Megan's Top Ten Films of 2021
“Some might survey all this self inflicted drama, all these vertigo- inducing climbs and falls that would get any theme park shut down and wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
2021 offered a smorgasbord of unique films. So unique, in fact, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about trends or new themes in my own taste. In years past, it was the coming-of-age story that was in fashion, or tales of American hardship and triumph that hit home. It would be a tall task to find a box that comfortably fit a sports documentary, an art-rock marionette baby, an Arthurian legend, and whatever descriptors you’d use for Titane. Perhaps common denominators are overrated. Eclectic in the best way. My top picks of the year each seemed to be plucked from disparate corners of the medium to form a delightful lineup with something for any mood.
Another of the best things in the realm of filmmaking in 2021 was the union-driven action taken to advocate for production labor. Even more so than the big swings being taken in storytelling, this solidarity will be what drives the industry to a better future. Film can contain so many different things, bearing countless forms and philosophies, but what it always should have are safe working conditions, proper compensation, and due recognition for those above and below the line. Let's keep making these bold, dramatic choices, and let's do it the right way.
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Honorable Mention
THE SPARKS BROTHERS and ANNETTE
Could this be the beginning of legendary art rock duo Sparks finally getting their due? I sure hope so. Following a spate of music documentaries over the last couple years, Edgar Wright’s tribute to a highly influential yet criminally undersung band worked, as all these documentaries are supposed to, as publicity. What sets The Sparks Brothers above is the band itself; Ron and Russel Mael’s enigmatic identity and brilliant lyricism has inspired and endeared them to fellow musicians for decades. It guides the new listener into appreciation, while for a longer- time fan it is gratifying piece of recognition and ideal primer for their awaited feature debut Annette. The musical is a bizarre operatic melodrama that observes Hollywood and masculinity set to a collection of Sparks’ classic songwriting conventions. Approaching the film requires an inquisitive mind, much like their discography, as it is loaded with heaps of meaning designed to perplex and delight the listener. Embracing artifice is rarely as fun as it is with Baby Annette, the singing sensation sweeping the world.
You can read Cinema As We Know It’s review of Annette here and The Sparks Brothers here.
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10. SPENCER
Kristen Stewart so fully embodies this version of Diana Spencer that fable feels indistinguishable from reality. Unquestionably one of her strongest performances to date, she is the flawed jewel at the center of an expertly wrought denouncement of the Crown. Pablo Larraín’s ornate composition speculates on the inner turmoil of the people’s princess at the end of her rope. Diana desperately clings to signifiers of her individuality as the palace walls close in to suffocate her, demanding self-dehumanization in the line of royal duty. Cinematographer Claire Mathon captures both the saturated opulence of the royal family and the hostility that creeps in its gauzy shadows. One of the film’s strengths is its harnessing of kinetic energy; innocuous items buzz with the potential to cause great consequence and harm. A rotten staircase, a billiard ball, wire cutters, and a loaded pheasant gun inspire an insidious sense of anticipation. Like a home lost to time, impossible to return to, Spencer is a beautiful haunting.
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9. THE LAST DUEL
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s return to screenwriting is greatly elevated by Nicole Holofcener’s collaboration and the handoff to Ridley Scott, who is still delivering some of his best directorial work in his eighties. The Last Duel weaves a Rashômon-esque story regarding a series of events surrounding Sir Jean de Carrouges (Damon) and Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer) as she refuses to remain quiet about being raped by another knight, Sir Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver). Each of the three main characters is well-realized, and the filmmaking molds to match their outlook on each other. The roughened Carrouges gives a blunt black and white version of the events wherein he acts honorably. Le Gris’s testimony sets his own actions in shades of gray- gris en français - while Carrouges harbors only bitter jealousy toward a man more refined and respected than he. Le Gris’ true character is revealed, however, in Marguerite’s recollection, through its chilling difference from his own. The brutality continues after the focal incident, as her accusation is diminished to a dispute over property. The film directly examines the inherent danger of a society dominated by the repugnant vanity of men, where a woman risks her life for speaking truth. Though The Last Duel does effectively capture the period of Medieval France, this is simply a backdrop for a depiction of injustice that has not been left in the dark ages.
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8. TITANE
Titane takes some of the largest risks in any film this year, and the result is a batshit nerve-snapping intensity that towers over Julie Ducornau’s preceding Raw. Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Cronenberg are the the obvious comparisons to Titane, yet this transgressive mingling of flesh and machine feels entirely its own. It ponders the kinship between body horror and gender with depictions of pregnancy, binding, and hormone injections, exaggerated to extremes. Alexia (formidable newcomer Agathe Rouselle) isn’t just unconventional in her interests, she manifests as anti-conventional, and inherently queer. What makes Titane even more especially subversive is the depth of empathy it has for such a character. The film’s depictions of excruciating violence are tempered by an equally aggressive tenderness, much of which is stored in Rouselle and Vincent Lindon’s all-gas, no-breaks physical performances.
You can read Cinema As We Know It's review of the film here.
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7. THE HISTORY OF THE ATLANTA FALCONS
Jon Bois’ The History of the Seattle Mariners tells a story of the only sports team I have ever cared for and reminds me that you don’t need to be a winner to be a hero. Bois’ newest film, The History of the Atlanta Falcons, takes a team that barely sat on the margin of existence to me, gives them a soft place in my heart, and then turns any glimpse of greatness into ridiculous mockery. This is also a doubly long documentary, an even more thorough investigation that pans and zooms between giant clouds of painstakingly assembled data. It’s an entirely new level of ambition in visual statistics realization, as Jon Bois continues to refine his unique filmmaking technique. As the years are marked in ups and (mostly) downs, the falcon draws himself. It’s preternatural, as if it’s existed all along and was just waiting for Bois to notice its joke - and that bird is a clown whose favorite comedy partner is Satan.
For an empirical history lesson, its genius lies in its pathos. At the end of the day, sports are just statistics enhanced by the human urge to find significance in patterns and tell stories. It has the power to bring out all the best and worst in a person, to even elevate them into myth. In this capricious world, mistakes and miracles are always around the corner, and the excitement is in waiting to find out which it will be. Sports are a safe arena for us to feel these stakes and experience strong emotions that ultimately bring us together. It would be meaningless if we didn’t think our love was worth it. As such, The History of the Atlanta Falcons channels the spirit of the ever faithful Atlanta itself. No one is telling you what to believe, but with a little hope you might agree that one day there will be something to show for the city’s proud suffering. Loving the Falcons makes you stubborn like that.
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6. THE GREEN KNIGHT
Adapted from a legend dating back to the Fourteenth Century, David Lowery’s presentation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight transforms the tale into one of the most stunning pieces of high fantasy to grace the big screen since The Lord of the Rings. Set in the Arthurian world of Camelot, the film delivers on all the hallmarks of olde, but presents them in a highly ambitious and full-force effort to create something outstandingly unique. It sets a new standard for not only high fantasy, but all genre film with its intention and attention to craft.
You can read Cinema As We Know It's review of the film here.
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5. PIG
Michael Sarnoski’s directorial debut is a stunningly thoughtful study of loss after time. Both Nicholas Cage and Alex Wolff play their parts with heartbreaking sincerity, at odds in age and experience but matched in untreated grief. Pig ruminates on the changes that Portland has undergone in Cage’s character’s absence, namely culture hollowed out by capitalists who have forgotten their humanity. This intimate tale proves mercy can be more emotionally devastating to witness than revenge.
You can read Cinema As We Know It's review of the film here.
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4. THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS
This trip back down the rabbit hole is jaw-droppingly unsubtle about its meta. Lana Wachowski’s plot to bring back Trinity and Neo may have been at the creative gunpoint of Warner Brothers, but how she accomplishes it is an act of supreme love. The characters of the film are aware that this illusion of choice is being thrust upon them, and yet they choose to rediscover free will for the sake of each other. The dissonance of these two conflicting notions forced to exist in the same narrative complicates the philosophy of previous installments of the franchise. The film’s new additions are well suited to the world and contribute fresh flair that challenges us to be vulnerable in rethinking our ideas. Resurrections is as badass, sexy, and idiosyncratic as a Matrix sequel deserves to be, truly not caring what fans think it “should” have been. It succeeds as an ambitious power move that both criticizes its own existence and the current state of pop culture, while remaining head over heels romantic.
You can read Cinema As We Know It's review of the film here.
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3. DUNE
We’ve reached a point where we have sufficient technology to imagine the universe of Dune, and it’s even more impressive than expected. Frank Herbert’s sci-fi fantasy epic reaches a sheer enormity in this rendition, so dominating to the senses it verges on the psychedelic. It’s best on the biggest screen feasible, with full sound, and perhaps enhanced by a legal substance. This Dune is defined by its commitment to design - in score, in costume, in architecture, in every single detail that coheres not just into a film but into a complete universe. However it isn’t all just good looks, Villeneuve’s adaptation has better understanding of the text than previous adaptations. This film, much more imperatively than other attempts, is centered on colonization and the moral strife of a fate as monstrous figurehead of a holy war. Paul (Timothée Chalemet) shoulders the burden of both a legacy and prophecy that would smite a lesser protagonist. Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are awarded more emotional characterization than ever before, as parents trying their best to protect their child from living in their accursed worlds, but failing through their own designs. As satisfying it is for each of these themes to be given proper space to develop, the second part can’t come quickly enough.
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2. LICORICE PIZZA
Paul Thomas Anderson simply does not miss. Once again he tunes into the dreamy endless summer of ‘70s Los Angeles and into the magnetism between a young woman reluctant to be an adult and a teenage boy who acts a self-made man. Alana (Alana Haim) is drawn to Gary (Cooper Hoffman) because he hasn’t become a jaded grownup of Hollywood who sees others as props or capital. Charm isn’t a strong enough word for what Hoffman and Haim share - their on-screen chemistry is utterly watchable and alive. These two oddballs freely careen from one scheme to the next, but always back to each other. Their enterprises are injected with jolts of near-cartoonish energy thanks to a constellation of personalities that surround them, capable of fascinating in mere seconds of screen time. Anderson’s mastery of cinema is lustrous to experience, dappled with suspense and danger, and ultimately leaves the heart both lighter and fuller.
You can read Cinema As We Know It's review of the film here.
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1. drive my car
By the time the title card of Drive My Car appears on screen, it feels as though we’ve lived with Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) for years. When he arrives for a residency in Hiroshima to stage a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya, the play feels fraught with memories of the captivating intimacy and infidelity of his late wife Oto (Reika Kirishima). He believes Chekhov’s words have an innate potential to reveal someone’s true personality, yet his place in the director’s chair cannot conceal him from facing the revelatory process. At the same time he connects with Misaki, an automotive ingenue required to be the chauffeur of his sacred vintage Saab, his space of solace and seance by means of a cassette tape. Ryûske Hamaguchi reveres the relationship between actor and text as much as he respects the resonance of quiet. Every moment of unspoken compassion between characters is handled with impressive restraint. Yusuke and Misaki are companions in enduring the loneliness of a life stricken with grief that can never be resolved. They can only find a way to live with it. The ineffable melancholy and serenity of their bond defines what is without any doubt the best filmmaking of the year.
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In addition to my top ten, there were a handful of items from 2021 that I felt were worth noting in their own right. Below you will find performances, scenes, games, and even a standout cafe that fall outside my regular list, but deserve some words of recognition. Enjoy!
Nic Cage as Robin Feld - Pig
What little we know about Robin Feld’s past in the food scene of Portland is shown to us in the encounters he shares with others on his search for his lost pig. A man once legend to the community, now a stranger whose return disrupts the dominant egos of the space. It is Cage himself that makes the role extra memorable. His playing against type subverts our expectations of a violent revenge arc. Instead, Robin’s pacifist philosophy and emotional appeal to the one who wronged him becomes devastatingly impactful. Cage disappears flawlessly into this other person, proof he has the chops for an incredibly nuanced and understated role. His journey is a meditation on how isolation and loss can change a person, and how one can still find ways to experience love. No other performance this year felt quite as meaningful.
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Tôko Miura as Misaki - Drive My Car
Cigarettes have never looked cooler.
Misaki’s presence is intrinsically similar to her driving, as she works hard not to be heard or felt. She fades into the atmosphere, rarely breaking the placid silence. When she does speak, it’s very frank, a working class juxtaposition to the dramaturge figures of the film who are intwined in language. The most earthly among them, her unswerving reliability assuages Yusuke’s concerns for his carefully maintained car. As Misaki begins to open up, the connective similarities between them deepen. She represents a reluctant handing over of suffering, an interruption of ritual that he didn’t know had to happen in order for him to heal. In return, he offers a way forward from the trauma into which she has also withdrawn. The interior of the Saab becomes her confession booth, a sanctum for them both to find reconciliation. If Yusuke is the enduring soul, Misaki'’s steadfast companionship makes her the heart of Drive My Car.
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The Last Duel in The Last Duel
The titular Last Duel is one of the most riveting and narratively satisfying final set pieces in a film of recent time. It’s teased from the opening shots of the film, which has since ran three times over the events as remembered by each individual. Now that the timelines have converged, each fate can be determined. Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Les Gris (Adam Driver) will fight to the death as Marguerite (Jodie Comer) is held as captive audience, readied to be burned alive should her husband lose. The men see it as an egotistical matter of pride, while for Marguerite it is life or death, and for the audience the clash is pure bloodsport. The opponents begin on horseback trading joust tilts, then cross axes and swords, and finally daggers. The seeming gritty recklessness of the combat is made possible through technical precision and meticulous story boarding. Scott is able to put the camera exactly where it needs to go for the scene to feel viscerally deadly. He also employs minimal CGI interference and instead relies on performing actual choreography and stunt work. Knowing that a lance shattering against a buckler and flying into the camera is practical just feels right, and spikes adrenaline into the atmosphere. Tension builds as the knights gasp for breath and drag themselves back to their feet to trade blows, a reminder that Carrouges and Les Gris are in a battle of endurance as well, wearing half their weight in plate armor.
Meanwhile another anxiety mounts through the scene, one of horrendous relevance to contemporary times. Will a perpetrator of sexual violence ever be held accountable or punished for their actions? The twisted justice these violent men reach through physical might is a ferociously apt conclusion for the film.
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Spice Harvester Evacuation in Dune
In a film loaded with distinctive spectacle, just about any given part of Dune could make the highlight reel. The sequence that personally leaves the strongest impression is the race to evacuate a spice harvester before it is devoured by a worm. Villeneuve manages to depict something creatively alien that is simultaneously a functionally immersive sensory experience. We feel with Paul the rapid chop of the thopter wings, the heat rising in waves off of industrial metal, and crackly radio chatter that builds from nonchalance to tense emergency. Here the film diverges just incrementally from Herbert’s writing, as Paul leaves the thopter, collapsing directly in the path of the worm. When change in adaptation is wielded as a power; those who think they know how something goes suddenly feel the anxious tightening of uncertainty. This small embellishment enhances our first up- close encounter with the desert and heightens the stakes of the moment. The scene is Paul’s introduction to Arakkis, demonstrating what makes it so valuable yet so deadly- the great Makers are never far from the spice melange. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the entire first half of the novel, and meaningful portent for the second. The malfunctioning carryall is emblematic of how the enemy Harkonnens have left every aspect of the planet sabotaged for the Atreides, waiting hungrily for Leto’s doom. The hallucinogenic nature of the spice awakens Paul to the potential of the future, drawing him into the desert and closer to the Fremen. He can see the rising of war banners on the horizon of time, all the blood yet to be shed in his name, as the air glints with the precious substance at the center of it all.
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“Oh god, how long has it been wrong?” Scene in The History of the Atlanta Falcons
It’s February 5th, 2017. In the Falcon’s 56 years, Superbowl LI marks only their second shot at the Vince Lombardi trophy. Propelled by a shockingly strong winning streak, they are coming to face the indomitable Patriots, led by their field general Tom Brady. Among the headlines, photos, and graphs clustered to contextualize the game, a new table looms vertically over the visualized gridiron; an ESPN win probability projection. By the time the political parallels are fully drawn and the score reaches 28-9, we truly hope the Falcons can turn their backs on their past and possibly be a winning team. The ESPN algorithm climbs upwards of a 99% win probability, and Bois jubilantly exclaims, “those are Lysol numbers!” All that’s left is paperwork, the celebration can begin. But at this point we also should know better; the Falcons are tragicomedy. And inevitably, it all turns around to favor the Pats with a rally of scoring in the third quarter. Yet after a brutally unlucky catch the Falcons’ odds only drop to 92.6% chance of winning. How can that be right? What have we failed to see all along? Now its pit- of- your- stomach obvious; it was never right. Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein take all our ideas of probability and force us to look at the cold, uncaring reality that faces the Atlanta Falcons at every turn. Nothing is 100% guaranteed. This time around, David can’t best Goliath. We hear it in firsthand accounts of the devastating realization dawning on those who have subjected themselves to being lifelong fans. After the horrifying ringer the end of 2016 put us all through, this could’ve been some nominal metaphoric victory to get behind, a way to spite some of the people who got us there. What frail sense of hope we had was hitched to this football game; something, anything, we can call a win.
But honestly, have you forgotten what team this is?
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CHIVALRY II
My game of the year is for anyone else who had to take a walk and calm down after getting too hyped from The Last Duel’s final set piece. However, Chivalry II takes medieval warfare in an entirely less serious direction. Torn Banner has worked the miracle of making online multiplayer consistently fun, win or lose. Each match is less a focus on competition and more an opportunity to go hog wild swinging an axe into as many members of the opposing team as you can reach. If someone swings an axe into you, you can send a little commendation their way for implementing clever and innovative (for the 13th century) methods of disembowelment. Dying is little more than a chance to reassess your weapon choice before you tumble back into the dog park chaos in satisfying thirty-second loops. Chivalry’s best quality is a slapstick comedy approach to combat, featuring rag-doll physics that send your impaled idiot form flailing to the ground, to be stampeded by dozens of other bodies destined to the same bloody fate. The game underlines the simple pleasure of trash-mobbing your way through a castle defense or over a battlefield, everyone spamming the scream emote. It never gets old.
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Simulatte from The Matrix: Resurrections
If you’ve got complaints about a lack of subtlety from a Wachowski sister, then I’d say you chose the wrong franchise and the wrong director to comment on today. The sign is whimsically on the nose, evoking the iconic luminous green text that spills down into an abstract mug shape. Apparently even the most sinister programs are not immune to puns, as the café exists within a revamped simulation designed to convince Neo he is merely Thomas Anderson, famed designer of the Matrix games. Here he can get a piping hot cup of ones and zeroes to wash down his blue pill and pine inexplicably for a woman named Tiffany. The establishment serves as background for Trinity and Neo’s cyberpunk meet cute, serving the indomitable force of their love while the two reconnect in glee-inspiring bullet time acrobatics. Turns out true romance is stored in the T4T coffee shop AU.
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