by CJ Johnson

5. CORPUS CHRISTI

Nominated for the 2019 Oscar for Best International Feature Film, Corpus Christi features a near-perfectly structured screenplay (the ending is perhaps a bit wonky), sublime formal cinematography, and pitch-perfect naturalistic performances, including from lead actor Bartosz Bielenia, whose portrayal of a young man who impersonates a priest in a small town in Poland after leaving juvenile detention is truly superb. Uncannily resembling the young Christopher Walken, he registers multiple levels of contradictory motive and emotion in every scene, adding great complexity to what is already a very rich and complicated story. We, as viewers and interpreters, are consistently put off-guard, as our protagonist challenges our perceptions: how much should we like this guy? How much are we allowed to?

4. A WHITE, WHITE DAY

From Iceland came the staggering A White, White Day, Hlynur Pálmason’s follow-up to his acclaimed and award-winning debut Winter Brother, featuring a once-in-a-lifetime role for the great Ingvar Sigurdsson, who nails every moment as a widowed grandfather and policeman building a house for his daughter and granddaughter while quietly losing his mind. Some of the technical attributes of the film are mind-blowing, and Pálmason is unafraid to stick his neck out with extremely bold directorial choices.

3. NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS

Working within total realism, centred around a debut actor’s (perfectly) naturalistic performance, Eliza Hittman’s third feature Never Rarely Sometimes Always is sublime. Full of pure empathy and compassion throughout, it makes a thousand points well without any made didactically; it is simultaneously one of the angriest films of the year while also being one of the quietest.

Newcomer Sidney Flanigan plays Autumn, a teen in Pennsylvania who needs an abortion and travels to New York City, with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), to get it. Along the way the girls encounter the things girls encounter, including incredibly sharply observed male oppressive behaviours.

Captivating performances, hyper-real settings (some of this film had to be “stolen” / shot guerilla-style) and a central scene that’s among the best of the year add up to a must-see film that, like the number one film on this list, takes on Something Big with quiet and furious precision.

2. PROXIMA

I can’t remember the last time I was as moved – nay, emotionally wrecked – by a film as I was by Alice Wincour’s Proxima. Eva Green plays Sarah, a French astronaut, living and training at the European Space Agency in Cologne, and bringing up her eight year old daughter Stella. When she is selected for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station, Sarah finds that, despite wanting to go to space since she herself was a little girl, she now feels deeply conflicted about leaving her child.

We follow Sarah through detailed and ultra-realistic scenes of an astronaut’s specific training. Sequences were shot at the European Space Agency in Cologne and at Star City near Moscow, on actual training equipment, in actual uniforms, according to actual protocols. Purely as a procedural about what modern astronauts do, Wincour’s film would have been fascinating. But this is a film about parenthood, and the hugely emotional bond between a mother and her child when her child is still young and vulnerable (Stella is eight). Sarah’s excitement to fulfil her lifelong dream of venturing into space is immediately and overwhelmingly tempered by her grief and guilt for leaving her daughter, despite the girl’s father, an amiable astrophysicist who also works at the European Space Agency in Cologne, being a decent man who Stella loves and Sarah can trust. Sarah can train all day at the limits of human physical and mental ability, only to find her most challenging moment upon hearing, via FaceTime, that her daughter’s not made any friends at her new school and is spending her lunchtimes in the playground alone. Non-parents may not get it; parents may find Proxima their film of the year.

1. THE ASSISTANT

Kitty Green’s debut fiction feature, The Assistant, is remarkably assured, bold and precise. With a preternaturally firm grasp of tone and style, backed up by immaculate – if low-key – craftsmanship, Green takes on one of the massive stories of our recent history – the systemic abuse of women by patriarchal systems as exemplified specifically by the actions of Harvey Weinstein – and turns them into ninety minutes of crystal drama, informing, enlightening and horrifying us.

Julia Garner plays a young woman who has been one of Weinstein’s personal assistants for about two months. (The Weinstein character is never named, nor is his face shown, but there is no doubt whatsoever who the character is meant to be). She’s in the inner sanctum, at a desk immediately outside his office, in a reception room with two other – male – assistants. In another part of the building, executives and other employees labour away at distribution, finance and artistic elements of his business (clearly The Weinstein Company) while more employees – including Human Resources – occupy a building next door. Los Angeles and London offices of the company are ingeniously represented by thick folders handed to a new employee.

The action takes place over a single – long – Monday, rarely leaving the offices, and part of the thematic genius of the script is that it’s, in many ways, ‘just another day’, with all the minor and major abuses – of trust and power, emotions and sex – that a single day in the life of Weinstein could involve. It’s gut-wrenching and evocative and atmospherically rich; at times the vibe is of a horror movie, the monster lurking just metres from the protagonist, separated by one door and a lifetime of acquired privilege.

All the excellent actors are on the same completely naturalistic page; the spare (and often incidental) dialogue is perfect in its concise precision; and the production design oozes authenticity, to the point that I suspect it reflects the actual Weinstein Company offices as leaked by an ex-employee. It all adds up to a stunning package, which also, more than any film I’ve seen in at least eighteen months, has something truly serious to say, and says it with breathtaking audacity. Brilliant.

CJ Johnson is the host of the MOVIELAND podcast, film and TV critic for ABC Radio’s THE NIGHTLIFE, and President of the Film Critics Circle of Australia. He lectures in Screenwriting and Film Studies at Sydney Film School.

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2 Comments
  • Graham Pinner
    Graham Pinner
    31 December 2020 at 10:14 am

    where are 1 to 6

    • Dov Kornits
      Dov Kornits
      31 December 2020 at 10:19 am

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