3. “The Pianist”
Many movies contend to be about spiritual endurance and physical resilience, when, in fact, they’re not. They’re about hope and overcoming the odds. They’re about rising up in the face of adversity and other well-worn platitudes. The thing that makes Roman Polanski‘s Palme d’Or-winning “The Pianist” such a towering accomplishment is that it really, truly is a movie about the will to survive, and an unsentimental look at the brutal ignominies therein, that make basic persistence seem like a courageous feat worthy of reverence. Adrien Brody, in his Oscar-winning performance, scrambles, hides, and survives in a near-inhumane manner through a vividly realized World War II (shot, stunningly, by Pawel Edelman). It’s an astonishing performance, the kind too infrequently seen in Hollywood movies.
2. “The 25th Hour”
Spike Lee‘s post 9/11 film (planned and scripted before the attacks, but shot in the immediate aftermath) couldn’t have been more tragically prescient. Based on David Benioff‘s novel about a drug dealer’s last day before he heads off to prison, Lee’s decision to shoot the film through the prism of the recently scarred New York City added a brilliant dimension to the author’s already strong script. “25th Hour” isn’t just a parable about one man’s mistakes (in this case, a strikingly good Ed Norton, plus a wonderful supporting cast including an always-good Barry Pepper), but opens up into a sweeping love letter to the American Dream, the diversity of its people and the potential that allows the nation to keep on moving, even through its darkest hours. Lee’s best feature film this decade? Easily.
1 .”Talk to Her”
Pedro Almodóvar‘s fourteenth effort was the rare foreign film that finds recognition among regular Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay and a nomination for Best Director. An intoxicating, mysterious, and achingly felt melodrama, it chronicles four lives brought together by chance, fate, obsession and love. Two men — a nurse and a journalist — build an unlikely friendship when taking care of two women they love who are in comas, one a bullfighter gored in action (Rosario Flores) the other a young ballet student (a ravishingly beautiful Leonor Watling) crippled by a car accident. Time feels fluid as past, present and future moments bleed into one another, falling to an unpredictable, almost mystically tragic conclusion. Impossibly romantic, sensually tactile, intricate and mature, it may be Almodóvar’s unimpeachable masterpiece. The melancholy showstopping Cataeno Veloso song, just after the first act, represents the film well, producing goose bumps and stealing your breath away.
Honorable Mentions:
Some years there’s a lot of good films to cut and 2002 was no exception. Films we had to sadly pass over include Spike Jonze‘s wonderfully convoluted writer’s block dramedy “Adaptation” which features an excellent Nicolas Cage performance (and it probably would have made this list if it didn’t somewhat fall apart in the end — it also doesn’t feel as masterful on repeat viewings), Paul Thomas Anderson‘s enchantingly romantic (but still somewhat slight) “Punch Drunk Love” and Hayao Miyazaki‘s wondrous Studio Ghibli-animated picture, “Spirited Away.” Other worthy films we had to give the ax to were Paul Greengrass‘ documentary-like “Bloody Sunday,” the subject of which begat the famous U2 song about the 1972 Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops; the Apichatpong Weerasethakul-helmed Thai romance picture “Blissfully Yours“; “The Believer” which features a revelatory turn by a young Ryan Gosling; and the (somewhat) underrated Julie Taymor picture “Frida” which to this day is probably Salma Hayek‘s finest hour.
— Rodrigo Perez, Oliver Lyttelton, Drew Taylor, Kimber Myers, Sam Mac, Gabe Toro,and Kevin Jagernauth