Sight & Sound Films of 2007
Each year we ask a selection of our contributors - reviewers and critics from around the world - for their five films of the year. It's a very loosely policed subjective selection, based on films the writer has seen and enjoyed that year, and we don't deny them the choice of films that haven't yet reached the UK. And we don't give them much time to ponder, either - just about a week. So below you'll find the familiar and the obscure, the new and the old. From this we put together the top ten you see here. What distinguishes this particular list is that it's been drawn up from one of the best years for all-round quality I can remember. 2007 has seen some extraordinary films. So all of the films in the ten are must-sees and so are many more. Enjoy.
- Nick James, Editor.
The Top Ten
- 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)
- Inland Empire (David Lynch)
- Zodiac (David Fincher)
- I’m Not There (Todd Haynes)
- The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
- Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)
- Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
- No Country for Old Men (Ethan and Joel Coen)
- Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
1. Tricks (Andrzej Jakimowski, Poland)
A sunny and evocative tale of a 6-year-old boy's games with chance and search for his lost father. Beautifully made, it reveals a director who genuinely 'thinks' in film, making films that evoke what he describes as "a cinema that has disappeared".
2. The Lighthouse (Maria Saakyan, Armenia) Filmed in Armenia and set alongside an unspecified war, Saakyan's debut is a poetic reverie on memory and homeland, with a hypnotic combination of image and music (by Finnish composer Kimmo Pohjonen).
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu) Mungiu's story of the search for an illegal abortion in 1980s Romania is classical filmmaking of a high order and brilliantly evokes a world unknown to viewers in the West.
4. Don't Touch the Axe (Ne touchez pas la hache) (Jacques Rivette, France) Elegant and stylish adaptation of Balzac's novel about the Duchesse de Langeais. Creates a Laclos-like world of letters, carriages, and secret assignations with convincing performances, especially by the extraordinary Jeanne Balibar.
5. It's Gonna Get Worse… (Petr Nikolaev, Czech Republic) Gritty 16mm evocation of 70s Czechoslovakia under Russian occupation. Based on a cult underground novel, it's a remarkable projection of a world of disaffected youngsters and their never ending battle with the police. Music by the legendary rock groups DG307 and The Plastic People of the Universe, who had their leaders imprisoned in 1976 for 'decadence' and 'antisocialism'.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/pdf/films-of-the-year-2007.pdf