8. Sieranevada | Director: Cristi Puiu
Crammed into the cluster of closely knit, cantankerous relatives in a flat during the funeral services of late Emile for nearly three hours, where mostly nothing happens in the term of plot development, won’t be an ideal watch to get entertained. Cristi Puiu, in his painstakingly detailed realism, shows how involvement with relatives beyond a certain point can inseminate contempt.
7. Aloys | Director: Tobias Nölle
Soaked in a Kaufman-esque sense of magic realism, Tobias Nölle’s Aloys is a hypnotic take on modern alienation. Following the life of Aloys Adorn, a private investigator who is recently grief-stricken by the death of his father, Aloys chronicles his life when a mysterious phone call disturbs his so-called solitude and forces him to blur the lines between the real and the imaginary. With wonderfully framed images, production design, and understated performances, Tobias Nölle presents a brilliant character sketch of loneliness & escapism in a world that seems like a party only till it lasts.
6. Staying Vertical | Director: Alain Guiraudie
A man sodomizes, then euthanizes an elderly man in front of his baby as progressive rock holler in the background. That’s just the tip of the iceberg in Alain Guiraudie’s absolutely bizarre, offhand surrealistic trip through a series of undefined goals and weirdness. The protagonist in Staying Verticle is a distant cousin of Kramer from Seinfeld. The film starts with him trying to pen-down a screenplay and goes down territories that even God wouldn’t imagine. To account the weirdness in Staying Verticle, Guiraudie has a therapist who lives on the other end of a boat ride. She uses veins to cure what is wrong with Leo’s personality which even he doesn’t understand. There are wolves, sexual encounters that don’t make sense and to top it all – There’s an instant cut to a live childbirth.
5. Fire at Sea | Director: Gianfranco Rosi
Gianfranco Rosi’s camera quite keenly, but in a passive manner, follows a native boy – Samuele Pucillo – on a small Italian island, Lampedusa and juxtaposes it with the intense & painful journey of migrants from the Middle East and Africa looking for even a square foot of place to survive. Gianfranco’s ‘Fire at Sea’ does not descend into prevalent documentaries that put human problems at a display and aware us about widespread inhumanity & inflicted misery at the stake of self-pity. It is a compelling documentary about human suffering told in a restrained manner without dictating the awareness of migrants’ suffering.
4. Krisha | Director: Trey Edward Shults
3. Aquarius | Director: Kleber Mendonca
One of the most intense and powerful performances of 2016 came from Sofia Braga in Aquarius. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film is a terrific character study of a music critic. Amidst all the music, philosophy and progressiveness lies a drama about boundaries and colonialism. It’s about respecting one’s privacy and will to live in something that is more than just a home. Aquarius is a film about things, their value, and their essence. From the old dusty record on the shelf to memories of stolen times, Aquarius leaves us with a staggering climax that talks about ownership and sentimentality.
2. Cemetery of Splendor | Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Cemetery of Splendor is not just a dark reflection on life. There are also playful and gentle touches, like the erection joke or visual of beautifully arranged neon sleeping tubes. Buddhist spiritual ideas, Thai folklore, and the political convulsions play a vital role in shaping the abstract narrative. You would find it immensely annoying if you are unable to give yourself to the atmospheric stillness. To intake the nuanced beauty of this Thai director’s visuals, you have got to try and sync yourself with a very hushed rhythm of the narrative. Those who aren’t aware of Weerasethakul’s movies would be taken aback by the way he blends in mystical elements along with a coarse, overtly erotic tone. As always, present and the past, or dead and living are positioned together in the surrealistic movie atmosphere.
1. Kaili Blues | Director: Gan Bi
Blue shoes floating in the river, two buttons missing from the shirt, travel through the foggy mountain, and a thin plot that develops patiently which, at times, feel surreal. Kaili Blues is driven by the metaphysical poetry that blurs the line between enigmatic dreamscape and equally intriguing real life. The past wounds conjure up to an ex-con who goes in a search of missing nephew. The journey is way too slow for passive cine-goers. But, if you are up for a challenging narration that is stitched of soft hypnotic vignette filled with profound poetry, it will invigorate the internal feelings connecting your mind & soul.
