Another fractured, uneasy, but cinematically-rich (if you seek it) year gone by.
Here are my Top 10 films of 2024 and notables.
10.
Begins with a bit of a schematic, pat feel, Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan's family drama eventually settles into an incredibly moving finale, anchored by an authentic powerful turn from Keith Kupferer.
9.
INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL
Vietnamese director Thien An Pham’s debut feature is an absolutely mesmerizing journey.
From my Film-Forward review:
Although the pace and hazy storyline requires a patient viewer, Pham’s direction, and the hypnotic camerawork by Dinh Duy Hung, sometimes borders on the sublime. In an elongated take, through an open window, an older gentleman (Mr. Luu) recalls his experiences in war as the camera closes in so slowly that it’s almost imperceptible. Luu is a local non-actor, known in his community for his storytelling. That Pham crystalizes Luu’s stories in seemingly one take is a testament to Pham’s sensitivity and care as a director.
8.
An inharmonious cousins' (well-played by Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) sojourn to Poland makes for a low-key, disarmingly affecting portrait. Catharsis doesn't come easy.
7.
James Norton is terrific as an ailing window cleaner taking care of his young son in this Ireland-set drama. Excellent, naturalistic child performance from Daniel Lamont. The film quietly sneaks up on you.
6.
This Iranian family drama is a powerhouse effort filmed under extraordinary circumstances by Writer / Director Mohammad Rasoulof.
From my Film-Forward capsule review:
When a gun goes missing, the story takes on the tone of a breakneck thriller in its twisty final act, deepening its themes of paranoia and distrust. At first, Rasoulof’s shift to another genre with its melodramatic swings may feel abrupt. Yet, because we’ve come to know this family so well, the conclusion becomes incredibly involving. The film culminates in a tense, almost operatic sequence of chaos—and perhaps a family’s rebirth.
5.
Very few films this year felt as vividly alive as this one did. Playful performances, exquisitely crafted and edited, with a riveting techno score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
From my Film-Forward review:
Faist, who emanated theater kid energy in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, is given a more down-to-earth role and is completely convincing. With his rumpled, disheveled handsomeness, O’Connor, who delivers another terrific turn in this year’s La Chimera, seems at ease at infusing Patrick with wily unpredictability. This trinity of the cool Hollywood star, the theater kid, and the versatile indie actor lends itself to a powerful collaboration of differing styles and tensions among the trio. Their sweat-drenched physicality of racket-thwacking tennis playing is rigorously believable. Like so much here, it often made me wonder how things were done. It’s quite astonishing.
4.
I felt so fortunate to discover this luminous Laos and Zanzibar-set movie as part of the Museum of the Moving Image's First Look Festival. Its sensory details, strangeness and vividness stuck with me throughout the year.
From my Film-Forward review:
...the film takes on a roughly 15-minute interlude that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen (and/or also not seen, as before it commences, an on-screen title instructs viewers to close their eyes).
Shot on 16mm Kodak film, the cinematography by Mauro Herce and Jessica Sarah Rinland is gorgeous. A scene of a small group of saffron-clad monks standing in the turquoise waters of the Kuang Si falls is simply breathtaking. But Patiño’s film feels more than an array of pretty snapshots. There’s a serenity, spirituality, and inventiveness in the piece that is exciting to behold.
3.
In this sobering documentary, a bond emerges between filmmakers and activists Israeli Yuval Abraham and Palestinian Basel Adra as Palestinian lives, homes, schools, infrastructure are continuously attacked and destroyed along the West Bank by the Israeli military. Rachel Szor's on-the-ground photography is impactful.
From my Film-Forward capsule review:
The film, shot between 2019 and October 2023, feels like a lightning bolt amid the current landscape of Israel’s war on Gaza. It cannot hope to capture the full scope of that crisis or the vast history of conflict. Instead, it focuses intently on a few individuals, including a woman living in a cave-like space as she cares for her son, who was shot by the military. The documentary’s strong points of view form a powerful political picture, one that has the potential to change and deepen perspectives.
2.
A complicated, monumental achievement of editing, acting, and ingenious camerawork (by Jomo Fray).
From my review:
In its search of developing a unique cinematic language through its adaptation of a novel (the tight POVs almost feel like the act of reading a book), and in its mesmerizing and tactile invocation of and resistance to memory, Nickel Boys flourishes. Ross's direction is bold, continuously surprising and resonant. Much credit should be given to Jomo Fray, the cinematographer who also lensed the striking All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt...
The dynamic undertaking in Nickel Boys is otherworldly to me. I can't quite wrap my head around how he and Ross (and editor Nicholas Monsour) were able to pull and shape this all together so seamlessly, while keeping the narrative focused. Because of what ultimately happens to its two lead characters, in many ways, I can't think of another way this novel could have been adapted.
1.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives one of the most arresting screen performances I've ever seen. Period. It's broad, but also stinging, specific in its minutiae. Mike Leigh's staid, unfussy direction (with the late Dick Pope's clear-eyed cinematography: a fitting, elegiac close to an illustrious career) perhaps highlights Jean-Baptiste's work even more, and the contrast between her character's family with her sister's (a wonderfully warm and present Michele Austin). Looking forward to returning to this world again.
The best of the rest... other notable films of 2024 (in approximate order of preference):
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Look Into My Eyes, MaXXXine, All We Imagine as Light, A Complete Unknown, Wicked, I'm Still Here, Emilia Pérez, Anora, Thelma, High Tide, His Three Daughters, The Substance, A Different Man, Queer, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Pictures of Ghosts, The Brutalist, Janet Planet, Nightbitch, Evil Does Not Exist, Music by John Williams, A Traveler’s Needs, Longlegs, Big Boys, Here (Bas Devos, director), Sing Sing, Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes, A New Kind of Wilderness, Conclave, September 5, Babygirl, Vermiglio, I Saw the TV Glow, How to Have Sex, Onlookers, Sasquatch Sunset, Dahomey, The Monk and the Gun, The Room Next Door, Merchant Ivory, Sebastian, Sujo, Late Night with the Devil, Love Lies Bleeding, Blink Twice, Will & Harper, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Maria, Flow
A look back at my 2023 list, where All of Us Strangers was #1.
-Jeffery Berg
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