2011 Midway Point: Jesse’s Top 10

#10. The Dish and the Spoon – Alison Bagnall (2011 SXSW)
An out of step pas de deux, The Dish and The Spoon deftly explores where you go when you reach the end. A cuckolded wife, a mysterious waif and the Delaware seashore offer a story that charms in its rueful sadness. Though you know their relationship won’t last, you can’t help wishing it would.

#9. Cave of Forgotten Dreams – Werner Herzog (April 29th)
The oldest known artwork, the Chauvet Cave, is explored here with the newest form of filmic expression, 3D. Herzog shot the film in 3D to “capture the intentions of the painters”. Through its sweeping, gentle camerawork and Herzog’s penetrating narration, Cave of Forgotten Dreams brings these 30,000-year-old paintings to life. Caught this at SXSW.

#8. Super 8 – J.J. Abrams (June 10th)
An homage to its producer, Super 8 gives a lot, asking nothing in return. With blockbuster truisms and matching kid smiles, Abrams whisks us back to a time where a smaller alien sought refuge with a boy with a heart of gold. Twenty-five years later, it’s a formula that still works.

#7. Bill Cunningham, New York – Richard Press (March 16th)
Bill Cunningham is an eye that sees only the clothes and people of New York. For half a decade he has explored how people define themselves through fashion. It is a delight to see through his lens, if only for ninety minutes.

#6. Bobby Fischer Against the World – Liz Garbus (HBO Premiere – June)
An American tragedy, Bobby Fischer is a cautionary tale of child genius and nationalistic paranoia. With care and precision, Garbus builds the film around Fischer’s crowning achievement, the match against Boris Spassky in 1972. And then the aftermath, the agony of being a champion.

#5. Beginners – Mike Mills (June 3rd)
In Beginners, Mills shows how difficult it is to know yourself. You lie to yourself, do things your parents do, then resent you and them for it, do everything wrong before you start to kind of do it right. An autobiographical collage, a love letter to love, ultimately a few people trying to figure themselves out.

#4. Attack the Block – Joe Cornish (2011 SXSW)
With teenage swagger, a gang of London kids take on the police, a drug dealer, and an alien invasion. First time director Joe Cornish uses wit and humor to show the decency and heart in kids often ridiculed and marginalized. It’s Moses and his friends against the universe; and you know which team you’re on.

#3. Our Day Will Come – Romain Gavras (2011 SXSW)
It’s scary how violence can be fun, can make you feel good. Rémy, the redheaded crusader, finds this out as he travels the French countryside with Vincent Cassel’s Patrick as guide. Director Romain Gavras has bettered his antagonistic music videos and created a full work that explores the danger, the emptiness, of violent power.

#2. The Future – Miranda July (SXSW)
Miranda July sees things differently. Cats talk, the moon talks, time stops with the touch of a hand. In The Future, July shows us what it feels like to live in the present.

#1. The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick (May 27th)
Expansive and exuberant, Terrence Malick’s long awaited masterwork is divisive, frustrating but only because of its breadth and depth. Sun speckled streets, endless lawns describe a time lost in the American consciousness, now immortalized. The Tree of Life will be argued over for years to come, a testament of its beauty and brilliance.

Jesse is an Austin/New York City/Montreal based filmmaker and critic.