The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

1. Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

A lot of things can change in the course of a decade.
My love for "Moulin Rouge!" has not.
To prove it, I will close the countdown by copying a post I wrote three years ago when I had a non-movie exclusive blog and had a countdown of movies that had influenced me.
The post has been copied in its original way, but I assure you that all the giddy, childish excitement remains the same.

"Simply put: ever since I saw it for the first time no other film released after, has filled me with so much hope and undeniably vibrant life as this.
Annie Lennox (and Madonna later) wisely proclaimed that "everybody is looking for something", I agree since I'm involved in a constant search for who knows what (happiness, love...who knows?), the thing is that this movie has put a big stop on my search for cinematic perfection.
It spoiled me!
Back in August 01, for a pricey ticket, I attended the premiere in Tegucigalpa.
I knew the songs by heart since it had spawned curiosity in me ever since it began appearing on Entertainment Weekly's seasonal previews (it did in summer 00, later in winter, until it was finally postponed for 01).
I remember going to its website as early as February 01 and the colorful imagery was something I wasn't used to. It screamed kitsch, yet contained a sad honesty that never allowed it to be selfconscious, it just "was".
I bought the soundtrack and fell in love with the medleys the writers aptly concocted from sources as varied as David Bowie, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, "The Sound of Music" and Hindi traditions.
Sitting in that dark theater room, before the film even began, I was already expecting the images would fulfill the intensity of the sounds.
I was putting a lot of pressure on it and luckily, it went over my expectations.
The minute I saw a red curtain and a tiny orchestra director appear on the screen I knew this was gonna be different.
For anyone who hasn't seen it, there's not much of an actual plot, or at least one we hadn't seen before: writer meets courtesan, courtesan sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", courtesan gets consumption, writer loses courtesan.
Everything about this film is in how its told. Merging MGM musicals with MTV like editing and more costumes and glitter than you can shake a stick at, "Moulin Rouge!" more than often overwhelms you.
There's too much going on at the same time and somehow it still is capable of ringing emotions.
I haven't met anyone who didn't have a strong reaction towards it.
Those of us who love it, are practically devoted to it.
For me it's a quasi religious experience, each time I watch it it feels like going to my "happy place" (even if it sounds ridiculous considering how sad the ending is) but the mere thought of this film fills me with glee and hope.
I worship Nicole Kidman's performance and think Ewan McGregor is so good he's given for granted, I look up to Baz Luhrmann hoping one day I might get as inspired as he was to make this.
This film often pops up in my head when I think of my "favorite film ever" even if I'm too much of a snob to say it's the best one ever made.
There are those who hate the film and one can't blame them.
My dad watched about an hour and said he felt like puking, my mom loved it and so did my grandma who I remember moved me by highlighting the fact that I bring love for film in my veins.
I saw it with her once and as 20th Century Fox's fanfare filled the theater with strendous power she gasped like a little kid, later the film uses the title song from "The Sound of Music", followed by the ubiquitous can-can song. She hummed them and said "Carlos would've loved this!".
Carlos was her brother, my grand uncle and a self professed film buff (he once saw 17 films in the theater in a week!) who passed away more than ten years ago and who I often think would be my favorite uncle nowadays.
I can not force people to like this movie, truth be told I don't even want to.
I just know that almost six years after I first saw it, no other thing on Earth has impressed me as much, touched me as much or filled me with the unadultered sense of wonder I imagine people had watching the first films made.
"Moulin Rouge!" takes the rules, bends them, reinvents them, makes some work, makes some fail, but always, like the bohemian values it praises, keeps faithful to itself.
How wonderful life is, now that "Moulin Rouge!" is in the world!"

-originally published 12/18/06.

I hope you have enjoyed this countdown as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.
May the following decade be filled with more cinematic gems.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

2. Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)

A ghost story where the worst demons are regrets, a bittersweet homage to Italian Neorrealism by way of Magnani and Loren, a referential love song to the movies (but then again what Almodóvar isn't?), a colorful rehash of "Mildred Pierce", one of the most heartbreaking portrayals of motherhood of all time, a delicious melodrama...
Few things during the last decade gave me as much pure cinematic delight as "Volver".
The movie may thrive with movie-ness, but it's also an emotional powerhouse. The first time I saw it all I wanted to do after the show was over was to go outside, call my mom and tell her how much I missed her.
It's unusual for me to have such a strong emotional response to anything and this unexpected outburst of melancholy made me want to revisit "Volver" to see what was its mystery.
I've seen it more than ten times after that (it's one of those movies I pop in the DVD when I've nothing else to do) and still haven't been able to figure out how Pedro embedded all this passion into it.
The movie lingers dangerously between the sublime and the ridiculous, with its twists becoming preposterous to some and perfection incarnate to others.
Some people find the denouement laughable while it movies me to tears.
But more than my actual devotion to this movie (which could easily swap places for number one depending on my mood) this also provided me with two of my other obsessions of the decade.
First it introduced me to what then became my favorite band: Saint Etienne. You really got to leave it to Pedro to choose just the right piece of music for the perfect scene and create magic that will haunt you after you leave the theater.
And it also started my infatuation with Penélope Cruz. Those of you who don't believe in second chances, this woman was at the bottom of my actresses list (the jokes I made about her movies...) and in two hours she became a revelation. I have seen few performance with the kind of earthiness, sincerity and star charisma Penélope has in this one.
It's good that she's made a case out of doing great things after this, I hope she won't ever go back to things like "Bandidas".
Now back to "Volver" I was also surprised by how it marked an evolution in Almodóvar's work. This is the first movie of his' where emotions and references go hand in hand, one doesn't overshadow the other. He was the only director this decade who consistently delivered a better movie each time. As much as I loved "Talk to Her" then came "Bad Education" and just blew me away. When "Volver" came I was in heaven.
Dammit, now I have the sudden urge to go see it...

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

3. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

Who would've guessed that the decade's most romantic film would have almost no dialogue and its protagonists wouldn't even be human?
Not me for one. When I first saw "WALL-E" I was moved beyond my wildest dreams, I left the screening elated and mildly depressed wondering how on Earth had the filmmakers been able to stimulate the brain, eyes and heart at the same time.
The story of a robot who becomes one of the last inhabitants on planet Earth (read my review here) had a direct ecological message, as well as mentions of obesity, consumerism and indifference.
Some of its elements were deemed as part of a liberal agenda on Hollywood's side and truth is that Disney is after all a capitalist company, so yeah they will want to make a buck out of current issues if they can.
But the beauty of "WALL-E " wasn't in its obvious discourse but in its subtle, delicate undertones. How it drew people to the movies again and have them not complain about lack of unnecessary dialogue.
The first part of the movie is like a symphony you just need to sit back and relish in and then there's the fact that the entire movie itself plays like a crash history of motion pictures with WALL-E going from playing Charlie Chaplin to Keir Dullea in under two hours.
If to this you add the enigmatic, but nostalgic, inclusion of Babs in "Hello Dolly" you have everything to make one of the most unique movie experiences the decade gave us and the one animated film made I'd put in my own time capsule.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

4. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)

A few years ago in film school I was asked to do a paper on one movie and dissect its influences. I approached the professor and told him I was doing "Far From Heaven".
When he told me to pick another subject and stay away from fluff like this, I knew I'd taken the correct decision.
Todd Haynes misunderstood masterpiece is the kind of movie that was dismissed by the masses when it was released, in the same way the movies it pays tribute to were seen as just "women's pictures" during their era.
A clever study of how little things have changed since the days when Douglas Sirk directed Jane Wyman in glossy, gorgeous pictures, "Far From Heaven" was never about the past or just a "remake" of sorts, it was a full out critique to a system that in the United States particularly, was becoming more and more conservative.
The Army's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was cleverly shown in how Frank Whitaker (Dennis Whitaker) has to hide his homosexuality from his town and reminds me of another wonderful movie that dealt with the same period.
In "The Hours" Julianne Moore played a quiet housewife who's become an ornament in her home, when one day she asks a neighbor (played wonderfully by Toni Collette) about heir own fears, she just replies that all she knows is that their husbands deserve them, they went to the war and everything after all...
In Haynes' delicate work of art Moore again plays the 50's housewife coming to terms with her own inner demons (she played the "same" character in the exterior in both movies, but couldn't have made each of them more intimate and distinct if she'd had facial reconstruction).
"Far From Heaven" dealt with the Bush administration in a way few movies dared to, it questioned values that Americans had been carrying for generations and simply had chosen to name "tradition".
It helps that the movie is a wonder to behold (and to listen-it features the great Elmer Bernstein's last film work) with Haynes and crew recreating every single aspect of a production circa 1950's-and on a indie budget!
When the time came for me to get working on my paper I didn't just choose Sirk as a source of inspiration, I concentrated more on the works of Norman Rockwell, who also suffered from an utter underestimation of his work based on its looks.
A few months ago I read a wonderful profile on Rockwell and history is beginning to appreciate him for the brilliant artist he was.
He got away with paintings that contain layers and layers of disturbing symbolism and hid them under lovely family scenes.
I'd like to think that we live in an era where artists no longer have to codify what they're trying to say in order to avoid repression.
That's not always true and "Far From Heaven" will forever be a proof of how ideas wrapped in the prettiest packages might just be the most subversive.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(Peter Jackson, 2001)

When Sam (Sean Astin) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) decide they will leave the fellowship behind and go to Mordor on their own I couldn't believe it.
When minutes later the screen just faded to black and "directed by Peter Jackson" appeared my jaw fell to the floor.
Before entering the theater that December afternoon almost eight years ago, I had an inkling of what J.R.R. Tolkien's books were all about (although I'd ignored my father's advice that I read them since I was a child).
However I wasn't expecting for a movie cliffhanger to be like the ones on TV. Sometimes we have to wait a few months to know what our favorite characters will go through, but a whole year?
And when it had been this damn good!
Of course during the next two years I always attended the first screening of each chapter on the day of the premiere and in the meantime obsessed about the books (read the three and "The Hobbit" in a few weeks), the music and the Oscars they stacked.
I still am pissed about Ian McKellen losing his Oscar...
But the movies worked on more than a personal level, they reminded me of cinema's ability to take us back to a prime state of wonder, almost like being a child where you just can't believe what you're watching and are too fascinated to start wondering the machinations behind it.
The movies, not so surprisingly, became a sort of tradition in my house for half the decade. We would religiously watch the previous chapter(s) before going to bed and running to the theaters the next day to see the new one.
"The Return of the King" premiered here on a Christmas day (the only one of the trilogy they didn't open on the worlwide premiere) and it truly was the best present anyone-OK a film buff mostly-could ask for.
Now that the decade is over I look back and realize that most of the images I have from this movie don't correspond to the final, awards laden, chapter, but to its humble start which tremulously came to the world and changed it forever.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)

I had never liked martial arts films.
I used to think of them as the mindless entertainment that could only keep brutish, ignorant, heterosexual males occupied.
Then I saw this movie.
The minute Michelle Yeoh's character high kicks and then begins to fly I was in a trance.
With its sweeping mix of epic adventure, mythology and sweeping romance it redefined what I thought of as genre.
After watching this movie I became more open to genres I'd never even consider watching before.
Lee became a master of genre bending. Just see how his "Hulk" is more psychological drama than superhero flick and "Lust, Caution" is one of the greatest spy thrillers to arrive in the form of erotic essay.
When he delivered "Brokeback Mountain" he was again establishing his disdain for established cinematic rules by making a revisionist Western with tragic romance.
I think I'm the only person who didn't like that movie, but I respected what he was trying to do.
To me however "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was his pinnacle.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(Michel Gondry, 2004)

Out of all the movies I have ever seen, very few have captured "falling in-and out of-love" like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".
It's a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve, even if the rest of the outfit is completely loopy and strange.
Michel Gondry's interpretation of Charlie Kaufman's screenplay plays out like a stream of hippie consciousness with lo-fi settings and sci-fi straight out of a 50's B movie.
Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey (where is this man's Oscar?) give career best performances as doomed lovers Clementine and Joel who undergo a procedure to have each other erased from their memories.
The premise might sound like a Kaufmanian gimmick, but the truth is that the guy knows what he's doing.
His stories might not be easy to contain within a genre, but the emotions and humanity under all those layers of quirk and weirdness could rival neorrealism.
Watching this movie the first time I was confused most of the time, but I remember leaving the theater completely moved.
I had no idea why and I couldn't understand or relate to it. It wasn't until later when I too had an experience I wanted to erase from my memory forever that I understood what "Eternal Sunshine" had tapped so accurately into.
The pain, the bitterness, the joy, the fun...they all go hand in hand when you look back on a past love affair. The mind has a hard time with hierarchies.
When a movie plays out like a version of thoughts you've had, you know you won't want to forget about it.
This one did that for me.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

8. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)

The first time I saw "Lost in Translation" I was with two friends.
"That was it?!?" one of them exclaimed.
"What did he tell her?" the other replied just as shocked when it ended.
The only thing they agreed on was how much it had sucked.
They also agreed that I must've been some sort of a crazy person for feeling so elated after watching this.
And in fact not even I was sure what had moved me so much about it. Why had I invested so much in the simple story of Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson)? Why had I been so fascinated by the moments when "nothing" happened and we just watched the characters watching something else?
Two days after I saw it, the movie won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. If it had been up to me it would've also won Best Director.
It was Coppola who crafted something so delicate and bruising, so intimate and detached. You could also touch her influences during the movie: her story extracted out of a Wong Kar Wai journal, her sexy camera angles straight out of that Alain Resnais movie and well to mention Fellini would be too easy (considering "La Dolce Vita" is featured in one prominent scene).
But Coppola wasn't proving how well versed she was in the cinematic arts, she was declaring she had a voice of her own.
Extremely autobiographical, the movie is able to be both specific and very general. Maybe not all of us have been as deeply annoyed by Ms. Diaz as she was (Anna Faris gave by far my favorite limited performance of the decade) but almost everyone has had that moment when they feel just lost.
You don't even have to like the characters, for all I know Bob comes off looking very arrogant most of the time and Charlotte is a stereotype of mid-twenties ennui, but they transcend their facades and become beautiful archetypes that detail the saving capacity of love and the inexplicable bond created through friendship.
Who cares what Bob told her in the end? What's important is that they will never forget each other, they will live within one another even if they don't meet again.
With them Coppola beautifully captured the essence of spirituality and faith.
To this day I don't know of my friends "got" why I loved this movie so much, but I'm sure by now they also have been told things that help keep them warm at night.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

9. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)

"Why do I love it so much?
What kind of magic is this?

How come I can't help adore it?
It's just another musical

No one minds it at all
If I'm having a ball
This is a musical"

-from "In the Musicals" by Björk

I had never seen a movie like "Dancer in the Dark" before I popped in the DVD that fateful day more than eight years ago.
Before it I thought that musicals were limited to being grand scale epics in Technicolor where everyone was a tune away from a happy ending.
Of course I'd seen "West Side Story", "Cabaret" and the likes, but even in their tragic finales there is always an ethereal beauty that at least leaves you with some hope.
But this one destroyed me.
I couldn't believe what poor Selma Ježková (Björk) had just gone through. A degenerative disease, a son who had inherited it, extreme poverty, a wrongful trial for helping a friend and the biggest evil of all was her extreme goodness.
How could we live in a world where good people suffered the most and how dare a movie not give them the happy ending they so obviously deserved?
Then again I obviously had no idea who Lars von Trier was. "Dancer in the Dark" opened up my eyes to someone who has become one of my favorite working directors.
His ability to be both irreverent and moving has fascinated me ever since. I now owe him some of the most memorable movie watching experiences of my life (I sat frozen in my seat after watching "Dogville" a few years later and am still uncovering the different layers hidden in "Antichrist").
I also owe this movie my endless love for Björk. Before this I liked some of her work, but just thought of her as the kooky woman in the weird "Ren & Stimpy" like video that had disturbed me so much as a kid.
But after watching how she committed with Selma I was astounded someone could give such a raw performance, I remember clearly thinking she had been inspired by Falconetti's performance in "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and how like her she would only deliver one medium changing performance.
Von Trier as I learned is definitely not for everyone, but those who give in to his vision are never unrewarded.
To this day his ability to push cinema forward, challenge our notions and extract brilliant performances out of his tortured muses is music to my ears.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

10. Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)

In 2004 I turned 18.
Yes, it meant I could finally vote (and drink and smoke without feeling guilty).
But above all I remember it was about the vote. I have always been very politically minded and even if I'm not an American, I have always followed closely their government's moves. And how can one not when they exert so much influence over the entire world?
So yeah, here I was, with a brand new ID card and the notion that I could make a difference in the world. Presidential elections in my country were still one year away, but I made a personal cause out of endorsing the American Democratic party because well everyone knew George W. Bush was simply no good.
I wore a John Kerry pin to school and was very outspoken about my belief that the Iraq invasion had been a crime upon humanity.
And yes, living outside the States I was seen as a lunatic. It took me a while to understand that people see politics as something that happens when you vote.
Democracy to most is something external that affects them little and is over the morning after a new President has been elected.
Today more than ever I know this to be a lie.
Democracy isn't about who we pick or why we pick them, it's an organism that has to be nurtured almost every day of our lives. Democracy isn't about political parties it's about our values.
Most of the time they're not even about morality (that's way too ample a concept) but about basic humanity.
No other film this decade reminded us more about that than Michael Moore's controversial Palme D'or winner.
Sure Moore has made a mess about his latter choices-he seems to pick issues with the idea to polarize as of late-but back then he was just a man trying to make way for his voice to be heard.
The movie may have not aged well (read my original review here) and the ending is still one of the most heartbreaking to be put in celluloid, but the ideas behind Moore's discourse live now more than ever.
We have the right to be heard, the right to fight for change and the right to be treated with basic human dignity.
Now a citizen of a country living under a military dictatorship I am witness of how easy it is for those in power to trample us, to play with us and to disrespect us.
But as long as we believe in change not all is lost.
As an anecdote regarding the movie I will remember it most of all because of the struggles I went through to see it (read the whole story here).
When it premiered and was opening all over the world, the local board of censorship initially declared it would be banned in my country for being "propaganda".
The government was not only very conservative here, but some of its key members had direct ties to things Moore revealed in his documentary.
I was appalled that a bunch of right wing geezers were trying to restrict my viewing rights, so I looked up online at what countries near me the movie was playing in.
The nearest one was El Salvador and coincidentally my parents had to travel there for work around the time the movie was being exhibited.
I packed my bags, told people at school I was leaving the country to see a movie and rode in a car for almost two days to get to my movie.
Nobody and nothing, not even a repressive, restrictive government has the right to choose for me.
Especially not what movies I see!

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

With the end of the decade a mere month away, absolutely everyone has been delivering lists that comprise, or try to, the cinematic richness of the past ten years.
Even if most list makers are trying to establish what the best out of those movies made were, I have learned that delivering such definitive statements is not only egocentric but also useless.
Since they were created movies have been an oxymoron of sorts: group activities that turn into personal experiences.
Every time we enter a theater and sit there watching the projection on the screen with someone next to us, we're in a completely private world of our own.
It can be our wife, best friend, frenemy or complete stranger next to us, we're still leaving the cinema with a completely different perspective of what they just saw.
Therefore who am I to condemn someone for proclaiming "White Chicks" is the movie they will remember the aughts for?
With that in mind, my top ten list will not be about the best movies or even my favorites, but about those which will forever bring me memories of the post-Y2K craze.
I will write about one of those movies every day this week (click on the tag if you miss anything) I hope you will come along for the ride down memory lane with me and I'm dying to hear all about the ones that made the decade for you.