It’s been, quite honestly, an exhausting fall festival season. Not exhuasting because I was going from one theater to the next watching multiple films a day and then filing in my hotel room. No, those days now feel like they are from a bygone era. Instead, I attended more than half a dozen digital film festivals. It was such a strange experience and, although I saw a handful of great movies, the saddest part of it all was not being able to experience them on the big screen. There is no replacing sitting in the dark with hundreds of cinephiles around you and watching a great movie. No streaming platform can ever replace that. Instead, I screened almost 70 films on my 55 inch 4k TV, not a bad setup, but one lacking the intimacy that the Lumieres brothers and George Melies had in mind when they invented the medium more than a century ago.
“Pieces of a Woman” (Kornel Mundruczo)
For 128 minutes, Vanessa Kirby has you hooked to her every move in Kornel Mundruczo’s “Pieces of a Woman.” As Martha, a high-powered executive who loses her child during a harrowing home birth, Kirby mesmerizes by showcasing the human frailty and devastation that happens when tragedy comes knocking at her door. Her acting tour-de-force reminded me of Gena Rowlands’ masterful work in John Cassavetes’ 1974 classic, “Woman Under the Influence.”
“David Byrne's American Utopia” (Spike Lee)
I was hooked by Spike Lee’s mesmerizing concert documentary “American Utopia.” The film, which premiered on HBO this past Saturday, has already been seen three times by yours truly. And I’m not even a big fan of David Byrne or his former band The Talking Heads. Maybe it’s because we live in such tumultuous times, where our spirits need to be lifted by art, music, and visual content. It’s one of the best rock documents I’ve ever seen.
“The Father” (Florian Zeller)
Anthony Hopkins is gunning for that second Best Actor trophy for his brilliant work as Anthony. Playing a man, suffering from Alzheimer’s, who refuses all assistance from his daughter as his mental state deteriorates, Hopkins and director Florian Zeller create an indelible portrait of identity loss Zeller, adapting his play for the screen, ingeniously finds a way to suck the viewer into the head of a man losing grasp of reality. The patience, frustration, hurt, and unwavering love depicted between Hopinks’ character and daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) is the heart and soul of the film.
“Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” (Steve McQueen)
Steve McQueen’s “Lover’s Rock” is a formally bold 70-minute dance party. McQueen uses his camera in unique & original ways. Some moments in this movie feel damn-near transcendent in the way they use moving bodies, music & photography to immerse the viewer in moments of pure ecstasy. “Lovers Rock” may be the bolder movie, but, in “Mangrove”, based on the true story of the "Mangrove 9," McQueen focuses his eye on a group of nine black protestors who clashed with police during a march in London 1970, they were subsequently arrested and put on trial. Depicting that trial, McQueen proves that you can make high art out of such a tiresome genre. Vital, powerful and resonant, both films will be part of the director’s upcoming “Small Axe” miniseries, set to premiere on BBC/Amazon next week.
“Beginning” (Dea Kulumbegashvili’)
The San Sebastián Film Festival gave Georgian writer/director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s blistering debut feature “Beginning,” a whopping four prizes including the Screenplay, Director, Actress, and Best Film awards. A psychological portrait about the wife of a religious community leader dealing with unctontrollable sexism and hate in her small town community, “Beginning” is composed of just a handful of medium static shots. Kulumbegashvili never overplays her hand, she continuously shifts the mood of her film - it can go from meditative to angry to downright provocative in the span of a few scenes. The result is a high-wire act that feels damn-near miraculous.
“Nomadland” (Chloe Zhao)
The most acclaimed movie of the fall festival season, Chloe Zhao‘s “Nomadland” is not going to be a film for the masses, and all the better for it. This is a moody, and, at times, mesmerizing third film from the Chinese-American filmmaker, after her triumphant 2018 film, “The Rider.” Much like her previous efforts, this is Zaho’s 21st-century depiction of Americana angst, mixing non-fiction and fiction filmmaking in effortless fashion. It stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a widowed nomad, with no interest in settling down, who constantly evolves from community to community in her rundown RV van. Don’t call her homeless, she prefers to use the term “house-less,” moving from job to job, camp to camp, parking lot to parking lot with no intention to settle down.
“The Disciple” (Chaitanya Tamhane)
Director Chaitanya Tamhane's masterfully composed second feature, after his excellent “Court,” examined the journey of a man who has devoted his life to becoming an Indian classical music vocalist, diligently following the traditions and discipline of old masters, especially his guru (Arun Dravid). But as years, even decades, go by, Sharad starts having doubts about his talents, can he sustain a lifetime of worship to a discipline he may never perfect? The word transcendent comes to mind when describing Tamhane’s dreamy character study, which has the power to immerse you into its unknown world of spirituality.
“New Order” (Michel Franco)
Playing about both Toronto and Venice, Michel Franco’s polarizing film had a high-society wedding interrupted by the arrival of a social justice militia. The resulting effect was a bleak state of the union address from the Mexican director, who saw social unrest and the aims of anti-establishment movements as more than just about positive change or smooth democratic transitions of power. The protestors in “New Order” are filled with rage and youthful anarchy but without a contingent plan to manage the nation peacefully. They want the rich purged, abused, and ruined.
“76 Days” (Hao Wu)
Filmed mostly in a single hospital in the city of Wuhan, Hao Wu’s film shows the period of 76 days of lockdown in a Chinese hospital coping with an endless amount of outbreaks. Having unequivocal access to the frontline of doctors and nurses fighting against the virus, this is an unexceptional film that ust wants to give us a peak of what it must have been like at the epicenter of the virus. It helps us understand and feel the horrors of those days when we didn't know much about COVID-19 and is a tribute to the hospital staff, doctors, nurses and everyone else involved who tried to contain the damaging effects.