Since we had a Japanese-themed movie marathon, I thought it may be a great idea to have a European one. Initially, I really wanted to squeeze as many great movies from Europe as possible, but finally we just took it easy. Wifey made pizzas to go with them… perfect.

Nights of Cabiria is a 1957 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, François Périer, and Amedeo Nazzari. Based on a story by Fellini, the film is about a prostitute in Rome who searches in vain for true love. Besides the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for Giulietta Masina, Nights of Cabiria won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This was the second straight year Italy and Fellini won this Academy Award, having won for 1956’s La Strada, which also starred Giulietta Masina. I love this to bits because of Giulietta Masina’s incredibly naked performance. Yes, she is a prostitute, she lives on the fringes of society, but so what? I love how Masina plays her – a plucky and spunky girl that grabs life by the balls. She is Chaplin and Keaton all rolled into a waif of a girl with aspirations for life. Who says a hooker don’t deserve happiness? Her fallback basic instinct is to search for truth in lies and happiness in sadness. In her you will see a blueprint for living your life – she knows she is a loser, but the difference is she doesn’t want to be one forever. The last scene is heart-achingly beautiful – a teardrop laced with mascara congealed on one eye and the scene plays with perfect juxtaposition and emphatic contrast to the scene of jubilant celebration all around her. Is it a cruel joke, is it her doing a mental system reset? Cabiria conveys a resolute notion that you don’t have to worry about her. I know it’s just a movie, but each time it ends I always say a silent prayer she will eventually find true love. She deserves it. All my life I have met many women, sometimes I find instances of Cabiria in some of them, but there wasn’t any who comes close to a living embodiment of Cabiria (I have a friend who for the longest time was searching for Faye Wong’s character in Chungking Express. I say this because I need to let you know I am not crazy). Forget Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Nights of Cabiria is the best film about a prostitute with a heart of gold.

The Conformist is a 1970 political drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, whose screenplay is based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. Bertolucci makes use of the 1930s art and decor associated with the Fascist era: the middle-class drawing rooms and the huge halls of the ruling elite. The film is a case study in the psychology of conformism and fascism: Marcello Clerici is a bureaucrat, cultivated and intellectual but largely dehumanized by an intense need to be ‘normal’ and to belong to whatever is the current dominant socio-political group. He grew up in an upper class, perhaps dysfunctional family, and he suffered a major childhood sexual trauma and gun violence episode in which he long believed that he had killed his chauffeur. More than anything, it is Bertolucci‘s style that engaged me. It’s poetic, rich and so baroque. It plays with light and shadows to sublime effect. There is a scene near the end that happens in the woods – a woman screams and runs through the trees, sunlight streamed down through the canopy, shots ring out, faceless men in trench coats shooting at her. It is a stunning scene – a scene of violence in a sea of nature. 

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a 1972 surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel and written by Jean-Claude Carrière in collaboration with the director. The film was made in France and is mainly in French, with some dialogue in Spanish. The narrative concerns a group of upper middle class people attempting—despite continual interruptions—to dine together. The film received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Most people I know who have seen this tend to summarise it as a movie about six people who never got a chance to have their meal. That’s a little too trite – it’s like saying Field of Dreams is about baseball and Star Wars is about good versus evil in space. This is my third time and I still managed to catch some gags I have missed previously. There is no plot, only situations, but what situations they are – the three ladies ordered tea but there isn’t any, they switched to coffee but soon the waiter tells them they have run out of water. Another – they were invited to dinner, they sat down, then curtains were drawn and they realised they are participants in a play and the audience are shouting their disapproval. It’s subversive, it’s outlandish, and so many years later it still works like a charm.

Russian Ark is a 2002 experimental historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. In Russian Ark, an unnamed narrator wanders through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, and implies that he died in some horrible accident and is a ghost drifting through the palace. In each room, he encounters various real and fictional people from various periods in the city’s 300-year history. He is accompanied by “the European”, who represents the Marquis de Custine, a 19th-century French traveler. The film was recorded entirely in the Winter Palace of the Russian State Hermitage Museum on 23 December 2001 using a one-take single 96-minute Steadicam sequence shot. Russian Ark uses the fourth wall device extensively, but repeatedly broken and re-erected. At times the narrator and the companion interact with the other performers, whilst at other times they pass unnoticed. Forget Birdman and the recent 1917, this is the granddaddy of the one-take movie. This is a cinematic tour de force through 300 years of Russian history, filmed with a cast of thousands, three live orchestras and an army of technicians who all hit their marks at the precise timing. If you want to learn Russian history, immersed yourself with this.

Rome, Open City is a 1945 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. The picture features Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero, and is set in Rome during the Nazi occupation in 1944. The title refers to Rome being declared an open city after 14 August 1943. The film won several awards at various film festivals, including the most prestigious Cannes Grand Prix and was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at the 19th Academy Awards. Rome, 1944. Giorgio Manfredi, one of the leaders of the Resistance, is tracked down by the Nazis. He goes to his friend Francesco’s, and asks Pina, Francesco’s fiancée, for help. Pina must warn a priest, Don Pietro Pellegrini, that Giorgio needs to leave the town as soon as possible … Shot near the end of the liberation of Rome, this is the pioneering film of Italian neorealism. It is a very accomplished war drama film made during a dangerous time. There is little embellishment. It is a film about the essence of tragedy and the facts speak for themselves without a needless romanticised tale. Chances are you may not have seen this but an image of a woman running after her husband-to-be captured by the Nazis and getting mowed down in a hail of bullets will befuddle you – where have I seen that? That’s one of the iconic shots. 

Then we put this Ingrid Bergman’s TV series on and 5 amazing hours went by…

Scenes from a Marriage is a 1973 Swedish Television miniseries written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. The story explores the disintegration of the marriage between Marianne, a family lawyer specializing in divorce, and Johan, spanning a period of 10 years. Bergman’s teleplay draws on his own experiences, including his relationship with Ullmann. After initially airing on Swedish TV in six parts, the miniseries was condensed into a theatrical version and received positive reviews in Sweden and internationally. Scenes from a Marriage was also the subject of controversy for its perceived influence on rising divorce rates in Europe.

Initially, I thought I would have to break up the series for a watch, but I sat through 5 hours in one sitting, bearing witness to some of the best acting I have ever seen. When it ended, we were emotionally exhausted, our hearts and souls had gone on a wild rollercoaster ride. I can’t help comparing this to The World of the Married, which is no doubt entertaining, but it’s completely artless. Twists and turns are announced with heightened music cues and close-ups. Scenes From a Marriage also chronicles the death of a marriage albeit in less spectacular ways, but no less absorbing and in a more truthful way. Bergman is never interested in happy families because they are happy in the usual ways; the auteur is interested in unhappy families because they are unhappy in unique ways. This is one of the most honest and truthful portrayal of a marriage. Oh man… on the surface they are the epitome of a happy married couple, but underneath the surface is repressed feelings and desires. This is one intense character study and is not something you can watch while munching on chips and sipping beer; this one will make you look inward and ponder if you did the right thing in marrying the person sitting next to you. I want to say a lot more but my words are utter crap and I know crap about marriage as it turns out. One last thing… being a film-buff I love creating movie lists like “best action scenes”, “best ending scenes”, “best lines” and “best sex scenes” (don’t worry, I am not a pervert 😬) and in this last category I have sub-categories like “most sleazy sex scene”, “most heartwarming sex scene” and something called “saddest sex scene”. The one that almost happened in ep3, it is the episode Johan basically drops the bomb that he is going to leave her for Paula, has deposed the one that I adored in The Wings of the Dove (1997). It was utterly heartbreaking to see Marianne plead with Johan to make love to her one last time. My heart broke into a million smithereens.

That’s it for our European weekend. Originally, I wanted to see three more since the next day was a holiday, but I am quite attuned to my wife’s disposition with these arthouse films. I have to comment that she kept her enthusiasm as high as she could and that’s a mean feat. I shan’t “torture” her anymore. I will do the rest on my own. 

Written by Daniel Chiam

There are seriously no movies screening at the cinemas worth braving the pandemic for. If I am going to be stuck in my seat in a cinema hall with a virus carrier for two hours, it better be a great one, so it’s back to watching movies at home…

Five Feet Apart is another teenage critical disease of the week weepie in the vein of The Fault in Our Stars. It is mawkish and rides the tropes like a rodeo king, and it doesn’t reach the heights of TFiOS, but I am giving it a free pass because the leads deal with all the emotional trappings with gusto and most importantly it serves as a good reminder that all of us should count our blessings. 

Seventeen-year-old Stella (Haley Lu Richardson) spends most of her time in the hospital as a cystic fibrosis patient. Her life is full of routines, boundaries and self-control all of which get put to the test when she meets Will (Cole Sprouse), an impossibly charming teen who has the same illness. There’s an instant flirtation, through restrictions dictate that they must maintain a safe distance between them. As their connection intensifies, so does the temptation to throw the rules out the window and embrace that attraction.

What is the first thing you want to do when you fall in love? I am giving you a few seconds to think about this… nope, it isn’t that… wipe that silly grin off your face 😊… it’s a touch, a human touch. “Human touch. Our first form of communication. Safety, security, comfort, all in the gentle caress of a finger. Or the brush of lips on a soft cheek. It connects us when we’re happy, bolsters us in times of fear, excites us in times of passion and love. We need that touch from the one we love, almost as much as we need air to breathe.” 

Breathing is hard for these CF patients. A touch is impossible. A kiss, don’t even think about that. The things all of us probably take for granted. 

I love seeing how they struggle to make sense of their love in this cruel scheme of things, and I can appreciate why they want to take the bull by the horns by risking that one little foot. It’s their little victory in this game called life. 

Sting once sang “if you love someone set them free”. That’s not BS. I was talking to a colleague the other day about how I broke off with my girlfriend by doing one last loving act for her… nah, I won’t share here, but it was a final act that gave both of us wings to soar again. I think to love is better than to be loved. The last act Will does in the movie is a great one. 

Don’t underestimate the healing power of a touch. So if you’re reading this, and you’re able, touch him. Touch her. Life’s too short to waste a second. 

Glory Road is a 2006 American sports drama film directed by James Gartner, based on a true story surrounding the events leading to the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Championship (the historic name for what is now known as the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament). Don Haskins portrayed by Josh Lucas, head coach of Texas Western College (Now known as University of Texas at El Paso or UTEP), coached a team with an all-black starting lineup, a first in NCAA history. Glory Road explores racism, discrimination, and student athletics. Underdog sports genre films don’t really have to do much to make me go nuts for the characters. To me, these movies spout life lessons. The sport doesn’t matter, the plot doesn’t matter and the ending doesn’t matter. We all know how they will progress and end. It is about the journey and the journey is hard work. I love listening to all the slogans and euphemisms from the coach’s mouth – “You’ll play basketball my way. My way is hard”, “Do you want me to get you a skirt? I’ll get you a skirt if you keep playing like a girl!” and “Your dignity’s inside you. Nobody can take something away from you if you don’t give them”. This is one rousing movie and it ticks all the boxes for an underdog sport genre movie.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a 2013 American romantic crime drama film written and directed by David Lowery. The film stars Casey Affleck as Bob Muldoon, Rooney Mara as Ruth Guthrie and Ben Foster as Patrick Wheeler. Bob (Affleck) and Ruth (Mara) are a couple who become involved in criminal activities and are caught, with Bob taking the blame and going to prison. The film follows the events after the criminal activities as Ruth gives birth to their daughter, and the two live comfortably. When the child is nearly four, Bob escapes from jail and goes looking to reconnect with his family. The story is a dime in a dozen, but the execution isn’t, giving the Bonnie and Clyde archetype a fresh coat of paint. The cinematography is gorgeous and the editing artful. The movie has a rhythm and tempo that is so beguiling. The love portrayed is palpable. No need to say too much… The love between them is so real you will feel it in a voiceless scene when you are led away by the police. They know it is the last time they can touch each other and this is the scene that is featured in the movie poster. While watching this my mind threw up another movie that also has a rhythm and tempo of its own so I decided we should try this next…

The Tree of Life is a 2011 American experimental epic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick. The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man’s childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the known universe and the inception of life on Earth. This was the second time I saw it. The first time completely befuddled me and I had a feeling it turned my hair white. This is one of those Emperor’s New Clothes type of movie. Critics love to love it, but the layman will go WTF is this shite. I confess that I hated it the first time, but the second time round I began to appreciate it a lot better and 3h 10min whizzed by. Mallick didn’t tell a conventional story with a spine, he goes to the spaces between pronounced instances in one’s life. The movie goes through a tumult of emotions representing almost every feeling you will possess while growing up – love, envy, jealousy, compassion…. the list goes on. It is almost a masterpiece because I didn’t think that creation of Earth and Sean Penn’s sequences gelled with the main story. If I do watch another time it will years later and I will listen to the commentary.

McQueen is a 2018 biographical documentary based on the life and career of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen. It does a very compelling and comprehensive job of detailing McQueen’s rags to riches story. His talent is undeniable. He may not have much of a formal education but given a thread and a needle he can weave a tapestry like the Sistine Chapel. Like a lot of stories about celebrities, this is also about a tortured genius going through a tumult of emotions. Who is it to say we didn’t have a hand in “killing” him because we feed on his talents. The whole thing works like a visual album of a genius’ creations and the amount of pressure he was under and OMG the man can really put on a spectacular show. I find all these catwalk shows superficial, but when I saw the clothes he designed and the show he put on I was so impressed. What a sad way to leave.

United 93 is a 2006 biographical drama-thriller film written, co-produced and directed by Paul Greengrass, that chronicles events aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked during the September 11 attacks of 2001. The film attempts to recount the hijacking and subsequent events in the flight with as much veracity as possible (there is a disclaimer that some imagination had to be used) and in real time (from the flight’s takeoff). The passengers’ response to the hijacking has come to be invested with great moral significance. The DVD was sitting on my shelf since God knows when and I was glad to take it down for a watch. What a tremendous experience – it’s an event I don’t want to relive and never want to forget. The film honours the victims in a respectable way. It’s the type of movie you know going in you already know the outcome, but the tension still builds and builds to a point you somehow wish it had never happened. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the 9/11 terrorist attack reset the world – it’s the type of world event that essentially demarcates the timeline of the world into two sections. It is a good choice to use unrecognisable actors for the movie. It really thrusts you into United 93 on the way to the White House. It’s tense, brutal and honest, with little embellishments. 

Shane is a 1953 American Technicolor Western film from Paramount Pictures, noted for its landscape cinematography, editing, performances, and contributions to the genre. The picture was produced and directed by George Stevens from a screenplay by A. B. Guthrie Jr., based on the 1949 novel of the same name by Jack Schaefer. Its Oscar-winning cinematography was by Loyal Griggs. Shane stars Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in the last feature (and only color) film of her career. This lockdown I intend to watch all the westerns I have in my possession, this is probably one of the last few. Should have saved this for the last because it is a superb film. It’s about a weary gunfighter who attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smoldering settler/rancher conflict forces him to act. This one has a mythical sheen gleaming in every scene. It feels effortlessly timeless, an olden time cemented in your consciousness. Times may have changed, but people are still feeling oppressed in many parts of the world. The intimate storytelling has a stalwart integrity and it also has the ability to say a lot more without having to tell you a lot. One of those rare films I would gladly revisit.

Kiss Me Deadly is 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich. The film follows a private investigator in Los Angeles who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery after picking up a female hitchhiker who has escaped from a psychiatric hospital. I have seen many mashups of genres, but I believe this is the first time I see a mashup of noir and apocalyptic sci-fi. It dials into the Cold War paranoia palpably and it features one of the coolest opening credit sequences of all time. I won’t share what it is. Remember the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction? Tarantino definitely lifted the idea from here. Remember the climatic scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark was opened? Spielberg definitely paid homage to Kiss Me Deadly. Really enjoyed this tremendously. It played with so many noir conventions to great effect.

House of Games is a 1987 American neo-noir heist-thriller film directed by David Mamet, his directorial debut. He also wrote the screenplay, based on a story he co-wrote with Jonathan Katz. This one is about the world of the con man and a fascinating character study of a psychiatrist. That’s it… don’t find out more about the plot. Nothing is going to beat the first time you see this. What I can tell you is that this felt like getting lost in a labyrinth and getting your brains f*cked in the nicest of ways. The beauty of it is that you wouldn’t think you are lost in a maze until the end of the movie and you suddenly realised you have been conned. Hollywood doesn’t make these types of movies anymore. Everything out of there is mostly based on a template, going through the motions, nothing is original anymore. With David Mamet, you know his every word, comma, ellipse carries humongous weight and he writes killer dialogue. The gradual unfolding of the plot is sheer masterclass. This DVD sat on my shelf forever ago and I remember buying it for only one reason – David Mamet. Watch this…. please. I end with Roger Ebert’s words: “This movie is awake. I have seen so many films that were sleepwalking through the debris of old plots and second-hand ideas that it was a constant pleasure to watch House of Games.”

Written by Daniel Chiam

Social satires are tricky business. Their primary job is to skewer deeply seated social stigmas, but rarely are they funny. Most directors know only one way to get the message across: ram the idea into your head. It takes an informed storyteller to milk it differently. The gold standard of any satire is the ability to turn the camera inwards at the audience making them aware they have been essentially laughing at themselves for two hours. Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner Parasite ticks all the boxes and it is a biting social satire of lurid lengths and vivid highs.

The Kims live in a dinghy sub-basement dwelling and work odd jobs to make ends meet. Then Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik), the eldest son, is asked to fake his credentials to take over his friend’s job as a tuition teacher. His student Da-hye (Jung Ji-so) is the daughter of a wealthy man, Mr Park (Lee Sun-kyun). Soon, Ki-woo manages to hoodwink Mrs Park (Jo Yeo-jeong) into employing his sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam) as a child psychologist for Mrs Park’s hyperactive young son. Before long, the father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) and mother Choong-sook (Jang Hye-jin) also come under the employ of the Parks without the Parks realising that they are all related. All this will set in motion a series of events that will change the fortunes of both families.

This is a return to form for Bong after his dalliance with Hollywood (Snowpiercer and Okja) which didn’t yield great results in my opinion. His Korean outputs fare far better. Bong’s movies defy easy pigeonholing. Saying The Host (2006) is a monster movie is conveniently forgetting it is a tragically funny study of a dysfunctional family and a fierce critique of society’s blatant environmental carelessness. Classifying Memories of Murder (2003) under the mystery tag is sweeping its searing tone of an entire nation’s ineptitude and apathy under the carpet. Parasite pulls off a high-wire act of balancing so many societal elements without diminishing the gravity of the situation.

When the movie opens, the two siblings of the Kim family are trying to access the wifi of their above neighbours who have finally set a password to stop the leech-ers. Yes, there are freeloaders in every sense of the word, but they are our freeloaders. The Kims are lovable grifters, thinking that society owes them one. They feel justified in doing shoddy work even if it’s an odd job like folding pizza boxes. A warped sense of justice and entitlement binds them and they feel they are totally justified to break the rules to survive.

Bong’s first grand feat here is making us laugh at them and in so doing at ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty sure we all know people like them albeit in a smidgen sort of way. The Kims aren’t portrayed as punching bags to be cut down at will. There is a certain likeable quality they possessed that you wish existed in your family. Just look at how the dad comment on Ki-jung’s photoshop forgery skills and feel the admiration course through the family members’ veins. Before long, you won’t be laughing at them; you will be laughing with them.

The tone is deftly handled throughout the first act and I found myself sinking comfortably into my seat laughing at the absurdity of it all. I thought I have finally figured out the track the movie is taking. Then with a doorbell in the dead of a rainy night, everything changes. I am going to do you a favour by keeping my mouth shut about the plot from this moment on.

Parasite is one wicked bridge linking two ends of the wealth divide. Bong successfully makes us see the issue from both sides and our sympathies continue to waver from end to end. Most directors will make us choose sides and elicit hate. Not here, Bong makes us pity them. He keeps the darkly comic perversities and desperate acts coming at such a brisk pace that you barely realise it has shifted gears.

The cinematography is stunning, bringing forth the stark juxtaposition of the level of both parties’ station. I have a feeling a huge amount of the budget went into the construction of the Parks’ mansion. The minimalistic magnificence is at once cold but arresting. The intruding camera weaves through the labyrinth like it was capturing the skeletal remains of a blue whale.

Everything culminates in a furious climax where you will start to ponder who deserves to live and die. Perhaps the only weak spot is the rushed falling action where Bong ties up all the loose ends in a brisk clip, but it’s a good thing Bong saves one more gut punch right in the end that brings everything to a lyrical closure. It is not quite a hopeful end which would be patronising, but more of a delusional bent on everything.

Bong has crafted a cynical treatise on the moral and ethical decline of a modern Korean society and a cautionary tale of the love for money. Heck! I think it is an exact mirror image of my Singaporean society who also takes no prisoners. These days working hard doesn’t necessarily equate to eventual success anymore. Parasite feels like the middle finger to our current state of affairs.

Written by Daniel Chiam

Last week, my secondary level students were tasked to write an essay on the pros and cons of allowing young children access to the internet. I should have shown them Pulse (2001) because it would have proffered the mother of all disadvantages of allowing kids full access to the internet.

What if there is an evil entity behind the computer screen and it prompts you to click on YES so it can come out to “play” with you. Pulse gives new meaning to the phrase “ghost in the machine.” That’s what I will say about the plot and nothing else.

Like all good ghost stories, writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa sets a trap for its protagonist, with a computer that does its own internet dial-up and a website that is haunted. We are drawn to the website like our curious protagonists, which looks like the site of a bloody accident. We know we will have nightmares but our eyes and our entire being are wedded to it and we want the protagonists to click on YES. They will die, but at least they would have seen the infinite void of sheer terror.

Pulse’s has an interesting subtext – what if the internet is not just a gateway to infinite knowledge and the merging of global hamlets, but a doorway to another world filled with lonely ghouls? What if instead of making the world smaller, it actually makes you feel isolated? Kurosawa’s choice of aesthetics and stylistics throughout the film underscores isolation, with characters often espied through wafting curtains and even through the POV of the computer screen. The individuals’ dislocation with reality is made all the more palpable when they are being exploited while relishing in the nascent online community. The sense of dread feels real and the spine-chilling imagery seems to have been extracted from the subconscious of a neurotic nebbish.

Kurosawa gives you just enough information to let you figure out what’s going on and then pulls the carpet from right under your feet by doing a sharp turn and head on into an apocalyptic cine-scape. The theme of the film remains oblique, the characters are vaguely drawn and the narrative lacks clarity, but therein lies its devilish charm – everything and everyone seem to work on dream logic. None of the characters stand out and my guess is that you would not be emotionally tethered to them, but you will be counting the moments they are CTRL-ALT-DEL from the face of the earth. Chances are, you will remember their shocking demise even if you want to forget them. I for one will never forget how the ghouls move and how the victims spout some disturbing melancholia before they are gone.

Pulse could do with some paring down from a 2-hour runtime which causes the middle act to sag, but it definitely belongs in the pantheon of great J-horror films. If The Ring (1998) made me not want to watch TV alone at night; if Ju-on (2002) made me not want to wash my hair, then Pulse made me wary of clicking on YES.

Written by Daniel Chiam

Nomadland (2020) is lauded by almost every critic and seems like a shoo-in for some major nominations. The story goes like this… following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. The third feature film from director Chloé Zhao, Nomadland features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West.

The movie belongs to Frances McDormand and once the film cuts to black you will know in your bones she is born to play the part. It is a quiet performance but a powerful one. I like movies like this because it doesn’t sugarcoat and doesn’t believe in painting everything in golden sunsets. Life is hard, damn fu*king hard but Fern lives her life on her own terms. You will think she is homeless, but she will tell you she’s just houseless. It’s a life by choice, a choice handed out to her by hard circumstances and she gets busy living it. The human endeavour juxtaposes superbly well with the sparse landscape. It is almost like a forgotten wasteland, beautiful once upon a time. This is an extraordinary film but it is in my book a one-time movie. I won’t be able to sit through this again.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) feels like a chamber piece with mainly two settings. It feels like watching an iron cauldron of a play as a blues singer is contracted by white producers to record her Blues music. Black issues and giant egos get the spotlight. Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman should get Oscar nods. Most of us will remember Boseman as Black Panther, but in this film he displays a range that surpasses everything he was in. This will go down as his finest performance.

Sound of Metal (2020) is about a drummer in a heavy metal outfit who loses his sense of hearing and then has to learn to be deaf. Riz Ahmed turned in a career best performance and he is a shoo-in for a Best Actor nomination. The movie is engrossing and it is a shame I couldn’t catch this in the cinema because the sound design is amazing. This one will put you in the head of a person who is slowly becoming deaf and losing everything he holds dear. This is definitely a movie I wouldn’t mind watching again in the cinema. In my book, after the sense of sight, the loss of one’s sense of hearing is the worst.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) has a simple plot. The story is about two teenage girls going to New York because one of them needs an abortion. The movie is not interested in who, when and how she got pregnant but you will know in your bones the answers to those questions. I appreciate the movie’s honesty and total unsentimentality. Watch out for the scene where the movie title is uttered repeatedly. Your heart will break in that scene. I like how the friendship is depicted – sometimes you just need someone standing with you as you go through life’s most trying trials and tribulations, just standing there with you.

Minari (2020) is an immigrant story, which means it is the story of thousands who had uprooted themselves and planted themselves in a foreign land. This is my favourite from this lot of movies and from the very first scene it has the uncanny and hypnotic ability to draw you in with the pastoral scenes and vivid characters. It is a story that is immediately familiar but yet through the storyteller’s lenses it becomes something you have never seen before. Not a single manufactured moment and every scene breathes with honesty. It is genuinely funny too. Watch out for a climatic scene which will break your heart into a million pieces and one moment a few minutes later mend it all up. I wouldn’t mind seeing this in the cinema again if it ever happens and I am sure this will get a number of Oscar nods.

Promising Young Woman (2020) is testament that a storyteller can tell the same story and it can still give the genre an adrenaline shot. This is a variation on the #MeToo theme but it hits it at an oblique angle. Love the camera angles used and the use of vivid colours. The use of music is a class act too. The ending may miss an emphatic one-two punch but it is an instantly memorable movie. Carey Mulligan is a shoo-in for a Best Actress nod and it’s going to come down to her and Frances McDormand.

Are there other good films I should see? Do let me know.