Films of the year 2019: Lee Marshall

Top five

1. Parasite (Dir. Bong Joon Ho)

A fully-fledged classic for the ages, Bong’s savoury and sardonic class parable was a worthy winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and proved, on international release, that great films can overcome the language barrier. One of its many delights was the way the two houses at the centre of the action — one sleek and posh, the other cluttered and proletarian — leech into the drama. Contact: CJ Entertainment 
Read Screen’s review here

2. The Souvenir (Dir. Joanna Hogg)

Relationships are difficult, and so is Englishness. Hogg has made a career of exploring the interface of both, and never more perceptively than in this delicate, autobiographical story of a young filmmaker’s toxic first love. Contact: Protagonist Pictures
Read Screen’s review here

3. Marriage Story (Dir. Noah Baumbach)

Not since Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From A Marriage has a couple’s unravelling been charted with such dramatic finesse and forensic detail. Baumbach’s film embeds the male view knowingly into its fabric. Contact: Netflix
Read Screen’s review here

4. The Invisible Life Of Euridice Gusmao (Dir. Karim Aïnouz)

Everything about this heart-wrenching Brazilian melodrama is finely judged, from Hélene Louvart’s life-affirming camerawork to the resilience and pathos of lead performances by Carol Duarte and Julia Stockler. Contact: The Match Factory
Read Screen’s review here

5. The Lighthouse (Dir. Robert Eggers)

Both black-and-white Expressionism homage and compelling contemporary drama, Eggers’ follow-up to The Witch is cinematic scrimshaw, etching on the mind a slow-burn male duel between two lighthouse keepers. Contact: Focus Features
Read Screen’s review here

Best documentary

Honeyland (Dirs.  Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska)

Part rural fable, part ecological cautionary tale, this Macedonian film about a wild-honey gatherer who lives alone with her elderly mother until a family of hapless incomers destroy the fragile natural balance of her world, is a lambent example of patience and serendipity that can create documentary gold. Contact: Deckert Distribution
Read Screen’s review here

Overlooked gem

La Llorona (Dir. Jayro Bustamante)

Bustamante’s second film to emerge in 2019 — after Berlinale drama Tremors — touched down in Venice, but it was shunted into the non-official Venice Days sidebar when it should have been up there in competition. It is rare for a supernatural horror to carry an impassioned political j’accuse, but the Guatemalan writer/director manages the feat brilliantly in this ravishingly shot feature. Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Read Screen’s review here