Bellocchio’s The Traitor was the last film I saw in a theatre. The film was only playing once a day at 1pm, so an early lunch was required. The calendar said it was the last day of February. The very next day, officials identified the first case of COVID-19 in NY. A couple of days later, the first super-spreader case became public at a location just over two kilometers from home. The person infected had been at a hospital located within walking distance from where I live. Early close calls that fortunately did not recur. Anyway, I sorely miss going to the theatre. That wonderful big screen now looks gigantic.
Undoubtedly, virtual has decidedly beaten the real thing by a wide margin in a year no one could have ever predicted. However, the proliferation of streaming sites has been one of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic. I was able to catch films that in the recent past would only be available close to home in a few months, if ever. I ended up watching a lot of films, certainly many more than last year. However, I failed to identify any WOW films this year. It was indeed a very odd and unique year!
Below is my list sorted by the date I saw each film, followed by films I recommend.
- Beanpole – Kantemir Balagov (2019, Russia)
- Sorry we missed you – Ken Loach (2019, UK)
- Bacurau – Juliano Dornelles- Kleber Mendonça Filho (2019, Brazil)
- I’m no longer here – Fernando Frías (2019, Mexico)
- Never Rarely Sometimes Always – Eliza Hittman (2020, US)
- House of Hummingbird – Bora Kim (2018, South Korea)
- Ghost Tropic – Bas Devos (2020, Belgium)
- Collective – Alexander Nanau (2019, Romania)
- Another Round – Thomas Vinterberg (2020, Denmark)
- The German Lesson – Christian Schwochow (2019, Germany)
- Los Conductos – Camilo Restrepo (2020, Colombia)
Recommended
- Just Mercy – Destin Daniel Cretton (2020, US)
- The Traitor – Marco Bellochio (2019, Italy)
- Vitalina Varela – Pedro Costa (2019, Portugal)
- The Wild Goose Lake – Yinan Diao (2019, China)
- The Chambermaid – La Camarista – Lila Avilés (2018, Mexico)
- Joan of Arc – Jeanne – Bruno Dumont (2019, France)
- Shirley – Josephine Decker (2020, US)
- Family Romance, LLC – Werner Herzog (2019, Germany)
- First Cow – Kelly Reichardt (2019, US)
- A Girl Missing – Kôji Fukada (2019, Japan)
- The Mole Agent – Maite Alberdi (2020, Chile)
- Identifying Features – Fernanda Valadez (2020, Mexico)
- Martin Eden – Pietro Marcello (2019, Italy)
- The Dove and the Wolf – Carlos Lenin (2019, Mexico)
- Dear Comrades – Andrey Konchalovskiy (2020, Russia)
Cheers, Raúl
