Film writer Chris Williams celebrates the film highlights that may have passed you by in the past year.
I watch a lot of films, often I will go on about them to friends or post my opinions on Facebook… My friends are probably sick of me banging on about films to them, so I thought I’d tell more people – who have less reason to care – what my Top 5 Films of 2015 are:
#5: The Wolfpack
Documentary filmmaker, Crystal Moselle’s interest was struck by a group of young men with long hair and dressed like Reservoir Dogs characters walking down a New York street. These turned out to be a group of brothers who were sheltered from the outside world by an overbearing father and home-schooled by their mother in their NY apartment. The brothers spent their time watching and re-enacting movies. The film documents as they start to break away from their father, stepping in the outside world and becoming their own people, but the film never takes a judging view. Given the brothers have gotten to teenage years and early 20s sheltered from the world only experiencing it through films, what’s really surprising is how normal these young guys are.
#4: Slow West
A Nu-Western directed by an indie rocker, John Maclean from Scotland’s The Beta Band. Not enough people saw this film, nobody I know saw it anyway. A small indie film with a big name (Fassbender) and beautiful cinematography with Canterbury, New Zealand standing in for the wild American west.
#3: Crimson Peak
As well as my number two, this film is just so beautiful to watch. The story isn’t anything new, that’s fair to say, but Guillermo del Toro is a cinematic master craftsman. The critics will say it’s not a horror film (it’s a ‘Gothic romance’) but the film certainly unnerved me.
#2: Carol
I think the only reason this wasn’t my number one film of the year is because I built it up for myself too much. It has everything I love in a film: Cate Blanchett, the setting and era (1950s New York), the director (Todd Haynes) and beautiful cinematography. I was the audience for this film. Haynes’ Far From Heaven is also worth a watch.
#1: Ex Machina
When I saw this in the cinema I came out proclaiming it was the best film of the year… it was only January. I’d go so far to say that British cinema does intelligent sci-fi better than Hollywood. A genre film that included a sexy robot lady but deals with Turing Tests and thought experiments, it has an underlying sense of foreboding and the ending (and whole film) will stick with you and get under your skin.
words CHRIS WILLIAMS