2023 was a spectacular year for movies; the best in recent memory. Click HERE to discover my top 44 films of this year. On each film’s thumbnail you can click through to my short thoughts. While you’re there, follow me on Letterboxd, the film logging platform, which is where I log not only current films but all the films I watch. It’s a fun platform.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Asghar Farhadi’s new film, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, continues the Iranian auteur’s deep thematic fascination with the intersection of class and morality; again, it challenges our ethical assumptions by forcing us to consider the seemingly unreasonable actions of someone against their own penurious circumstances.
Like Rahim in Farhadi’s 2021 Oscar-nominated film A Hero, who found himself continuing an ongoing deceit when faced with the possibility of finding release from debtor’s prison, Chris Pine’s Edgin in the new film finds himself having to compromise his own deeply held beliefs when presented with the opportunity to steal a chest full of gold coins. Around this simple premise Farhadi spins his trademark web of ever-deepening complications, with multiple characters from all walks of society consistently adding to the complicated moral terrain.
Farhadi, as we all know by now, faces his own complicated ethical landscape, as he stands accused of plagiarism, not only for the plot of A Hero, but also for those of some of his earlier celebrated films such as The Past and his 2011 masterpiece A Separation. His bold move in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which some will find bracing and others may find solipsistic and egocentric, is to reset the film’s parameters radically in the astonishing third act, placing Edgin on trial in an Iranian ‘Art Prison’ and having him answer, essentially, for the charges facing Farhadi himself. This long sequence, seen entirely from the point of view of locked-off B&W security cameras placed high in the corners of the courtroom and in Persian (which Pine seems to have mastered well), is tense, rigorous, and teeming with big ideas, much like Farhadi’s entire body of work. Whatever you think about his methods, his results are always plain to see.
Bonjour!
I pretty much took six months off Film Mafia. Lecturing, reviewing, and other pursuits – I was a voter on the Golden Globes this year, for example – took up my work time. But a slate of sweet French films has brought me back. Bonjour, mes amis. Let’s preview this year’s…
Alliance Française French Film Festival!
As usual, 2023’s French Film Festival is vast and varied, reflecting the diversity of French cinema tastes. Highly commercial fare jostles for your attention with films based on real-life tough subject matter and extremely artful work.
A true highlight is Saint Omer, from writer-director Alice Diop, who redefines the courtroom drama by distilling it down to its essence. Almost an autobiographical story, the film follows a writer (Kayije Kagame, standing in for Diop) who attends the trial of a young mother (Guslagie Malanda, in a powerful performance) who stands accused, in the Northern city of Saint Omer, of one of those crimes that are unimaginable to most people. The trial is shown simply, methodically, organically, yet delivers human drama of the most intimately devastating kind, building to a stunningly thought-provoking climax. The film reeks of integrity and authenticity, with pitch-perfect naturalistic performances and compelling, if simple, mise-en-scene. It represents a true highlight of the festival.
Mia Hansen-Løve’s new movie, One Fine Morning, features Léa Seydoux as a young Parisienne struggling with the emotional complexities of caring for her degenerating father by adding to her own complex emotional landscape as the French do best: by having an affair with a married man. This oh-so-French set-up yields quiet rewards and an outstanding performance from Seydoux, who now sits amongst the top tier of French actresses.
Everybody Loves Jeanne mines similar emotional, tonal and narrative terrain, though not as successfully, as Jeanne (Blanche Gardin, who sits somewhat below the top tier) wrestles with her mother’s estate as she re-encounters a high-school friend. Although the film is French and everybody speaks French, it’s mainly set in Lisbon, and has sunny highlights peeking through its generally melancholic mists.
But the knockout surprise of the films I’ve been able to preview has been Michel Hazanavicius’ Final Cut, a wild satirical ride that also manages to pack a nice emotional punch. Romain Duris plays a film director planning a one-take, live zombie movie for broadcast on a Japanese website. The kicker is that we get to see the finished product first, and then go back and see how it was put together, which is both fascinating and frankly hilarious. I loved this crazy and warm look at the temporary families that are forged when film cast and crew are bound in pursuit of that one great shot.
The Alliance Française French Film Festival runs across Australia starting 7 March.
Lots of New Films
BLONDE (Netflix)
***1/2
If Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was a portrait of the artist without the pain, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is a portrait of the artist as pure pain, a sum of trauma, grief, displacement and anguish almost without regard to talent. As such, it’s not a bio, but very much an adaptation of the novel that was its source material, and it certainly won’t be for everyone. Ana de Armas is pretty astonishing in the role of Norma Jeane and Marilyn Monroe, whom, the film posits, Jeane saw as an almost alien entity.
THE STRANGER (Cinemas from 06 October)
****
This is the kind of film Australia has done best since, pretty much, 2000: extremely dark tales of men with beards communicating in mumbling tones of great foreboding, sprinkled liberally with the f word. This is a good one and will truly reward you if you go in cold, as I did; you won’t be ahead of it, that’s for sure. There is no humour here: this is serious stuff, bleak, flinty, and rather great.
ON THE COUNT OF THREE
***
The central conceit of this challenging urban buddy flick – a pair of depressed friends make a suicide pact – could be reckless were the film’s seriousness of purpose not so pronounced. The debut feature from successful US stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael, this is a very dark comedy with a lot on its mind.
THE HUMANS
***1/2
Stephen Karam’s adaptation of his own play about a family gathering for Thanksgiving at a small apartment in New York City has grown on me. I found it rather involving but unsatisfying at first watch, but I partly blame myself: I kept waiting for the shoe to drop, and didn’t, perhaps, appreciate the waiting itself. It’s a low-key slow-build character piece, modest and contained but thoughtfully and at times inventively cinematic.
MOONAGE DAYDREAM
***1/2
An at times thrilling, at times exasperatingly over-produced experiment in cultural montage. Despite so much Bowie, you long for more Bowie, longer song snippets, more sustained footage and less stuff: less silent film footage, archival footage, added footage. At times it’s so overburdened with all that detritus that it’s frustrating, but, of course, Bowie shines through. Just.
THE QUIET GIRL
***1/2
This Irish-language tale of the summer a young girl spends with her mother’s cousin and her husband touches some moments of greatness and some of banality, but overall is moving and heartfelt.
YOU WON’T BE ALONE
***1/2
A unique take on witches and folklore. Writer/director Goran Stolevski is an Australian director, born in Macedonia, who made the film entirely in Serbia with a mainly Serbian cast except for Swedish actress Noomi Rapace.
Crimes of the Future and Nope
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
***
David Cronenberg’s first feature since 2014’s Maps to the Stars is, depending on your outlook, a return to his roots, a return to his classic period, a return to form, or a step backward. Either way, you would not say it implies a bold new direction: if you’re a Cronenberg fan, this is very, very familiar territory. Indeed, it felt to me like a retread of his own Crash (1996) combined with eXistenZ (1999); those two films followed each other, and this is their perverse, belated baby. Like Crash, the characters here are so consumed with consummating their fetishistic sexual drives that they’re willing to sacrifice their bodies to their desires; like eXistenZ, grim fleshy imagery prevails. Cronenberg’s dialogue here is typically ludicrous but once you get lulled into it, the film becomes a little like a perverse warm bath, sweeping you into its bonkers world, aided by perfectly cast Cronenbergian regular Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and, especially, Kristen Stewart, who completely understands the lurid universe she’s in. Unfortunately, it’s all a bit cartoony – out-of-kilter from this most adult of auteurs – and ultimately unsatisfying.
NOPE
***
Jordan Peele’s third feature is my biggest disappointment of 2022 so far, which is not to say it’s bad; perhaps my expectations were far too high. The best part – the sitcom ape – is far more interesting than the rest. There’s obviously a lot of ideas going on, references, all that jazz, but it’s a frustrating experience, a film of diminishing interest as it plods along.
The Conference, Emergency, What Josiah Saw
THE CONFERENCE
Cinemas from 11 August
* * * *
Compelling – indeed, riveting – staging of the Wannsee Conference, the Berlin lakeside gathering on 20 January 1942 where leading members of the Nazi regime including SS, Reich Chancellery, ministries, police and administration met to discuss the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. The screenplay is derived from the minutes of this meeting as recorded by Adolf Eichmann.
The film’s success lies in the fact that it never forgets that it’s the soberest, darkest of history lessons, while being just cinematic enough to be, for want of a better word, an ‘entertainment.’ It’s never dry, but it’s completely sober, and while the subject matter is of the world’s greatest abomination, the telling is tasteful, respectful and suffused with artistic integrity. Wrongly handled, this could have been exploitative or downright abominable in its own right; instead, it’s vital, important and true.
EMERGENCY
Amazon
* * * 1/2
Solid direction, strong performances and excellent writing in a college comedy thriller about the dangers young Black American men face from police officers. The central conceit – which I won’t spoil here – is treated matter-of-factly, which is itself the shocking thing, especially to those who live outside the United States. I read a lot about these issues and hope I have some understanding of them; this film certainly contributed to that, viscerally.
WHAT JOSIAH SAW
Shudder from 4 August
* * * 1/2
In Texas, adult children of a charismatic God-fearing patriarch must deal with his traumatic impact on their lives.
Pure, raw, undiluted American Gothic with all the trimmings. Here is a vibe, a voice, a style and a mood, all of a piece, managing to wear its influences proudly yet roll them into something original and fresh. Watch it late at night, in the dark, and get into its strange, strange vibe.
You can listen to CJ interview the writer of What Josiah Saw, Robert Alan Dilts, on CJ’s Movieland podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/038rjYUwYBxuyoi2WaGSVT?utm_source=generator
Benjamin Zeccola on Palace Cinemas’ Global Festival Slate (PODCAST)
Benjamin Zeccola is CEO of Palace Cinemas, who run an ongoing slate of international film festivals across Australia throughout the year, including the French, Italian, Spanish, German, Scandinavian, British, Irish and Japanese Film Festivals. On this episode of Movieland, Benjamin talks about the humble beginnings and current strengths of his festival slate, the audience demand for such content, the challenges and rewards of sourcing and programming so much global product, and why Australia just may be the best country in the world for seeing European cinema on the big screen. This discussion will also form the basis for a future article in Metro Magazine and is posted with Metro’s permission.
See CJ Live In Sydney!
After presenting a sell-out series of three lectures at the Art Gallery of New South Wales earlier this year, I’m returning with a new monthly series of lectures, The Art of Cinema, so far programmed through the end of 2022 . You can book the whole series or individual lectures, and you don’t need to be a member of the AGNSW. All details and booking information here:
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/events/art-of-cinema-series/
The Lectures:
Weds 24 August
THE ART OF FILM NOIR
Film noir is more than shadows, trench coats and femmes fatales. So what is it, exactly? How did it originate, develop, and what are its classic examples?
Weds 14 September
UNDERSTANDING CASABLANCA
It’s one of the most beloved films of all time; one of the most quoted, referenced, revived, rewatched, parodied and pinched from. But what is really going on in this staggeringly entertaining 1942 Warner Bros. classic? CJ offers an eye-opening deep read of a film you think you know.
Weds 5 October
THE CINEMA OF ORSON WELLES
Orson Welles has a claim to being the ultimate filmmaker as public figure, celebrity, star and auteur; his life was even more fabulous and dramatic than any of his unique films (including his masterpiece Citizen Kane). CJ offers an entertaining ride through an astonishing life and bumpy career.
Weds 09 November
THE FRENCH NEW WAVE
What exactly constituted this major 1960s movement? Who drove it, what films did they make, and how – if at all – did it change cinema?
Ali and Ava, Full Time, Official Competition
Ali and Ava
Out Now in Australian cinemas.
* * * 1/2
Clio Barnard’s third fiction feature is a beautifully observed middle-aged relationship drama set specifically and precisely in Bradford in the UK. There, Ali (Adeel Akhtar) and Ava (Claire Rushbrook) meet in the turmoil of daily life. Each carry relationship baggage, emotional and physical, but, importantly, both are lonely: these are two characters who need each other. Barnard shows constant, enormous compassion not only for both of them but for all the supporting characters, some of whom aren’t tremendously likeable at first encounter. The screenplay doesn’t break new ground – this is highly trod territory, British regional social realism through and through – but the direction is intricate and thoughtful and the performances tremendous.
Full Time
Coming Soon
* * * 1/2
The Safdie brothers’ influence on this tense social-realist drama, written and directed by Eric Gravel and starring Laure Camaly, is undeniable, but that’s no bad thing; this takes their pressure-cooker style and applies it to a more universal situation. Calamy, as a single mother living outside Paris dealing with the disruption to her commute during a train strike, is sensational; she’s right at the front of the pack of screen actresses now. Funny she won her César for Antoinette in the Cévennes rather than a dramatic role like this, but c’est la vie. It’s a well-made film, although the constant pressures applied to Julie run the risk of becoming parodic (I’m looking at you, birthday present thing) and all too much. One thing’s for sure: it’ll make you feel less bad about not living in Paris.
Official Competition
Coming Soon
* * *
Penelope Cruz. Antonio Banderas. Oscar Martînez. In a satire about moviemaking. Boy, was I excited. And boy, was I disappointed. With these actors, this script, as flawed and obvious as it is, may have worked. But the direction is so heavy-handed and the editing so labored, the film is devoid of energy. Scenes drag, speeches drag, points are repeatedly pounded on the head. Somehow in the midst of it Cruz gives a great performance, and the framing is occasionally nice.
Compartment No. 6
Juho Kuosmanen’s COMPARTMENT NO. 6 is up there with Petite Maman as the best film thus far of 2022. I originally chose it at the Sydney Film Festival 2021 as armchair travel: when am I gonna take a train in the Arctic circle? As such it doesn’t disappoint: this is a film that really takes you places; the milieu is astonishing. But the characters are so richly drawn, and the performances so winning, I got a lot more than I bargained for. It’s rich, moving, funny and charming. It’s the kind of film cinemas are made for: watching it at home alone simply would not be the same. The visuals demand the big screen, the sound demands the big audio, and the story demands an audience: one falls for these characters collectively, incrementally, tangibly, audibly. It’s an experience. Don’t miss it.
My friend and colleague Octavia Barron Martin loved it too. Listen to us rave about it, and be a little more critical about episode 5 of HBO’s IRMA VEP, here on the Movieland podcast: