Tricky travail of picking 2022’s best films
Distribution patterns and streaming release dates being what they are, attempting a traditional ‘‘top ten’’ list of films from a specific calendar year is almost a pointless exercise. Quite apart from the human failing of not being able to possibly watch all candidates, many of those you do rate technically hail from the year before.
If the criteria is films seen theatrically in 2022, my top three selections and two others making the list would be 2021 films.
In first place would be Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson’s luminous coming of age story, set in the San Fernando Valley of 1973, a work of cinematic wonder, at once sweet and cynical, a partially true tale of juvenile entrepreneurship, apocryphal Hollywood yarns and an emotionally spot-on, wouldbe ‘older woman, younger teen’ romance.
Drive My Car would be next. A long but fascinating drama concerning the relationship between a bereaved Japanese theatre director rehearsing a multilingual production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, his cast and his enigmatic chauffeur, it is formally brilliant. If you embrace its rhythms the climatic payoff is considerable.
In third position would be The Worst Person in the World, Norwegian in origin but universal in theme, with a late 20s protagonist unable to settle in her professional or personal life. A romance with an older man, a satirical cartoonist, gives way to the excitement of a new affair but she remains restless and unsatisfied. This too packs an unexpected punch, especially if one’s best friend is a satirical cartoonist with a terminal condition.
C’mon, C’mon and Flee are two other 2021 efforts of special note. The former sees Joaquin Phoenix as an emotionally repressed radio documentarian charged with the task of looking after a precocious nephew. Glorious black and white cinematography, particularly of New York and a loose but never sloppy structure bring to mind the likes of
Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Flee, a documentary about an Afghani refugee hiding in Russia and Denmark, uses animation to preserve the anonymity of its subject, pushing the boundaries of the medium, engaging with vital concerns of the age: people smuggling, inequity, sexuality and racism.
As to 2022 films seen in 2022, an attempted top ten list, in reverse order of merit, can be found below. But first let us get the negativity out of the way.
What was the worst film of 2022? Undoubtedly, Elvis. Baz Luhrmann’s typically cold, uninvolving postmodernist approach to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was even more cartoon-like than usual, with Tom Hanks grossly overacting as a bulbous caricature of Colonel Tom and anachronistic rap music used to underscore Elvis’ debt to the black community. Strangely, Presley’s country roots got no such attention.
And the most overrated film? Everything Everywhere All at Once. Overstuffed, overbaked, overlong, this is what passes for profundity for the Marvel generation: kung fu, melodrama and mutterings about something called ‘‘the multiverse’’. However good Michelle Yeoh is in the lead, a tiresome yawn.
A labour of love for the New Zealand born Andrew Dominik, Blonde re-imagines the Marilyn Monroe story as a horror movie, playing loose with the facts at times but also recreating iconic images with uncanny accuracy, affording a fresh and chilling perspective on what we think we know. Even those who damned this one
Jordan Peele’s third feature is arguably his best, a thoughtful and tense science fiction thriller in which the UFOs are hungry. Race dynamics take an apparent backseat to genre requirements but are no less prevalent.
6. When the Cows Come Home
Full disclosure: I’m in this one. In telling
An atmospheric and nuanced horror made in the manner of American auteur Terrence Malick, You Won’t Be Alone returns vampires to period Europe – Macedonia, to be precise – evoking a sympathy that could not be further removed from Twilight melodrama.
3. Apollo 10 A Space Age Childhood
The third animated feature from Richard
A long, bloody, uncompromising Viking saga. If the mysticism recalls writer/ director Robert Eggers’ The Witch and the battle scenes rival Game of Thrones, the drama evokes Shakespeare, the source legend being the same as inspired Hamlet.
Dr Richard Swainson runs Hamilton’s last DVD rental store and is a contributor to the Waikato Times history page.