I hate those articles about stuff that happens on the 13th or has some connection to this dreaded number that emphasize just how lucky (instead of unlucky, get it?) this particular 13 was for one reason or another. So I’m not going to say anything of the sort. I will simply note that this third year of the second decade of the century is an extremely rich one as far as good movies by great directors are concerned. Great directors that happen to be my favourites, some of whom have not had a film out for a very long time, causing me to produce most of the traffic to their Imdb pages, hoping for at least some miserable rumored if nothing else. So 2013 is a year that, although said to have a bad luck aura around it, it just so happens that it’s also going to gift me with works of the people I most admire and love and stalk on the internet, is what I’m saying. And with the works of some that I’m just curious about.

HALLELUJA! category

1.     The Wind Rises

Director and writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Oh, blessed be the gods of film!  Why, oh why, Mr. Miyazaki, can’t you follow Woody Allen’s example and make a movie a year? I sometimes go again along the list of films he wrote or directed, hoping against hope that there’s one which has escaped my eye the previous hundred times I’ve done that. Unfortunately, I have the eyes of an eagle. But not in 2013, no, sir. In 2013, I can bask in the exquisite feelings that precede and follow the release of a much awaited movie. That great anticipation, the thrills of seeing the trailer, the careful planning of the perfect place, mood, friends to see this film in, on, with.

photo vulture.com

Hayao Miyazaki is a well known Japanese animator, co-creator of Studio Ghibli, an animation studio Westerners refer to as Japan’s Disney, because of its great success. But Ghibli is no Disney. As much as I love the latter’s films, it’s impossible not to see the huge company behind everything, the polls and social studies that obviously play a big part in constructing a story to the liking of millions. I see no such background in Ghibli movies. They are not afraid to break the rules, to forget about a happy ending, or an uncomplicated plot, or about the necessary love story, or about the presumed patience span of its public. They trust their viewers with the intelligence and emotional maturity to understand and appreciate a complex narrative, heavy themes such as war and ecology, or anything unfamiliar, for that matter.

photo blogs.indiewire.com

Returning to Miyazaki – obviously all of the above apply to him, but no matter how wonderful Ghibli’s films usually are, the ones he himself authors are remarkably superior and some of the loveliest, most meaningful and imaginative works of art I have ever seen.

That is why the news that this movie

is out in 2013 caused me such uncool fangirl giddiness.

Keeping with one of his dearest motifs – flight – Miyazaki decides to tell the story of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of a fighter airplane which served in World War II and has apparently managed to upset pretty much everyone in Japan. Which is not to say the film is not popular with the general public, who has flocked to see it in movie theatres. I, for one, can’t wait to do the same, or, if (as it’s to be expected) nobody is going to distribute it in my country, put my trust in good old Internet to see it.

 2.     The Zero Theorem

Director Terry Gilliam, writer Pat Rushin

Gilliam is great. He is weird, funny, dark, absurd, playful, philosophical, inquisitive, fantastical. He’s always surprising and never boring.  He’s instantly recognizable, still he doesn’t repeat himself.

It’s always refreshing to see a director who’s not afraid to play. The fact that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is his most realistic film says a lot, I think, about just how much he likes playing with fantasy. Most of his films happen in two parallel universes: the “real” one and the “dream” one. In Fear and Loathing, the dream parts are the drug-induced sequences, in The Fisher King, they’re the visions of a madman, in Brazil they’re the main character’s dreams of freedom, and so on. This serves to show just how much value Gilliam places on imagination and the power of the human mind.

photo plus.google.com

These seem to be the main guidelines of The Zero Theorem, too, as it tells the story of a computer genius working on a formula for the meaning of life. Just think of how zany of a subject that sounds like. Of course no major studio would want anything to do with it. And thank those gods of film for that, too. At least we know that nobody pressured him into doing anything he didn’t want to do, we know the great actors in it got involved out of love for the story and the director and not for some monetary reward. It sounds snobbish, I know, but this is how great films (great anything, for that matter) happen.

“The whole point of cinema is to be surprised all the time” Gilliam said in an interview and that pretty much sums up his entire body of work. He rejects playing along with the public’s expectations in the same way Miyazaki does and the world of cinema is a happier place due to that. Which is not to say his films aren’t some of the most entertaining I have ever seen.

photo hotnewsgator.com

 3.     The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet

Director and writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet, also writer Guillaume Laurant, after a novel by Reif Larsen

I’m really not trying to be politically correct in any way, but apparently my most anticipated films this year come from people from three different continents. Like the previous two men on this list, Jeunet possesses a unique style, exquisite imagination and some noticeable obsessions. He also likes to take his time between films.

photo eyeforfilm.co.uk

One common trait of all his pieces of work is their innocence (yes, even Alien: Resurrection, shut up), as if everything’s seen through the eyes of a child. A child who is both a playful dreamer and a dark and cruel soul, combination which I believe is the essence of innocence. I don’t know how the man has managed to preserve this way of looking at things, but I’m grateful he did. His films are so perfectly balanced between light and darkness that they never become too sugary or too depressing, although they have more than enough elements to become both. Another common trait in his work is Dominique Pinon, this guy:

photo hotflick.net

The only thing I can say against him is that he declined the offer to direct a Harry Potter movie and I’m finding that pretty hard to forgive, given that he could have made it so much better than how it finally turned out. Oh, well…

The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet is his second English language movie (after Alien), but be not afraid, Pinon is still a member of the cast. It tells the story of a talented twelve year old cartographer who runs away from home and travels across country via a freight train, in order to receive an award at the Smithsonian Institute. I expect it to be as positive and charming as it sounds.

To be continued…

by Alexa Băcanu

Alexa Băcanu is a private investigator and awesome mercenary. Interests: everything (except Math and most people). She doesn’t write anywhere else (no one other than us would let her) except in her diary and on public bathroom walls.