C AREERS Special
Edition
April 21, 2021
o Pinionated
J udge
Page 9
My Top 10 Films for 2020
by
d arleen o rTega
Best films help
you see world in
another light
For a cinephile like me, this year
has been a hard one. I miss being
inside movie theaters; it really is
the best way to experience a film.
I’ll be glad to go back.
Fortunately, I’ve learned to ac-
cess a broad range of cinema from
home and have easily assembled a
list of my 10 favorites of the year,
which I’m releasing in advance of
Sunday’s Academy Awards cer-
emony as I always do. These are
the films that stayed with me, that
changed me and helped me see
beyond my circumstances, as the
best films do. Here’s my list, in to-
tal, followed by my thoughts about
what makes them especially great:
1. Minari
2. Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint
3. Driveways
4. Judas and the Black Messiah
5. The White Tiger
6. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
7. The Dissident
8. Crip Camp
9. The Father
10. David Byrne’s American Utopia
1. Writer-Director Lee Isaac
Chung has said that he began work
on his luminous film “Minari”
by making a list of memories of
his childhood in the early 1980s,
when he, his sister, and his Korean
immigrant parents moved to rural
Arkansas so that his father could
start a farm.
This film isn’t strictly about ex-
periencing racism and alienation,
or about being Asian American, or
about being immigrants or the chil-
dren of immigrants, though it poi-
gnantly depicts aspects of those ex-
periences that are under-explored
in American cinema.
It’s also the best film I can re-
member about marital conflict be-
tween people who love each other.
2. My favorite film for most of
this year was a sleeper that few peo-
ple saw--and it came into my world
early in the pandemic, when I was
largely accessing films through dis-
tributer and theater websites. “Be-
yond the Visible: Hilma af Klint,”
now more broadly accessible,
stayed with me more than anything
I saw this year. It’s a beautifully
crafted examination of the life and
work of the Swedish artist.
Af Klint is one of the more dra-
matic examples of how far from a
meritocracy the art world--and the
world in general--actually is. She
Minari, director Lee Isaac Chung’s film about a Korean family who
moves to a farm in rural Alabama. In advance of the Academy
Awards on April 25, Portland Observer film critic, Opionated Judge
columnist Darleen Ortega, rates Minari as the best film of 2020, the
first of her top 10 films of the year. Photo courtesy Diamond Films.
began creating a massive body of
astoundingly visionary abstract
work in 1906, yet remains relative-
ly obscure to this day. Unnoticed,
hindered, discounted, and quite
possibly ripped off, the artist nev-
ertheless kept producing astound-
ing work that no one saw until re-
cently--and this film enlists a host
of passionate experts (most of them
women) to help us understand af
Klimt’s importance and what her
obscurity indicates about the art
world to this very day.
3. “Driveways” is a gentle film
that stayed with me long after I
watched it, and called me back for
return viewings. By any measure,
it’s a slender film--no major plot
points, many moments of quiet
observation. But director Andrew
Ahn and screenwriters Hannah
Bos and Paul Thureen seem to un-
derstand that human beings viewed
with compassion and interest can
be inherently moving, even with-
out a major conflict or tragedy; this
is a story about kindness and con-
nection that earns real investment
and even tears with every lean mo-
ment.
4. “Judas and the Black
Messiah” deserves much more
credit than it is getting for
bringing attention to a long-
neglected story with courage and
canniness. Its creators made a
string of improbably good choices
in selecting as their focus Fred
Hampton in contrast with Bill
O’Neal, the FBI informant who
played a critical role in facilitating
his fascination, shedding light on
the FBI’s obsession with Hampton,
other charismatic black leaders, and
the Black Panthers, and opening
the way to so many questions we
should be asking ourselves. This
is smarter storytelling than we
usually see, and Daniel Kaluuya
deserves an Oscar for his brilliant
performance of the charismatic
murdered leader.
5. “The White Tiger” is a ma-
jor omission from the Oscar list of
Best Picture and Best Actor nomi-
nees. As with “Jesus and the Black
Messiah,” I suspect its under-ap-
preciated status is because it shines
such a light on things we don’t
want to see in ourselves. Director
Ramin Bahrani (nominated for the
screenplay) is drawn to the stories
of people at the margins--his excel-
lent prior work includes the 2008
film “Chop Shop,” which made a
lasting impression on me with its
immersion into the life of a young
boy supporting himself and his sis-
ter in the underworld of Queens,
New York, in poverty that we pre-
tend doesn’t exist in the United
States.
6. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
C onTinued on P age 16