Usually, the beginning of a new year brings hope, people get to make fresh starts, the days get slightly sunnier as spring is in sight. That is until awards season takes place and we are swiftly reminded that there is no justice in the world. However, the 92nd Academy Awards appeared to point to a brighter future with the overdue coronation of Bong Joon Ho and Korean cinema in general, but there were still a lot of areas in which the show could have been improved. I will borrow some aspects of award shows, such as being overlong, but I do not claim to have the prestige of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association or to be as old as the old, white men in the Academy, so I will not give out traditional awards. Instead, I will give awards that I feel accurately reflect the past year in cinema such as…

 

 

Toughest Film to Sit Through

A common theme of this year was people complaining about the length of Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece The Irishman. All these people are wrong, especially considering that it’s streaming so you can easily just pause it if you need to do anything else. However, there were some films that I found difficult to watch, not because they are bad, but because they are so raw and honest in their storytelling.

 

Winner – The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)

This film is incredible, it is also completely uncompromising in its portrayal of horrific acts of violence. Jennifer Kent follows up the brilliant Babadook (2014) with this piercing look at the devastating impact of British colonialism. She does not shy away from showing the heart-breaking brutal crimes committed by British soldiers. The camera often remains still, forcing us to watch these horrors, because they happened, and we must deal with humanity’s ugly past. The narrow aspect ratio confines us in the centre of the screen, and we are trapped watching abominable acts as there is no escape in the corners of the frame. I was lucky enough to see this in a packed screen of people who were at once both horrified and blown away.

 

Honourable Mention – The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers)

Another incredible film about marginalised ethnic groups and violence committed against women. Over 5,000 native American women were reported missing last year, and we all know what ‘missing’ really means, it’s a word used to remove responsibility from society’s shoulders, so we don’t all walk around constantly feeling guilty about the world we created. Like The Nightingale, the directing in this is brilliant with the camera remaining extremely tight on the characters offering both them and us little room to breathe. At times the movie is loud and frantic and at others unnervingly quiet. One sequence, in particular, is almost impossible to watch without crying as Rosie, a young pregnant woman in an abusive relationship, shows courage and kindness as she tells her story to care workers before going to the bathroom and tenderly singing ‘Mama’s Little Guy’ to her unborn child.

 

 

Best Portrayal of Love

As the landscape of cinema continues to change one of the biggest tragedies is the lack of adult romances on screen. The passion of films such as Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987) and Il Postino (Michael Radford and Massimo Troisi, 1994) cannot be found anywhere in Noah Centineo’s dead eyes or in the neutered superheroes that rule the silver screen. However, 2019 saw a return for a more adult vision of love even if it was only a slight one.

 

Winner – The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

Moments are what we remember of the ones we loved, some major moments like a first date at an art gallery, some smaller moments like building a cushion wall between each other in bed that brings you closer together as you physically move further apart. Joanna Hogg’s latest is more a collection of memories than a movie. It’s not a perfect love story: it is her love story. The beautiful moments you wish lasted forever, the ugly moments you wish you could change. Maybe Anthony, played by the wonderful Tom Burke who is slightly too good at playing an arrogant cock, isn’t right for Julie, but this isn’t about how amazing it would be to fall into KJ Apa’s arms and elope to New Zealand, this is real and sometimes we love people for unknown reasons because love blinds us to the truth as do our memories.

 

Honourable Mention – Atlantics (Mati Diop)

This film is an accurate portrayal of teenage friendship and jealousy with a heightened sense of reality that makes us sometimes forget it’s set on earth, but we are quickly reminded that it is as it’s a story of surviving in a capitalist society that feels incredibly pertinent as thousands of migrant workers are shuttled in like ants to build stadiums they cannot afford to sit in for the 2022 World Cup. It’s the story of Ada and Souleiman, a story of love and loss. Souleiman looks out to sea, hopeful for a brighter future on the horizon, unfortunately, we know that seafaring is a nefarious ordeal and it takes the life of this young man, leaving his love Ada behind. One of the hardest parts about losing someone is trying to wrap your head around how one minute someone is in the world and the next minute they are gone but their body remains. The pain doesn’t stop here as their memory remains too. The presence of a lost love lingers long after they are gone, and this is the case in Atlantics as after Souleiman vanishes Ada receives a phone call from him. This is a modern ghost story as thanks to technology no one is truly gone, their pictures are on your phone and sometimes you can still hear a voice message they left you, but it’s not the same as holding them in your arms and letting the world drift away.

 

 

Most Disappointing Film of the Year

Unfortunately, not every film released can be a winner. Of course, all art is subjective (except The Irishman which is objectively a masterpiece) and I understand that while I love Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell), not everyone will, but these are the films which I was looking forward to that left me feeling unimpressed as the credits rolled.

 

Winner – Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

Where do I even start? I was going to call this the most Leslie Knope film ever but then Barack Obama said it was one of his favourite films of the year, which makes sense as it is the second most self-congratulating, liberal-loving film of the year after Six Underground (MIchael Bay) which was far more honest about its moral black hole because I don’t think Michael Bay has ever heard the term ‘woke’. This movie is Olivia Wilde’s version of Mr. Burns dressing up as Jimbo Jones to pass as a teenager. This film was made for people who call Drake a creep but love to listen to David Bowie. This movie is about two best friends who never make fun of each other and only give each other compliments because they are perfect people as all teenagers are and also a heart-warming tale of realising that the people in your school you look down on aren’t the lower class scum you thought because they can afford to go to ivy league colleges. I don’t need movies to be a mirror image of my beliefs but this is a film that portrays itself as radical for wearing a coochie-shaped hat but won’t commit to saying ‘Free Palestine’ because wanting basic human rights for people of colour is a tad too controversial. Booksmart ends with a white character going to Africa to become a white saviour but it was directed by an Elizabeth Warren supporter who in 2018 tweeted ‘Lady just pulled up next to me and told me to turn down @kendricklamar. Bish, where’s YOUR Pulitzer?’ so I should have expected this going in.

 

Honourable Mention – Mid90s (Jonah Hill)

This film was made to prove Jonah Hill is cool now, which is redundant because Four Pins already does that dozens of times a day. Did you know that Jonah likes skateboarding and rap music, and he knows Morrissey?? If not, then this will teach you that and little else.

 

 

Most Accurate Depiction of 2019

Winner – Under the Silver Lake

If 2019 taught me anything it’s that nothing means anything and that no matter what we do we are trapped here, futilely searching for non-existent answers to unimportant questions until we die. If it wasn’t clear already, I had a very fun year. Under the Silver Lake may be the best A24 film of all time, and the fact that they completely butchered its release only proves its point that everything is shit and will never get better. The fact that I care so much about A24’s lack of promotion for this film also proves its point that we care far too much about insignificant things. The world of this film is one controlled by corporate overlords, in which any meaning we ascribe to art is meaningless, as one mouse, I mean man, controls it all. This film is filled with rage at our corporate world, but also at ourselves for focusing on meaningless endeavours, there is a slight sadness at play here, but also a sense of comicality that comes from resigning yourself to merely living because there’s nothing else to do. Garfield’s Sam puts so much time and effort into people that do not care for him and objects that he should not care about, but he is desperate to find meaning, to be important, but nothing he does can help him. In the end, when the rest of us are just dust floating in a red sky, the rich will be feasting on the carcasses of recently extinct animals, safe from the horrors of the world they created.

 

Honourable Mention – Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

After being cyberbullied into oblivion by people who hate seeing politics in a film about space Nazis, Rian Johnson returned with a modern update of an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit. This film understands that all rich people suck. Everyone who lives in this mansion is terrible, the aging influencer who desperately needs to be desired, the alt-right troll who may also be a compulsive masturbator, and the liberal arts student whose fees are covered by her trust fund parents that is willing to help the help until her allowance is threatened.

 

 

Best Scene of the Year

Winner – The Lights Coming On in Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

While promoting Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood for awards consideration, the tagline ‘because you love movies’ was used and this scene encapsulates so much about why we love movies. Many of the best films of the year such as The Irishman, Ad Astra (James Gray), and The Farewell (Lulu Wang) deal with time and remembrance. Running out of time, lost time, the time we wasted on unimportant things that we wish we could have back. The cruelty of time, in that we never think about it until it is too late, and that our memories of the time gone by cannot be trusted. No single scene (the final 20 minutes of The Irishman doesn’t count), deals with this better than the lights of Hollywood coming alive as ‘Out Of Time’ by The Rolling Stones plays in Tarantino’s tribute to days gone by. Starting with Kurt Russell’s narrating Cliff and Rick’s return from the Italian wilderness, to Old Hollywood lighting up for one last rodeo as the sun sets on Sharon Tate, this scene is why we love movies, and what a year for movies it was.