Top 10 movies seen in 2012

I usually see only two or three movies that I really love per year. Last year, I saw about five. (Some of these movies were released in 2011, but I wasn’t able to see them until 2012. I saw or will see several 2012 films in 2013.)

1. Damsels in Distress is unique, especially if you’re not acquainted with writer and director Whit Stillman, which I wasn’t. The characters speak as though from an articulate subconscious.This comedy includes not only one of my favorite characters of all time, it feels like a strange expression of my life and thoughts.

2. The Avengers made me feel like a kid again. I had to restrain my nerdy glee as superheroes overcame their differences, embraced their flaws, and worked together. I expected much less.

3. Moonrise Kingdom is a beautiful, humorous, and fanciful tale of two twelve year olds who run off together and the adults and peers who try to track them down. The soundtrack and art direction are gorgeous.

4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a spy classic, an opaque, bleak, and intriguing piece set during the Cold War, based on John Le Carre’s novel of the same name.

5. Queen of Versailles is a hilarious and disturbing documentary about an extremely wealthy family going through the recession. The film manages to raise questions and shed light on a lot of issues, both on intimate and national scales.

6. The excellent Polisse follows numerous cases and officers in Paris’s child protection unit. In spite of its harrowing subject matter, it is both dramatic and believable. This film stuck with me for some time.

7. Django Unchained can feel like a very long (but awesome) music video. This funny and graphically violent blaxploitation/Western/revenge tale is deliberately offensive, and actors like Jaimie Foxx and Samuel Jackson create gripping characters. The movie skewers slavery’s premise that people are property.

8. Though a bit muddled, The Dark Knight Rises feels like a rousing and dark finale to a great trilogy. It brings the story full circle, making me want to revisit the other two films.

9. The Master is an odd but beautifully shot film about a wild man who stumbles into a cult in the years following WWII. Joaquin Phoenix is remarkable as the addled veteran, a kind of unglamorous character I’ve never seen before.

10. The Deep Blue Sea is a simple adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play. Drenched with angst and sadness, the movie theater director said of this emotional story of a woman’s obsession with her lover, “Don’t marry a mama’s boy and don’t run off with Loki.” (Tom Hiddleston played the boyfriend.)

Worst

Gorgeous production values, interesting themes, and Michael Fassbender’s fascinating performance couldn’t save Prometheus’s Planet 9 From Outer Space plot. Most disappointing here was its potential.

Polisse

Maiwenn's excellent police drama Polisse follows the Parisian Child Protection Unit, expertly weaving officers' personal and work lives. Maiwenn plays Melissa, a quiet photographer who is more of a cipher than a fully drawn character, but she serves as the audience's eyes. The force is filled with more dynamic characters, including Joey Starr's passionate Fred, Karin Viard's insecure Nadine, and Marina Fois's bitter Iris.

The workers are dedicated professionals, but that isn't to say they are patient or polite. Often more intimate with their peers than their lovers, they are more reliable parents than spouses. Plagued with alcoholism, depression, and neuroses, there is a sense that our heroes could explode at any time. In fact, many of them do, and their rants about the trials of their job are repetitive but believable. In spite of the numerous storylines, careful editing and naturalistic, sometimes unbearably raw, acting distinguishes the various characters.

This work is neither easy nor cut-and-dried. Suspects range from tearful to unrepentant, and the young victims sometimes don't want to be torn away from their abusers. Relationships between the officers are also intense and complicated, whether they are platonic friendships or romances, repressed or consummated. In spite of the harrowing subject matter, characters often mask their pain as humor, and there are rare moments of relief and pure jubilation.

While some plots are underdeveloped (this would have been a fascinating miniseries), the film manages to follow quite a few stories as well as touch on broader issues such as bureaucracy and cultural clashes. The conclusion is simultaneously inconclusive, heavy-handed, and effective, suggesting that these prickly workers struggle through life and sacrifice themselves for the children. Aided by hand-held camera work, the gripping Polisse feels real.

French with English subtitles.