“Saint Omer”
Based on the 2016 court case of Fabienne Kabou — a Senegalese woman accused of killing her 15-month-old child, leaving her on the beach to be swept away by the high tide — acclaimed documentary filmmaker, Alice Diop, makes her narrative debut with “Saint Omer,” France’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards. Inspired by her own experiences attending the trial and using actual transcripts to construct the screenplay, Diop stages her courtroom drama by holding on unbroken shots of witnesses, and the accused, recounting the tragic details leading up to the infant’s death by drowning. Starring Kayije Kagame as Diop’s own surrogate, Rama — a literature professor who opens the film teaching the works of Marguerite Duras (writer of “Hiroshima Mon Amour”) and soon discovers an intimate connection between herself and the young woman charged with infanticide Laurence (Guslagie Malanga). Shot by one of the best cinematographers in all the world, Claire Mathon (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”), “Saint Omer” captures a modern re-telling of the myth of Medea in a manner one won’t soon forget. – AB [Our Review]
“Happening”
Though it may sound hyperbolic, Audrey Diwan’s “Happening” is undoubtedly one of the best films of the year and possibly the most universally important work of world cinema. Period. Based on the autobiographical novel “L’événement” by Annie Ernaux, the story is set in 1963, four years prior to the Neuwirth Law lifting France’s ban on birth control. Starring Anamaria Vartolome as Anne, who gives an utterly petrifying performance as a university student whose first sexual encounter results in an unwanted pregnancy. The film won the prestigious Golden Lion at Venice 9 months before the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, lending harrowing credence to the tragic timelessness of the all too relevant subject at its center. Shot primarily on handheld, claustrophobic close-ups that whirl around Anne and her daily stresses like a realist social typhoon —DP Laurent Tangy uses soft focus and camera blur to blot out the world of potential that Anne feels slipping away more and more each day. It also makes the movie feel entirely unlike a period film, the aesthetic effect often as purposefully agonizing as a young woman being told why her body doesn’t belong to her, lectured to accept things as they are. “No scenes in my office,” the second doctor she visits states. Much like 2020’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” “Happening” is more than essential viewing; it’s a systematic wake-up call far too many people clearly still need. – AB [Our Review]
“After Yang”
To be candid, the release treatment of Kogonada’s hushed yet utterly stellar sophomore achievement, “After Yang,” left us scratching our heads (it was unceremoniously dropped on Showtime), especially after the near-universally rapturous reception to his debut film “Columbus” (on our list of Best Films of the Decade). More recently, as folks online catch up with it, a strange backlash has occurred – an attitude that’s especially odd when one considers the respectful cadence of Japanese artists such as Ozu or Kore-eda that percolate the film, and the beating heart of its tender statement on what it means to live a life. Interrogating the very concept of “Asianness” (as the exceptional book ‘RISE’ notes, a term coined by non-Asians) via the death of a boy robot, or “techno sapiens,” called Yang (Justin H. Min) and a father’s (Colin Farrell, 2022 his best year ever as an actor) attempt to understand his existence after receiving access to his memory banks. Via a beautiful device recalling Abbas Kiarostami’s “24 Frames,” technology and mother nature seamlessly intertwine as we experience (only in seconds) life through Yang’s eyes. Shooting in numerous aspect ratios to evoke divergent recollections, watching “After Yang” is not dissimilar to wandering through a wonderfully curated museum exhibit, one where each artifact displayed was hand-picked by a Richard Linklater scholar with a love for cinema’s poetics, evoking the feeling of both a sci-fi short and Haruki Murakami romance (a la “Tony Takitani”), looking back on the memories of a waking life after death. – AB [Our Review]
“Catch the Fair One”
Kali Reis barrels into a movie star career with “Catch the Fair One,” a lean and brutal thriller from director Josef Kubota Wladyka, who co-wrote the script with Reis. With its chilly visual palate and gripping bursts of action, the movie channels its anger about the commodification of women and Native people into a tale of a boxer trying to find her sister after she disappeared into New York state’s sex trafficking underground. Reis’ performance is as fierce and cutting as the switchblade she hides in her mouth, sometimes causing her to wake up next to a pool of blood. “Catch the Fair One” becomes calculated with its aggression, finding an apt metaphor in former professional boxer Reis portraying a fighter who has a super punch but is faced with the human weight of every unpredictable step of the way. The power of this movie hasn’t gone unnoticed: Reis has been signed on to star in the next season of HBO’s “True Detective,” and Wladyka used his eye for full-force filmmaking in the HBO series “Tokyo Vice,” following after none other than pilot director Michael Mann. – Nick Allen (Our review of “Catch the Fair One”)
“The Northman”
If you’re a regular reader of this site, you probably know what huge fans we are of Robert Eggers (“The Witch,” “The Lighthouse”). “The Northman” was one of our most anticipated movies of the year, and it did not disappoint (well, from a critical perspective, at least, though it may have floundered at the box office and been dropped on Peacock as if it never existed). A deep dive into Norse Mythology and the dark allure of vengeance, Alexander Skarsgård’s Amleth is the original Hamlet (Simba from “The Lion King” too, if you ask Film Twitter), more fun to watch on screen as perhaps he’s ever been, flailing a sword like the God of War standing before the gates of Muspelheim. Staging action scenes via breathless long takes sporting his signature production details, ravaged with painstaking historical research (as well as some bloodthirsty beheadings), “The Northman” is soaked in mud, iron, and a sea of character actors giving it their acting all (unsurprisingly, Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe are standouts). Some are used so sparingly you almost wish their roles were beefed up, yet that would diminish their power (the build-up to Nicole Kidman’s big moment in particular), as Eggers’ film is a true character epic in every sense of the word, worthy of its Icelandic origins recorded in the Prose Edda. – AB [Our Review]
One last thing. If you have read this far or read any or all of our Best of 2022 coverage or our Most Anticipated 2023 coverage, we’re honestly very profoundly grateful. Thanks for reading, sharing, and being a continued patron of our site; we genuinely appreciate you and your readership.
