Films (2018)

Time for my yearly film review.

This year felt transformative in a significant way, both on a personal level and in my approach to film watching. As it progressed, I realized that I was distancing myself more and more from the actual cinema-going activity, which - as often expressed in these reviews - keeps turning into a less than ideal experience, to say the least. Films premiere sometimes late, if at all (more on this later), people have long forgotten how to behave in a cinema (or cinemas themselves encourage such behaviour), and if you happen to have at least near-ideal conditions to watch them in the silence and comfort of your home, it is indeed a far more respectful and rewarding experience than sitting in popcorn-and-mobile-phone-infested rooms.

The approach to film making (and financing, particularly) has also been shifting profoundly. The advent of streaming platforms - like Netflix and Amazon - turned into film studios, has provided a lifeline to the development of original ideas, at an age when traditional studios shy away from anything that doesn’t guarantee hefty returns - hence the ubiquitousness of superhero films, remakes and endless sequels - and anything that deviates from these formulas is deemed to be either too intelligent or too complicated for the common spectator (case in point: Annihilation).

“Annihilation” - Alex Garland (Ex-Machina)’s ambitious and mind-expanding sci-fi horror film, which adapts Jeff VanderMeer’s unique and surreal novel - is one of my picks of the year and one amidst several examples of films that were, we could say, salvaged from oblivion by streaming platforms, but saw their theatrical release significantly compromised or negated. There’s therefore a duality inherent to this state of affairs, which, whilst allowing some of the most original ideas to see the light of day, is also causing such works to be (unfairly) ignored in film festivals and preventing most people from enjoying them in their appropriate context - a cinema room.

The year began (in Portugal) with the remains of last year’s Oscar season, as usual. But some of those were, in fact, amongst the most interesting things I’ve watched for the greater part of the year (at least until the present autumn/winter season began). Two years ago, “The Lobster” brought Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ wild imagination and absurdism to mainstream’s attention, and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” proves, once again, that he is one of the most fascinating directors working today. Luca Guadagnino’s sensual and intimate coming-of-age drama “Call Me by Your Name” was an instant classic. Paul Thomas Anderson’s period drama “Phantom Thread” was exquisite, intoxicating, and an absolutely magnificent piece of cinematic art (and a fitting farewell to Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting career). “Loveless” was another masterful commentary on modern life in Russia by director Andrey Zvyagintsev (after 2014’s anti-corruption “Leviathan”), this time dealing with the tragic events of a child’s disappearance amidst a relationship decayed into a state of bitterness and hostility. “Faces Places” joined French director/photographer Agnès Varda and street artist/photographer JR in an unusual documentary that plays as a road-movie, as they travel around rural France, creating portraits of the people they come across, which invariably result in extraordinarily moving moments. Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” was a gut-punch of a film, a beautifully rendered portrait of a bleak reality, and an astounding acting work by all participants (namely the child actors). Lastly, “The Insult”, Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri’s drama, painted a gripping and thought-provoking picture of Middle Eastern politics, using a familiar courtroom framework.

The interim part of the year brought us Wes Anderson’s latest - the brilliant “Isle of Dogs” (not recommended to cat lovers) - and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s 2015 (remember what I said about late premieres?) magnificent “Happy Hour” - a tour de force (317 minutes in length) that captures the complexity of day-to-day life in Japan, intimately connected to its unique social structures, and portrays the private life, a political world, and a way of living, in which ideas and feelings are dominated by the force of law and the weight of tradition, as four women struggle to establish an identity and their own destinies in the face of these social forces. Those two aside, it was also punctuated, here and there, by quite a few interesting and above average films. Amongst those, a few deserve a special mention: “Insyriated”, a nerve-wracking portrayal of life in Damascus amidst the Syrian conflicts; “A Quiet Place” and “Hereditary”, for tackling the horror genre in refreshing and mostly successful ways; and “Happy End”, because… well, Haneke.

With Autumn came the first of several masterpieces that finally brought the cinematic year to a new level: Damien Chazelle’s “First Man”, a beautiful tribute to mankind's ingenuity, to those who died in the pursuit of a dream that's bigger than us, fragile human beings, and to those that survived to tell the tale and whose lives were forever transformed - and oft-times wrecked in profound ways. “The Endless”, directed, produced by and starring Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (and a partial sequel to their 2012 “Resolution”), took a wildly bizarre story to the level of sci-fi horror masterpiece. “Suspiria” - Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic - was actually more of a reinterpretation of the original, a visual and aural delight with a strong (and timely) feminine tone (and cast); whilst admittedly not for everyone, it belongs to a rare breed of films that one hardly comes across nowadays. Hirokazu Koreeda’s “Shoplifters” was (like “The Florida Project” earlier in the year) a punch in the gut, and a masterful portrayal of a domestic drama involving a family that relies on shoplifting to cope with a life of poverty; with incredible performances and a very naturalistic approach to storytelling, it is entirely deserving of the praise it got.

The year ended (for me) in a particularly special way, when I had the opportunity to watch “Roma”, Alfonso Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical take on his upbringing in Mexico City. In complete command of his visual craft, Cuarón tells the most powerful and personal story of his career, leaving us entranced for each of its 135 minutes. Beautifully shot in black and white, and wonderfully acted by first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio, this is the kind of film that stays engraved in one’s mind.

The accolades for biggest disappointments of the year go to: “The Shape of Water”, the new entry in a long list of undeserved Oscars; “Mute”, a poor Blade Runner wannabe from the same director of the brilliant “Moon”; and “Ready Player One”, a clear misfire from Spielberg, who also brought us the barely average “The Post” earlier in the year.

All in all, it was a pretty great cinematic 2018.

Here’s my full list of watched films from this year:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) *****

Lover for a Day / L'amant d'un jour (Philippe Garrel) ***

Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin) ****

Darkest Hour (Joe Wright) ***

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) ****

Mudbound (Dee Rees) ****

Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) *****

The Post (Steven Spielberg) ***

Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson) *****

The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro) **

Loveless / Nelyubov (Andrey Zvyagintsev) *****

Faces Places / Visages villages (JR, Agnès Varda) *****

The Florida Project (Sean Baker) *****

Mute (Duncan Jones) **

Thoroughbreds (Cory Finley) ****

Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) ***

The Insult / Qadiat raqm 23 (Ziad Doueiri) *****

Annihilation (Alex Garland) *****

Tempting Devils / Que le diable nous emporte (Jean-Claude Brisseau) *

The Captain / Der Hauptmann (Robert Schwentke) ****

Unsane (Steven Soderbergh) ***

Custody / Jusqu'à la garde (Xavier Legrand) ****

Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg) **

The Wailing / Gok-seong (Hong-jin Na) ****

Manifesto (Julian Rosefeldt) ***

The Place (Paolo Genovese) ****

Insyriated (Philippe Van Leeuw) ****

Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson) *****

A Quiet Place (John Krasinski) ****

Frantz (François Ozon) ****

The Carer (János Edelényi) **

Human Flow (Weiwei Ai) ****

You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay) ****

Submergence (Wim Wenders) ****

Workshop / L’atelier (Laurent Cantet) ***

The Guardians / Les gardiennes (Xavier Beauvois) ***

Tully (Jason Reitman) ****

Radiance / Hikari (Naomi Kawase) ****

Hereditary (Ari Aster) ****

Western (Valeska Grisebach) ****

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (Gus Van Sant) ****

First Reformed (Paul Schrader) ****

Happy Hour / Happî awâ (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi) *****

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie) ***

Ana, mon amour (Cãlin Peter Netzer) ****

Milla (Valérie Massadian) **

Happy End (Michael Haneke) ****

BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee) ***

The Children Act (Richard Eyre) ***

Thelma (Joachim Trier) ****

First Man (Damien Chazelle) *****

The Endless (Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead) *****

Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino) *****

A Private War (Matthew Heineman) ****

Shoplifters / Manbiki kazoku (Hirokazu Koreeda) *****

Burning (Chang-dong Lee) ****

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) ***

Roma (Alfonso Cuarón) *****