Best Films of 2018

2018 was an extremely strong year for world cinema due to many established auteurs releasing their films coupled with stellar works from emerging directors. Quite a few of these films made their debut at Cannes, which was the strongest in a decade. This year at Cannes there were films by Wang Bing, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Lee Chang-dong, Nandita Das, Asghar Farhadi, Bi Gan, Matteo Garrone, Jean-Luc Godard, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nadine Labaki, Spike Lee, Sergey Loznitsa, Jafar Panahi, Pawel Pawlikowski, Alice Rohrwacher, Lars von Trier, Wim Wenders and Jia Zhang-ke. As a result, there is a big influence of the Cannes film festival on this list. 12 of the 20 films in this list premiered at Cannes including 7 out of the top 10 films. However, this end of the year list includes just a fraction of the worthy films that showed at Cannes and other film festivals in 2018. There are still more than a dozen essential 2018 films that I missed seeing and will likely spend the better part of 2019 catching up with.

Note: the Top 10 and Honourable mentions is restricted to only 2018 titles.

Top 10 films of 2018

1. Transit (Germany/France, Christian Petzold)

Christian Petzold’s masterful adaption of Anna Seghers’ 1942 book is a cinematic treat! With just a few tweaks, Petzold has ensured that there is a constant tension between the past and present in the film. This balance between past-present highlights how history repeats in cycles and shows that a book written almost 80 years ago speaks to today’s world situation. This is because throughout history there are always people or communities that are persecuted and forced to leave their homes. The film is further elevated by a haunting love story, one which references Casablanca with hints of Kafka and Beckett.

2. Burning (South Korea, Lee Chang-dong)

Burning, Lee Chang-dong’s cinematic return after a gap of 8 years, smartly transforms a Haruki Murakami short story into a seductive thriller that lingers in the memory long after the credits.

3. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (China, Bi Gan)

Bi Gan’s sumptuous film provides an emotional ride across space and time by mixing past, present and dreams.

4. The Wild Pear Tree (Turkey co-production, Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Ceylan has combined the visual strength of his previous films with a meaty narration resulting in a tour de force which covers topics ranging from literature, religion, romance, philosophy to politics.

5. An Elephant Sitting Still (China, Hu Bo)

Hu Bo’s first and only feature was one of the most emotionally devastating films of the year. Shortly before the film was completed, 29 year old Hu Bo committed suicide. He didn’t live to see the film’s World Premiere at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival where it was extremely hard to secure a ticket to see this almost 4 hour film. Such is the strength of Hu Bo’s artistry that the film’s length is never felt. Instead, one is drawn into the lives of the four characters in Northern China and invested in their fate.

6. Sir (India/France, Rohena Gera)

Rohena Gera’s astute film gets at the core of what we seek in relationships and what causes two people from radically different backgrounds to form a connection. The end result is one of the most charming films of the year lit by a vibrant performance by Tillotama Shome.

7. Fausto (Canada/Mexico, Andrea Bussmann)

Canadian director Andrea Bussmann creatively uses the text of Goethe’s Faust as a jumping point to explore myths, local legends and tales in Mexico’s Oaxaca coast. The decision to use low light for shooting many of the scenes results in a shape-shifting film that strips away the concept of time; the film could be set decades in the past or could be contemporary. The end result is exhilarating as the film shows a unique way to perceive history and cultures.

 
8. Donbass (Ukraine co-production, Sergey Loznitsa)

Sergey Loznitsa cleverly depicts how events in Ukraine are influenced by the overarching influence of Russia. An urgent film that also depicts how the media is being manipulated by politicians resulting in further blurring between real and fake news.

9. Ash is Purest White (China, Jia Zhang-ke)

 Jia Zhang-ke’s newest film is a perceptive depiction of the Chinese landscape, both social and economical, over the course of two decades.

10. Another Day of Life (Poland/Spain/Belgium/Germany/Hungary, Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow)

Based on late journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski’s book of the same name, Another Day of Life is a fascinating mix of documentary and animation that captures the energy of Kapuscinski’s book about the Angolan civil war.

 
Honourable Mentions (alphabetical order):

3 Faces (Iran, Jafar Panahi)
BlacKkKlansman (USA, Spike Lee)
Closing Time (Germany/Switzerland, Nicole Vögele)
Cold War (Poland/UK/France, Pawel Pawlikowski)
Dear Son (Tunisia/Belgium/France/Qatar, Mohamed Ben Attia)
Djon Africa (Portuga/Brazil/Cape Verde, João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis)
The Image Book (Swtizerland/France, Jean-Luc Godard)
Grass (South Korea, Hong Sang-soo)
Roma (Mexico/USA, Alfonso Cuarón)
Season of the Devil (Philippines, Lav Diaz)

Notable 2016 and 2017 films seen in 2018 (alphabetical order):

Gabriel and the Mountain (2017, Brazil/France, Fellipe Barbosa)
The Great Buddha+ (2017, Taiwan, Huang Hsin-yao)
Hotel Salvation (2016, India, Shubhashish Bhutiani)
Machines (2016, India/Germany/Finland, Rahul Jain)
Phantom Thread (2017, USA/UK, Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Unknown Girl (2016, Belgium/France, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
The Woman who Left (2016, Philippines, Lav Diaz)

Pacing Asia -- Bicycles, Trains and Gangsters

Beijing Bicycle (2001 film directed by Xiaoshuai Wang): Rating 10/10

Emotional and beautiful cinema at its best! This is a movie which grabs you emotionally, forces you to root for the underdog, but then forces you to shift your viewpoint as it gives you a different perspective and then finally reaches a just rewarding end. A stubborn quiet villager comes to Beijing to earn a living. He finds his calling acting as a bicycle courier – it is a job which gives him happiness. One day, his bike is stolen. That shatters him as he had worked day and night to earn the bike and was only a day away from owning it outright (the bikes are owned by the courier company until an employee works enough hours to own the bike). The next segment introduces us to a young college kid with the same stolen bike. He is genuinely happy with this bike and it is form of his freedom. The villager finally finds his bike and takes it back. But the college kid’s friends beat the villager up and take the bike back. As it turns out, the school boy had paid for the stolen bike from the black market and feels he owns the bike. Finally after some more fighting, a compromise is reached between the two and they agree to share the bike every other day. The bike represents freedom to both males and how they go about their lives with a bike acting as a focal point is fascinating to watch.

We don’t need much dialogue in this film as the story moves along briskly. And the carefully timed expressions give us an insight into the characters motives and hence it is no surprize when the college kid’s jealousy and vengefulness ensures a final fight is in store. I was very impressed with this film and I am glad I got to watch it. No doubt the bike’s theft will point to another famous bicycle movie but this one is unique to the Chinese landscape.

The World (directed by Jia Zhang Ke): Rating 8/10

In some movies, a set can really steal the show. And that is just the case in this film as the location is just precious. The film is set in Beijing’s World Theme park where replicas of all the world’s monuments are on display – Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Pyramids, London Bridge. One can see the entire world without ever leaving China!! And as one park worker observes, the park still has its twin towers in tact while the real ones no longer exist. That is an important element as it alludes to the film’s core – sometimes a fake replica can be more real than the real thing. The film follows some of the park workers and when the camera leaves the park, it gives us a peak into their lives. The setting leaves room for a rich story and for the first hour, it is completely engrossing. However, once the camera left the park, the film lost some its energy. I like Jia Zhang Ke’s recent Still Life a lot more but The World is still an important film. And as China’s economy continues to exert a bigger presence in the global market, this movie can be taken as a case study in how on one hand, globalization can shrink the world and on the other hand, trivialize cultures. Can one symbol really capture a nation? Not really but that how is what is used by all countries to define a nation.

I need to get more of Zhang Ke’s older films as his work gives a unique & refreshing look into China.

My Wife is a gangster (2001 film directed by Jin-gyu Cho): Rating 7.5/10

Will Hollywood finally go ahead and re-make this Korean movie? Apparently, this was supposed to be the first Korean movie to be remade by Hollywood but the project has not yet taken off. The story is easily adaptable for the commercial tastes catered to by both Hollywood and Bollywood.

The title really gives the plot away (innocent man does not know his wife is a gangster) and also points towards the film's genre -- comedy!! A tough woman gangster finally finds her long lost sister. Her sister is dying and one her final wishes is to see her tough sister married. This may be the gangster's toughest job but through a bizarre series of incidents she lands a husband. The humour in this film is run on familiar jokes such as the woman trying on heels for the first time. Despite being the run of the mill stuff, it ends up being funny. The best aspect of the story is the role reversal shown -- the gangster woman acts like a macho man, and the humble husband is left to cook, clean and cater to his wife's moods. For some reason, the side characters are given some subplots which really add nothing to the story but seem more like material to extend the film. Nonetheless, it was a fun watch. And the ending really left the door open for future sequels and sure enough, two more sequels have been made.

Café Lumiere (2003 film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien): Rating 6/10

What is this movie? Is this what we are left to call art? The movie is HHH’s tribute to Ozu’s Tokyo. I am sure it is in some ways but since I am not too familiar with all of Ozu’s techniques, I wasn’t too thrilled. A café, a young girl and a man obsessed with recording sounds of Tokyo’s unconnected train stations! That is about it. Yes at times, the long takes are beautiful but not much happens. Maybe not much is supposed to happen but I rather go sit at a café or a train station on my own time!

Kilimanjaro (2000 film directed by Seung-ook Oh): Rating 4.5/10

Run of the mill film. Two twin brothers, one a cop, the other a gangster. The gangster dies and the cop goes to his brother’s hometown to find things out. He is mistaken for his twin brother and mayhem results. Fight. Blood. Guns. Yawn…