Let’s say that on Tuesday 13 September the post-Godardian era of the seventh art was inaugurated, one in which the audiovisual turmoil already advocated for decades by the Franco-Swiss genius represents our common ecosystem of images. In that hodgepodge of “platforms”, where noble and bastard images coexistand a series like Irma Vep can also welcome the “best cinema” of the year, we say goodbye to 2022 with another type of reference institution: the international macro-investigation which Sight and sound made every decade on the hundred best films in the history of cinema.
The result is surprising. Jeanne Dielmann… by Chantal Akerman rises to first place, surprisingly Citizen Kane Already Vertigo. The canons have been broken. Surpass Welles and Hitchcock, the new canon is political.
that the Thai Memory it is, according to the critics of El Cultural, the best film of the year related to that turmoil. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s miracle film, in which praises and sophisticates the phantasmagorical communication of his cinema to connect us with an archaic cosmos, it has certainly been seen (experienced) by more viewers in the Movistar catalog than in cinemas. In turn, the work of Santiago Miter Argentina, 1985with its ability to articulate the unofficial story of one of the darkest episodes of its recent past with a humanistic and political hierarchy, also found on another platform, Prime Video, the place from which to implement its historical justice.
Three Asian countries –Thailand, Japan and Korea–, three European –United Kingdom, Portugal, Austria–, three Americans and Argentina… the spectrum of theaters represented is vast in a list barely colonized by tastes, conventions and academic proposals. It is an easily deliverable top 10 list for movie lovers.
While Hollywood is rightly represented by three sublime proposals that enhance its tradition and make it their own (Licorice Pizza, No yes Time of Armageddon), the best of European cinema is led by three tightrope walkers who find their common qualities in daringboth from the re-reading of the biopic through the hybridization of formats (Blessing); from a cinema that is invented while it is being made (Otsoga diaries), or from the poetics of the self-confidence of a princess widely (re)treated previously by the cinema: the rebel empress.
Albert Serra and Isaki Lacuesta establish themselves as European authors closely linked to the traumas, fears and anxieties of the contemporary world
Viennese Marie Kreutzer’s proposal is the only international film directed by a woman among the preferences of our critics – apart from Claire Denis, Joanna Hog, Patricia Mazuyetc.–, although national cinema, also beyond the phenomenon alcarrasit could not be explained this year without the irruption of young filmmakers who redefine autofiction through intimate and family drama, with the support of international festivals such as Berlin, Rotterdam or Cannes.
Like the debut of Elena López Riera, it was also presented at the big French event The beasts from Sorogoyen and, in competition, the incredible Appeasement. Although more supported by the French industry than by the Spanish one (none at the Goya), both Albert Serra and Isaki Lacuesta (one year, one night) establish themselves as European authors closely linked to the traumas, fears and anxieties of the contemporary world.
The gap between the real cinematic achievements and the bets of the Film Academy is also reflected in the inspiring works of Carlos Vermouth (manticore) and Ferdinand Franco (Spring consecration), who make their best films by tackling extremely challenging subjects. The narrative jewelery that Jonás Trueba builds in the delicate you have to go see itperhaps his most pessimistic generational portrait, he invites us all to experience the big screen, convinced that it is there that we must go to see all the films.
