“Holler”
“The forgotten pockets of America” has a potentially troubling connotation to it. It means Trump country, pockets of white America where people are so poor, they carry zero political weight, well unless someone weaponizes your disenfranchisement, promises you everything (and well, delivers nothing). However, in Nicole Riegel’s “Holler” there’s empathy all around for the desiccated communities in Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunities are all but dried up. The entire affair is given a huge boost with a terrific turn by Jessica Barden (“The Lobster”) who plays a young girl with few opportunities in a struggling, economically depressed town, that joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way through school. The future calls, is in sight on the horizon but is so far away. And a troubled family, including a drug-addicted mom (played by Pamela Adlon), are potentially there to handcuff her to this hopeless town for life. The struggle is real and Riegel’s emotionally layered film is worth the watch. – RP [Our review]
“Identifying Features”
It’s a film we somehow failed to review (boo on us, for sure), but people like Playlist contributor Carlos Aguilar raved about it on Twitter all year and we appreciate that constant championing. Directed by Fernanda Valadez, “Identifying Features” is a haunting look at the tragic desperation that often marks the immigrant experience. The drama centers on a middle-aged mother (Mercedes Hernandez) who travels across Mexico in search of her son whom authorities say died while trying to cross the borders into the United States. Desperate to find out if her son is indeed alive or not, she embarks on an expansive and increasingly dangerous journey to discover the truth. At the same time, a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) is deported from the U.S. and crosses paths with the mother. “Identifying Features” is a shattering experience, a movie that is lyrical, beautiful, horrifying, and suspenseful, with a conclusion that devastates. We can’t wait to see what Valadez does next.– RP
“Flee”
One of the year’s best documentaries comes with the immediacy of a front-page headline while telling a full life story. Jonas Poher Rasmussen‘s documentary “Flee,” which premiered during the 2021 virtual Sundance Film Festival and has a big shot at the Best Documentary Oscar, concerns the experience of his friend Amin Nawabi, a refugee from Afghanistan. With stark animation and sharp attention to narrative detail, Rasmussen poignantly uses interview audio to accompany reimaginings of how Nawabi traveled through many horrific trafficking systems, living in different degrees of captivity as a young boy, all in the pursuit of a new place to call home. “Flee” has Nawabi revealing many painful parts of his story that he never has before, and the film is equally heartbreaking but illuminating about how the refugee crisis is the whole world’s problem to address. Whether the film does achieve a certain degree of Oscar glory, it will nonetheless stand as one of 2021’s most important documentaries. – Nick Allen [Our review]
“Drive My Car”/”Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”
“I should have been hurt properly,” actor-turned-theatre-director Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) confesses from the back seat of his red Saab. He’s discussing the recent passing of his wife (Reika Kirishima) to a young, hot-headed star (Masaki Okada), who may, or may not—as he only saw the back of a man’s naked reflection in a mirror—have been having a creative and/or extramarital affair with his deceased partner, one who uses to pitch stories to him when laying in bed together. Like Lee Chang-dong’s enthralling Haruki Murakami adaption, “Burning,” 2021’s breakout directorial beacon Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s short story adaptation “Drive My Car” metamorphosizes the author’s text into something thoroughly, artistically transcendent. The film manages to hit almost every ray of emotion through its brisk, 3-hour runtime—the movie enveloping its audience into a lamentive emotional state that invisibly mutates into a quest towards personal betterment and merciful understanding. [Our review]
On the flipside of Hamaguchi’s sprawling narrative fixtures is “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” a lovelorn triptych of short films that, strung together, melodically play off each other like a Hong Sang-soo triple feature. Further displaying the Japanese auteur’s loving penchant for constructing both micro and macro storytelling components in equal measure, its final chapter, “Once Again” should be taught in queer film studies courses. Following a heart-stricken woman (Fusako Urabe), who is certain she’s bumped into her ex/first lover at a school reunion, only to be rebuffed by a face that doesn’t remember her existence. The story doesn’t end with either woman in sorrow though; almost like a Murakami fairy tale that could be titled “Women Without Men” (“Drive My Car,” taken from the author’s collection “Men Without Women”). For a specific type of world cinema fan, 2021 will go down as the year most of the movie-loving world discovered Ryusuke Hamaguchi (his first two features, “Happy Hour” “Asako: I & II,” both also tremendous, have been available on the Criterion Channel). Whether you feel like sobbing the night away or chasing a flickering light at the end of a windy tunnel, both of the director’s astounding achievements are so touchingly modulated they have the genuine power to rejuvenate whatever ills may ail the deepest wounds inside you. [Our review]
Honorable Mentions
It took time to narrow this selection down. As said, 2021 truly featured a plethora of amazing projects, from all across the globe, but another problem is many of them weren’t/aren’t readily available—or in the case of one particular title, may not have rolled into your hometown yet. The aim is also to find a range of pictures that convey the assorted qualities of their varied visions; so some movies (i.e. “Pig,” or “Annette,” which seemed widely discussed in our community) aren’t included here, and they’ve made several of our other Best Of lists already anyway. It’s too bad we all don’t have the time to watch everything we’d like because great art can be infinite in times of crisis. Some other flicks we would have loved to include: Todd Haynes’ outstanding “The Velvet Underground” doc, Hong Sang-soo’s “The Woman Who Ran,” Quentin Dupieux’s procedural farce, “Keep An Eye Out,” Christian Petzold’s “Undine;” lesser seen festival titles: “Gerda,” “Il Legionario,” and “What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?;” Dash Shaw’s Eric Carle-esque, monster-mash “Cryptozoo,” Christopher Makoto Yogi’s broken-hearted ghost story, “I Was A Simple Man,” and the COVID-19 anthology project “Year of the Everlasting Storm.” We wish we could do write-ups for every gem we dug, but there’s just too damn much good stuff out there.
Follow along with the rest of our Best of 2021 coverage here.
