I’ve seen a lot of small films this year. A lot of films that, for me, at least, register somewhere between perfectly fine and entirely inconsequential. A year of empty shrugs. Looking back over all the films I’ve seen this year, all two hundred and thirty of them, there’s been perhaps a handful that I would consider to be “big”, but not nearly enough of them. Everything else has been a bit of a wash-out. A year of misadventures and poor choices, blind alleys and cul-de-sacs. A lot of wasted energy and too much wasted time. I guess this is just par for the course. Not everything is going to land, but I feel as if I’ve been particularly unlucky in 2022. For every major discovery there’s been a dozen or more empty vessels, scores of films that came and went without leaving a mark of any kind. In the end, I think that’s all I want. Something to leave a mark and shake me in a way that I’m not expecting. Isn’t that what we all want, really?
However unlucky I may have been elsewhere this year, I did manage to get back out into the world again. Berlin in February, Edinburgh in August, Vienna in October. Three rain-soaked trips to cities that I love and festivals that mean a lot to me. I think it was enough for me to just take the time to exist in another place for a change, and my most enduring memories of each of these trips are mostly away from the cinemas. Instead, much of my film-viewing this year took place at home, or at least nearby. I don’t live in a city, or even particularly close to one, and I’m lucky to have several high-quality cinemas within easy driving distance. Five years ago, I’d never have been able to see a new Park Chan-wook film, for example, without having to make an expensive journey into London. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case.
It’s been nice to take advantage of these cinemas over the course of this past year, not least with the opening of a brand-new IMAX screen at my local multiplex in the summer. I saw the re-release of James Cameron’s Avatar there in October, a much more fruitful viewing experience than the camrip I watched more than a decade ago, and yesterday morning I saw its sequel there, too. In a just world, blockbuster cinema would be the exclusive stomping ground of the mavericks, the people who, when given the resources to make anything they want, make something like Avatar: The Way of Water, something so obviously a labour of love that you can feel it in every image, every cut, every frame. I don’t know why James Cameron has chosen to dedicate the past twenty-five years of his life to this material, but that’s what he’s done, and it’s precisely that unabashed commitment that makes the film work so well, in spite of all its conventions and contrivances. It's a rare film of the utmost sincerity. I just wish there were more filmmakers like Cameron.
All the films I've loved this year are similarly alien objects, films that don’t really make sense on paper but somehow become enormous in their execution. Films like Sam Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue or Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s License To Live, about the surrogate communities that pop up around men cast adrift from a world that's changing without them; or Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo or Lesley Manning’s Ghostwatch, about the devastating futility of trying and failing to explain the unexplainable; or, most recently, Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, a lush, rancid spectacle that doesn’t amount to very much of anything beyond revulsion and intrigue, but one that, for whatever reason, hit me like a train.
Even in the most frustrating of years, there’s always an exception, always something that cuts through the noise, and maybe the overindulgence of Greenaway was exactly what I needed to shake me out of this funk. Maybe I’m longing for that lushness, those big, florid images and bold ideas, all the dead flowers, the rotting meat, the vast paintings. But, then again, maybe this is all just another exception. Another dead end. Perhaps all of this grandeur, all this excess, is just another outlier, nothing more than a welcome change of pace after a barren run in a mundane year. I think, in hindsight, I’ve spent far too much time this year trying to be Cable Hogue, who found water where there wasn’t and let the people come to him, when, really, I should’ve tried to be Georgina Spica, who found something better somewhere else and went after it, no matter the cost. Time to swing for the fences, then, and to stop settling for small films. High risk, high reward. I guess next year we’re cooking.
In alphabetical order:
Ambulance | Michael Bay
Avatar: The Way of Water | James Cameron
Crimes of the Future | David Cronenberg
Diary of a Fleeting Affair | Emmanuel Mouret
Human Flowers of Flesh | Helena Wittmann
The Kegelstatt Trio | Rita Azevedo Gomes
A Little Love Package | Gastón Solnicki
Nobody’s Hero | Alain Guiraudie
Pacifiction | Albert Serra
The Passengers of the Night | Mikhaël Hers
The Plains | David Easteal
Three Thousand Years of Longing | George Miller
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Once again I’ve not written very much this year, and once again I’ll vow to write more next year. I’m sure I’ll get around to something new soon enough, but, for now, here are some pieces of mine that I liked from the past twelve months.
1) On the cathartic tennis match that concludes Mikhaël Hers's Amanda
2) On the dramatic construction of James Gray’s Two Lovers
3) On a discarded postcard in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s License To Live
4) On the final image of Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces
5) And, finally, my hypothetical ballot for the Sight & Sound Poll
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At one point this year, I was going to write something about the films of Joseph Kosinski, an odd filmmaker with a genuinely fascinating career trajectory: from digital architect and 3D designer, to advertising director, to one of the most trusted custodians of big-budget cinema working today. I ultimately abandoned the piece after watching Spiderland, the second of his films to be released this year, but in the research I discovered that he was responsible for the Gears of War trailer that has haunted me ever since I first saw it on Channel 4 late one night in the mid-2000s. I’ve never played the game, but I'm pretty sure this trailer was the first time I remember thinking of videogames as being something more than just silly platformers and catching Pokémon. It’s probably still the best thing he’s made.
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Ten discoveries. Ten diamonds in the rough. And ten films that probably sum up the year quite nicely, if you look hard enough.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue | Sam Peckinpah, 1970
License To Live | Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1998
Ghostwatch | Lesley Manning, 1992
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover | Peter Greenaway, 1989
Lake Mungo | Joel Anderson, 2008
The Gleaners and I | Agnes Varda, 2000
Three on a Couch | Jerry Lewis, 1966
Der Skorpion | Dominik Graf, 1997
At Long Last Love | Peter Bogdanovich, 1975
Blind Spot | Claudia von Alemann, 1981
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For the sake of an easy snapshot into what I’ve been listening to lately, here are ten albums, five past, five present, that I’ve fallen in love with this year. I'm sure there's plenty more yet to come.
In alphabetical order:
And She Closed Her Eyes | Stina Nordenstam, 1994
Bad Mode | Hikaru Utada, 2022
God Save The Animals | Alex G, 2022
Good Health | Pretty Girls Make Graves, 2002
Nothing Feels Good | The Promise Ring, 1997
Paste | Moin, 2022
Sore Thumb | Oso Oso, 2022
SOS | SZA, 2022
Spirit of Eden | Talk Talk, 1988
Things We Lost In The Fire | Low, 2001
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I’ve made a lot of friends on Twitter over the years, so it’s been sad to see its decline unfold so dramatically over the past few months. If you’re reading this and want to stay in touch on other platforms, then please let me know. Instagram, Letterboxd, even Duolingo. Drop me an email, slide into the DMs. Whatever you want. I’m always happy to chat, movies or otherwise.
All the best in 2023. Speak soon.