My Favorite Films of 1999
By Peter T. Chattaway | posted 1/01/2000 12:00AM
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6. Central Station (dir. Walter Salles; R). A cynical ex-schoolteacher reluctantly takes an orphaned boy deep into the heart of Brazil on a journey to find his long-lost father. The naturalistic settings are increasingly permeated with Catholic symbolism, and the film works very well as an allegory about the rediscovery of faith, hope and love.
7. Rushmore (dir. Wes Anderson; R). An enjoyably quirky, offbeat little flick in which adults, teens, and young children all treat each other as equals. These characters exhibit a fairly comprehensive array of naive hopes and petty jealousies, but in the end, they find reconciliation. Anderson's joie de cinema just leaps off the screen.
8. The Celebration (dir. Thomas Vinterberg; R). A man attends his father's sixtieth-birthday banquet and, when it comes time to make a toast, begins to air the family's dirty laundry in front of all the guests. And it doesn't come much dirtier than this. Seriously unsettling yet oddly hilarious, this Danish tour de force is all about the need for justice, yet there's a strangely compassionate edge to it, too.
9. Toy Story 2 (dir. John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, and Lee Unkrich; G). Not quite as good as the first film, but in its exploration of abandonment and similarly dark issues, it's moving in a way the original was not. The love between the toys and their owners—at least the more benevolent ones—is a wonderful analogy for the love between God and his creations.
10. SlamNation (dir. Paul Devlin; unrated). Slam poetry is an intriguing mix of art and sport, earth and spirit, glib humor and passionate idealism. Devlin's documentary covers a national slam-poetry competition, and it leaves you wondering just how much is really communicated by these poets, and how much of their work is really just put on for show.
And then there's the other end of the measuring stick. This year had its share of dreck. Rather than mention films which were merely bad (such as the dull-beyond-belief Simply Irresistible, which barely rates a mention), these were two of my biggest disappointments.
1. 8MM (dir. Joel Schumacher; R). Nicolas Cage, as a private detective investigating the world of snuff films, squanders his talents on a film that has absolutely no redeeming value. It climaxes with some appallingly brutal revenge scenes, then tacks on an unlikely happy ending, just because that's the way audiences like it. It also reeks of some pretty tired cliches, such as the murderer who lives with his churchgoing mama.
2. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc(dir. Luc Besson; R). What a wasted opportunity. The first big-screen mounting of the Joan of Arc story in years is a chaotic mess that fails both as a rousing war film and as a would-be deconstruction of the Joan legend. And it ends on a dreadfully trite note: Was Joan guided by God, by a desire for revenge, or by a complex of fractured religious impulses? None of the above, according to the Celine Dionesque theme song: "It's my heart calling." Ick.
Peter Chattaway is a regular writer for Christianity TodayandBooks & Culture, as well as other publications in Canada and the U.S.
Related Elsewhere
For a second opinion, read today's other article on 1999's top films, "
Ten Films that Made my Year," by Steve Lansingh.
Peter Chattaway's reviews of The Dreamlife of Angels,
The Insider,.
Central Station, and
Toy Story 2 can be found at the ChristianWeek Web site.
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