I’m still trying to sort through my thoughts on Céline Sciamma’s beautifully ravishing fourth film Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Stunningly directed, shot, and written this feels like a level up for Sciamma. Needless to say, people are in for a real treat when the film opens in February 2020 (it did a one-week Oscar-qualifying run this month). The quiet love story is more than what it seems. It is only upon reflection one realizes how special the film the writer/director has created. One that speaks to the heart and not some demographic.
4. Queen and Slim (Melina Matsoukas)
This is a film of choices and agency. Melina Matsoukas’ film is not a crime film or a crime thriller. Rather a film about the choices one makes and the agency one has within those choices. When Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) makes the decision she does, she does so of her own agency. That affects everything that happens to both she and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) for the rest of the film. Even when those that attempt to help them try to give their advice it is Queen and Slim that ultimately side by their own counsel. Matsoukas’ film could be the most thoughtful meditation on America’s treatment of the Black Community in the last twenty years. Only time will tell but this reviewer’s thought is that age is going to be very very very kind to this staggering piece of art.
3. Climax (Gaspar Noé)
This is probably the most divisive film on my list. A warning. Like all Gaspar Noé films, this one is designed to terrorize you at every step. It’s not left my brain since watching it. The dancing, the dialog, the nightmare… all of its unrelenting horrifying runtime is a marvel of cinema. Noé gives you both the dream and the nightmare and doesn’t release you from either but rather takes you as far as you can go into Dante’s rings of hell. As a cinematic experience, this is the type of E-Ticket ride we rarely if ever get. One that is designed artfully in its beauty as it is in its ugliness.
Top Five
5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)
I’m still trying to sort through my thoughts on Céline Sciamma’s beautifully ravishing fourth film Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Stunningly directed, shot, and written this feels like a level up for Sciamma. Needless to say, people are in for a real treat when the film opens in February 2020 (it did a one-week Oscar-qualifying run this month). The quiet love story is more than what it seems. It is only upon reflection one realizes how special the film the writer/director has created. One that speaks to the heart and not some demographic.
4. Queen and Slim (Melina Matsoukas)
This is a film of choices and agency. Melina Matsoukas’ film is not a crime film or a crime thriller. Rather a film about the choices one makes and the agency one has within those choices. When Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) makes the decision she does, she does so of her own agency. That affects everything that happens to both she and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) for the rest of the film. Even when those that attempt to help them try to give their advice it is Queen and Slim that ultimately side by their own counsel. Matsoukas’ film could be the most thoughtful meditation on America’s treatment of the Black Community in the last twenty years. Only time will tell but this reviewer’s thought is that age is going to be very very very kind to this staggering piece of art.
3. Climax (Gaspar Noé)
This is probably the most divisive film on my list. A warning. Like all Gaspar Noé films, this one is designed to terrorize you at every step. It’s not left my brain since watching it. The dancing, the dialog, the nightmare… all of its unrelenting horrifying runtime is a marvel of cinema. Noé gives you both the dream and the nightmare and doesn’t release you from either but rather takes you as far as you can go into Dante’s rings of hell. As a cinematic experience, this is the type of E-Ticket ride we rarely if ever get. One that is designed artfully in its beauty as it is in its ugliness.
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