2021’s Ten Best Films: 2 & 1 (tie)

[Guess I never hit publish on this one...!]

Oddly, I think these last few films encapsulate the year of 2021 nicely as they center on gruesome and gorgeous moments in ways that are painful, memorable, visually epic and weighted with uncertainty. 

All three also prod at the form a bit too, pushing cinema into a slightly new shape to hold the stories in need of being told and challenging visual language. These films also drew me in so deeply with bold, complex characters and quick yet heavy jabs of story. 

The best films change my perception of time and space and what it means to be human today and each of these did that in strikingly different ways. 

2. All About My Sisters (dir. Qiong Wang)

Stretching the span between documentary and home movie, this film wades through the personal emotional turmoil China’s one-child policy had on the filmmaker’s family. One of the director’s sisters, Jin, returns home as a teen after being raised by a rural extension of the family; the complicated circumstances of her departure are revealed throughout the film’s nearly three hour runtime. The volatile Jin has shattering but fleeting outbursts, one can feel her radiate anger and perplexity through her sister’s camera. Images allow for glimpses into different perspectives. Each scene is like a soft but permanent impression, the camera dropped into some mundane everyday moment or interaction that happens to be burdened with heaps of generational trauma. The camera also watches and participates in these moments without condescending empathy or pausing too long to become exploitative. Masterful. 

1. (tie) Beginning (dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili) and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun)

Beginning (dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili)

TW: Sexaul assault. The only two words that can describe this film are beautiful and brutal. When someone sets fire to Yana’s husband’s church, her contained life starts to smolder as a mysterious outsider enters her sphere. Shocking, graphic scenes of sexual assault made me have to pause the film (an upside of virtual viewing, perhaps) and take a break as the evil portrayed onscreen was so deeply disturbing that it just felt wrong not to act. The film’s rawness was balanced by the camera and stunning direction, allowing images and characters to cohabit a single idea, a synergy of composition and acting. In an uncomfortably long shot, Yana lays on the ground outside with the sun casting shadows and a light wind vibrating the whole atmosphere, like a camera whose flickering light moves the moments forward looking to capture the intangibility of being. The spiritual realm, the natural world, and the filmic world swayed together in slow drifts as societal and material dynamics quietly roared in confusion below their surfaces.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)

“I want to go to the World’s Fair, I want to go to the World’s Fair, I Want to go to the World’s Fair,” goes the incantation of the the title fictional creepypasta (think internet horror urban legend like Slenderman or that terrifying face I don’t want to google to find the name of because I want to sleep tonight). Casey (Anna Cobb), a teen broadcasting her life online from her bedroom (complete with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling and a dream catcher thumbtacked to the wall), immerses herself in this internet rabbit hole, fully convinced of the power of this unknown, spiritual, digital force. The most unsettling part of the film is the uncertainty. An uncertainty about Casey’s grasp of reality. An uncertainty about who Casey is, who she wants to be, and how that is being shaped by entirely new spaces of existence. An uncertainty about the internet’s voices and intentions. It’s a coming of age story with a dose of body, psychological, and digi-horror that expresses the awkward realities of youth with purpose, conviction and heart told through a lovingly handmade voice. A sublime film that kept me on edge with its unsettling, scratchy simplicity and understated— yet absolutely powerful— lead performance.