In another year, perhaps, some of these could have been on my top 10
list. Alas, this was not that year.
20. The Last Black Man
in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)
Joe Talbot’s marvelous debut film, The Last Black Man in San Francisco,
is an utterly unique film. It has a strange, almost dreamlike quality – a
portrait of San Francisco from the point-of-view of someone who very clearly
loves the city, but is being left behind. It’s also that rare film about a
large, systematic issue – in this case gentrification – that doesn’t reduce the
complex issue to a series of individual villains, but rather sees the problem
as something large, and insurmountable. It also has the quality of street
theater, but with a wider scope. It is an ambitious film, a beautiful film, a
deeply humane film – and in the end, a rather sad film. Sometimes there is
nothing to do but leave town. This film announces a major new talent in the
film world.
19. Pain & Glory
(Pedro Almodovar)
Pedro Almodovar was, for a long time, an art house staple. From the late
1980s to sometime in the mid-2000s, he could be counted on for making colorful,
stylish, entertaining, and insightful movies like All About My Mother, Talk to
Her and Bad Education. But it’s been a while since Almodovar truly broke through.
Now 70, he returns with his version of 8 ½ - with his frequent collaborator
Antonio Banderas, playing a version of Almodovar himself – sick and unable to
work, alone in the world, and going over his memories of his childhood, his
mother, etc. Does Almodovar try to cram a little too much into this film?
Perhaps – but it almost all works, particularly Banderas’s performance,
everything to do with his mother (played by Penelope Cruz and Julietta Serrano)
and the late film sequence where he reconnects with his old lover, which is one
of the best sequences Almodovar has ever made. A return to form for a great
filmmaker.
18. Long Day’s Journey
Into Night (Bi Gan)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night is Bi Gan’s stunning technical achievement
– with one of the best uses of 3-D I have ever seen in a film. For the first 70
minutes or so, the film is a haunting and elusive film noir – the main
character searching in vain for a woman he once knew and loved. Like his debut
film, Kaili Blues, his film is meant as part memory, part fantasy, part
realism, and Bi Gan does nothing to tell which is which. And then for the next
59 minutes, we witness one continuous shot – in 3-D (the first 70 minutes
weren’t in 3-D) as the character literally has to ascend out of the mines, and
then descend into a town, where he believes the woman will be performing in a
karaoke competition, and he connects with another woman, who may or may not the
woman he is looking for. It is an absolutely mesmerizing sequence, brilliantly
shot by Bi Gan and his cinematographers. The whole movie is a visual masterwork
– mysterious and elusive and haunting, and it marks Bi Gan as a truly special,
daring filmmaker.
17. An Elephant Sitting
Still (Bo Hu)
The tragic story behind An Elephant Sitting Still – that writer/director
Bo Hu committed suicide shortly after finishing his four-hour cut of the film,
as he was arguing with his producers who wanted him to cut the film down to a
more commercial 2 hour cut – is certainly interesting knowledge to have about
the film. This is a dark film – there are two suicides in the film itself, and
it is about a group of four people who going through difficult times in a
Northern Chinese industrial town – all may be considering suicide themselves.
And yet, the characters in the film don’t give up – they may not find hope per
se, but they find a reason to keep going. The film is made up of long takes –
drawn out conversations, that would never work in a shorter version. Bo Hu’s
life ended tragically early – and he has left behind this one masterful film
that will make you wonder just what would have been next.
16. The Nightingale
(Jennifer Kent)
Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to her amazing debut horror film, The
Babadook, is a more troubling, more challenging film – a film that takes the
form of a rape/revenge plot, but deepens it, and muddies it a little. The first
third of the film – which includes the rapes and other travesties, is very hard
to watch – and Kent doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t exploit or titillate – but
shows the horrors. From there, it becomes a slow cat-and-mouse game that takes
on issues of misogyny and racism and colonialism in deep, dark disturbing ways.
This isn’t a horror film at all really – but a deeply troubling film. At its
core is an amazing performance by relative newcomer Aisling Franciosi – as the
Irish woman, sent to Australia in the 1820s for petty crimes – and more than
pays her debts. This film firmly establishes Kent is one of the most promising
filmmakers in the world – already having delivered two exceptional films.
15. Waves (Trey Edward
Shults)
Trey Edward Shults’ third film is a stylistic and emotional
tour-de-force – a movie that moves along on the propulsive energy of its style
and pulsating music running through it. The film is basically split into two
halves – the first focusing on Kelvin Harrison Jr.’s high school senior – a
wrestling star, dealing with the immense pressure his father (Sterling K.
Brown) places on him – and what happens when everything goes wrong at the same
time. The second half is about Harrison’s younger sister, a wonderful Taylor
Russell, dealing with the fallout from the events of the first half. Shults
style is to place us inside these kids’ lives – often inside the cars, with the
pulsating music, and the camera constantly moving. The films first half
steadily to an emotionally shattering climax. The second half is quieter – but
no less moving. Shults, who previously made the ultra-low budget and personal
Krisha, and the horror film It Comes at Night, has taken a major step forward –
in a film that will remind you of Cassavetes and Malick and early Paul Thomas
Anderson – but is also entirely its own thing. This is a film that young people
will discover – and love – sooner or later.
14. Little Women (Greta
Gerwig)
Lady Bird wasn’t technically Gerwig’s debut film as a director – but it
may as well have been. That film was remarkable in that it was a small film –
an indie film really, a coming of age film based loosely on the life of Gerwig
herself, but written with such sensitivity, directed with a wonderful,
restrained style, and performed by an amazing cast that it was miles beyond the
many similar films we get in any given year. What is remarkable about her
follow-up is that she is able to do the same thing on a larger scale – with one
of the most famous stories in American literature. Little Women has been filmed
– often – before – but Gerwig makes it her own, from the brilliant time jumping
structure, to changing things just enough to be faithful to the book, while putting
a modern twist on it. Gerwig is well on her way to becoming one of the greats.
13. Her Smell (Alex
Ross Perry)
Alex Ross Perry’s best film to date is Her Smell – a film told in five
parts about the fall, and partial redemption of a Courtney Love-esque rock
star. When we first meet Elisabeth Moss’ Becky Something, she is already a star
in her punk band – but is driving everyone around her nuts. Addicted to drugs
and alcohol, with a massive ego, the film traps us backstage at a gig, as she
goes off on a rampage, Things get even worse as the film goes along – a
recording session gone horribly wrong, another backstage meltdown, etc. Ross
Perry’s intentions here are to trap us alongside Becky’s collaborators in these
small rooms, offering no room for escape or refuge. And then, she slowly starts
to pull things together in the last two segments – making her way back. Ross
Perry has always been interested in self-involved, creative people – driving us
all mad. Moss has never been better (at least in a movie) than she is here –
she does absolutely nothing to make Becky sympathetic or likable – meaning her
slow redemption in the last two segments all the more impressive. The film is a
dynamic visual film – the camera constantly moving, constantly erratic in those
early scenes – but each scene has its own unique look and feel. Ross Perry has
been doing very good work for a while now – but Her Smell is a major step
forward for him.
12. The Souvenir
(Joanna Hogg)
Joanna Hogg’s beautiful, sensitive, humane film about a toxic
relationship really is quietly moving, building to a final two shots that are
emotionally overwhelming. In the film, Honor Swinton Byrne plays a character
based on writer/director Hogg –a young, privileged film student in the 1980s
who wants to make films about the underclass. She meets an apparent upper crust
young man who works for the home office – Tom Burke – who is both stuffy, but
funny and kind. The two fall in love quickly, him keeping secrets from her the
whole time. Even as they come up, she cannot fully give up on him – and keeps
coming back. Both Swinton Byrne and Burke are wonderful in the film that is
also a step forward for Hogg as a filmmaker – who had already made two
wonderful films (Unrelated and Archipelago – I wasn’t a fan of Exhibition). She
is a filmmaker who is subtle and perceptive – and here, she brings her work to
a new level, particularly in the aforementioned final two shots which are a
stunner.
11. The Lighthouse
(Robert Eggers)
Robert Eggers follow-up to his astonishing debut The Witch is an even
more visually stunning film. Shot in stark and black, in an old school, narrow
aspect ratio, the film is about two men – Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe –
trapped together working at an isolated lighthouse, who drive every other
insane. You need actors as committed and talented as Pattinson and Dafoe to go
this strange, doing everything from fart humor to beating seagulls to death to
mermaid sex, and both are brilliant in the film. Eggers and his crew may be the
real star here though – working with old cameras, the film looks great – the
production design is amazing (they built that lighthouse, because of course
they did) and it sounds great as well. You can kind of tell that the story was
reverse engineered a little – but it’s such a smart usage of mythology, and
shows just how committed and talented Eggers is. I cannot wait to see his
career continue to develop.
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