Spencer (2021) | Directed by Pablo Larraín

 5/5

Pablo Larraín’s Spencer is a gorgeous and lush film, haunted by a past that’s always threatening to encroach on the present – and often does just that. This is a film filled with impeccable performances working with an astonishing script – no moment in the film is wasted and every performer (especially Kristen Stewart) is doing some of their best work. Seemingly innocuous lines of dialogue can have multiple meanings based on the performer’s reading, a polite menace hangs in the air behind forced pleasantries, and Stewart effortlessly conveys the sensation of being trapped and crushed by centuries of tradition – her hushed whisper, the quiet desperation in each attempt to connect or break free. Larraín fills the frame with stunning images – haunted mist rising over the grounds at night, elegant gowns become suffocating cages, curtains thrown open bathe Diana in a soft, comforting light. And the score is exquisite – it anchors us in a classical past while using discordant motifs to convey Diana’s discomfort and heighten our sense of tension at her ever-increasing loss of freedom. At every turn, Diana’s agency has been taken from her, her personhood robbed by the institution she has married into, and this film is a poetic exploration of the ways her freedom was curtailed and her struggles to break free. It’s an outstanding work.

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Ascension (2021) | Directed by Jessica Kingdon

 5/5

Jessica Kingdon’s Ascension is a masterful work of creative nonfiction that slowly traces its way through the rungs of Chinese society to examine the “Chinese Dream.” The documentary tactics here are strictly observational – there are no interviews, voiceovers, or onscreen text to orient us to the images and sequences presented. But through Kingdon’s meticulously conceived organizational structure, we’re given a series of images and sequences that are juxtaposed in such a way that it raises questions about inequity, working conditions, the obsession with western ideas of wealth, and our own reliance on underpaid labor to bring us inexpensive goods. Edits and cuts are made with visual or thematic resonances in mind, so that the transitions move us from factory work, to trade schools, to the wealth of the upper middle classes. The cinematography throughout is gorgeous, the procession of images hypnotic and mesmerizing. Kingdon has crafted a remarkable film that, while specifically about China’s rapid growth, asks us to reflect on the consequences for any society in which capitalism is allowed to create unfettered inequity.

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Attica (2021) | Directed by Stanley Nelson

 5/5

Stanley Nelson’s Attica is a powerful and sobering look at the institutionalized racism that infects our policing, our prison industrial complex, and the very fabric of our nation. The interviews with surviving inmates of the Attica prison uprising (as well as the surviving family members of the guards, members of the media, and other key participants) are all profoundly moving – and at-time gut-wrenching at times – as they tell of the horrors they endured and the crimes that have been covered up for far too long. Nelson includes extraordinary archival materials – from contemporaneous news reports and footage behind the prison walls, to surveillance footage used by corrections officers, and stomach churning photographs of the aftermath. All of these sources are combined to methodically lay out the circumstances that led to the uprising and provide a day by day account – right up to its tragic end. Without needing to make direct parallels, Nelson does as good as draw a straight line between the law and order campaigns of Rockefeller and Nixon and the modern GOP. This is an essential historical documentary that still has so much significance for our country’s ongoing fight for racial justice.

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Passing (2021) | Directed by Rebecca Hall

 5/5

Rebecca Hall’s Passing is an exceptional film, filled with incredible performances from the entire cast – especially Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. The black-and-white photography is luminous, and the use of light and shadow helps accentuate the different worlds our two protagonists move through and whether they are passing or not. The use of mirrors throughout opens up the spaces and reflects back the ways characters see themselves within a racist, oppressive society obsessed with surface appearance. And yet, the heavy reliance on point of view shots – often with limited vision, blurry, or obscured and altered – highlights how impossible it is to rely solely on our own perceptions and interpretations of a situation. This is a film that would all-too-easily become an easy sermon or message film, but Hall wisely allows the characters to remain complicated and nuanced, with class distinctions within the Black community and white benefactors adding additional layers of hierarchy to the relationships and obscuring motivations. Portions of the film are shot to look like a missing film from the late ‘20s or early ‘30s, a missing melodrama or proto-noir about the lives of Black women, and you can’t help but reflect on the stories and films from that period that we’re missing because of the voices silenced due to racism. This is a fantastic film, a nuanced and beautifully crafted work.

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The Green Knight (2021) | Directed by David Lowery

 4.5/5

David Lowery’s The Green Knight is a gorgeous, hypnotic film filled with striking cinematography, lush colors, and captivating visual compositions. The use of wide angle lenses throughout heightens the film’s dreamlike sensibility as it explores the paganism buried within much of European Christianity and deconstructs Western notions of chivalry, honor, and the ways these are often tied to class, gender, and privilege. All of the royal finery is grounded in muck and grime, but with an eye toward the mystical and the transcendent. The episodic structure pays homage to the source material and provides a space for many incredible performers to pass through the narrative, but it’s all anchored by Dev Patel’s turn as Gawain. His performance becomes one of learning to lose yourself to find yourself, of abandoning self-interest and self-preservation for the sake of others. It’s a moving, beautiful film that invites much reflection, pondering, and an eagerness to return to its mysteries.

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Titane (2021) | Directed by Julia Ducournau

 5/5

Julia Ducournau’s Titane is a remarkable film about human connection and the way reaching out to another person can reconnect us to our own humanity, helping us heal from trauma and loss. Of course, connection and healing don’t mean that the past is suddenly erased. Ducournau understands that consequences are still very real and uses body horror throughout the film to graphically illustrate the idea that the consequences of Alexia’s actions – the ways she has hurt and damaged and destroyed other lives – don’t magically disappear as she begins to heal and reconnect to others – as she reconnects to her own humanity. With all of the trauma and hurt and pain Ducournau’s characters have suffered, there are these constant attempts to transform the body – to make an aging body young and virile once more, for another to close herself off from feelings and become one with a machine – all physical responses deep trauma and loss. Ducournau is also interested in exploring ideas of looking and being seen – the leering men and potentially abusive father, then the very different gaze of the accepting father substitute – and the camera alters (its movement, its position, its perspective) according to who is looking and who is being seen. And to top it all off, there’s the grim humor throughout – our signal that we’re not meant to take the murder and mayhem onscreen literally (it’s all representative of the film’s deeper themes and concerns) and which helps us build our empathy toward Alexia, a protagonist who commits horrific acts of violence. Like Ducournau’s previous film, there are so many layers to keep exploring and uncovering – this is a rich film that will certainly reward many future viewings.

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A Cop Movie (2021) | Directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios

 5/5

Alonso Ruizpalacios’s A Cop Movie is an outstanding documentary utilizing multiple layers of artifice in order to uncover truths about the nature of policing in Mexico. As the film progresses, it keeps revealing itself to us, keeps complicating its initial setup, turning in on itself to become something altogether more nuanced and enthralling than you might expect. Taking the audio from two very strong interviews with police officers in Mexico City, actors recreate the sequences, lip-syncing over the audio until the scene is interrupted and we begin to follow the actors and observe their process preparing for these roles. Another shift occurs when we meet the interview subjects on camera for the first time and see them tell their story for themselves. Ruizpalacios constantly interrogates his own creative process, the ethics of making a film about the police in a country where corruption runs rampant. And yet he also explores how complicated this system is – the chain of corruption that extends all the way to the officers’ superiors and their equipment supervisors, as well as the poverty that drives individuals to join the police force in the first place. This is an exceptional work of non-fiction filmmaking, bending the form to craft a stunning masterpiece.

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The Sparks Brothers (2021) | Directed by Edgar Wright

 4.5/5

Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers is an outstanding music documentary that is an absolute joy to watch. It gives a comprehensive overview of the life and career of Sparks and wisely shares enough of their music throughout so that anyone who isn’t familiar with their oeuvre doesn’t feel ostracized or unwelcome. In fact, it’s an incredibly generous film for anyone new to their music, and Wright has gathered an incredible assortment of interviews from fans, other musicians, producers, and the Mael brothers themselves to help provide context for the songs and albums. The use of archival material and found footage is phenomenal, and Wright proves to have a deft hand at structuring the material with interviews and just enough stylistic flourishes to match Sparks’ own style and personaes. It’s a fantastic, engaging, and thoroughly entertaining musical documentary.

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All Light, Everywhere (2021) | Directed by Theo Anthony

 5/5

Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere is an exquisite documentary exploring the nature of modern surveillance, consistently raising questions about the ethics of its own creation. Throughout the film, as we examine the history of cameras and the recorded image, as well as the ways in which this is inextricably bound up in the history of warfare and policing and weaponry, Anthony reveals the many fraught decisions a documentary filmmaker faces in crafting a film of this nature. He constantly interrogates the notion of objectivity and shows just how difficult it can be to completely remove bias from our policing and surveillance systems, especially when we put all our faith in cameras, in recording devices, in tools designed to give us a dispassionate and unbiased record of “the truth.” But the film constantly shows us the gaps in a recording device’s ability to capture reality – whether due to the technical limitations of aerial surveillance or the designed limitations of police body cams. And by continually stepping back to show us how the documentary crew sets up a shot, edits a sequence, or removes the breath from a voiceover recording, we’re continually reminded that the images we’re left with in any frame can only tell one part of a larger story. This is a fantastic work of expressionistic non-fiction filmmaking – an exhilarating viewing experience.

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Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma (2021) | Directed by Topaz Jones, Simon Davis, Jason Sondock

 5/5

Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma, directed by Topaz Jones, Simon Davis, and Jason Sondock, is a fantastic short documentary comprised of 26 vignettes blending surrealism, archival footage, sketch comedy, direct observation, and interview to craft a stunning portrait of contemporary Black experience. The film’s interviews with activists are essential and provide the necessary grounding for a work that so intentionally toggles between absurdity and profundity, comedy and despair, terror and joy. There isn’t a wasted moment here – this is an exceptional work of creative non-fiction and packs more into its 34 minutes than many films are able to do with three times the length. It’s an incredible and invigorating film.