Films that left their mark
From the horrors of Hotel Coolgardie to the exhilaration of seeing the Trainspotting gang again, Sarah Watt offers an alternative best-ofthe-year in cinema. Films that made me... horrified Films that made me... uncomfortable Films that made me... laugh Fi
It’s that time again. Those of us who watch two or three cinema releases a week start compiling our Best Of lists, and usually I would go through my star ratings and list my recommendations based on the most glowing reviews. But this year I’m struck by the number of films I may not have rated highly but that left an indelible impression (not always positive). If I’m thinking about a film for days after, then this barometer is becoming important as I grow older and long for films that will teach me something, challenge my assumptions and, even, make me want to walk out. And so, herewith a list of the year’s films that made me feel something greater than just entertained.
Films that made me... exhilarated mother!
Audiences were polarised by Darren Aronofsky’s Biblical allusion/ environmental cautionary tale, but for me the thrill was in the swirling camerawork and pitch-perfect acting, and the real horror was manifested in uninvited rude houseguests plonking their derrie`res on a kitchen bench.
Christopher Nolan’s war epic combined stunning photography, a pounding Hans Zimmer soundtrack (with a patriotic splash of glorious Elgar) and incredible performances from Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and One Direction’s Harry Styles. Getting your head around the tricky narrative timeline made it even more satisfying.
Dunkirk Wonder Woman
I went in expecting Just Another Super-Hero(ine) Movie, but then I got choked up during a battle scene and let forth a solo whoop! and found myself unexpectedly moved and empowered all at once throughout this clever, funny, entertaining and important message to 21st-century girls.
Baby Driver
Twenty-five years ago Tarantino changed my life with Reservoir Dogs, so Edgar Wright’s very Tarantinian caper, with its stunning use of soundtrack, enormous energy and terribly clever dialogue brought those halcyon days of cinematic ecstasy flooding back.
John Wick: Chapter 2
Another gangster shoot-’em-up that delivered in spades, Keanu Reeves’ revenge spree boasted terrifically inventive fight scenes and plenty of visual flair.
Getting the gang back together was a gamble, but the minute Renton, Begbie and Spud retook the screen as their now middleaged losers, we knew Danny Boyle’s risk had paid off. In fact, it almost felt like coming home. (To the 1990s, not to a druggie’s hovel.)
Take one working-class white woman with a knack for spitting sick rhymes and drop her onto the streets of New Jersey, and watch her reach for the stars. Australian Danielle Macdonald blew me away as the titular Killa P in this delightful rags-to-notquite-riches story with the best soundtrack of the year.
T2 Trainspotting Patti Cake$ Call Me By Your Name
The setting! (a villa in Italy) The leads! (Armie Hammer and a stunningly assured performance by young Timothee Chalamet) The story! (repressed and then not-so-repressed love, touchingly portrayed). Call Me By Your Name reminded me that impeccable cinema is still a reasonable demand. The Florida Project I never walk out of movies, but this impressively raw depiction of impoverished, streetwise children running amok in a Florida housing project made me so heartpumpingly stressed, I had to leave halfway through and go home and watch Homeland to relax.
A true story of whites brutalising blacks during the Detroit riots. You think you’ve seen it all before, but Kathryn Bigelow’s vital movie and Will Poulter’s personification had my blood boiling all over again.
Detroit Hotel Coolgardie
A low-budget, expertly-told documentary about Scandinavian backpackers working as barmaids in a no-horse Australian mining town where the local gentlemen’s ‘‘fragile masculinity’’ is painfully evident. Horrific, depressing and also fascinating.
Toni Erdmann
Awards this, critical love that. I found Toni Erdmann distasteful as much for its protagonist’s grotesque costume teeth as the excruciating narrative, but I cannot deny it was clever, original and buttonpushing in the extreme. Rather like drinking a bitter green smoothie, I swallowed it for my own ‘‘improvement’’ but squirmed through most of its minutes.
Since becoming a high school teacher, I find horror movies about teens slashing people for kicks a little tasteless. Also, Tragedy Girls felt derivative. But ironically I’m sure the kids will love it.
Tragedy Girls The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Dissonant music, cringingly dull dialogue, deadpan delivery – Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman excelled in this misanthropic yet humorous drama about a strange young lad (Dunkirk‘s Barry Keoghan) who infiltrates then destroys a perfect family.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Did I mention the deadpan dialogue was utterly hilarious?
Michael Haneke, hardly known for his comedy, went dark and brilliant in this take down of a smug, bourgeois family with plenty to hide.
Bitingly clever and brilliantly expressed, this satire of
Happy End Get Out
racist America was one of the best and most delightfully outrageous horrorcomedies of the year. If cinema can give me the feels, it’s doing its job. The films that made my heart ache include:
A 25-year-old man finds his way in the modern world after years of seclusion.
Brigsby Bear: My Life as a Courgette:
An animated delight about an orphaned child longing for family and friendship.
Raymond Briggs’ beautifully depicted and poignant biographical graphic novel about his parents’ life in war-torn London.
Loss, loneliness and universally remarkable performances put this in my top five films of the year.
Ethel & Ernest: Manchester by the Sea: Hidden Figures:
Hugely entertaining yet shocking portrait of the treatment of black women working for Nasa in the 1950s.
Martin Scorsese’s underrated passion piece about Jesuit priests testing their faith in Japan.
Oscar-winning comingof-age story about a young black man seeking peace with his sexuality.
Silence: Moonlight: Waru
A breathtaking composition of eight one-shot scenes set in the context of a child’s tangi, Waru received accolades for its uncompromising treatment of child abuse, its bravura cinematography and its kaupapa – the product of an allfemale Maori directing team. It proved a deeply affecting mix of so many cinematic firsts.
One Thousand Ropes
The secondever Samoan-language feature film, One Thousand Ropes boasted compelling performances and an artfully directed story, depicting one of New Zealand’s key cultures in a more truthful manner than the usual stereotypes of buffoons and gangsters. Up there with the very best of ‘‘foreign language’’ film and a must-see.
Drop three disparate characters on a remote island south of Aotearoa and let their secrets and lies do the rest. Human Traces was engrossing drama, efficiently and cleverly told.
Documentarian Florian Habicht shifted his keen-eyed focus to the folk who run New Zealand’s only haunted attraction theme park. Any discomfort I had about using mental illness as a mechanism to terrify and stoke ignorance was somewhat mitigated by this surprisingly compassionate and insightful portrait.
This first-rate children’s story was transposed to the screen with aplomb, with Brit Timothy Spall as the new Wilberforce of teen horror and a stunning breakout role for Erana James.
Human Traces Spookers The Changeover All Eyez on Me
This biopic of Tupac Shakur wanted so badly to be Straight Outta Compton, but despite the picture-perfect casting of lead Demetrius Shipp Jr it lacked character, chutzpah and charisma.
And what about
you ask? It’s impossible to categorise the feelings spurred by such an all-round wonderful mix of humour, pathos, excitement and childhood nostalgia.
Next year, maybe a category for ‘‘Films that had it all’’.
Jedi, Star Wars: The Last