The New Auteurs: 7 Directors Breaking Through In 2009

2009 has been a great year for new and emerging filmmakers. It’s taken him the better part of a decade, but Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s cult status has bubbled over. Maybe not into the mainstream, but his name is on the lips of many cinephiles. We then began to realize other new, young filmmakers were having banner years so we wanted to take a look at seven new directors (and one we’re on the fence about) breaking through in 2009 and soon to achieve (if they haven’t already) bonafide auteur status. Without further ado, here’s the group we’ve come up with.

Bong Joon-ho
Few genre directors have a singular perspective as wonderfully weird and emotionally rich as South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho. Bong made a splash with his second feature film, 2003’s “Memories of Murder,” a deft murder mystery about South Korea’s first serial killer, but it wasn’t until his 2006 film “The Host,” that he made an impact on both high-minded film critics and geeks. A canny take on a “Godzilla”-like monster movie, “The Host” featured a gorgeously rendered monster, a sharp and funny script, and an acute sense of culture and family (a sequence where the family has an emotional meltdown is just as riveting as anything involving the slimy creature). After contributing the best section to this year’s triptych “Tokyo,” he returns with the feature-length “Mother,” a kind of bizarro Hitchcockian thriller about a mother fighting for her son’s freedom after he’s accused of murder. “Mother” played Cannes and, more recently, the New York Film Festival, and while it didn’t attract the kind of buzz that the histrionic “Precious” did, it’s at least ten times better. “Mother” galvanized us and it will galvanize you too, when Magnolia releases it theatrically in March 2010. A post-apocalyptic thriller called “Snow Piercer” is next.

Cary Joji Fukunaga
Our rule of thumb was a director on this list had to have a film released in 2009 and they had to have had at least two films under their belt, but we had to make an exception for Fukunaga’s arresting immigration drama (and at this point in the year, somewhat overlooked) debut, “Sin Nombre,” which did take accolades at Sundance, but will probably be forgotten during the awards season. The Mexico-set tale of two disparate immigrants (one an ex-Mexican gang member, the other a young Central American teenager) trying to sneak into the U.S. by treacherous and dangerous train travel was socio-political by proxy, but humanist, soulful and hauntingly realistic. It’s a striking piece of work and a must see. Coming up for Fukunaga is a musical (that may involve Beirut and sometimes Arcade Fire contributer Owen Pallet aka Final Fantasy), a time-travel film, and an African civil war drama told from the perspective of a child soldier called “Beasts of No Nation.”

Nicolas Winding Refn
Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s debut feature ended up being the first part of a breakthrough trilogy investigating various aspects of Copenhagen’s criminal underbelly, earning him critical acclaim and an adoring cult following. While his career has had some stumbles (his domestic drama “Bleeder” never secured American distribution and the thriller “Fear X,” starring John Turturro, went straight to video), he has rebounded epically. Last week, Magnet released his manly masterpiece “Bronson,” which chronicles the gloriously fucked-up life and imprisonment of Britain’s most violent convict (played by a flawless Tom Hardy). And IFC just picked up the rights to his atmospheric Viking epic “Valhalla Rising,” which we went gaga over at Toronto. Add to that an upcoming slate that includes a spy revenge thriller written by “Taxi Driver’s” Paul Schrader, a contemporary western set in Bangkok, and a retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story, just called “Jekyll,” starring Keanu Reeves, and he looks to be turning into a premiere director of elegant genre pictures that also attempt to map the complex psychological topography of the post-millennium male.

John Hillcoat
Australian filmmaker John Hillcoat released a couple of smaller productions — his 1988 debut “Ghosts… of the Civil Dead,” and its follow-up, 1996’s “To Have and to Hold,” neither of which received Stateside distribution — before really coming into his own with 2005’s uncompromising neo-western “The Proposition.” Not since Clint Eastwood‘s 1992 landmark “Unforgiven” had a film so vigorously reignited the classic American genre, and coming from an outsider like Hillcoat, a parallel could be drawn to the emergence of spaghetti westerns in the ’60s and ’70s; similarly, the draw here wasn’t a gimmick but one of true artistry, as the tough-as-nails realism of Hillcoat’s style well-compliments Nick Cave‘s poetic and sparse score, in a match-up that could be seen as this generation’s Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. Hillcoat should have been tagged as an “emerging auteur” with the release of that picture, but few seemed to take notice at the time, and “The Proposition” was overshadowed by lesser, more Oscar-friendly fare released at year’s end. Thankfully, as a followup, a Cormac McCarthy adaptation, and as a great film in a year which has seen its share, Hillcoat’s latest, “The Road,” does not disappoint. The post-apocalyptic thriller shares characteristics with “Children of Men” and a host of others, but more than anything it confirms the status of a truly vital modern filmmaker, one whose aesthetic we can only describe as a mix between the classical sensibilities and the masculine codes explored in John Ford‘s cinema, and the gritty, potent dexterity of genre master John Carpenter.

Andrea Arnold
Film directors can come from unlikely places, but Andrea Arnold has to have had one of the strangest early careers, particularly considering her output. Arnold started as the host of a Saturday morning kids TV show in the U.K. named “No. 73.” Her presence on the show, which Arnold was on for most of the 1980s, ensures she’ll be beloved by a certain age group, and the rest of us love her for her brutal, unrelenting but hopeful films. She broke through with her short “Wasp,” which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2005, leading to Arnold being the only person in history to say the word “bollocks” at the Oscars. She reteamed with “Wasp” star Nathalie Press (“My Summer of Love“) for her feature debut “Red Road,” a digitally shot CCTV-voyeuristic thriller which is one of the best British movies of the last few years, and features spectacularly brave performances from leads Kate Dickie and Tony Curran. She returned earlier this year with her Cannes debut “Fish Tank,” which has proven more divisive than her debut, but has still garnered enough raves to be worth checking out when IFC releases it at an unspecified time in the near future.

Ramin Bahrani
As far as compliments go, Roger Ebert calling you “the new great American director” is pretty high up there. That bold statement jumps out in Ebert’s review of this year’s “Goodbye Solo,” and it’s directed at helmer Ramin Bahrani, whose three films thus far have each received ‘4 stars’ from the venerable critic. Of course, Ebert is known for spreading the love around generously as of late, but in this case his enthusiasm is well-placed: While 2005’s “Man Push Cart,” Bahrani’s debut, is a little too slight to be of much note, his follow-up, 2007’s “Chop Shop,” is an impressive neorealist-leaning story about two Latino siblings struggling to get by in the slummiest areas of outer Queens. But it’s Bahrani’s latest that gathers what’s good about both films and improves upon the template. “Solo” riffs on Abbas Kiarostami’s “Taste of Cherry” and comes up with something far warmer but just as weighty. And while some critics have grumbled about Bahrani’s move away from the deliberate pacing of “Chop Shop” toward a more accessible form, when the result of this evolution doesn’t impact Bahrani’s eye for social commentary and humanism, it’s hard to complain. “The new great American director”? Perhaps not, but he’s one of them.

Shane Meadows
In the U.K., Shane Meadows has been a major figure on the scene ever since his debut with “TwentyFourSeven” in 1997, but it’s taken a little while for his films to get the attention they deserve internationally. However, he’s been on an astonishing run recently, starting with 2004’s genre picture “Dead Man’s Shoes,” a nasty, visceral revenge movie featuring regular collaborator Paddy Considine’s best ever performance, and a devastating twist. 2007’s “This Is England” marked his breakout film, becoming a sleeper hit in the UK, and gaining plaudits across the world. If you haven’t seen it, track it down immediately – it’s a vibrant, shocking coming of age movie, with astonishing performances from Thomas Turgoose and Stephen Graham (“Public Enemies”), and an ace ska/new wave soundtrack. His follow up, “Somers Town,” which finally saw a U.S/ release earlier in the year, is a little slight in comparison, but shows the deep humanism that runs through his work. His latest, “Le Donk,” a mockumentary starring Considine, and shot in only five days, has just opened here in the UK, and we’ll bring you a review later in the week. Meanwhile, Meadows is returning to a bigger canvas, with “Beware the Devil,” a based-in-truth horror flick about an exorcist, and considering Meadows’ refusal to play by anyone else’s rules, we couldn’t be more excited about it.

The case for Rian Johnson – The case for Rian Johnson on this new auteurs list is heavily debated and a somewhat contentious subject amongst the group. Most of us agree that “Brick,” is a stellar debut and definitely announced the arrival of a new voice, but many of us are divided on the creative cutesy crime-caper back-step that was “The Brothers Bloom” [ed. you can tell where I stand]. None of us outwardly love it and some of us almost hate the cloying and divisive piece of work. It feels like it owes more to Wes Anderson than it does to Johnson’s own distinctive style, but obviously he’s still figuring out what that is. We would have liked a misstep from him to come much later in his career, but obviously he’s extremely talented, has great taste and we’re not counting him out. We’re hoping, his sci-fi teleportation film, “Looper,” has a lot more of his own personality. If he indeed has one…

Honorable Mention
With Duncan Jones we stuck to the one film rule. It’s hard to call someone an auteur based on only one film (obviously we stretched this above), but “Moon” was an auspicious debut that evinced a ghostly melancholia and moody loneliness on top of all the sci-fi tropes that geek bloggers flipped for. His next project, “Mute,” also looks to stick closely to the sci-fi world with a more dystopian bent and we’re hoping he continues to subvert genres without pandering to the nerd crowd. Park Chan Wook is arguably an already well-established auteur at this point, so we include him here, but if so only in the honorable mention section because while “Thirst” was audacious, it didn’t quite dazzle us like past works. Burgeoning South Korean filmmaker So Yong Kim has only two films to her name—2007’s quietly haunting “In Between Days” and this year’s “Treeless Mountain,” told from the perspective of two young girls abandoned by their mother—but she’s already shown an uncanny ability to evoke both a sense of urgency and intimacy in her modest stories of every-day life. Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel is obviously not well recognized yet outside of arthouse circles, but this may one day change. Her third feature film, “The Headless Woman,” hit this year and it’s an incredibly woozy and disembodying experience of losing yourself, a psyche masterpiece waiting to be discovered in film school classes years from now. Her previous films, “La Cienaga,” and “La Nina Santa,” are equally disconcerting and fall into that space, that’s not quite creepy, but breathtakingly disquieting. Ti West’s slow-burn horror is starting to break through into the mainstream with “House of the Devil” showcasing a filmmaker who’s skills with the camera both respect and reward hardcore horror fans in a way few horror auteurs can.

No Sir, I Don’t Like It: Lee Daniels
Arguably the biggest breakout director of the year is Lee Daniels due to his Sundance hit, “Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire.” It seems poised to be one of the few films from Utah this year to make a dent in the Academy Awards, yet it remains to be seen if the movie will get Best Picture (though there are 10 picks this year) and a Best Director nod seems out of reach, but we’re calling bullshit on this one. “Precious” is overrated and almost all of the reasons this film is getting attention is because of the performances (which are quite excellent). In fact, Daniels’ self-conscious, distracting, heavily stylized gaze is practically begging, “hey, look at me, I’m directing!,” in every frame. His take on the material is obnoxious and periodically takes you out of the picture emotionally every few moments like clockwork. If the film succeeds (which it only does on performance levels), it’s in spite of him. His previous picture, “Shadowboxer,” was called a “trainwreck” by one of our writers in this discussion. We call bogus fraud here, sorry.

— Sam C. Mac, Olly Lyttelton, DrewTaylor