“Test Pattern”
An unflinchingly raw look at an interracial couple’s—Renesha and Evan (played by Brittany S. Hall and Will Brill)—continuously risible attempts to receive a rape kit after Renesha is drugged and assaulted—waking up in an unknown bedroom—Shatara Michelle Ford’s unnerving debut, “Test Pattern,” is like a realist ballet spin on the groundbreaking ‘Sopranos’ episode, “Employee of the Month,” spotlighting the preposterously backward politics of medical bureaucracy in our era of Trumpian insanity. The couple racing around town with a full urine cup in hand—receiving contradictory information on who, and where, is qualified to deal with the aftermath of rape—audiences get the sense that Renesha knows exactly why driving through all these traumatic speedbumps is a futile enterprise, but her (over)caring partner can’t help but project his own insecure fears onto a situation tormenting someone else, someone much more accustomed to systemic prejudice than he is. Overwhelmed by mounting pressures at the expense of individual sanity, “Test Pattern’s” jolting hook doesn’t come until about halfway through the film, taking its tragic time establishing a real-life couple, before turning into a perceptive onslaught of ongoing racial segregation and women’s (lack of) basic access to essential medical care. [Our review]
“Wife of a Spy”
Never without their share of contemplative compositions, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Wife of a Spy”—a luscious, slow burn, period drama with chess match-like tension—might be the closet the revered Japanese horror filmmaker will ever come to making a “wrong man” Hitchcock movie, one sustained with the craft and care of a Kenji Mizoguchi classic. Following a woman named Satoko (Yū Aoi), caught between presumed allegiance to her husband, Yūsaku (Issey Takahashi), and long-standing loyalty to a childhood friend, Taiji (Masahiro Higashide)—now a government official, who suspects Satoko’s partner may be working undercover for the Allied Forces. With colorfully naturalistic mise en scene and soft, patient photography, Kurosawa paints a safe-cracking espionage story of tortured loneliness—not unlike his hauntingly apocalyptic vision of surveillance technology in “Pulse,” this time filtered through wartime turmoil via historic, scientific terror and Nikkatsu propaganda films. Co-written by 2021’s breakout auteur, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (who may also be found elsewhere on this list…), “Wife of a Spy” was released as a television movie overseas, and its nuanced, dressed-up atmosphere has the confident air of a compressed, well-oiled, HBO miniseries. [Our review]
“Procession”
Capturing the intimate, extremely painful, behind-the-scenes process of facing the darkest possible personal demon: one’s sexual abuser—who happens to be the so-called authority on Heaven and Hell, a.k.a a Catholic Priest— “Procession,” follows the “three-year collaboration between [the documentary’s] filmmakers, a professional drama therapist and [6] survivors” as they attempt to re-stage/re-enact the worst experience of their lives in order to both tell their stories to a world that dismissed their claims— protecting the brainwashed sanctity of the Church— as well as lift a massive stone of shame of their chests. Part observational/part performance documentary, Robert Greene’s film is solely concerned with letting these survivors tell their story as they, and how they see fit, opting to cast themselves and young family members in various scripted roles as their holy abusers, or younger self. Fragile, vulnerable, and enraged, “Procession” confronts the power that a place can trigger over our psyche, much of the movie documenting the survivors’ attempts to locate the physical sites on which they were taken advantage of. “Are you so afraid of finding it that you don’t want to?” One of the survivors is asked. Cathartic, confrontational, and understandably difficult to watch, “Procession” exhibits documentary filmmaking’s power as an empathetic remedy. [Our review]
“El Planeta”
An absurdly hilarious, slice of life hoot, writer/director/lead star Amalia Ulman’s debut film “El Planeta” is a whip-smart critique of shopping mall sprees in times of economic crisis. Playing like a feminist take on the café conversation dramedy, a la Rohmer or Hong with a social ladder climbing component, Ulman’s film is shrewdly on point in its portrayal of consumer-obsessed scammers and socialites, laugh out loud funny, and shimmeringly well made—its eye-popping, black and white photography standing tall as maybe the most unsung visual composition work of the year; primarily set in compact interior spaces and expansive coastal streets, windows covered in graffiti or featuring leopard-spotted fur coats, but little in between. The filmmaker’s real-life mother, (Ale Ulman) plays the lead character’s vainglorious mother in the film, the mom/daughter babbling combusts like fireworks, the pair bickering over superstitious rituals. The movie also sports one of the funniest, terrible date scenes of the year, as well as a dotingly amusing gag involving none other than Martin Scorsese (make sure you stay for the credits, and, no, it’s not a superhero teaser). [Our review]
“Ascension”
As visually layered, texturally evocative cityscape doc—combining the tapestry flow of a montage-driven Dziga Vertov film with the globalization concerns of a Jia Zhangke picture— Jessica Kingdon’s pointedly phenomenal “Ascension” takes a deep look inside China’s industrial structures, examining the manufactured allure of economic prosperity in a consumer ravaged world. Often wordless and assembled with focused editing precision—and no talking heads—select sequences explore the glib to glamorous processes of conveyor belt factory lines, from battery manufacturing to custom sex doll details. After all, all the donut-shaped floaties and flower-patterned swimsuits needed to fill out water parks must first cross the Pacific in shipping crates. Composing a symphony out of location, craft, command, and communication systems, Kingdon’s documentary—a masterclass in showing in favor of telling — is simply one of the most eye-opening films of the year. When the very dream of success is sold to people as a product, it’s easy to get caught in the gears of capitalism’s long-clawed machine, enveloped by a divide that’s often only observable through the hierarchy of labor. [Our review]