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Oliver Maltman

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Brexit (2019)
Another Year (2011)

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Top secret leakage from my 2010 Muriels ballot!

It's a wrap for the 2010 Muriel Awards, but although the winners have been announced, there's still plenty of great stuff to read about the many winners and runners-up. ('Cause, as we all know, there's so much more to life than "winning.") I was pleased to be asked to write the mini-essay about "The Social Network" because, no, I'm not done with it. (Coming soon: a piece about the Winkelvii at the Henley Gregatta section -- which came in 11th among Muriel voters for the year's Best Cinematic Moment.)

You might recall that last summer I compared the editorial, directorial and storytelling challenges of a modest character-based comedy ("The Kids Are All Right") to a large-scale science-fiction spectacular based on the concept of shifting between various levels of reality/unreality -- whether in actual time and space or in consciousness and imagination. (The latter came in at No. 13 in the Muriels balloting; the former in a tie for No. 22.) My point was that, as far as narrative filmmaking is concerned, there isn't much difference. To illustrate a similar comparison this time, I've used a one-minute segment out of "The Social Network" (Multiple levels of storytelling in The Social Network). You might like one picture better than the other for any number of reasons, but I find their similarities more illuminating than their differences:

Far Flungers

Another day. Another year

Mike Leigh's Another Year (2010) is like a tender, swollen, beating heart that you hold within your palms: the soft flesh expands and contracts with every breath, and through the tiny crevices in between your fingers, life juices flow.

"Life is not always kind, is it?"

Gerri looks at Mary and quietly let those words slip. Mary catches her gaze, briefly. The letters settle over them like a mild fog, unmistakably present and non-disruptive, and the day proceeds on as it does.

Another day. Another year.

Through uncanny realism and probing characters, Leigh's latest film speaks of the pervasive dilemma of our kind: how do we live in this world in the presence of those so different and similar to ourselves at once? How do we make sense of each of our own way of life?

May contain spoilers

Festivals & Awards

Window shopping: Best show in town

Window-shopping is daily the source of one of the best free shows in Cannes. There's nothing quite like walking around this town, even if it's just a brief walk between screening rooms, and ogling what could be bought if you had millions of dollars at your disposal: the most extravagant flower arrangements, the most colorful and sumptuous pastries, piles of diamond necklaces, strapless cocktail dresses with skirts of white marabou feathers or silver palettes, ice-cream-pastel Chanel suits with glittering sequin trim.  The loot of the world's fashion runways is displayed in all its theatrical and expensive glory in the shops that face the Croisette, and most of these outfits would look outlandish anyplace but right here in Cannes.