2020 OVERVIEW

10 Jan

There has been something of a renaissance going on in Spanish language cinema in recent years, and one of the most impressive filmmakers to emerge is Lois Patiño. I had the good fortune recently to track down some of his films: Into Earth’s Vibration (2011), Costa da morte (Coast of Death, 2013), Noite Sem Distância (Night Without Distance, 2015), Fajr (2017), and his 2020 masterwork, Lúa vermella (Red Moon Tide). A selection of his short films can be accessed and viewed HERE.

If you’re into contemplative cinema (some call it “slow”) you may be familiar with Patiño’s work, poetic meditations that recall Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Mauro Herce, Michael Glawogger, Liang Zhao, Xin Xu, Sharon Lockhart, Ben Rivers, James Benning, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, J.P. Sniadecki and other filmmakers at Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab. I hesitate to label the work of these artists as ‘non-fiction’ given their observational poetry and oneiric qualities, beautifully constructed audio-visual gems that one must immerse oneself in to fully appreciate. Patiño favours long shots with an emphasise on landscape, impressive vistas in which people are dwarfed within precisely composed frames that comment on the scale of our relationship to the planet without being overly polemical, while indirectly (or possibly intentionally) commenting on the usual filmmaking practice of giving primacy to people and stories. In Patiño’s cinema, landscape is/has the dominant voice, and stories are largely intuited by the viewer, as is (to some degree) meaning.

PAISAJE-DISTANCIA 2011 — **PAISAJE-DISTANCIA** 2011

NA VIBRACIÓN 2012 — **NA VIBRACIÓN** 2012

MONTAÑA EN SOMBRA 2012 — **MONTAÑA EN SOMBRA** 2012

COSTA DA MORTE 2013 — **COSTA DA MORTE** 2013

EN EL MOVIMIENTO DEL PAISAJE 2012 — **EN EL MOVIMIENTO DEL PAISAJE** 2012

Filmed along the Spanish coastline of the Galicia region, an area known as 'the coast of death' due to its history of shipwrecks, Costa da Morte is a portrait of the region and its people. The film starts with an evocative dream-like sequence of forestry workers felling trees in the mist, before broadening its scope to observe a range of societal and cultural activities unique to the area, eavesdropping on conversations along the way, but with the participants a long LONG way from the camera.

Patiño returned to the Galicia region for his most recent film, Lúa vermella, with the intention of going deeper into the universe portrayed in Costa da morte by using the true story of Rubio de Camelle — a diver who retrieved the bodies of more than forty people who lost their lives in shipwrecks along the dangerous but ruggedly beautiful Galician coastline — as a pretext for a poetic exploration of the real, imagined and mythical dimensions of the region and its people. Reality and legend merge in a film steeped in stillness and introspective reflection, existing somewhere on the boundary between life and death — or more accurately perhaps, conscious and unconscious states.

While it may be set in the same region as Costa da morte, no previous Patiño film — not even his two extraordinary short films, Night Without Distance and Fajr — prepared me for Red Moon Tide. Throughout the film, I was reminded of the cinematic tradition this brilliant film belongs to as it rhymed with works by Andrei Tarkovsky, Alexandr Sokurov, Theo Angelopoulos, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Albert Serra, Lisandro Alonso, José Luis Torres Leiva, Jose Maria de Orbe and others. However, while these touchstones are evident, Red Moon Tide is a film like no other. Unique in every sense, it’s a film that one simply has to experience for oneself. If I had to single out one film as my pick for 2020, it would have to be this remarkable, unclassifiable masterpiece, a singular film from one of the most singular filmmakers working today.

This next film (which I discovered by chance but proved to be one of the most impressive I saw in 2020) is an understated meditation on the crushing indifference of cultural honour-codes, powerlessness, dispossession and poverty. The debut feature of Xuebo Wang (who, incidentally, produced the excellent Tharlo for another very fine newcomer, Pema Tseden, whose films I intend to write about in due course), Knife in the Clear Water is set in the arid landscape of China's northwest Ningxia province among the Hui people (a minority Muslim community on the verge of extinction). It concerns an aging villager who is faced with sacrificing his equally long-in-the-tooth bull (the only companion he has left in the world, and something of a kindred spirit) to feed guests at the upcoming traditional forty-day purification ceremony of his recently deceased wife. In terms of story, that's about it. There's little one can say about the basic plot and narrative trajectory because the value of the work is located in its patiently observed, beautifully composed (1.33:1 aspect ratio) lyrical style, and in immersing oneself into the measured rhythm of a journey towards the inevitable, emotionally restrained, quietly profound conclusion.

Working with a superbly directed cast of non-professionals, Wang wisely eschews overt social commentary and melodramatic pleading to create a subtle, respectful, humane, perceptive, non-judgmental, completely authentic, finely-nuanced piece of filmmaking. While there is a critical dimension to the work — if only in terms of its empathy for the dispossessed — the film also expresses a non-critical understanding of the value of prayerful humility, of having the wisdom to avoid beating one's head against intractable walls of indifference and inevitability, and of finding value and comfort — if not purpose and self-respect — in spiritual resignation. This quiet gem is well worth seeking out.

One might be tempted to describe Albert Serra’s period-garb dogging film as the closest he’s likely to come to a comedy, but there has always been an absurdist undercurrent in his work, as well as an implicit reflexive questioning of cinema. In that respect, Liberté (Freedom) could be read as a provocative in-joke about movies and movie watching (or more pertinently, the internet) as voyeuristic self-indulgence. I have no qualms about that, and being an enthusiastic admirer of Serra’s excellent body of work, I thoroughly enjoyed the visual feast of this new work for the most part, but I freely admit that some of the drawn-out sequences of unfettered libertine hedonism were stretched beyond the joke, particularly over a 132-minute running time that is frequently soporific.

But as joke-stretching goes, one could be in no finer, er, hands, than those of the Catalonian maestro. Serra has a cinematic visual signature that is as uniquely captivating as his themes are consistently intellectually stimulating. There isn’t a drop of prudishness in his blood, and he has an evident fondness for the earthy unvarnished facts of humanity, which in Liberté he, er, milks for all they are worth. Some may find the film self-indulgent, others will find it unwatchable. I can’t argue with that, although I will say that in my view (setting aside any judgment about the prolonged sequences of no-holds-barred sexual extravagances and, at times, near-Salo-like moments of humiliation and degradation), Liberté is gloriously cinematic, a dark dream-like (some might say ‘nightmarish’) vision of humanity at its most narcissistically preoccupied and morally indifferent. For some (perhaps most), it will be an arduous experience (it is rather long given what it is), challenging one’s stamina more than one’s intellectual or moral sensibilities. But no, I won’t show it to my Mum.

It goes without saying that one's appreciation of art is largely subjective. Even those who claim a degree of "authority" from studying and writing about a given medium will invariably be led — if not governed — by their preferences. When it comes to cinema, one need only look at annual 'best of' lists to see that even the most rigorous critics have blind spots — in my subjective view, of course.

However, that doesn't explain why so many relatively insubstantial works (subjective again) find their way onto ‘best of’ lists. It must be my own blind spots that prevent me from understanding why Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods was so widely praised this year and BlacKkKlansman was even more revered in 2018. Lee’s David Byrne’s American Utopia may have its moments on a musical level (if you’re into Byrne), but I found the woke-posturing troubling. As Armond White (the unapologetic and insightful film critic for National Review) noted, it’s as if Byrne wants his “mostly white fans to apologise for their existence”. Surely the remaining 98% of critics who praised these films can't be wrong, or could it be that very few reviewers (paid reviewers, that is) enjoy the same critical autonomy as Mr White?

Or maybe I’m missing something, the same thing (or similar) that leaves me mystified by the acclaim for Miranda July's contrived Kajillionaire or the specious faux-woke agitprop of Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man. (You can read my comments about The Invisible Man and Kelly Green’s excellent The Assistant HERE.) I'll probably never understand why Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite is so well-regarded. I mean, it’s OK, but — call me a snob — Bong ain’t no Hong. In fairness, he probably wouldn’t want to be, but in terms of canonic value, any one of Hong Sang-Soo’s films (especially his recent output) will be assured of a place long after Parasite has disappeared from the sale bins. And in terms of Parasite’s much-touted sociopolitical critical underpinnings, it takes a film as deceptively simple as Hong’s deliciously subtle The Woman Who Ran (2020) to put crowd-pleasing bombast (even if its critical intent is sincere) exactly where it belongs.

Not that I mind a spot of bombast now and then, which is just as well given the amount I’m exposed to at this time of year when — having a little more time up my sleeve than usual — I make a concerted effort to check out as many of the year’s highly-rated releases as I can. Disappointment is expected, but I’m dismayed by how inconsequential many of the ‘big-hitters’ prove to be, although I say that acknowledging that in almost every case the films weren’t made for late-middle-aged white blokes like me. I could list them, but there’s no point, although I will mention a couple I expected to be better: Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks, a glib film about glib privileged people; Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, a shameless crowd-pleaser that celebrates more glib privilege; and Jan-Ole Gerster’s Lara, a mid-brow sub-Haneke angst-fest.

Steven Soderbergh has been busy in recent years, but he hasn’t done anything to get excited about — well, I guess that depends on your taste and whether or not you are within the target audience for his films, which seem to be increasingly aimed at pleasing a fairly wide demographic. Logan Lucky (2017) is an entertaining heist-movie romp, guaranteed to keep your father-in-law occupied when he comes to stay. Unsane (2018) starts well as a psychological drama before morphing into a risible revenge horror for the MeToo era. Laundromat (2019) is about as bad a film as any good filmmaker has ever made, and must surely count as the low point in Soderbergh’s considerable career. High Flying Bird (2019) is his shot at the high-powered sports movie. Featuring good performances and his trademark sleek visuals, it simply isn’t in the same league as Moneyball or Foxcatcher (two very strong works by one of the great contemporary American directors, Bennett Miller), but it’s a film you might actually watch with your father-in-law.

His most recent film, Let Them All Talk, is a comedy set aboard the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner. It features Meryl Streep, Dianne Weiss and Candice Bergen as three friends in their late 70s who go on a cruise and gradually confront past resentments. The film is directed with style and economy, features some excellent writing and acting, and serves as an easy-going trifle to watch with your mother-in-law. It’s Soderbergh in Woody-Allen-land, fun to watch if you’re in the mood for (or in the company of others who prefer) good but undemanding light entertainment, but it also works as a critique of what Woody Allen so often got wrong over the years. Yes, I know, hardly a compelling recommendation, but there it is.

Then there was Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, the one American film consistently listed near the top (if not taking out the number one spot) of so many ‘best of 2020’ lists. I was impressed by Zhao’s understated contemporary Western The Rider back in 2017, so given the critical buzz for her new film (and the beauty of the stills), I was primed for a poignant tale about mid-West economic despair anchored by a restrained Oscar-worthy performance from critically-acclaimed Frances McDormand. You know where this is going, eh? Yep, and it didn’t take long, barely a few minutes before it became obvious that Frances and Chloé were out of their depth.

Apart from McDormand and the reliable David Strathairn (doing his best to be as understated as possible), the actors were mainly non-professionals, many of whom are actual “nomads” (as they are called) who either chose or were forced into a life on the road. These people are not only genuine, but they are also genuinely engaging, delivering “performances” that are so profoundly authentic (especially Charlene Swankie, a real-life nomad who completely steals the film with her unaffected naturalism) that they leave Francis floundering. There are moments, in fact, where McDormand appears to be embarrassed by her actorly pretences. Throughout the film, she would fall back on a well-rehearsed guarded smile that expressed brokenness and vulnerability, but she pulled it out so often that one would be forgiven for wondering if it was a go-to default when she had nothing else to offer.

Nomadland is ostensibly a film about economic hardship and poverty in post-crash America, feel-bad subject matter in essence, which Zhao romanticises into an escapist feel-good road movie complete with a touching melancholic score by Ludovico Einaudi, effectively white-washing the realities of dispossession (lives ransacked by legitimised economic piracy and governmental neglect) to create an optimistic ode to human resilience. Maybe Zhao wanted to emphasise what’s fundamentally good about America and Americans by fashioning a portrait of a country in transition rather than turmoil — a veritable “no-mad-land”. I have to say, it was disconcerting (shocking, even) to experience such blind (though obviously well-meaning) disingenuousness.

For an example of what Nomadland could have been, check out Bull, the feature debut of writer-director Annie Silverstein. The film recalls Zhao’s The Rider (ironically) in terms of its Western overtones, low-key observational style, understated acting (including non-professionals in minor roles) and its unforced depiction of real people going through wholly credible experiences. It’s also reminiscent of Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s elegiac The Mustang (2019), another impressive feature debut from a writer-director working in a low-key poetic register.

One thing all three films have in common is that they are perceptive studies made by women about damaged (perhaps even traumatised) masculinity, although in Bull the damage and trauma are more broadly (and pointedly) societal. There is authenticity in Bull at every level of the production, a verisimilitude that must have been firmly focused in Silverstein’s mind (schooled as she is in documentary filmmaking) from the get-go. It paid significant dividends, most notably in the naturalism of the performances, particularly Rob Morgan as Abe and first-time actor Sara Allbright as the incarcerated mother of the central character, 14-year old Kris played by newcomer Amber Havard. There are moments where the film drags slightly, but it’s a minor criticism given Silverstein’s patient approach and richly detailed (near-invisible) mise-en-scene.

I wanted to like Terence Malick’s critically polarising A Hidden Life more than I could. Malick has, after all, made some superb films, and while I’ve struggled with all of them to some degree, I can’t ignore (even if I can’t fully engage with) his singular brand of highly-stylised philosophic cine-poetry. Many of his films are religious meditations shaped by an unapologetic Christian perspective — complete with unambiguous reverence for the Endless Love of God — but this doesn’t appear to be as much of a hurdle for the majority of viewers as one might expect. A Hidden Life is no different in this respect, in that the major elements of the film (images, sound, text) not only serve their requisite cinematic and artistic roles (narrative, thematic and aesthetic exposition) as well as Malick’s poetic philosophical musings, but they also function as prayer, worship, confession, exaltation, and, yes, evangelism. American critics and audiences don’t appear to mind this aspect of Malick’s oeuvre, in fact, they seem to embrace it as a reflection of their cultural and spiritual identity. Which, I have to say (regardless of my personal philosophical outlook), is no bad thing.

That said, I find it hard to fathom why A Hidden Life resonates so deeply and meaningfully on that level, given that it seems to have less in common with Tarkovsky (whose deeply personal 1974 masterwork, Mirror, must surely be a touchstone for Malick) and far more in common with The Sound of Music (as does Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War, in my view). Also, while I have no problem with slow or long films (quite the contrary — I avidly seek them out!), Terence takes a very very long time to say very very little, and what he does say he keeps saying over and over and over and over again.

It’s probably just a personal bugbear that says more about me than Malick, but I have to mention (as I have on other occasions) how annoying Malick’s direction and presentation of actors can be, especially when it comes to female protagonists. Decked out in Zambesi-cool rags and flitting butterfly-like from scene to scene (and film to film) emanating a sort of coy fragile vulnerability, an affectation that a film-buff friend once coarsely (but perceptively) described as the “fuck-me-I’m-fragile” school of acting. There are so many shots and sequences in Malick’s films (going all the way back, frankly) in which he gets actors to stand or lie around like advertising or fashion models, pensive and meaningful but completely vacuous. One could easily suppose that Terence’s idea of Heaven will be a place designed by the likes of Jean-Louis Deniot and Hubert de Givenchy.

Another disappointment was Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series of films made for British television, five stand-alone films based on the real-life experiences of West Indian communities living in London between 1968 and 1982. All five films have turned up in many ‘best of 2020’ lists, with Mangrove and Lovers Rock (episodes one and two respectively) singled out as particularly strong. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bad review for any film in the series. Hence, prompted by such enthusiastic acclaim, I tracked the series down and jumped in with full gusto, eager to shake off the bad taste of McQueen’s earlier 12 Years a Slave, ostensibly an unflinching examination of racist brutality in the mid-1800s intended as a comment on contemporary racism. It’s one thing to stare-down hard truths, but quite another to present human misery as box-office entertainment, regardless of how “noble” one believes one’s message is, and McQueen certainly rides high on noble message-making with his Small Axe series.

One could be forgiven for smelling a waft of disingenuous (if not cynical) politically-correct opportunism as McQueen drapes his mini-series in cultural exoticism and easy-target bogeymen, aiming squarely for the back row with the sort of stereotyping that (dare I say) if the films had been made by a white filmmaker they might court the full career-crushing weight of cancel-culture backlash. The blunt fact of the matter is that these films flatter more than they serve or illuminate. McQueen ought to take a peek at Pedro Costa’s exceptional Vitalina Varela or Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s monumental Dau series to get a sense of how it can be done.

The series of films directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky (in association with Jekaterina Oertel, Aleksey Slusarchuk and Ilya Permyakov) known as the DAU project is an extraordinary body of work, if for no other reason than the sheer scale and ambition of the undertaking. It was originally intended as a relatively straightforward film about Soviet scientist Lev Landau, but gradually morphed into a broader examination of various characters and story-lines to eventually become an immersive large-scale project that would consume the lives of cast and crew for years, most of whom lived in the purpose-built replica of the original scientific institute (active from 1938 to 1968). Preparations began in 2006 and shooting started in 2008, but would continue for nearly four years and amass some 700 hours of footage.

I’ve managed to see six of the nine films I’ve tracked down : Natasha; String Theory; Degeneration, Katya Tanya, Nora Mother and Nikita Tanya (with Brave People, Three Days and New Man to go). Each one has been remarkable. They’re all very measured in terms of pacing, and many of the scenes either consist of long uninterrupted shots or have been so brilliantly edited as to feel like parcels of uninterrupted time. The films are all fairly dialogue-heavy, but the largely improvised conversations not only have authenticity and honesty that is rare in fiction cinema some, but they are extremely compelling and perceptive insights into human behaviour, from narcissistic self-deception and toxic cruelty to the most tender and empathetic of personal interactions.

Most of the performers are non-actors, and many are individuals who are renowned in their specific fields of art or science, or infamous as in the case of real-life white supremacist Maxim Martsinkevich, and also Vladimir Azhippo, who was the actual director of the institute between 1942 and 1956 and who reprises his former job as a KGB interrogator to harrowing effect in Natasha. The dismantling of the massive set took place in late 2011, and the destruction of parts of it was integrated into the films as part of the story. Years of editing followed, which produced a dozen or so separate films, and the project was finally premiered in Paris in January 2019. You can find out more about the project by visiting the Dau website HERE.

Some sequences are harrowing. The unsimulated scenes of drunkenness and sex are often raw and will be challenging for some, but the gruesome killing of a pig in the latter part of Degeneration will be difficult — if not impossible — for some to endure. One could argue that the filmmakers went too far at times, but given the project’s overarching intention to offer a blunt, unvarnished portrait of fascist totalitarianism — not just the obvious depiction of evil people doing evil things, but by describing the insidious normalising of toxicity in everyday human relationships — anything less than full commitment to how that looks and feels would dishonour the victims and the truth of their suffering under not only Soviet but all other totalitarian regimes.

The DAU project is a monumental achievement whichever way you look at it, the sheer scale of which not only embodies an inexorable vision of an experiment gone badly wrong, but it also alludes to contemporary incarnations of intransigent bloody-minded nationalism. It is, without any doubt, one of the great cinematic achievements of 2019-2020 — uncompromising, deeply humane, wholly original, brutally honest and fiercely unapologetic. These works may not offer the best fun you’ll have at the movies, but you won’t soon forget them.

For an intriguing insight into the DAU project, read THIS article by The Guardian contributor, Steve Rose.

There are, of course, many other films I’d like to talk about, but for now I’ll end this post with a list of 2020 releases that I hope to write about, even if only briefly, in 2020 Overview Pt2 (which I hope to make a start on soon), and a second list that I reckon are worth a look. If you wish to see any of the films discussed in this post (or listed below), I’d be pleased to share them with anyone willing to support this blog with a Patreon donation, HERE.

January 11, 2021

ART CINEMA

A Yangtze Landscape Xin Xu (non-fiction)

About Endlessness Roy Andersson

The Chambermaid Lila Aviles

Days Ming-Liang Tsai)

Dead Souls Bing Wang (non-fiction)

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains Xiaogang Gu

Earth Nikolaus Geyrhalter (non-fiction)

First Cow Kelly Reichardt

Genus Pan Lav Diaz

Heimat is a Space in Time Thomas Heise (non-fiction)

I Was at Home, But… Angela Schenelac

Inland Sea Kazuhiro Soda (non-fiction)

Lunch Break and other works by Sharon Lockhart (non-fiction)

Luz nos Trópicos (Light in the Tropics) Paula Gaitán

Memory House João Paulo Miranda Maria

The Metamorphosis of Birds Caterina Vasconcelos

Malmkrog Cristi Puiu

Mother, I am suffocating. This is my last film about you Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (non-fiction)

No Data Plan Miko Revereza (non-fiction)

The Painted Bird Václav Marhoul

State Funeral and its companion-piece A Night at the Opera Sergei Loznitsa (non-fiction)

Tharlo Pema Tsedan

This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese

Weep the Headless Madness of These Fields Alez Piperno

The Woman Who Ran Sang-Soo Hong

Vitalina Varela Pedro Costa

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