best film: Midsommar from Ari Aster

 Ari Aster is a genius and Midsommar does feel like the most cinematically ambitious film of 2019. He makes formal stylistic choices like the winter/summer lighting (paired with the upside down camera flip) that marry the style to the narrative and characters. The film features one of the best uses of camera movement from 2019 (the harrowing tracking shot suicide/murder sequence) and countless stunningly arranged mise-en-scene/décor frames. Aster goes often to perfectly symmetrical arrangements (tied to the unease and horror of this community) with reoccurring overhead shots. Dani (played phenomenally by Florence Pugh) is a character with great nuance. Lastly, Midsommar – like the best of auteur cinema- (which is the best of cinema) accentuates and reemphasizes Aster’s 2018 film Hereditary.  We have a leader among this latest age of auteurs- and it is Ari Aster.

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

 

most underrated:  The consensus struggled mightily with some of the best films from 2019. 1917 from Sam Mendes (who seems to always end up in this category) Waves from Trey Edward Shults,  and About Endlessness from Roy Andersson were omitted from the TSPDT list of 2019 films (33 in all) that made the 21st century top 1000. Aster’s work should be mentioned in this category as well as it currently sits at #18. 

 

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.

 

most overrated:  First Cow currently sits at #4 from 2019 on the TSPDT’s 21st century list. First Cow is a very good little film- but simply is not on that level. Bacurau as the #10 film for 2019 is also a sort of disaster of a miss by the consensus. 

 

trends and notables:  

  • 2019 will go down as one of the strongest years in cinema history. It should already be getting mentioned with years like 1939, 1960 (really the entire early 1960s), 1975, 1982 and 2007. It may not have several top 100 of all-time films like a few of these years (most noticeably 1960) and that may keep it from being the best of all-time. But the depth of 2019 may be unmatched. There are twenty films that should be in any given years’ top ten. The drop off from 2019 to 2020 and 2021 is unmissable- almost tangible. If one were to make a combined list of the best 30 films from 2019-2021– it would contain twenty 2019 films. It will be fun to see just how many of these 2019 films carry over and infiltrate the top 100 list of the 2010s. It feels like it could be as many as twenty. 
  • When trying to talk about the reason for such a strong year it becomes more difficult. A24 deserves a ton of credit. They have obsessively supported talented filmmakers. They are at least partially responsible for five of the top films of 2019 including films by Aster (33 years old), Shults (31), The Safdie brothers (ages 33 and 35) and Robert Eggers (36). They supported Gerwig’s last film (she’s 36 now—34 at the time of Lady Bird) and though Joanna Hogg is a bit older The Souvenir was delivered by A24 here. To be clear, the artists are the reason for the artistic boom in 2019 cinema- but A24 needs to be applauded for supporting them. Netflix is a help (The Irishman and Marriage Story but there is much more. To be clear, these are not only films “on” Netflix- but “from” Netflix. 

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.

  • Ari Aster is not yet 35 in 2019 and has multiple top ten films of the year- including the single best film of the year. In Hereditary Toni Collette’s character is a miniaturist artist— and Aster the director works in miniatures as a formal construct— here—his leads are anthropology students—and Aster as auteur digs in and studies the village in the same way. 
  • Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese are two of the greatest directors of all-time already coming into 2019. Their 2019 entries just further bolster their resume. Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and The Irishman are films that can and will be studied for decades.  

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.

  • The Avengers: Endgame and The Lion King are both money-making behemoth’s for Marvel and Disney top 2019.
  • Cannes seemed to be spurned on by the dominance of Venice in recent years and had a big year. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Parasite, A Hidden Life, The Lighthouse and Pain and Glory all got their start at Cannes. But again, what is the reason for the boom? There is essentially Disney (MCU, Star Wars, Pixar) dominating the box office. But seems to be a real fragmenting of everything else. There may be less intelligent popular adult fare (Ford vs. Ferrari, Knives Out) than ever before—and that is sad and a loss—but as far as auteur cinema is concerned (which is always going to dominate the important cinematic works for the year) there seems to be more outlets for artistic expression. If you go back to those certain cinema enthusiasts who prefer the studio movies of the 1930s and 1940s (I think of Peter Bogdanovich) there were so many great films produced within the system. But that was not the best era for auteur filmmaking and hence not the best era for cinematic art in general. These directors here at A24 do not seem bound to anything larger system at all. It is almost as if they know they are not going for a wide audience—and it has freed them. Anyways, that is my theory. 

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.

 

gem I want to spotlight: In a year with kind of depth (I again I am not sure there ever has been one) there are plenty of brilliant films left off the top 10- from Parasite to Beanpole to The Painted Bird. Just one notch below this group is Swallow from Carlo Mirabella- one hell of a debut. 

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.

 

 

best performance male:  With this many great films it is not surprising that this category is loaded.  Adam Driver may gives the best single performance of the year by a male actor if we split apart the two Brad Pitt performances (here for both Ad Astra and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Pitt and Driver are one and two.  Driver’s performance has everything in it- it is the best work of his still young (but already crazy impressive) career. Pitt’s work with Tarantino and Gray will stand out as well when we look back upon 2019 twenty years from now. Tarantino’s two-hander also has plenty of meat on the bone for DiCaprio who gets my third mention here. Joe Pesci walks away from Scorsese’s greatest work in a long time with the singularly best performance in The Irishman. There is enough there as well for Al Pacino. Pacino is perfectly cast. Pesci’s character says in the text: “he likes to talk doesn’t he?” This is Pacino’s first time working with Scorsese. Pacino is animated here, making speeches and stubborn as a mule. De Niro outduels Pacino ever so slightly in Heat,  but in give Pacino the edge in The Irishman.  Joaquin Phoenix does the unthinkable and makes the Ledger vs. Phoenix as Joker debate a real thing.  Adam Sandler works with the Safdie’s to deliver a performance to rival his work with Paul Thomas Anderson in 2002’s masterpiece Punch-Drunk LoveGeorge MacKay’s feat as an actor is maybe a half-step below Michael Keaton in Birdman or DiCaprio in The Revenant as he is not given quite as many showcase closeups in Sam Mendes’ 1917 but still- more than enough to warrant a spot here. Kang-ho Song (Parasite), Antonino Banderas (Pain and Glory) and Tom Burke (The Souvenir) all carve out room for themselves with their marvelous work in 2019 as well. 

 

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

 

 

best performance femaleFlorence Pugh’s tour-de-force performance in Midsommar is the best female performance of the year. She is Ari Aster’s narrative vehicle into this strange world. It is her traumatic event that starts the film and there is a lot in common here with Natalie Portman’s work in Black Swan.  After Pugh’s work here and Toni Collette last year (Pugh and Collette hold up well with Ellen Burstyn and Mia Farrow in Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby historically) if I were an actor I would be standing on Ari Aster’s front lawn right now petitioning for a role. Pugh is also part of the supporting cast surrounding Saoirse Ronan as lead Jo March in Little Women – a performance that supplants the great Katharine Hepburn (who played her in 1933) as the definitive Jo March (in the definitive version). Ronan has, at a very young age (25 in 2019) put together an incredible career already going back to Joe Wright’s 2007 film Atonement.  Scarlett Johansson and Laura Dern are my #3 and #5 choices here. They’re here mainly because of their work in Marriage Story – but it does not hurt that both are scene-stealers in other 2019 archiveable films Jojo Rabbit (Scarlett)and Little Women (Dern). That #4 slot goes to Haley Bennett for her work in Swallow. Lastly, and it is on the fringe for this category below the others- but Margot Robbie slides into a slot for her work in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. She does not have much dialogue to speak of but this is a pivotal role and her energy and sort of warmth are key to this film working. She has also been very good in films like The Wolf of Wall Street and I, Tonya so it would not be right for her to escape 2019 (and being crucial part in a Tarantino masterpiece) without at least one mention in her career to this point. 

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.

 

 

top 10

  1. Midsommar
  2. Vitalina Varela
  3. Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
  4. About Endlessness
  5. 1917
  6. The Irishman
  7. Ad Astra
  8. Waves
  9. Marriage Story
  10. Little Women

 

 

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

 

Archives, Directors, and Grades

1917 – Mendes

MS/MP

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood – Heller

R

A Hidden Life – Malick

MS

About Endlessness -Andersson

MP

Ad Astra – Gray

MS

Atlantics – Diop

R

Babyteeth – Murphy

R

Bacurau – Dornelles, Filho

R

Bad Education – Finley

R

Beanpole  – Balagov

MS

Blow the Man Down – Savage Cole, Krudy

R

Bombshell – Roach

R

Clemency – Chukwu

R

Corpus Christi – Komasa

R

Dark Waters – Haynes

R

First Cow – Reichardt

R/HR

Ford v Ferrari – Mangold

R

High Flying Bird – Soderbergh

R

Hustlers – Scafaria

R

I Lost My Body – Clapin

R

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum – Stahelski

R

Jojo Rabbit –  Waititi

R

Joker – Phillips

HR

Knives Out – Johnson

R

Les Misérables – Ly

R

Little Women – Gerwig

MS

Low Tide – McMullin

R

Luce – Onah

R

Marin Eden – Marcello

R

Marriage Story – Baumbach

MS

Midsommar – Aster

MP

Monos –  Landes

R

Motherless Brooklyn – Norton

R

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood – Tarantino

MP

Pain and Glory – Almodovar

MS

Parasite – Bong

MS

Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Sciamma

HR

Queen & Slim – Matsoukas

R

Richard Jewell – Eastwood

R

Rocks – Gavron

R

Saint Maud – Glass

HR

Sorry We Missed You – Loach

R

Sound of Metal – Marder

R

Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker – Abrams

R

Swallow – Mirabella-Davis

HR/MS

The Assistant – Green

HR/MS

The Death of Dick Long – Scheinert

R

The Farewell – L. Wang

HR

The Irishman – Scorsese

MS

The Last Black Man in San Francisco – Talbot

R

The Lighthouse – Eggers

HR

The Lodge – Fiala & Franz

R

The Outpost – Lurie

R

The Painted Bird – Marhoul

MS

The Peanut Butter Falcon – Nilson, Schwartz

R

The Souvenir – Hogg

HR/MS

The Two Popes – Meirelles

R

The Vast of Night – Patterson

R

Too Old to Die Young – Refn

R

Toy Story 4 – Cooley

R

Triple Frontier – Chandor

R

Uncut Gems – Safdie

HR/MS

Us – Peele

R

Velvet Buzzsaw – D. Gilroy

R

Vitalina Varela – Costa

MP

Waves – Shults

MS

Where’d You Go Bernadette – Linklater

R

Young Ahmed – Dardenne

R

 

*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film

MS is Must-See- top 5-6 quality of the year film

HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film

R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives