Critic After Dark: Films of 2023

List of 2023

Not everything I’ve seen for the year but everything I think deserves to be noted, for good or bad. More mainstream than I’d like but life happens. I do try note films available but not newly released in 2023, and why I thought them worth talking about. 

Suzume – Makoto Shinkai continues to ape Miyazaki’s images, characters, and concepts, everything from Spirited Away (protagonist’s beloved cursed into taking another form, if not pigs then a nursery chair) to Howl’s Moving Castle (portals that open into different locations or the past), troweling rough edges smooth with a thick serving of sentimentality. Emotionally stunted work, fixated on fantasy encounters between boy and girl at the expense of all else. Needs to be sent wandering the streets tolling a bell and crying ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – everyone talks about how revolutionary it is to digitally animate on 2s (12 drawings or ‘frames’ per second) as opposed to the standard-issue 1s (24 frames per second)– in effect moving away from the smooth and photorealistic– when the Japanese have been doing this all along, largely by hand and in far better films. Miles Morales is a groundbreaking character– at least on the comic book page– but his film incarnation feels too wholesome, like a Disney princess in drag (mind you I’d welcome Disney in drag, just lose the 2% lowfat wholesomeness). 

The Flash – Better than expected, mostly for the melancholic presence of Michael Keaton and his air of What Might Have Been. Otherwise disposable.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Another I liked more for the what might have been than what is — if you liked Indy, this is a passable capstone; if you like crisp inventive action sequences, you miss the Spielberg touch. 

Oppenheimer – Historical testimony, biographical study, investigative noir; drop in a blender and hit ‘puree.’ Christopher Nolan is consistent– when it comes to the money shot (a leap across an abyss, a stage trick involving magic cabinets, the detonating of the first-ever nuclear fission device) he cuts away to a different angle. A mess, and not in a good way.

Barbie – The first twenty minutes is a witty parody of Barbie and her neon pink mythos; the remaining runtime is a toothless satire on male entitlement and corporate mismanagement, a neat-as-any demonstration of The Golden Rule: he who makes the gold (in this case Mattel, who financed) makes the rules. 

Napoleon – More sumptuous and expensive-looking than genuinely elegant, the movie emphasizes Napoleon the lovestruck buffoon over the brilliant strategist and innovative statesman, which leads one to ask: couldn’t they depict the strategist and leader and then demonstrate why he’s still a buffoon? Nowhere near as passionate or prodigiously creative as Abel Gance’s 1927 classic. 

Meg 2: The Trench – The first hour is trapped underwater and dimly lit; when the movie surfaces and hits land it morphs into goofy fun, a cross between Jurassic Park and Free Fire. 

The Creator – Derivative (of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Blade Runner, and Platoon) and illogical (Why develop a floating weapons platform so vast anyone can take a potshot? And why build a counterweapon that has to grow into full power?) but the core narrative– of a haunted man’s developing affection for a foundling child– is effective. 

The Exorcist Believer – David Gordon Green doing to The Exorcist what he did to Halloween, picking up a well-loved horror classic and subverting its assumptions. If you’re not a fan of the William Friedkin original (I’m not) this is for you. Easily the best of the franchise since Exorcist 2: The Heretic.

Godzilla Minus One – Back and badder than ever, only the humans swarming at its feet are depicted with more care than usual. Arguably the best since Hideaki Anno’s majestic 2016 incarnation, Gareth Edwards’s coyer 2014 version, and the still unmatched 1954 original. Not a fan, alas, of the have-your-cake-and-eat-it ending. 

Saltburn – as far as eat-the-rich films go not bad, with Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike the standouts in an excellent cast, but the genre includes some of the greatest most ferocious satires in all of cinema (Purple Noon, Teorema, Boudu Saved From Drowning, Rules of the Game) and this just isn’t extraordinary enough to rank. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 – James Gunn’s darkest entry of the franchise, yet still manages to be laugh out loud funny. Gunn has a gift for depicting damaged characters, makes good use of that skill here. 

Anatomy of a Fall – Justine Triet’s legal drama with the help of Sandra Huller assembles the portrait of a marriage that has slid sideways, throws enough uncertainty into the process that like a juror you’re not sure what verdict to deliver. Dry visual style but the performances and the coy careful script make it work. 

Silent Night – Man loses his son and his voice, takes a year to prepare for payback. Grimmer less stylish John Woo that nevertheless retains his spark.

The Killer – David Fincher at his more elliptical, more a sterile exercise of style and stylish performances than anything. Not quite Jean-Pierre Melville, master of the genre, but not bad either. 

The Holdovers – Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti’s latest isn’t visually distinctive but does evoke lowkey emotional magic, and delivers the occasional sting. 

Past Lives – Celine Song’s debut feature is quiet but graceful; the finale, an extended tracking shot along an East Village sidewalk, is unexpectedly potent.

Infinity Pool – Brandon Cronenberg eschews his father’s clean pornographic style to do a more baroque version of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds, the true source of horror less the fleshy onscreen mutilations and more Mia Goth’s mesmerizing hold over Alexander Skarsgard. 

Asteroid City – Wes Anderson doesn’t indulge in the usual film bro cliches– guns and assassins and fast cars– but takes off in a trajectory all his own. The immersion in ’50s Space Age paraphernalia makes this a perfect double feature with Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 1/2

May December – Todd Haynes’ unsettling look at tabloid narratives (in this case the Mary Kay Letourneau story) and the secrets they may or may not contain. 

Essential Truths of the Lake – Lav Diaz’s first-ever prequel follows the early adventures of Hermes Papauran, the ‘Philippines’ greatest investigator’– basically a detective with a philosophical bent and a gift for guilt-wracked obsessive brooding. He never lets go and neither does Diaz, in this latest meditation on the crimes of the Marcos dictatorship. 

Killers of the Flower Moon – less a depiction of the Native American victims (which I suspect Scorsese couldn’t presume to speak up for) than a blackly comic takedown of the thugs that preyed on them. At its emotional heart: the strange strangely moving Jesus-Judas relationship between Ernest Burkhart (a deftly dimwitted Leonardo DiCaprio) and his Osage wife Mollie (a nicely understated Lily Gladstone).

The Boy and the Heron – perhaps Miyazaki’s final film, done with economy and passion and a surfeit of fabulous imagery.

Films I found interesting:

Dust Devil (1992) – Richard Stanley’s hallucinatory second feature– about a serial killer demon, the woman he’s fated to meet, and the Namibian police officer hunting him– seems less affected by supernatural forces than by heat haze and highway hypnosis. Fascinatingly unhinged.  

Experiment Perilous (1944) – Jacques Tourneur’s take on George Cukor’s Gaslight is hobbled by a smaller budget and an ostensibly less-than-stellar cast but does feature Tourneur’s inimitably insinuating visual style and a simmering pas de deux between George Brent and twinkle-eyed Paul Lukas.

The Suspect (1944) – Robert Siodmak’s camera stalks Charles Laughton as he spirals into mayhem and murder in this sumptuously produced Edwardian noir. 

The Furies (1950) – Walter Huston as a carnivorous King Lear and Barbara Stanwyck as his libidinous Cordelia dominate this larger-than-life psychodrama set against the backdrop of Anthony Mann’s West– a diorama of vast plains and craggy heights that reflect the characters’ emotional landscape.

Could not with much regret keep up with the always vital Filipino independent filmmaking scene– that’s my fault– but thanks to a recent project on Filipino-Asian collaborations have been been able to catch the following:

Dawn of Freedom (1944) – Yutaka Abe and Gerardo de Leon’s handsomely produced propaganda film employs Manila like a gigantic studio set, yet details the tentative at times mistrustful relationship between Filipinos and their Japanese occupiers with surprising delicacy. 

Shiniuma (Dead Horse, 2016) – Brillante Mendoza’s haiku depicting an undocumented Filipino worker’s life in Hokkaido, his capture by immigrant officers, and his eventual Manila homecoming. With an indelible performance by Lou Veloso.

Gensan Punch – Brillante Mendoza’s biopic of ‘Nao’ Tsuchiyama depicts a one-legged boxing champion full of grit and spirit and a startling sweetness.  

A Hard Day – Law Fajardo’s remake of the Kim Seong-hun original, about a corrupt cop trying to fix his fractured life, is a fascinating study on what can translate from Korean to Filipino setting, and what can’t.

Kintsugi – Law Fajardo’s romance between a Filipino immigrant worker and the daughter of his Japanese boss is both a showcase for the charms of Saga prefecture (and its renowned ceramicware) and a quietly poignant romance.

Imbisibol (Invisible) – arguably Fajardo’s best work, from a one-act play by Herlyn Alegre, an observant and ultimately devastating look at Filipino migrants, documented and undocumented, in bleak wintertime Japan.

First published in Businessworld 1.5.24

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