David Jenkins' films of the year

'Requiem', 'Volver' and 'United 93' make the cut, but strangely, 'The Da Vinci Code' doesn't.

Dec 22 2006

OK, so this is the first time I've been asked to do anything like this and I can confirm the truth to the rumour: it's damn hard. But does it mean anything? In a recent poll carried out by the Global Language Monitor, they claim that the most popular catchphrase of 2006 was 'Stay the course'. Call me a lame-o, but it'll never catch on…

'Requiem'
Sadly caught in the riptide of the 'Casino Royale' behemoth, few people caught this low-key horror story from German director Hans-Christian Schimd, but that didn't stop if from being the best film released this year.

'United 93'
As far as cinematic experiences go, Paul Greengrass's clinical rendition of that fateful day in September 2001 was far more effective than a thousand IMAXs, plasma screens and HD TVs. When I went to see this film, I was sat next to a man in a Rastafarian hat who wept all the way through while occasionally standing up to thump the wall of the screening room to shout 'Why? Why? Why did it have to be like this???' I rest my case.

'Volver'
Spain's favourite son just keeps getting better with this stylish and wonderfully assured film which sees the him rephrase and reinterpret his pet obsessions, the three Ms: melodrama, motherhood and La Mancha.

'Capote'

Just as the Oscar-friendly historical biopic was beginning to look outdated and tired, 'Capote' offered a much needed shot-in-the-arm and proved that there was life in the genre yet. As much a portrait of the artistic process as of a man consumed by his self image, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Capote was a much more complex and radical impersonation than we had hitherto seen in recent cinema.

'4'
Ilya Khrjanovsky's film had the best opening shot of the year, as a crepuscular street corner is slowly infested with mangy dogs until they are all scared off by the sound of pneumatic drills. Visually claustrophobic and thematically eerie, this vodka-and-clones trawl through the Russian mudfields of a near future mixes the surrealism of Lynch with a Tarkovsky-like way of searing images onto your mind. A cracking debut.

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