2020 in Review – My Top 20 Films

What a shitshow 2020 was. Speaking as someone who, all things considered, had a relatively smooth time with everything, I can’t begin to imagine how difficult the last few months have been for many. The world effectively came to a standstill for a big chunk of the year, with the first lockdown especially feeling like getting to live to live out the world’s most boring apocalypse (and probably more plausible than any movie). The worlds of culture and industry have been affected, and perhaps damaged irreparably.

With many more cinema releases being delayed or skipped to streaming, it’s probably the biggest threat cinemas have ever faced. Not to dismiss streaming services and home releases, but I personally speaking love attending the church of the big screen, and can’t wait until I can do it again. Here’s hoping too many screens – particularly independent cinemas including my beloved locals the Genesis, Rich Mix, and The Castle – won’t be struck too hard.

What can be concluded from this year is that plenty of excellent films were still released, it’s just the case that many took a bit of searching out to find. With cinemas closed, I was happy to pay to watch many of these films at home (although it probably is telling that a large chunk of the films on this list are ones I did get to see a big screen). I also enjoyed using all my extra free time to be even more adventurous in my viewing, resubscribing to Mubi and BFI Player and taking the time to try older or more challenging films I wouldn’t always have had the patience for.

2021 is going to be a stranger year I feel, at least in terms of film. So many productions that would have taken place last year have been delayed or cancelled, and the post-production of many held up. The postponement of major releases like No Time to Die spell bad news for cinemas reliant on mainstream releases. It’ll be interesting to see what the scene will look like with another big chunk of major releases, especially Marvel films, missing. 
But for now, here’s my loose list and thoughts on films I enjoyed and appreciated last year.

20. His House (Remi Weekes; USA/UK)

19. Saint Maud (Rose Glass; UK)

 

 

 

 

 

 

18. True History of The Kelly Gang (Justin Kurzel; UK/Australia)

17. Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie; USA)

16. Calm With Horses (Nick Rowland; Ireland)

 

 

 

 

 

15. Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy; Australia)

 

 

 

 

 

14. Rocks (Sarah Gavron; UK)

13. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles; Brazil/France)

12. Welcome to Chechnya (David France; USA)

11. Mogul Mowgli (Bassam Tariq; UK/USA)

10. Dick Johnson is Dead (Kirsten Johnson; USA)

I’d read the buzz about this convention-warping documentary online, and it is available on Netflix, but I did have to search out for it within the depths of their extensive and exhausting library. It’s definitely worth tracking down. Documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson confronts the impending death of her father, the titular Dick Johnson, by staging his death in overblown and glossily shot Act of Killing-style fantasy scenes. We see him falling down stairs, being struck by falling debris and entering heaven.
But in a way I found these scenes a bit of a distraction from the true heart of the film – the universality of knowing our loved ones will die. Dick is diagnosed with dementia, and the almost home movie footage depicts in almost intrusive details the slow fade of a warm, humorous and intelligent man. It’s a slightly unhinged movie, but all the more personal and moving for it. It’ll make you want to cherish every moment you have with anyone you love (and makes me think I should start filming everything I can).

9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman; USA/UK)

A superb slice of 21^st century social neo-realism. 17-year-old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) unexpectedly finds she’s pregnant. But being underage and in Pennsylvania, her options are limited. So, with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), they take a trip to New York.    
It’s a rare art to make a film which is quite so sparse, but undeniably compelling and rich in its compassionate storytelling. At the centre is a remarkable performance by Flanigan, aided by director Eliza Hittman’s thoughtful and unfussy direction. A portrait of the array of hardships many people face simply because they are women, but one without needing to moralise, lecture or sensationalise.

8. Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg; Canada)

After hearing the first buzz about Possessor, I was excited to see it. Nothing beats horror done right. In an alternate 21^st century, a shadowy organisation uses technology to implant assassins into the minds of other people’s bodies, allowing them use them as puppet killers in contract hits. Andrea Riseborough’s Tasya’s latest job involves her entering the body of Colin (Christopher Abbott) to kill his girlfriend’s father, who happens to be the CEO of the company Colin works for. But Tasya finds herself losing control and there follows a warped and trippy battle of wits and survival. Technologically, this film looks amazing. Questioning the extent mass corporations have control over our lives off-screen (further proof you’ll want to cover your webcams and be careful what you say) and pushing that to the nth degree, Possessor is an ambitious and cynical techno thriller, as well as a brutal and supremely gory horror that can’t help but make you wince in the best way.

7. Collective (Alexander Nanau; Romania/Luxembourg)

On 30^th October 2015, a fire breaks out in the Collectiv nightclub in Bucharest during a gig. 27 died in the incident, but a further 37 died in the following months due to poor conditions in hospitals and lacklustre healthcare. The incident causes mass protests and forces the government to resign. This documentary follows journalists investigating the mass corruption that led to the disaster.
An authentic insight into the world of investigative journalism and an incredible testament to the power this work can have in causing meaningful change. There are moments in this that are genuinely gasp-inducing – the extent of the lapses of care in these hospitals is beyond anything you could believe is possible in the Europe.

6. Les Misérables (Ladj Ly; France)

An urgent and incendiary film. Not an adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel, but one which takes the themes of the abuse of poorer citizens and updates them to the 21^st century. Following a police patrol over a day as they deal with a theft committed by a teenager which spirals out of control and threatens gang violence, Les Misérables is a scathing and ugly portrait of race relations and police conduct in some of Paris’s most deprived banlieues. The brilliance of centring the film after France’s 2018 World Cup win, when French identity was at its most proud and unified, is a masterstroke from first time feature film director Ladj Ly. Tense, sprawling and thrilling, I was really impressed with this – La Haine for 2020.

5. And Then We Danced (Levan Akin; Sweden/Georgia/France)

I was lucky enough to catch this at the London Film Festival in 2019 and felt compelled to see it again this year when it was officially released. We follow Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani), a young dancer desperate to be part of the National Georgian main ensemble of traditional dance. His natural style is frequently criticised as not being rigid or masculine enough, and his place is questioned further when a new dancer Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) arrives.
When I first saw this impressive and wonderfully humane film, I at first felt a little underwhelmed by what felt like a rather conventional story of forbidden love. But seeing it the second time, I was struck more by how it is as much a depiction of a difficult journey of self-acceptance for Merab, desperate to express himself in an Orthodox and often repressive environment. It’s perhaps why I continued finding myself thinking about this film long after I first saw it – I found it deeply moving.

4. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho; South Korea)

What more is there to say about Parasite that hasn’t already been said? I think it had been so hyped up that it couldn’t meet my expectations fully, but that’s not to dismiss what is a genuinely remarkable and masterfully made film. It’s a pretty wild ride – tense, funny, strange and unpredictable, even ridiculous at points. Bong Joon-ho’s sly and scathing critique of class conflict and rampant inequality in Korea succeeds in transforming this local story into a universal parable that translates well enough even for Academy voters to fully appreciate. An update of the period drama’s upstairs-downstairs dynamics for the modern day.

3. Queen & Slim (Melina Matsoukas; USA)

Queen & Slim is a story of outlaws by circumstance. It’s a vital state of the nation film depicting just one of the many ways America has become increasingly polarised. The central couple, returning from an uneventful first date, are pulled over by a trigger-happy cop and are forced to go on the run following a violent act of self-defence. 
Queen and Slim are not fleeing justice, but fleeing a system where justice is not guaranteed based on who they are. Context is key – everyone involved and everyone who sees the dashcam footage has a view to the incident, and it’s to the film’s great strength that we are presented with a range of these views through the characters the couple meet along the way. What I admired about it though was the film’s confidence in immersing us so intimately with the couple. Whilst it may offer a scathing critique on the state of police relations with the public in the 2010s, at heart it’s a story of how two black Americans have to consider themselves in a place and time when their actions come with implications, often without their intended outcome. 

2. Small Axe (Steve McQueen; UK/USA)

With the pandemic closing cinemas for most of 2020, and the rise of the streaming service already taking many films off the big screens and straight into our homes, it’s telling that perhaps the most vital and fascinating films of the year are an anthology of films made for TV. Steve McQueen’s remarkable and personal films depicting the experience of black British immigrants in the 1960s and 70s in a way update the celebrated The Wednesday Play and Play for Today series of those eras for the 21^st century – telling the ordinary but vital stories of everyday life, unafraid to tackle difficult topics or controversy, which often feel more at home on the small screen as a medium.
The five films cover abuses of law and power, failings in education, and violent racism but retain the richness of humour, character and culture which defines the experiences of many and imbues the films with a hope and optimism for the future, even if so many of the themes covered still feel so sadly relevant. It’s undeniably London-centric, and I personally would have loved if some of the films could have been stretched a little further, just to fill in some characters or explore stories further. But they’re an undeniably thrilling series of films, not least for the undercurrent importance and love for music which runs throughout, and which takes centre stage in standout film Lovers Rock, which surely redefines what musical cinema can be.

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma; France)

Do you ever watch something and it just feels like a classic to you? Something that just has that timelessness, almost a transcendence, that takes it beyond a time and place to a point where it feels like something for the ages. Yeah this is all probably a bit hyperbolic but watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire inspired those feelings in me of watching a film where you can just feel that every aspect of the film is masterfully and artfully done.
It depicts Marianne (Noémie Merlant), an artist who is commissioned to paint a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) which will be sent to a nobleman she is due to be married off to. Héloïse has no interest in marriage, and has refused to sit for all previous artist, but we see how Marianne cautiously gains access to Héloïse’s innermost thoughts and experiences.
A still all-too-rare glimpse of the female gaze in major cinema, Portrait is impeccably shot with an expressive eye – the genius of director Céline Sciamma’s novelistic storytelling in her focus on the minor glimpses, shifts and details that convey the story better than any dialogue can. Plus each shot is so beautifully composed and lensed as to be a painting in its own right.
It’s a patient film, casually embracing and subverting familiar tropes of the romantic period drama to make something quietly radical but still compellingly warm and entertaining, building to a heartbreaking yet inspiring and overwhelming finale.

 

2018 in Review – My Top 20 Films

So here we are again, another year done. I’m late with this blog post yet again. Frankly I did a terrible job keeping up with this blog at all last year (I blame laziness, business and general bad moodiness). But I was still going to the cinema, and it’s been a remarkable year all round – big screen favourites returned, blockbusters reached new levels of scale and excitement, American cinema embraced politics to an even greater degree.

As usual, there were heaps of great looking films I missed and hope to catch up with soon, so consider this list true as of 15th January 2019! Strangely, I’ve found a pattern has developed where every year is either filled with films which I grew to love on a deeply person level (2015, 2017) or films which I generally admired on a critical level (2016, 2018). I’m hoping this trend continues with 2019 being a standout year – there isn’t a great deal here I would consider amongst my recent personal favourites, despite how much I respect and appreciate them. All films featured had UK release dates in 2018.

20. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie; USA)

Having had pretty much no interest in the Mission Impossible films earlier, going to see 2015’s Rogue Nation had been a very welcome surprise. And thankfully, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie returns, keeping up the same frantic pacing, preposterous plotting and immense stakes as before. The stuntwork, camerawork and editing in this are all insanely sharp, with the film pushing itself to new heights, and each setpiece somehow expanding on the other to make some of the most audacious action scenes of all time. Perhaps the lack of surprise this time meant that personally I still preferred Rogue Nation, but no action film came close to this in terms of sheer ambition and achievement.

19. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Perischetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman; USA)

If any film was a welcome surprise this year, it’s surely this ridiculously titled animation, proving that you can never have too many Spidermen. With the trailer giving the impression of it being an overblown slapstick for kids, it was the overwhelming positive response to it that convinced me to give it a go. And what a treat it was. The rendering of the animation style, mixing 2D and 3D, and blending … is a marvel (geddit…) and frenetic postmodern humour that has become a trademark of producers Lord and Miller prove a welcome antidote to the usual origin story re-treads. It can’t entirely escape the clichés of the standard superhero plotting which means some scenes feel a little dull despite the kineticism of it all. But the film’s real strength is of the understanding of Spider-Man as a fully fleshed character, with each of the different universe versions enhancing the storytelling.

18. A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Leilo; Chile/Germany/Spain/USA)

The deserving winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, A Fantastic Woman follows Marina (Daniela Vega), a transgender woman in a relationship with an older man (Francisco Reyes) who dies suddenly, leaving Marina alone and treated with suspicion by her boyfriend’s family. It

could have been a bleak and upsetting tragedy, but the film is far more subtle and intelligent than that. It’s a film about the grieving process, and the ways we cope with profound loss. But tied to this is a story of trans rights, of quiet dignity in overcoming ignorance and adversity, and embracing one’s self-worth as the key to longevity and happiness. Moments of magical realism push the film into something far more subjective and fascinating, but it’s Vega’s raw and layered performance that really makes the film stand out. She lays her emotions so bare in this, being at once tough but vulnerable.

17. BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee; USA)

I’ve been slowly catching up with Spike Lee’s earlier films from the 80s and 90s, and with the reputation he has in some parts these days and with the reception to some of his most recent films, I’ve been surprised how playful, how daring and how radical some of those films are. A lot of those qualities feature in this film – a fascinating thriller which derives much of its power in relating this seemingly unusual true story from the past to the state of race relations and politics in modern America. Tense and funny in equal measure, with many standout scenes edited with cross-cutting to marvellous effect, and a devastating ending that brings everything back to the present. Though heavy handed in its politics, it’s a film which hopes to inspire change.

16. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler; USA)

As someone who has fallen a little behind with the Marvel franchise, I have to say Black Panther was a pleasure to watch. Sure, it ends in the usual CGI splurge at which point I tend to zone out. But having gotten genuinely bored with the more recent Marvel films, which are so overstuffed with characters and overplotting, it was surprisingly enjoyable to a brand new, beautifully designed and realised world in Wakanda. Added to that a story less about world domination and invading aliens, and more a tragic family drama about responsibility, honour, expectations and the sins of the parents. Throw in plenty of charismatic performances and some finely crafted setpieces and you’ve got a fine blockbuster and one of Marvel’s best films.

15. Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev; Russia/France/Belgium/Germany)

The latest from serial miserablist Andrey Zvyagintsev is a bleak modern tragedy about neglect and the consequences of a young boy running away from home as his parents go through a bitter divorce. Set amidst the sparsest of wintry Russian backdrops, we follow the efforts of the relatively unengaged police, a dedicated team of volunteer searchers, and the parents themselves as they slowly struggle to articulate how their own self-absorption and selfishness led to this – indeed, about as much as they learn about themselves in this is the depth of their hatred for each other, and the void of empathy within themselves. The strength of the film is how it avoids heavy-handedness, and swerves from obviously linking this story to the wider issues of an uncaring state.

14. 120 Beats Per Minute (Robin Campillo; France)

Drawing from director Robin Campillo’s own experiences, the film is a vast portrait of Paris in the early 1990s and the group ACT UP, a campaign group battling for better recognition and care for those afflicted with HIV/AIDS. A blend of the personal and political, large portions of the film are given to long meetings and debates within the group, as they discuss tactics for getting their message across to the government and its ineffective policies. Amongst this, we get the deeply personal story of Nathan (Arnaud Valois) and his new relationship with HIV-positive Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) as the illness begins to take hold. Never shying away from the graphic details of the disease, but never letting it overshadow the human story, it’s a humane and life-affirming film about love and support in times of crisis.

13. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig; USA)

Breathing new life into what one could safely assume is already a well-tread and saturated genre, Greta Gerwig’s wonderful teen drama follows the self-titled “Lady Bird” (Saoirse Ronan) as she navigates the final year of school, having boyfriends, struggling to fulfil her dream of getting into a New York college, and coming to terms with her mother (Laurie Metcalf). What makes this film really stand out is the vitality of the writing and the authenticity of the performances that makes this such an endearing and relatable experience no matter your background. Finding focus in its simplicity and warmth, probably the greatest asset of the film is the central relationships Lady Bird has with her parents, particularly the tempestuous but loving relationship with her mother. Plus it’s just a sweet-natured and appealing film, with a real sense of care given to recreating the 2002 setting through fashion, dialogue, context and music.

12. American Animals (Bart Layton; UK/USA)

I have to say I was won over by the ambition and imagination of this fascinating and thrilling film, which blends documentary interviews with dramatized recreations. While this experiment is not entirely successful formally, I still found it an immensely compelling and gripping film – it’s obvious this film is told by an effective documentarian. Depicting a true story in which a gang of middle class college students attempt to cure their general malaise and lack of ambition by stealing and selling rare books from their university library, the film is a playful study on the native of memory and perspective, visually altering the story as the real life participants’ recollections differ. It’s also a searing critique of the selfishness of these men, and it’s fascinating to see them look back on their exploits of older and (hopefully) wiser men.

11. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay; UK/USA/France)

It’s good to have Lynne Ramsay back after so long. One of cinema’s most inventive visual storytellers, her take on the pulpy crime thriller is beguiling and brutal. We follow war veteran Joe (played by a hulking mass of Joaquin Phoenix) who gets paid to break a teenage girl out of a brothel where she is being held. It’s a fantastically sparse film – short of length but also refreshingly light on dialogue. Everything is stripped back, using only visual cues to expose Joe’s paranoia, the viciousness of the violence and the corruption at play in the sidelines. The score gives it an offbeat, almost animalistic frenzy which builds an unusual contract to the stillness of the framing. This stillness means this is a film that keeps you at a critical distance – this isn’t a thriller that revels in the satisfaction of revenge, but exposes the harshness of its reality.

10. Lean On Pete (Andrew Haigh; UK)

On the surface, this seems to be a sparse, workmanlike depiction of poverty and hard times in Middle America. But Lean On Pete is far more poetic and thoughtful than that. We follow fifteen year old Charley (Charlie Plummer), moving to yet another new town with his single parent dad (Travis Fimmel), a well-meaning but irresponsible man who struggles to hold down jobs. At a loose end, Charley gets himself work at a local stable and becomes attached to the titular horse Pete. When Lean On Pete’s future is thrown into doubt by his trainer (Steve Buscemi), Charley attempts to free the horse to safety, embarking on an odyssey across the American desert. Depicting an America rarely shown onscreen, the film is a quiet but unsentimental story, depicting trauma and struggle but never tipping over into mawkishness or outright misery porn. Writer/director Andrew Haigh’s balance of tone is just right – you desperately wish to reach out and help Charley, but we can only watch as this fragile-looking young man grows and survives. Beautifully shot with an almost fairy tale-like sense of the uncanny sublime, and Plummer’s performance is remarkable, conveying so much through his expressions alone.

9. Hereditary (Ari Aster; USA)

One of the most talked about and debated films of 2018, all the more remarkable considering it is a feature debut by director Ari Aster. Depicting the breakdown of a family following the death and possible haunting of the domineering grandmother, Hereditary truly succeeds in building an atmosphere of dread and almost sickening tension, and delights in pulling the rug from under viewers. It’s quite a brutal film, one which seems to relish dwelling on the suffering of its characters. The production design and cinematography crafts a remarkably rich world and the performances are excellent. I preferred it as an extreme family drama, as the sheer weight of ambition and the shift to more generic horror/supernatural focus at points felt clumsy (and provoked some guffaws at the screening I saw it in).

8. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda; Japan)

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and the latest by director Hirokazu Kore-eda, one of the greatest humanist filmmakers working today. A story of the families that we make, and the lives of those who live on the margins of society, Shoplifters depict a family who get by on odd jobs, petty theft and the pension of an elderly matriarch. One day they take in a little girl who is left alone outside her home, and she becomes a part of the makeshift family. Thoough what could on the one hand be a kidnapping thriller is instead a delicate and empathetic portrait of lost souls, gratefully free from judgement and sentimentality. The sheer charm of the oddballs, and the total immersion in their lives and culture make this relatively plot-free film wonderfully engrossing. No one person is all good or all bad – instead Kore-eda shows the complexity of how one can at once be a good person and break the laws as set by wider society.

7. Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley; USA)

Another breathtaking film by a debut director. It’s remarkable to think a film like this was released by a major studio – something so radical, surreal, and angry. It depicts an alternate near-future in which poorer people are increasingly having to live in WorryFree centres, where members sign lifetime contracts to get a bed and menial labour in prison-style buildings. Our protagonist Cash (Lakeith Stanfield) gets a call centre job, but after discovering he can use his ‘white voice’, begins a rapid ascent to the highest reaches of the sales world, and to increasingly murky and sinister territory. The sheer ambition of this film is dizzying – at once a searing critique of capitalism and the current state of race relations in the US, but also a call to arms to us the audience that people power can cause change. Sadly still a rare major film to come from an African American perspective, it’s also a wonderfully funny, downright silly comedy that fills the screen with too many jokes to even keep up with on just one viewing, and Michel Gondry-esque quirky visual design.

6. Faces Places (Agnès Varda, JR; France)

One part road trip documentary, another part love letter to cinema, visual arts and, most importantly, to the spirit and people of the small rural towns and villages which rarely are seen or considering in the wider culture. Living legend Agnes Varda team up with photographer JR to travel round rural France with his magical van which prints gigantic photographs of the people they meet on their travels, and together they create wonderful and imaginative displays of these photos around these towns. The film is charming as hell, led primarily between the chemistry of our two guides, an ultimate odd couple of sorts. It’s also a touching tribute to the power of art to bring people together, spark debates, pay tribute to our heroes and celebrate the wonderful everyday. Its unassuming simplicity is a welcome antidote to more generic mainstream films that occupy the multiplexes.

5. The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Desiree Akhavan; USA/UK)

I’m a big fan of writer/director Desiree Akhavan, one of the most distinct voices of modern cinema. But her best work yet is one where she stays behind the camera, to focus on teenager Cameron (Chloe Grace Moretz) who is sent to a conversion therapy camp after she is caught having sex with another girl. The real success of this film is that something so modest, so quiet and subtle can have such power to it. The film is movingly sympathetic, exploring the vulnerability we all can feel when coming to terms with ourselves, particularly if you are made to feel you don’t fit the norm. It deftly handles the damaging effects such therapy can have, and wisely shows that not all the counsellors who peddle these practices are just paper-thin textbook villains, but flawed humans making up for a lack within themselves. The performances are uniformly excellent, particularly Moretz who sensitively handles the depth of emotions Cameron is experiencing often with just the smallest of looks or gestures.

4. Annihilation (Alex Garland; UK/USA)

It’s a real shame that I didn’t get to see this on the big screen – I’ve been making a real effort to Netflix releases in cinemas but this one passed me by. Alex Garland’s remarkable follow-up to Ex Machina is a deep and disturbing return to serious science fiction – burrowing deep into the farthest reaches of concepts most modern sci-fi films wouldn’t even dare touch. It’s a film both visceral and cerebral. A scientific expedition explores a quarantined zone called The Shimmer, where an asteroid crash is causing the landscape to mutate, and where all previous expeditions have vanished without trace. On the one hand it’s an intense, sometimes horrifying thriller, with gorgeous production design and effects making this alien world feel true – like Tarvoksky’s Stalker to the extreme. It’s also a haunting meditation on grief and loss, and our propensity towards self-destruction. I found it a film that infected my consciousness, lingering long after it had ended.

3. Widows (Steve McQueen; UK/USA)

Well this is not something I expected director Steve McQueen to make next: a crime thriller, indeed a remake of a 1980s ITV miniseries which I was not familiar with. But what an almighty cinematic achievement this is – retaining the distant and critical eye of McQueen’s previous work to offer an unwavering study of a time and place, yet imbuing it with the thrills and pleasures of a meaty heist film. The performances are excellent across the board, and the fantastic decision of setting the script in Chicago allows the heist to be given a context and heft most other films wouldn’t even consider – the bias, corruption and nepotism of local politics, racial imbalance and segregation, the chasm between classes. Everybody has something to lose – it’s a film about desperate times for desperate people. The stakes feel real and the peril is all the more genuine for it.

2. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón; Mexico/USA)

The weight of expectation going into Roma following the overwhelming critical praise it has received meant I didn’t think it could possibly be as good as nearly everyone says it is. But, well, it nearly is. Remarkable in many ways, thoughtfully crafted, compelling in such a way to turn the personal and intimate into something far more epic – it’s imbued with a vitality that not many films I’ve seen in a long while possess.

I was lucky enough to get to see this in a cinema (Netflix funded and released the film) and truly get to appreciate the care that went into crafting the shots, and the detail that went into the sound design. I can’t think of a recent drama where the surround sound is given such prominence. Cuaron’s ambition with this film is to truly immerse you in the world of 1970s Mexico City – a neorealist visions of the houses and streets, the sounds of military marching bands and student riots outside. At once a landscape painting of the city, as well as a portrait of an upper-middle class family (drawn from Cuaron’s own childhood) it is undeniably idealised, often to the detriment of the supposed protagonist of the film, their maid Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio). Cleo is seen going about her daily chores with a quiet dignity which to an extent robs her of much interiority – we see little of her wants, hopes, desires. But Aparicio’s nuanced performance endears her as our guide to this very particular context, and it is great to see a native Mexican domestic worker as the main focus of any film. I’m sure a second viewing will clarify my feelings for this film. But this doesn’t take away from what is a poetic study of the beauties of the everyday – the hope, heartbreak and relationships that I found quite moving.

1. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson; USA)

There are some films that come along every so often where all the choices that went into making it are just right, and where the levels of skill, thought and craft are beyond any expectations that it pushes a film into the realm of the truly sublime. Going into Phantom Thread, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect – probably a Classical throwback chamber piece about an outsider in high society London in the 1950s.

What I got was an unexpectedly sharp and twisted, wickedly funny and downright strange picture, but one which in the end can still be called an achingly romantic drama. We follow Daniel Day Lewis’s estemmed dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock, whose pernickety and precise routine-driven life he shares with his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville), is thrown off balance with the discovery of a new muse and lover, waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps). At its heart this is a film about the obsessive artist and his process, and how he gains inspiration from his new muse. But Alma (one of the most remarkable characters I think I’ve seen in any film all year) expects more from Reynolds, and she is strong-willed enough to fight for it. Drawing from the contorted plotting of gothic literature a la Rebecca, the couple engages in a power struggle of sorts to get what they want. This almost sadistic power play, tied with the couple’s obvious affection for each other, turns the film into something far more compelling, sexier and perhaps even kinkier than the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey has to offer.

Jonny Greenwood’s swoon-worthy score gives the picture a grandiose romanticism (I was disappointed when he lost out on the Oscar to the cloying sentimental score for The Shape of Water), the costumes by Mark Bridges are incredible (as they should be!), and the cinematography gives the film a painterly feel, imbuing it with an almost timeless sense of grace and beauty. And the three central performance are all iconic in my eyes.

My favourite songs of 2017 so far

I’ve been thinking back over the last few months and realised that when it comes to new music, it hasn’t been albums which have really stood out to me so much as individual tracks. I’ve mostly heard these whilst having BBC Radio 6Music on whilst at work, so I’d a lot of this list is dictated by their playlists. But I’m grateful that they were able to make me aware of these in the first place, and interested to see how the tracks that stand out most for me seem to show a shift in my tastes towards more electronic-based sounds.

Marika Hackman – Boyfriend

Marika Hackman’s shift from her previous sparse folk album to more guitar-driven indie balladry is bookended with this striking and provocative song which clearly owes a loving debt to late 90s post-grunge rock. Detailing what it’s like to be a woman and have a relationship with another woman which she feels nobody takes seriously, it has a compelling sense of her frustration and packs a surprising new crunched sound, but still retains her clear wit and sense of humour.

Spoon – Can I Sit Next to You?

They may not have the one standout, genre-defining album that someone like The Strokes may have achieved, but Texan garage rockers Spoon have been consistenly great over 9 albums, and have been working together for essentially 24 years now. New album Hot Thoughts hardly breaks new ground, but bar some more unusual tracks towards the end, I’m starting to think of it as one of their better albums and this track is my favourite. Fully embracing funk with the sexy guitar riff and the distinctive grain in Britt Daniel’s voice which I love, it’s an effortlessly cool track but one that’s rooted in a sense of restraint. It’s a song that slowly grows on you, but that gives it more staying power.

Gabriel Garzon-Montano – Crawl

Another one of those tracks that stands out on the first listen. Crawl is rooted in classic soul and funk, but takes a more minimal, focused but still breezy and playful approach. It comes from a finely crafted album, one which prioritises his vocals and some thoughtful instrumentation and harmonies which makes it an inviting listen.

Mr. Jukes – Grant Green (feat. Charles Bradley)

Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman is certainly making the most the band’s hiatus period, pursuing an unexpectedly new and welcome direction under the new moniker Mr Jukes. Producing a heavily collaborative album merging big band funk, electronic beats and indie pop, it’s breezy and playful and fast becoming one of my favourite albums this year. Probably the standout track is this collaboration with Charles Bradley, an infectiously joyous dance number that easily sounds like it could have come from the 1960s.

Joe Goddard – Home

One of the founding members of Hot Chip, Goddard’s first proper solo project is a delightful mish-mash of electronic styles, his own personal homage to all manner of dance music past which he loves. It all flows very nicely, all held together with his thoughtful production and some standout singles, Home chief among them. As well as showing off his musical knowledge by basing the track around a sample by 70s funk group Brainstorm, the track itself is both laid-back chillout mixed with dancefloor banger, that altogether I have come to find genuinely addictive over the last few months.

sir Was – In the Midst

Building on the foundation of a simple compelling bassline, this track by sir Was infuses an atmospheric blend of late night visions – jumbled voices on radios, the simple chattering drumbeat, and his near-RnB infused vocals on top which flow at his own pace. It’s a hypnotic track that quickly earwormed its way into my brain and happily made a home there, providing a bold and distinct counterpoint to a lot of what I’ve listened to this year.

Superorganism – It’s All Good

This is one of those moments when a song pops up on my Spotify and, only half-listening, bits of it start to jump out at me, and it ends with me thinking “What the hell was that?!”. And I listen to it all over again and get quickly hooked. I don’t really know anything about the group, but then frankly no one does right now. Supposedly made up of a teenage girl from Maine and 7 musicians from London, It’s All Good is a bold statement which pretty much lives up to its grand title. Nearly drowning under a collage of sound effects and vocal samples, the track is eccentric and hazy, taking a mellow build up to a seriously bombastic chorus. It’s super strange, and I love it.

Sylvan Esso – Kick Jump Twist

Kick Jump Twist could easily be like any old electro pop banger, but I feel like it’s a lot meatier than that, a lot more going for it. Definitely one of those songs best appreciated with a good pair of headphones, the bulky layers of disjointed blips and beats gives the track this sense of urgency. When I listen to it, I get the image of a teenage dancer from a small town desperately throwing themselves into frantic moves all alone, dreaming of an escape, something much bigger than what they know. Yeah, this track actually feels that evocative to me, and it’s one I’ve easily lost myself in many times over the last few months.

Soulwax – Missing Wires

Another one of those hooked from the first listen tracks, the big return of Soulwax certainly started with a bang. Combining the heaviest of drumlines (the album used three drum kits) with actually quite delicate synth layers, the track gradually reveals itself slowly, with an addictive pounding and unhurried pace which drew me in. The whole album was supposedly recorded live in a single take, which makes the slickness of this track all the more impressive.

Bonobo – Outlier

Okay so this isn’t officially a single, but on my first listen to Bonobo’s new album, this was the track that really stood out to me most. Infusing world music elements with his trademark low-key electronic layering, for me it evokes aural dreamscapes which I’ve happily unpacked layer by layer over many listens. This track ended up being a favourite during crushed commutes and long walks to work over what was a particularly difficult winter for me – a few minutes of lush warm escape. If I were to pick one of the official singles from the album though, I’d happily list Bambro Koyo Ganda among this collection.

Future Islands – Ran

After previous album Singles pushed the band into more mainstream territory, Future Islands don’t stray too far from their now trademark blend of 80s-era synths and precise, New Order-like basslines and drums. But they still retain their raw emotional edge, not least down to Sam Herring’s vocals, which always sound like he’s singing like his life depends on it. Growling with this deep urgency over a broken relationship, it feels almost romantic, but that panicked change of pace at the chorus stops this from being a totally fulfilled song – instead it stays rooted in this sense of feelings left unrequited.

Jane Weaver – Slow Motion

Until I heard some songs on the radio lately, I’d never heard of Jane Weaver. And then I found out that she’s had long career, starting in a Britpop-era band called Kill Laura, and later releasing eight solo albums. I feel like I need to play catch-up. I really enjoyed current album Modern Kosmology, especially this track of hypnotic delicate synths that feels like something from another era, something that might have been far more popular in the early 80s. It feels heartfelt and idiosyncratic and personal.

Slowdive – Star Roving

I’m not familiar with Slowdive’s earlier work from the 90s, when they were pretty much the stalwarts of shoegaze. So this song stood out for me with no prior sense of anticipation and association. It’s a dense rugged track, blending layers of scratchy guitar with breathy vocals that are almost drowned by the instrumentation. It’s not like anything else I’ve heard this year, and has this compelling drive which keeps drawing me back to it.

Pond – Sweep Me off My Feet

The Aussie band who have shared members with, and have been fairly overshadowed by Tame Impala, Pond have never really popped up on my radar much before. This, the first single from their seventh album, feels more like a standalone single, driven by the breezy rhythm, catchy melody and soaring chorus. Considering that this is actually a song about singer Nick Allbrook’s perceived feelings of sexual failure and lack of masculinity, this is a surprisingly bright and upbeat track, with sweeping synths and a neat little glockenspiel to give it that touch of charm.

Little Dragon – Sweet

One of those tracks where, from the first listen, I’m like “YES YES I love it!”. A very welcome return for Little Dragon, a band who I’ve only grown to appreciate more over the years. Somewhat pushing their brand of glitchy synth-pop to an uptempo extreme, this song is essentially a simple ode to the little pleasurable moments in life, and the moment that frenetic opening kicks in, I can’t help but get that little buzz of a sugar rush.

Ryan Adams – To Be Without You

Taken from Prisoner, Adams’s first original album since his rather odd cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989, this for me was a standout track in what is essentially a break-up album. This song is drenched with a feeling of melancholy, positively aching with a sense of loss, and full of these poetic lyrics of this almost gaping lack in his own body. The thoughtful composition of this song stops it from feeling near unbearable, and it feels to me like one of the most potent songs I’ve ever heard about heartbreak.

Methyl Ethyl – Ubu

Joining the likes of Pond in the ranks of the Australian psychedelic rock band, but one altogether more uncanny and a little strange (I still genuinely think it’s a woman singing, even though I’ve long since been proven wrong). Ubu is by far the most approachable song off their album Everything is Forgotten, but behind the driving bass line is a song that is more disconcerting and almost a little desperate. Offering concern for a friend struggling through a breakdown, the chorus is catchy but the sheer repetition conveys this idea of unending struggle and impatience.

Whitney – You’ve Got a Woman

I finally got round to listening to Chicago indie rockers Whitney this year, including their debut album from 2016 which is fantastic. This single is a cover of a song by Lion, a Dutch band from the mid 70s (I definitely had to look that up). It suits them perfectly, including singer/drummer Julian Ehrlich’s lush falsetto, and they give it this retro summery twist which makes the song feel actually more fresh in this era of looking back and appreciating throwbacks to the past. Delighting in its sheer simplicity, this is a genuinely lovely track.

“They need to taste fucking good” – Okja in the era of fast food films

2017
Writers: Jon Ronson, Bong Joon-Ho
Director: Bong Joon-Ho

I’ve just gotten back from a screening of Okja at Curzon Soho. It’s a South Korean/American production that’s being distributed by Netflix, appearing today on their website and only a few cinemas for a few days at most. It’s also an entirely eccentric, baffling and bizarre film which left me thrilled, delighted, disturbed and exhilarated in frankly equal measure. It’s one of those films which you can hardly believe got made, and made as beautifully as it was, and which frankly you’re glad for its existence, if only for the joy of watching something so darn strange. But that is what is to be expected from director Bong Joon-Ho, the bold visionary behind Memories of Murder, The Host, and Snowpiercer, one of my favourite films from the last few years.

Tilda Swinton is Lucy Mirando, the new CEO of an agricultural corporation with a damaged reputation following the tenure of her controversial father. She announces the company has discovered a new breed of superpig, and will send 26 piglets to different farmers around the world to see which one will raise the biggest pig. 10 years later, Mija (Ahn Seo-Hyun) lives on an isolated Korean mountain farm with her grandfather (Byun Hee-Bong) and her superpig Okja. One day, slightly deranged TV wildlife expert and Mirando corp spokesman Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal) arrives and declares Okja will be taken away to New York for the competition announcement. Mija tracks them down to Seoul, where she becomes involved with an extreme animal rights activist group called the Animal Liberation Front, who are determined to expose Mirando’s unethical practices.

Over two hours, Okja is a hell of a busy film. It takes a great number of risks and just about gets away with them. First and foremost, it’s a playful, almost cartoonish creature feature, an ode to family and friendship in the guise of a girl and her superpig. So much of this rests on the lead performance of Ahn who, often just through the subtlest gestures, is able to convey the depth of her relationship with Okja, which is only quickly introduced before the plot comes trampling into action. This also gives the film some semblance of an emotional core. Despite all the commotion, at its heart this is a surprisingly simple adventure story, albeit one that takes a lot of strange twists and misdirections along the way. An all-out slapstick chase scene through central Seoul has to be one of the most gleefully enjoyable things I’ve watched this year, but it’s one that does stand out as feeling a little out of place with the rest of the film – no more than a blistering setpiece for the director to flex his muscles with.

That’s because, secondly, Okja is a blistering satire of … all sorts of things really. The glitzy garish graphics at the very start of the film for Mirando’s new campaign hammer clear the film’s target of multinationals harnessing the artsy, quirky route to market dubious claims to millennial audiences – ‘homegrown’, ‘organic’, ‘ethical’, etc. As with many films on the edge of Hollywood, big business is the enemy, and Jon Ronson’s deliciously barbed script makes easy work in tearing apart the ridiculousness of their attempts to appear cool – from Swinton’s Mirando anxiously fearing how news footage of her security manhandling a young girl will affect stock prices, to the ridiculousness of their New York parade to market new meat.

But Ronson’s script takes pot shots at all number of other, sometimes easy, targets. Subtle it ain’t.O From the new wave crypto-animal lovers of the Animal Liberation Front, so vegan and anti-production that they debate the ethicacy of eating tomatoes, to the narcissism of society today, with numerous characters whipping  out inopportune selfie sticks, and Mirando’s range of practical work fashions. Beyond Mija and her grandfather, almost every character is an exaggerated caricature, none more so than Gyllenhaal’s hammy and quite extraordinary, almost drunken, performance as Johnny Wilcox – a past-his-prime squeaky-voiced TV nature presenter (and another narcissist) who has sold his soul to the Mirando corporation.

But these broad strokes have the desired effect – they are fiendishly funny. And so that’s why the film’s third major feature – its critique of global meat production and consumption – feels so deliberately jarring. The sudden shift to some genuinely troubling scenes depicting this affected me just as it was supposed to, and I really respect that the filmmakers and studio were brave enough to stick to their guns and include it. Okja could easily have been a kid-friendly adventure film, but these scenes push the film into new territory. It wouldn’t surprise me if this film does turn some viewers off meat-eating, though Okja does well to avoid turning into a lecture on the evils of the industriousness of the meat industry.

Each of these major features of Okja work tremendously well in themselves. It does mean that with Okja’s blistering pace, there are wild shifts in tone that pull the film in all manner of directions, and it has oh so many targets it wants to keep in its scope. Not to say there isn’t much to love and admire, from Bong’s impeccable directorial eye, to the beautiful production design, but this film is lacking some of the laser-sharp focus of something like Snowpiercer.

One quick point before I go – this is the film Netflix film production I’ve seen. It was actually quite odd seeing their logo pop up on the big screen. Anyone who kept up with Cannes this year will have been well aware of the debate raging over this film’s inclusion, given that strict laws in France will prevent it from ever being screened in cinemas. This is a film that very much deserves to be seen on a big screen (the fantastic cinematography by Darius Khondji and the astonishing CGI Okja herself are worth seeing properly) and for someone like me who congregates regularly at the church of the cinema, it seems a shame that most who see this film will simply watch it at home.

On the other hand, you have to give major props to Netflix. Offering total creative control, including allowing the more controversial slaughterhouse scenes, it’s no surprise Bong Joon-Ho was drawn to them (especially considering the infamous trouble he had with Harvey Weinstein over the editing of Snowpiercer). Also, as a $50 million movie, Okja is the sort of film which rarely exists today – the mid budget feature. When studios are only willing to either pump money into major tentpole franchises, or hedge small bets on low budget indies, there is something lacking these days that bigger budget creative films like this can offer.

2016 in Review – 15 Films

So 2016 will forever be infamous as the year the world as we knew it ended. But beside that, as always it was had a noteworthy plethora of fine artistic riches in all fields, including the reason I’m here: in the cinema. Personally, I have to admit I didn’t truly connect beyond a purely aesthetic and thematic appreciation with that many films this year, especially when compared with 2015 which had a huge range of just downright wonderful films which really really spoke to me in all sorts of ways.

In effect, there was a lot this year which I appreciated more at arm’s length, and very little which I doubt had any lasting impact on me, which was a little strange. That’s not to say genuinely breathtaking, impressive pieces of work like Son of Saul, Tale of Tales or Green Room (which didn’t even make it on this list) were any less worthy than any of the films on this list, or on any previous best of list I’ve done, it’s just even most of this list ended up being films which didn’t truly resonate with me. It feels like I missed a hell of a lot of big films too, so maybe call this a work in progress, and I can update it when I’ve seen more. Either way, there was still a lot to really appreciate this year, including films on topics completely beyond my awareness and understanding. The lack of big films for women this year was a disappointment, but the variety of films from different countries still getting opportunities for release is heartening.

Ones I missed: American Honey; Sing Street; Creed; The Jungle Book; Hunt for the Wilderpeople; Kubo and the Two Strings; Zootopia/Zootropolis/Whateverthehellitwascalledhere; Swiss Army Man; Captain Fantastic; Hell or High Water; The Danish Girl; The Hateful Eight; Spotlight; Youth; A Bigger Splash; Triple 9; Hail, Caesar!; Goodnight Mommy; Victoria; Dheepan; Midnight Special; Eye in the Sky; Arabian Nights; Mustang; Notes on Blindness; The BFG; Jason Bourne; Finding Dory; Things to Come; War on Everyone; Doctor Strange; Train to Busan; The Edge of Seventeen; Chi-Raq; Sully; The Birth of a Nation

Extra Mentions: Everybody Wants Some!!; The Nice Guys; Paterson; Tale of Tales; Green Room; Son of Saul; Anomalisa

Extra Special Mention:

Heal the Living (Katell Quillévéré, France/Belgium)

I can’t officially include this on the list as it hasn’t had a UK release yet (and I’m not sure when it will, if ever) but I was lucky enough to catch a screening of it at the London Film Festival. A wonderfully humane look at the emotional fraught issue of organ transplants and donations, Katell Quillévéré’s deeply compassionate and wonderfully shot and acted film weaves together various small stories, presenting the beautiful little moments of the everyday, and truly earning emotional engagement without twisting your arm for it.

15. Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)

One of Pedro Almodovar’s more understated efforts, perhaps almost seeming to the point of being a little restrained by his usual standards, but this works to its benefit in presenting the gradual unravelling of the mother-daughter relationship which has slowly disintegrated over time. Originally titled Silencio, it’s a quiet intimate film about the way so much drama and strife in life comes to being from what isn’t said, what is restrained and held back. The film itself seems unassuming, but the bursts of Almodovar’s usual brash style and colour, and the fine performances, offer hints to the richer elements which run through the film, open for us to discover for ourselves.

14. Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina)

I don’t think I saw anything more idiosyncratic or original this year. Shot in the starkest black and white, Ciro Guerra’s existential adventure up the Amazon follows two scientists who both travel with the same tribal shaman, 30 years apart, in search of a mysterious plant with supposed healing properties. Thematically, a searing study of the impact of colonialism and a startling counterpart to the typical narrative of the noble white adventurer, and textually, a fascinatingly crafted and edited story of a lost lives and cultures in the remotest of locations. The starkest black and white photography and nods to Apocalypse Now make this an enticing draw for film lovers, and it offers something quite rare in cinema: something genuinely unique.

13. The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, France/Denmark/USA)

Call this a guilty pleasure if you will, but I have to say I really enjoyed Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest. By taking a gleefully outlandish, almost camp, look at the LA fashion industry, mixed with some giallo-style horror, Refn has found a perfect scenario for the often-stilted dialogue and metallic performances, and a fine frame for his beautiful obsession with extreme colour and bold forms. The Neon Demon is quite content to pulse at its own rhythm and it’s one you either go along with, or you don’t. I found it far more engaging than his previous, Only God Forgives, if only for the fact neither the film, nor I, felt we had to take it all too seriously.

12. Moana (Ron Clements/John Musker, USA)

I missed out on a proper chance to see some of the big animations of the year, namely Finding Dory, Zootropolis and Kubo and the Two Strings, but I did get to see this absolutely sumptuous musical. Depicting the adventure of the daughter of a Polynesian chief desperate to escape her island and explore the world beyond the seas, the film finds Disney walking the thin tightrope between pushing their story and characters into more diverse, self-aware territory, whilst not straying too far from the tried-and-tested chosen one formula. Moana herself is a bold, headstrong and engaging protagonist, and whilst the story itself doesn’t exactly break any new ground, the lush songs and eye-achingly beautiful animation more than make up for this.

11. Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, Japan)

The dizzying success of Makoto Shinkai’s anime could in some ways at this point almost overshadow the qualities of the film itself. But your name holds up remarkably well, depicting the story of a teen boy in Tokyo and a girl living in a rural town who begin to wake up in each other’s bodies at random times. The opening scenes of teen body-swapping comedy are disarmingly charming, and show Shinkai has a real eye for authentic detail. The sudden shift to epic time travelling fantasy in the second half is a little jarring, but it gives the film real emotional resonance and a genuine sense of peril which leads you down all sort of unexpected routes. It perhaps doesn’t have the sheer mastery of the complex material as say a Satoshi Kon film has, but Your Name is undeniably a bold calling card for the director.

10. Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford, USA)

Tom Ford’s sophomore effort certainly provoked its fair share of debate. Not only questions of style over substance (something unavoidable in a film from a renowned fashion designer and stylist) but disagreements regarding the depiction of misogynist violence and female autonomy. I feel I have to disagree with a lot of the criticisms of this film: it seemed to me that the style of Amy Adam’s side of the film served to emphasise the hollowness of her life, and proved a nice counterpoint to the story-within-the-story Texas setting. The surprisingly distressing and intense scenes of violence are less an embrace of sexist attitudes, but a depiction of rage felt by one character against a woman he feels let him down. I respected that this was a grown-up, challenging film which trusted the audience to keep up with the multiple plotlines, and which trusted in the strength of the incredible cinematography and production design to present such a rich story. It errs a little too closely to exploitation-level tastelessness at times, in a way which doesn’t always sit comfortably with the film’s lofty ambitions, but as an exercise in both narrative experimentation and thematic richness, I was really impressed with Nocturnal Animals.

9. I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach, UK/France/Belgium)

The winner of the Palme d’Or, Ken Loach’s latest magnum opus is an unassuming but quietly angry film; powerful and emotive but not without a warm, almost charming and distinctly human centre. Depicting the Kafkaesque (a word used in probably every review I read of this film, but one that is deftly applicable) struggles of a middle aged joiner, who following a heart attack, is deemed too sick to work by doctors, but judged well enough to work by the assessment for unemployment benefits. Grimly authentic in its portrayal of lower class struggles, with so many living in run-down accommodation and working bare bones jobs, the film is a little more heavy-handed in its depiction of the ruthlessness of the job centre and unemployment. But stories are drawn from real research, and perhaps in propaganda-style, it needed this heavier dichotomy to really convey the message at the heart of this film: the welfare system is broken, and human lives are at stake because of it.

8. Love and Friendship (Whit Stillman, Ireland/France/Netherlands)

Possibly one the most pleasantly enjoyable and delightful films I saw, Love and Friendship is an adaptation of an early Jane Austen novella Lady Susan. The genius of this film is to strip away the romanticism which comes so readily packaged with most Austen adaptations, leaving a deliciously arch film about upper class social scheming but untinged by any sort of cynicism. Kate Beckinsale (who you forget how good she can be when she’s not doing endless Underworld sequels) clearly relishes the juicy role of the conniving yet charming Lady Susan, working to worm her way within an influential landowning family to bag a rich husband for herself and her daughter. I’ve not seen any Whit Stillman films before, but he has a reputation for wordy witty examinations of social etiquettes and he has found a fine outlet for his style here.

7. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, USA)

I’ve made an effort to avoid seeing trailers this year, and so went in to this having seen only a few snippets of footage and read a few generally glowing reviews. And I’ve got to say I generally agreed with them. The most complete and satisfying blockbuster this year by far, a film made by fans for fans. The obvious efforts that have gone into recreating the richness of the New Hope era universe pays dividends, making a genuinely immersive experience. The characters lack the iconic feel of the original heroes and there is such a huge amount to introduce, both in worlds and new characters, that it does feel rushed. But in creating an intense, thrilling war movie which really engages with the best of the Star Wars universe, Rogue One is something very exciting indeed.

6. Little Men (Ira Sachs, USA)

This is the first Ira Sachs film I have seen and it has been long overdue. A seemingly simple New York tale of family conflict, gentrification and class divide told from the view of two pre-teen boys who become fast friends. This despite the fallout and disagreements between their parents once one family inherits an apartment building and have to raise the rent of the small garments shop the other family runs. Depicting the little difficulties of everyday life but from the viewpoint not yet tainted by cynicism and woe, Sach’s film is a quiet but softly devastating film about the unintentional boundaries that come between people, and the ways we work to try to bridge those gaps.

5. Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler, USA)

I still can’t believe how very very fond I am of this film. Well, maybe fond isn’t the right word for a rough-and-ready horror western film which revels in period details, quirky dialogue, cannibalism and some of the most bone-crunchingly nasty death scenes I think I can recall. But I was surprised how much I enjoyed this unusual blend of a movie. It being a debut effort for writer director S Craig Zahler, the flaws do show, namely a sense of overindulgence. But the vast commitment of the actors helps elevate the material which still easily conveys the sheer passion Zahler feels for this project. Kurt Russell does stellar work making his sheriff more than a grizzled old-timer, but it’s a near unrecognisable Richard Jenkins who helps give this film real heart and eccentric character.

4. Room (Lenny Abrahamson, Canada/Ireland/UK)

So much could have gone wrong with this film that it is perhaps a small miracle that Room came out as fully-formed, as heartfelt and humane, and as uplifting as it did. Tackling a fraught issue ripped straight from the tabloids, Brie Larsson excels as the woman kidnapped off the street and kept prisoner in a small room, forced to give birth to the captor’s baby. Her relationship with the remarkable Jacob Tremblay gives the film its true resonance, and director Lenny Abrahamson does fantastic work showing the naïve, overawed perspective of the little boy growing up in a restricted world, raised by a stoic mother doing the best she can. Their characters are remarkably textured, and give the film a real credible, heart-breaking power.

3. The Witch (Robert Eggers, USA/Canada)

One of the most well regarded horror films of recent years. I read how it didn’t win a lot of fans among horror aficionados who criticised its slow pacing and lack of scares. But the film’s strength lay in its complete evocation of 17^th Century New England, from the remarkable period detail and richness of the language, to make an experience truly draped in an atmosphere of dread and despair. A family is banished from their town for differences in religious practice, and build an isolated farm on the edge of a vast forest. Their faith and trust in one another is tested as a series of personal disasters befall their home. As much a test of will for the viewer as it is a study of religious belief pushed to its very limits, The Witch is a supremely intelligent film, handsomely shot in natural light, that truly understands the power of suggestion to really help the audience immerse themselves.

 

2. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, USA)

Probably the most striking and remarkable film I saw last year, and one I can’t wait to visit again from new perspectives. Arrival boldly meets the aims of the best sci-fi, which is to explore the human condition through unusual and compelling concepts, whether considering how the future is moulded by the present, or visualising how explorers survive on other planets. The biggest achievement is that despite the bold set-up (aided by some truly striking visual effects, a stark breathy soundtrack, and some remarkably innovative production design), at heart this is not so much a film about communicating with aliens, but a film about communication between humans and the various forms that takes.

The importance of good communication is stressed throughout, whether between the scientists and military men working at one of the alien craft sites, or more pivotally, between the various nations all encountering extra-terrestrial visitors, who potentially hold the safety of planet Earth in their hands. Thinking about this now feels even more pertinent than my first viewing, considering we are now in the era of fake news, post-truth and alternative facts, and so much of the progress we have made as a civilisation so far could potentially be risked by breakdowns in open communication.

1. The Wailing (Na Hong-jin, South Korea)

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of this at the London Film Festival, and wasn’t sure whether to include it on this list. But it turns out this film had a tiny release at the end of November which I hadn’t even been aware of, and which sadly seemed to slip into obscurity. Which is a great shame! As a filmgoing experience, especially in a year where I generally found even many of the good films a bit staid and appreciable only at arm’s length, nothing came close to the sheer brazenness, audacity, scope and insanity of The Wailing. It’s not perfect; it’s overstuffed and only just gets away with wild leaps in tone before getting a bit lost in its own twists near the end. Yet for someone who loves cinema best as an experiential medium, someone who craves films which impact me viscerally, The Wailing certainly stands as one of the most remarkable films I’ve seen in a long while.

Depicting a spate of gruesome murders by villagers in a seeming trance-like state in a small town on the edge of a vast forest, the film finds director Korwan Na Hong-jin start in familiar territory as his debut The Chaser. But it quickly shifts to more disturbing supernatural realms. The police begin to question whether the town has been cursed by a mysterious Japanese visitor who lives in the forest. Brimming with more ideas and more innovation in single set-ups than many films can manage in a complete running time, the direction and editing are taut enough to make the wild shifts in tone and the more overblown moments both sickeningly believable and achingly tense. A remarkable scene depicting the simultaneous casting of death spells is deafeningly loud, frenetic and intense and one of the year’s best.

London Film Festival 2016 report

I was lucky enough to catch 6 films at this, my first ever film festival. The sheer number of films on offer was a little dizzying, and I would have loved to have caught even more if time and money had allowed it. I had a ticket booked to see Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper, which I was really looking forward to but sadly couldn’t make in time after work. But the films I saw gave a small glimpse of the sheer range of films available, and I loved the breadth of content, quality and experiences even this small number of films offered. Here are some quick thoughts in the order I saw them.

Ten Years (Ng Ka-Leung, Jevons Au, Chow Kwun-Wai, Fei-Pang Wong, Kwok Zune; Hong Kong; 2015)

Local Egg from Ten Years

My first film was one of the most unusual: a portmanteau of five short films, all offering differing interpretations of how the directors imagine Hong Kong to be in 2025. The varied approaches they all take are fascinating, and the final result is undeniably incendiary and stirring, even for someone like me who knows little about the current situation in the region. The real-life story surrounding the film is just as compelling as the film itself. Made on a shoestring budget and released in only one cinema in Hong Kong, word of mouth quickly spread and the film became a sleeper hit, often selling more tickets than the new Star Wars film in many cinemas. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and ultimately won, but all mentions of the film in the media were blocked by the Chinese government and the award itself from the ceremony was cut from all TV broadcasts.

In a way, this true scenario serves to further enforce the radical messages of the film. This was a compelling protest film, and all the different approaches create a more complete and varied picture than a single narrative could. One film, Season of the End, which depicted a couple collecting and preserving specimens from homes which had been demolished, felt jarringly out of place from the others, perhaps because it took a far more abstract approach, and because it focused entirely on the couple at the expense of the wider story. The opening film though, Extras, takes an unusual but intriguing approach, depicting a government-backed assassination of two major Hong Kong political party leaders from the point of view of both the bickering politicians debating how best to set-up the attack for maximum impact so as to push through draconian security measures, to the two men, the pawns, tasked with carrying out the executions.

Lighter but equally informative and thought-provoking takes come from films Dialect, depicting a taxi driver struggling to work following a new law forcing drivers to speak only Mandarin instead of Cantonese, and Local Egg, which shows how the government-backed closure of the last chicken farm in Hong Kong affects the family of a shopkeeper, primarily the father trying to keep his son questioning of all propaganda. The real standout for me though was Self Immolator, which cleverly combines the story of student protestors with a faux documentary, offering perhaps the most explicitly emotive and political call-to-arms.

That many of these films found inspiration for their stories from real-life laws and scenarios makes the work even more compelling in hindsight. This is political cinema where perhaps its greatest impact is in its interaction with the outside world, far more so than the film within itself. It’s also a testament to the potential for independent filmmaking to really go beyond the walls of the cinema screen and start to creep out, perhaps to cause meaningful change. This was a unique and insightful film, and I was very glad I had the chance to see it.

King Cobra (Justin Kelly; USA; 2016)

As far as I know, this is one of the few (if only) films I’m aware of which deals with porn in the Internet age. Drawing much from that cinematic bastion of porn industry exposés, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, King Cobra similarly takes a tragicomic approach to the constantly wavering highs and lows of the lost souls, young upstarts and sex-crazed fiends that seemingly make up the entire porn industry.

King Cobra is a biopic of the real life scandal involving gay porn star Brent Corrigan aka Sean Lockhart and the producer who first discovered him, Bryan Kocis (named Stephen in the film, and played very well by an against-type Christian Slater). Garrett Clayton plays Lockhart, desperate to escape from his mom’s house in San Diego and so makes the move to Los Angeles to work with Stephen, a closeted producer who runs Cobra Video productions from his non-descript suburban home, filming videos in his basement. The newly baptised Brent Corrigan soon becomes an Internet hit, causing him to realise Stephen might not be offering him the fairest of deals, with him being one in a series of young men Stephen has recruited to live out his masturbatory fantasies in the safety of his home. Meanwhile, producer Joe (James Franco) and his boyfriend Harlow (Keegan Allen) from rival production company Viper Boyz have their eye on Brent, and will do anything possible to get him to join them.

For a film which dealt with some quite serious subjects, including hints towards exploitation and child abuse, I admired how King Cobra was able to maintain such a darkly comic tone without feeling like it was exploiting or trivialising the issues. The performances are strong, from Clayton’s careful balance of youthful naiveté and self-awareness, to Allen’s taut edgy physicality, hinting at a tension between violence and a desperation for affection. This plays out best in the bristling energy of his relationship with Franco’s Joe, here played with a similar outlandishness to his role as Alien in Spring Breakers. Less cartoonish than that film, but drawn to similarly overblown outbursts, it’s clear Franco is having a lot of fun with the role.

It’s insightful how director Justin Kelly realises how the four main leads have used porn and its performative and intimate nature to make up for lacks in their lives, and to explore the boundaries of the shame some have for their own homosexuality. Saying that, in some ways King Cobra is a slight film, with stylistic tics and fast pacing often drawing away from moments which could offer greater insights into the characters. It clearly is aiming for a neon-drenched exposé of underground culture a la Spring Breakers, with similar salacious content and synthy soundtrack, but sometimes can’t decide between going for the quieter plot-driven moments or the flashier set-ups. Overall though, I found this to be a gleefully enjoyable thrill, especially for being so completely fearless in topics which would so often be softened by film studios. Throw in some frankly extraordinary cameos by Alicia Silverstone and Molly Ringwald (Justin Kelly must clearly have loved having these figures of 80s/90s nostalgia on only his second feature) and you get something very fun, if a bit forgettable.

Heal the Living (Katell Quillévéré; France/Belgium; 2016)

I went into my third film knowing very little beyond the basic topic it focuses on. I hadn’t heard of the director or seen any of her films. But I was really blown away by how sublime, how deeply moving and humane this film was. It was fantastically shot as well, with a real insightful eye for detail and some particularly impressive scenes, especially an early scene of surfing.

The film centres on various seemingly unrelated stories, all involving the ethically and emotionally fraught issue of organ donations and transplants. Heal the Living is an unassuming and uncomplicated film, but Quillévéré achieves this by taking multiple complex and interrelated strands and allowing them to play out in their own simple but observant fashion. The film takes its time, and this grants us a wonderful insight into the lives, backgrounds and quirks of all the characters, including even minor roles which feature minimally. There are little moments, some funny and some even a little fantastical, which give even background characters just little hints of depth amongst the frenetic activity of the busy hospital. It’s also helped by a fantastic cast including Anne Dorval, Emmanuelle Seigner and Tahar Rahim, who all give truthful, nuanced performances.

This isn’t a film particularly driven by high drama or tension. It simply offers a surprisingly universal portrait of perceptions of our own mortality, and of the fragility of the human body. At times the film has an almost documentary-like approach in depicting the processes of an organ transplant, most specifically in the surgery and transportation. This is a topic which I can’t really remember having featured in cinema much, bar some scenes in Almodóvar’s All About My Mother, which is surprising, considering it offers the potential for a number of dramatic scenarios. But what I really respected about Heal the Living was how it avoided overblown melodrama and instead offered an unassuming, realistic glimpse into the lives of families simply surviving amidst personal tragedies and health scares, and this for me made it a far more engaging and immersive. This was genuinely one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and in a lot of ways, I thought it was genuinely very special indeed.

The Dreamed Ones (Ruth Beckermann; Austria; 2016)

This was a spur-of-the-moment choice when I had a free afternoon, and I went in knowing absolutely nothing. I probably wasn’t in the right mood for it, but in the end I found the film to be a bit of a drag, visually uninspired and with material which I personally didn’t find compelling, even over a relatively slight 90 minutes.

The Dreamed Ones is essentially an essay film with documentary elements, depicting two decades of correspondence between two post-war writers who met in 1948: poet Paul Celan who had survived the concentration camps, and Ingeborg Bachmann, whose father was a Nazi. They hardly met, but maintained a regular impassioned, often tempestuous relationship through their letters. The film dramatizes these letters by having two actors (Anja Plaschg and Laurence Rupp) read them aloud chronologically in a recording studio, often filmed in tight close ups focused on their faces. There are glimpses of their downtime between recordings, often sharing cigarette breaks and discussing their interpretations of the letters. But the film never strays from the correspondence, and barely even leaves the recording studio, a relatively blank space.

The letters were fairly intriguing at first, with the obvious flourishes of language and phrase that would come from two writers finding inspiration in each other. But I quickly found myself tiring of their self-contained woes, which I struggled to find any engagement with. I could tell others in the audience with me were getting far more involved than I could, but I got bored fairly quickly. I was hoping there could have been more focus on how the reading of the letters and their close proximity would have affected the relationship between the two actors, but nothing ultimately comes from it, perhaps with the filmmakers not wanting to intrude upon the real-life story. In the end, I couldn’t see what differentiated this film from what could easily just have been an audio recording of the letters, as that is ultimately what it became.

The Wailing (Na Hong-jin; South Korea; 2016)

I chose this film purely on the strength of having loved director Na Hong-jin’s debut film The Chaser, a breathtakingly intense and brutal police thriller, and for the dizzying promise of seeing him tackle something a bit more fantastical. Frankly, I think this film is an epic achievement in all senses of the word. At two and a half hours long, it certainly takes advantage of its vast running time. It throws everything it has at the screen and then some, and thankfully, most of it sticks.

The Wailing is a slightly unholy blend of genres which frankly shouldn’t work but it just about gets away with it. It begins in similar territory as his previous work, with a competent but bumbling police detective in a small rural village on the edge of a vast forest investigating a bizarre murder, with the culprit found in a seemingly zombie-like trance. This kickstarts a series of disturbing deaths, with theories and accusations running wild and fears that the village has been cursed. From here, The Wailing shifts into a chillingly effective 21^st century take on The Exorcist, with some deafeningly visceral takes on supernatural ritual which provide a satisfyingly grounded counterpoint to the more ridiculous moments of that horror classic.

What really impressed was the sheer level of control Hong-jin has over the construction of this film. It’s obvious a lot of time and thought went into staging the shots and building the scenarios to create maximum impact; the editing is impeccable and the slow build in the first hour or so possessed some of the most genuinely creepy moments I’ve watched in a long time, with subtly effective jump scares and an overwhelming feeling of dread. But what surprises is how the shifts in tone never feel jarring. The film is surprisingly funny, and even manages to find humour in setting up potential scares. But even where the wild shifts in genre and weight of content threaten to overwhelm the film, it never loosens its grip on you. The film is heavy with so many themes (deep rooted xenophobia; the clash of religions and beliefs; questions over how realistic/allegorical the supernatural elements are) and subplots that it threatens to drag the second half down. Indeed, it almost gets lost amidst all of its twists, many of which admittedly caught me by surprise, that it did leave me wishing it retained some of the tautness of the first hour.

But I think it’s testament to the sheer level of skill involved both in front of and behind the camera that The Wailing pummels like a jackhammer. It’s vast, overblown and completely batshit crazy but also achingly tense and mysterious, and the long runtime seemed to fly by. A lot of this review does feel hyperbolic, but I think that’s the easiest way of conveying how drastically I was involved with this film. It may not be perfect, but I think it’s got to be up there as one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen.

Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie; France; 2016)

I don’t really even know where to begin with this one. Guiraudie’s follow up to the mesmeric and magisterial Stranger by the Lake is certainly a mixed affair, content to drift along on its own whims and fancies, presenting an unusual series of vignettes and setpieces in place of anything resembling a coherent script or character study. Similar to Stranger, Staying Vertical centres on a remote countryside setting, a fearless approach to graphic content, and a series of chance encounters for the male lead which sparks some unexpected repercussions.

We follow Leo (Damian Bonnard), an uninspired writer and filmmaker who is rambling through the French country hills. He creepily flirts with a young man (Basile Meillurat) he meets by the side of the road by offering him a part in his next movie. Duly rejected, he skulks around some more before encountering Marie (India Hair), a shepherdess tending her herd of sheep. It’s not long before the two are making out, and before we know it, he has moved into her remote farmhouse with her two sons and father. One graphic sex scene later, then a cut to an unnecessarily gory scene of childbirth, the two are almost immediately parents to a baby boy. At the same time, Leo continues to drift back and forth to a nearby town, seemingly attempting to work on a new screenplay, but making practically no effort, and making false promises to his producer on top of asking for more advances of money. Leo finds newfound love for his son, but Marie struggles with postpartum depression and makes no effort to connect to the constantly crying child.

It’s hard to really convey much more without either rambling endlessly or giving away too much. This is a film which happily flows to its own rhythm, and if you are willing to go along with it, it presents a bewildering and somewhat compelling journey. This film could easily have been a character study of a lost man finding purpose in fatherhood, but it’s hard to tell where Guiraudie’s interests really lie – certainly not something so ordinary. Leo is presented as such an unreadable character, often dour and expressionless. His writer’s block seemingly turns into such a complete disinterest in work of any kind that it’s hard to really detemine what he wants, especially as he drifts back and forth, from random re-encounters with the young man from the road and the elderly racist man he seems to cohabit with, to visits with a new-age healer who lives in a swamp. Instead, it feels like Leo is simply a blank vessel which Guiraudie utilises to introduce the increasingly surreal and metaphorical scenarios throughout the film, but put together with such dissonance that it ends up seeming like a scrapbook of ideas stitched together for no other reason than that Guiraudie found them interesting at the time.

There are some intriguing themes hinted at, primarily, gender relations and the perceived responsibilities of men and women, with several characters mentioning what they feel is the norm for differing roles of work and parenthood. The title is a reference to survival, about standing tall against the threats and low blows life has to offer. But the setting of this world seems so far gone from anything resembling reality, and Leo, the one guiding constant in this strange hodge-podge, is too empty a character to really resonate as a protagonist or emotional barometer, that the film ended up having little to no staying power with me. What really stuck is how I found this quite a cynical film, with a very unpleasant view on the nature of relationships, both sexual and familial, that it left a fairly bitter aftertaste, even for someone with a pretty unromantic view of such things like me.

To Hell and Back Again: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

2015
Writer/Director: S. Craig Zahler

Reading the feverish feedback on American blogs and reviews about Bone Tomahawk, I couldn’t help getting really excited about it. The whole concept sounded genuinely intriguing – a Classical-style frontier Western mixed with a full-on cannibal horror film. The Searchers meets Cannibal Holocaust. Extremely different to anything I had seen recently. I couldn’t wait to see it.

I’m glad to say it did live up to expectations. I am a big fan of Bone Tomahawk – bold, brutal and gloriously violent, it was an immensely engrossing and unusual experience, one which gripped my body as well as my attention and left me exhausted but thrilled.

In the sleepy town of Bright Hope, a violent drifter (David Arquette) on the run is captured by Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) and his loyal deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins, who I genuinely didn’t recognise, he’s wonderful in this). With the drifter injured, they call on the local nurse Samantha (Lili Simmons) to treat his wounds. But when the townsfolk are asleep, a tribe of savage cannibals kidnaps them both and rides off into the Badlands. Sheriff Hunt leads a ragtag band out to bring them back, including the aged and slightly senile Chicory, the suave and hot-headed John Brooder (Matthew Fox), and Samantha’s headstrong husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson), despite him having a severely broken leg.

From the very first shot, the film makes clear where its interests lie. An extended shot looking directly down and upside-down upon a sleeping man in the desert before he’s graphically killed, this is a film very much obsessed with quirk and detail, and fascinated with the boundedness of the human body. It also showcases the steady, unfussy shooting style, and the film’s impressive use of sound – here worsening the impact of the killing with the sheer emphasis on the sound of flesh tearing, bone being severed and blood bubbling.

It’s also a film which isn’t the least bit afraid to take its time. At 132 minutes, it’s long. Definitely far too long, considering the sparseness of the plot and the general unfussiness of the B-movies which Bone Tomahawk takes as inspiration. But in most scenes, the film’s patient focus on letting scenarios and conversations play out in full to go in unusual directions creates an offbeat aspect to the film which is unexpected and quite refreshing. The film embraces the witticisms of the period dialogue, and finds time amongst the wanderings and bloodshed to indulge wholeheartedly in conversations about flea circuses and etiquette. An early scene between Hunt and Chicory often pauses their exposition so they can discuss the bowl of soup they’re sharing. Another scene shows Samantha asking Arthur to read a love letter he once wrote to her, he dismissing the idea before she is called off to treat a patient. We would assume the scene would end there, but Arthur is shown retrieving the letter and reading it to himself in full, which goes on for about 2-3 minutes. It is this unusual approach that give the film an eccentric flavour, and offers space for the characters to develop before the adventurous aspects of the story start. By the time the search party has set off, we’ve learnt plenty about their characters and interactions, something which makes the potentially drab scenes of travelling more compelling.

This inward focus on character reflects itself in other ways in the steady shooting style. The camera often gazes intensely on the four adventurers, often at the expense of the vast scenery around them. Brooder repeatedly uses a bespoke telescope he calls The German, and he offers us tantalising glimpses of what he’s seeing through his descriptions. But the camera never shows us his view, never cuts away from the concerned faces of his companions. Landscape shots are surprisingly absent in the film, although this is no great loss, firstly to avoid distraction from the smaller conflicts of the group, and secondly because the cinematography is actually quite flat, especially when you consider just how sublime and awe-inspiring the rugged views of The Revenant and The Hateful Eight looked. Although, saying that, the sparseness of this bland scenery can add to the perception of unerring death hanging over the land, a place where things can’t grow and thrive.

It’s very much a film of three parts – the patient opening in the town where we are gradually bathed in their world; the extended travelling scenes in the middle; and then the complete tonal shift of the final third, when they reach the savage tribe territory. This sudden leap into the dead zone is abrupt and quite jarring – the tension ratchets up considerably and the eventual reveal of the troglodytes themselves is so unusual, both in their wicked appearance and their monstrous voices, that it becomes almost fantastical. But for me, that made it only more chilling. The rescuers have truly entered hell, and all they thought they knew, all they had prepared for, is viciously crushed underfoot.

This shift also ups the ante on violence, with some truly inventive and mind-scarring gore. I know the extreme violence has put off and upset some of those who were engaged with the more traditional earlier scenes. The shift in tone comes like a blow to the face. But frankly, I loved it; it gives a wonderful revisionist take on the Classic western tropes. The build-up and near-silence around these scenes builds a rigid tension which left me twitchy and shaky with anticipation. I always admire when films provoke physical responses. Not necessarily along the lines of Linda Williams’s views on body genre, films like melodrama or porn which are designed to provoke emotion or arousal, but more like what the best horror films can do – ones that make your body tense completely, or transmutes the pain characters fell onto your own body so you shift uncomfortably in your seat.

Also like the best horror films, at heart Bone Tomahawk does have a thematic focus. Much is made here on questions of race, about racist and uninformed folks realising that perceptions of civilisation vs. savagery doesn’t run along racial lines. In the end, I found Bone Tomahawk to be a genuinely distinct and thrilling experience, and unforgettable in its own way. What stands out is just how extremely odd this film is, surprisingly funny, and wonderfully immersive with some rich production design. I’m a big fan.

My Top 20 Films of 2015: Part 2

My 10 favourite films of 2015. And find films 20-11 here.

The ones I missed: Crimson Peak; Slow West; A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence; Eden; Steve Jobs; Jurassic World; Amy; The Look of Silence; 45 Years; John Wick; Taxi Tehran; Appropriate Behaviour; Pasolini; Love Is Strange; The Forbidden Room; Sunset Song; Brooklyn; The Good Dinosaur; Mistress America; While We’re Young; The Wonders; Love & Mercy; Far from the Madding Crowd; Trainwreck; Clouds of Sils Maria; Chappie; Spy; Ant Man; Straight Outta Compton; 99 Homes; The Martian; Bridge of Spies; Macbeth; Foxcatcher

10. Catch Me Daddy (Daniel Wolfe, UK)
I was so impressed with this rugged and fierce low-budget thriller, where so many elements are stripped back to make something so very urgent and shocking. It follows Laila (Sameena Jabeen Ahmed), a young woman who has run away from her Pakistani family to live a meagre existence with her boyfriend in his trailer. The family tracks her down and her brothers and several bounty hunters chase them through the night onto the Yorkshire dales, as the couple fights to escape.

The depiction of the Pakistani family could be said to border on an offensive stereotype, but at the heart of this film is a desperate survival thriller where the limitations of setting and plot work to create a claustrophobic verisimilitude, full of restrictions. It’s set over a single night, and the small scale helps infuse a sense of dread over every scene – you can’t possibly imagine how they can they could escape when everything seems weighted against them. The ending scene alone is brutal and terrifying. It’s beautifully filmed with some interesting stylistic choices that actually makes this an almost hypnotic experience.

9. The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Ukraine/Netherlands)
A teenager is sent to a Ukrainian boarding school for deaf children where he quickly falls into the vicious criminal gangs that run the dormitories and terrorise the younger children and local residents. What’s remarkable is the entire film is told in sign language without subtitles. As a formal experiment about the amazing ability of cinema’s visual language to tell stories and convey themes, this film is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The filmmaking is impeccable – there are long takes here that rival Birdman for sheer audacity and achievement, and I learnt a lot about how important sound design is to immerse you within diegetic worlds.

The Tribe is also a fascinating allegory for Ukraine’s displaced position within Europe, and a depiction of the harmful conditions caused by poverty. It’s an incredibly tough watch with scenes that rank amongst the most disturbing I’ve seen all year. I honestly don’t think I’d ever want to watch it again, but I’m glad I’ve seen it.

8. Ex Machina (Alex Garland, UK)
At a time when so many sci-fi films are massive mega-budget epics, it’s invigorating when an unashamed genre picture makes the decision to remain low-key. Essentially playing out as a chamber piece with four characters, Ex Machina is a fascinating allegorical story which plays with modern fears of rapid progress and technology, and feels like a classic even as you are watching it.

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a young computer programmer, wins a competition to meet elusive CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac), who gives him the task of performing a Turing test on his newest creation, an AI robot called Ava (Alicia Vikander), to determine whether she could pass as human. It’s a wonderfully simple premise, which expands in ways I never expected. It plays out like a futuristic Gothic horror, with its isolated mansion full of secrets causing a descent into fevered paranoia, and characters who never appear as they seem, not least Ava as the Frankensteinian monster. There’s solid performances all round by a cast very much en vogue this year, not least a starmaking turn by Vikander, who graces Ava with a balletic otherworldliness.

7. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marielle Heller, USA)
A wonderfully refreshing and frank movie on what it is like to grow up, what it means to be a woman, and how sex can leave you giddy with emotion, Diary of a Teenage Girl had me grinning throughout both from sheer recognition and relatability, and because it’s a wonderfully written movie, very funny with an incredible fearless performance by Bel Powley as Minnie. Set in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, we follow Minnie as she first explores her sexual desires, beginning a secret affair with her mother’s boyfriend.

The most remarkable thing about this film is the balance of tone it achieves. No act or emotion is shied away from, but the film never falls into the pit of judgement or shaming. Minnie is entirely unashamed by her actions and it refreshing to see a film which takes risks with potentially controversial themes and produces something honest and universal. This is a noteworthy debut and Marielle Heller is a name worth remembering.

6. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)
I’ve always struggled to read any Thomas Pynchon, as much as I’ve desperately wanted to engage with his work. Often brimming with dozens of characters, heaps of cultural references and quotations, and wild shifts in tone and voice, Pynchon’s work doesn’t seem adaptable for the screen. So I think it’s a huge achievement that Paul Thomas Anderson was able to translate Inherent Vice and create something so complete and so assured.

A beguiling mixture of film noir and stoner movie, Inherent Vice follows the multiple investigations of “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), an LA county private detective and dopehead. It’s a deliberately dense and mystifying experience, capturing the essence of a time in place in transition – the end of 60s-era hippieism and idealism and rise of corrupt politics and paranoia. Yet this never stops it from being a genuinely funny and farcical romp, and one of the most unexpectedly entertaining adventures of this year. The way all aspects from the production design to the mellow dialogue and Jonny Greenwood’s lush soundtrack completely immerse you in this world is awe-inspiring and left me feeling a little dazed (and a little blazed too). The convoluted plotting and sheer weight of material can be demanding and deserves multiple watches, but I’ll be a bit controversial here in saying I think the film makes perfect sense as challenging yet conventional detective story. Inherent Vice also has the honour of being the only film since university that I’ve gotten to see projected in 35mm, which gave it this gorgeous grain and texture which only improved the evocation of the 70s.

5. Mommy (Xavier Dolan, Canada)
The latest by the sickeningly talented Xavier Dolan (he was 24/25 when it was being made) is his most mature yet. It feels both epic and intimate, following the lives of those normally considered quite small and unimportant and raising them to a pedestal of high drama and high emotion.

We see widowed mother Di (Anne Dorval) struggle with the task of raising her troubled son Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), who has ADHD, is prone to violent outbursts and has just been released from an institution. With help from shy and repressed neighbour Kyla (Suzanne Clément), they work hard to get by. It’s a simple premise, but brimming with such heartfelt emotion and positive energy that makes this a tough but rewarding, moving and entertaining watch. It’s obvious Dolan deeply loves his characters and he throws every stylistic trick at this to make something which feels very special.

4. Inside Out (Pete Docter, USA)
Proof that Pixar works best when taking risks, Inside Out is the strongest film they’ve made in years and surely one of the most ambitious – a challenging study of the mind of an 11 year old girl which simultaneously appeals to both adults and children with a broad array of jokes, insights and titbits. There have been articles bemoaning the flaws with the depiction of emotions in Riley’s mind, but… come on, this isn’t a documentary. What we have is a vast concept attempting to depict how our minds work in a way that everybody can appreciate, all beautifully designed and performed.

The sheer weight of ideas and bases covered can get a little frenetic, but the way the story is able to tie the stresses of a family moving to a new city with the gradual breakdown of a young mind is pretty incredible. Kudos too for making a film which shows the necessary importance of sadness, and how we cannot experience the truest forms of happiness without it.

3. Carol (Todd Haynes, UK/USA)
Probably no other film this year has come with such a formidable wave of critical appreciation and as such a huge weight of expectation. Thankfully, Carol delivers on every front. What an extraordinarily transcendent film this is, where the slightest gestures and minutest details are magnified to create this enveloping and magnetic sensation of feeling almost drunk with adoration for someone.

It is named after Carol (Cate Blanchett), the object of desire of young Therese (Rooney Mara) who is true anchor of this story. Both their performances are so true to life, their conversations scattered with these wonderful little asides and moments of silence that conveys the scenario of two women both discovering feelings from one another that they’ve never experienced before. The chemistry is amazing. It’s the simplicity of the story and sheer amount of thought and care that has gone into every detail from the costumes and to the swoon-worthy soundtrack (seriously, how has Carter Burwell never been nominated for an Oscar?) that truly gives this film its power.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, Australia/USA)
This film is omnipresent on pretty much every ‘best of’ list of 2015 but that’s for bloody good reason. Jesus Christ, it’s a hell of a ride. Essentially playing out as one giant chase scene, Fury Road is surely one of the greatest action films ever made – experiential cinema of the purest kind, with a completely fully realised world, complete characters with an unusual amount of depth and drive, some wonderful artistic asides (including the lovely silhouettes of the night scene in the middle) and bold creative choices.

All aspects of the production design are just gorgeous, with an embrace of the grotesque and a sheer cacophony of detail and visual splendour that makes the film exhilarating. All aspects from the editing to the special effects to the stunt work is mind-blowing, although perhaps what is most respectable is the focus given to characters and themes. The film has roots in Western frontier films about the need for a place to call home and where survivors have to fight hard to make their lives matter. It explores environmental disaster and the consequences of political conflict and vengeance. And as many have pointed out, it’s an action film which dares to explore themes of female empowerment and give varied autonomous roles to women. It all boils down to the most extravagant, sense-numbing, over-the-top two hours of madness I’ve probably ever seen, a tense thrill ride that is rare for truly giving us something to root for.

1. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritania/France)
It feels like a rare treat these days going into a cinema totally unknown and unprepared for what’s coming. Other than the word of one good review I saw, this was how I went into Timbuktu. And what a fine film it was: a humanist masterpiece which explores difficult subjects with concern, honesty and humour.

Inspired by the real life takeover of Timbuktu in Mali by Islamist extremists in 2012, and the news story of the stoning of an unmarried couple, Timbuktu is a documentary-like collection of interconnected stories concerning the struggles of the ordinary people under the dictatorial regime. Terrorists on motorbikes pronounce the new rules over loudspeakers: sport and music is forbidden, women must dress appropriately, unmarried men and women cannot be in the same room. The residents remain defiant in wishing to live as they always had done, and in exposing the absurdity of the new regime. A woman at a fish market argues with a man forcing her to wear gloves. Another man is forced to remove his trousers in the street because they are too long. Others don’t get off so lightly.

Timbuktu’s real strength lies in its ability to present such a wide range of stories with maturity and compassion, all the while imbuing it with a sense of truth and drama that makes it feel vital. It displays the propensity for absolutely anyone to perform cruel or noble actions. It depicts the importance of individuality as well a sense of Islam as a community, where lives can come together and live peacefully and fruitfully. People are inherently contradictory – the invaders break as many rules as they enforce. But this truth about our flaws is never presented in a way that is patronising or lecturing. The terrorists are depicted neither as monsters or heroes

There’s long been this sense of Timbuktu in Western culture as being a mythical place of bounteous riches. Instead, it’s a poor, but historically important town on the edge of the Sahara. But it’s films like this that perhaps offer a sad indictment of Western ignorance to plight of many ordinary people, and can offer us a glimpse of these lives in a way that is searingly honest and humane, yet also entertaining and charming in its own way. It’s a tragic film, but not one without hope. A scene involving a game of football is especially magical. It’s because of films like this that I love cinema’s ability to show lives and stories so new to me and make them feel real.

My Top 20 Films of 2015: Part 1

Given the sheer breadth of films I’ve seen in 2015 and just how excellent many of them were, I’ve ended up extending the list to 20 entries this year. There was so much that I enjoyed, and many emotional and mind-blowing moments that I wanted to talk about that it seemed a shame to miss too much off.

My list is based on films with UK release dates in 2015. I spent the first few months of the year living in London, which gave me access to a wider range of cinemas than I had ever experienced before, and a number of limited release films which I probably would have struggled to see elsewhere. I also had money saved then, and could afford to go at least once a week! Moving back home, my trips were less frequent, but still regular. Saying that, there was still a huge amount I missed this year which I need to seek out.

I’ve realised my tastes have gotten especially … abstract this year. I love actively seeking out the most unusual and non-mainstream films going, as I increasingly find them so much more inspiring, satisfying and original than many major releases (not to say I haven’t been to see many of the biggest films of the year and not enjoyed them). So I imagine some of my choices might be a bit off-kilter for most people’s tastes, but these are the films that have really blown me away this year.

It was also a standout year for marginalised voices, with a wonderful range of films by and about women, and people and cultures not readily seen on the big screen. Many of the films on my list are also debuts, which is an incredibly exciting indictment of what the future of cinema may hold.

Honourable mentions: White Bird in a Blizzard; White God; Birdman; Whiplash; Spectre; Phoenix; Girlhood; Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation; Selma

20. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, USA)
Billed as “the first Iranian vampire western”, Ana Lily Amirpour’s assuredly confident debut is an exercise in pure style but one which thankfully doesn’t excise substance. In an Iranian ghost town dogged by drug addiction and mired in decline, a lone female vampire glides along the streets, casually observing and haunting the prostitutes and lost souls in the night. A young man in debt to a dangerous pimp begins a tentative relationship with this unfathomable girl.

It’s a fascinating feminist work exploring female autonomy and strength under pressure, with splendid moody black and white cinematography that makes this one of the most distinct films of the year. Glacially slow at times, but with an eye for bold visual style and full of love for a whole gamut of genre influences, A Girl Walks… is a highly impressive addition to the vampire canon we never thought was needed.

19. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, USA)
At a time when so many action films rely on rapid editing and visual excess to create excitement, it is doubly thrilling that Sicario is such a patient film. It takes its time. Scenarios and settings are allowed to develop, the stakes are heightened, and the consequences can be explored in all their brutal detail.

An overwhelming sense of hopelessness hangs over everything and everyone – FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) falling in out of her depth with the umbrous missions of CIA officer Matt Graver (Josh Brolin); the impossible task of the Mexican police in a state where corpses are left hanging in the street; the endless machinations of both sides of the conflict. At once both a desperately sad film about the failure of the War on Drugs and the ruinous damage it has caused, and a blisteringly original action film and revenge story, Sicario can’t help but leave you shaken.

18. The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, UK)
Probably the most beguiling and idiosyncratic film I’ve seen all year, The Duke of Burgundy is a rich fever dream of sensation for heart and mind. In a world without men, we observe the unusual play of power between a loving sadomasochistic couple (Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna) as they perform their repetitive rituals. Deeply European in sensibility, plot structures concerning the blurring boundaries between dominant and submissive are subsumed within the heady atmosphere of deep longing which positively drips off the screen.

Every little detail is presented with the most exquisite care and attention. Each frame is unbelievably pretty and every gesture, every brief touch of fingers along skin, the brush of luxurious material or the flutter of a butterfly’s wings becomes a fetishistic indulgence of the most exquisite kind. At its heart though, this is a generous affable story of the complex love between two women. I can’t wait to see this again; I’m sure a second viewing will divulge new pleasures.

17. The Dance of Reality (Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chile/France)
Cult arthouse hero Alejandro Jodorowsky returns with his first film in 23 years and it was wonderful to have him back. An outlandish and deliciously unhinged autobiography of his childhood and struggles with his father, mixed with Jodorowsky’s trademark spiritual allegory and fantastical black humour, it honestly feels as fresh and urgent as the best of his work from the 1970s. There is a sense of spectacle and a number of incredible shots unlike anything I’ve seen.

The explicit content and blatant slaps in the face of all plotting and thematic conventions, plus the fact it’s simply batshit crazy, means more casual cinemagoers will likely be left frustrated. But for fans of his work, myself included, The Dance of Reality is a treat, and it was a pleasure to have seen it on a big screen with an audience. This is the most unashamedly auterist film of 2015, one that feels almost of another era for its sheer audacity and singularity.

16. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata, Japan)
Sadly set to be one of Studio Ghibli’s final films, Princess Kaguya surely has to be one of the most beautiful animations ever made. Every frame is a work of art in its own way with a glorious focus on line and texture hardly seen in animation these days – the complete film is a magical moving watercolour whose sheer beauty at times brought tears to my eyes (I know, it sounds ridiculous but it really did)

Inspired by a traditional Japanese folk tale of a bamboo cutter who discovers a magical girl and vast riches growing in bamboo shoots, the story is given a modern feminist sensibility about the importance of respect and honesty, and the way wealth and power corrupts. I know some have found the traditional Japanese elements involving the spiritual a little alienating, but you’ve just got to throw yourself into this world. And see it in the Japanese language if you can.

15. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA)
At first glance, this looks like the epitome of the quirky Sundance teen hit about artsy middle class teenagers. Which is why I couldn’t believe how very much in love I fell with Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, a thoughtful and genuine story of friendship which is also a welcome, playfully critical antidote to the more self-indulgent trends of recent teen movies, especially illness movies.

Concerning Greg (Thomas Mann), a painfully awkward high school senior whose comfortable non-status at school is disrupted when he’s asked to befriend Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who is diagnosed with leukaemia, the film is a decidedly arch and self-aware film about teen films, full of knowingly ironic dialogue and comic stereotypes. But I felt the strength of the performances and characterisation drew the film from the brink of irritating pastiche to become something much warmer and more likeable. It is choc-a-bloc full of classic film and music references which of course I lapped up, but it was the moving and heartfelt moments which unexpectedly left me a emotional wreck that really made me love this film.

14. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/UK/Greece/France/Netherlands)
One of my own most anticipated films last year, I’m glad to say The Lobster mostly delivers. A sci-fi comedy romantic drama that depicts a future society where it is illegal to be single, we watch freshly divorced David (Colin Farrell) as he’s shipped to a special hotel to find a new partner. What follows is a bizarre satire of dating routines and a chilly experiment of social mores pushed to their limits which we are invited to observe with pleasure.

Brimming with endless standout setpieces, a fine cast and a fiercely original script, The Lobster marks Lanthimos as one of the most singular directors working today. The film stalls somewhat in its final scenes in the forest, but the sheer commitment to its deadpan absurdity is bewildering and extremely entertaining.

13. A Most Violent Year (J. C. Chandor, USA)
It may be because it has been nearly a whole year since this was released (longer in America) that this film seems to have been so gravely underappreciated, forgotten almost. Which is a great shame, as this was surely one of the most assured and thrilling films I’ve seen this year. Oscar Isaac (what a great year he’s had!) stars as Abel Morales, head of a small heating oil company in early 1980s New York. He’s under immense pressure – more of his truck deliveries are being hijacked and stolen, and a determined district attorney (David Oyelowo) is scrutinising the industry, steadfastly rooting out corruption. Torn between the more determinedly pragmatic approach of his wife (Jessica Chastain) and his own tenacious need to remain legitimate, Morales struggles to keep all his plates spinning.

A real slow burner thriller, A Most Violent Year is less of the action thriller than many had come to expect. Instead, it’s a frosty character study which values intricate plotting and rewards audiences ready for sophisticated drama. It recalls the best of New Hollywood-era crime cinema, especially the films of Sidney Lumet, and confirms Chandor as one of the most promising writer-directors working today. Excellent stuff.

12. Wild Tales (Damián Szifron, Argentina/Spain)
My God, this film is fun. A portmanteau of six short films all linked by themes of violence and revenge, which includes a demolitions expert waging war against a car towing company, road rage getting out control, and possibly the worst wedding reception in history. The first and shortest story is a veritable gut-punch, with one of the most hilariously dark scenarios in a film in years.

In anthology films like this, it’s frequently inevitable that some parts outshine others but thankfully in this each story has its own strengths. It covers a bewildering array of conflicts, many linked by raw frustrations with bureaucracy, technology and infrastructure that can’t help but make you feel tensions might be running deep in parts of Argentina. At once tense, frustrating, and more than a little fucked up, Wild Tales is an intensely satisfying experience, if not simply for the fact that your day cannot possibly get any worse than the ones here.

11. Tangerine (Sean Baker, USA)
Much of the publicity surrounding this ultra-low budget film was astonishment at how the entire thing was filmed on an iPhone 5. And it does look fantastic, drowning in lush sunshine and neon glows. But it’s so much more than. It’s a boundless portrait of Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), a transgender sex worker who, upon being released from prison on Christmas Eve, discovers her pimp boyfriend has cheated on her with a cisgender woman. This sets off a raucous chain of events, as Sin-Dee storms across LA trying to find the mystery woman, and best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) is left trying to calm her down.

There’s so so much to admire and love about this film. It’s a remarkable example of just how expansive and creative low budget cinema can be. It features trans characters played by actual trans performers. And it’s an immensely enjoyable and deliciously purile black comedy, which recalls the best of John Waters’ filthiest comedies. It feels completely genuine, making it a quotable, brash and confrontational experience. Building to an epic confrontation that leaves you watching through your fingers through sheer awkwardness, I left feeling both exhausted and exhilarated. If there is any one film on this list I feel everyone should watch to see what cinema is capable of, this would be it. Go see it!

Going All In: Spectre and the Legacy of Bond

2015
Writers: John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth
Director: Sam Mendes

Other than perhaps the upcoming Star Wars sequel, the heady dread of anticipation hasn’t been higher this year than it has been for Bond 24, Spectre. Frankly, with the return of both Daniel Craig and director Sam Mendes, as well screenwriters John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (plus Jez Butterworth this time), music by Thomas Newman and cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), it would be tragic if the film didn’t turn out good. Thankfully, it’s emerged pretty darn great, maybe not as accomplished as Skyfall, but still oodles of fun and a hella good action film.

Whilst Skyfall was a more character-driven, intimate (as much as Bond can be) revenge movie, Spectre is a massive, flamboyant and actually quite playful romp much more in line with films of Bond past. Mendes kicks off this lush stylish film with a super-scaled pre-credits sequence set in Mexico City on Day of the Dead, complete with giant skull parades and a cast of thousands. Surely the sign of a director in complete confidence and control of his material, the scene opens with a very impressive nearly 5 minute long take, coolly gliding through a carnival, up a lift several floors, out a window and across rooftops. Then what follows is probably the biggest opening sequence yet, complete with exploding buildings and a loop-the-looping helicopter, very much in the vein of the noisy vehicle stunts and close calls of the Pierce Brosnan era. It’s hugely enjoyable, and can’t help leave you wondering how the hell they’ll top it.

Bond’s antics in Mexico cause tension with new M (Ralph Fiennes), who dismisses Bond off active duty. M is under pressure from a competing new government security agency, the Joint Intelligence Service, led by slimy bureaucrat C (Andrew Scott), which is threatening the existence of the Double-O program. Working off a hunch, Bond ignores orders and embarks on his own investigations, which leads him on a direct path with the shady organisation SPECTRE.

What struck me most watching this is, after the more self-contained and self-conscious 21^st century films, Spectre is the first Craig film to really embrace what I consider to be the classic Bond film formula. Skyfall had plenty of neat little nods to Bond’s past antics, but Spectre is the film that really is identifiably Bond in character. There’s the luxurious globetrotting (including desert, ultramodern mountaintop clinic and an especially sumptuous-looking Rome); the return of the super-secret giant lair; the unspeaking henchman (Dave Bautista); quippy one-liners and nods-to-the-audience humour; increasingly outlandish stunts (example: a skiing wingless plane); and one of my personal favourites – the fight on the train. The film even opens with the iconic gunbarrel sequence, much to my delight.

These throwbacks to the past in my view, whilst mostly welcome, don’t always sit too comfortably with the more austere tone set by the last three films. The big car chase is intercut with several jokes which I couldn’t help finding distracting, and Craig’s performance, previously tense and somewhat tormented, is given less space to explore Bond’s failings, instead presenting him more as a determined soldier who is at times almost quite arch when he speaks lines. The inclusion of these more classic features is likely down to problems with the script, which clunkily struggles to link the various location-changes of Bond’s mystery solving beyond tenuous links and action setups to fill time. This is the longest Bond film yet, and there are times when it does feel it, despite the breathless nature of other scenes.

I did feel we get more glimpses of some of Bond’s other flaws, such as his alcoholism and at times his dismissive attitude to women. I’m not sure how I felt about Bond’s romance with Dr. Madeleine Swann, played perfectly by Lea Seydoux. It did seem a little more forced, especially when you think about how naturally it seemed to occur with Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. But that’s not to dismiss Dr. Swann, who is an excellent engaging character who can hold her own against Bond and the villains, and who, unlike some previous Bond girls, is believable as an intelligent professional woman (I’m looking at you Dr. Christmas Jones).

On the other hand, I felt Monica Belluci was entirely wasted as Lucia Sciarra. Much was touted about her age, and her proclaiming herself as a “Bond woman” rather than girl, but we get practically no glimpses of this – she appears for probably no more than five minutes and is nothing more than a foil for Bond to pump information from. It’s somewhat similar to Teri Hatcher’s Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, but at least in that film her character had some personal resonance for both Bond and Jonathan Pryce’s villain.

On a better note, we get more from the dream team of M, Q (Ben Whishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Tanner (Rory Kinnear) – fine actors all, and standouts thanks to bigger roles and the chance to share some of the action with James. Most importantly, Christoph Waltz is fantastic as Franz Obenhauser, the head of SPECTRE, imbuing him with a genuine menace few previous villains ever could muster. His welcome decision to downplay theatrics with only the odd touch of camp helps make him a convincing counterpart to our hero.

What did leave me a little disappointed was the film’s approach to SPECTRE itself. What made the best villains of the more recent films work so well is that they speak to our modern fears of the unknown enemy. Danger now can come not from any known foreign government, but by any number of sources, from terrorist organisations to cybercriminals. At one point, M and C talk about the interplay of shadows and light, and about how many of the threats and much of the work to combat it remains in the shadows. SPECTRE could play into this perfectly, and we do indeed get glimpses into their work, mostly via news footage of disasters and reports during a shadowy Masonic meeting (probably my favourite scene in the film). Yet in time, SPECTRE’s reasoning for their current plot are overwhelmed by the personal vendetta of Obenhauser himself, which leads him to come across as extremely petty and diminishes the threat of SPECTRE’s plan. Attempts to link Bond’s past with SPECTRE are strained at best, and the very final setpiece of the film is underwhelming, simply because it favours the more personal battle between Bond and Obenhauser over the threat of SPECTRE.

What did strike me is how the goal of the villain has changed over time. As others have pointed out, this is the first post-Snowden Bond film. Whilst previous villains were seeking money (Thunderball, Goldfinger, Goldeneye), political chaos and war (The Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice, Tomorrow Never Dies) or simply global destruction (Moonraker), SPECTRE is now interested in data and information, represented within the film through the power of surveillance. It’s surprising how much a film this big takes a more liberal opposition to the notion of a super NSA-style program, This ties into the film’s multiple links with the past in valuing men on the ground, ones who can look the enemy in the eye and pull the trigger, over the potential of warfare from afar. This is perhaps one added reason why gadgets remain minimal, firstly because they don’t possess the exoticism they once did, and second because they can’t always provide the safety and support we expect from them.

Despite how critical this piece has sounded, I think I liked this film much more than a lot of people did. It unusually seems to have been better received by more critics than with a lot of the public. It’s definitely one of those movies where to enjoy it is to not think too much about it and simply savour the spectacle. It’s hardly the best Bond – both Casino Royale and Skyfall were much more successful films – but I’d say it looks set to be one of the better Bonds. I’m looking forward to watching it again.