Music & Films for
Common People
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CICADA
Dir. Matthew Fifer & Kieran Mulcare
(United States)
50
A small indie gem that paints a realistic picture of intersectional queer life in big cities and that excels at portraying the everyday moments with tenderness, and the confrontation it makes on living with trauma and how that impacts our social and sexual interactions
DROSTE NO HATE DE BOKURA
(Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes)
Dir. Junta Yamaguchi (Japan)
49
A tiny film that is surprising at how clever and original it is, even when it is limited by its resources. Yes, there are many holes and easy exits, but the care to almost choreograph it all, and the thrill of watching such innovativeness, are more than enough to compensate for its faults.
NOWHERE SPECIAL
Dir. Uberto Pasolini
(Italy)
48
This film had all the ingredients for a soppy sentimental melodrama, but Pasolini avoids cheap emotional impact (most of the time) and instead takes time to explore the emotions and let them breathe with honesty, and also knows how to fill his story with powerful symbols and leitmotifs.
NUDO MIXTECO
Dir. Ángeles Cruz
(Mexico)
47
Cruz dares to represent in an honest and mature way, three different sides of the sexuality of indigenous Mexican women. Told as interconnected storylines, we have not only a tale of manners, but a screenplay that confronts patriarchy and shows the paths for freedom.
UN MONDE
(Playground) Dir. Laura Wandel
(Belgium)
46
A film that reminds us that childhood could be a dark place full of undeserved brutality. Wandel takes bullying seriously, not from a kind Ted-Talk, but from honest vulnerability to analyze ideas of belonging, loyalty, and cruelty from the perspective of very young kids.
ASIA
Dir. Ruthy Pribar
(Israel)
45
Pribar knows how to get the full intimacy of a tragic story without getting nowhere close to sentimentalism. Showing how it is to be a teenager with a degenerative illness and how it is to be the mother of such a teen, the characters are round, complex and fully relatable.
MEMORIA
Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(Colombia)
44
Memoria won't change anyone's preconceptions of Weerasethakul, whether you think of him as an illuminated poet or an over-rated pretentious, but one just can't deny that in a film that requires a lot of patience, there are moments of pure lyrical beauty.
UNA PELÍCULA DE POLICÍAS
(A Cop Movie) Dir. Alonso Ruizpalacios
(Mexico)
43
A documentary that jumps from different styles in a meta-narrative way to understand the infamous Mexico City police force from the view of two officers and two actors who really commit (but seriously, they do commit to great lengths) to fictionalize their stories.
LIMBO
Dir. Ben Sharrock
(United Kingdom)
42
A film that challenges the notion that comedies can't tackle deep social topics, Limbo is quite ironic at framing the lives of refugees waiting for the acceptance or rejection of asylum requests. There's so much empathy towards these characters without an ounce of condescension.
SUPAI NO TSUMA
(Wife of a Spy) Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
(Japan)
41
A classic spies thriller, Supai no Tsuma is conservative and elegant in its style but delivers a good intriguing story of a wife discovering her husband's true business. The art direction and costume design are superb, even if the cinematography doesn't get the best of them.
OLGA
Dir. Elie Grappe
(Switzerland)
40
What sets apart Olga from the average sports drama is its commitment to a political position and to tie an athlete's development to the social and political realities around her, dealing with concepts of exile, longing, and the supposed "apoliticalness" of sport.
LAS NIÑAS
(Schoolgirls) Dir. Pilar Palomero
(Spain)
39
Palomero paints a truthful portrait of the transition from girls to young women at the end of the 20th Century, and how their female identities are shaped by the institutions that surround them: the school, the church, the media... but also how they broke free.
FAVOLACCE
(Bad Tales) Dir. Damiano & Fabio D'Innocenzo
(Italy)
38
A puzzling and disturbing story told on vignettes that let us peak through the lives of a group of suburban families to discover the dark sides that are hidden behind the polite appearances, and that is the perfect set-up for a dark shake up of the status quo.
AFTER LOVE
Dir. Aleem Khan
(United Kingdom)
37
Khan dares to portray new realities of European life and to tackle grief, betrayal and forgiveness with a very human touch. The emotions are developed in a slow and precise way, giving the story and the characters enough time to transit and elaborate every single part.
KHORSHID
(Sun Children) Dir. Majid Majidi
(Iran)
36
Majidi is well known for its emotional films about the harsh conditions that dispossessed children suffer in Iran, and Khorshid plays in the same line. It might use some sentimental tricks, but that overall is exciting, touching, and delivers the right message about education.
OTAC
(Father) Dir. Srdan Golubovic
(Serbia)
35
With a powerful and sad first sequence that will grab your attention immediately and a superb final part, Otac is a very worthy social realism film about dignity and fighting back against oppression, even when it looses steam along the father's Oddissey.
MURINA
Dir. Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic
(Croatia)
34
Set on the beautiful Adriatic coast with the ocean as a fundamental element of the story and the visual style, Murina is a coming-of-age story about patriarchal abuse and the fight young women have to put in order to be liberated and break the chain.
DORAIBU MAI KA
(Drive My Car) Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
(Japan)
33
Hamaguchi translates very well Murakami's narrative style, for good and for bad, and while its meta-narrative and poetic ambitions are notable, it's also lengthy to the point of having initial credits after 40 minutes. In any case, Hamaguchi made two remarkable films in one year...
32
GUZEN TO SOZO
(Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy)
Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Japan)
Like most films composed of short stories, Guzen to Sozo suffers from a level of unbalance between its parts. All of them dealing with coincidence, the first two parts never reach the glorious third act, which is a beautiful story about closing cycles and projecting our needs.
31
SLALOM
Dir. Charlène Favier
(France)
Slalom goes out of the mold of sports films about overcoming adversity. Through a female perspective, we witness the violence in professional sports attacking young women that resonates with every time more and more real-life testimonies of female athletes in the age of #MeToo.
30
FALLING
Dir. Viggo Mortensen
(Canada)
Mortensen's directorial debut takes a human approach towards a faulty bigot character and to the people that surround him. Henriksen performance is great at capturing the toxic traditional masculinity and its reactions to a world that is moving towards inclusion and equity.
29
SWEET THING
Dir. Alexandre Rockwell
(United States)
This small indie jewel is a bittersweet tale of broken childhoods that is able to find infinite joy and tenderness along the way. Rockwell gets charming performances from his own kids and shows an understanding of racial and class systemic abuses marking people from infancy.
28
PIECES OF A WOMAN
Dir. Kornél Mundroczó
(Canada)
The first 30 minutes, and specifically that sequence shot of the birth with a flowing camera that makes us a voyeur of a tragedy, are just superb cinema and the main reason to don't miss this film, even when it loses steam in the second part, and falls into melodrama territory.
27
NITRAM
Dir. Justin Kurzel
(Australia)
An undeniably fascinating story, but with a very welcome controversy on whether it is ethical to have a film like this, focusing on a real-life terrorist, even when taking the gun-control approach. Still, the rhythm, symbols, and the decision on how to frame the killings are remarkable.
26
PASSING
Dir. Rebecca Hall
(United States)
In her opera prima, Hall examines the ideas of internalized racism, perceived identities, and relative entitlement that comes with being able to pass as someone from a more privileged group. And it is subtle, elegant and complex, piercing with incisive questions about race.
25
After a whole year of lockdowns where every day seemed identical to the previous one, a time-loop comedy had a quirky and unexpected ring to current times. But beyond that, Palm Springs is a refreshing turn for a genre that by now we all know very well, not only by giving zero fucks and throwing lots of ironies but also by managing a certain level of existential questioning about the absurd of life in between all those smart laughs.
PALM SPRINGS
Dir. Max Barbakow (United States)
24
Leos Carax pushes the boundaries of cinema with (one more) strange film that is ready to disconcert everyone. A musical (with the collaboration of the band Sparks) that is unlike any musical you've seen, and a child that is unlike any child you've seen in cinema, along with a very well crafted aesthetic where the color green is predominant, are the vehicle for Carax to explore (perhaps?) the threats of toxic masculinity,
ANNETTE
Dir. Leos Carax (France)
23
A beautiful story of the Asian-American experience with fantastic character development. It is honest and personal, and quite universal at dealing with how hard it is to create your own identity when you always feel like the "other", an eternal fight between assimiliating and being true to your culture. A charming tale propelled by a charismatic cast, but where Youn Yuh-Jung steals the show as the unconventional Korean grandmother.
MINARI
Dir. Lee Isaac Chung (United States)
22
Unrelenting cinema that confronts you with the harshest realities of the world, since it's based on true cases of civilian mother vigilantes. A woman's effort to find her kidnapped daughter is a descent to hell that keeps hitting you hard with every discovery she makes. Mihai is careful to survive the fine line between crudity and misery-porn, thanks greatly to a great cast work, where Arcelia Ramírez brights in the best performance of her career.
LA CIVIL
Dir. Teodora Mihai (Mexico)
21
Paula Hernández keeps cementing her name as one of the most interesting voices in contemporary Latin American cinema. Relying on her great screenplay and the powerful performances of Rita Cortese and Valeria Lois, she develops a suffocating relationship between mature mother and daughter. It is a film about character development, and she is careful to deliver a potent portray of codependence.
LAS SIAMESAS (The Siamese Bond)
Dir. Paula Hernández (Argentina)
20
Falling short to be considered among Almodóvar's masterpieces, but still strong enough to keep building his legacy as one of the best melodrama filmmakers of all time. Madres Paralelas blends the private and the political in a quest to find answers to our bloodlines and to find truth as a way of healing. Of course, Penélope Cruz is a force of nature that accentuates all the strengths of the film and makes us forget its small faluts.
MADRES PARALELAS (Parallel Mothers)
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar (Spain)
19
An elegant and sober western film that is incredibly subtle and at the same time incredibly powerful with its tense toxic masculinity and homoeroticism. With a beautiful cinematography that uses the mountain ranges to frame the characters, a restricted and paused tone and four great lead performances, Campion is almost poetic in her best work since El Piano. Could she be the first woman to get the Palme d'Or and the Best Director Oscar?
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Dir. Jane Campion (Australia)
18
Exciting things are happening in Greek cinema, and Grigorakis shows that it can offer much more than the poetic contemplation of Angelopoulos or the dry irony of Lanthimos. Digger is social cinema about the resistance of the individual against destructive capitalism with a heavy message of ecology conscience without being didactic at any point. It also helps that the camera is great at compositions and landscape descriptions.
DIGGER
Dir. Georgis Grigorakis (Greece)
17
It is interesting how some topics get approached from different angles in a same year, and 2021 saw quite a few films dealing with memory loss (see below #9 and #1), but Little Fish got there through and indie romance, a bit in the line of Eternal Sunshine, but without the surreality. Luckily from this film, the fact that we are going through a pandemic as the characters are, made the emotional elements resonate even more.
LITTLE FISH
Dir. Chad Hartigan (United States)
16
Wes Anderson came back in the most Andersonian way possible (for better and sometimes for worse), with a collection of short farces tied together as the segments of a varieties magazine. The creativity flows in every shot and in every crazy idea to give us an incredibly aesthetic, incredibly snob, incredibly funny film that is among of his best. We would mention the impeccable design and the impressive cast, but that's a given in any of his films.
THE FRENCH DISPATCH
Dir. Wes Anderson (United States)
15
28 years had to elapse for a second woman to win a Palm d'Or at Cannes, and Julia Ducournau might also very well claim having the most fucked-up film to win the festival. A delirious cocktail of indelible images with a superb cinematography that creates a good contrast between the fleshy reds and the steel cold blues, and a tonal switch mid-film, it will leave you with a lot to process with shocking ideas of identity, grief, and gender performativity.
TITANE
Dir. Julia Ducournau (France)
14
There are three things that are really outstanding about Persischstunden. The first one is the way that it keeps creating tension with a character who is always at the verge of being killed if he's impossible lie is discovered. Then, a great duel of performances between Biscayart (confirmed as one of the most underrated actors now) and Eidinger. And finally, the message of hope at the center of a story of going lengths to preserve your life.
PERSISCHSTUNDEN (Persian Lessons)
Dir. Vadim Perelman (Russia)
13
Sorrentino might be the worthiest heir of Fellini's style, and his self-portrait of his youth years is full of beautiful imagery that shows his extraordinary talent for memorable vignettes (that candelabra and child monk scene is possibly one of the best of the year). And although it possibly tried to cover so much that at times its disperse, when he hits the right emotional notes, he achieves the glorious effect of classic 60s cinema in its full majesty.
È STATA LA MANO DI DIO (The Hand of God)
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)
12
If you thought Anette or Titane presented creepy children, Lamb easily takes the prize to the most fucked-up infant of the year. A shocking folk horror tale about parenthood that builds the tension slowly, with a contemplative rhythm that won't have you jumping every 10 minutes, but will plant a seed of uneasiness that will be creeping in your mind as the story develops. This is full commitment to a weird idea that sounded very hard to sell.
LAMB
Dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson (Iceland)
11
A sad coming-of-age tale about the perils of being a young girl in a rural community controlled by drug lords. With heavy documentary experience, Tatiana Huezo knows how to make a contemplative and strong description of characters and places on the day-to-day activities, but keeping an ever-threatening vibe on the air. But in the midst of the sadness, she gives us a story of sorority and communal strength.
NOCHE DE FUEGO (Prayers for the Stolen)
Dir. Tatiana Huezo (México)
10
Here is why it matters to have black voices in cinema talking about racism. This is not a feel-good and inspired film about social justice (ahem... Trial of the Chicago 7, Green Book, and a long list of etc.), this is a film that confronts and inflames oue sense of social justice by really tackling the structural racism that is lived by persons of color without sugar-coating it, It is sharp and powerful. It also develops a strong visual game (what a use of the color green!) to recreate the 70s aesthetic.
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Dir. Shaka King (United States)
9
Did authors had a sixth sense that told them a global pandemic was approaching or is it our selective perception trying to connect art with our current collective suffering? In any case, Mila fits very well COVID anxieties, although the pandemic presented here is a sudden memory loss. Nikou worked as Giorgos Lanthimos' assistant in Kynodontas, and the influence that he had in Nikou's style is palpable in every scene with a stale approach to acting that goes beyond naturalism to meditate on cinstructing an identity.
MILA
(Apples) Dir. Christos Nikou (Greece)
8
2021 was a historic year for achievements made by female directors. Zhao became the second woman to get a Best Director Oscar, and the first non-white woman to do so. She displayed a perfect sensibility to craft a work of art in its rich visual aesthetic, the slow and steady sense of rhythm, and the originality in the documentarian-ish narrative approach. This is a unique and poetic film that carries a personal voice where all of its individual parts work together to transmit a vision and a deep emotion.
NOMADLAND
Dir. Chloé Zhao (United States)
7
When we think about concentration camps in the 30's, our mind directly takes us to Germany and Poland, but Josep brings to focus the French camps that imprisoned Spanish refugees from the Franco dictatorship. Based on the memories of illustrator Josep Bartoli, and drawn on a style that resembles his art, Josep is a film about resilience and solidarity in the harshest times, about how art and kindness can give hope under brutality. It also is an invitation to discover the life of a largely unknown but fascinating artist.
JOSEP
Dir. Aurel (France)
6
On a time where good hearted films to deal with racism and xenophobia from a soft and caring perspective abound, Exil is one that dares to ask the uncomfortable questions and tackles the idea of how we at times play the victim card to avoid looking at the problematic sides of our personality. Exil is confrontational and harsh, a complex study of character and society, with a dry tone that allows some dark humor from awkward situations, and with a camera use that follows and confronts the characters in aggressive ways.
EXIL
(Exile) Dir. Visar Morina (Kosovo)
5
If you believe that a good time-travel film requires lots of visual effects and huge production, that's because you've not seen Céline Sciamma's version of the genre. After the monumental Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu, the director goes back to tiny personal dramas just to prove that she is one of the most original voices in cinema. Petite Maman is clever magical realism that asks what if we could meet our parent's younger versions? Not only is clever and unique, but it is also one of the sweetest stories in recent cinema.
PETITE MAMAN
Dir. Céline Sciamma (France)
4
Beautifully shot in black and white with an elegant formal style, Dorogie Tovarishchi! aims at portraying not only the physical violence but also the psychological one of a totalitarian regime. Questioning what it takes for somebody to open their eyes beyond political fanaticism, the film is a historical drama that might very well resonate with the resurgence of fascist leaders all around the world. Konchalovsky greatest asset is the intensity that he achieves from uncertainty in a post-truth regime.
DOROGIE TOVARISHCHI!
(Dear Comrades!) Dir. Andrei Konchalovski (Russia)
3
The film works perfectly at two levels, the political and the personal, giving us a class on the recent history of violations of human rights, but doing it from the steady building of a round character with depth and wit. This is a devastating film that will leave a strong mark and hits so many emotional notes, but never recurring to tricks or effectism. A work of full honesty in the search of telling a story of injustice that is incredibly necessary; a film with the dimensions of a Greek tragedy.
QUO VADIS, AIDA?
Dir. Jasmila Zbanic (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
2
One of the most feminist films ever, but not in a feel-good and empowered way; it confronts you about rape culture and how we all contribute to the social acceptance of it. But beyond how necessary this film is, the screenplay is pure originality and a master class on defying expectations. Also, Fennel is bold and daring in her visual and narrative choices and mixes thriller, comedy, chick-flick romance, horror, and drama to create her own narrative rules, all splashed with a beautiful bubble-gum pop aesthetic.
PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN
Dir. Emerald Fennell (United Kingdom)
1
THE FATHER
Dir. Florian Zeller (United Kingdom)
Adapting a theatre play into cinema is challenging, especially because most people keep the dialogues as the main narrative device, so they end up as something incredibly verbose. But The Father takes the challenge of really translating a play that happens in a single location, and just a handful of characters, but properly doing it with cinematic devices. Playing with points of view and an unreliable narrative, The Father succeeds at putting the viewer in the shoes of someone with dementia to make us feel the anxiety of this condition. Zeller uses the restrictions of the single location to create something claustrophobic and dark. The shots, the mise-en-scéne, the editing, all of it is used to maximize the emotional impact, but also to create a modest but striking personal aesthetic. Anthony Hopkins' surprise win at the Oscar might have been a weird moment of the night, but nobody deserved that award more than his collosal performance.