Fionnuala Halligan is Screen International’s executive editor, reviews and new talent.
Best film
1. Nickel Boys
Dir. RaMell Ross
Ross carries his characters close to his soul. His film is adapted from Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name about a Jim Crow-era penitentiary for young Black boys, itself based on the truth of Florida’s Dozier school. Here he stands testament to the pain and the tragedy of lives cut short by racism and brutality by becoming, literally, their eyes and ears. An extraordinarily empathetic and vivid film, and a restoration of dignity to those who suffered, and continue to suffer.
2. Hard Truths
Dir. Mike Leigh
Hard truths are by nature difficult to hear, but Leigh’s film is invigorating to watch. Powered by an exceptional performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the supremely, aggressively, unhappily and angrily unwell Pansy, it shows the director fresh and feisty, with perfect mise-en-scène and quiet control from the late Dick Pope’s camera. It’s no secret Cannes and Venice passed on this hot blast of rage; Pansy would have something to say about that. And she’d be right.
3. All We Imagine As Light
Dir. Payal Kapadia
Kapadia’s background as a documentarian informs the early part of her debut feature, but another spirit takes over this beautiful, almost viscous story about three women working in a Mumbai hospital. Like the city itself, All We Imagine As Light drenches the viewer in colour and sounds as the women try to find themselves in the city and in each other.
4. Nosferatu
Dir. Robert Eggers
Gasp at how Eggers has managed to out-Gothic himself with this rabid take on the vampire legend! Clutch your seat in terror as Bill Skarsgard’s looming, vampiric evil circles ever closer to the beautiful Lily-Rose Depp! Forget you already know the ending — or should, as it’s been remade so many times! The oldies really are the goodies, but only if you’ve got Eggers directing and writing, with Jarin Blaschke’s camera following a disturbingly sensual blood trail — given the film features so many decapitated rats.
5. The Brutalist
Dir. Brady Corbet
It’s flawed — you could describe it as a film of two halves and not only because of the intermission — but The Brutalist has drive and ambition to match its central character and more besides, attempting a portrait of the rancid nature of modern America’s literal foundations. Everything about and in this film strives for brilliance, and mostly achieves it.
6. Anora
Dir. Sean Baker
7. A Complete Unknown
Dir. James Mangold
8. Small Things Like These
Dir. Tim Mielants
9. Emilia Pérez
Dir. Jacques Audiard
10. Grand Tour
Dir. Miguel Gomes
Best documentary
1. No Other Land
Dirs. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
A filmmaking collective takes us to the Golan Heights, past and present, where a friendship forms between Palestinian activist Adra and Israeli journalist Abraham as the army bulldozes the villages of Masafer Yatta to settler taunts. A shaming documentary elevated by personal archive footage illustrating generational pain.
2. Ernest Cole: Lost And Found
Dir. Raoul Peck
Ernest Cole was a young Black photographer who documented Apartheid in South Africa, choosing exile to publish his revelatory book House Of Bondag e in 1967. Somewhere on the way the images he captured — often more degrading on the streets of New York than in the townships — seeped into his psyche, ruining him. Ernest Cole: Lost And Found is a lyrical, extraordinary documentary.
3. Black Box Diaries
Dir. Shiori Ito
Japanese journalist Ito turns the cameras on herself to investigate her own sexual assault, and attempts to bring her high-profile rapist to justice in a conservative Japan. Raw and fierce.
Performance of the year
Demi Moore inThe Substance
Dir. Coralie Fargeat
Hindsight is already rewriting Moore’s decision to kickstart French director Fargeat’s feminist horror freakshow as a savvy comeback move. But Fargeat had only made one other feature, Revenge, and the level of exposure here — physical, personal, professional — must have felt viscerally uncomfortable. Brave is a word that’s bandied around, but Moore has earned it, allowing Fargeat to play with her persona and hurling herself through ratcheting levels of vulnerability to remind us why we all fell in love with her in the ’80s and still adore her now.
No comments yet