Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 2022)
Page 8 March 23, 2022 Best Films of 2021 My list of the 10 best films of this or any year will have only slight overlap with the Academy Awards—so in keeping with my tradition, I like to release it just before the Sunday Oscars awards ceremony as a counterpoint. 1. “Drive my Car” has earned universal acclaim, and deserves absolutely all of it. I can’t remem- ber when I have spent three hours more deeply engaged. Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, working from a short story by ac- claimed writer Haruki Murakami, has somehow managed to make a very meditative story about grief and sorrow and the complexity of human connection into a moving and even riveting piece of art. The story is about an acclaimed theater actor and director, Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima, opaque and yet deeply sympathetic), and the loving and very complicated re- lationship he shares with his wife Oto (a marvelous Reika Kirishi- ma), a television writer. The film operates at a level of mastery I have rarely seen, cap- turing layers of spiritual com- plexity even in wordless exchang- es. Watching it put me deeply in touch with my own experiences of grief, even as I empathized profoundly with the struggles of these characters. 2. My favorite film for most of this year was “Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s brilliant presentation of long-buried foot- age of a summer-long cultural fes- tival in Harlem in 1969, the same year that Woodstock boosted the careers of the musicians who ap- peared there. Stevie Wonder, Glad- ys Knight and the Pips, Nina Sim- one, and the many other incredible acts that appeared in Harlem that summer got no similar boost; in- deed, the Black-organized, Black- run festival was officially not news for fifty years, a devastating exam- ple of how Black culture is so reg- ularly marginalized even while it is being constantly ripped off. This film rights that story in the ways that are possible 50 years later, and is unmissable. 3. I white-knuckled my way through “The Power of the Dog” on first viewing; it is such a disturbing depiction of a toxic man who torments his brother’s new wife on the ranch the two men run in 1925 Montana. But the great Jane Campion makes the journey worth sticking to and, by the end, I was ready to watch the entire film again, because it is so packed with subtle insight about how power works and the reverberations of the unsolvable impasses that we humans create and cannot see our way through. The performances here are all excellent, especially from Kodi Smit-McPhee, and this film will stay with me for a long time. 4. I’m disappointed that more people did not see “I Carry You With Me” during its brief theatri- cal run; it is one of the most mov- ing films I have seen depicting a deeply felt immigration story. Its director, Heidi Ewing, original- ly set out to make a documentary about the film’s two protagonists, New York restauranteurs who ar- rived undocumented more than 20 years ago from Puebla, Mexico. Armando Espitia and Christian Vazquez as the two young lovers will break your heart. This film is intimate and sweet and much more emotionally awake and respectful than most films about immigrants, and deserves much more attention than it has gotten. 5. “C’mon C’mon” is a sus- tained look at just how exasper- ating and wonderful it is to love a child. Joaquin Phoenix does his best work as a public radio report- er who ends up taking care of his young nephew Jesse during a fam- ily crisis and gets a crash course on how much being close to a child can change you and open you up to be a better version of yourself. Abby Hoffman is fantastic as the boy’s mother and Woody Norman as Jesse will break your heart. Mike Mills’ original screenplay is significantly better than any of the Oscar nominees. 6. “Attica” is essential viewing for anyone who cares about Amer- ican prisons and American racism (both of which everyone should care about). Directors Traci Curry and Stanley Nelson have assem- bled a painstaking examination of what led to the worst uprising in Opinionated Judge American history, a story that has been begging to be told for fifty years. It’s an excruciating watch, but an essential one. 7. I have now seen “Encan- to” many times, because my two grandsons (like so many children) love it so much. That’s an import- ant hurdle for a film like this to clear, and impressive here because this story of a Colombian fami- ly struggling to hold the trauma they have managed to survive is actually emotionally complex and insightful. Stephanie Beatriz bril- liantly voices the film’s young pro- tagonist, Mirabel, whose prophetic gifts make her a family outsider, but who persists to help them help the family to grapple more honest- ly with all of what is true, includ- ing about her outcast uncle Bruno. And the songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda are superb, especially the Oscar-nominated “Dos Orugui- tas.” A delight from start to finish. 8. I went into “West Side Sto- ry” with lots of skepticism and re- ally appreciate what Puerto Rican artists have expressed about how problematic it is for this story to be most people’s only window into Puerto Rican experience. I do want to see the stories that Puerto Ri- cans want to tell about themselves, rather than just what white direc- tors and writers want to say about them. That said, this remake of the classic musical won me over in a by Darleen Ortega big way; the changes Tony Kush- ner made to the book humanize the conflicts among the wretched and marginalized, and damn if director Steven Spielberg and choreogra- pher Justin Peck don’t hit it out of the park in reimagining the films iconic music and choreography. Let’s not stop here, but this de- serves to be seen and savored. 9. I saw “The Velvet Queen” almost by accident; it had only a limited theatrical run and the one person in the theater with me left partway through, which blew my mind. Its title is opaque and its not yet available streaming—but put it on your list of things to watch because it is a revelation. This gorgeous documentary fol- lows two French adventurers into the Tibetan Highlands in search of an elusive snow leopard along with various other animals. The journey is transformative, as they reflect on how differently animals live than we do. I came to realize in a new way how out of harmony most human life is, and how much we could learn from our animal siblings. This unforgettable film changed me forever. 10. “Flee” offers an import- ant and visionary window into the little-understood experience of refugees. Its director, Jonas Po- her Rasmussen, and its protago- nist, here called Amin, have been friends since they met as teenag- ers after Amin’s journey out of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan finally took him to Denmark. The film captures a sense of the loneliness of carrying stories of such trauma that it is possible and even danger- ous to talk about them, and how that impacts identity formation and so many other things.
