15. 20th Century Women
The relationship between teenagers and their parents has en masse been characterized by friction, misunderstanding and tension in both films and real life, probably ever since James Dean rebelled without a cause. With this in mind, Annette’s Bening’s open quest to penetrate the wall of her teenage son’s alienation in 20th Century Women was a refreshing new approach. Her free spirited, open-minded and experimental mother figure was depicted as reaching out to understand the younger generation’s interests and passions from the inside, passing on the benefit of her life experience. A droll sense of wit and wistful reflections on life were two of the many charms of Bening’s delightful character.
Scenes in which she smokes pot and tries to work out the appeal of punk music, captured the film’s world-weary philosophical essence. Set in California in the 1970s, the film had a languid, laid-back charm, capturing the feel of the late seventies quite authentically. The film depicted an America on the brink of sweeping changes in which community and togetherness were soon to be replaced by the Regan-era age of materialism. The film had an appealing sense of nostalgia for this more organic period, in which people had time to figure out who they were before being thrust into a life of empty consumerism. In the film’s most interesting scene, characters are seen watching Jimmy Carter address the socio-political transformation of America that will begin in the coming decade; elsewhere, Bening’s voiceover ruminates on the impact the media and technology will have on her son and his generation’s futures. The scenes reflect the film’s thoughtful, contemplative and candid wit. The characters are rich and deeply observed; you get the sense you would rather hang out and understand them rather than see them engaged in difficult drama. 20th Century Women features one of the most interesting mother/teenager relationships seen on screen. Struggling to understand your teenager? Watch 20th Century Women and you’ll be inspired by a new approach to parenting.
14. A Ghost Story
Wearing a bed sheet as a ghost costume is an idea so hackneyed that you would be ridiculed for trying it at a Halloween party. It was rather strange then to see a film in which the central character is confined to such an appearance for nearly the entire duration of the film. What was even more surprising is that this seemingly most cliched of ideas took on a new lease of well, life as this artfully directed, existential film put an entirely different perspective on what it may mean to be a ghost.
Tonally, the film brought the utmost integrity to the most novel of ideas. There wasn’t a single minute in the film where the idea of Casey Affleck in a bed sheet felt silly. In fact, when he arose off his deathbed and strode down corridors in a hospital, the film gave him a gravitas that was quite remarkable considering his most passe of appearances. It turned out that enough time has passed on the oldest horror look that it is again interesting.
For all the many films featuring ghosts, there are very few that reflect on the experience from the deceased’s perspective. Films usually focus on the living’s fears of apparitions stuck between worlds. Curiously, there are very few ghost stories that focus on the emotional turmoil that may arise if you realized you were dead and then awoke in the exact same reality that everyone assumes you have completely departed from. Casey Affleck’s character was faced with this grave situation. Via the extended takes of Affleck’s ghost passively watching his partner mourn for him and adjust to life without his presence, something remarkable began to happen: the film managed to make the viewer see the world through those two dark holes in the sheet. The slow pace of the film arose from a character who has nothing left that he can do but forlornly drift around a space, quietly examining life going on without him. The less Affleck conveyed with body movement, the more poignant and thought-provoking the film became. It was a simple but really inspired idea, given depth by the extra dimensions of the film, that hit Kubrickian and Terence Mallick levels of reflection on life, death, the universe and the relationship between time and space. Would a ghost really be able to exert a force on the material word? What reason would there be for a ghost to exist without an ability to contact anyone? Would a ghost have any ability to transcend boundaries of time and space that the living do not? This was an exceptionally contemplative film, which ruminated on the concept of existential loneliness in the afterlife. Deep, dark, curious and though-provoking. Arguably one of the most insightful and profound films about what it would mean to be a apparition. Meditative, mournful, moody and suitably haunting.
13. Okja
This beautifully told story of a South Korean girl rescuing her prized pet pig-like creature was a story so movingly told that it had even the most hardy of meat-lovers pondering the merits of vegetarianism.
There was a Spielberg-ian sense of enchantment to the young girl’s quest to save her beloved companion from the horrors of the inhumane meat industry. Her horror became our horror as she learned that her lovingly-reared family pet was designed for the dinner plate.
The David and Goliath battle that ensued between this highly principled little girl and an all-powerful corporation was deeply involving. If there was a character on a more noble quest than hers in a film this year, then I didn’t see it.
The Netflix-produced film showed an anti-establishment statement of intent with a film that boldly satirized the duplicity of corporate marketing, the hollow fake-ness of PR and the industrialized murder mechanisms of the meat industry. Left-wing animal crusaders also came in for some derisive treatment to balance out the film. Okja was an original, biting and inventively told story that won the hearts and minds of many this year.
12. Manchester By the Sea
In this melancholy character-study, we were presented with a man who was hopelessly withdrawn, introverted, and closed off to the world. We were given the impression that something had happened to him to render him this socially adrift. The film quietly observed his behavior, allowing us to examine the meaning of his social awkwardness and the silent rage that seemed to be welling up beneath his surface.
The story was told in a powerfully affecting non-chronological order. As we were given time to spend in the company of Casey Affleck’s difficult character, we got to ponder his personality. As the film progresses and we eventually saw what exactly happened to render him so broken, the film delivered an absolutely gut-wrenching and hauntingly harrowing sequence that was totally beyond the realms of prediction and therefore knocked the stuffing out of even the most hardened of film-watchers.
This blow was delivered about midway through the film and it created a canny shift. In the second part of the film, we realized we had been watching the actions of a man entirely broken down by trauma. We realized that this man was in a sort of social and emotional prison and his behaviour and inability to close the distance between him and the people he was formerly close to was then entirely understandable.
Casting Casey Affleck in this role was an inspired choice. He never really exudes a movie star-like charisma and instead always seems to have an intensity on-screen. He frequently comes across as an actor not entirely comfortable in his own skin or in the limelight. Just look at his uncomfortably awkward Oscar acceptance speech for further evidence of this. As a result, you can see he knew how to provide the intensity to this character required. It’s a great performance, but partly because the actor clearly has a well of social anxiety that he can tap into to deliver the believable performance he gives in Manchester By The Sea.
The film was deeply poignant, probably one of the most naturally emotive films released in 2017. It perfectly captured how trauma and tragedy can have an effect on one’s personality that one may never recover from.
11. My Life as a Zucchini
It was quite remarkable what this French/Belgian stop-motion animation managed to do in its impressively lean sixty-six minute running time. Animation is proving its ability as a medium to tell stories that live-action would be too impractical to depict, but this delicately realized little film took that even further with a touching, life-affirming and oddly realistic story of orphaned children struggling to put the pieces of their broken psyches together and figure out their place in the world.
The film tackled unsavory and disquieting issues effecting childhood such as abuse, neglect, psychological torment and abandonment. With such themes integral to the story, you might think this would be a dour and depressing experience. On the contrary, it was a film full of wit, warmth and tenderness. It struck the right balance between melancholy and mirth. This honest and brave approach to depicting a side of childhood seemingly too unsettling for entertainment, gave the film considerable scope for capturing tough realities for children with troubled childhoods. Taboos were delicately handled and cliches of orphanages as nightmarish places were turned upside down. The bruised characters got richer and more textured as the film progressed, so much so that you completely forgot they were made out of clay.
The depth of feeling the little figures managed to convey was really quite amazing. As were the film’s candid and subtle observations about trauma being the catalyst for psychological dysfunction and behavioral issues. Ultimately, the film’s often comedic reflections on the importance of friendship between those without family made it a moving and strangely uplifting film. It is hard to recall a film to mind with a more daringly candid take on childhood.
10. Free Fire
British director Ben Wheatley has been quietly building himself a resume of strange alternative films that are shocking and edgy. Usually his films leave their audience feeling a sense of disquiet and unease. Free Fire was a complete change of pace for the director as it was a crowd-pleasing riot. Wheatley is renowned for his twisted direction, but in Free Fire, the violence level was taken to such chaotic extremes that the film took on a consistently laugh-out-loud comic absurdity. It’s perhaps ironic that his most all out violent film yet was also his most accessible. The director wrung a lot of nervous tension and twisted humour out of it’s most simple of high-concept setups. The whole plot could be summed up in one sentence. A group of IRA operatives look to buy some semi-automatic weapons off some shady arms dealers in a Boston warehouse – things don’t go according to plan.
One-location film setups often have an advantage over stories that unfold over multiple locations. They can feel intense and pressurized as there are no cutaways to relieve the heavy atmosphere. This was certainly the case with Free Fire. Since this story was set almost entirely in a warehouse, and featured characters uneasy in each others company nervously trading a crate load of weapons, the potential for tension to build was there and it was efficiently exploited by Wheatley. The screen practically crackled with tension, with a sense of volatility in the air that you could practically smell.
It was just waiting for someone to light the blue touch paper by saying the wrong thing and when that happened, the film exploded into life in some of the most finely directed action set-pieces of the year. The violence was refreshingly un-slick and messy with a majestically madcap energy that made it unpredictable.
Free Fire was like a Tarantino film directed with the spirit of the violence in a Looney Tunes cartoon. As a result it was the finest black comedy of 2017.
9. The Lost City of Z
There have been lots of films in which explorers enter jungles and end up either exploiting the indigenous people within, going mad, or doing both. There have been far fewer featuring explorers entering into jungles to prove that there could have been tribal civilisations more advanced than those found in the most refined of European cities. Step forward Percy Fawcett. He was an English-born trailblazing adventurer who ventured deeper and deeper into un-chartered South American jungle in search of the eponymous Lost City of Z. He was a maverick who is depicted in the film as opposed to the prejudices of bourgeois Royal Geographic society members, who true to the arrogance of British-driven colonialism, see themselves as far superior to the tribes people.
Percy is portrayed as having a uniquely respectful attitude to native people and is driven by a noble goal. As a result of the integrity of the character, it is easy to will him to success, but his story, naturalistically delivered here, was one with many fascinating twists and turns. The film gracefully side stepped adventure cliché after adventure cliché since the central character is less about losing his sanity and soul in the jungle, and more about finding a life-defining sense of purpose. As well-intentioned as Fawcett’s quest was, the film never lost sight of how much of a fool-hardy uphill battle Fawcett had in achieving his goal. As a result there, was an almost documentary real atmosphere to the film and not a trace of Hollywood gloss. The atmosphere of the South American jungle was so vividly depicted that you seemed to feel the anguish of each grueling step. For those who don’t know the story, (i.e. most of the audience), there was a genuine sense of danger and peril as a sense crept in that Fawcett may have embarked on a quest doomed to failure.
It had the organic feel of a Terence Mallick film but the edge and guts of a Werner Herzog film. Tonally, the film sat somewhere between the work of those two directors and was an immersive experience as a result. Essential viewing for any traveller who wonders about the origin of overseas exploration. Fawcett’s story needs to be known by modern audiences – Fawcett is clearly an influence on Indiana Jones after all – and this retelling did justice to his adventures.
8. Moonlight
Barry Jenkins’ bold, brave, challenging, and sensitive debut film explored identity in a completely inventive, unorthodox and brilliantly observed way. It played off the idea that people are going to make assumptions about a poverty-stricken, black youth in an economically deprived area, and then subtly subverts those assumptions with a poignant portrayal of a man whose inner self was burdened by the pressures of black masculinity he feels he is expected to conform to.
In terms of narrative, the film was very inventive, with a story split in three separate chapters over the life of this alienated and tormented character, whose name changes over each section of the film in a canny move to address the uncertainty of identity the character feels. What this unusual structure did was make you consider how long the inner anguish of the character had been going on for. That character is played in the three different sections by three different actors, at different stages of his life. A lack of confidence and uncertainty of who he really is had left this person without the social skills to convey verbally what he was feeling inside.
Barry Jenkins has to take a lot of credit for such an assured debut film because he achieves the very difficult task of suggesting the inner struggle of his character through the atmosphere and mood of the film, and gave the audience a strong suggestion of what he felt under his skin in a style that is suggestive rather than overstated. It was a rich and rewarding film, with a depth of feeling that made it deeply poignant and original. The melancholy string soundtrack generated so much compassion for the central character and the film was rich in symbolism – the meaning of water in this film launched a thousand water-cooler debates – and artistry that conveyed the introspective journey of identity and sexuality the central character took. The film reached out to all those who grew up disenfranchised with conventions, whose identities were shaped by the inner conflict of feeling different to everyone else around. It empathized with the torment of the marginalized, and spoke volumes about how difficult it can be growing up in a place in which your identity is shaped by outside influences who may not respect who you really are. Moonlight was a richly layered and rewarding character study, a fascinating new way of approaching black masculinity and one of the most profound movies about identity ever made.
7. Raw
It was the film that left film critics all year using language that tip-toed around the central theme as the mention of a certain word would destroy the film’s delicious surprises. The horror genre is at a disadvantage compared to others as horror directors are forced to up the ante in terms of shock content to get the desired reaction or risk falling into horror cliches. Raw certainly managed to do that with many genuinely bold horror moments that were jaw-droppingly shocking. It was a rare beast of a horror film: it managed to be icky and nasty but still classy and sophisticated.
The film centered around two vegetarian sisters’ unpalatable awakening appetites at a veterinarian college campus with brutal freshers initiation ceremonies. The dark masochistic spirit of the campus seemed to permeate the psyches of the two characters taking them on an unorthodox sense of self-discovery. The film was utterly twisted and unsettling, but there was also clearly a droll sense of humour to the madness and depravity with subtle black comedy that balanced out the disturbing narrative. When a student uproots her life and moves into college, she goes through changes as she comes into contact with different characters’ world views and influences. The film took that idea and added some wry satire that became more apparent with subsequent viewings. The film seemed to be a subversion of the rites of passage, come-find-out-who-you-are-in-college mentality you enter when leaving the family for dorms. I’m not sure if it would have been terrifying or oddly cathartic for those in or off to college, but for the rest of us, it was both one of the most daring horror films in recent years and a rich satire of the transformative power of college.
6. Jackie
The assassination of JFK is one of the most infamous events of the 20th Century, etched into the minds of everyone who lived through the sixties. Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s film focused on JFK’s widow Jackie Kennedy as she tried to come to terms with the horror of what she was experiencing. The film told the story in an effective and affecting non-linear order, focusing on the direct aftermath of her unspeakably horrible ordeal in the time between her husband’s murder and his funeral. It was probably the most underrated film of the year, wrongfully labeled as cynical Oscar fodder. If you had that opinion after watching the film, you must have missed what exactly it was trying to do and just how nuanced and powerful Natalie Portman’s performance was.
Jackie looked like a film that was easy to pigeon-hole but actually, it was so far away from the usual biopic story format, that it couldn’t even be categorized in such terms. Out of all the Oscar-nominated films, it is the one that was the hardest to get into, as it told its story in an abstract and unconventional way that required the audience to think about Jackie’s psychological state of mind. It is not interested in adding drama to the event, or delving into the many conspiracy theories that surrounded the aftermath. Instead, it carefully removed the sensationalism and focused on Jackie and other White House personnel as they processed the emotions and logistics of dealing with the death of a figure who had brought hope to a nation.
The film had an intimate, almost fly on the wall style as the director allowed us to enter conversations away from the buzz of journalism, behind closed doors in the White House. That said, journalism did feature as there was a really good use of a familiar old story arc; the film was built around an interview Jackie gave to Billy Crudup’s unflinching reporter. If you were not paying attention, you might think that the structure was a cliché, but those who had that opinion did not stop to analyse how exactly the dynamic between the interviewer and bruised subject was playing out. Every exchange was absolutely fascinating.
The main thing the film did was challenge its audience to consider what it is to lose someone while you are standing in the glare of the public eye. Tonally, it was a film in mourning, to represent the mood of a woman beginning to grieve for her husband and a nation watching the candle of hope (that JFK represented) being extinguished. A fantastically engaging score by Mica Levi (Under the Skin) set a mood of a character quietly unraveling. This inspired soundtrack created such atmosphere for the film, slowly drawing us into Jackie’s shell-shocked state of mind.
Out of all the Oscar-nominated actresses this year, this is the role that demanded so much of the actress. First, she had to perfect the poise and somewhat over-staged mannerisms of Jackie Kennedy, a figure whose sixties style of grace may seem odd to modern audiences. Secondly, she was asked to convey the mindset of a woman who had just seen her husband brutally murdered in front of her. Thirdly, she was asked to present what this meant for Jackie psychologically. Natalie Portman absolutely transformed herself for this role and it was nothing short of a career best performance. She passed all the challenges the role presented; after about ten minutes you adjusted to her in the role, no longer seeing Portman but imagining what Jackie must have experienced.
This was a film about dealing with psychological trauma; her character was as haunted as a solider returning home after seeing the horrors of war. Portman garnered so much sympathy for the character, managing to appear both fragile and strong.
The While House became a sort of prison to her in the film. The scenes in which she returned home in her blood-splattered pink Chanel outfit for the first time without her husband were utterly heart-wrenching. She drifted around the imposing rooms of the house looking utterly lost. The narrative tells us that she had to swiftly move out of the premises, but her imprint will forever be on this iconic place. Her husband had died, but she is the one who had become a ghost.
If you tune into the wavelength the film was on, it became a deeply powerful experience. But it was also possible to drift through the film without being aware of its power since it was a film that was not easy to read. Portman’s Jackie was using the verbal interactions with the journalist, priest and other White house figures as a form of therapy to process her harrowing ordeal. It was an absolutely captivating and emotive character-study that told you so much about how impossible a situation Jackie Kennedy was faced with after JFK was assassinated.
5. Dunkirk
Young people in the UK grow up with at least a vague sense that our freedom and existence can be attributed to all the young men who put their lives on the line in WW2. The events of Dunkirk represent a time when those men were at their most vulnerable. The compelling true story of Dunkirk is extremely unappealing from a Hollywood perspective, as it doesn’t have the potential for a focal point of individual heroism. The men stranded on Dunkirk beach were all in a state of heightened fear and anxiety – in which survival rather than heroism was the defining mindset. It is a tremendous tribute to Christopher Nolan that he could get a very British war story on screen done with a very British sense of humility, but with the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster. In the UK, it has had considerable staying power at the box office as it has crossed generations who have been brought emotionally closer to the stories that were previously handed down through the word of those who lived through the Nazi threat. But the greatest endorsement that the film has received, is that it has moved to tears some of the now elderly veterans who experienced Dunkirk firsthand.
Since the story has been done with the greatest sense of authenticity and realism, it is as close as cinema has ever come to taking audiences to the front-line in World War 2. Dunkirk is an unconventional war film since the majority of men depicted were in enemy territory, but without weapons. The heightened sense of danger and looming catastrophe run all the way through the film, intensified by Hans Zimmer’s pulsating and gut-churning score. The film was a technical marvel – a film that simultaneously gave you the perspective from land, sea and air –suggesting how all three fronts were united in an up hill battle. Yet the film felt entirely grounded in reality and genuine human perspective on a seemingly doomed scenario.
It feels like a living piece of history, but one that strategically provides more questions than answers. You either bring the historical knowledge to it, or you take Nolan up on the homework assignment he sets audiences unaware of the events of Dunkirk. Nolan strategically doesn’t provide any context for why exactly so many British and French forces were stranded without the means to defend themselves against Nazi bombers – this actually heightens the sense of peril and threat since audiences are not fully aware of what scale of Nazi threat these men are currently facing as, for large parts, Nazi threat remains terrifyingly anonymous.
It brings the emotional and psychological reality of what the men faced and Nolan has done it in a way where those unaware of the historical context will definitely feel compelled to pick up a history book and fill in the blanks that are deliberately left in mystery. Dunkirk is the cinematic experience of the summer a brilliantly realistic war film that leaves its audience suitably drained and shaken up, while reflecting on this particular chapter of the second world war from a renewed perspective of understanding of what the men faced.
4. Lion
Try to recall a time when you were lost as a small child; imagine the creeping sense of fear you had when you looked up only to see strange, unwelcoming faces. Think about how frantic with worry your mum might have felt. Now imagine that sense of being lost continuing for over twenty years. This is the fate that befell a little Indian boy named Saroo, in the truly extraordinary true life story at the heart of Lion. We met this charismatic and lively young boy when he was out collecting coal to sell with his older brother. This little boy found himself alone on a train that was bound for another part of India, over a thousand miles away from everything he knew. He was so far away even the language had changed. His alienation continued for quite some time, until he was put up for adoption and eventually found his way to a lovely middle class Australian family in Tasmania.
What the film did really well was put you in the boy’s shoes, by building an entirely plausible and naturalistic, prolonged opening, in which we witnessed this bright little boy slowly becoming withdrawn due to fear and sadness. Had the film not spent so long creating such an immersive opening section in India, his psychological torment as an adult may not have registered as well and Dev Patel’s version of the character may have come across as an ungrateful and self-absorbed young man. As we were well acquainted with every detail of his agonizingly tragic back story, you couldn’t help but root for him and understand his reasons for feeling so mentally lost.
The film was very accomplished at taking you on the journey of what he must have felt as both a child and an adult. There is an inspired moment when Dev Patel’s character bit into a sweet Indian treat – the film needs to provide no explanation as to why this is such an evocative moment for the character as the opening section gave a vivid depiction about what this food means to the young Saroo. This moment alone could open up hours of debate about the link between the senses and memory. It’s just one example of how well the director blended both the past and the present of Saroo’s story; the film gave you a profoundly compelling journey through this man’s life. We shared his memories as vividly as he did – which is why we were in a better place to relate to his sense of being incomplete, far more than anyone he is connected to in Australia.
Director Garth Davis also avoided the pitfalls that the story might have fallen into. A well-known search engine plays a massive role in Saroo’s journey, had there been a lot of time focused on this, those scenes might have felt crass enough to damage the power of the story. It was handled carefully enough not to shift focus away from Saroo’s growing sense of yearning to find answers to unlock the truth about his past.
Lion won the hearts of many people as it was so organically made. It had a truly compelling and unique story and some of the most bittersweet moments of pure emotion on screen on year.
3. Get Out
Tensions between black and white people in America should have by now been confined to the history books. Yet, in the year 2017, such problems hit newsworthy levels of contention, as racial struggles continue to broil under the surface of society.
What was truly unique about Jordan Peele’s approach to racial tensions in Get Out was that it didn’t focus on the disturbing, but well-documented backwards bigotry of the uneducated; but instead scrutinized the more subtle undercurrents of race-based interaction within a society of the supposedly liberal middle class.
‘I voted for Obama three times’, says the middle-aged white patriarch upon meeting his daughter’s black boyfriend. He exudes warmth and not hostility, but the fact is that he has brought up the subject of race in the subtext of his conversation to create the message that he is accepting of his daughter’s mixed-race dating. This kind of race-based conversational faux-pas, began to ratchet up the tension as we saw seemingly well-intentioned but still, skin-crawlingly awkward exchanges through the eyes of the film’s increasingly uncomfortable protagonist.
The film took a lot of influence from 70s horror thrillers like The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man in creating an atmosphere of social awkwardness and vaguely sinister undercurrents that you feel may be pointing in an insidious direction, but gives the viewer the enthralling sense of not quite knowing what exactly is going on. Such a narrative approach relies on the impact of the final act; Get Out delivered a sucker-punch of a finale, that was totally unpredictable, rivaling those aforementioned seventies films for shock value. As well as being a genuinely unsettling horror movie, the film had significant socio-political relevance exploring the untapped potential of the commodification of black culture.
It has become a mainstream joke that black people don’t tend to fare so well in horror movies. This is one of the many strengths of Get Out as it turns this cliché on its head. By constructing a horror movie in which the black guy is the protagonist, the film mainlines the discomfort black people must feel when white people are confident enough in their non-racist status to mention black culture as a way of establishing connection. The ‘friendly’ face of the new liberal-driven racism was put under the microscope in Get Out. The result was the best horror film of 2017 and one of the most astute films of the year. The socio-political relevance of this film should open up a whole new discourse for discussion on the ever-relevant issues of racial conflict.
2. Loving Vincent
Even an art philistine would be able to recognise at least two Van Gogh masterpieces, as Starry Night and Sunflowers are among the most famous pieces of art ever made. Van Gogh is one of the most prominent art luminaries, so it may come as a surprise to people that his work was only recognised posthumously. This technically astounding and intensely personal depiction of Van Gogh did a remarkable job of allowing you to experience the mindset that the artist might have been in before his untimely death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was depicted as a troubled figure, who had not managed to turn his talent and passion for painting into a financially sustainable career. We saw him here as the definition of a struggling artist, financially supported by his brother and treated with suspicion in the little French town he resides as a strange outsider.
In perhaps one of the most reverential creative ideas in film history, his story was depicted in a style that paid affectionate tribute to his work. As the film proudly states, it was made by a team of over a hundred artists who painstakingly painted over the live-action using a distinctly Van Gogh style brushstroke, in an example of rotoscoping that is entirely unique to this film. That hard work and dedication combined to give the thrilling sense that Van Gogh’s paintings were magically coming to life. There’s a mystery to painting, the intriguing sense that what came before and after the moment was captured can only ever be filled in by one’s imagination. That is why seeing his paintings come to life was utterly beguiling and thrilling to behold.
The film was spellbinding, giving the viewer a spine-tingling thrill every time a famous Van Gogh work was weaved into the narrative. The more acquainted the viewer was with Van Gogh’s art, the more awe-inspiring moments the viewer received. The film was also compellingly enlightening in regards to the tortured state of mind the artist had been in throughout his life. Van Gogh is often defined as a mentally disturbed character, since he famously cut off his ear and spent time in mental institutions. He is the poster figure for a troubled artist; the figure who most represents the fine line between creativity and madness.
What was so startlingly poignant about Loving Vincent was that it provided significant context as to why he had such severe mental anguish. Something remarkable began to happen in the film: he changed from being an inscrutable genius instead becoming a strangely sympathetic figure whose melancholy was understandable. The film did something that no number of art books have managed to do; it brought to life the emotional mindset of an artist long since dead and made the viewer feel a deep, intensely moving connection and sympathy for his problems.
You come away with an entirely different understanding of Van Gogh than the one you went in. The final line in Don McLean’s song Vincent, an ode to Van Gogh’s anguished genius, states ‘they don’t know your genius, I guess they never will’. This is a film that captures what Don Mclean was feeling when he wrote that lovely song while giving the viewer a chance to prove Mclean’s final line wrong as Loving Vincent was a film that replaced all the mystery of Van Gogh with a deeply intimate sense of understanding; if you see it, try fighting back the tears when Mclean’s song plays out over the credits of this beautiful film.
1. Coco
Leading the charge in the golden age of animation in the West is Pixar. The Disney-owned studio continue to use animation to open up new unexplored frontiers, that live-action would be hopelessly inadequately prepared to portray. What they did for the workings of the inner-mind in Inside Out they have done for the soul and the afterlife in the most vibrant, immersive and moving film of the year. There are few ancestor worship festivals as colorful as the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations. It was an attractive option for Pixar, who pay reverential treatment to the festivities with an animation that words like eye-popping, vivid, and sublime do not go far enough to portray the wonder of it all.
We follow a music-loving little boy, who has been prevented from exploring his musical talent by his strict family. His calling to music goes beyond the grave, it’s part of his soul, reaching back into the family’s past to a figure who traded family responsibility for musical stardom. This became the entrance point for an extraordinarily original story, which explored the afterlife from the perspective of the dead. This all may sound Tim Burton-level kooky, but although it was one of the weirdest children’s films ever conceived, Coco had a pure heart and a depth of spirit that gave it a sense of spirituality that really started to hit a profoundly emotive level.
Pixar is a tour-de-force for creativity right now. They continue to make films that explore the human – and in this case post-human – experience in enlightening ways. After watching Coco, even the most staunch atheist had an urge to run home and build a shrine to deceased family members. It’s a film that profoundly sympathized with anyone who has lost someone they felt close to. The narrative pressed buttons of empathy that beautifully evoked emotions. It was about connection reaching beyond the grave, and the meaning of memory in keeping the essence of departed loved ones alive was central to the concept.
The story was impressively enchanting, sweeping its audience up in an involving adventure about a boy searching for the source of his talent. Can talent transcend generations through inherited DNA? This is the inventive narrative driving force behind a story that was as entertaining as it was powerful.
In a year of extraordinary cinematic experiences, Pixar went even further, to create a universal film that bedazzled, beguiled and stirred emotions like no other.
We will never know for sure whether there is a way of connecting with those we felt close to who have departed until we cross that threshold ourselves; but in Coco, we had a film that showed that if it was possible to allow the dead to connect with the living, it would be one of the most beautiful things imaginable.
Coco was released in Asia in November, but it will come out in the UK on January 28th.
Also in contention for my top films list were: Their Finest; Wonder Woman; War For the Planet of the Apes; My Cousin Rachel and Baby Driver.