold a damaging ideal of conformity. A striking portrayal of the insidious nature of abuse – both external and self-inflicted — it’s an unnerving and unwavering film.

09. Obvious Child
The opening of Gillian Robespierre’s pro-choice rom-com sees standup comic Donna (Jenny Slate) talking about her vaginal secretions. Women’s underwear never remains stain-free for very long, she muses – revealing all includes exposing the smears. It’s a brilliantly self-aware nod to the new female character that Donna embodies: Millennial Girl. Millennial Girl will offer up her insecurities and unclean underwear before you’ve asked for them, and demand that you love her for it. Imbuing this trope with wit, tenderness and empowering realism, Obvious Child becomes an irresistible portrait of a girl taking control of her narrative, if not her life. Donna makes a living telling jokes about her heartbreaks, her bodily functions, and her endless awkwardness.
Though these subjects are indicative of Donna’s lack of direction, her jokes show her conscious choice to own her mistakes, and her story. This sense of choice extends to Donna’s abortion, which is treated unflinchingly. The decision isn’t accompanied by PC handwringing or judgement, but with frank conversations that feel stunningly real, and indisputable. For Donna, like so many women, not having a baby is the most empowering, mature and utterly right decision she’ll ever make. Funny, filthy, emotive and empowering, Obvious Child is like Millennial Girl. It’s unapologetically itself, and demands to be loved.

08. Snowpiercer
Ground-breaking not only in its VOD release and success, but also its setting of new standards for hugely entertaining B-movies, Snowpiercer is a devilishly fun, intelligent and thought-provoking sci-fi. Examining issues of global warming, class, survival and human nature, Joon-ho Bong’s film is incredibly bleak in its worldview – but the layered cynicism is presented with so much vibrating energy, propulsive action, intelligent character arcs and biting wit that its depressing dystopia remains one of the year’s most entertaining, crowdpleasing films. Set on a perpetually moving train that carries the small remainder of humanity around an ice-covered world, a caste system has left the deprived lower-class desperate for revolution.
Curtis (a fantastic Chris Evans) reluctantly agrees to lead it, and so begins a video game ascendance through the train’s many sections. In one, there’s a heart-thumping nightvision battle. In another, a surreally cheerful schoolmarm. In the final car lies the secret to the train – including the depths that humanity sank to during the seventeen years on board. The train is a visual masterpiece, at once claustrophobic and allencompassing; and its inhabitants suitably crazy. Tilda Swinton is a scene-stealingly bizarre delight, while John Hurt, Ed Harris and Song Kang-ho bring intelligence and intrigue. A must-see.

07. Under The Skin
Jonathan Glazer’s strange, mysterious, seductive psychosexual sci-fi Under The Skin is bound to enrage or enrapture, depending on how deeply you want to look into his black, oil-slicked mirror. Reducing Michel Faber’s novel down to mere abstraction, Glazer’s visually stunning film sees Scarlett Johansson play an almost wordless alien who steals the clothes of a lifeless young woman and roams Scotland, searching for lonely young men to seduce and subsume. Glazer eschews explanations, instead showing us the world through the alien’s point of view; a vision brilliantly achieved by filming many of Johansson’s outdoor scenes on the sly in Scottish towns. As Johansson casts her impenetrable, refrigerated gaze over humanity, so too does the audience, and the result is a disquieting portrait of ourselves as the alien beings. Glazers’ visual work is simply intoxicating, particularly his other-worldly rooms of pure light and glistening black floors that absorb victims into a smooth ocean of oil-like suspended animation. Mica Levi’s sublime, techno-string soundscape is terrifying, evoking the same sense of mounting dread as a Kubrick masterpiece. A chilling, seductive and unnerving portrait of fear, seduction and humanity; those who succumb to the siren call of Under The Skin will feel its chill in their bones for a long, long time.

06. Citizenfour
After Laura Poitras received encrypted emails from someone with information on the US government’s massive covert-surveillance programmes, she and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong to meet the sender – Edward Snowden. The ensuing interactions play out like a fascinating documentary, an explosive real-life thriller, and an intriguing character study about one of this decade’s most important figures. The heart of the film, which unfurls over the eight days when Snowden revealed for the first time that the US government was spying on its citizens, is a riveting and terrifying examination of privacy in the modern world, and the amount of power that one very ordinary young man has chosen to take on.
Poitras reads out her online interactions with Snowden, before they arrange to meet in a Hong Kong hotel room. As Snowden patiently outlines the deep and complex layers of abuse and surveillance being undertaken, he stresses the gravity of the situation. “This is not sciencefiction. This is happening right now.” As these political issues unfold over days, the strain shows on Snowden’s face, and his paranoia grows. Fire alarms and ringing phones make him jump; and as we know his fate, we’re rightly scared for and with him. One of the truly terrifying stories of modern times.

05. Calvary
An emotionally devastating, unapologetically complex examination of faith in the wake of the Catholic Church’s soulshattering legacy of abuse, John Michael McDonagh’s layered, contemplative film uses characters in a small town to represent both the myriad ways the Church abused its power, and the belief systems we turn to in the absence of religious faith.
At its centre is Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson), a priest whose life has been threatened by a victim of clerical abuse. A widow, a father, and a recovering alcoholic, his dry wisdom resonates with hard-earned life knowledge. He recognises both the beauty of faith and the struggle to find it. With the shadow of his own mortality ever following him, he discusses faith, sin and goodness with eccentric members of the community. This series of increasingly heightened and powerful moral discussions is punctuated by stunning shots of Ireland’s steep mountains and crashing coastlines; a symbol of the beauty and danger of the forces that formed our country. Gleeson is simply magnificent, perfectly delivering McDonagh’s nuanced but unflinching observations of Ireland and faith. The dark humour is a small comfort in an overwhelmingly affecting portrait of abuse, recovery and a nation’s desperate scramble for hope.

04. Boyhood
Casting Ellar Coltrane when he was seven years old, Richard Linklater filmed his fictional coming-ofage story for 39 days over 12 years, exploring growth and time in an incredible fashion; capturing the seemingly banal tiny moments that form a young man’s life. Unwinding over a perfectly flowing three hours, Linklater’s portrayal of the arc between childhood and adulthood has little plot and no melodramatic propulsion, instead focusing on the moments and memories that form relationships and identities. As Mason (Coltrane) grows through family changes, break ups, hair styles and passions, the film is magnificent and its method inconceivably brave. As Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke play Mason’s estranged parents, the evolving relationship between parent and child is alternately heart-warming and heartrending. As Arquette declares “this is the worst day of my life” as Mason leaves for college, you believe her; this woman, cast as Mother for years longer than we’ve been watching. Though purportedly about one young man, Boyhood is a film about parents, children, teenagers and anyone who has grown up; anyone who spends their time just trying to figure it all out; anyone whose ordinary moments have added up to one extraordinary thing: a life.

03. Her
Relationship status? ‘It’s complicated.’ Spike Jonze’s inventive, sweetly melancholic, unnerving romance between a man and his computer operating system demonstrates the quirky director’s ability to combine offbeat humour, deeply felt characters and a subject that’s entirely of the zeitgeist. Set in a delicately painted not-too-distant future, insecure divorcee Theodore falls for his Siri-like operating system Samantha (voiced by Scarlet Johansson), bringing issues of intimacy, technology and projection to the fore.
Phoenix’s almost-one-man-show is stunning, while the unseen Johansson has ironically never been better. Like a musician fully in control of her instrument, her vivid vocal performance exudes excitement, sensuality and vulnerability. The odd couple’s loving conversations and deepening connection are relatable in content but deeply thought-provoking in form. The nature of intimacy and physicality is questioned – does Theodore’s emotional intimacy flow easier because his partner isn’t present? Meanwhile, Samantha questions the nature of self – and together, these characters explore the nature of love. With humour, nuance and an innate understanding of the emotional arc of relationships, Jonze has used technology to express the hopes and hurts of the human heart – and the fears that are ever-growing in our gut.

02. IDA
Empathetically written, stunningly acted and beautifully shot, Pawel Pawlikowski revisits his homeland of Poland for a film that’s both powerful on a historical level but also a deeply intimate and affecting character study. Eighteen-year-old Anna (stunning newcomer Agata Trzebuchowsk) is a sheltered, naïve conventraised orphan, who is preparing to become a nun. When she visits her sole living relative, innocent Anna finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation.
This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. Though Ida grapples with guilt, cruelty and faith, she also finally begins to achieve a sense of self. Though thematically heavy, there’s a beauty and warmth to both the characters and the film’s spirituality, as well as the stunning score. The precise framing of the characters in the corner of large frames constantly refers to narratives larger than themselves, and their attempt to place themselves within it – a universal, deeply emotive journey.

01. 12 Years A Slave
A director of solemn grace and savage beauty, Steve McQueen’s films Hunger and Shame brilliantly addressed the objectification of human bodies, and the deep struggle between physical degradation and spiritual resistance. In the uncompromising, deeply powerful and absolutely necessary film 12 Years A Slave, McQueen brings a personal and historical importance to this dichotomy, showing the abject cruelty inflicted upon slaves much more recently than we’d care to remember.
Based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejofor), McQueen’s masterfully directed film about freedom and suffering and love and death transforms Northup’s personal story into the tale of the countless black slaves whose bodies and souls were beaten down. The beauty of his sumptuous cinematography contrasts with the unrelenting viciousness of Northup’s reality, where black flesh is whipped into a red mist, and genteel Southern drawls perfectly enunciate every flinch-inducing consonant of the constantly uttered N-word. Never less than aggressively engaging and featuring performances that are sublime, unforgettable and abhorrent, McQueen addresses our past with eyes so open and clear that he achieves what no-one else has, and no-one will likely attempt for decades, as this masterpiece tells our story. Our devastating, shameful story, that must be told to never be repeated.

Special mentions go to The Skeleton Twins, Finding Vivian Maier, Tracks, Twenty Feet From Stardom, The Lego Movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Wind Rises and Frank.