2019

Hereditary is tighter— like a sweater that unravels—- this is like a vice tightening— both have fantastic formal payoffs at the end. Blown away by the amount of detail in Midsommar, this is a long film (147 minutes), visually designed to such specificity, another study of the occult, ritualistic, detailed, methodical and anthropological – all just one year after another top ten of the year quality film

It starts with a mural (and the entire film plays out over the mural until the very end), then a beautiful montage (stunning landscape photography) of “Winter” and the foundation-setting long America-set prelude is important to the character building and formal construct—all darkly lit the suicidal sister says “everything’s black” in the email—almost like a Fincher film (as juxtaposition to the brightly lit day-time washed out whites of Sweden’s summer)—it also is a comment on Dani’s (a spectacular Florence Pugh) psyche.

the staging of bodies in the frame like the four guys sitting around the apartment almost like judges eyeing Pugh or the group on drugs with the lone tree

With 2019’s About Endlessness, Roy Andersson, further bolsters his legacy as one of the 21st century’s greatest voices in cinema. Andersson is an absolute master of composition. About Endlessness clocks in just under 80 minutes. Andersson was 76 years old in 2019 at the time of About Endlessness so let us all hope that he has another film or two left in him (long gestation periods as well—2000, 2007, 2013, and now 2019 for his four big films). This is Andersson’s first after his Living trilogy, but the mode and tone is much the same. Each shot is a scene in duration (31 vignettes in total)- the camera never moves, and each shot is a stone-cold cinematic painting. The characters often address the camera, if they move at all it is done very slowly. The scenes often contain ironic insights- and the characters are colored in this sort of pale, unhealthy- zombie-like slate/gray color.

Andersson’s aptitude for angles in his compositions helps shape the eye like Kubrick- though most of his influences are from paintings -the opening scene is from Marc Chagall’s “Over the Town”- another later is from “The End” depicting Hitler and his stooges in the bunker from Kukrynisky. The dentist at the bar on Christmas Eve at the 62-minute mark may be as fine a frame can be made.

Trey Edward Shults’ Waves as been tragically overlooked and underrated- in my observations I noted elements that compare it WKW’s Chungking Express, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century along with Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream and PTA’s Punch-Drunk Love. Trey Edward Shults’ Waves feels like something big—a film as ambitious in visual filmmaking and film form as anything made this year (and again that is in a year where masters like Tarantino and Scorsese were given 100million+ in budget to do whatever they wanted and unequivocally succeeded).

1917 from Sam Mendes- the attempt to do it all in one tracking shot- invokes the names of Hitchcock (Rope), Iñárritu (Birdman)—both “hid” their edits as well, Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) and Sebastian Schipper (Victoria). I also have to compare it to Gravity (Cuaron), The Revenant (Iñárritu again) with not only the tracking shots but the punishing nature of its protagonist. Opens on the flowers and trees in an open field (here) and the camera gracefully pulls back to start our journey—the film will culminate in a very similar way.

from Hogg’s The Souvenir– a formal achievement- one tying bind is a reoccurring shot of the landscape as she reads the letter with the trees at the bottom. It happens three times—26 minutes in, 70- minutes in and then 92 minutes in and this is the landscape at the very end of the film when the studio (and metaphorical) doors open—really powerful film form. There are certainly elements of Haneke’s The White Ribbon here.

The final shot from Hogg’s The Souvenir— a giant door opening—sounds simple- but given the context of the film, her awakening, naivety (not just sexual, but about life in general)—we are going from the sealed off movie studio here to opening the door to the outside- an amazing visual metaphor. The Souvenir is just one of the many superior works from A24 for 2019.

There are some stunning tracking shots- there’s the barbershop assassination at 23 minutes in (that glides over to the flowers for the actual killing). The camera glides into Umberto’s Clam House at 104 minutes as well. This shot echoes the second shot of Michael Powell’s Peeing Tom (1960)- an important film to Scorsese.

A meditative saga on death that has perhaps the greatest opening and final shot in Scorsese’s oeuvre. The final shot— one of Scorsese’s greatest single shots. The door cracked open, perfect frame – wall art in a museum (just like the Bufalino wedding frame) and De Niro telling the priest “don’t shut the door all the way” and the meaning and reverberations of that shot and line- breathtaking.

Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite– a brilliant opening shot from the basement of the Kim’s semi-sunk apartment (with drying socks as their chandelier). It ends on the same note — spectacular formal bookends (for a second I thought we were going with an unearned Spielbergian Minority Report-like ending (Bong’s penultimate shot which is another stunner just before the final shot) but thank god Bong did not go for that). Two families, two houses (fantastic set pieces) and the different literal and metaphorical level in the house and the city (half-sunken apartment, the hidden basement apartment, the mansion on higher elevation than the rest of Seoul (as we see during the flood sequence– 92 minutes rain and run back to house. This class statement and the family as a unit (important to Bong in his body of work) is all Bong. He makes a similar statement in Snowpiercer of course with the different classes in the carts and what keeps the train going (much like the title here literally living off the classes). Like all great auteur cinema, Parasite works a supreme stand-alone film, but also deepens and enriches Bong’s previous films.

Even in the long and storied career of Pedro Almodovar- 2019’s Pain and Glory is a superior work. The visual style is, as always with Almodóvar, about the mise-en-scene filled with vibrant colors, costume design. There are at least four to five sublime cinematic paintings that may end up among his twenty to twenty-five greatest.

From 1973 to 2011 Malick made only five films—all of them either outright masterpieces or very close to the border—and all were rather simple narratives set in the past. Malick then made three more modern day films : To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, Song of Song. These were no longer historical epics (it is different shooting a Sonic chain restaurant than a Austrian Mountain landscape with mist rising up)— they had a hint of Antonioni’s ennui territory (this is description, not a criticism). Well…Malick is back to a period piece (World War II, set in Austria) and to film that has some semblance of a narrative (again, description—I love Antonioni’s ennui-infused films). The bones of the narrative here is the story of a martyr- part Christ’s story (Malick has been here before with The Thin Red Line), part Joan of Arc—persecution for beliefs. Taking nothing away from the great Emmanuel Lubezki, but this is Malick’s first film since 1998 without him here and this is easily more beautiful than each of the last three Malick films (which were all Lubezki collaborations).

James Gray has been hovering around this level of greatness for a long time (The Immigrant and We Own the Night in particular but really there is a lot of depth in his filmography) so to see him finally, fully arrive with a film on this level and a transcendent visual/formal design–  very special. The sun spot lens flare motif throughout—my god— the detail.

Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s Swallow is one of the most promising debuts in recent years (this side of Columbus or Hereditary maybe). Haley Bennett plays Hunter— a housewife (and soon to be mother) dealing with (or rather not dealing with) a psychologically complex past and trapped in a suffocating life/marriage she can’t get out of. It is clear from the outset with Mirabella-Davis’ meticulously designed and cleaned interiors (they are stunning) and overhead shots of an unhealthy amount of detail put into the meal preparation– that she is ailing. The film seems like a spiritual cousin (nephew maybe given the generation difference) to Todd Haynes’ brilliant 1995 film Safe with Julianne Moore. The security guard hired by the family to watch Bennett’s Hunter even says “ you are safe here” to her as she hides under the bed.

the greatest production design (Tarantino was right to call this his memory piece, his Roma) of Tarantino’s career on display here in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. With it and Ad Astra Brad Pitt owns 2019– he is excellent in two of the best ten films of the year.

Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in captured in a great dissolve by Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story

Phoenix was close but left off for a mention in this category in 2013 (Her and The Immigrant) and 2017 (Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here) so he is more than deserving here for 2019

Baumbach gives Scarlett a very long take early on in a scene with her lawyer (played by Dern). Scarlett has no makeup on- this is a raw and genuine performance with a rich characterization (combination Baumbach’s screenplay and great acting) and it is a nod to realism because it shows her going into the bathroom (in one take) and coming back after blowing her nose.

Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela is one of the most visually accomplished films of the of the 2010s. With Horse Money in 2014 he shifted to higher definition video photography (Vitalina is pristine – immaculately crisp), this sort of sullen surrealism and structured control in the performances and mise-en-scene. These are drastic changes from the fuzzy-pixelated, observed-reality docudrama style of In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth. The subject (immigrants from Cape Verde to Lisbon- the Fontainas section– immense suffering and poverty) is the same, but the approach is very different. Vitalina Varela goes even farther than Horse Money in design and breathtaking beauty—truly a collection of cinematic paintings.

from Greta Gerwig’s Little Women– a brilliant formal/visual choice is non-linear narrative structure editing from Gerwig. It is not just the rearranging of the order of the story (which is powerful in of itself with contrasting scenes due to the editing choices) but she, along with director of photography Yorick Le Saux (from Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash and I Am Love) light and color the two narrative time strands distinctly.

The flashbacks (here) are warmly lit, golds, natural lighting from the sun or fire (pouring in every scene even in winter), the characters are in rich colors- reds, maroons, yellows… the present day (above) when the sisters are split up) are juxtaposed. It is gray, overcast— lots of yes, gray, but also whites, blues and blacks—colder. There is a bit of this in Ari Aster’s Midsommar earlier with winter and summer split, dark and light— Career Girls from Mike Leigh in 1997 is another example (he reversed it and lit the present day warmer and the flashbacks colder). In Gerwig’s work it makes for a stark contrast as we jump back and forth between the two strands of time. Gerwig makes the change back and forth drastic – often the characters are in the same location (most notable being the two scenes on the beach).

There is a breathtaking shot of Florence Pugh getting proposed to by Fred Vaughn in a long shot at the 84 minute mark. The landscape—the symmetry— it looks like a shot from Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola or Barry Lyndon from Kubrick.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is both a moving love story (like The Piano, Call Me By Your Name) and a film about the artistic process (La Belle Noiseuse from Rivette).  it shares a great deal with The Souvenir from Joanna Hogg (love story and about the artistic process)- not to mention they both feature a jaw-on-the-floor final shot- here it is a camera zoom in on Adele Haenel’s character gliding into a long take holding on a face of lost love- – brilliant work

Lulu Wang’s The Farewell had a clear dedication to composition