2021’s Ten Best Films: 4 & 3

Things I've been thinking about:

-how digital spaces are changing the formation of identity

-the ways that the digital self is being translated visually in documentaries (Does anyone know the first film to graphically represent a text conversation onscreen...?)

-how digital & VR spaces (waves at Meta) are going to change visual storytelling audiences (I spoke at a Feminist Tech Conference at some point during the pandemic about this one)

...by the way I moved the blog back to its OG formatting because the template I was using was messed up. There are some glitches still but a little bit better!

4. Users (dir. Natalia Almada)

A machine hums and oscillates, gently rocking a baby, tricking the newborn into thinking they haven’t left the calming womb, soothing them into their parallel digital existence from birth. Even though there is anxiety around technology, climate change, parenting— every anxiety facing humankind— humming throughout Users, the film doesn’t result in tension; it ends up feeling like a lullaby. The slow, luscious images and measured voice over, enhanced through state of the art sound recording, high definition cameras & incomparable drone shots, show a positive interaction between artists and technology; there is a future full of thinking, expression and wonder that can be extended through technology not in spite of it. Frontiers can be cold and dangerous but maybe they're also full of possibility. 

3. Ascension (dir. Jessica Kingdon)

A camera views a scene below, men move in tangled masses searching for a job in a frantic marketplace. A misty white cloud waves past a river of swimmers, seen from a camera perched at a distance—  something seems wrong. Throughout Ascension, the camera sits and observes scenes of daily Chinese life with unfettered access, looking upon them with a sense of surveillance that feigns objectivity, giving way to some sort of concern or judgment, at times even emanating from within the scenes themselves. The composition of each frame is intriguing and succinct while editing doesn’t linger too long. The film shows a restraint that presents scenes of China bluntly, coolly and with an access that at times seems impossible. The film’s very ending is where the clarity lies, reminding that there is more to Chinese culture than purely goods, services and social climbing, the film itself a testament to that fact.