I’m
thinking that if I seem to enjoy almost all of what I saw in some way it’s because
I want to, and generally speaking I avoid going to the cinema to things that I predict
won’t do much for me. Which is why you won’t find ‘Venom’ in my roundup of superhero films. Nor will you find ‘Mama Mia: here we go again’, although,
from all reports, it’s an exemplary example of its kind.
Stories
from this year? Well, I was more indifferent to more FrightFest films than
usual – the past few years have been very strong selections – and went to the
Halloween all-dayer for the first time. Chris Collier’s documentary ‘FrightFest:
The dark heart of cinema’ was a great overview of the festival so far
and recommended for newbies and die hards alike.
I
also experienced a new audience annoyance that was equal to the nearby crunching
of popcorn: the guy next to me farted seemingly every five minutes throughout the
second half of a film. Very distracting.
I
was in a queue where the guy next to me said, “‘Sorry to bother you’,” and the
cashier said, “Yes how can I help?” and then realised that he was asking for
the film.
At risk of starting with the negative - and I'll be brief -Films
that didn’t quite convince me included ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ and ‘The Shape of Water’, ‘Suspiria’
and ‘Overlord’.
The first three certainly featured on several “Year’s Best” lists, and all were
obviously fine examples of what they were trying to do, but all had just that
thing that niggled me, that wouldn’t let me just commit.
‘The Shape of Water’… well, look here. Much
beloved but a little too enamoured with itself for me to overlook its flaws.
But
with these others, a second watch was in order to truly clarify my
reservations.
Martin
McDonaugh’s ‘Three Billboards Outside
Ebbing, Missouri’ because it had a lot of great moments but, as a whole, it
seemed to be humanising and outlining the motivation for a couple of selfish
would-be vigilantes without much balance; I didn’t quite trust it.
Wandering
about FrightFest 2018, I overheard many people being quite buzzed about Luca
Guadagnino’s ‘Suspiria’ remake, as
was I as I loved ‘Call Me By Your Name’.
But ‘Suspiria’ seemed oddly flat in
some way and I knew only a second viewing would allow to unpack what I fully
felt.
Julius
Avery’s ‘Overlord’ had such an
impressive opening that it was a little disappointing to feel the film sliding
into more conventional genre territory: I found myself hung up on minor internal
logic (they’re shooting up the house and don’t attract attention… and weren’t
the Nazis just outside? Didn’t anyone miss their superior? – that kind of thing)
and nit-picking when, had my expectations not been raised, I wouldn’t have
bothered and just gone along with the silliness. But that happens often with
horror.
And
Steven Soderberg’s ‘Unsane’ was another that had a strong build-up and then descended
into disappointing genre tropes.
It’s
been a bumper year for Super-heroes. Many will hate the genre for eating up
everything else, for its appeal to juvenilia, and there’s so much to that: the blockbustering
genre has contributed to the demise of mid-budget productions financed by studios
(and that’s where NetFlix comes in). However, the super-hero genre also made
big strides in leading the representation of women and people of colour in the mainstream:
you can give a gold star sticker to Patty Jenkins’ ‘Wonder Woman’ for trying
but all the awards to Ryan Coogler’s ‘Black Panther’ for showing how this
is done. And also ‘Black Panther’s
appeal to utopian visions was practically subversive in an era where you can’t
turn a corner without stumbling into a dystopian franchise.
‘Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse’ by Persichetti, Ramsey and
Rothman proved delirious fun, freed from the shackles of live action and
capturing the freewheeling comic book aesthetic in a way that even the Russo brothers’
‘TheAvengers: Infinity War’ could not. But ‘Infinity War’ was surprisingly spry and deft and handling all its characters
and multiple tones and proved miles better than expected.
Peyton
Reed’s ‘Ant Man and the Wasp’ succeeded as an alternative to the !EPIC!
insistence of many of the super-hero offerings. It was a minor entry
comparatively, but it was funny and the visual jokes with size changes proved
to be a mine of gags and surprises, even more than the original.
And,
of course, Brad Bird’s ‘Incredibles 2’ proved just as slick
and joyous and fun as its predecessor and proved a thorough delight and kept
alive my wish that there had been a series of these (without diminishing
quality, of course).
But
the real unsung hero of the genre had to be Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida
Michail’s ‘Teen Titans GO! to the movies’, which gleefully embraced with
love and satire the silliness of the genre. This was no surprise to any fan of
the TV series (which I am), but the fact that this successfully carried over to
feature length was not a given. Also, the moment where they go back in time to
make sure the tragedy and trauma of superhero origins were intact was surely as
dark as they come and not the only WTF?
moment that the script was happy to speed through.
Compared
to something big-budget and conventional like Steven S. DeKnight’s ‘Pacific
Rim Uprising’ the deftness of the scripts of these blockbuster projects
were robust and entertaining for a genre widely dismissed as kids’ stuff. Yes,
they’re fully based in “The Chosen One” tired trope, but they were certainly
more morally investigative and socially positive than something like the
superhero shenanigans of vigilante flicks like ‘The Equalizer’. When vigilante films are supposedly “adult”
entertainment but act just like superhero films with the narrowest of social
viewpoints, they are far more dishonest and problematic, usually with limited
insight.
Revenge
is always in vogue and no less this year, although there were several pleasing quirks.
Leigh Whennell’s ‘Upgrade’, for example, was a mash-up of ideas familiar from ‘Westworld’, ‘The Terminator’, ‘Ex Machina’ and ‘Black Mirror’ as well as any guy-avenging-his-murdered-wife scenario.
It turned out to be perhaps the best thing Whennell has conceived since the original
‘Saw’ concept. It gleefully played
with the idea of a man enhanced to be an unbeatable fighting machine through
futuristic technology but kept its twists and interrogation of the idea going
right to the end.
A
most curious revenge flick was Lynne Ramsey’s ‘You Were Never Really Here’
with Joaquin Phoenix’s shambling killer maybe going to seed, but no less
lethal. It’s leaning into soulful abstraction meant that its revenge rampage
was almost besides the point as, despite its action, it was more a character collage
and mood piece. The killing was often at one remove, seen through security
cameras, or segueing into oddity by having two hitmen holding hands and singing
as one died. I’ve seen the plot described as along the lines of #pizzagate and the
criticism that those that suffer from PTSD tend to avoid violence rather than
become hitmen, but it was pulp and pulp stories given an art aesthetic makeover
seemed to be a trend.
For
example, Panos Cosmatos’ ‘Mandy’, was an over-familiar revenge
rampage as the basis for a trippy exploitation visual feast. But where ‘You Were never Really Here’ offered
something more abstract and stream-of-conscious, ‘Mandy’ was fuelled by homage and a more deliberately crowd-pleasing
intent, making it an instantaneous cult favourite and entertaining but, for all
its stunning visuals and mood, ultimately quite shallow. But yes, when the visuals
deliberately resembled the covers of bargain bin paperback covers and VHS
covers, it was a delight for genre fans.
Even
Coralie ‘Revenge’ had a slick and
vibrant visual allure and a grand slippery showdown even if it couldn’t quite
overcome its basic problem of… well, it’s the kind of thing where Robin of YouTube’s
“Dark Corners” pops up when reviewing with “But – she’d be dead!”
Which
leads us onto horror, which did very well for its reputation this year. Ari
Aster’s ‘Hereditary’ appeared on many “best of 2018”, which was fine
and good because it was a work that, initially, pushed hard. Certainly, it
moved into fine art, not just genre entertainment and was a startling calling
card. However, the good stuff was so good and pulled at something fresh that it
was a shame to find it descend into a bunch of basic horror tropes with an
unnecessary voiceover of explication. But then it didn’t squander the goodwill
of its build-up as much as NetFlix’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’.
Damien
Rugna’s ‘Terrified’ was more upfront in that all it presented was a
bunch of scary set-pieces that was bound to unsettle. Sure, there were people –
paranormal investigators mumble mumble
– but they weren’t the point so didn’t get bogged down in weak characterisation
like ‘Insidious’.
But
if you were looking for character-based horror, ‘Summer of 84’ was a great little bildungsroman that
took a ‘Famous Five’ or ‘Hardy Boys’ sort of scenario and took
it to a logical and unexpectedly upsetting conclusion.
John
Krasinki’s ‘A Quiet Place’ was that other popular horror of the year as it
sure was fun. It didn’t hold up to scrutiny but that didn’t seem to matter:
normally those little lapses on logic and plausibility that niggle me can
make-or-break a film my opinion (ref. ‘Overlord’,
a film where internal logic shouldn’t really be an issue, but…), but ‘A Quiet Place’ didn’t seem to care and just
got on with a its high concept and a series of scary set pieces – and in that
way, it was more like ‘Terrified’ and
that’s all to the good.
Brian
Taylor’s ‘Mom and Dad’ offered up horror as a more on-the-cuff romp,
dangerously setting up the queasy premise that somethingsomething is making parents kill their kids. Lots of tongue-in-cheek
black humour – the “how did he get your gun?” and ‘Taxi Driver’ homage moment being a highlight – it takes a poke at
that tiresome perpetual man-child trope and ended just before it truly needs to answer the ramifications of what it’s proposing. But I did see it on a “Year’s
Worst” list. And it had Nicolas Cage doing his schtick, which as well as ‘Mandy’ and his voicing both Superman (‘Teen Titans GO! To the movies’) and
Spider-man Noir (‘Spider-man: Into the
Spider-verse’) makes him somewhat a man of the genre year, surely.
Gidden
Ko’s ‘mon mon mon Monsters’ was a riot and oddly disturbing in a way
that only Asian school stories with added monsters can be. It asks that age-old
question: who are the real monsters? It’s amusing and horrifying and Ko keeps
the tone slippery with plenty of gusto and empathy that spreads to monsters of
all kinds.
Buried
on the opposite side of the street, Matthew Holness’ ‘Possum’ served up the
low-budget claustrophobia horror of a particularly English creepiness and a devotion
to unpleasantness. Definitely the stuff of nightmares and unequivocally moreso
than standard genre offers like ‘Mara’, being more in the tradition
of ‘Eraserhead’. ‘Possum’s puppet alone was bound to worm
its way into unsettled sleep.
As
Holness was known for the parodic ‘Garth
Marenghi’s Dark Places’, perhaps his film was expected to be more Amicus
than ‘Eraserhead’, but there was
Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s ‘Ghost Stories’ to fill that hole.
Perhaps I wasn’t so convinced by its internal logic, but then that was never so
central to Amicus and other omnibus horror anthologies. ‘Ghost Stories’ had several vivid performances and a handle on
English miserabilism that kept it grounded and memorable. It also served up
some decent chills. Perhaps the claustrophobia and limitations of the original
Nyman and Dyson stage play of the same name made it more remarkable, but there
was plenty in this film adaptation to please genre fans.
Oh,
and David Gordon Green’s ‘Halloween’ was fine too. Not oblivious
to glaring flaws, but more entertaining than expected this far into the franchise.
Well, it’s that a sequel but also "rebooting" and all that.
Sergio Gutiérrez
Sánchez’s ‘The Secret of Marrowbone’
proved entertaining enough but ultimately more pedestrian than it might have
wanted.
Lenny Abrahamson’s
‘The Little Stranger’ was a
better “Haunted House” tale; not that it was a ghost story, but a drama with – perhaps
– a ghost. Its cruelty was revealed by a slow icy drip down the spine as the
full picture of what things meant came into view. Truly unsettling in its
depiction of what people, in the long-term, can do to each other. It also
possessed a fantastic performance by Ruth Wilson.
Horror
tinged dramas seemed also to be a thing.
A
little magic realism can go a long way and the red bloodline that in pursuit of
our young protagonist around throughout Issa López’s ‘Tigers are not Afraid’ was such a simple but vivid summary
of the threat of violence and death that follows Mexican street kids. If perhaps
I had some quibbles with its denouement, it was nevertheless moving and
troubling and it was easy to see and feel why it has been a breakout cult hit. Also,
Issa López was a charming Q&A guest at FrightFest.
Continuing
with horror-inflected magic realism: ‘A Sicilian Ghost Story’ by Fabio
Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza leaned on the abstract, on visual collage and
allusion, but it wasn’t quite the supernatural thriller the title might have
promised. This too proved to be “based on a true story” and therefore ended up
as a thriller as a kind of tone poem eulogy with horror twinges. Nothing else
this year quite haunted me in the same way and it seemed to be the missing link
between ‘Lean on Pete’, ‘Sicario’ and ‘Possum’.
“Custody has been lauded by some for its
harrowing tension, but whatever suspense the film achieves comes at the expense of its characters, who are quickly
reduced to shallow stock types (monstrous father, victimized wife, scared kid).
Legrand isn’t really interested in the tangled web of emotions that characterize
abusive relationships anyway—everything is just window dressing for the film’s
depressingly predictable and sleazily enthusiastic descent into violence.”
But
that, to me, is exactly the point, that these situations reduce people to these
archetypes; that everyday dramas can and do
escalate and descend into horror set-pieces. That’s where the horror genre comes
from. We hear these stories all the time and they headline daily. I have no
problem with high drama appropriating horror tropes to get its point across. Well,
more than that: I am a horror fan so I like it. A “sleazily enthusiastic
descent into violence” happens all the time, not just in films.
Talking
of violence, ‘The Night Comes for Us’ was one that certainly me noticeably
cringe a lot. This made me conclude that ‘The
Raid’ had an almost joyful quality in its excess that imitators can’t quite
capture. The drama in ‘The Night Comes for
Us’ is perfunctory and the combat doesn’t have that exuberant quality, but the
fight scenes were inventive, choreographed and shot well, long and very, very painful.
One
of the best dance sequences ever filmed, long takes and a descent into hell that
didn’t go into tired Horror excesses but stayed all-to plausible: I saw Gasper Noé’s ‘Climax’ twice this year and was so glad that I saw it at
FrightFest first on the huge IMAX screen with the sound system to match (at
home, I recommend headphones, unless you can turn it up load enough to bring
neighbours to your door). I was thoroughly immersed and hooked both times and
went with the arty provocateur affectations
(mixing up the credits, meme intertitles, etc.). I was an immediate fan as soon
as they started to vogue and shake their stuff.
But
to more straightforward drama:
‘Lean
on Pete’ was
a delight, the kind of softly spoken but spikey-edged bildungsroman that always
appeals to me. Not quite the boy-and-his-horse film that you are perhaps
expecting, but a tale of a youth determinedly making his way on his own terms.
Hirokuza
Kore-eda’s ‘The Third Murder’ had its obvious symbolism – look, they’re
both reflected in the glass (which is admittedly a great shot)! But leaving his
protagonist stranded at a crossroads is worthy of a far lesser talent – but few
directors can capture that sense that great themes and moral dilemmas have
crept up on you. That this is a courtroom drama means that the themes and
dilemmas are more obvious compared to his usual family dramas, but it still manages
to draw uncertainty from assumptions of what seems straightforward. Kore-eda’s
deceptively easy-going style proves a great way of interrogating the thriller
form. A full-course chiller.
But
he wasn’t done yet: ‘Shoplifters’ was prime Kore-eda, detailing the makeshift and
sontaneous but genuine family unit made by a group of petty criminals. Kore-eda
is a master of this, like Ozu (who he is always compared to), the surface
lightness of tone that doesn’t let you feel the weight of the themes gathering
until one or two things are said and revelations are made, and then you realise
it has a secure emotional hold on you. In some senses, it has enough motifs
that look like a horror film as much as ‘Custody’
although that’s not the defining element.
And
for further genuine horror stories, surely Andrey Zvyagintsev’s ‘Loveless’
qualifies as a portrait of an emotionally and empathically stunted culture. It
was bleak and searing criticism.
‘Roma’ proved an instantaneous favourite with a classical yet contemporary essence.
What made it more winning than, say, Terence Malick’s poetic want is that Cuarón was just as
interested in everyday people as formal design. Alfonso Cuarón chose dazzlingly crisp and dazzling
black-and-white cinematography and long takes for this love letter to a housemaid.
The camera mostly forgoes close-ups to pan around the house until it becomes as
familiar as the family within as that family slightly cracks up and remodels
itself. Even so, it’s the maid’s film (Yalitza Aparicio) even as the camera pans
to embrace bigger pollical events. It starts with using the reflection in water
to compose a shot and never lets up with its formal grace and easy humanity
from then on. Again, at this time NetFlix is proving fertile ground for funding
such projects and apparently giving the artists fairly free-reign, which is
resulting in a lot of the more interesting and the best stuff out there right now.
I
have a friend that thinks Paul Schrader’s ‘First Reformed’ is just regurgitating his ‘Taxi
Driver’ plot to lesser effect. But imposing this plot and these obsessions on
a disturbed priest this time was, for me, just like using the same three chords
to make another great song. It has proven a high-ranker on many “Best of 2018” lists.
Paul
Thomas’ ‘Phantom Thread’ was agreeably deliberate and restrained where Greta
Gerwig’s ‘Lady Bird’ was deceptively loose-limbed and heart-on-sleeve.
Both were prime examples of their style of drama.
But
it was Pavel Pawlikowski’s ‘Cold War’ that captured the spirit
of classic cinema effortlessly. The crisp black-and-white photography helped as
the on/off love story skipped over decades and the political travails across
Europe. With Joanna Kulig effortlessly beguiling, it was a delicious romantic
period drama.
Sebastian
Lelio’s ‘Fantastic Woman’ further explored alternative sexualities at a
time where this subject is coming forward as central and winning subject matter
for higher-profile film, rather than being relegated to the marginal or cult. It
was sympathetic and strong-willed and mostly avoided the hectoring and
sentimentality that can mar the message.
Jason
Reitman’s ‘Tully’ was a slightly unconventional pregnancy tale, written
by Diablo Cody and featuring quietly powerhouse performances from Charlize
Theron and Mackenzie Davis. Not only did it offer a wealth of sympathy for
mothers-to-be, but also the differences between what we were and what we turned
out to be.
More
stories from and for the women: ‘Leave No Trace’ was a wonderful
denial and heartbreaker of living in the mainstream for a girl coming-of-age and
choosing her own future. ‘Apostasy’ also proved a decent
insight into Jehovah’s Witnesses, who also choose to live aside from mainstream
culture, and especially into the usual toll that religion takes on women. And
there was Dara Zhuk’s ‘Crystal Swan’ a tale of a young
woman DJ trying to get out of 1990s Balerus: scruffy and funny, nearly destabilised
by a turn for the dark, but ultimately winning. (At the London Film Festival Q&A
afterwards, the film’s popular comedy relief Yuriy Borisov was asked how he got
into character: “I took all the drugs,” he answered.)
Michael
Pearce’s ‘Beast’ was an audacious debut featuring all-round excellent
performances, but Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn were exceptional. Where it transcended
its basis of “is he or isn’t he?” mystery was in focusing more on Moll’s
(Buckley) coming to terms with her more difficult and troubled side and her passive
aggressive family. So where the mystery may have been obvious, her reactions
were less so. A consistent air of menace and not dwelling or explicating on any
one moment meant this never paused from being consistently disquieting.
Craig
Gillespie’s ‘I, Tonya’ confronted the fallibilities of filming “true stories”
by being a little meta in a similar fashion to ‘The Big Short’. There were accusations that it did a disservice to
the victim, but this wasn’t that story. As lead actor and producer, this surely
came across as a Margot Robbie passion project and she dutifully excelled. It
was one of those films whose breezy and colourful tone didn’t quite cover up
the wealth of abuse, horror and delusion that underpinned the story.
Regarding
“true stories”: Tim Wardles’ ‘Three Identical Strangers’ is
another film that fell foul of Slantmagazines’ “Film Follies of 2018”, accusing its thriller-like
structure of twists as a disservice to the emotional lives of its subjects. It’s
a documentary about how three men discovered they were triplets and… Well, if
you don’t know the story, the twists come as a series of revelations and shocks
that only serve to deepen the emotional ramifications and scope of the initial
novelty. You are unlikely to come away unmoved.
“We
miss Emily Blunt,” was a typical reaction to Stefano Sollima’s ‘Sicario:
Day of the Soldado”, the sequel to Denis Villeneuve film: I don’t know,
but Emily Blunt was the most obvious part of ‘Sicario’, being its emblem of relative innocence. Without her, ‘Day of the Soldado’ was unmoored from a
moral watermargin and more in line with the murk and disgust of Sollima’s other
work (‘Gomorrah’, ‘A.C.A.B’, etc.). Now,
stay with me here: this year I attended a screening of ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ with a Terence Davies Q&A at the
BFI and he told the story of how one day his mother had had enough of the abuse
and jumped out of the window, “babes in arms” he said, but she was caught by a
randomly passing soldier; he said this incident wasn’t in the film because,
true as it was, “no one would believe it!” ‘Day
of the Soldado’ has a moment like that, speaking to
truth-is-crazier-than-fiction but stretching credulity in a film. Like ‘A Quiet Place’, I found myself going “well
okay” and going along with it because the rest was working so well. No, it didn’t
dazzle like Villeneuve’s film but it was a fine solid thriller.
And
talking of truth-is-crazier-than-fiction: Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKKKlansman’ was a
blazing example of what Lee does best: beneath the deceptively bright and breezy,
colourful and funny surface lay a film that was furious and frightening. It
effortlessly drew a line from the Seventies and the Klan’s and David Duke’s long-term
plans to colour mainstream politics with race war agendas to the current Trump
administration and resent newsreels. But not before Lee leaves his protagonists
drifting down a corridor ready to fight like they were in a Blackploitation
film. At his best, no one does streetwise dark-and-colourful like Lee.
Carlos
López Estrada’s ‘Blindspotting’,
also exploring the black experience, was not quite the predictable tale of a guy-trying-to-put-his-life-right-but-sabotaged-by-his-volatile-friend
framed by the trailer, but rather more nuanced and less unpredictable. It Funny
and heartfelt, it’s air of people trying to prove themselves in a constant
state of possible confrontation and defeat felt palpable and real.
But
for domestic dramas, it was hard to match the unsettling defeatism that
ultimately haunts Yann Demage’s ‘White Boy Rick’. So much else tends
towards positivism. Based on the story of the FBI’s youngest informer, it’s a
tale that only adds to the wealth of fiction that those in authority will use
and abuse the poor and struggling. The haunted and guilty looks given by the
FBI agents (Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory Cochrane) even as they obviously know
they are leaving Rick out to dry speaks volumes, even that they too are trapped
in roles to play out. A solid thriller with great performances from Matthew
McConaughey and Richie Merrit, its Seventies-esque look and slightly washed out
colours were a plus and harked back to a golden era of American cinema.
Steve
McQueen’s ‘Widows’ showed how contemporary concerns of gender, class and
race could easily be integrated into a well-known thriller plot. This is effortlessly
achieved in the widely celebrated panning shot in a car from the privileged
white man holding forth on social ills to the silent black chauffeur. Indeed,
it showed up how limited and perfunctory in vision many thrillers are to these
concerns.
After
being a slightly surreal bright-and-breezy tale of a telemarketer trying to
better himself, Boots Riley’s ‘Sorry to Bother You’ ultimately turned
into something more akin to Michel Gondry (although Mark Kermode suggests ‘Society’) to make its attack on capitalism
and race/class relations. It won by embracing the bizarre to direct its polemic
and by always being funny.
Ken
Loach’s ‘Peterloo’ showed how straightforward period drama could be
just as politically furious and relevant to contemporary politics as anything
post-modern, flashy, magic realist or bizarre.
Yet
for satire, Armando Ianucci’s ‘The Death of Stalin’ balanced the
funny with the bone-chilling with deceptive ease. Again, it was based on a Graphic
Novel and showing that that artform is providing a litany of ripe material for
adaptation. Ianucci’s career as an absurdist, humourist, satirist and political
commentator surely found its peak and a natural home here. Any parallels on current
politics were purely inevitable.
Animation
proved some of the year’s best treats, not only with the hi-speed delights of ‘Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse’ and
the family-friendly ‘Incredibles 2’,
but also with the pensive and revealing stories of something like Nora Twomey’s
‘The
Breadwinner’. Such films helped to bring to the screen the diversity of
graphic novels out there, of which this was a adaptation of Deborah Ellis’ book.
And again, attention on a female story brought through new depths and social
insights.
I
was totally smitten with Wes Anderson’s ‘Isle of Dogs’ in an instant. From
the start where the design and construction was so overwhelmingly in its detail
I could hardly absorb it all - and then by the taiko drums credits I was had
thoroughly fallen for it. Like the best stop-motion, each shot proved a wealth
of artistry and composition that this produced a reaction of sheer delight. Of
course, rigorous composition is Anderson’s forte, but blended with the indie sensibility
and dry wit this proved an absolute joy, one that absorbed accusations of
cultural stereotyping and appropriation without hobbling it.
And
if we were talking family entertainment, ‘Paddington 2’ was a popular winner.
What impressed most was its commitment to benevolence: rarely has the gentle
quality of preteen fiction been captured so well. If Paddington was also a
surrogate for a young audience, the fact that he is always engaged in slapstick
without being foolish is surely a true sign of respect and empathy for that audience.
What happens to him is funny but Paddington himself is never denigrated to the
laughable. And you can feel the cast having so much fun, especially Hugh Grant
gleefully wearing multiple disguises and chewing scenery.
A note
on NetFlix films, other than ‘Roma’.
Jeremy
Saulnier remains one of the most intriguing commentators on violence: all his previous
films provide violence with an almost downbeat and melancholic eye (as opposed
to S. Craig Zahler who delves headfirst into the horrific excess). His latest,
NetFlix’s ‘Hold the Dark’, remained intriguing with a compelling central
shoot-out that left his style of conveying violent outbursts deliberately and
realistically; but it lacked a final note that defined its agenda.
Alex
Garland’s ‘Annihilation’ was not quite as bulletproof as ‘Ex Machina’ (no Hazmat suits? Monsters
that didn’t quite follow their own rules when the plot demanded it) but it was
a solid and memorable slice of science-fiction that agreeably centred on ideas
rather than CGI razzle-dazzle which is surely why it scored high in several “Best
of” lists.
‘Cargo’ by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke
benefitted immensely from having Martin Freeman as its protagonist: he’s not
the usual guy you would think to lead a zombie tale. The accent upon humanity
and family dynamics and attention to aboriginal culture rather than sensation
made this an undead scenario with enough emotional resonance to make it stand
out.
The
Coen brothers ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ is a portmanteau western that skips
across several tones, from the distinctive Coen mixture of brutality and
frivolity of the title story to the claustrophobic carriage-bound talky final instalment.
We also get near-silent tales of capitalism and ruthlessness about a limbless
orator and Tom Waits mumbling through gold digging. It’s beautifully shot,
always intriguing and precisely considered and has that Coen brothers sense
that it really doesn’t care if you get the point.
Gareth
Evans’ ‘Apostle’ is a guy-on-an-island-with-an-unhinged-cult film. He’s
infiltrated them to save his kidnapped sister and the influences are obvious, listed by Evans himself – ‘The Witchfinder
General’, ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘The
Devils’. It’s fun genre stuff, taking in cults and nature gods, but it’s
overlong and a little baggy: a little pruning surely would have made it more of
a direct hit. But it does include an unforgettable and nasty torture device.
Andy
Serkis’ ‘Mowgli: legend of the Jungle’ surely would have seen a more surprisingly
truthful and radical interpretation of Kipling’s characters if it didn’t follow
2016’s ‘The Jungle Book’ which
already introduced a harsher, darker edge. Nevertheless, this is a fine version,
centring on Mowgli’s conflict of identity. In the end, Mowgli instigates a lot
of death by proxy and the argument seems to be for reactionary violence when no
choice is left. It’s a shame that Mowgli is then left more a joyless “Chosen
One”, as if the transition to adulthood is defined by trauma and establishing
top dog status; he heroically stares out across an apparently now predator-free
jungle as apparently befits a legendary leader as his animal family looks on in
awe of his now more monarchical status.
Plenty
of good and exemplary stuff, both mainstream and otherwise. Of course, there
were plenty of films that I should have seen – ‘They will not grow old’ and ‘Burning’
(is that out yet?), ‘Eight Grade’,
etc. etc., but I’ll catch up.
And here are some of my favourite moments from this year's films.
And as
a footnote, here’s Barack Obama’s “Best Of” film list, which seems to hit all
the right notes and is a good guide to what’s winning all the accolades.
Ciao, amigos.
