10. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” – Greig Fraser
Debates will rage for years, decades, oh let’s face it, probably millennia to come about where Gareth Edwards‘ standalone ‘Rogue One’ belongs within the pantheon of ‘Star Wars’ movies. But there’s one debate it’s probably closer to winning than any other: It might not be the best ‘Star Wars’ film, but it’s very probably the best-looking. And by that, we don’t just meant the epic grandeur of the wide shots, from sweeping black-gritted landscapes to ships colliding in space, to AT-ATs being hobbled and tumbling to the ground. It’s also because of the canny clarity of some of the absolute best action filmmaking of the year, with the camera always perfectly placed to let us understand the geography and choreography of the scenes, and edits hidden so skillfully that even the choppiest fight scene plays through silkily, continuously. But then Greig Fraser, who also delivered beautiful work on this year’s “Lion,” has a pretty amazing track record at being able to scale up or back for projects in different arenas — from Jane Campion‘s “Bright Star” to Kathryn Bigelow‘s “Zero Dark Thirty” to Bennett Miller‘s “Foxcatcher” — and ‘Rogue One’ in being both a Disney ‘Star Wars’ property and a gritty, resistance war story at the same time allows him to show just how many strings there are to his bow. From scuffed interiors and scrappy fights in alleyways, to exploding holy cities and tiny ships flying out of massive engulfing dustclouds (a Gareth Edwards signature shot if ever there was one), it’s the extraordinary flexibility and world(s)-building range of the cinematography here, while staying within the same visual register, that makes ‘Rogue One’ such a feast for the eyes.
9. “The Age Of Shadows” – Kim Ji-yong
As closely as we’ve followed Korean director Kim Jee-woon‘s eclectic career to date, ever since 2003’s unfeasibly scary “A Tale Of Two Sisters,” and taking in “A Bittersweet Life,” “The Good The Bad The Weird” and “I Saw The Devil” as highlights, nothing really prepared us for just how great his immaculate and yet thrilling spy caper “The Age Of Shadows” would be. And much of that is down to how polished it looks, even while being pulse-poundingly edited and orchestrated for maximum genre thrills. The director has worked with cinematographer Kim Ji-yong twice before — on ‘Life’ and ill-conceived Hollywood foray “The Last Stand” with Arnold Schwarzenegger — but it feels like here, both director and DP egg each other on to heights neither had previously achieved. There’s often a sense of fustiness in period films, of a camera bogged down by the necessity of taking in all the opulent and painstakingly crafted details of the story’s era. And that, coupled with a kind of retrospective condescension by which we can look on the people of the past as living slower, less dynamic lives because they didn’t have, I dunno, smartphones and segues, often lends a kind of dutiful reverence to period storytelling. But that’s just one of the things exploded in “The Age of Shadows”: Not only does it look exquisite — with complex wide-shot vistas complementing rich, golden-hued, gaslit interiors, faces illuminated by the flare of a match and expressions rendered unreadable by the fall of a shadow — it moves like a whippet through action set piece after set piece. It was not as widely seen as the year’s other major Korean breakout “The Handmaiden,” but in its own way, it’s every bit as beautiful.
8. “Sunset Song” – Michael McDonough
You may recall Michael McDonough’s work in the gritty prison drama “Starred Up” and the frosty indie “Winter’s Bone,” but nothing will really prepare you for the rapturous glow that emanates from your screen while watching Terence Davies’ lyrical “Sunset Song.” The story is set in 1900s rural Scotland, following a young woman’s coming-of-age, and in typical Davies fashion, it’s rhythmic, soft and utterly grandiose. Next to Agyness Deyn’s gorgeous performance and Davies’ controlled direction, the grandest aspect of the film comes from McDonough, who turns the Scottish landscapes into exquisite moving paintings, bathed in light. The sun-kissed Scottish highlands have never looked better on film, shot during the ‘gloaming,’ a time of day just after magic hour (“It’s not twilight and it’s not evening, there’s a bit in-between” Davies explains), but the glorious exteriors are accompanied by warmly lit hearthside interiors. Contemplative camera movements (especially in a tracking shot near the end that’s surely one of the year’s greatest examples of the atrocities of war) and close-ups bring you so close to the film’s characters you can almost touch them, yet this sensitivity is only one aspect of McDonough’s diverse talents: He’s the same man who shot the entire second season of “Fear The Walking Dead.”
7. “The Handmaiden” – Chung Chung-hoon
Collaborating on every film since “Oldboy,” Park Chan-wook and DP Chung Chung-hoon have reached a state of filmic nirvana. So much of what makes Park’s films so endlessly watchable is found in the visual palette that Chung has mastered through meticulous use of light and shadow. Their latest offering, “The Handmaiden” — a brazen, no-holds-barred supra-adaptation of Sarah Waters’ ‘Fingersmith’ — could very well be their most stunning film to date. Transforming Waters’ Victorian period to pre-WWII Korea; Chung illuminates the equally wondrous work from Production Designer Ryu Seong-hie and Costume Designer Jo Sang-gyeong, and brings Park’s delicious rendering of a story with a dozen twists and turns to sizzling life. Camera movements that leave you gasping and aghast, coy plays with the focus that sensualize objects and instill the air with erotic undertones, enchanting nights, sun-crisp days and visceral close-ups; all the devious subplots in “The Handmaiden” are in some shape, form, flesh or ornament accentuated by Chung’s overwhelming control. This technical wonder of a film works on a myriad of levels — a lesbian psycho-thriller, a ghost story, a piece of colonial history etc. — and Chung governs the delicate balance act between all levels through delectable imagery. If there’s any reason left to be excited by the upcoming non-Cary Fukunaga-directed version of “It,” it’s that Chung Chung-hoon is shooting it.
6. “Jackie” – Stéphane Fontaine
Given Pablo Larraín‘s longstanding and extremely fruitful collabortion with DP Sergio Armstrong (who shot Larrain’s other two extraordinary 2016 titles, “The Club” and “Neruda“), it feels almost disloyal to call out Stéphane Fontaine‘s cinematography on “Jackie,” Larraín’s first English-language production. But then you watch the spellbinding “Jackie” and are floored by the sheer precision and hard-edged loveliness of the imagery. Featuring a photographic style that is as subtly subversive of standard biopic cliché as the film is overall, Fontaine has somehow managed to convey the multilayered, sometimes almost mischievous texture of Larrain’s approach while still achieving moments of stunning, pictorialist period beauty. Using lens flares and heightened coloring to achieve a slightly antiquey look, Fontaine also employs symmetry, reflections and refractions in fascinating ways, that place Natalie Portman’s brilliant, self-consciously exquisite, deliberately mannered performance as the bereaved First Lady less at the center of a story than in the barrel of a kaleidoscope. The French Fontaine has long been known internationally for his collaborations with fellow countryman Jacques Audiard — he shot “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” “A Prophet,” and “Rust & Bone” — but his profile has been boosted to a higher level Stateside, not just by “Jackie,” but also by the continuing U.S. success of Paul Verhoeven‘s “Elle,” to which Fontaine lent a slinky, sinuous, ironic air, as well as Matt Ross‘ well-received indie “Captain Fantastic.” That’s quite the eclectic 2016 that shows just how perfectly Fontaine can attune his sensibilities to films of wildly different registers.