Marie dives back through 2018 to take a look at some of her top cinematic moments of the year.
We’ve all had those ‘wow’ moments in the cinema – it may be a scene, a speech or an image, but every now and again something just pauses time for a split second because of its genius, beauty or impact.
So in addition to logging my favourite films, this year I’ve been keeping track of just those moments. And while some of them naturally come from my top films, others are just things that struck me for one reason or another – enough to stay in my mind for a long while after the film was finished.
They are in no particular order, but I noticed that they do seem to fall into broad categories:
The Actions
This Cannes hit by director Nadine Labaki tells the story of 12-year-old Zain who ends up on the streets after a domestic altercation. Along the way, he encounters a number of people, but the scenes where he is in charge of a baby are some of the most touching – and chilling – I saw all year.
Damien Chazelle’s use of cinematographic formats presents a number of stunning sequences, but none more so that the opening scene, which was, quite frankly, terrifying.
The Coen Brothers created this portmanteau film which contains scenarios in a variety of tones. It was the first section which had my jaw dropping at the way in which Buster dispatched his adversary:
The Images
They Shall Not Grow Old
Peter Jackson took 100-year-old silent, black & white footage from World War I, and used 21st-century technology to create a documentary which totally immerses a modern day viewer in the field of war. The point at which the grainy, jumpy images turn into colour, talking film is breathtaking.
Widows
Showing just how geographically close the economically deprived and the economically wealthy are located among the corruption of Chicago was a task achieved in a wonderful yet short car journey from one to the other, as envisioned by director Steve McQueen.
Choose any one from a handful – an aircraft reflected in wet tiles; a scene in a hospital; but in the end, I chose an extended scene right near the end. Alfonso Cuarón points his lens and ensures that we follow Cleo as she walks backward and forwards on the beach, then into the ocean and back on to dry land again.
The Words
Throughout Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or-winning family drama, Sakura Ando’s wife/mother character quietly gets on with her life, sometimes even sacrificing her own well-being for the good of others without making a fuss. And then, as their lives unravel, she produces a wonderful, touching speech about motherhood, direct to camera, which would melt even the hardest of hearts.
All too often, Jeff Bridges is the guy who mumbles his lines so much that I struggle to understand what he’s saying. And yet here, his scene with Cynthia Erivo where he explains his health issues is honest and raw – and clear.
I know we’re still not supposed to be watching Casey Affleck, but his interaction with Robert Redford in the men’s room was absolutely one of my favourites this year. On the one hand, the conversation between cop and criminal is reminiscent of Pacino and De Niro in Heat; on the other, you can just see in Affleck’s face his inner self screaming “Robert Freaking Redford!!!”
The Silences
Private Life
The final scene is dialogue-free, but recalls an earlier scene and carries all the anxieties of the central couple right the way through to the end. And yet even without words, their body language conveys everything the viewer needs to know, having been on their journey with them.
In addition to the opening scene (see above), First Man also has a dialogue-free final scene where again the couple’s body language – and the reflective camera-work – bring resolution to the emotional turmoil which both have been experiencing.
In Andrey Zvyagintsev’s traumatic story about a missing boy, a scene very early on is one of the most heartbreaking I saw all year – a silent scream from Alyosha, unobserved by his mother, conveys all the anguish of a 10 year old who doesn’t know how to cope with what is happening around him.
Others which just missed out on this list were Frances McDormand comforting Woody Harrelson in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Peter Parker disintegrating during Avengers: Infinity War, and a prison visit scene from Kore-eda’s The Third Murder. And perhaps also this:
Happy New Year everyone!