1. Caught by the Tides - Jia
Jia Zhangke's films over the years have been steadily rising in my year end top list - Touch of Sin (#16, 2013) Mountains May Depart (#7, 2016), Ash is Purist White (#2, 2018). But honestly, everything he's been putting out, since the early 90s', has been solid. As the master chronicler of China's changing times, Jia keeps up with Caught by the Tides, again, starring his collaborator/wife, Zhao Tao, taking the lead in a silent role. And it hit my nerve fully and completely this time. The film charts from 2001 to the pandemic era China. Culling from unused footage from his own films of the last 22 years, Jia, as always, inventively looks back and forward to tell the characters swept up by the times and tides of life.2. La Chimera - Rohrwacher
As usual, Alice Rohrwacher's fable like story is filled to the brim with the colorful rural characters as they scheme, sing and dance around. Arthur finds some sort of redemption after Italia's objection that what he is doing is robbing the souls of the dead people: he is digging the trinkets out of tombs where they are not meant for the eyes of the living. La Chimera is a charming film full of hearts and human warmth. 3. The Human Surge 3 - Williams
Eduardo Williams, with his minimalist/maximalist free-flowing aesthetics, with acute observations of the world here and now, with a great deal of sense of humor and compassion & tenderness toward its subjects, emerges as one of the most daring, important filmmakers working today.4. Grand Tour - Gomes
Grand Tour exists on its own floating cinematic biosphere outside spatio-temporal continuum where past and present intermingle, in the context of first-world colonialism and the old-world sexism. It's another delicious concoction from Gomes.
5. All We Imagine as Light - Kapadia
Fluidly switching from documenting what it's like living in bustling Mumbai to the melodrama of these three women with their emotional and economical insecurities, All We Imagine as Light comments on many social and political issues in India. The early voice-over suggests that at least one of the family members in each household from the country leaves home to go to work in Mumbai. Anu wears burqa to have a secret rendez-vous with Shiaz in his predominantly Muslim neighborhood, which is an indicative of Modi's right wing Hindu government making it harder to reconcile between Hindu and Muslim relationship. Parvaty attends worker's rights meeting at night and Prabha and Parvaty clandestinely throw stones at the billboard advertising near Parvaty's house, that reads, "Class is privilege reserved for privileged." Kapadia's tapestry of sensorial storytelling and sociopolitical commentary of Mumbai is on the level of Jia Zhangke's observations on changing Shanxi province he frequently depicts in his films.
6. Cerrar los ojos/Close Your Eyes - Erice
More than anything, Close Your Eyes is a tribute to cinema- the strange power of it that mesmerizes and enraptures us. Erice understands the iconic power of image. He understands time passing and its melancholy as well. Sad king indeed.
7. A Traveler's Needs - Hong
A Traveler's Needs has much in common with Wim Wenders's Perfect Days. These protagonists are people of very limited means and ambitions. They just float around living life as truthfully as they can. Never looking backwards but always forward. There's some sort of universality here - Wenders directing in Japan seeing the world through the eyes of Koji Yakusho and Hong directing and seeing the world through Huppert's eyes. Gentle, living by the moment, enjoying the surroundings - nature, sleeping, drinking, small human interactions.
8. The Shrouds - Cronenberg
As always, Cronenberg meshes both our skepticisms and fascinations about the advancement of technology into a great, thought provoking film without ever succumbing to sentimentality. Added layer in The Shroud is self-reflexivity in grief (Cronenberg lost his wife in 2017 and with Vincent Cassel with his silvery spikey hair, closely resembling the director). There's plenty of humor in The Shrouds, but the grasping at the loss of a loved one and the hard act of letting go of the earthly, bodily attachment rings true.
9. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat - Grimonprez
During the Cold War, the US and Europe were seeing the world in dichotomy, quick to accuse voicing injustice as a communist activity. And how it became the prevalent mantra of the public even now. Boppers knew. Malcolm X knew. People protesting the European’s and CIA's roles in Lumumba's death in Harlem knew. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a tremendous film.
10. Afternoons of Solitude - Serra
Serra's aim is capturing the purity: the purity of the ritual, the purity of the filmmakers who haven't had any prior experience with bullfighting, the purity of worship, the purity of self-assurance. It's a hard to sit through experience but another worthy effort from one of the most adventurous filmmakers of our time.
11. Samsara - Patiño
There are two parts, er, three parts to the film: first part takes place in Laos, the second part, we are supposed to close our eyes for 15 minutes, then third part in Zanzibar. His gamble pays off. I'd love to experience this film on a big screen with other people and perhaps fall asleep and not feel ashamed to do so. It's that kind of film.
12. Here - Devos
There's a little magic about the film. The mysterious seedlings that glow, the sound of nearby train running replaced by rustling of the trees and unseen birds, the well timed rain showers, etc. The little romance between the two charcters are so understated and happens literally off the frame, yet so sublimely lovely. Remember, making soup for somebody is the most romantic thing to do.
13. I Saw the TV Glow - Schoenbrun
You hoped that there was life beyond the suffocating High School years; you have aspirations and ambitions, to be somebody. But as you grow older, you find life under capitalism is just as suffocating, as if you are being buried alive. This is the feeling Schoenbrun captures so well with I Saw the TV Glow.
14. Inside Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023) - Pham
The present melds with past and reality blurs with dreams, Inside Yellow Cocoon Shell presents the waking dream that is fleeting human life. The last third of this languid 3-hour film is Thien looking for his brother in the neighboring village. His motor bike breaks down and Thien has to take shelter in a snack stop. There he engages with an old woman who asks him why he had forsaken his soul and proceeds to tell him her near death experience. Is Thien really looking for his brother? Or is he in a spiritual journey to find himself? With the backdrop of colorful Vietnam and its western and eastern influences and its tumultuous history, young director Pham paints a very arresting picture of one man's journey to find himself and leaves room for us to contemplate and embrace life's mysteries. 15. Dahomey - Diop
Dahomey is a spiritual heir to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker's 1953 essay film, Statues Also Die (1953) about how colonialism affected the way African Art is perceived and also Abderramane Sissako's Bamako (2006) in terms of self-determination and awakening of African consciousness through debates in the globalized world. It's a hopeful avant-documentary that needs to be seen widely.
16. Oddity - Mc Carthy
Horror genre is having a good year with many successful releases. Some of them are very good. But I find most of them overhyped and not at all scary. Irish director Damian Mc Carthy, whose sleeper hit debut Caveat (2020), a 'haunted house' genre, was in my opinion, both original and scary horror film in an ominous remote island setting. He comes up with perhaps the scariest film of the year. There are many truly terrifying moments in Oddity. The sense of unease Mc Carthy creates has no equal. It's his effective filmmaking - unnerving framing, sense of claustrophobia and timing that really pays off. His playing with the expectations of the audiences provide many spine tingling moments.
17. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - Miller
Come to think of it, Max and Demetus are just the flip side of the coin. He carries a teddy bear chained on his front, as a reminder for his wife and child who died, just like Max's. Even though they are from similar origins, Max bowed to avoid the human race and lead a solitary scavenger existence, Demetus became an all-out tyrant, relishing in chaos with joie de vivre attitude. It's the fleeting joys of destruction and cruelty he is after. And why not? Furiosa doesn't know it yet, but as we witnessed in the previous film, the Green Zone is gone. We know that she has to deal with the political bullshit of controlling and governing over marauding citizens of citadel. Who wants to deal with that?
But I hope Miller keeps making these. It's loads of fun.
18. Monster - Kore-eda
What seemingly starts out as a rashomon style abuse accusation in a school drama, Kore-eda's new film Monster is actually about something completely different. It's a massively poignant lovestory and an indictment of the bigotted society where people assume the worst in each other. As is the case with Kore-eda films, he gets the most outstanding performances out of young actors. Both Kurokawa and Hiiragi shine in their demanding roles emoting in their uncertain stares and silences.
19. C'est pas moi - Carax
Carax is not a visual essayist commenting and reflecting on the state of the chaotic world we live in - maybe only a little bit but not in Godard's sense. The film is all about him. And it's beautiful and glorious. It builds up to a stormy solo piano session of the theme from The Young Girls of Rochefort, played by his daughter, Nastya - perfectly capturing the essence of Carax's career, his sentimentality, his art and beauty haunted by the ghosts of the past (including but not limited to departed: Golubeva, Guillaume Depardieu, Escoffier, Godard). C’est pas moi is the best cinematic self-portrait of an artist you can wish for.
20. Shadows of Fire - Tsukamoto
The first half plays out like a tight chamber piece, taking in one small room with a nameless young war widow (Shuri), surviving by selling/trading her body for goods in a firebombed building, a PTSD suffering young soldier who clings to her for a good night sleep and a young street urchin whom she pours out her maternal instinct to. The second half tells another guilt stricken returning soldier trying to find the redemption with the help of the boy. Stark, and unflinching and masterfully directed and top notch acting from everyone involved.
