Cinema and my cinema-going friends have pulled me through. I’ve enjoyed sitting in the dark with you immensely. There’s been a lot to process and many films to process it through. 189 first release films on the big screen. 189 reviews. I’ve always promised a degree of disarray and this year I feel I’ve delivered in spades. I apologise for the increasing esotericism of my writing and for my increasing brevity. It’s a coping mechanism. I hope I still get my point across.
And I’ve had a few points this year. The importance of hope and the necessity to nurture creation have featured high. So has the need to celebrate love. None of this should be a surprise in our light-starved times. Art is going to have to take on a more political aspect as we face down the darkness ahead of us.
I think that is already being reflected in the films that have pressed my buttons this year.
If I can talk briefly about films that were a surprise (and probably due to my fragile state of mind), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 had me in tears (!!!). So did Lion, which just missed out on the list below. I don’t recall tears but there were some dambuster emotions at the climactic absurdity of Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann. In any other year that too would be featuring higher on my list.
Calling out performances for the year, I may not have completely gotten on board with Verhoeven’s Elle but I definitely fell for Isabelle Huppert’s jarring star turn. Sonia Braga in Aquarius floored me. So did James Rolleston’s meta-performance in The Rehearsal, both Saroos in Lion (Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar) and Rachel Griffiths and her co-star Barry Keoghan in Mammal.
Anyway, here's the list. Click through to get the full write up.
And you can check out previous years here:
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