The Top Ten
1) Capturing the Friedmans
My favorite move of the year tends to be one that challenges my notions of what a particular genre, form–or the medium itself–can accomplish. Last year, for example, my number one film was Spirited Away, which used animation to tell a story of startling power and depth. The year before that, I picked Mulholland Drive, a brilliant masterwork that injected dazzling dream imagery into a traditional film noir tale. And way back in 2000 I fell in love with Yi Yi: A One and a Two, a simple story about a Taiwanese family that remains the most profound film I’ve seen in the past three years. In 2003, no film has wowed me more than Andrew Jarecki’s extraordinary documentary, Capturing the Friedmans. Building on Errol Morris’ groundbreaking style, Jarecki crafts a movie that’s filled with more thrills and heartbreak than any fiction film released last year. The heart of the movie lies in the home movie footage shot by the Friedman family themselves. Jarecki’s use of this incendiary material is masterful, sometimes employing it to reinforce our perceptions and other times to make us question what we thought we knew. The filmmaker clearly has his own opinions as to the Friedmans? guilt or innocence, but he wisely keeps them buried in the film, allowing viewers to make up their own minds. Capturing the Friedmans is a wholly unique experience that takes the documentary form to new heights.
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