Music & Films for
Common People
las hijas de abril
(APRIL'S DAUGHTERS) dir. michel franco
25
Franco is a minimalist, but also a provocateur, restricting the access of information, letting us into the intimacy of their characters knowing that things are not right but not quite understanding why, and finally let their micro-universe burn.
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The narative is contained and frames long takes of the life of this dysfunctional family to intensify the sense of realism. It moves with a slow but steady pace, adding plot twists that make the story move forward and to points of no return. It avoids moral judgments and uses this voyeuristic regard as a testament on how human passions can derail our lives.
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la tortue rouge
(The red turtle) dir. michael dudok de wit
24
The first Studio Ghibli international co-production is successful because without a single word, manages to be poetic in a universal way thanks to its beautifully paced narrative and the hypnotic traditional animation that is crafted with perfect taste and an incredible care of the aesthetic. It's as if we were contemplating a legendary tale about the life cycle; it's atemporal and universal.
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The simplicity of the story lies only in its surface, because it sacrifices spoken language in order to explore new communicational ways to engage us, it's highly creative at conveying its message and exploring possibilities of story telling.
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i am not your negro
DIR. Raoul peck
23
Based on the writings of author James Baldwin, director Raoul Peck assembles a documentary that shows how much the history of discrimination towards black people has shaped the history of the United States of America.
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It's a harsh movie, but a necessary one to show us that this idea of inclusion and openness is a lie and that there's still much more to be done for the equal society that we need, and to question ourselves how is it that race relationships have an impact in our daily lives and what we can do to empower those who suffer that lack of power and representation.
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God's own country
DIR. Francis lee
22
God's Own Country is a film about how the countryside lifestyle forces people to hide their feelings, how the hard manual work and the lack of real communication forces people to "toughen up" and erase any trace of sensibility, and how is it that opening up to the possibility of love can make us better persons. It's also a film that happens to have a protagonist same-sex couple but that is never defined by that.
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Francis Lee gets great performances from his cast, and together they construct great moments of tension. It's a film that understands visual narrative and it's able to tell the story not through dialogue but through actions.
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Les innocentes
(The innocents) Dir. Anne fontaine
21
Fontaine tackles an event that could have been almost a greek tragedy, but keeps it subtle and elegant, avoiding almost every temptation of sentimentalism, and creates an aesthetic style that helps to set the mood and tone of the entire film.
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Even if it's a story that will creep you out, Fontaine creates round characters to make statements at two levels: moral and political. Because this story is telling how much suffering is caused to women that are oppressed not only by patriarchy, but also by their own beliefs and is smart enough to let us question ourselves before to point our fingers at who is to blame for all this atrocities.
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DUNKIRK
DIR. christopher nolan
20
Right now, there's no other director who is better at effectism than Christopher Nolan. He knows the impact that portentous camera work, sound design and musical score can have in the audience when used correctly. In Durkirk, he designs every single one of his sequences in a way that generates the maximum impact possible. In the same way, he is also a master in the creation of tension.
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And even if he is falling for the most classic Hollywood-esque type of histories and the ending, instead of a reminder of horror or wars is an exhaltation of Anglo-Saxon heroism, he is, no denying, at the forefront of the most amazing use of technical elements in contemporary cinema.
Estiu 1993
(Summer 1993) DIR. carla Simon
19
Carla Simon makes a recollection of her own memories as a child, focusing on the summer when her mother died and she had to go to live with her uncle and aunt. What she achieves is a deeply emotional film about how a kid comes to terms with the death of the most important person in her life.
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Told from a kid's perspective, this film could be charming and innocent, but what it elevates it to a different level is the fact that, without showing it, also contains within it another very different film, a tragic one of disease, an imminent death, and the feeling of grieve.
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Ma vie de courgette
(My life as a zuchini) dir. claude barras
18
This is, in general terms, a feel good film that in slightly more than a single hour tells a bittersweet story able to enchant both adults and kids. But its triumph relies on its artisanal crafting; in a world of animated films heavily dominated by digital animation, this stop-motion technique feels fresh and genuine.
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Here it's all about the story, and about the beautiful way that they chose to tell it, creating this characters that resemble rag-dolls, and that inhabit a world that is beautiful in its simplicity. An innocent, vibrant and cute film about childhood and friendship.
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La La Land
DIR. damien chazelle
17
Even though its love history is quite a cliché with a message of "dreams come true for beautiful white people", one just can't deny the masterful use of technical elements to transform it in a memorable cinematic experience that is able to enchant us and transport us to the magical musical world of its characters.
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A superb use of the camera, a highly crafted mise-en-scéne, a top level soundtrack, and a great sense of narrative rhythm supported in the editing, work together to embellish the history holes. Chazelle is obsessive in taking care of the details, and is his directorial hand what transforms clichés into thrilling cinema.
Una mujer fantástica
(A Fantastic woman) DIR. sebastián lelio
16
A Fantastic Woman is a study of transexual identity. Immersed in a society that constantly challenges her own perception of the "self", the main character is subjected to vexations and humiliations that are aimed to break her and deny her right to be an individual.
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Lelio is amazing in translating the internal fight that Marina faces into beautiful and powerful images; through the use of mirrors and reflections and through the direct looking of Marina to the camera, the director is almost forcing us to set a position and questioning if we'd be any different to that society that suffocates her.
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the square
DIR. ruben östlund
15
The winner of this year Cannes' Palme d'Or is a collection of vignettes that work as a sharp and stimulating critique to the different dimensions that conform the art world and its diverse protagonists.
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Östlund doesn't restrict himself with his targets: class prejudice, marketing, political correction, freedom of speech. All of those subjects are analyzed, mostly in an awkward comedic way, but he reaches good moments of violent tension. It's a provocative film that aims to trouble our self-perception of moral rightness by mocking our representations of liberal intellectuals.
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moonlight
DIR. barry jenkins
14
Jenkins presents, in three acts, a delicate and elegant impressionist portray of what means to be different. It is a character study on identity construction and a deconstruction of gender, race and sexuality. The contrapositions of moments of violence and tenderness depict the full world of a boy in his quest to define who he is in a hostile world that makes him feel like an outsider.
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The extreme care put in the technical elements, and the fine taste to create an aesthetic experience with the use of camera movements, framing, lighting and color make it even a deeper experiences to pushes us to the intimacy of the tale that, even if it's as personal as a black queer man history, shines for its universality.
Frantz
DIR. françois ozon
13
Frantz is a pacifist film above all, but it manages to avoid being didactic in order to show us how pathetic are the prejudices we carry on people just because of the place they were born. It is subtle and delicate, the rhythm of the first part is pure poetry, and the cinematography is fascinating, the elegance of black and white and its transition to color in certain moments shows a great understanding on how to use aesthetic devices to make the narrative stronger.
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War destroys lives. It's something that seems so obvious on the surface, but in times of ascending nationalisms, we shouldn't take it as a global understood fact.
Read the full review here.
Aquarius
DIR. Kleber mendonça filho
12
Aquarius is a great film because it works at two levels at the same time: denouncing how corporations are destroying individual life, and exposing the rich complex history of a mature woman. This two layers connect in every possible way, that we end up with a brilliant film about personal integrity, a study of character in itself, and opposing it to social forces.
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Aquarius also joins a reduced list of films that deal with the full complexities of a mature woman, even her sexuality, showing us how rich this characters can be. Brazilian diva, Sonia Braga, offers a powerful performance full of tonalities.
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I, Daniel Blake
DIR. Ken loach
11
In his second win of Cannes' Palme d'Or, Loach remains faithful to social cinema and presents a case study on how bureaucracy destroys the individual. It's a film that forces ourselves to throw questions at the way our society works
A deep realistic style allows the character and the situation to shine. Loach has already mastered a way to work with non-actors and get great performances of them, so the characters move with ease through a very well crafted screenplay that allows us to see, through them, how much the class structures are designed to perpetuate themselves and will systematically prevent social growth.
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