23-21

23. Johnny Mad Dog
A vicious, vicious film this one. Johnny is the leader of a gang of coked-up child soldiers in Liberia. As the title suggests, he's fairly enthusiastic about his job. Mind you, for my money he's not even the craziest - his deputy No Good Advice is a bit of a livewire too. On the other side is Laokole, a displaced wee girl, trying to look after her young brother and her father - complicated by the fact that her old man has no legs. So these two ostensibly contrasting figures continue to pop up in each others' lives, as Johnny rampages across the country and Laokole tries to stay safe. The two of them are thus thrown into adult roles, but their childishness, after all these are children, is never far from the surface. This is a disturbing film. The existence of child soldiers is obviously terrible, but they seemed almost abstract to me previously, a symbol of complete societal distress rather than something I could actually imagine as tangible. Johnny Mad Dog slaps you across the chops and disabuses you of this notion. Most distressing are the ways that adults callously use and discard these kids, and the realisation that children's natural attributes - their enthusiasm, their energy, their capacity for faith and belief - actually makes them perfect for the role they're co-erced into. People fucking suck.


22. Me and You and Everyone We Know
Right. Well, I accept that it's not for everyone. Far too cutesy, far too pleased with itself, far too pretentious for something so essentially fluffy. But I love it. I love Christine's stupid job and stupid art project. I love Richard's long explanation for his injured hand ("I was trying to save my life and it didn't work") and the short one ("I burnt it"). And I love the fact that I love it despite the fact that I should hate it for being so fucking twee. I don't know, maybe it's the way that the characters always seem to pause before they speak, or maybe it's Miranda July's dreamy demeanour. Whatever it is, it just makes me feel happy and fluttery inside. But I understand if you hate it.


21. Code Unknown
My favourite Michael Haneke film of the decade then (though I haven't seen The White Ribbon or The Time of the Wolf yet). If you're not familiar with young Michael, his films tend to put horrible things on the screen in such a way that you fully appreciate how horrible they actually are. Perhaps this is relatively simple when dealing with, as Haneke has, murder, torture, mass suicide, or genital mutilation. The genius behind Code Unknown is that he manages to apply his techniques to more mundane scenarios. The key scene involves Juliette Binoche being intimidated on a train. An unpleasant situation, sure, but Haneke somehow turns this into a scene of absolute dread. It's uncomfortable to watch, easily the equal of, say, the murder scene in Benny's Video for pure fucking-make-it-stop-ness. On top of this cinematic torture is a fairly thoughtful set of parables about racism, intolerance, and how these evils can turn small misunderstandings into live-changing balls-ups.