When you have filmmakers stuck indoors without the possibility of working on a set, what else are these folks going to do other than watch more films? We’ve seen a number of directors share their watchlists during the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from some of the more obvious picks to perhaps some underseen gems. For Barry Jenkins, the filmmaker behind “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” he’s worked with The Atlantic to release a list of 8 films that range from true classics to gems that were just released over the last month.
Jenkins’ list begins with a film from Italian director Gianni Di Gregorio, titled “Mid-August Lunch.” For Jenkins, the film is something that came to mind because it’s easily accessible on streaming and takes place in Italy, which has been one of the hotspots for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discussing “Mid-August Lunch,” Jenkins said, “I’ve been [thinking] about Italy during this crisis, and this was a tiny film I’d seen years ago. It’s the most amazing little film, the directorial debut of the writer of the Italian film ‘Gomorrah.’ It’s 75 minutes, it’s on Amazon Prime, and it’s just delightful. It feels like a mini discovery.”
Another film that he recommends is something that probably a fair number of our readers are familiar with—Steven Soderbergh’s early-2000s sci-fi film, “Solaris.” Jenkins understands that feelings are mixed about “Solaris,” but he watched it over quarantine because his partner, fellow filmmaker Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”), hadn’t seen it yet.
“With this, I told Lulu, ‘Are you prepared for the longest hundred-minute film you’ve ever seen in your life?’” he explained. “However, I personally feel like it’s a masterpiece. I was in film school when it came out, and I probably went and saw it six times in the theater. The atmosphere and the tone are wonderful. The images, and colors, and waves of light in that film are so thematically, emotionally, and—maybe Soderbergh would hate this—but spiritually evocative.”
Jenkins added, “I can’t say I’m good friends with Steven, but I know him, and when I need advice, I reach out and he always gets back to me. I own the shooting script of Solaris; it’s one of the few films he actually wrote, but he just will not talk about it! It’s a desert-island movie for me.”
As for the rest of the list, Jenkins recommends Robert Altman’s “The Company,” Yeon Sang-Ho’s “Train to Busan,” Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker,” Joachim Trier’s “Oslo,” as well as two of the year’s better films, Tayarisha Poe’s recently-released Amazon film, “Selah and the Spades” and “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” from filmmaker Eliza Hittman.
As far as quarantine watchlists are concerned, Jenkins has curated a pretty eclectic mix that would surely keep any film fan busy.
