Reel Rewind: 2010 In Review

In 2010 I saw a month's worth of movies – thirty-one. Of these thirty-one, twenty-five were reviewed. The six films without reviews were the Spirit Awards screeners (“Amreeka”, “Anvil! The Story Of Anvil”, “Easier With Practice”, “The Messenger”, “Precious”, and “The Vicious Kind”) I received in January, which was before I decided to do reviews. This year I paid to see nine of the films for a total of $62, which comes out to approximately $6.89 per film. If I extend the $62 to cover all thirty-one films, it comes out to an even $2 per film for 2010!

Traditionally the top lists presented in any number of categories at the end of the year use ten for their number of items. However, I will break with tradition and only present five. No, it’s not some rebellious personal position; it is just that, based on the number of films seen by me in 2010, five top films seems a more appropriate number. So let the countdown begin:

Number Five – “Deux De La Vague” – French documentary



Number Four – “Boy” – New Zealand comedy/drama



Number Three – “Freakonomics” – American documentary



Number Two – “Never Let Me Go” – British drama



Number One – “Män Som Hatar Kvinnor” – Swedish crime/mystery

"Reel Rewind" logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Reel Rewind: “Deux De La Vague”

French title – “Deux De La Vague” / English title – “Two In The Wave”
This is an almost perfect direct translation of the French title into English, which would be “Two Of The Wave”. I give the actual English title used a rating of Excellent.

Of the two filmmakers, I am more familiar with the works of François Truffaut than of Jean-Luc Godard. The first Truffaut film I saw was “Tirez Sur Le Pianiste” one Sunday night at college in a roomful of other foreign film loving students. The film is an early example of La Nouvelle Vague as put forth by him and Jean-Luc Godard. As I have never really known the background of the New Wave film era in France, I was happy to see the documentary “Deux De La Vague”. Over the course of the film you learn how Truffaut and Godard worked together on each other’s films and promoted their new way of filmmaking. Other contributors to the New Wave movement are mentioned including André Bazin, Claude Charbol, Éric Rohmer. Eventually Truffaut and Godard had a falling out and the French New Wave does a slow fade.



Film Facts: Director/Producer: Emmanuel Laurent, Writer: Antoine de Baecque, Cinematographers: Etienne de Grammont, Nick de Pencier, Editor: Marie-France Cuénot, Production Company: Films à Trois
Film Type: Documentary, Subject: French New Wave, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Length: 91’, Language: French, Country: France, Year: 2010
United States release date Wednesday 19 May 2010


Images:
Left: Front side of the ticket for “Deux De La Vague” (“Two In The Wave”)
Center: Graphic interpretation of “Deux De La Vague” created by Adrean Darce Brent

Right: Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut from the website colcoa.org