Shot over 35 years, the film looks at the life of the filmmaker’s father and the children, wives and girlfriends he left in his wake. The filmmaker presents the film on both screening days.
Film About a Father Who , by Lynne Sachs. United States, 2020. 74′. YOU
A kaleidoscopic portrait filmed between 1984 and 2019 in multiple formats – Super 8, 16mm, VHS and HD – in which Lynne Sachs delves into the controversial figure of her father, Ira Sachs Sr., a bon vivant from Utah, extravagant appearance, hotel industry entrepreneur, manipulator, selfish and charismatic seducer, who led a life full of secrets, had nine children (among them is also the filmmaker Ira Sachs Jr.) with five women, some of whom remained hidden for the rest of the family for years. The film reflects on the life of this man and how his decisions affected the whole family, and is also a suggestive study of the passage of time both in form and substance.
Lynne Sachs (USA, 1961) is a filmmaker, poet and artist based in New York. She received a BA in History with a minor in Art from Brown University (Providence). Her first contact with the world of cinema was in 1985 through the prestigious Flaherty seminar in New York. Later, she moved to San Francisco, where she made her first experiments in celluloid and began collaborating with filmmakers such as Bruce Conner, George Kuchar, Barbara Hammer, Craig Baldwin, Ernie Gehr and Gunvor Nelson. In 1989 she directed her first film De Ella Sermons and Sacred Pictures. Since then, she has developed a long career with more than 30 works and titles such as Investigation of a Flame (2003); The Small Ones (2007); orYour Day Is My Night (2013), with which he has participated in numerous festivals such as Sundance, NYFF, BAFICI, Sheffield Doc, Oberhausen or Tribeca.
*Filmmaker Lynne Sachs presents the film on both screening days.
*Covid Protocol:
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The use of the mask is mandatory at all times.
We appreciate you making use of the hydroalcoholic gel located at the entrance of the center.
* La Casa Encendida, a safe space . We appreciate that you carefully read the sanitary measures adopted before attending the activity.
OVID in February Includes 32 Films with 10 Exclusive Streaming Premieres
Five French cinema classics, acclaimed Asian cinema, films by Charles Burnett and Shirley Clarke, and much more!
OVID.tv is proud to announce its February slate of thirty-two (32) streaming releases, including ten (10) exclusively streaming on OVID.
OVID’s February slate celebrates Black History Month with eight classic films exploring the Black experience at home and abroad. These include the 1948 documentary STRANGE VICTORY (branded communist propaganda at the time of its release), COME BACK, AFRICA, and Charles Burnett’s memorable slice of life drama MY BROTHER’S WEDDING.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, OVID is proud to premiere five classic French films in February. The fun begins with three films by the French filmmaker and screenwriter Marc Allégret: the swooning 1955 melodrama SCHOOL FOR LOVE (starring a young Brigitte Bardot), the 1955 D.H. Lawrence adaptation LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER, and the delightfully fluffy 1953 farce JULIETTA.
A week later, OVID offers up two seldom-seen films by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, central figure of the French New Wave, author, actor, and co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma: the racy 1960 film A GAME FOR SIX LOVERS (featuring music by Serge Gainsbourg) and the 1961 political thriller LA DENONCIATION (THE IMMORAL MOMENT).
Other titles in OVID’s February slate include Shirley Clarke’s Beat classic THE CONNECTION, the delightful Hong Kong genre farce VAMPIRE CLEANUP DEPARTMENT, Ilan Ziv’s eye-opening EXILE, A MYTH UNEARTHED, and five more indelible short films by OVID favorite Lynne Sachs.
Details on all films coming to OVID in February are below.
Wednesday, February 9
And Then We Marched Directed by Lynne Sachs, Documentary Short, 2017 US Filmmaker Lynne Sachs shoots Super 8mm film of the first Women’s March in 2017 in Washington, D.C. and intercuts this recent footage with archival material of early 20th Century Suffragists marching for the right to vote, 1960s antiwar activists and 1970s advocates for the Equal Rights Amendment.
A Biography of Lilith Directed by Lynne Sachs, Documentary Short, 1997 US In a lively mix of narrative, collage and memoir, A Biography of Lilith updates the creation myth by telling the story of the first woman. Lilith’s betrayal by Adam in Eden and subsequent vow of revenge is recast as a modern tale with a present-day Lilith musing on a life that has included giving up a baby for adoption and working as a bar dancer. Interweaving mystical texts from Jewish folklore with interviews, music and poetry, director Lynne Sachs reclaims this cabalistic parable to frame her own role as mother.
Tip of My Tongue Directed by Lynne Sachs, Documentary, 2017 US To celebrate her 50th birthday, filmmaker Lynne Sachs gathers together other people, men and women who have lived through precisely the same years but come from places like Iran or Cuba or Australia or the Lower East Side, not Memphis, Tennessee where Sachs grew up. She invites 12 fellow New Yorkers – born across several continents in the 1960s – to spend a weekend with her making a movie. Together they discuss some of the most salient, strange, and revealing moments of their lives in a brash, self-reflexive examination of the way in which uncontrollable events outside our own domestic universe impact who we are. (Anthology Film Archives Calendar).
A Month of Single Frames (for Barbara Hammer) Directed by Lynne Sachs, Documentary Short, 2019 US In 1998, experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer took part in a one-month residency at a Cape Cod dune shack without running water or electricity, where she shot film, recorded sound and kept a journal. In 2018 she gave all of this material to Lynne Sachs and invited her to make a film with it.
A Year in Notes and Numbers Directed by Lynne Sachs, Documentary Short, 2017 US A year’s worth of to-do lists confronts the unavoidable numbers that are part and parcel of an annual visit to the doctor. The quotidian and the corporeal mingle and mix. Family commitments, errands and artistic effusions trade places with the daunting reality of sugar, cholesterol, and bone.
JANUARY 31 AT 7:33 PM The House of Sachs: A Museum of Intersubjectivity
An in-depth discussion between film makers David Cox and Lynne Sachs on subjects ranging from logocentrism to detritus and fragments and the world the structuralist legacy left us. Lynne takes us on a film makers journey through her method both ideological, thematic and technical.
Lynne Sachs is an American experimental filmmaker and poet based in Brooklyn, New York. Strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, she searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in each new project. Over the course of her career, Lynne has worked closely with fellow filmmakers Craig Baldwin, Bruce Conner, Barbara Hammer, Chris Marker, Gunvor Nelson, Carolee Schneemann, and Trinh T. Min-ha.
On this twenty-second episode of OLL OBOUT OVID!, on this ONE HUNDREDTH episode of THE SCREEN’S MARGINS, Witney and B have a very special guest! Here to talk with them about her films, which are being showcased on Ovid.tv, is none other than experimental documentary filmmaker Lynne Sachs! Among the films discussed in the first half of their chat are SERMONS AND SACRED PICTURES (1989), WHICH WAY IS EAST: NOTEBOOKS FROM VIETNAM (1994), STATES OF UNBELONGING (2005) and YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT (2013), which are currently on Ovid. The second half of the conversation will be released on February 9th, when five more of Lynne Sachs’ films are released to the service. We hope you enjoy, and thank you for your time!
Dear readers, I watch a lot of movies. Then again, what else was I supposed to do throughout yet another pandemic year with city-wide lockdowns and curfews? So I set up my home with a big TV and a 55 inch tv stand with mount so I can watch it comfortable. Which is why it was no real struggle at all to think of enough titles to make this list of the 25 best documentaries of 2021. Nor why I do not consider it the least bit excessive. Movies are great, so let’s celebrate them! Each of the films listed are deserving of your eyes, although often for very different reasons—I hope my pseudo-weekly reviews and below captions help explain why.
It was a strong year for films about artists and art more broadly. Nearly half the films on the list below are related to film, music, painting, dance and/or the people to make them. Queer themed docs were also prevalent. The longest film here is 194 minutes. The shortest is 61. There is almost a 50/50 between male and female directors across 25 films that travel the globe from sex doll factories in China to political campaigns in Zimbabwe, a jail cell in Guantanamo Bay and the streets of Harlem…
THE 25 BEST DOCUMENTARIES OF 2020
25. NO STRAIGHT LINES: THE RISE OF QUEER COMICS, Vivian Kleiman On one hand, this is a rather simple doc. Functional and linear. But as I watched this colourfully assembled film, I was struck by how the story of queer comics is just as much the story of a revolution (+ Fun Home). Like the comics themselves, No Straight Lines educates as well as entertains, telling a story of how many found their voice through the fanciful and the erotic, the intergalactic and the down the earth. And, to me, that was something special. [Where to see it: Still in festival rotation; released limited theatrically in November]
24. THE FOREVER PRISONER, Alex Gibney
Alex Gibney’s works are often no fuss—they have to be given how prolific he is—journalistic undertakings where he reveals fact after fact about one form of American crime after another. This one is no different, boldened by first-person illustrations in the place of illegally destroyed evidence about the story of Abu Zubaydah. Used as a guinea pig by the United States government, Gibney traces his story through an embarrassment of shameful revelations. That we sit it comfort hearing about all of this only confounds the effect it has. [Where to see it: Streaming on HBOMax]
23. FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO, Lynne Sachs From my review: It’s a deeply personal work of biography (via autobiography), of course. … Sachs, in fact, builds her own cinematic grammar to help construct an understanding of her father, reckoning with the mistakes that lead to where they all are in 2020. [Where to see it: Streaming on the Criterion Channel]
22. FAYA DAYI, Jessica Beshir
This sombre doc from Ethiopia is perhaps a touch too elliptical in its narrative (if that’s what you could even call it). Nevertheless, Beshir’s own striking black-and-white cinematography really does lend it a quality that feels unique, reconfiguring the way we look at its own story and Africa more broadly. It’s probably no surprise I thought instantly to Ralf Schmerberg’s Hommage á Noir. This is a film of tone and poetry and images that pierce out from the dust, so much so that I am willing to extend some cultural leniency in the process. [Where to see it: Streaming on the Criterion Channel]
21. CIVIL WAR (OR, WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE), Rachel Boynton From my review: Civil War finds interesting crevices within which to explore education and class-driven divides and the way the war’s lessons are taught and absorbed by the next generations. Spoiler alert: it’s not entirely comforting. [Where to see it: Streaming on Peacock, rentable online]
20. CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS, Tom Hurwitz, Rosalynde LeBlanc From my review: Where others may glide over entire works like a brisk walk through a gallery, there is far more nuance to be found in the way Can You Bring It illuminates on D-Man’s thorny subtexts and subtle textures. [Where to see it: Rentable online]
19. WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR, Kier-La Janisse
3hr+ documentaries about scary movies are surprisingly common, but this dissection of where cinema meets cultural manifestations of violence and horror is probably the best one yet. It’s academic—perhaps too much so for its own good, but this long (194 minutes!) and in-depth history is wonderfully, even wittily assembled, thoroughly detailed and richly educational. [Where to see it: Streaming on Shudder]
18. THE LOST LEONARDO, Andreas Koefoed
Sometimes documentaries can just be really entertaining. Easily the best doc I’ve seen in some time about the world of fine art world—and I have seen a few—because while it luxuriates in much of the scene’s pretentions, it also interrogates them and the absurd clash of money, ego and power that come with it. This isn’t just a film about how great it is to have money, but about what comes from it. It lost me a little bit when it got into Tenet territory, but it’s a exhilirating story. [Where to see it: Rentable online]
17. NO ORDINARY MAN, Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt From my review: It dismantles the very politics of disclosure, and tells its story of self-discovery with empathy and tenderness while utilising film craft in a way that offers genuine inclusive insight. [Where to see it: Rentable online]
16. WITCHES OF THE ORIENT, Julien Faraut In the depths of yet another months-long lockdown, the Tokyo Olympics actually proved to be a surprising diversion. Surprising because recent editions went by without much notice. Nestled alongside those was Witches of the Orient, a spiky (pun unintended) documentary about perhaps the best volleyball team of all time that emerged out of a Japanese factory’s recreation program and took its players to the 1984 Olympics. Julien Faraut (director of another sports doc, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection) injects a whole lot of style including manga illustrations when he isn’t letting us luxuriate in the company of these lovely, now older champions.
15. LISTENING TO KENNY G, Penny Lane From my review: What makes Listening to Kenny G so invigorating of a watch is because of the greater story within which this narrative is placed. One that interrogates the controversial anti-populous appeal of the multi-instrumentalist’s smooth jazz stylings from all angles. [Where to see it: Streaming on HBOMax]
14. MOMENTS LIKE THIS NEVER LAST, Cheryl Dunn
Cheryl Dunn’s second feature in ten years is a portrait of an artist who, it seems, was a complete dickhead. Which is what lends it a fascinating friction. Capturing a strange post-9/11 commercialisation of contemporary punk, it straddles a really fine line of celebrating Dash Snow, while also wanting to get underneath. Like another artist portrait further up the list, Cheryl Dunn’s follow-up to 2013’s Everybody Street is cut with the ferocious spirit of its subject, making copious use of archival footage and Dunn’s own material that, like the art world money that came his way, intoxicates. Was Snow for real, though? Who can tell…? [Where to see it: Streaming on MUBI, rentable online]
13. THE VELVET QUEEN, Marie Amigut
A nature documentary that is more concerned with patience and waiting than it is Attenborough style up-close education or the biographical anthropomorphising of last year’s unconventional Oscar winner My Octopus Teacher. Beautifully shot (although, as good as it is, Warren Ellis and Nick Cave’s score gets in the way of the sounds of nature from time to time) and richly rewarding in its conclusion. I was surprised by Marie Amigut’s debut feature. It just won the Lumière in France. [Where to see it: Currently in limited theatrical release]
12. NORTH BY CURRENT, Angelo Madsen Minax From my review: Minax tells the story of his family in sombre tones but with affection as well as a keen eye to collage and even a slight avant-garde sensibility. [Where to see it: Streaming on PBS; still in festival rotation]
11. SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED), Questlove From my review: …Questlove has used this opportunity (his first as a director) to not just string together the material filmed over those six weeks. Rather, he has used it to explore what made those six weeks so special in the first place. [Where to see it: Streaming on Hulu and Disney+]
10. PRESIDENT, Camilla Nielsson
Camilla Nielsson’s earlier feature, Democrats, about the political plights of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, was mere preparation for President, a compelling film of two starkly differing halves. In one, the hope of a new dawn for the African nation is on the horizon. Both politically and visually, it evokes the era of Obama as Nielsson’s camera captures the emphatic crowds and playbooking. Its second half, is a legal thriller that bolds, italicises and underlines just why the first half was so important. Impeccable work. [Where to see it: Currently in limited theatrical release]
9. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, Todd Haynes From my review: Haynes pushes the concept of a conventional bio-doc about as far as he can while remaining something your average punter might potentially watch on Apple TV+… But its Haynes’ eye as a master stylist within his knack for heightened drama that gives The Velvet Underground what makes it special. [Where to see it: Streaming on AppleTV+]
8. FLEE, Jonas Poher Rasmussen From my review: The key to the success of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s film is that it embraces traditional documentary form as much as it pushes it… [Where to see it: Currently in limited theatrical release]
7. LITTLE GIRL, Sébastien Lifshitz The most recent discovery and latest addition to the list; sorry Questlove, maybe an Oscar will have to suffice instead of a place in this top ten. Sébastien Lifshitz’s direction here is among the very top highlights of the entire list, following moments major and minor in the life of Sasha, an eight-year-old transgender child. The filmmaker quite masterfully observes with humane patience and deep empathy for this family of just very nice people as they confront an all-too-unforgiving society head on. Heartbreaking and inspiring. [Where to see it: Rentable online]
6. WOJNAROWICZ: F**K YOU F*GGOT F**KER, Chris McKim From my review: Big, boldly stylized and defiantly queer; it’s a documentary about an artist that, for once, feels truly in sync with its subject’s style. “I’m not gay as in ‘I love you’, I’m queer as in fuck off!” [Where to see it: Rentable online]
5. THE ANNOTATED FIELD GUIDE OF ULYSSES S. GRANT, Jim Finn From my review: …Finn mixes narrated passages like Ken Burns, an avant-garde musical soundtrack, and playful battle recreations using roadside tourist trap trinkets, board games and playing cards. I found it an entrancing and divine work of experimental historical documentary. [Where to see it: Streaming on OVID]
4. ASCENSION, Jessica Kingdon Finds stark yet cinematically witty ways to portray China’s economic shift. From sex doll factories to butler school and the pomp and circumstance of performative capitalistic excess, Kingdon uses cinematography, editing and music in some really extraordinary ways. Hard to believe this is the filmmaker’s first feature given how precise and refined it is. And in a sea of films about China, it stands tallest. [Where to see it: Streaming on Paramount+]
3. BULLETPROOF, Todd Chandler From my review: Handler’s quite remarkable film takes something of a more removed tactic with its subject—the scourge of mass shootings in American high schools and the efforts made to avert such disasters happening in the future.
2. STATE FUNERAL, Sergei Loznitsa One of my favourite directors delivered once again with this beast of a documentary and a true feat of editing. Perhaps even better than The Event, which I ranked as the 7th best doc of the last decade, so… you know. That’s pretty damn good! Masterfully connects the mourning for Stalin across the USSR in ways that captures both the pomp and the absurdity and the mundanity. It will most likely not be for many people, but if you have jived to Loznitsa’s wavelengths before, don’t miss it. [Where to see it: Streaming on MUBI, Rentable online]
1. PROCESSION, Robert Greene From my review: It’s become somewhat predictable that a new Robert Greene will challenge an audience as much as it enthrals. He doesn’t exactly pick the most digestible of subject matter, but the way he comes at them is always so interesting and refreshingly unique that it becomes more than just a dour excursion into humanity’s darkest corners…. His latest, the Netflix-distributed Catholic Church abuse drama Procession is no different. More so, it’s the best documentary of the year. [Where to see it: Streaming on Netflix]
And there you go, folks. Another year of documentaries down. You can follow me on Letterboxd to see everything I watch and keep following Doc Corner for (usually) weekly reviews.
In
2021, Mimesis held its first-ever hybrid (in-person + virtual) Documentary
Festival, hosted in August by the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Colorado with
major support from the Stewart Family Foundation. An event attended by hundreds
of artists, students, scholars, and members of the community, MDF showcased
almost 100 works by some of the most dynamic voices in documentary and
ethnographic media exploring the pressures and possibilities of contemporary
global culture. This year’s Festival also included Day Residue –
a workshop with Opening Night Artist Lynne Sachs, a Masterclass with Featured
Artist Pedro Costa, and the latest edition of Flaherty x Boulder entitled
Solace in the Shadows.
Programming
at MDF 2021 was described by attendees as “tremendous – always illuminating,
rigorous, and thoughtful” and “excellent–thought-provoking, boundary-pushing,
and enjoyable.” This could not have beenaccomplished without the
tireless work of our dedicated programming team who crafted programs that
brought important ideas together to amplify artists’ voices. Thank you, Sarah
Biagini, Luiza Parvu, Laurids Sonne, and Michelle Rupprecht. Your work is
deeply appreciated.
The
technical and administrative execution of the festival was made possible by the
indefatigable Festival Director Curt Heiner, Assistant Michelle Rupprecht,
Social Media Manager Sophia Schelle, Documentary Arts Coordinator Nima
Bahrehmand, Copywriter Morgan Murphy, and staffer Diana Wilson. Thank you so
much for all your work.
Thank
you to all the staff at the Dairy, with a special mention to Glenn Webb and
Shay Wescott. And a very special thanks to Flaherty x Boulder programmers
Kelsey White, and L u m i a for two wonderful programs.
And
most of all, thank you to Mimesis artists, who contributed their work to our
community and who traveled to Boulder, either virtually or in person, to be
together in this difficult time. Your work and your presence are what make this
event so special.
Jury Awards A House in Pieces – Best Documentary One Image, Two Acts – Best Short Documentary A New England Document – Emerging Artist The Mississippi – Documentary Arts
Audience Awards Film About a Father Who – Best Feature Documentary The Whelming Sea – Best Short Documentary The Final Touch – Emerging Artist Blowback – Documentary Arts
Thank
you to the MDF 2021 Jury for their thoughtful consideration of these
outstanding works. This year’s jurors were Jessica Oreck, Priyanka Chhabra,
Toma Peiu, Kelly Sears, Jim Supanick, Rachel Chanoff, Maura Axelrod, L u m i a,
and Kelsey White.
Congratulations
to the 2021 Festival winners!
Honorable
mentions were given by the MDF jury to Sean Hanley for The Whelming Sea,
Elizabeth Brun for 3xShapes of Home, and Jennifer Boles for The
Reversal.
Throughout the month of February, the Madrid cultural center presents a cycle in which the filmmakers themselves and their families are the protagonists of the films.
The permanent program of contemporary cinema at La Casa Encendida (Madrid) will focus, throughout the month of February, on family film albums. Thus, the films in the Family Album cycle “explore the domestic memory of their protagonists, delving into the space of everyday life, either from the present or resorting to archives from the past, materials, the latter, which were initially conceived for their intimate enjoyment, but now they are resignified, transforming those memories of family life into images that appeal to the collective”.
In the series, two filmmakers, Lynne Sachs in Film About a Father Who and Mercedes Gaviria in Like the Sky After It Rained , study their relationships with their respective fathers, both men with powerful and absorbing personalities. For her part, in Esquirlas , Natalia Garayalde reconstructs a tragic event that occurred 25 years ago, based on videos she recorded as a child; and Aitor Merino portrays his family in Fantasia, a reflection on the passage of time that converts, precisely, that lived time into cinematographic time. Four films in which, as in any family album, the images collected in them will survive the bodies. The cycle of La Casa Encendida is made with the collaboration of Enrique Piñuel.
Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 February: Fantasy , by Aitor Merino (Spain, 2021).The cruise ship, one of the (not) most fictional places in reality, where time is suspended in a kind of dreamlike limbo and which in this case, as if that were not enough, bears the name of Fantasy, becomes a machine of the time in which the brothers Aitor and Amaia, who are close to turning fifty, are once again the children of parents who, due to their age, should be grandparents. This scenario serves to begin to unfold a choreography of family life, which already in the daily life of the home makes present the reality of the passage of time, reflecting on life as a couple, relationships, memory, old age, the future and the fear of absence A portrait as tender as it is rigorous, of a family that also serves Aitor Merino (director of Asier ETA biok) to establish a genealogy of their ancestors, transcending the domestic to become universal.
Saturday, February 12 and Sunday, February 13 : Like the sky after it rained , by Mercedes Gaviria (Colombia, 2020) . Mercedes Gaviria returns to her hometown, Medellín, to work on the filming of La mujer del animal, the last film by his father, the legendary Colombian filmmaker Víctor Gaviria, a director who for years, between shooting and shooting, spent his domestic life filming his family, now providing an immense archive to work on. The coexistence of these two generations of filmmakers provides an intimate look at family relationships, presences and absences, memories and silences that reflect the contradictions of every family. Throughout the film, the distance between father and daughter is evident in several situations, although the shared passion for cinema is above all else.
Saturday, February 19 and Sunday, February 20 : Esquirlas , by Natalia Garayalde (Argentina, 2020). On November 3, 1995, the military factory in Río Tercero, a town in Córdoba where the Garayalde family lived, exploded, causing thousands of projectiles to be fired, leaving behind seven dead and dozens injured and homeless. Natalia and her sister, from the innocence of childhood, recorded the moments after the explosion, as well as the daily life of the town, marked by the tragedy, in the following days. Over time, what was presumed to be an accident was uncovered as one of the most terrifying events in recent Argentine history, with the illegal sale of weapons destined for the Balkan war by the government of Carlos Menem and state terrorism. to hide evidence. 25 years later, the director reappropriates her own material to resignify it,
Saturday, February 26 and Sunday, February 27: Film About a Father Who , by Lynne Sachs (United States, 2020).A kaleidoscopic portrait filmed, between 1984 and 2019, in multiple formats, Super 8, 16mm, VHS, HD, in which Lynne Sachs delves into the controversial figure of her father, Ira Sachs Sr., a bon vivant from Utah, Extravagant in appearance, an entrepreneur in the hotel industry, manipulative, selfish and charismatic seducer, he led a life full of secrets, had nine children (among them is also the filmmaker Ira Sachs Jr.) with five women, some of whom remained hidden. for the rest of the family for years. The film reflects on the life of this man and how his decisions affected the entire family, and is also a suggestive study of the passage of time both in form and substance.
At Seventh Row, we pride ourselves on seeking out the best hidden gems that nobody’s talking about to ensure that our readers never miss a great film again.
We spent a large part of 2021 writing an ebook called Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction. Seventh Row as a publication has always been interested in nonfiction cinema, but it wasn’t until Subjective realities that we realised just how much vital work is being done right now in the documentary landscape.
You’ll see on this list films like Still Processing, Procession, and North by Current, that question how filmmaking can be a tool to help people process grief and trauma. You’ll find films like No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed, which use documentary as a way to reclaim historical narratives about marginalised people. There’s films on this list that interrogate family bonds, colonialism, and immigration, all in innovative and deeply empathetic ways. They prove that there’s no greater tool than nonfiction to question how stories are told, and to tell new ones.
Film About a Father Who is one of the best documentaries of 2021.
From the introduction to our profile of Lynne Sachs: “In the 1980s, documentary filmmaker Lynne Sachs started filming her father, Ira Sachs, a gregarious, womanising businessman. Now, three decades later, she’s finally finished making Film About a Father Who, a sprawling chronicle of her father’s life, and the children, wives, and girlfriends he left in his wake. That includes Lynne, her sister Dana, and her brother Ira Jr. (also a filmmaker). It also includes the six other children that their father had with various different women.
Film About a Father Who feels like a culmination of a career of family-focused work; it’s ambitious, attempting to take in the whole scope of Ira Sachs Sr.’s life. In non-chronological fragments, through footage spanning from the present day back to 1965, Sachs seeks to understand the complicated, unknowable figure of her father. In the end, the film doesn’t aim to be a comprehensive character study of Ira Sachs Sr.; Sachs realises that she has only so much access to her father’s mind, especially now that his declining health means that he can’t speak that much. Instead, she works with what she does have: access to herself, and to an extent, her siblings, to examine the bruises that a father leaves on his children, and how they attempt to heal.” Read the full profile.
Film About a Father Who is streaming on Criterion Channel in Canada and the US. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on where it’s streaming.
A selection of poll ballots from filmmakers, including Megan Griffiths, Lloyd Kaufman and Sandi Tan, choosing their best of 2021.
Late last year, Talkhouse Film contributors and a select few friends of the site voted on their favorite theatrical releases of 2021; the aggregated results will be published on Talkhouse tomorrow. Below are ballots from a selection of the filmmakers who took part in the voting process.
Michael Gallagher 1. Pig 2. Licorice Pizza 3. Some Kind of Heaven 4. Shiva Baby 5. Old Henry 6. Film About A Father Who 7. The Killing of Two Lovers 8. King Richard 9. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar 10. Zola
Gillian Wallace Horvat 1. Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar 2. Old 3. Zola 4. Film About A Father Who (this was on my list last year but it got a theatrical release this year so happy to have it back on) 5. The Trouble With Being Born 6. Ema 7. The Last Duel 8. Chaos Walking (with the original Charlie Kaufman script that I can only imagine) 9. Things Heard & Seen 10. Paul Schrader says it’s disingenuous not to put your own film on your year end list if you like it, and I like it and I live in fear of contradicting Paul Schrader so: I Blame Society
Notes
2021 was the year of go big or go home. If in this year of straitened resources and universal misery you weren’t trying something new, wild, or insane… I honestly don’t think you should be doing this job. This is not the time to play it safe. While some of the films on my list weren’t perfect, I respected their scope and the director’s fortitude to hold on to their vision in spite of what I’m sure were copious notes. There’s a lot of films that I expect would go in the list that I haven’t watched like Titane, Benedetta and Zeros and Ones, and there’s a lot that hasn’t come out in L.A. and is not available to a non-critic non-guild member but I’m sure I would have included The Worst Person in the World and Bad Luck Banging if I had the chance to see them.
FULL LIST
Vashti Anderson
1. Judas and the Black Messiah dir. Shaka King
2. Titane dir. Julia Doucournau
3. The Green Knight dir. David Lowery
4. Lamb dir. Valdemar Johansson
5. Annette dir. Leos Carax
6. Licorice Pizza dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
7. Concrete Cowboy dir. Ricky Staub
8. Perfume de Gardenias dir. Gisela Rosario
9. King Richard dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green
10. Want to see: Memoria dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Notes Titane – At first, I found the body horror hard to bear, especially because of the profound violence to the female protagonist’s body in particular. What kept me watching was the fact that it was directed by a woman, and I was interested in Doucournau’s vision and where she was going with it. In the end, the intensely visceral storytelling stayed with me, made me think about our impulses, our bodies, our pain. It seems to pull from one of my favorite documentaries, The Imposter, where humans bypass truth for a whiff of happiness.
The Green Knight dir. David Lowery – Instead of Hollywoodizing the original text, Lowery makes it even more curious, more intriguing, and more ambiguous about heroism. It does what most of my favorite films do, which is to take risks and walk the line of genre, in this case horror and epic. Dev Patel, another South Asian man in a prominent leading role (I mentioned Riz Ahmed last year), and Sarita Choudhury in the role she was made to play, are wins for non-conformative casting. Also loved the Jane’s Addiction album cover reference in the opening shot.
Lamb dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson – The opening sequence is absolutely killer; animals start the story, with subtext and point of view, their heightened sense of smell and hearing part of the experience. Humans barely say a thing, but I could feel their deepest desires. Perhaps representative of our collective anxiety about profound loss, the idea of parenting, in some way or another, appears in so many great films this year.
Rod Blackhurst
1. Dune
2. Antlers
3. A Quiet Place Part II
4. In the Heights
5. Titane
6. Pig
7. The Card Counter
8. The Green Knight
9. The Power of the Dog
10. C’mon C’mon
Cheryl Dunn
1. Summer of Soul
2. The Power of the Dog
3. Parallel Mothers
4. Licorice Pizza
5. The Velvet Underground
6. Moments Like This Never Last
7. Paper & Glue
8. The First Wave
9. Spencer
10. Shiva Baby
Ferdinando Cito Filomarino
1. The Card Counter
2. First Cow
3. Annette
4. The Power of The Dog
5. Days
6. Memoria
7. Undine
8. The Hole
9. France
10. Summer of Soul
Notes
Unfortunate amount of films seen at home this year. Many films that came out during the pandemic deserve to be reassessed!
Alex H. Fischer
1. Licorice Pizza
2. The Hand of God
3. Bergman Island
4. The Souvenir Part II
5. The French Dispatch
6. Annette
7. Titane
8. Judas and the Black Messiah
9. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Sundance)
10. Red Rocket
Notes
ALSO! Mia Hansen-Love’s All is Forgiven (2007, but only released in theaters this year in the U.S.) at Metrograph)
Patrick Forbes
1. No Time to Die
2. The Power of the Dog
3. Belfast
4. Flee
5. The Tender Bar
6. The Rescue
7. Last Night in Soho
8. Licorice Pizza
9. C’mon C’mon
10. The Velvet Underground
Notes
Normally I hate Bond; meaningless stunts, stiff upper lips, and stiffer acting. But I loved No Time to Die. The photography was exquisite. The direction by Cary Fukanaga brilliant, turning Daniel Craig into a compelling, totemic figure, the camera trained on his every flicker of expression. And lo’ the script actually meant something – pain, love, loss, female strength. Not topics that have troubled Bond scriptwriters hitherto. And above all, a brilliant communal experience; a reminder of the power of cinema. The small boy in front of me who spilt his pop-corn in horror as Craig, sorry Bond, died; the gasp as Lea Seydoux said goodbye; the cheer that greeted the final caption, “James Bond will return.” He better had.
Michael Gallagher
1. Pig
2. Licorice Pizza
3. Some Kind of Heaven
4. Shiva Baby
5. Old Henry
6. A Film About A Father Who
7. The Killing of Two Lovers
8. King Richard
9. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
10. Zola
Jordan Graham
1. Titane
2. The Wanting Mare
3. The French Dispatch
4. Spencer
5. Licorice Pizza
6. C’mon C’mon
7. Red Rocket
8. The Green Knight
9. Lamb
10. My Heart Won’t Beat Unless You Tell It To
Notes
Films I was hoping to see that might have made the list is: Memoria, Vortex, The Worst Person in the World, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Rang Zong.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
1. The Rescue
2. Summer of Soul
3. King Richard
4. The French Dispatch
5. Spencer
6. No Time to Die
7. The Sparks Brothers
8. Nomadland
9. Minari
10. Dune
Megan Griffiths
1. C’mon C’mon
2. The Lost Daughter
3. Don’t Look Up
4. Drive My Car
5. The Last Duel
6. I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking)
7. No Sudden Move
8. The Novice
9. East of the Mountains
10. King Richard
Chadd Harbold
1. West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)
2. Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara)
3. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
4. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson)
6. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
7. The Card Counter (Paul Schrader)
8. Old (M. Night Shyamalan)
9. Annette (Leos Carax)
10. NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½ (Spike Lee)
Notes
Honorable Mentions: Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Benedetta, Cry Macho, Drive My Car, Dune, F9, The French Dispatch, Keep Punching: The Making of Rocky Vs. Drago by Sylvester Stallone, The Last Duel, Malignant, The Many Saints of Newark, The Matrix Resurrections, Naomi Osaka, No Sudden Move, Procession, Siberia, The Souvenir: Part II, Stillwater, The Velvet Underground, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Favorite Talkhouse Film piece of 2021: reRunning Happy Life by Michael M. Bilandic
Chad Hartigan
1. Ema
2. Licorice Pizza
3. Judas and the Black Messiah
4. Annette
5. Little Girl
6. The Last Duel
7. West Side Story
8. Shiva Baby
9. Mandibles
10. The Green Knight
Notes
I am very grateful that I got to see 9 of these top 10 films in a theater with an audience. Long may it continue!
Jim Hemphill
1. The Last Duel
2. Bad Trip
3. Cinderella
4. Benedetta
5. The Matrix: Resurrections
6. Licorice Pizza
7. No Time to Die
8. The Card Counter
9. Red Rocket
10. Cry Macho
Notes
In a year that saw several terrific musicals (In the Heights, West Side Story, etc.), the best of the bunch was Kay Cannon’s spectacularly entertaining Cinderella, a deliriously romantic and hilarious pop epic that deserves a lot more credit than it has been given.
Taylor Hess
1. The Power of the Dog
2. Quo Vadis, Aida?
3. The Truffle Hunters
4. Licorice Pizza
5. Bergman Island
6. Ascension
7. King Richard
8. Bo Burnham: Inside
9. Drive My Car
10. Lapsis
Gillian Wallace Horvat
1. Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar
2. Old
3. Zola
4. A Film About A Father Who (this was on my list last year but it got a theatrical release this year so happy to have it back on)
5. The Trouble With Being Born
6. Ema
7. The Last Duel
8. Chaos Walking (with the original Charlie Kaufman script that I can only imagine)
9. Things Heard & Seen
10. Paul Schrader says it’s disingenuous not to put your own film on your year end list if you like it, and I like it and I live in fear of contradicting Paul Schrader so: I Blame Society
Notes
2021 was the year of go big or go home. If in this year of straitened resources and universal misery you weren’t trying something new, wild, or insane… I honestly don’t think you should be doing this job. This is not the time to play it safe. While some of the films on my list weren’t perfect, I respected their scope and the director’s fortitude to hold on to their vision in spite of what I’m sure were copious notes. There’s a lot of films that I expect would go in the list that I haven’t watched like Titane, Benedetta and Zeros and Ones, and there’s a lot that hasn’t come out in L.A. and is not available to a non-critic non-guild member but I’m sure I would have included The Worst Person in the World and Bad Luck Banging if I had the chance to see them.
Jim Hosking
1. Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen)
2. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
3. Red Rocket (Sean Baker)
4. The Alpinist (Peter Mortimer & Nick Rosen)
5. In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo)
6. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
7. The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (Kristina Lindström & Kristian Petri)
8. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
9. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
10. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar)
Notes:
Most of these films are small-scale human stories exploring unlikely characters, unlikely friendships, unlikely relationships. The most arresting scene was in Memoria when fish-scrubbing Hernán lies down and sleeps / dies momentarily. The most terrifying film was The Alpinist as Marc-André Leclerc goes on insane climb after insane climb with his big ice-stabbing sickles to support him, or whatever they’re called. The biggest laugh was in Red Rocket when the camera zooms in for a half-second on some truly liberated al fresco Texan love-making. Hong Sang-soo always gets in there. It feels like I saw some of these films 58 years ago.
Ben Hozie
1. The Beatles: Get Back
2. Kajillionaire
3. The French Dispatch
4. Zola
5. The Card Counter
6. Annette
7. Shirley
8. We Are
9. The Velvet Underground
10. Project Space 13
Notes
There are so many films I haven’t seen yet so this list will surely change very shortly…
Lloyd Kaufman
1. #ShakespearesShitstorm
2. Divide And Conquer
3. Slashening: The Final Beginning
4. Cyrano
5. Jenny 4 Ever (a series)
6. I Need You Dead
That is all I remember…
Amanda Kramer
1. Titane
2. The Card Counter
3. Ema
4. Benedetta
5. Annette
6. Old
7. About Endlessness
8. Saint Narcisse
9. Sweet Thing
10. Zeros and Ones
Mynette Louie
1. Drive My Car
2. Identifying Features
3. The Pink Cloud
4. Last Night in Soho
5. The Worst Person in the World
6. The French Dispatch
7. The Mitchells vs. the Machines
8. Annette
9. Zola
10. Parallel Mothers
Ryan McGlade
1. The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson)
2. About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)
3. Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Adam Curtis)
4. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time (Hideaki Anno)
5. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
6. A Dim Valley (Brandon Colvin)
7. Procession (Robert Greene)
8. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun)
9. Old (M. Night Shyamalan)
10. Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara)
Notes
Would be remiss not to include that I also loved Annette, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, The Card Counter, Dune and West Side Story – as well as the standard disclaimer that there were many more films released this year that I still need to see and will no doubt end up on future revisions of my 2021 Top 10.
Crystal Moselle
1. A Chiara
2. You Resemble Me
3. The Worst Person in the World
4. The Lost Daughter
5. Red Rocket
6. Zola
7. Luna Piena
8. How It Ends
Kent Osborne
1. The Beatles: Get Back
2. Pig
3. The Green Knight
4. Bad Trip
5. The French Dispatch
6. Godzilla vs Kong
7. Nuclear Family
8. Cryptozoo
9. Zola
Notes
I haven’t seen Red Rocket, Macbeth or Licorice Pizza yet because I live in the woods
James Ponsoldt
1. Drive My Car
2. The Power of the Dog
3. Licorice Pizza
4. Summer of Soul
5. The Green Knight
6. Titane
7. Listening to Kenny G
8. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
9. Zola
10. C’mon C’mon
Notes
The comfort food I needed at the end of 2021 was season 2 of How to With John Wilson and, of course, The Beatles: Get Back. If I could loop them both and live in them for a while, I probably would.
Cooper Raiff
1. The Souvenir: Part II
2. Pig
3. Drive My Car
4. Petite Maman
5. Parallel Mothers
6. Bergman Island
7. Flee
8. The Lost Daughter
9. Test Pattern
10. The Worst Person in the World
Michael Reich
1. Annette
2. Luca
3. Licorice Pizza
4. Bergman Island
5. Dune
6. The Mitchells vs. The Machines
7. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
8. Summer of Soul
9. Giving Birth To A Butterfly
10. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
Terrie Samundra
1. Drive My Car
2. The Beatles: Get Back
3. The Power of the Dog
4. Titane
5. The Hand of God
6. The Green Knight
7. Lamb
8. Dune
9. Writing with Fire
10. The Medium
Dash Shaw
1. Clay Dream by Evans
2. Circumstantial Pleasures by Klahr
3. Double Wow by Jacobs
4. No. 7 Cherry Lane by Yonfan
5. Dune Part One / The French Dispatch by Villeneuve / Anderson
6. Bad Attitude by Stern
7. El Planeta by Ulman
8. All Light, Everywhere by Anthony
9. Blue Fear by Jacotey and Legrand
10. The Spine of Night by Gelatt and King
Notes
I only listed new movies; my favorite movie was the remastered 1980 Bubble Bath by György Kovásznai. Clay Dream is a documentary about Will Vinton, of “claymation” fame, and it was especially powerful to see it while touring Cryptozoo and thinking about how to continue making unusual animated features in the States. Thanks so much to Marq Evans for making that doc.
Leah Shore
1. West Side Story
2. Dune
3. Annette
4. Fear Street Trilogy
5. Swan Song
6. Bo Burnham: Inside
7. Titane
8. Halston
9. Sisters With Transistors
10. Superdeep
Chelsea Stardust
1. The Night House (Dir. David Bruckner)
2. Nomadland (Dir Chloe Zhao)
3. The Fear Street Trilogy (Dir. Leigh Janiak)
4. King Richard (Dir. Renaldo Marcus Green)
5. Lucky (Dir. Natasha Kermani)
6. Moxie (Dir. Amy Poehler)
7. Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings (Dir. Destin Daniel Cretton)
8. Censor (Dir. Prano Bailey-Bond)
9. The Stylist (Dir. Jill Gevargizian)
10. The Beatles: Get Back (Dir. Peter Jackson)
Notes
I was way behind this year—I’m just now catching up on most of the award consideration films (just got my screeners for everything!) but these ones all come to mind when thinking of my top 10 of films I’ve seen so far. The Night House was my favorite theater-going experience of 2021. This film is best seen on a large screen, with the volume up and the lights out. It’s beautifully directed, full of unnerving scares that burrow under your skin, and a plot that keeps you guessing.
Travis Stevens
1. Violet
2. The Power of the Dog
3. Titane
4. All the Streets are Silent
5. Val
6. A Glitch in the Matrix
7. The Sleeping Negro
8. Come True
9. The Velvet Underground
10. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
Notes
The quality I enjoyed the most from the films on this list, was the courage and experimentation with cinematic form that the filmmakers used to tell these stories. Whether it was Todd Haynes utilizing other artworks to emphasize the cultural context surrounding The Velvet Underground, or Jane Campion using the conventions of a slasher film to heighten the feeling of helplessness in The Power of the Dog, Rodney Asher’s decision to use digital avatars to stand in for his interview subjects in A Glitch in the Matrix, or Val‘s use of home videos to reclaim the narrative of his creative and professional life, 2021 was filled with bold filmmaking choices that not only heightened the stories in simple and exciting ways, but felt like proof that there is still progression happening in this medium. In a year filled with interesting examples, the movie that touched me the most was Justine Bateman’s directorial debut, Violet. Her aggressive use of an inner monologue via voiceover and on-screen text so effectively conveys the moment-by-moment ups and downs of crippling insecurity, that you are not just watching the story of the title character trying to overcome her self-doubt, but you are experiencing her do it, along with her, in real time. It is cinema as an immersive emotional event … and powerfully engaging given how limited modern cinema can often feel.
Sandi Tan
1. The Souvenir Part II
2. Zola
3. Ascension
4. The Velvet Underground
5. The Worst Person in the World
6. Drive My Car
7. Procession
8. No Time To Die
9. The Power of the Dog
10. The Lost Daughter
Notes
I haven’t seen Licorice Pizza yet! It may unseat one of the above.
Alex Thompson
1. The Beatles: Get Back
Once surrendered to, it’s euphoric.
2. Bergman Island
I had similar experiences with Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere and Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, mysterious little movies I turned on or walked into at odd times with little expectation and haven’t stopped thinking about since.
3. Licorice Pizza
As masterful as you’d expect, but earnest, too, and thrilling for it.
4. The Green Knight
Haunted and lived-in in a way that would feel impossible were it not for Lowery’s other work, which somehow also feels ancient and Arthurian.
5. Ninja Baby
Defies expectation; also it is perfect and the hardest I’ve laughed in years.
6. / 7. / 8. The Power of the Dog / Petite Maman / The Lost Daughter
I love the simple pleasure of a great story told by a great storyteller.
9./10. Red Rocket/Nightmare Alley
Bradley Cooper = the spitting image of Bruce Bennett
Honorable mention: No Sudden Move
I watched it on my Yiayia’s iPad and I loved it.
Matthew Wilder
1. The French Dispatch
2. Gunda
3. About Endlessness
4. New Order
5. The Killing of Two Lovers
6. Memoria
7. France
8. State Funeral
9. A Quiet Place Part II
10. Dune
Notes
Superb performances of 2021: LaKeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah, Sean Penn in Flag Day and Licorice Pizza, Denzel Washington in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Millicent Simonds in A Quiet Place Part II, Jodie Foster in The Mauritanian, Léa Seydoux in France, Devyn McDowell in Annette, Charlotte Rampling in Benedetta, Frankie Shaw in No Sudden Move, Timothy Spall in Spencer, and, above all, Jonah Hill in Don’t Look Up.
Eleanor Wilson
1. Licorice Pizza
2. The Souvenir Part II
3. Bergman Island
4. Annette
5. Judas and the Black Messiah
6. Red Rocket
7. Lamb
8. CODA
9. Summer of Soul
10. Titane
Notes
Also from Sundance 2021, not released yet: We’re All Going To The World’s Fair. I haven’t had the chance to see the following movies, but assume they could become favorites: Drive My Car, The Humans, The Worst Person In The World, Benedetta
Jonathan Wysocki
1. The Disciple
2. The Souvenir Part II
3. The Lost Daughter
4. Quo Vadis, Aida?
5. Tick, Tick… Boom!
6. West Side Story
7. Dune
8. The Power of the Dog
9. Licorice Pizza
10. Shiva Baby
Notes
I didn’t realize how emotional I’d be to return to movie theaters to watch films collectively in the dark. Whether it was a big, splashy musical or a small, intimate drama, seeing cinema in a cinema remains a transcendent experience for me. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to bring cinemas back from the brink.
Maya at 24 – Lynne Sachs’ short uses the simple image of her daughter Maya running in front of the camera to offer kinetic snapshots of how our children change physically and emotionally over the years.
Peter Wong
For this writing filmgoer, 2021 offered the first tentative steps back to pre-pandemic filmgoing. Film festivals adjusted in various ways to using both online streaming and in-person events to reach their audiences. The reopening of film theaters in San Francisco allowed proper enjoyment of such big screen must-see films as “Summer Of Soul,” “Dune,” and “Shang-Chi And The Legend Of Ten Rings.” On the other hand, the least worrisome in-theater viewing was had at the Roxie, which required ID and proof of vaccination before a viewer could even get a ticket.
Because there’s no category here for episodic TV screened at film festivals, special note needs to be made of Maria Belen Poncio and Rosario Perazolo Masjoan’s Argentine TV mini-series “Four Feet High.” The Sundance Film Festival presented this touching and funny story of wheelchair-bound teen Juana, who’s just transferred to a new high school. Her struggle for personal independence gets intertwined with her desire to get laid. In addition, she’s helping some fellow queer students’ efforts to get a real sex education course at their school. Its greatest asset is giving viewers a chance to see through Juana’s eyes what life is like as a disabled person. Where else will you get to hear Juana’s riposte to a woman who patronizingly wants to put Juana on a pedestal: “Your life must be awful if I’m setting the example.”
Of the actual feature films seen by this writer this year, here are some lesser known films which deserve a little more than a title-only honorable mention:
“The Show” comes from director Mitch Jenkins, who worked off a script by comics legend Alan Moore. The film begins with a familiar fictional trope: A man whose name is supposedly Steve Lipman comes to Northampton on a quest. But by the time “Lipman”’s true name and intentions are revealed, the viewer discovers Northampton teems with such ongoing surprises as a superhero investigator, a supposedly dead comedian/mage (played by Moore), and a burned down men’s club that’s still thriving in dreams. Call the Moore-scripted film one unburdened by the diktat of genre storytelling. The film is available via Shout! Home Video.
2021 saw two films titled “Swan Song” hit theater screens. Todd Stephens’ version stars perpetual character actor Udo Kier in his first lead role. He plays a gay beautician reluctantly escaping retirement for one last job. Kier makes the most of “Swan Song”’s hilariously bitchy dialogue (e.g. “Let her be buried with bad hair”) and showing how his “Mr. Pat” remains fabulous even in reduced circumstances (e.g. the candelabra “wig”).
A different sort of swan song is offered by the Benny Chan action film “Raging Fire.” It might very well be a bullet- and blood-soaked farewell to the Hong Kong popular cinema brand of balls-to-the-wall action thanks to the mainland Chinese government’s draconian use of its “National Security Law,” The antagonists are tough but righteous Bong (Donnie Yen) and Bong’s now disgraced former protege Kong (Nicholas Tse). Kong’s determined to have his revenge on the people he blames for ruining his career, no matter how powerful they may be. The mainland Chinese government generally frowns on films with corrupt government officials as villains, which is why viewers might be unlikely to see future “Raging Fire”-style films.
Now on to the main Best Of lists.
.
Part I: Features
The Power Of The Dog–The year’s best feature film brings deep and memorable shades of gray to a genre notorious for its characteristic stark black and white morality. Director Jane Campion’s anti-Western challenges the genre’s exaltation of straight maleness. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Phil magnetically dominates the screen as one of two 1920s Montana ranch owners. Even when his character despicably emotionally abuses Kirsten Dunst’s modest Rose, it never feels as if his behavior plays into cultural stereotypes. Yet the film’s biggest sting comes from the viewer’s eventual realization of why the film’s title is perfect for its story.
Drive My Car–On paper, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 3-hour movie may sound as if it’s greatly padding Haruki Murakami’s 30-page original short story. Yet Hamaguchi treats Murakami’s original as a starter kit for his own take, one which begins by filling in characters’ backstories only hinted at in the original. Theater director/actor Yusuke Kafuku and his young chauffeur Misaki Watari turn out to be kindred souls in finding time has not been a balm for personal grief. Producing Kafuku’s multilingual version of the Chekhov classic “Uncle Vanya” turns out to be key in different ways to helping these two characters’ grieving processes move to their conclusions.
Titane–With an abandon matched by driving a car at top speed on urban streets, Julia Ducournau’s entertainingly demented French feminist body horror tale gleefully runs over bourgeois aesthetics. Neither objectification nor sentimentality is allowed to soften car dancing lead character Alexia’s serial killer nature. Unconstrained describes both her killing methods and her means of sexual satisfaction. Even when Alexia goes to ground by scamming her way into a rural fire chief’s life, Ducornau’s lead character remains defiant in a different way courtesy of a public deliberately sexy dance and a fantastically strong Ace bandage body wrap able to conceal her increasing pregnancy.
Judas And The Black Messiah–The title of Shaka Khan’s electrifying film refers to Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton and undercover FBI informant William O’Neal. Daniel Kaluuya masterfully brought to life Hampton’s personal charisma and his incredible political skills at unifying politically opposed Chicago subcultures. But the film’s also a painful lesson on the limits of Hampton’s personal charisma. In O’Neal, actor LaKeith Stanfield memorably created a man for whom it was unclear whether he’d turn on his FBI puppet masters or he was continually conning his fellow Black Panthers. “Anti-white” scolds of the film can soak their heads given it’s a fair description borne out by history to say white law enforcement officials’ willingness to permanently neutralize Chairman Fred went into “by any means necessary” territory.
There Is No Evil–Admittedly, this 70th Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear winner is not an easy film to sit through. But Mohammad Rasoulof’s film demonstrates once again why real art skillfully disturbs its viewer. Its four stories about administering the death penalty in Iran questions individual responsibility in a brutal system. How does a person deal with the reality of being compelled to take another person’s life at the government’s order? As the viewer learns the motivations and consequences that affect a character’s obedience to the kill order, they wind up considering their own boundaries if they were placed in a similar situation.
The Lost Daughter–Maggie Gyllenhaal’s wonderfully thorny debut feature shows the consequences of culturally assuming that women are inherently maternal creatures. Her adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s titular novel teases out the emotional similarities between comparative literature professor Leda (Olivia Colman) and young semi-irresponsible mother Nina (Dakota Jackson) during a Greek summer vacation. Jessie Buckley, who plays the younger version of Leda, ably handles the crucial task of showing how Leda’s marriage to her job and her valuing of personal independence frequently overrides her responsibilities as a mother. If Gyllenhaal’s film liberates one woman from resignation to motherhood, it will have succeeded.
Riders Of Justice–Director Anders Thomas Jensen’s revenge tale carries within its frames the seeds of its darkly comic deconstruction of the retribution genre. Eccentric mathematician Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his friends may have common cause with military man Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) thanks to a train “accident” that claims the lives of both a key criminal trial witness and Markus’ wife. But Jensen shows how healing the strained relationship between Markus and his teen daughter Mathilde deserves as much importance as avoiding the film’s lethal flying bullets.
Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy–In this unusual year of 2021, Ryusuke Hamaguchi manages to put a second film on the year’s best of list. This one is a triptych of short stories about love forgotten or rejected. In each story, a woman who’s failed at finding love in the past is given the opportunity to either change or repeat their earlier mistakes. This film may appear visually simple, yet its stories roil with deep and complicated emotions.
Night Of The Kings–A forest-bound Ivory Coast prison run by its inmates happens to be the setting for Philippe Lacote’s always hypnotic tale of the power of storytelling. As new prisoner Roman tries to stay alive until morning by telling tales of the life of notorious outlaw Zama King, the viewer is swept up in the recreations and dramatizations of such moments as the betrayal that ended Zama’s life and magical battles between African rulers. Yet equally fascinating are the efforts of dying prison kingpin Blackbeard to avoid being deposed and ambitious rival Lass’ efforts to push Blackbeard out of the top seat.
Zola–The greatest stripper saga ever Tweeted gets an entertaining dramatization in Janicza Bravo’s hands. Its tale of a money-making road trip to Florida that goes south in a non-geographic way works via the contrast between Taylour Paige’s Black commonsensical stripper title character and Riley Keough’s blaccented white trash deceptive fellow stripper Stefani. The crazier events Zola recounts still feel way more truthful than Stefani’s account of Zola’s rocking garbage bag couture.
Dune Part 1–Big screen science fiction adaptations often create the temptation of letting the spectacle of its imagined worlds overwhelm the human story that’s supposed to be a film’s core. After literal decades of attempts to bring Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic to the silver screen, “Arrival” director Denis Villeneuve finally succeeds. By breaking this adaptation into (potentially) two parts, Villeneuve gives the viewer breathing room to inhabit the arid magnificence of Arrakis and to follow and understand the destiny awaiting Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet). Props to the director for gambling that audiences would make this first half profitable enough that he can show how Atreides’ story ends.
Honorable Mentions: The Show, In The Heights, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, The Green Knight, Language Lessons, The Souvenir Part II, Pebbles, Raging Fire, Swan Song, Passing, I’m Fine (Thanks For Asking), Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes
Part II–Documentaries
Summer Of Soul—Thinking of Questlove’s debut feature documentary as just a powerful concert film sells his cinematic achievement short. 2021’s best documentary is also a thrilling piece of cinematic cultural archeology. It both resurrects footage of the unjustly forgotten 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and rebukes the cultural gatekeepers who ignored the festival in favor of the (predominantly white) Woodstock Music Festival. This film is a treasure chest of period performances by such seminal Black artists as Gladys Knight and the Pips, B.B. King, and Nina Simone. But equally fascinating are the reminiscences from both sides of the Cultural Festival stage.
The Velvet Underground–Director Todd Haynes’ outstanding first documentary feature captures the life and times of the Lou Reed years of the legendary art rock band and the cultural milieu the Velvet Underground emerged from. Andy Warhol’s portrait studies of the individual VU members and VU founding member John Cale’s reminiscences are just two of the powerful primary sources Haynes draws upon to make the film come alive. The original iteration of the VU may have produced a limited discography. But the impact of that music on sparking future musical talents demonstrates once again the virtue of quality over quantity.
The First Wave–It is not “too soon” for the appearance of Matthew Heineman’s emotionally intense chronicle of a beleaguered New York City-based medical facility during the first wave of COVID infections. It’s a snapshot of the chaos and desperation of those months when even vaccines for COVID weren’t available. Seeing the stress on medical personnel who are regularly confronted by their inability to save lives from the disease makes those who deny the seriousness of COVID appear even more selfish and short-sighted than ever.
499–Rodrigo Reyes’ incredible hybrid documentary surveys contemporary Mexican life to show why the country’s conquest by Spain nearly 500 years ago was not the boon touted by advocates of such conquest. An unnamed 16th century Spanish conquistador becomes a mostly silent guide through modern day Mexico as he shows how MS-13 gangsters and the desperate migrants hopping a ride on The Beast aren’t that far removed from the conquistador’s contemporaries.
Procession—Robert Greene may be the name director in this film following half a dozen victims of clerical child abuse using drama therapy to find emotional closure. But these victims break down the subject/director barrier by using the therapeutic recreations or confrontations they commit to film to empower themselves. The legal system may have repeatedly failed these recipients of clerical abuse. But the audience is privileged to see the men using this film they made together to take back their lives.
The Neutral Ground–The years-long struggle to remove four statues honoring the Confederacy from New Orleans’ public land provides an entry point for director CJ Hunt to examine the history of America’s toxic romance with the Antebellum South and the evil it represented. Hunt’s non-confrontational approach does allow advocates for “Southern culture” space to appear as more than just ignorant stereotypes. But the film ultimately argues that America’s long-standing romance with the so-called Lost Cause is one that preserves and strengthens the worst aspects of America’s soul.
Dear Mr. Brody–Keith Maitland found the right angle to recount the tale of self-styled hippie millionaire Michael Brody, Jr.’s publicly announced plan to give away his entire $25 million fortune (up to $172 million in 2021 dollars) to “anyone in need.” Instead of centering on the enigmatic young man making this public offer, the director finds the tale’s heart in the stories of some of Brody’s would-be supplicants and a couple of people in his inner circle. That smart decision shows the real lesson of Brody’s offer comes not from seeing human avarice on display but in learning the often touching dreams and desperation that compels people to seek Brody’s aid.
Who We Are: A Chronicle Of Racism In America–Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler’s documentary captures ACLU’s deputy legal director Jeffery Robinson explaining the intertwining of American greatness and the country’s long racist history. It’s shocking to see how present day innocuous places (e.g. NYC’s Wall Street, New Orleans’ The French Quarter) have strong ties to the slave trade. Contrary to the whitewashed racism behind opposition to “critical race theory,” the Kunstlers’ film powerfully argues that only through asking questions and confronting its shameful bigoted legacy can America truly move forward racially.
A Sexplanation–Local filmmaker Alex Liu skillfully uses humor and curiosity to undermine viewers’ prurience around sex. His ultimate goal is to show viewers the inadequacies of current sex education, as seen in a cringeworthy sequence of random adults in S.F.’s Dolores Park being unable to identify human genitalia. The director’s search for better ways to learn about sex sends him on a cross-country journey to such places as the Kinsey Institute and even a class that teaches age-appropriate sex education. What other documentary this year allows its director the opportunity to masturbate for science?
Morgana–One of the year’s more intriguing documentary subjects is the titular Morgana Muses. This divorced middle-aged Australian housewife re-invented and re-discovered herself making woman-oriented erotic videos. This funny and frequently heartbreaking film follows her over several years as she tries to live her best personal and artistic life while fending off mental illness.
Honorable Mentions: A Glitch In The Matrix, Burning, Landfall, Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street, Ricochet, North By Current, Lily Topples The World, A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff, Ascension, Writing With Fire
Part III–Shorts
Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Mama–Topaz Jones’ update of the 1970s’ “Black ABCs” flashcards offers a wonderful snapshot of modern-day Black American culture by bringing in everything from the concept of code switching to the joys of eating sour candy. Simply the year’s best short film.
What You’ll Remember–Erika Cohn’s heartfelt locally-based short is an expression of love from a mother for the resilience of her children as their working poor family all weathered houselessness in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Maya At 24–Lynne Sachs’ short uses the simple image of her daughter Maya running in front of the camera to offer kinetic snapshots of how our children change physically and emotionally over the years.
Exquisite Shorts Volume 1–Applying the Exquisite Corpse game to filmmaking, Ben Fee and 18 other filmmakers or duos made short films inspired by a pair of unrelated words. One word begins the film while the other ends it. Otherwise, anything goes. The entertaining results include a flying saucer abduction, a back porch conversation, and a “Survivor” style game where unlucky contestants turn into ooze.
Opera–Erick Oh’s breathtaking animated film takes viewers through the various levels of a fictional hierarchical society. The exquisitely detailed animation is such that several viewings and a good screen will be needed to truly appreciate Oh’s work.
Honorable Mentions: ASMR For White Liberals, 24,483 Dreams Of Death, Nuevo Rico, Koto: The Last Service, The Leaf, Luv U Cuz, A Ship From Guantanamo, Mission: Hebron, Almost Famous: The Queen Of Basketball
