Best Films of 2016

At times, it was hard to think of films in 2016 given the shifting political winds around the world. Thankfully, global cinema was in step with the changes and some films predicted the anger and shift to the right. Naturally, most of these films were only found at various international film festivals, cinematheques and arthouses. Hopefully, some of these titles start getting distribution in 2017 and find a larger audience.

Note: for the sake of an even comparison, only 2016 titles are considered for this list.

Baker’s Dozen of Top 2016 films

1. Take Me Home (Iran, Abbas Kiarostami)

Cinema lost a leading voice when Abbas Kiarostami passed away in 2016. The artistic beauty with which he crafted his films can be found in Take Me Home, a lovely short  film about a soccer ball’s journey. The short is beautiful, packs warm emotions and plays with the concept of reality. A precious final gift from one of cinema’s greatest directors!

2. Aquarius (Brazil/France, Kleber Mendonça Filho)

Even though the film is localized to a Brazilian apartment building, the events echo our current world of rapid development where the past is always in danger of being demolished for a shiny new future.

3. The Student (Russia, Kirill Serebrennikov)

The Student brilliantly portrays the recent changing political sentiment in Europe and USA. The film uses the radicalization of a lonely shy white male to underline that hateful ideas that may seem harmless at first can result in grave consequences if unchecked and allowed to spread.

4. Shin Godzilla (Japan, Hideaki Anno/Shinji Higuchi)

A film of immense beauty and fierce intelligence about creation, evolution, destruction, logistics and problem solving.

5. Nocturama (France/Germany/Belgium, Bertrand Bonello)

A tense razor sharp film that is stripped of any specific ideology but is completely aware of our contemporary world.

6. Nightlife (Slovenia/Republic of Macedonia/Bosnia and Herzegovina, Damjan Kozole)

This Slovenian co-production cleverly uses a single incident to depict how private events can quickly end up becoming public scandals. The film style has shades of the Romanian New Wave.

7. Silence (USA/Mexico/Taiwan, Martin Scorsese)

At its core, this is a film about imposing one's will on others. On a macro-level, this is a clash of civilizations/religions. But this idea of imposing ideas onto another takes place on micro-levels as well, from every day beliefs about sports, politics and even the weather. On a micro-level, these ideas may seem harmless and can be ignored. But this need to impose one's way can take on serious consequences on a macro-level. Throughout history, men (always men, which is why no female leads are in the film) have tried to convert others, to conquer other's soul, minds. Men did this because they believed their way was the only way. So they went about with extreme measures and tortured, killed until the others accepted.

Silence is not an easy film to watch and needs time to digest. But it is one of most significant and relevant films of the year!

8. Neruda (Chile/Argentina/France/Spain/USA, Pablo Larraín)

Creatively uses the poetry of Neruda to create a fictional framework which questions the reality and myth surrounding Neruda’s escape. Infused with humour and a scrumptious touch of noir.

9. Yourself and Yours ( South Korea, Hong Sang-soo)

In the films of Hong Sang-soo, characters open up their feelings and transform when alcohol is present. That point is hammered home in Yourself and Yours where the main character morphs into a completely different person as soon as a fresh pint of beer is served. The end result is a dizzying delightful work!

10. The Ornithologist (Portugal/France/Brazil, João Pedro Rodrigues)

A hypnotic journey which is an innovative mix of a fable and myth that seamlessly shifts through multiple cinematic genres.

11. In the Last Days of the City (Egypt/Germany/UK/UAE, Tamer El Said)
       tied with
      Clash (Egypt/France, Mohamed Diab)

Two completely different Egyptian films set in different eras but the two films end up having a dialogue with each other.

In the Last Days of the City is a poetic love letter to a Cairo that no longer exists. The film consists entirely of footage shot in 2009-10 and there are many scenes which may have seemed harmless back in 2010 but take on a much different meaning after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. In the Last Days of the City shows a time when people could roam the streets of Cairo freely and openly discuss political ideas. The freedom of the camera’s movement in Tamer El Said’s film is in stark contrast to Clash which is set in a confined space in the back of a police van.

Mohamed Diab’s powerful film depicts the division in Egyptian society that came to a boil in 2013. The confined space in Clash creates a powerful immersive experience and mirrors the state of society in 2013 in contrast to In the Last Days of the City.

13. Fences (USA, Denzel Washington)

A film that will always be timely due to the discussions about a racial past and also due to the honest practical conversations about relationships. The dialogues articulate what a relationship means and outlines the every day dollar value associated with decisions that people make. These dialogues won't apply to the 1% but for the 99%.

Honourable mentions (alphabetical order):

Elle (France/Germany/Belgium, Paul Verhoeven)
Hell or High Water (USA, David Mackenzie)
The Human Surge (Argentina/Brazil/Portugal, Eduardo Williams)
It’s Not the Time of My Life (Hungary, Szabolcs Hajdu)
Life after Life (China, Zhang Hanyi)
Mother (Estonia, Kadri Kõusaar)
Old Stone (Canada/China, Johnny Ma)

Euro 2012: Quarter-Finals results & Semi-Final draw

Euro 2012 Book & Film Spotlight: Quarter-Final Results

The Quarter-finals of the Euro 2012 Book & Film Spotlight features four absolutely mouth-watering match-ups with very little to choose between the different films. So it is not a surprize to find very close results and even one subjective penalty shoot-out to pick a winner.

Quarter-Final #1: Silent Souls (Russia) vs C'est déjà l'été (Holland)

Certainly not a very uplifting affair as death hovers the Russian film while the Dutch entry depicts a cycle of misery that envelopes three generations of a family. Still, both are excellent films that smartly use the camera to give audience a fly on the wall perspective towards many intimate and personal moments. It is hard to watch both films without feeling a gush of emotions which is why it is appropriate that the winner of this match is decided by a subjective penalty shoot-out.

The Russian film takes it confidently on penalties.

QF #2: The Strange Case of Angelica (Portugal) vs The Mill and the Cross (Poland)

Two incredibly made films square off in a contest worthy to be a Euro Film final. Lech Majewski’s Polish film is a technical pleasure that dives into a painting and brings it to life. While Manoel de Oliveira shows a tender touch to craft a metaphysical love story which is light as a feather. The Strange Case of Angelica wins a narrow contest.

QF #3: Buick Riviera (Croatia) vs L’Apollonide (France)

One of the two match-ups where a personal favourite loses out when all the goals are tallied up. Buick Riviera is a film worthy of a final entry but L’Apollonide does a magnificent job of creating an intoxicating atmosphere in a French brothel. The characters and overall story of L’Apollonide may not be new but a brilliant treatment makes it a sensual pleasure. The panther stays long in the memory.

QF#4: My Joy (Ukraine) vs The Salt of Life(Italy)

The Italian film The Salt of Life is another personal favourite but it came up just short against My Joy. The Salt of Life It is a perfect summer film that makes one want to pass away the time at an Italian cafe with a glass of wine. On the other hand, My Joy is the complete opposite and reminds one of winter when darkness and cold weather numb the senses. As My Joy progresses, any shreds of hope and light are slowly extinguished and the film ends with one of the best fade-to-black sequences in recent memory. However, in this contest, darkness wins and My Joy progresses to the semi-final.

Semi-Final Draw

As per the draw, the winner of the Quarter-Final #1 meets the winner of QF#3 while the winners of QF#2 and #4 face-off. This results in the following:

Semi-Final #1: Silent Souls (Russia) vs L’Apollonide (France)

SF #2: The Strange Case of Angelica (Portugal) vs My Joy (Ukraine)

As a result of this draw, the two best films of the spotlight are drawn against each other in the second semi-final. This unfortunately means only one of The Strange Case of Angelica or My Joy will make it to the final. From another perspective, both semi-finals are perfectly balanced as Silent Souls and L’Apollonide have an equal chance of making the final. The only sure thing is that the winner of the Euro 2012 film spotlight will be one of The Strange Case of Angelica or My Joy.

Soccer Quarter-Finals

Czech Republic 0 - 1 Portugal
Germany 4 - 2 Greece
Spain 2 - 0 France
England 0 - 0 Italy, Italy win on penalties

For a change, all the four quarter-finals in the soccer tournament went as per plan. All the 4 attacking teams deserved to win their games even though the score-line may not reflect the overall dominance of Portugal, Germany, Spain and Italy.

The four quarters are in complete contrast to Copa America 2011 where all the four favourite teams lost in the quarter-finals.

Colombia 0 - 2 Peru
Argentina 1 - 1 Uruguay, Uruguay win on penalties
Brazil 0 - 0 Paraguay, Paraguay win on penalties
Chile 1 - 2 Venezuela

Euro 2012: French Films

Entry #6 of the Euro 2012 Book & Film Spotlight looks at the two French films.

L’Apollonide (House of Tolerance/House of Pleasures) (2011, Bertrand Bonello)

Films set in a brothel often depict similar stories by incorporating a range of familiar characters from a young to an older prostitute and from a miserable to a romantic person. The clients that visit the brothels also appear to be cut from a similar template such as a young male after his first sexual experience, a rich man who falls in love with a prostitute and wants to rescue her and an older male simply looking for a friend. Therefore, a lot of credit must be given to Bertrand Bonello who manages to craft a unique film despite working in the confined framework of a brothel. Many of the characters shown in Bonello’s film are familiar from previous films set in a brothel but Bonello also adds elements of horror and fantasy while layering everything with a stylistic touch. For example, the recurring images of a panther and the tragic disfiguring of a prostitute’s face (“the woman who laughs”) are not only haunting but linger long in the memory. The films also contains delightful moments, such as the sequence of money being counted which perfectly illustrates the financial side of sexual transactions. Music also plays a key part in L’Apollonide while the visuals evoke sentiments of an underground world of drugs and sex. Even though the film does not depict rich colors, it exudes a bit of the sensuality found in rich supply in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai. As it turns out, Bonello mentions Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film in an interview with Cinema Scope:

One of my uncertainties was the atmosphere of the brothel in my film. I didn’t want that French, 1900s [makes a fanfare noise]… Moulin Rouge, etc. etc. So I went directly to that opium den mood in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film, because it keeps the sensuality but is not hysterical. There’s an explicit homage in my film to Flowers of Shanghai: the Chinese violin.

Also, the final scene is a perfect way to end the film as it creates a bridge between brothels of the past and modern day prostitution. That crucial scene also illustrates how a film like L’Apollonide will never age and will always be relevant in our society.

Rapt (2009, Lucas Belvaux)

A rich man gets kidnapped. The kidnappers demand a ransom from the victim’s family. The family want to do whatever is possible to get their beloved back.

At this point, Lucas Belvaux’s Rapt tears up the familiar script found in cinematic kidnapped stories and goes off in a completely different direction with surprisingly powerful results.

The first deviation from conventional kidnapped stories is the realization the kidnapped man Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal) is not as rich as everyone initially thought. He has a lot of debt and did his utmost to maintain an illusion of an extravagant lifestyle. Investigation into his life reveals his multiple affairs which alienates his wife and daughter. Stanislas’ company and board of directors are not too happy with his lifestyle and are reluctant to part with any funds for his release. As a result, Stanislas is cut adrift from the outside world and the only people who end up caring for him are his kidnappers who still believe they can get some money from his capture. With the exception of a few torture scenes, Rapt does not feature any of the action or heroic scenes often found in kidnapping tales. Words are the weapons of choice in Rapt and character assassinations are the only kinds of attacks that take place.

Same Same but different

Both L’Apollonide and Rapt show that in the hands of a talented director, a familiar setup can yield a completely different end product. Therefore even though one day stories may dry up, cinema will always continue to surprize as long as creative personalities stand behind a camera.