9. Exhibit A (2007)
--> Exhibit A has one of those disconcerting titles that suggests the every-day reality we see revealed in a teens home videos will be punctured by something violently tragic before the close. There are no aliens, ghosts, or leering stalkers to menace the films nuclear family, but fourteen-year old Judiths videotapes start to reveal the hairline fractures in this portrait of seeming togetherness. The pressures of a financial downturn put new stresses on dad Andy and as he shifts from the warmhearted provider to a more agitated, frayed presence, hidden cracks in the rest of the family start rising to the surface. What makes Exhibit A such powerful cinema is the way in which it goes to length to not seem like cinema at all, but the real, amateurish captures of a youngster taking their first stab at commemorating their surroundings. So much of the film is just Judiths coming of age as she tries to understand the relationship her parents have, make sense of her crush on the girl next door, or come to grips with the changes in her father. Everything proceeds from such an undeniably mundane space that we only truly realize its divergence when the chaos unleashes and the trauma is complete. The way the filmmakers unravel and then reconstruct the narrative, maintaining an organic sense of upheaval, is both brilliant and emotionally upsetting. A strange and sympathetic film that will stay with you long after more fantastical terrors will have vanished from the mind.