Woodend's Film School: Learning from Movies of 2012

Looking back over this past year, I find myself scratching my chin at the sheer breadth of emotion that films brought on -- boredom, exultation, howling rage, faint irritation, deep comfort and occasionally unconsciousness. Perhaps that last one isn't actually an emotion, but there were a few films that worked better than Ambien to induce a state of near coma. Sometimes I barely made it past the opening credits before being snatched sideways into a sleep so profound that I woke up without a clue where I was. 

It is natural, maybe even useful, at this time of year to reflect back and think, "Well, what did you learn from all this movie watching and the occasional movie napping?"

I will get to that in a moment, but first some movie carping.

To wit: was there ever a worse disappointment than Prometheus? After all the build up, the endless slow drip of trailers, interviews, features, and then the damn thing lands with a resounding thud of diminishing returns. Even films that were touted by critics as brilliant were, at best, serviceable. I'm looking at you, Mr. Bond. All the zippy zest of the previous 20 plus films turned sludgy and dull. No more Pussy Galore here. There was hardly any humping at all in this latest bonding. Even the carved granite head of Daniel Craig couldn't spark any sexy stuff. The mind wanders during films like this, assails various ideas, like what happened to pop music? What causes different trends in pastry? Why are donuts replaced by cupcakes, and then all of a sudden the macaroon is ascendant?

It makes one wonder if general audiences are being trained to lower their expectations, so that even the most minimal gruel is celebrated as a feast. All this effort, all this time and attention, thespians thesping all over the place, and you get a damp bit of crud calledArgo.

And now for some yays

It's little wonder that attendance figures were dropping, along with theatres themselves. In Vancouver, movie theatres closed in quick succession, disappearing as fast as snow in the rain. With Netflix coming into common use, and television filling the void of epic dramas that folks generally reserved for film, a sea change appeared to be underway. But just as the tabloid prognosticators and the ancient Mayans predicted world's end, something else happened.

The Studio Ghibli retrospective at the Cinematheque and Vancity this December filled theatres to the rafters. There was a lot of great stuff on offer from The Master to Moonlight Kingdom that beat back the rising tide of irrelevance with élan. The Hobbit, despite the ballyhoo about frame rates, transported me instantly back to a world I remember from childhood, mine as well as many others. At the screening I was at, the emergence of the film's title onscreen prompted a tiny voice to cry out in spontaneous rapture, "YAY!" How can you not love a film that can cause such joy even at a title sequence?

Documentary continued to outdo itself in terms of telling stories, righting wrongs, and uncovering malfeasance wherever it darkly squirmed. Sitting in a theatre in Amsterdam watching The Central Park Five was a lesson in how filmmaking can rivet an audience. That hoary old statement about a pin-drop was entirely appropriate. The number of stunningly good documentaries this year (Searching for Sugar Man, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, 5 Broken Cameras, Act of Killing, Wrong Time Wrong Place) is a testimony to the vibrancy of the form. After watching a particularly ferocious piece of filmmaking, I felt like offering up thanks to the heavens. Thank god for filmmakers whose courage and tenacity seems almost miraculous in this compromised age.

One thing that became apparent this year, despite the closure of theatres, was that people still want to see a movie with a bunch of other people and then stand around in the lobby afterwards until the theatre staff gives them dirty looks.

There were many moments this year that recharged the idea the film is a communal activity and a necessary one at that. There is a still magic afoot, and on wheels -- whether that is a 3D motorcycle film, or an exercise in French existentialist extravagance. I loved Holy Motors for its endless invention, its joyous embrasure of the meandering journey that is life. But mostly I loved it for its fearless sense of play.

This is cruddy

Sometimes it is the films that you loathed that remain stuck in your head -- even as much as the films that you loved. I could probably rip off the great John Waters and do a "101 Films I Hated" but I will limit myself to one: Judd Apatow's latest This is 40. I have never been much of a fan of the man, and all the weaknesses of his earlier work (Knocked Up, Super Bad, The Forty Year Old Virgin) are in evidence here -- namely the laziness, self-indulgence, deep and steaming piles of narcissism. The sort of sequel to Knocked Up, This is 40 picks up when the boring couple from the first film, Pete and Debbie, played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, are both turning 40 in the same week. In some form of incestuous twinning, their respective birthdays are mirrored by shared crises in money, sex and parenting, both giving and receiving. His record company is failing, while her dress store is losing money. Both of their fathers (no mothers in evidence here, oddly enough) are both disappointments for different reasons. Their kids are growing up and puberty is rearing its snotty head. Meanwhile, age and irrelevance are facing down both Pete and Debbie, who fight time's great leveler with expensive vacations, personal trainers, and heaps of money.

Vanity was a sin not so long ago, but here it's a lifestyle choice. I wanted to spit out this film like you would bad milk, but the taste lingers in the throat, causing a gagging reflex. For some reason the scene of Debbie and the kids dancing along to Nicki Minaj bothered me the most. The basic gist of the sequence is that Pete's record company is unsuccessful because his old school tastes run to depressing singer songwriters favoured by men with penises, while his wife and kids like the poppy pop. I try not to pay much attention to Nicki Minaj, but I looked up the song with the chorus about the dungeon dragon.

I don't think I'm all that prudish, but the damn thing shocked me, not just the language, the c-word gets bandied about plenty, but the ugliness of threat and debasement, lyrics about tying people up and urinating on them. This is what the kids listen to? Perhaps you can't blame Mr. Apatow for the curdling of pop music, but you can certainly try. Apatow and ilk have set the tone for mainstream comedy, typified by a flavour of vile puerile dumbness. His latest film features a veritable conga line of folks who have been cast, mentored or produced by him, everyone from Lena Dunham to Jason Segel to Chris O'Dowd (both horrendously unfunny here). 

It's not the limp feebleness of the material on display that causes caustic bile to rise in my gut. It is the timing of the thing. With the U.S. about to fall off an economic cliff, the film sails on like there never was such a thing as need or want in the world. Greed, vanity, self-obsession, venal entitlement, these are the essential values here.

At the end of the film I thought, I hate white people.

But enough of that...

What then, have we learned?

So, to return to the question, at the end of all this watching, taking in stories, digesting, turning them over in your head, what do you get? Does witnessing a particularly tenacious act of filmmaking make you a better person? Does it change anything at all, or simply while away the hours, and allow you to partake of the cultural moment in which you find yourself?

I would cautiously answer "maybe?" to all those things. I am still learning how to be less of an asshole, to circumvent the crawling prevarications of ego and insecurity. Most of the time I fail, no matter how many films I watch. Progress, both on a personal and political level, is slow. But at the very least, great films can make you want to be better, to aim a little bit higher. Nobility, honour, courage and good heartedness, whether you see it in Bilbo Baggins, Ai Weiwei or the many fantastic little girls in Hayao Miyazaki's films, are all worthy of emulation. Terrible films are also helpful in that they pinpoint the things you most wish to attack and kill.

If you proceed with the idea that art can change things, can deepen you like a river carves a channel in rock, maybe it simply takes a long time. By its very nature, film is an accessible and oddly democratic form, everyone may not be able to expertly opine about the latest trend in contemporary theatre or current art practice, but just about everyone feels like they have a right to an opinion about movies. They are a common currency for discussion in almost any social group, and for that reason, they are important and valuable. 

I believe that the storytelling impulse is one of the defining characteristics of being human. When filmmakers reflect back what we know to be true and real about the world, even if it is couched in the most fantastical drapery imaginable, that is why we go to the movies. That, and popcorn and Twizzlers.

Dear readers and commenters, you may notice that comments are not enabled for this story. In what has become a Tyee holiday tradition, we're closing the commenting system for the holidays to allow our hardworking team a brief respite and chance to recharge. Thanks for all the insightful, informative comments in 2012. We look forward with happy anticipation to more of the same in 2013.