Cinema’s spectrum

If a film critic is a kind of monarch, the despotic ruler of the finite area of his or her opinions, the members of a film festival jury are at the other end of the curve, interconnected parts of a committee that must both compromise and be convincing if they are to get their points of view across.

So why was it, in looking back over the films of 2002 and coming up with a 10-best list, surely the most absolute exercise of critical power, that I kept thinking back to the rare compromise that the Berlin Film Festival jury, of which I was a member, made this year: It split the prestigious top prize, the Golden Bear, between Peter Greengrass’ “Bloody Sunday” and Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away.”

It’s not because 2002 was a weak year for films; quite the contrary. My preliminary list of possible 10-best contenders ended up with almost 30 candidates, ranging from the subversive and uninhibited “Lilo & Stitch” and “Punch-Drunk Love” to the beautifully controlled “Insomnia,” from “Chicago,” a splendid Hollywood musical of the old school, to “The Cockettes,” a charming and insightful documentary about a musical troupe of a very different kind.

Rather, I gravitated toward the Berlin split because of the message it sent, both then and now. “Bloody Sunday” and “Spirited Away” are superb films, but taken together, as a joint top entry, they are considerably more than the sum of their parts. They are so disparate in terms of subject and technique, such a cinematic yin and yang, that they point out how vast a range the film medium can cover. And because both are examples of the kinds of films that only infrequently get made, they illustrate as well how unusual it is for that range to be completely utilized.

Of the two films, the kind of political cinema “Bloody Sunday” represents is decidedly the rarer commodity. Its investigation of Jan. 30, 1972, a day in which British troops killed 14 unarmed civil-rights marchers in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, is so meticulous that people who were there at the time marvel at its accuracy.

But “Bloody Sunday” is not waxworks filmmaking. It’s a compelling, gut-clutching piece of advocacy cinema that shows the power of real events, dramatically conveyed. Working in the spirit of the classic “Battle of Algiers,” director Greengrass and his crew have re-created that day with such potency that we feel as if we are there with the marchers, experiencing the awful inevitability of history gone wrong.

As for “Spirited Away,” even if you think animated fantasy is an area you’re familiar with, Miyazaki’s dark, strange but ultimately joyous film is something completely different. The product of a fierce and fearless imagination, able to enthrall the eye while teaching the heart lessons about love and friendship, it underlines how by-the-numbers so much nominally imaginative filmmaking actually is. If more films broke from the pack the way these two did, every year would be as promising as 2002 turned out to be.

Following in the spirit of Berlin, I’ve split other (but not all) of the 10-best slots between two films, sharing the wealth among deserving pairs. “Don’t be stingy, baby” were some of the first words the famously silent Greta Garbo spoke on screen in “Anna Christie,” and one could do worse than follow her advice.

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Kenneth Turan’s top films of 2002

“Bloody Sunday” and “Spirited Away.” See above.

“Adaptation.” If a bolder, more imaginative film emerged from the risk-averse studio system, I don’t remember it. Writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze have come up with a gleefully disorienting film on how they couldn’t make a film of Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief,” throwing in, just for the heck of it, an amusing treatise on why and how writers write and the outlandish places where inspiration makes its home.

“The Hours.” A beautifully emotional film taken from a Michael Cunningham novel that felt all but impossible to transfer to the screen. Yet top-of-the-line acting (Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore), screenwriting (David Hare), directing (Stephen Daldry) and composing (Philip Glass) have captured us unawares and illuminated the delicate corners of inner lives.

“Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” picks up where the last film left off and provides another jolt of thrilling epic filmmaking fortified with heart and soul. The cast and crew seem to have actually lived this story, and we are privileged to be along for the ride.

“Y Tu Mama Tambien.” A sophisticated film masquerading as something off the cuff, Alfonso Cuaron’s Mexican road movie about two teens and a woman in her 20s is outrageous without being offensive, provocatively and unapologetically sexual and, best of all, alive to the possibilities of life and cinema, in that order.

“About Schmidt.” Director Alexander Payne and writing partner Jim Taylor, creators of “Election,” have the most wonderfully exact eye and ear for classic American idiosyncrasies. They’ve taken Jack Nicholson and transformed him into an ordinary guy, a retired company man who finds himself on a Winnebago-powered quest to make sense of his life. Delicate and sly, graced by an impeccable Nicholson performance, this is a movie that mixes humor and poignancy with enviable skill.

“Time Out” and “The Town Is Quiet.” A pair of powerful French dramas that take the stuff of everyday life and turn it into riveting cinema. The first is Laurent Cantet’s subtle and provocative examination of the importance of work in the human equation. The second is Robert Guediguian’s intimate yet deeply ambitious neo-realistic look at how a cross-section of Marseilles residents deal with the desperate circumstances of their lives.

“The Fast Runner.” It’s the rare film that deposits you convincingly within a compelling, unfamiliar culture. Director Zaharias Kunuk’s extraordinary Inuit-language drama of the Arctic North tells a story of elemental passions, of undying love and corrosive lust. .

“Lovely & Amazing.” Like the best of personal, independent American cinema, Nicole Holofcener’s all-but-indescribable take on the complex emotional lives of a mother and her three daughters has a rueful sensitivity to how quietly ridiculous our 21st century existence can be.

“The Quiet American” and “Road to Perdition.” Without shouting about it, this pair of exactly crafted and, well, quiet films shows how satisfying those often underappreciated virtues can be. With Michael Caine and Tom Hanks giving two of the best male performances of the year, these were films that didn’t need to raise their voices to get their points across.

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Disappointments

While films that let you down are too much the stuff of a critic’s life to be worth dwelling on, failures of systemic nerve and skill are different. I was disappointed that Americans are so starved for emotional content that they chose the commonplace “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” for their beloved, disappointed that the vaunted Disney organization fought to acquire “Spirited Away” and then couldn’t figure out a way to market it, disappointed finally that we live in a film world where there’s nothing easier than making “Jackass” the No. 1 film in the country. As “Singin’ in the Rain” insisted, “Dignity, always dignity.”