“Days”
Close to 7 years in the making, and culminating in an ethereal, tangible, 11-minute massage scene —mostly all one take—Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang’s latest film, “Days,” taps into the director’s trademark stillness in order to physically soothe what ails the audience through the screen, right alongside protagonist, Hsiao Kang (Lee Kang-sheng). Poetically combining two, originally disparate sets of footage, ideas, and images (the second featuring first-time Laotian actor, Anong Houngheuangsy), an alienated, and physically ailed Hsiao Kang—in such immense agony he can barely walk straight—finds inner peace and connection with Anong’s masseuse character, their relationship coalescing beautifully through an exchange of touch and a delicate music box that plays the theme from Charlie Chaplin’s “Limelight.” A perfect personification of Abbas Kiarostami’s theory that “cinema is only half made on the screen,” “Days” is yet another extension of Tsai’s recent drift towards “art museum cinema,” seeking to blur the boundaries of what physically constitutes convention, overturning a sense of effortless movement in a manner that becomes even more felt than it is seen. [Our review]
“The Green Knight”
A breathtaking and expressively skillful retelling of an Arthurian legend, “The Green Knight” features simply the greatest performance of Dev Patel’s already accomplished career. Taking a colorblind casting approach to a haunted medieval fairy tale, director David Lowery designs his mortal fable around a series of specifically composed 360 shots, representing the revolving door of death Gawain (Patel) will come to face, and keeping in tandem with the three mythological elements embedded in the original text: the decapitation agreement, a temptation scene (nominate Alicia Vikander, you cowards!), and an exchange of winnings. Complete with foggy giant stampede, little ghost girls in cabins, as well as a talking fox, Lowery builds to one of the year’s finest and adeptly sustained sequences, leading to the heart-sinking concession of a heroes’ potentially futile journey: “What else ought there be?” the knight says to Gawain. Through gloriously distinguished sleight of hand, the filmmaker crafts a sublime spin on the poem’s ending by casting a “25th Hour” spell over the culminative stretch; the end result is a wicked blend of chivalrous and cinematic witchcraft. [Our review]
“Bad Luck Banging Or Looney Porn”
“The cinema’s screen is Athena’s polished shield.” Possibly the ultimate “not safe for work” movie, Radu Jude’s maniacal yet impressively measured, “Bad Luck Banging Or Looney Porn,” is perhaps the first truly great, pandemic themed film, sardonically humorizing how wretchedly vile people’s basic capacity for communication and compassion becomes when feeling oppressed by a society caught in the throes of total, catastrophic misery. Opening with a Pornhub/Onlyfans like sex tape leaked across the internet, the film is broken up into three parts, the first of which follows Emi (a gravely courageous Katia Pascariu), a schoolteacher and star of the homemade video, going about her daily life in COVID-ravaged Romania, preparing for a parent/teacher conference, many insisting she be fired for her lurid bedroom behavior made public. The seething, hypocrisy-laden debate makes up the third act of the film—very much like a stage play—but the middle section, A Short Dictionary of Anecdotes, Signs & Wonders, is, frankly, a mini masterstroke—a semiotics attuned, text/image-based sequence that cannot be easily described, nor should a critic really attempt to try, the idea capturing the very essence movies were invented to capture on-screen. [Our review]
“C’mon C’mon”
Having carved out a subtle niche as American cinema’s quiet authority on the art of parental care, Mike Mills’ superlative uncle/nephew story, “C’mon C’mon,” confirms he’s pretty peerless when it comes to portraying the ups and downs of familial attachment. Tender and endearing, Joaquin Phoenix stars (it’s far more impressively nuanced work than his loud, Oscar-winning “Joker” performance) as Johnny, a radio journalist interviewing children across the country. When his sister Viv’s estranged husband, Paul (Gabby Hoffmann and Scoot McNairy; the former is transcendent) struggles with a mental breakdown, Johnny convinces Viv to let him take their son Jesse (Woody Norman) on the road with him. Shot in stunningly gorgeous black and white by DP Robbie Ryan, Mills reproduces a veritable nephew/uncle relationship, one whose loving fondness can be felt through the light of the projector. A warm film about life, loneliness, and yearning, “C’mon C’mon” is one of the year’s warmest and most sensitive achievements—a welcome respite and gentle learning lesson reflecting on living in times that frequently seem to have forgotten the kind-hearted aims of benevolence and understanding. [Our review]
“The Card Counter”
After the heart-stopping return to form that was “First Reformed” (if you loathed “Don’t Look Up,” and are looking for an actual, brutally seething film about climate change, look no further), Paul Schrader made the outstanding choice to hire Oscar Isaac as his latest subject of Bressonian torment in “The Card Counter.” Routine and regiment: words that describe both Schrader’s creative manifestations and Isaac’s character of William Tell, a former black-site torturer turned lone gambler. Adept at extorting the limits of punishing oneself to the darkest edges of the soul, the critic turned filmmaker reveals Tell’s past traumas via warped nightmare sequences—wide-angle tracking shots unveiling the horrors enlisted men inflicted on America’s so-called enemies post-911, being trained in the art exacting truth by Colonel John Gordo (Willem Dafoe); a man fed up with the “pussification” of our country (if I’m not mistaken, this was a word Schrader was called out for using on Facebook). Effectively, literally doubling down on sharpening his “Pickpocket” enamored ending—already traced atop previous Schrader anti-heroes, thrice over—Tell never softens his poker face, that is until he partners with gambling agent La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), Schrader’s anti-hero finding ease and comfort in the eyes of someone outside his own internalized prison. [Our review]