5. Mulholland Drive (2001, David Lynch)
What is there left to say about David Lynch? He is a true artist of cinema. Many have tried to copy what Lynch does and all fail. This is because Lynch is unique and unlike any other filmmaker. Breaking onto the scene with Eraserhead during the midnight movie craze of the 70s, you could see that the man behind the warped, dark masterpiece was going places. Nearly 25 years after his stunning debut he gave us Mulholland Drive, which is the most complex film he’s made to date.
The performances are great, Naomi Watts who plays the lead really shows her versatility in playing two sides of the same character as well as playing a role which must have been incredibly close to home. She gives the film the emotional intensity and raw sexuality which the role needed. One of the other many strengths of Mulholland Drive is how that dream landscape is created and where reality and dreamland end, and in the case of this it is the boundary between harsh reality and simulated fantasy.
Mulholland Drive is at the apex of Lynch’s career, a dark nightmare with many twists and turns and a complex narrative that has many strands. At the point at which they all seem to be coming together they suddenly collapse, creating an unsettling but essential viewing experience.
4. Pan’s Labyrinth [El laberinto del fauno] (2006, Guillermo del Toro)
Guillermo del Toro is a master of modern fantasy cinema. Ever since his first feature he has continued to push the boundaries in accessibility for foreign language films in a mainstream Hollywood. Constantly flipping his career from making a film for Hollywood and a film for himself, there is area in there for a writer-director to become a hack, but del Toro never loses his arthouse sensibility. His films are always concentrated on the key ingredients and getting them perfect: the story, the character and then the artifice, in that order.
Pan’s Labyrinth is the first to get them absolutely perfect. To say this was made on a budget of around 20 million euros, the film’s effects are unbelievable. The mythical creatures such as the Faun are beautifully designed and as it is a man (Doug Jones) in foam latex, it has a physicality to it and a certain realism that cannot be achieved by visual effects. This is an undisputed masterpiece, a wonderful fantasy film which is not overblown by cumbersome CGI and badly drawn characters. This is an intense drama posing as a fantasy with true darkness and melancholia running through it.
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