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.

 

2019 in Review – My Top 20 Films

So through a combination of busyness and laziness, it’s finally in February that I get round to publishing my list of my favourite films from last year. Added to that laziness and delay is the sad fact I only got round to writing my little thoughts for half the films, so do please excuse the gaps at the top of the list here.

As always, I’ve loved getting to see a breadth of films from all over the world, many of which emerged unexpectedly and totally caught me by surprise. Also given the fact that I watched many of these on streaming services (Netflix and MUBI) can’t help but reflect the way industry is changing and the way we get to view films is changing with it. It’s not all bad, as these services gave me the chance to watch some obscure foreign films that barely got released even in London.

There are trailers linked to all the films below if you want to check any out!

20. Leto (Kirill Serebrennikov; Russia)

 

 

 

 

 

19. Us (Jordan Peele; USA)

 

 

 

 

 

18. Midsommar (Ari Aster; USA/Sweden/Hungary)

 

 

 

 

 

17. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos; UK/Ireland/USA)

 

 

 

 

 

 

16. Atlantics (Mati Diop; Senegal/France/Belgium)

 

 

 

 

 

15. Burning (Lee Chang-dong; South Korea)

 

 

 

 

 

14. In Fabric (Peter Strickland; UK)

 

 

 

 

 

13. Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley; USA)

 

 

 

 

 

 

12. Ad Astra (James Gray; USA)

 

 

 

 

 

11. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach; USA/UK)

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. The Farewell (Lulu Wang; USA)

Whilst I loved getting to see a depiction of ordinary suburban Chinese life and customs which have hardly been seen on cinema screens in the UK before, it’s the way that The Farewell depicts a very specific family crisis yet imbues it with an authenticity and humour that makes it feel universal. It might be a bit hyperbolic to say anyone who has spent time with their extended families will find much to appreciate and relate to here, but it’s true – characters are multi-faceted and contradictory, much tension is unspoken, many situations are awkward. But at heart it’s about a family that loves each other coming together for what could potentially be their last visit to their ageing matriarch. Charming, funny, and just a little emotionally devastating, Lulu Wang has a gift for turning seemingly ordinary dialogue into both realistically ridiculous, and subtly complex.

9. Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria; USA)

So much about this film could have gone wrong. Based upon a New York magazine article about a group of strippers drugging and stealing from the wealthy men who visit their club, it could have fallen into spurious territory or easily have been tastelessly tone deaf. It’s a credit to writer-director Lorene Scafaria that this headline grabbing set-up becomes a hugely entertaining but thoughtful film about female friendship, toxic masculinity, attitudes towards sex work and conflicting attitudes it creates for those who work in it and those who exploit it, and the continuing struggles of being a woman in what is still a staunchly patriarchal America. Excellent performances all round also help avoid turning characters into stereotypes, and the central friendship between Destiny (Constance Wu) and Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) was one of the most compelling character story arcs I saw all year.

8. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar; Spain)

Pedro Almodóvar’s best film since The Skin I Live In from 2011. This may be one of his quieter and more low-key films, but it displays one of the most distinct and authorial filmmakers working today at the height of his creative powers. Grounded by a sensitive central performance by Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory is an incredibly skilfully told story of film director confronting his later years in life, his creative block and long term illnesses by taking the time to look back over the successes and failures of his past, and the relationships that have defined who he is as a son, an artist, a gay man, a partner. The autobiographical aspects can’t be ignored, but it’s Almodóvar’s genius in blending the features of himself and his previous work that viewers will recognise, with a deeply insightful fictional character study that feels imbued with vitality, humour and sorrow. The best way to describe this film is ‘rich’ – it has a bit of everything really: moving, funny, entertaining, and often profound.

7. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese; USA)

The ultimate Martin Scorsese greatest hits film. The epitome of so much that defined his oeuvre and made his name. That all these aspects of his previous work can come together and make something so epic, so masterfully told and constructed, and so surprisingly funny that it makes the longest film I’ve ever seen at a cinema just breeze by. Minor quibbles with the otherwise pretty astonishing de-ageing technology aside, it’s the strength of the film’s drive and directorial control that you come to forgive and even love its major indulgences. In the end, it finds Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian in a reflective mood, mirroring the thrills and successes of gangster Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) with the blistering energy of Scorsese’s back catalogue, yet patiently asks what it all comes to in the end and what satisfaction and meaning a life dedicated to crime actually brings. And in the end, it’s always a pleasure to see Joe Pesci onscreen again in a measured and charismatic turn, and Al Pacino getting the biggest laughs chewing every corner of every scene he’s in. I’m so glad I got to see this on the big screen.

6. Monos (Alejandro Landes; Colombia/USA)

I love films like Monos. Films that really push the boundaries of what cinema can be in terms of storytelling and experiences, it’s brimming with innovation and a sharp artistic eye, it feels like cinema in its purest form. Almost like a Yorgos Lanthimos film with its otherworldly outsider’s view of a disturbing yet quirky world, Monos is a Colombian film depicting a band of child soldiers atop a mountain. Infrequently visited by a tiny but muscular overseer and tasked with guarding an American hostage, the teens are otherwise left to fend for themselves, combatting both boredom, raging hormones, tribal allegiances and power play, and the distant threat of warfare and violence. The film makes no attempt to explain the context of the situation – we never know the causes of the war or who is fighting, instead focusing solely on the impact these abuses of power have on those stuck on the lowest rungs of society. It’s blisteringly creative and strikingly shot in locations that have never been filmed before, the film is incredible to look at. Strange and challenging, the film is part Lord of the Flies mixed with the psychedelic madness of war a la Apocalypse Now.

5. Beats (Brian Welsh; UK)

I’m sure it won’t surprise any of you that this film, an ode to raves and dance music, would appeal to me so directly.  Steeped in a nostalgia for a period when I was barely 1 year old, filmed in stylised black and white, and with a killer soundtrack to boot, Beats was one of the most exhilarating films I’d seen in a long time. Scotland, 1994. Two mates from very different backgrounds, Johnno (Christian Ortega) and Spanner (Lorn Macdonald) attempt to discover a fabled illegal rave as foretold on the pirate radio. Featuring the most awe-inspiring and thrilling depiction of club culture I’ve seen on screen, Beats is a thoroughly entertaining love letter to a time and place when youth culture rallied against the world in a new way and a new breed of music found its prime audience. At its heart in a way is a love story between two friends, both aware that adulthood beckons and life as they know it won’t be the same again.

4. Knives Out (Rian Johnson; USA)

The most deliriously enjoyable film I saw all year. And judging by the response in the packed screening I saw it in, one the most crowd-pleasing too. A loving pastiche which knows exactly what sort of film it is and doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, Knives Out roots itself within the foundations of the classic Agatha Christie whodunit mystery but takes great pleasure in occasionally upturning the conventions of the genre to pull the rug from under the audience. Silly enough to be surprisingly one of the funnier films I saw this year, and not shirking away from deliberately convoluted plotting, at heart the film realises its wire balancing act between surprising the audience but sticking close enough to the familiar tropes to be overwhelming pleasing to watch.

3. Minding the Gap (Bing Liu; USA)

Nominated for Best Documentary at last year’s Oscars, Minding the Gap at first seems almost a home movie of friends skateboarding. Filmed over several years in the struggling town of Rockford, Illinois, director Bing Liu’s astonishing eye for detail instead turns this into a remarkable portrait of what it means to grow up, when whole lifetimes feel lost because opportunities are scarce, and questions what it means to be a man in a time when notions of masculinity are shifting. Searingly intimate, the very different paths these young men take is presented almost painfully honestly through Liu’s camera: how can life have meaning when it feels like the whole world is against you because of your race, your economic background, your family history. Skateboarding is a release for these guys, but it can only take them so far in life. It’s the background for Minding the Gap as we see them work through hardship and trauma, and offers a film of epic scope and incredible depth, far more so than most fictional dramas can ever hope to depict. I found this very moving.

2. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins; USA)

Following up the era- defining Moonlight would be no easy task. But ambition is one thing writer-director Barry Jenkins certainly doesn’t lack, choosing to adapt James Baldwin’s love story, a portrait of African American communities and families banding together in times of oppression. Lush, sweeping and feeling perhaps even more personal to me as Moonlight did, Beale Street feels … with a vitality which embraces you through the screen. Depicting a young black couple torn apart when Fonny (Stephan James) is falsely accused of rape by a racist cop, the film marries this heartbreaking story of the past with a modern eye, offering a critical but actually optimistic and poetic study of America. At its heart it’s an expressionistic love story, Jenkins again proving himself to be one of the most accomplished visual storytellers working today.

1. For Sama (Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts; UK/USA/Syria)

In a year of strong documentaries, For Sama does what factual content can do best – it teaches you about a situation which can be impossible to imagine, offers a deeply personal take on the world which is informative and moving, and it is powerful in a way which could instigate change and discussion. Filmed over several years during the Siege of Aleppo of the Syrian Civil War, our guide is filmmaker and journalist Waad Al-Kateab who documents the ongoing attacks on the city she has called home during her studies. She begins a relationship with a doctor running one of the few hospitals left in the city. After falling pregnant, the couple decide the stay to assist the resistance and help survivors, and she gives birth to Sama, to whom the film is dedicated.

Putting human faces on footage that’s often easy to detach from when seen as news footage, For Sama is tough and hearbreaking. The camera never turns away as mass casualties are brought in to the hospital, and families torn apart, children made orphans. Less a political comment on the context surrounding the war, and more simply a document of how humans survive under extreme stress in the middle of a warzone, it’s often a gruelling and upsetting watch. Not least seeing the children growing up there, playing in the wreckage of burnt out buses and hardly flinching when rockets strike nearby. But it’s a film built on hope – in trying to understand why they stay behind in a warzone, we see the innate importance that comes from caring for one another and the inherent goodness that can be found in relationships of all kinds, most especially in times of crisis. It’s agonising to think that this ever happened and that thousands lived, and thousands more continue to live through this every day. But films like this are important; important to preserve as records in the hope that tragedies like this might one day be a thing of the past. The film is available to screen for free on the Channel 4 website.

London Film Festival report 2019

I can’t believe that I’ve made it to my fourth film festival in London! I’ve been living here for a little over three years now, and so much has changed since I moved in 2016, but going to the festival was one of the most exciting things I got to do when I first moved and I still love finding the time to catch as many extraordinary new films as I can each year.

Thankfully my work trip this year was the week after the festival (in 2018, both events clashed and I could only catch two films on the very last day), but it was a crazy busy week at work and I crammed three screenings on Monday to Wednesday evenings, forgoing the sleep and rest I should really have been having.

It was worth it though, as I got to catch three very different and challenging films, all from unique contexts and dealing with very varied subjects. What struck me is all the films were overtly about the state of their respective nations and dealt with supremely personal stories within a wider political and social background.

And Then We Danced (2019, Levan Akin) 

I’ve never seen a film from or about Georgia before, so I jumped at the chance to see this (we were lucky to get in, the screening had sold out but we thankfully got some returned tickets waiting in the queue outside). Hearing stories about Georgia from a very good friend, and getting glimpses of the culture and food during a visit to Moscow a few years ago, I’ve ever since been fascinated in learning more and would absolutely love to visit Tbilisi one day.

This film centres around the importance of traditional Georgian dance, a distinct form of movement which tells stories of local customs and costumes, military events, family relationships and celebrations. We follow Merab, studying the dance at the Georgian National Ensemble and aiming to earn a coveted lead dancer role. He’s been dancing since childhood with his long-term dance partner and somewhat girlfriend Mary. He comes from a bit of a broken family, maligned in the wider community, with divorced parents and an older brother who can’t keep a job and has dropped out of dance classes.

Into this mix arrives Irakli, an unusual and charismatic new student who’s arrived from another town. He’s masculine but unconventional in a way which often rubs up the domineering dance teacher the wrong way. Despite knowing he’s a major rival for the lead dancer position, Merab finds himself drawn to Irakli in a way which he has never felt before, and which could shift everything for him.

The film itself is so handsomely shot, and the dance sequences are thrilling to see where the camera gets stuck in on the faces and gestures of Merab in particular. At first I wasn’t totally bowled over by the plot, which overall was predictable and followed the beats of other similar films, not least Call Me by Your Name in its depiction of youthful self-discovery and sexual awakening. But I found images and scenes kept coming to mind for days afterwards and there were particular sensations and sequences to it which moved me and appealed personally.

Levan Gelbakhiani gives a fantastically raw performance, occupiying so much of the frame and conveying so much with his big expressive eyes and physicality. As our guide to this world, he’s great company to be with and the resonance of getting to be a part of Merab’s personal journey was another thing which struck me more so in the days after.

There were also similarities in plot and structure to another film I saw this year called Rafiki, a Nigerian film about the blossoming romance between two girls in a homophobic society. Hearing the Q&A with director Levin Akin brought home the importance of films like these. Despite my misgivings about the conventionality of the plots for both films, both are brave documents of life in more hostile nations for repressed minorities and both attempt to offer a glimpse of the vitality and humanity of these people and hopefully offer a perspective to both those whithin the countries who lack understanding and outsiders like me who can’t fully grasp what life can be like in these nations I’ve never visited. Akin said the film was inspired by stories of how Tbilisi’s first small pride march in 2013 was beset by violent mobs and how he wanted to give voice to those who young people in the country.

La Llorona (2019, Jayro Bustamante)

And no, this isn’t The Curse of La Llorona, that film from the Conjuring universe of ‘jumpy jumpy scare scare ghosts running at the camera’ films. This is a serious and oblique Guatemalan film, although one which indeed uses the legend of La Llorona to tell a ghost story as allegorical fable.

The legend of La Llorona is known across Latin America as the tale of the Weeping Woman, who was abandoned by her husband and ultimately drowned her two children out of grief and anger. She is said to wander for all eternity looking for her lost children and bringing misfortune to those around her. The sound of a woman weeping is pivotal to this film.

Enrique is a former dictator of Guatemala whose army led a violent coup, resulting in the massacre of thousands of mainly indigenous people in the state. He is on trial for war crimes, and whilst found guilty ultimately escapes without punishment and is free to return to his mansion. Trapped inside by huge crowds of noisy protestors, he and his wife Carmen (who stood staunchly by his side despite knowing his infidelity), daughter Natalia (a doctor who supports the family but finds herself questioning her loyalties) and granddaughter Sara. One night, Enrique hears the sound of a woman weeping and almost shoots his wife attempting to stalk and find the woman. His family dismiss this as the delusions of a failing mind, but the story is enough to scare of the majority of the indigenous staff who take the legend seriously. In their place, they hire a new maid called Alma, an indigenous woman who’s long hair, blank expression and spectral movements makes her a ghostly presence in this new house.

Starting out with tropes of a ghost story, these quickly take a step back to address the consequences of real life horrors which must surely still ring raw within parts of South America. The beliefs and resolves of all the women within the house are pushed and tested as their forced isolation pushes them to greater degrees of madness. What I respected about this film was how it used the supernatural tropes, but didn’t allow these to overwhelm or distract from the more grounded subject matter. It’s a period of history which has left scars both physical and psychological, and this family in their gated community are forced to confront the traumas that were committed in their name. It’s subtly quite a powerful film which addresses difficult subject matter creatively, even if some themes and subplots were less well-addressed as I would have liked.

Divine Love (2019, Gabriel Mascaro)

Last but not least was one of the strangest and most beguiling films I’ve seen in a while. It wasn’t the easiest of viewings, and it was a film which refused to give simple explanations or offer any sort of conventional storytelling. I had to admire its imagination and how fully it ingratiated us in this near-future world, even if the amount of ideas covered can be a little much and ultimately some themes are disappointingly not explored as fully as others.

From what little I know about the current state of Brazilian politics and society, Divine Love reads as a scathing if subtle critique of the shift towards extreme right wing ideology and state interventions in everyday lives. In 2027 Brazil, society has become increasingly non-secular. Citizens are treated hierarchically – where married couples and pregnant women are prized above all others. Priests offer confessions at gaudily decorated drive-thru centres. Huge neon-drenched religious raves profess messages of God alongside the dance music.

We follow Joana, who works at the government offices dealing with citizen’s personal records. Her main duty is processing divorce requests, but frequently she uses her position to convince these couples to try to stay together, seeing it as her religious duty to fight for the longevity of every marriage. Often she invites these couples to an underground marriage therapy group called Divine Love, where a priestess leads group therapy and attendants perform unusual trust exercises and engage in ritualistic sexual acts.

But Joana’s faith is being tested. After many years together, she and her husband Danilo have still been unable to conceive a child. New age fertility treatments and Divine Love sessions can only help so much, and Joana finds herself increasingly distraught at what she figures as is punishment for her religious failings, despite her devotion and the large number of happy couples she has worked to keep together – seeing her desk job as fulfilling the Lord’s work.

The film is narrated prophetically and perhaps mockingly by a child, calmly setting the scene from an almost omnipotent standpoint. Divine Love tries to be both a parable of both a personal crisis of faith as well as speculative study of fundamentalist religion cohabiting with the state. Ultimately for me personally, the personal story was too allegorical to fully ingratiate me within Joana’s journey, with a story that prefers you ponder at arm’s length. But the overall setting of the story, the production design and vision of the future is remarkable and enthralling to watch.

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.

London Film Festival report 2018

Disappointingly this year I was away on a work trip for a week, missing almost the entirety of the London Film Festival. The only day I could make was the very last day, the Sunday. So that morning I scrolled through the ticket list online and quickly picked two films which looked entertaining and intriguing. As with previous years, even these two films were a pretty mixed bag. But after having seen 6 films in 2016, 4 in 2017 and 2 this year, I hope this downward trend won’t continue, and I hope I’ll get more chance to see more next year (and have more time to research the films!).

The Spy Gone North (2018, Yoon Jong-bin)

Despite how most movies choose to show it, spying in real life I can imagine is very often a lonely, tense, and tedious profession – one fuelled by both the thrill of the operation and a deep-rooted paranoia that could very well take you to the brink. What I admired about this film is that it is unafraid to show this side of the spying world.

Very much taking its inspiration from John Le Carré more than James Bond, The Spy Gone North is a handsomely made thriller, one which is unafraid to take its time, to fully immerse one in the often excruciatingly drawn-out and cumbersome processes involved in political spying. The film takes inspiration from the true story of Park Suk-Young, codenamed Black Venus, an ex-military intelligence officer who is recruited by the South Korean government to infiltrate North Korea posing as a businessman, in order to learn more about their burgeoning nuclear programme. The film begins in 1993 – he has already been recruited at this point, and is beginning the long, painful process of tearing down his old life in order to appear to all as an alcoholic dropout, working to rebuild his life as an ambitious salesman. We learn next to nothing of his personal life – his life over many years is dedicated exclusively to the mission. Even talk of a family back home reveals nothing; we never meet relatives, and he never expresses any desire to give up the mission.

Indeed, the first hour of the film shows in minute exacting detail the steps he and the South Korean government take to establish his backstory – creating a naïve bumbling but ambitious character willing to do anything to make money. He starts small, forging deals with low-level merchants, but with some complicated string-pulling by the government which involves creating an international dispute over the import of nuts, Black Venus begins to make a name for himself. It is quite a dry film, but it is never dull. Despite the length, director Yoon Jong-bin and the vast script creates a sense of pace and scale which builds a surprising degree of tension and builds big stakes. You can’t help but marvel at Black Venus’ skill and dedication, and the lengths he begins to reach within North Korea are truly dazzling to behold. That the film can continue to ground these leaps within a sense of reality (a trip to Pyongyang is magnificently filmed) is to its credit.

Reading the reviews, I think I personally found this film more engaging than some. It can be a little hard to keep up at times, and a little background knowledge in Korean politics, particularly South Korean elections, would have proven helpful. Once Black Venus becomes so deeply embedded, you begin to lose track of what his mission actually entails. But the construction of the script and the steady direction maintains that degree of tension and intrigue that keeps you sucked in.

 

The Prey (2018, Jimmy Henderson)

Looking back now, I really wish my second choice had been something other than this film. I’d gone in hoping for some deliciously pulpy thrills – watching the beautifully crafted exploitation shoot-em-up Let the Corpses Tan last festival gave me hope that I could find something similar this time. And well, The Prey wasn’t bad. Just painfully average and even dull at times, despite its slight running time.

The premise sounded juicy enough – a Chinese undercover cop investigating illegal gambling rings in Bangkok is arrested and thrown into a jail deep in the jungle run by a rogue warden (Vithaya Pansringarm, best known for playing the karaoke-loving vigilante detective in Only God Forgives) who offers wealthy visitors the chance to hunt his prisoners for sport in the surrounding wilderness. A gleefully basic and trashy story, cheap thrills, some martial arts and gunfighting action – what more could you need from a film like this?

It’s obvious that The Prey is made by someone with a deep love and understanding of the genre. The setup is ambitious, the fight scenes are wisely filmed generally in medium close-ups with not too much editing, the plot is thin. But frankly there’s nothing here that felt at all original or compellingly new. The lead character is sketched so thin it’s virtually impossible to care what happens to him. Honestly none of the characters are remotely engaging, even with the cheap tactic of throwing an innocent man and his mute child into the messy mix. None of the action scenes are easy to recall once the film has ended, which is probably the greatest crime this film commits.

The Prey surely has ambitions of meeting the quality of something like The Raid, but the sheer relentlessness and the awe-inspiring stuntwork of that film can’t help but outclass The Prey in every way. Throw in a completely boneheaded and unnecessary depiction of mental illness and you’ve got a film which disappoints from being simply uninspiring.

2017 in Review – My Top 20 Films

Well 2017 has been a mixed bag to say the least, both personally and in the wider world. It feels like upheaval, mistrust and discord were at an all time high this year, and hopeful attitudes were often overshadowed by more inflammatory news stories. But when it came to films, there was plenty to enjoy and this countdown is up there with 2015 for me as one of the most exciting list of films in recent years.

There was plenty I missed which I would love to get round to seeing soon. But overall, my pledge to go to the cinema/see a new release once a week was just about met. I’m not surprised to notice that many of the films that appealed most to me personally were warmer, more positive films, but that’s not to say more challenging films haven’t made an impact in my mind over the past few months.

If you’re really so interested in seeing a list of exactly every film I saw in 2017, you can check out my Letterboxd diary. All the films included here were released in the UK in 2017, and doesn’t include festival films without official UK release.

The ones I missed: Logan; Silence; Endless Poetry; T2 Trainspotting; Hidden Figures; A Cure for Wellness; It’s Only the End of the World; Ghost in the Shell; Graduation; Neruda; Clash; Mindhorn; Berlin Syndrome; Song to Song; War for the Planet of the Apes; David Lynch: The Art Life; The Big Sick; Hounds of Love; Patti Cake$; The Limehouse Golem; Wind River; The Villainess; On Body and Soul; Loving Vincent; The Party; Brawl in Cell Block 99; I Am Not a Witch; Thor: Ragnarok; Thelma; Paddington 2; Beach Rats; Happy End

Extra Mentions
Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow; USA)
Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve; USA)
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan; UK/USA/France/Netherlands)
Jackie (Pablo Larrain; USA/Chile/France)
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade; Germany/Austria)

 

20. The Red Turtle (Michaël Dudok de Wit; France/Belgium/Japan)

Studio Ghibli continue their incredible run with this profoundly mysterious and existential film, which without dialogue is able to ponder some of the deepest feelings of what it means to be alive, to full in love, and to distinguish between surviving and living. The tale of a man who washes up alone on a desert island and how his escape attempt is hampered by a giant red turtle, it’s incredibly beautiful to look at as you’d expect with Ghibli. The scope is impressive, attempting to convey an entire life’s story in 80 minutes. It’s the sudden gut punch of emotions that come towards the end that really leaves a lasting impression.

19. The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci; UK/France)

There were supremely high expectations for this following the great trailer, and thankfully it didn’t disappoint. My appreciation helped by my ongoing fascination with all things Russian (the centenary of the 1917 Revolutions last year provided ample exhibitions to go and see!), Iannucci’s sharp and consistent script did an excellent job of balancing the absurdist dialogue and setpieces with the more serious historical content. Finding sources of humour from true life stories of the extreme self-serving of the Soviet elites mixing with obsessive devotion to the state, yet without glossing over or making light of the numerous atrocities that occurred. A superbly game cast and lush production design help make this potentially stagey set-up feel genuinely cinematic.

18. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright; USA/UK)

Edgar Wright’s long-gestating passion project, a massive love letter to cinema and classic crime caper movies, is infectious in its unabashed adoration for the medium. The level of thought, love and care that went into so much of this film is staggering, from the perfectly choreographed car chase and action scenes, the interaction of the soundtrack with the performances, and wonderful scenes like the opening ‘Bellbottoms’ number and the coffee-run playing with music video-levels of spectacle. The underdevelopment of Lily James’s Debora was disappointing and the ending couldn’t match the relentless heights of the film in full flow, but few things this year matched the infectious exuberance and sheer levels of entertainment of Baby Driver.

17. Okja (Bong Joon-ho; South Korea/USA)

Probably the most ubiquitous and downright barmy film made this year; one that has you questioning how it even got made in the first place and made on such a scale and made as assuredly as it was. A film that despite its flaws you end up being very glad for its existence, and I was delighted I got to see it on a big screen where it is best appreciated. It’s a rather remarkable story of a young Korean girl travelling to America in search of her pet super-pig who has been reclaimed by the multinational corporation that bred it. Co-written with Jon Ronson, Bong Joon-ho’s script is frenetic, with many targets in its sight. From the meat industry, multinational corporate culture, down to self-absorption and ethical ‘causes’, it all moves at a pretty breakneck pace and only just about keeps on track, the tone often (and deliberately) veering about wildly. It’s a modern fairytale for adults, at once playful and disturbing. The chase scene through the Korean underground was probably the most exciting scene I’ve seen all year.

16. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan; USA)

Lonergan’s deeply theatrical script is one of the most potent studies of profound grief ever made and showcases his superb eye for finding drama and story that exists behind the everyday mundane lives of unremarkable small town citizens. Excellent performances breathe life into what could be a profoundly bleak story, but despite the showcase of sadness, this is still a story that retains hope in people being able to live full lives in the face of tragedy, and build strong relationships.

15. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins; USA)

I don’t feel I can do this film the level of justice that most critics have offered since it first made waves in 2016. An intimate poetic triptych, as much a personal odyssey of one man coming to terms with himself, as it is a portrait of poverty, addiction and deprivation in Miami. Tarell Alvin McCraney’s script feels deeply personal, and Jenkins’s direction artfully uses delicate camerawork, orchestral music and James Laxton’s lush cinematography to juxtapose the harshness of the surroundings (the school full of bullies, the run-down projects and crack houses) with something more beautiful – in effect, conveying Chiron/Black’s isolation from all around him. Perhaps reflecting the character’s own unease with his sexuality, the film does feel a little dispassionate when it comes to more sensual matters, but as a portrait of a man coming to terms with himself, it can be very special at times.

14. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach; USA)

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I’m a fan of Noah Baumbach, but this didn’t feel like it was really going to break new ground. And well, it didn’t really, with its story of an upper-middle class New York Jewish artistic family coming to terms with the unspoken tensions between them following their father’s illness. But the writing is sharp enough, and the characters engaging thanks to some career-best performances, especially by Adam Sandler(!), that this proves to be a genuinely witty and winning portrait of grown up children still weighted down by regret, insecurity and downright eccentricity. It’s still finds room for humour, from sharp insights about the New York art scene, to sillier moments of slapstick.

13. Heal the Living (Katell Quillévéré; France/Belgium)

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of this at the 2016 London Film Festival and was bowled over by this humane and special film about the human stories surrounding organ donations and the medics who perform this magical procedure. A second viewing this year retained much of the cinematic pleasures – it’s a beautifully shot, wonderfully performed film, taking an almost documentarian approach to the medical procedures but offering little moments of expressive characterisation that add an emotional soul to the film. In effect, some characters are sketched only with these little expressive details, but I feel this reflects the ceaseless and fleeting nature of the incredible work the medical staff do yet the immense support and care they offer. It also makes me realise that the central character of Heal the Living is the human heart itself, and its journey from death to rebirth and how it brings new life.

12. Mudbound (Dee Rees; USA)

Director and co-writer Dee Rees’ Mudbound is a vast and intimate portrait of the struggles of two American families, one black and one white, living on the same patch of Mississippi farmland in the 1940s. It’s bleak and rooted in tragedy, depicting the generational struggles in pursuit of the American Dream of self-sufficiency, but one in which deep-rooted bigotry, violence and indeed the very land itself crushes these dreams from within. Seemingly breaking the rules of Storytelling 101 by having multiple character voiceovers throughout, these actually grant the story a depth and fluidity which befits the epic scope of this multigenerational story. It has the novelistic feel of a Great American Novel, a little overblown at times, but absorbing, beautiful and moving.

11. Raw (Julia Ducournau; France/Belgium)

Stories of audience members fainting exaggerated the extremity of this film, but it is undeniably a relentless and gruesome horror, and a remarkable debut by director Julia Ducournau. Confidently shot, wildly inventive and deeply uncomfortable, Raw follows vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) as she moves to university to study veterinary science and is forced to eat meat during a hazing ritual. This awakens a long-dormant urge within her, with shocking consequences. Frequently breathtaking and fully exploiting the remarkable counterbalance of the medical setting with Justine’s own personal story, the equation of this developing cannibalistic cravings with her burgeoning sexuality works to a point, but it’s really the intense relationship between Justine and her sister that really drives this wonderfully nasty film which frankly had me gripping my skin.

10. It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults; USA)

A superb psychological horror film, brilliantly directed by the now 29 year old Shults with an incredible maturity, intelligence and keen sense of location, pacing and atmosphere. Situated within a cabin in the woods following an unknown infection, the real horror comes from the outside and unseen threats from beyond the barricaded walls. With some genuinely chilling nightmare scenes, and an almost New Hollywood 1970s cinema approach to ambiguity, I was so impressed with how immersive this film was. It may sell itself almost as a supernatural survival film, but it’s very much a human horror story.

9. Elle (Paul Verhoeven; France/Germany)

The long awaited return of Paul Verhoeven! And while he seemed to have made a move towards greater arthouse respectability with his shift from violent sci-fi to elegantly-shot upper class Paris, that doesn’t diminish the sheer audaciousness of this controversy-totting, surprisingly funny and seedily entertaining film. When Michele (Isabelle Hupert) is sexually assaulted in her home by a masked intruder, she decides to take matters into her own hands. It’s delightfully sly, offering a defiant stab at the notion that womanhood equals victimhood. That a film could dabble in rape, mass murder, and dare to equate Catholicism with sadomasochism, and get away with it, veering on just the right side of tastelessness, is pretty incredible.

8. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino; USA/Italy/Brazil/France)

What more is there to be said about this film that hasn’t already been discussed, debated, and pored over? Not much, and the immense adoration for this film perhaps raised my expectations to unrealistic heights. But there’s no denying the breathtakingly infectious power of this film, the palpable erotic energy and the charisma of the two leads, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer). In ways, Call Me by Your Name is pure fantasy – the almost ridiculously beautiful Italian villas in peak summer, everyone sunbathing and looking gorgeous, and love is in the air. But James Ivory’s wonderful script unearths those tiny details, those small gestures and turns of phrase, that turns this ode to first love and sensual pleasure into a heady and stirring thrill, and a universal delight. It resonated with me for days afterwards, and I can’t wait to see it again.

7. God’s Own Country (Francis Lee; UK)

Whilst Call Me by Your Name has deservedly dominated much of the critical praise for this year, I feel in a way this film, its British cousin, has been a little bit underserved. Not that it wasn’t well received, but when I consider these two films together, the similarities are palpable and it feels genuinely quite difficult to consider one better than the other when both take such unique approaches to similar stories. In many ways, this film is sexier and perhaps even more achingly romantic, the sheer bleakness of the setting for lead character Johnny (Josh O’Connor) making the sudden spark of attraction towards Romanian farmhand Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) imbuing the film with an overwhelming rush of warmth and possibility. A very British love story, rooted deeply within the director’s own adoration of the Yorkshire Dales, but it’s the sheer authenticity of the central couple, thanks to two remarkable performances, that really resonates. In which other film could the act of adding some cheese to a plate of spaghetti feel so wonderfully amorous?

6. Get Out (Jordan Peele; USA)

Jordan Peele has achieved something pretty remarkable with his feature debut. Delicately balancing Ira Levin-style domestic horror with a state-of-the-nation address on perceptions of race in middle class liberal America, as well as some deftly handled comedy, this is a superb thriller that intelligently unpacks thrills whilst being simply an entertaining blast that had audience members cheering at the screening I was in. Peele has certainly done his homework – his handling of the thriller elements has a classical feel to it, yet probably no film this year captured the zeitgeist of the mood in America, and its financial success speaks for its massive popularity.

5. 20^th Century Women (Mike Mills; USA)

I absolutely adore this film. Inspired by his own mother and the women of his early years, Mike Mills’s deeply personal, stylishly shot and instantly cool film about growing up in California in 1979 and the women who had a big impact on his life is fantastically idealistic, but supremely likeable. Helped by a witty, charming script and some fantastic characterisations by the excellent cast, this stood out as a warm-hearted story of a makeshift family, the complicated dynamics between a mother and a son who she feels is growing up and away from her, and about teenage self-discovery and indeed how discoveries of all kinds (cultural, sexual, personal) can offer new pleasures in life, even in adulthood. That it has a killer soundtrack to boot only ticks extra boxes for me.

4. My Life as a Courgette (Claude Barras; Switzerland/France)

Oh my, it’s hard to properly convey the wonders of this film beyond a teary-eyed squeal of joy. Clocking in at only just over an hour long, but packing more genuine affection, heart and soul than many films can fit in twice that length, Courgette is a children’s film that is unafraid to shy away from difficult subjects (neglect, death of parents) and does so with such a warm and delicate approach. Thanks to Celine Schama’s sensitive script and the playfully quirky animation, this potentially heartbreaking story is given a sense of wonder and hope, with buckets of charm. I dare anyone not to fall in love with it.

3. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook; South Korea)

The sheer achievement of this film is pretty staggering when I think about it. Cleverly adapted from Sarah Waters’s novel Fingersmith, transposing the setting from Victorian London to Japanese-occupied Korea, The Handmaiden shows director Park Chan-wook at the height of his powers. From the sumptuous production design, the distinctly fluid camerawork and some fantastically committed performances, everything about this film is top notch. At its heart is a masterful piece of storytelling, drawing from Waters’ evocation of Victorian gothic literature and turning it into a twisting erotic thriller which delights in pulling the rug from under the viewer’s feet, and draws you in with lush period details with a darker edge, and the promise of alluring mystery. I was lucky enough to see the extended two and a half hour Director’s cut, and it’ll be interesting to see the original cut too.

2. The Florida Project (Sean Baker; USA)

Sean Baker’s masterful follow-up to 2015’s Tangerine, itself one of the most exciting films I’ve seen in recent years, is an charming, colourful and heartbreaking humanist portrait of modern homelessness in Florida. Finding lyrical moments through shots of seemingly ordinary things, this is storytelling through showing, not telling, and this is perhaps The Florida Project’s greatest strength, as it switches seamlessly through showing the wondrous excitement of play and exploration from a child’s-eye view, to the bleaker picture for the grown-ups, hidden behind the colourfully tacky knock-off Disney castle facades. That it can be both an intoxicating picture of childhood let loose, and a scathing portrait of deprivation and poverty in one of the most developed nations in the world is remarkable. Sean Baker again proves himself one of the most distinctly talented directors around, making modern-day neo-realist films without losing a sense of heart or humour.

1. Good Time (The Safdie Brothers; USA)

A film unlike any other this year, one which dares you to believe in so much but can get away with proving and solving very little. It’s an intense ride, where conventions of storytelling are thrown out the window and trampled underfoot. Robert Pattinson is deeply impressive as Connie, a low-level thief who gets his dependent younger brother in jail after roping him into a bank robbery. What follows is a protracted, unpredictable and frequently shocking midnight odyssey, one where Connie’s desperate attempts to get money end up causing immense harm to everyone around him.

Reviews have pointed out how Pattinson’s performance is equivalent to the manic frenzy of Al Pacino’s turn in Dog Day Afternoon, and indeed his character is a near-hurricane of a man, twisting the paths of all the people near him into his frantic orbit, leaving a trail of destruction behind him. It’s a remarkable turn of events, often unbelievable but given added credence by the directors’ keen eye for detail and their immersive camerawork, throwing us right into the blistering story. They also submerge us within a fully realised New York, away from the tourist traps, drenched in neon and squalor and inhabited by desperate people barely able to get by. A pulsing electronic score by Oneohtrix Point Never adds a dreamlike heartbeat to the film, helping to make it a bewildering and intoxicating picture, one more experienced rather than simply viewed.

My favourite songs of 2017 part 2

Plenty of extra songs have come on to my radar since my last post in August, so I thought it was definitely worth sharing my love for them.

Bicep – Aura

I first heard the sweeping atmospheric synth waves of Aura late one night in my room and ended up listening to it over and over a couple of time in a row. Equally at home on the dancefloor or in headphones, this slow-build closing track on their debut EP is probably the most outwardly ‘classic’ house track on their album which takes cues from rave culture, garage and techno. It’s a vast euphoric track and their album has gone on to become one of my favourites this year.

Nick Hakim – Cuffed

Cuffed is a feverish and hypnotic track, steeped in yearning and aching for a past lover. It roots itself in his story when as a young man, he meets an adventurous woman who expands his sexual horizons and literally ensnares him in. Influenced by soul with a more psychedelic edge, the song breaks down in the final moments to a slow drum beat, his soft voice layered by subtle cymbals as the story drifts into a hazy memory.

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Deadly Valentine

One of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s savviest moves in her work as a musician is finding the collaborators who bring out the best of her. For this track, the standout on her grief-driven album Rest, it’s French producer SebastiAn, bringing French house disco beats and pulsing synths on top of sweeping string melodies. It’s a bombastic yet also mysterious song, with Gainsbourg’s subtle understated voice almost struggling to be heard over the music. It’s a dreamy and earnest song about the quiet overwhelming experience of marriage and eternal love.

Big Thief – Haley

Big Thief’s second album Capacity is an achingly sad record of painful memories and tragic family stories, but lead singer Adrianne Lenker’s gorgeous velvety voice and masterful storytelling help push this away from being an unbearable listen, and it comes will a feeling of hope. Haley is almost a standalone single, driven by crisp guitar melodies and sweeping optimism, despite detailing memories of a since-ended relationship. Like the album, it is rooted in a sense of welcome catharsis – she’s not bitter or upset, but glad of the time that she did have.

Lorde – Homemade Dynamite

2017 has undeniably been the year of our Lorde. Melodrama is critically adored, and lead single Green Light is featuring on practically every Best Of song list. Personally I love Homemade Dynamite, a brutally yet almost poetically honest song about the discoveries, pleasures and dissatisfaction of parties, friends and youth itself. Boasting a beast of a chorus, her voice and the accompanying synths both at once airy and punchy, it’s one of those tracks that just demands to be listened to over and over again. The remix with Khalid, Post Malone and SZA is a blast too.

Lambchop – The Hustle Unlimited

I have to admit I’ve never listened to Lambchop, and indeed don’t really know anything about them. Spotify recommended a track called The Hustle off their new album, which turned out to be an 18 minute compelling drone track, one that was quite sparse and almost eerie. But this is a beautifully lush alternative take, sweeping and cinematic, evoking an almost classical era of vast dances at ballrooms populated by beautifully dressed folks living their own heartbreaks and personal dramas. But the lounge music roots of this rack give it a more intimate scale.

Ezra Furman – Love You So Bad 

Ezra Furman returns! And it’s so good to have him back. Another one of my favourites returning with a change in sound – this time from bluesy 50s early guitar rock with do-wop saxophone, to something more dramatic and vastly original. The lyrics are achingly nostalgic, sweetly capturing that era of heady teenage self-discovery and romance. The strings that mark the backdrop of this coming-of-age novel give it a cinematic feel, with the sort of sweeping evocation that you can imagine will see it used in a beautiful montage scene in a teen movie.

Mac DeMarco – On The Level

This new sound from good ol’ Mac took a bit of readjusting to at first. Entirely ditching the jangly guitar and bedroom stoner vibe for something sunnier, hazier, altogether more American West Coast feeling. It’s unbelievably smooth and mellow, with barely any instrumental variation and warm synth chords played endlessly throughout, giving it an endless sunset-time-of-night kind of feel. But it’s also a little disconcerting, the repetition giving it an almost overbearing presence, and the lyrics offering a tale of disappointment and failing to live up to expectations.

Downtown Boys – Promissory Note

That voice! When I first heard Downtown Boys on the radio, I couldn’t get over singer Victoria Ruiz’s strained bellowed vocals. It took a few more listens to really appreciate the amazing combination of political punk, powering sax and Ruiz’s compelling lyrics, a literal ‘fuck you’ to those who refuse to accept the band for who they are. With a surprisingly danceable bassline and a big chorus, it makes this defiant confrontation to invasive patriarchy incredibly listenable. You feel her exasperation – that she feels like she has to bear all the world’s ills in favour of others, that she has to light herself on fire to keep them warm.

Sinkane – Telephone

Sinkane’s album Life and Livin’ It brought him to wider attention this year and was my introduction to his music. An infectious song actively designed to be danced to, it blurs classic old school disco with a more contemporary edge of afro-rock and electronica, and tells a story of a failing and difficult relationship despite the upbeat nature of it.  The blend of instrumentations and production works perfectly, and builds to a rousing big brass finale.

Fever Ray – To the Moon and Back

The long awaited return of Fever Ray! New album Plunge dropped in without fanfare in October, and this lead single gave a glimpse of what was to come. Her debut eponymous album is one of my top five albums ever – a haunting atmospheric record that literally drapes itself onto you. This is altogether closer to her work with The Knife, frenetic and colourful, bracingly so on first listen. It’s a provocative track, erotic and energetic, which is fearlessly unapologetic about Karin Dreijer expressing her sexuality and queerness, and the immense pleasure that brings for her. She’s more willing to expose herself here, ditching all the vocal effects and pitch-shifting that previously disguised her voice.

Beck – Up All Night

Beck is one of my all-time musical heroes so it’s always a pleasure to have him back, especially with the return of upbeat playful Beck. His new album Colors is his unashamed out-and-out pop record and with that he mostly succeeds. Lyrically it disappointingly lacks so much of the distinctive ramshackle poetry that made his earlier work unique. And at first, I wasn’t sure if this isn’t at all removed from the plain pop of something like Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling, which I’ve got to admit I find irritating. But each time I heard that goddamn soaring chorus, it slowly won me over. Beck’s here proving he can make pop songs like the best of them, and still retaining a lot of his inimitable style.

Extra Mentions – Pins – Serve the Rich; Boxed In – Pushing On; Noga Erez – Noisy; LCD Soundsystem – Tonite; Mary Epworth – Me Swimming; Arcade Fire – Put Your Money on Me; Tom Williams – Everyone Needs a Home; Beth Ditto – Fire; Moses Sumney – Lonely World; Joan as Police Woman – Warning Bell; Thundercat – Friend Zone; Childish Gambino – Redbone; St Vincent – New York; My Baby – Cosmic Radio; Floating Point – Ratio; Hannah Peel – All That Matters; Vessels – Mobilise; Ghostpoet – Freakshow; Elbow – Magnificent (She Says)

London Film Festival 2017 report

So I’ve survived in London long enough to make it to my second Film Festival and whilst the pressure of full time work during one of the busiest times of the year was exhausting, the draw of strange new films was too enticing. In the end I saw 4 films in about a week, which really didn’t help with my lack of sleep and general weariness, but I think it was definitely worth it. There were fewer knockout hits than I saw last year, but each of these films offered their own unique pleasures.

Rift (Erlingur Thoroddsen; Iceland; 2017)

The original title of my first viewing, an eerie, chilly and compelling film called Rökkur, roughly translates from Icelandic as ‘twilight’. But as the director joked at the Q&A afterwards, that name was already taken. I think that Rift is a much better title anyway, describing not only the underlying theme of the film about the distances that can grow between those in relationships, but also the vast landscape of caverns, plains and faultlines that play an important part of the story.

Several months after a break-up, Gunnar (Björn Stefánsson) receives a call in the middle of the night from ex-boyfriend Einar (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson), sounding distressed and paranoid. Worried, Gunnar drives up to the isolated cabin (the eponymous Rökkur) to check on him. Stuck together, the two are forced to confront the issues that drove them apart as painful memories resurface. All the while, strange things happen at night – mysterious banging on the door and ghostly presences in the lava fields around them.

I went in expecting a cryptic relationship drama, a literal ghosts of relationships past sort of film. And at its core it was. The depiction of the central relationship, from the younger and more unstable and romantic Einar to the more pragmatic but troubled Gunnar, is convincing and enthralling. The actors fully realise their characters and their chemistry and interactions feels genuine. Scenes of them simply talking, discussing their feelings, or reliving the past (at one point almost in a trance-like state) are among the film’s highlights and I feel they would have worked effectively on their own. And there’s no ignoring the harsh and wild beauty of the landscape around them and that too is used effectively, handsomely shot and making clever use of abandoned buildings interacting with the local geography.

It’s the tying of this story with the horror elements and much more beside that that complicates things. A lot of the tense moments are cliche, but effectively so. The shift in the second half to more outward horror territory is gripping, with one or two genuinely chilling moments which caught me off guard, particularly one scene involving GoPro camera footage. But the film tries to juggle too many strands at once and that causes it to lose focus and coherence. I imagine it was the director’s intention to make it unclear whether the threat is real or supernatural, to ramp up the uncanniness.  But multiple themes and subplots keep being brought to the fore, and it gets a little frustrating when the film can’t decide which way to head beyond splitting in multiple directions. I respect his ambition in trying to cover so much, from depression to homophobia, self-destructive behaviour to childhood trauma, and the uniquely magical properties of this distinct landscape. It’s a shame it gets a little lost in its tussle between the real and the unreal, the outward and the inward, to the point where I don’t think the director himself really felt he could disentangle himself from the mire of ambiguity. I think this had the potential to be a truly great film, it just falls a little short. But that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it a lot, and have to admit it was the most unnerving film I had seen at the cinema for a while.

 

Mutafukaz (Shoujirou Nishimi, Guillaume ‘Run’ Renard; France/Japan; 2017)

Now this one looked fun. A French-Japanese anime, rooted in hip-hop music, the freneticism of Luc Besson and Wachowskis action films, the broad and brazen cultural stereotyping and casual violence of the GTA games, and the dense appropriation of graphic novels and comic book lore. Adapted from a French comic book series, the sheer weight of counterculture references and midnight movie thrills make this feel like a future cult classic, even if it does feel like it’s trying quite too hard to be a future cult classic. But that’s no faulting what is essentially fanboy servicing – a gleefully bombastic checklist of cheap thrills, skillfully presented to be devoured with maximum stoner cravings.

We follow Angelino, a loser pizza delivery boy crashing in a cockroach-infested squat of an apartment with his best friend and fellow down-and-outer Vinz. The fact that Angelino has a giant round black head and Vinz is a flaming skeleton just plays into the loose logic of this film. They survive in the sprawling Californian metropolis Dark Meat City, here rendered with a staggering ragged beauty, full of shitty diners, sun-drenched decay and graffiti-drenched ghettos. After Angelino cracks his cranium in a bike accident he begins to see strange visions of demon shadows. He tries to brush it off as a result of the crash, until the bulky men in black appear with even bulkier guns, determined to take him down.

What follows is a pretty loose, nonsensical escape adventure. We find out more about the mystery men and their plots, and this is a source of some cute jokes about their plans to change the world. But that’s not what really matters in this film – it’s all about the ride, not the destination. Like the best animes, this has a fierce eye for action and the keen focus on little details in the animation make this a hell of a good ride.

I enjoyed this a great deal whilst watching the action scenes. The rest is pure teenage boy fan-fic fantasy, including the lone female character in the entire film being no more than a foil for Angelino to be drawn to. And after leaving the screen, it hardly left much of an imprint on my mind to dwell on afterwards. But the buzz of energy this film offered was more than worth the cost of the ticket

 

Let the Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani; Belgium/France; 2017)

And so came my second night in a row of Gallic pulpy thrills. The title alone gives a pretty good idea of what to expect – this is a bold, brash, confrontational film. It’s also a complete riot and a feast for the senses. This is the film that Free Fire wishes it was. Not that that film was bad, but Corpses has so much more impact, is so much more taut, and has more outlandish thrills and distinct setpieces. It’s very much a case of more is more.

Set in the harsh sun of the Mediterranean coast, an artist (Elina Löwensohn) lives in an isolated villa, inviting guests happy to be away from wider society. It just happens that her latest visitors are a gang of robbers, hiding a heist of gold bullion in their car boot. Two cops make the mistake of getting involved before a ridiculously complex shootout for survival bursts alight.

At first, the entire thing feels like it is just going to be a blatant spaghetti western pastiche, apeing Sergio Leone’s distinct style – hip-level framing of stand-offs between characters; an excessive use of extreme close-ups on eyes and hands; bursts of scuzzy colour; a sparseness of landscape that positively drips with sweat. One character even has a necklace that plays like a music box.
It’s once the action setpieces kick in that the husband and wife directing duo really hit their stride. Everything is designed to overwhelm – gunshots burst with the sound of small explosions, and the constant creasing sounds of leather jackets and gloves give this an almost fetishistic level of obsessive detail. Playfully animated camera movements give even simple conversations an ridiculous degree of animation.

Subtle it ain’t. I think your level of enjoyment with this film will depend on how patient you are willing to be with their excessive obsessions and the complete lack of anything resembling a plot or character development. It’s the directors gleefully fucking around with your sensibilities with their wonderfully crafted piece of exploitation. Sound and vision is central – the sheer level of rough sheen granted to shots of ashes billowing gracefully from a burning car, or the impact of the explosion of bloody matter from a skull tells you everything you need to know about where this film’s interests lie. I really enjoyed it – frankly just thinking about it now is making me want to see it again. I’m so glad I got to see it on a big screen.

 

Ex Libris – The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman; USA; 2017)

So what comes to mind when I tell you this is a 3 hour and 17 minute documentary about the New York Public Library? On first impressions, it seems like it could probably be one of the most dull and drawn-out things ever made. But this is the latest work from Frederick Wiseman, the living legend documentarian still going strong in his 80s. I’d been meaning to try one of his films for a long time, from his earlier work with High School and Hospital, to his recent films exploring institutions of learning, National Gallery and At Berkeley. I was lucky to get to see this at a busy screening the BFI with the man himself doing a Q&A after.

This film is peak definition of fly-on-the-wall doc. He said he and his cinematographer filmed over 150 hours over 12 weeks, and he spent nearly a year editing it down. There’s no overarching story or protagonist, no narration, no sense of mass upheaval or change. This is literally just some highlights and everyday footage of working life in the vast caverns and many buildings and spaces the library occupies across New York. We see kids classes; what members of the public are doing on their computers; talks with authors including discussions with Patti Smith and Elvis Costello; seminars about topics ranging from slavery to the history of Jewish delis; senior team meetings; afternoon concerts. The range of content is dizzying, and it gives a wonderfully vast portrait of how important an institution like this is, how much it offers to so many, and how much work goes into keeping it going.

At times dull, sometimes charmingly odd and funny, often inspirational, Ex Libris is very much a film one can get lost in. It’s a huge testament to how seamlessly it was edited together that it flows so smoothly, and that it can cut together an hour-long board meeting into a 5 minute clip that gives an immersive view on how they discuss the future of the library.

This is a film which celebrates a love of learning and curiosity, and simply portrays the unparalleled good such an institution can bring to so many. We see meetings to discuss the need to share resources more fairly with underprivileged communities; an engaging lecture about the importance of sign language; a scheme to grant poorer families their own wifi routers. It’s a heartening film, steeped so overwhelmingly with snippets of people working hard to help others, share knowledge and better themselves. I probably won’t need to see it again, but as a study of the wonderful everyday, it’s a fine piece of work.

 

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.