My TOP 10 Films of 2024 (in Order)
CONCLAVE (UK/USA 2024)
Directed by Edward Berger
Director Berger delivers another stunning and compelling drama CONCLAVE after his much-heralded Oscar Winner ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. The CONCLAVE is the process where a new Pontiff is elected by the cardinals after one dies. It is an elaborate process as Berger illustrates. Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) oversees the proceedings, assuming that the contest will come down to a battle between the reactionary, openly racist Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) and the liberal progressive Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci). And matters soon turn complicated as rumours circulate, secrets emerge, and acts of sabotage are undertaken.
Adapted by Peter Straughan (GOLDFINCH) from the Robert Harris much-acclaimed novel, and shot by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (the Vatican is displayed in all its grandeur and unwelcomeness), the film is a masterwork of drama and irrelevance. The ultimate choice of the new Pope comes as an unexpected twist at the end. Performances are top-notch all the way around. The musical score by Volker Bertlemann is necessarily intense, to the point of almost overdoing it.
Trailer:
ANORA (USA 2024) Directed by Sean Baker
ANORA, the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes is the well-deserved prize winner that honours the sex worker. Baker believes sex work should be "decriminalized and not in any way regulated because it's a sex worker's body and it's up to them to decide how they will use it in their livelihood. Mikey Madison plays a sex worker named Anora, or Ani as she prefers to be called. She may live in a shabby Brooklyn apartment above the rattle of the subway, but every night, Ani glams up and puts on a flirty smile for the men at a local club. Between myriad lap dances, Ani finds herself talking to Vanya, a young Russian boy who joyfully throws around his parents’ money. His innocence charms Ani, and the two fall into a comfortable rhythm. The two get married but soon discover the husband to be the rich, spoilt and immature partying son of wealthy Russian parents who fly immediately to NYC when they correct the affair when they hear the news. Dramatic, hilarious and moving, ANPRA is Baker’s best film to date, aided by sincere powerful performances by Mikey Madison in the title role.
EMILIA PEREZ (France 2024)
Directed by Jacques Audiard
There are many reasons to make EMILA PEREZ compulsive viewing. For the younger audience, Selena Gomez has a solid supporting role, while Zoe Saldana delivers also a riveting performance. But mostly, it is another film from French auteur Jacques Audiard (UN PROPHET, RUST AND BONE) and this is arguably the best trans movie there is currently out there or has been out there prior. Though essentially a French film, the film is shot in Spanish and set in Mexico City where drug kingpins rule. The film is about one successful, in fact very successful one, who trans and repents his ways. Rita Moro Castro (Zoe Saldaña) is a Mexico City defense attorney whose brilliant strategies have kept many murderous but wildly affluent clients out of jail. Her reputation draws the attention of Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón), a notorious kingpin, who is secretly transitioning. He hires Rita to arrange an itinerary of under-the-table procedures with the world’s best surgeons, while making a plan for the wife (Selena Gomez) and kids he is leaving behind. The process is a success, Manitas’ murder is staged, and Emilia Pérez is born. This new identity affords Emilia the ability to create a whole new life for herself, but the past begins to creep back, threatening to undo everything she and Rita have worked so hard to achieve. It is a brave and progressive film with the script co-written by Audiard covering key issues like retribution, LGBT+ issues and the drug cartel problem in Mexico. The film bears several parallels with Audiard’s best film UN PROPHET. There are the main characters leading a new and better life. prison scenes and innocence lost. The story contains twists that arrive every 30 minutes or so, unexpected to any audience. Yet, the film feels believable. There is suspense, melodrama, and thrills with a bit of violence that was also present in UN PROPHET. Though the ending can hardly be called a happy one, it is a satisfactory, credible and effective one. The film is one of the best at TIFF 2024, which also premiered at Cannes this year.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (Australia 2024)
Directed by Adam Elliot
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL is done in the painstaking lengthy stop-motion animation process. The film was developed over eight years. Don’t let the animation category discourage you, as this is an adult film with adult themes and a tale told in a rare and beautiful medium. (In the US, the film was rated R "for sexual content, nudity and some violent content" by the Motion Picture Association.) Among the voices are those of well-known stars like Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon, Tony Armstrong, Nick Cave, and Jacki Weaver. The film's plot, which is loosely inspired by Elliot's own life, follows the trials and tribulations in the life of lonely misfit Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook), from childhood to adulthood.
The snail in the title comes from Grace’s obsession with the mollusk. She collects and keeps everything that bears a resemblance to a snail. Grace sinks into loneliness, becoming a hoarder, collecting snails (real and otherwise), even wearing a “snail” hat that her father had knit. One of her favourite pet snails was Sylvia, named after author Sylvia Plath. But a lesson can be learned from this quaint creature. Though it moves slowly, it always moves forward and never retracts its path.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL has the feel of Charles Dickens classics like OLIVER TWIST and GREAT EXPECTATIONS with the protagonist surviving as a poor orphan and with young children meeting up with old folks who determine their future lives. Like Dickens's stories, there is a happy ending for the long-suffering. The director’s love for stop-motion animation is also evident in the film’s protagonist, Grace finally living a stable life, while pursuing her dream of being a stop-motion animator.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL has quite a few best moments. The best of these is the wisp of mist disappearing in the sky before forming the curled-up shape of the shell of an escargot.
The film is also charming in its presentation of sympathy for old people and gay relationships. It is the classic fable of hope triumphing over life's despair with humanity. There is the surprise kiss of the two step-brothers, their love that almost causes the death of one of them. The old man in the park is treated with respect like many other old characters in the story.
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL premiered at the Annecy Animation Film Festival this year (it won the Cristal Award for Best Feature Film) which I covered remotely. I requested a screener for MEMOIR OF A SNAIL but could not get one. Thankfully, this excellent piece of animation got picked up and is being released in North America. This film should have no problem receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature and is on my list for Best Animated Feature this year.
MEMOIR OF SNAIL opens November 15 in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox) and Montreal!
Trailer:
JUROR #2 (USA 2024)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
JUROR #2 is director Clint Eastwood's latest drama with a few mysterious bits thrown in. It is an excellent film all the way, proving Eastwood to be in fine form.
Young journalist Justin Kemp is called to serve as a juror for the case of the Kendall Carter murder, where all clues and evidence indicate that James, her boyfriend, killed her. However, the verdict becomes stalled when Justin believes James could be innocent, as he may have accidentally killed her by hitting her with his car on Old Quarry Road the same night the couple fought in a bar. Justin keeps this a secret to protect himself and his pregnant wife, Allison. But doubts of James's guilt start to grow among the jury members due to inquiries from one of them, the old ex-homicide inspector Harold—doubts that even lead the tough prosecutor Faith Killebrew to question James's guilt. As the truth comes out little by little, only Justin can make the right choice: to save his family or to save the life of an innocent man.
At best, the story blurs the fine line between good and evil while tipping the balance of the scales with justice and truth. Here, the audience sees a bad man who is innocent of the crime he is convicted of sent to jail while a good man who is guilty of the accidental killing of Kendall Carter goes free. Director Eastwood pans the camera to a statue outside the courthouse showing the scales of justice to emphasize the point, though one might argue he might be overstating the point.
The film is aided by some superb performances that include Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette, both non-Americans sporting a western accent. Not to be missed out is actor Chris Messina who plays the defendant's lawyer, he again playing a suave lawyer that he did in I CARE A LOT. J.K. Simmons also has an outstanding supporting role as another juror.
The film also reminds one of last year's excellent courtroom mystery drama, Justine Triet's ANATOMY OF A FALL. Both films involve a victim falling to death and the reconstruction of the fall to great detail by the investigators.
After his last flop CRY MACHO (made $16 million at a cost of $32 million), director Clint Eastwood at the age of 94. proves that he still has what it takes in a meticulously assembled part-courtroom drama that debates the balance of truth vs justice in a cautionary tale where a husband and father’s personal principle is at stake.
Warner Bros is releasing the film in limited theatres after Eastwood's last flop, fearing it will fail at the box office. Judging from how well Eastwood has succeeded in this film, let's hope that he will be given more projects in the future.
SHEPHERDS (BERGERS)(France/Canada 2024)
Directed by Sophie Deraspe
Following a medical wake-up call, Montréal copywriter Mathyas Lefebure (Félix-Antoine Duval) abandons his life in Canada to reinvent himself as a sheep herder in the French Alps. After a rough start, he’s joined by Élise (Solène Rigot), a civil servant tempted by his stories of pastoral life, and together they commit to a summer on the mountainside. Just the two of them. And one border collie. And 800 sheep. Though what might sound like a boring premise for a movie, SHEPHERDS is arguably the most charming and beautiful while at times harsh and gripping, film to be seen at TIFF this year. Mathyas learns the harshness of a shepherd’s life, especially working for free for a very violent and angry boss, who would use his truck to run over the sheep that would not mount the ewes. After quitting in disgust, Mathyas finally uses his learned skills to tend sheep in the mountain for a much more kindly couple. The most moving scene involves Mathyas throwing a stone at Hola, the border collie for wanting to follow him to leave the farm. With a female director, the film also has a strong and positive female slant.
THE SUBSTANCE (USA/UK/France 2024)
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
French director Coralie Fargeat wowed TIFF’s Midnight Madness crowd in 2017 with her breakthrough slasher revenge movie REVENGE, a movie that many will remember for her extremes in violence, blood and gore. She returns with much more of the same violence, blood and gore in higher-budget horror satire with stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid adding to the mayhem. Desperate to stay pretty as a fitness celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) purchases a black market substance that turns her into a younger and prettier double, calling herself Sue (portrayed by Qualley). They are one body but have to switch every 7 days, old to new and back - NO EXCEPTIONS. However, the younger Sue extends her 7 days with disastrous results that climax into a complete blood fest on New Year’s Eve. The wild build-up to the climatic NYE show is excellently paced in this stylish fable of the strife for eternal beauty. Super gory makeup and special effects have to be mentioned as well.
NOSFERATU (USA 2024)
Directed by Robert Eggers
The film’s opening scene has Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) and his young wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) in a room speaking of love things before Thomas says he has something very urgent to attend. He dons a top hat and coat and he ventures into the streets of 1938 Germany. But what is immediately noticeable is the excellent wardrobe and production sets which are also present throughout the film, which are shot in both black and white and grey colours. It is not surprising that director and writer Robert Eggers had his film experience in production design before his breakthrough film THE WITCH. NOSFERATU was supposed to be his second film but was delayed, now being his fourth film. But a worthy wait.
The plot of Nosferatu is set in Germany in 1838 and follows the story of Thomas Hutter and his wife Ellen. Hutter is sent on business to the mountains of Transylvania, in the Carpathian Mountains. There he is to do business with Count Orlok (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgard), an ailing nobleman who is looking to buy a new house in Hutter's neighbourhood, the Grunewald Manor estate. Thomas makes the journey, leaving Ellen with her pregnant best friend Anna Harding, her husband Friedrich, and their two young daughters.
After a complicated and sinister journey filled with chilling experiences, Thomas stops at a tavern, where the locals warn him to abandon his journey. During the night he dreams, or thinks he dreams, of witnessing a vampire hunt in the woods, but not even the mud on his boots stops him from walking the last few miles to his destination, and he finally manages to get a ride in Orlok's ghostly carriage. Hutter, after being welcomed by the host Orlok, is tricked into a contract in a foreign language and is locked away in the empty, ruined castle, while Count Orlok sets sail for Germany to meet Ellen.
The film takes a strong female slant, something that has been missing in all previous Dracula and Nosferatu films. It is Ellen that the film centres on and her that is instrumental in the destruction of the monster. This strange magnetism between Ellen and Count Orlok is the central axis of the film. Director Egges based his adapted screenplay (nominated for a Golden Globe) on the 1922 film and Bram Stoker’s DRACULA.
Many NOSFERATU films centre on the voyage on the ship where the crew members learn of the deadly cargo and perish as a result. The ill-fated voyage is given less screen time but still has an unforgettable impact on the film.
Director Eggers proves himself in total control of his movie. seeing the scares taut and the characters believable and important enough for the audience to care for.
Most of the gist of the 2022 Murnau German silent film remains intact, the main difference between the shift in the importance of the characters. (The film is a remake of the 1922 German film, which was in turn based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.
Trailer:
THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE (Pigen med nålen)(Denmark/Sweden/Poland 2024)
Directed by Magnus von Horn
Premiering at Cannes this year followed by screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE is an excellent historical drama though a very depressing one. The film is shot in black and white with a setting in post-WWII Denmark made even more depressing by the story in which bleakness piles upon bleakness. If one can stomach the bleakness, a superbly crafted film is in for the taking, though definitely not of a feel-good nature. The film is based on true life events - that of a baby killer, one of Denmark’s most infamous killers. A woman pretends to take in babies from mothers who seek a better life for their babies, but the woman kills babies instead using several methods.
The protagonist is Karoline, a young woman trying to survive after the war. Vic Carmen Sonne is remarkable in her portrayal of Karoline, a young seamstress trying to survive on her own since her husband was declared missing in action. Fortune smiles upon her when she develops a connection with Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup), the factory's owner. Yet a cascade of misfortunes soon reminds her of how little protection she enjoys. As the film progresses, one can only pity Katroline as things get from worse to worse.. Can things improve even a little? Firstly when the film begins, Karoline is evicted from her squalor apartment. She finds lodging in an even more horrid room with no running water and a window that cannot be opened. She is warned not to have any visitors though one can only imagine who would want to visit such a place.
Her woes improve a bit as the events set her on the path toward Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a shop owner she works for as a seamstress, who offers a particular service to women in need. The dynamic they form will have major repercussions for them both. They fall in love and she is impregnated by him. Just as one can think the film is leading towards the kindness of human beings, Dagmar’s mother stops the romance between her son and her and tosses her out on the street. She takes a needle to a public bath and tries to abort the unborn child, hence the title of the film THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE. There she meets the baby killer and things do NOT get any better. Karolyn and the baby killer strike up a camaraderie, even when Karolyn discovers the truth. More of the darkness is included with the reappearance of Karolyn’s supposedly husband missing in war with a disfigured face. Why he has not responded to her letters is not really explained in the film. The horror of his facial injury is not hidden from the audience.
For all its bleakness and depression, THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE is a compelling film with strong performances and stunning cinematography and production values, marking it as one of my Top 10 international films list of 2024.
THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE, the Danish entry for Best International Feature for the upcoming Academy Awards opens in theatres on December the 6th, 2024.
Trailer:
THE BRUTALIST (UK 2024)
Directed by Brady Corbet
THE BRUTALIST is about the life and work of László Tóth This is not László Tóth, the infamous Hungarian geologist who infamously vandalized Michelangelo’s Pietà statue in 1972, was hospitalized, and then sent home to Australia but an Eastern European architect. A fictitious one. (if one is to look up the name in Wikipedia only the vandal’s credentials will show up.) But the fictional Toth is so meticulously created and one can hardly believe that this person never existed.
Director Brady Corbet returns with another bold vision — an American epic, starring Adrien Brody as a Jewish Hungarian architect who flees Europe at the end of the Second World War to rebuild his life in an unfamiliar land.
László Toth (Brody) arrives in America with barely anything to his name, eagerly hoping to soon be joined by his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones). Settling in Philadelphia, he has a not-so-gracious run-in with Harrison Lee Van Buren (a hardly recognizable Guy Pearce), a wealthy businessman, after he becomes an unwitting client for a home renovation scheme. This serendipitous encounter leads to a more complex undertaking, as Van Buren and his son (Joe Alwyn) enlist László’s brilliance for a monumental new project. It is a dream that he never thought he could relive, but it comes with a dark cost, as László sacrifices more and more of himself to complete his exacting vision.
The film is told in 3 parts including an epilogue. The first part is titled ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ and the second is ‘The hard core of Beauty’. It is an epic story of an individual from his arrival to America to his eventual success though not without sacrifice and extreme hardship. The film feels like a biopic and with all the eats in the film it is surprising to learn that the Toth character is made up. Adrien Brody who has already won an Oscar delivers another powerful performance as the troubled architect.
Just like a biopic. the film traces the rise and fall and rise again of an individual. The film also shows that the American Dream is almost always distorted by the efforts to achieve it.
Though long, THE BRUTALIST is eloquent storytelling, the over 3-hour running time unfelt for the most time. Credit too should be given to the location scout and details in the architecture seen in the film.
The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2024, where Corbet was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Direction. It received critical acclaim and was named one of the top ten films of 2024 by the American Film Institute.[7] It received seven nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, including nominations for Brody, Jones and Pearce in the acting categories and Best Motion Picture - Drama. It is scheduled to be released in the United States by A24 on December 20, 2024, and in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures and Focus Features on January 24, 2025.
THE BRUTALIST will be presented in 70mm (at select screenings). This includes the Advance Screening on December 16. at the TIFF LIGHTBOX. The film opens on Christmas Day. Note that the film has a 215-minute runtime that includes a 15-minute intermission. (Brutal - but worth it.)
THE BRUTALIST is the runner-up for the Toronto Film Critics Association Best Picture of the Year.
Trailer:
2 FILMs runner-up still to be released....
MISERICORDE
WHEN AUTUMN FALLS
