This is the toughest-yet Midyear Reckoning of movies because of the undeniable fact that film culture, by and large, has succumbed to the entertainment industry’s artistic cowardice. It coincides with the moral bankruptcy of our government and in our public affairs — that struggle between an increasingly seditious media and our own consciousness as to what’s true or good. We’re repeatedly told (and sold) crap but then have to struggle to find and appreciate what’s edifying.
Some friends have given up, retreating to golden oldies or whatever is available and pre-selected from streaming-content providers. Most colleagues simply capitulate to marketing. They become part of the media-industrial complex that promotes product through ignorance and insensitivity. It’s the same as when journalists pretend that predisposition and bias are the same as objective reporting (like an “analysis” printed on the New York Times front page).
Two recent polls by the “paper of record” sought to distract moviegoers from the current crises by pointlessly surveying “The Best Films of the 21st Century.” It distracted from the culture’s failures and highlighted its deceptions — two lists of dystopian narratives. (So there’s no Sinners, Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, or F1: The Movie on this survey.)
We must reckon with Hollywood’s paltry offerings, typically aimed at juveniles and babysitters, against other kinds of filmmaking that provide emotional challenge and intellectual excitement. Here’s an alphabetical list:
Demons at Dawn is Julián Hernández’s morning-after romance, a rebuke of the walk of shame that embraces a careerist couple’s need for love.
Eat the Night is Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s tale of Millennial siblings who discover the difference between physical and virtual experience — a timely, fully felt tragedy.
The Empire is Bruno Dumont’s awesome answer to Star Wars. Decades late, but it’s never too late to correct pop trash that neglected mankind’s need and desperate search for spiritual sustenance.
The Friend is Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s class-conscious lament for how urban sophisticates (Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, and a Great Dane) deny but can’t escape spiritual obligations.
Henry Fonda for President is Alexander Horwath’s epic documentary-biography. Revealing a Hollywood star as a Marxist icon challenges the way we view American pop culture.
Henry Johnson is David Mamet’s response to Hollywood and theater’s new liberalism — a disquisition on lawfare, abortion, masculinity, and the carceral myth that is progressive America.
Marcello Mio is Christophe Honoré’s metaphysical answer to Horwath’s political project. Actress Chiara Mastroianni’s comic pursuit of the identity of her father, Marcello Mastroianni, eventually connects us to the soulful legacy of her mother, Catherine Deneuve.
A Minecraft Movie is Jared Hess’s venture into video game territory. Full of buoyant imagination and good humor, it combines eccentricity and innocence for a deserved blockbuster comeback.
Misericordia is Alain Guiraudie’s latest surreal satire of a community’s moral and sexual hypocrisies — a social analysis that exceeds Hollywood sanctimony.
The Phoenician Scheme is Wes Anderson’s study of the era’s most confounding figure, an industrialist (Benecio Del Toro’s Zsa-zsa Korda) whose actions affect his family, assassins, and the world. An homage to Mr. Arkadin, it also rebukes TDS.
The President’s Wife is Léa Domenach’s tribute to Bernadette Chirac (Deneuve, again) that finds musical, comic, and trenchant ways around all the conventions of political celebrityhood.
When Fall Is Coming is François Ozon’s redemption movie. Grandmother Michelle (Hélène Vincent) survives her scandalous youth, and her generosity shockingly reproves the guilt of the next troubled, culpable generation.
Faithful readers of this column will recognize these titles and understand: Moviegoing is now a matter of following one’s desires and distrusting the lying press.