Visit any art gallery in the world, and odds are good two types of pieces will be waiting for you; large format and small.
The large-format are the pieces and installations that most readily wow you. “Liberty Leading the People” is over eight feet by ten; all of Monet’s “Water Lillies” series combine to 300 feet. The pure size can sometimes physically dwarf the viewer, and the ambition is undeniable. The pure audacity to make such a big mark on the world – to take up so much space. It is beauty and bravado of the highest order and has a tendency to overwhelm our emotions.
The small-format are easy to overlook – after all, from across the room, it can be difficult to even be drawn in when you can’t make out much detail. Hell, sometimes you can’t even see them across the room thanks to a distracted patron blocking the eye line. However, as you approach, and give these works your full attention, you begin to fall in love with their intricacies. A few minutes’ study and presence make the smallest details feel like bold brushstrokes. These pieces can become totems – small reminders of the world around you and your own place within it.
The great films of 2020 were a gallery full of these second types of artwork.
Sure, there were some attempts at wowing audiences with spectacle – and when these films are later revisited in cinemas as-intended, they may yet feel like they were always meant to overwhelm the audience. Tonally and spiritually, 2020 was a year of films-as-totems. They wanted to comfort us in a time of great distress by showing us people like ourselves…and how they dealt with great distress.
The best cinema of this year offered us simple pleasures; be it a simple baked good made with just the right ingredients, or a sweetly written note written by an admirer.
These tokens – these totems – are specific to this year. We will never again see something like it since the artists who work on bigger canvas will never again yield the gallery space like this. What’s more, the artists whose works were most prominent are artists who are usually sidelined.
In the months and years ahead, patrons will once again be overwhelmed with bold colour, subject, and scale created by the artists who usually get most of the attention and acclaim.
These more personal offerings will once again be forced to fight for viewers’ attention.
We owe it to ourselves to cherish these cinematic mementos. For my money, these were the ones I’ll keep closest to my heart. I fully realize that the bulk of this list has yet to be widely released. If nothing else, I hope that when they are hung on the gallery walls, you can make your way across the room…and look closely at what they have to offer
Ryan’s Top Five Films of 2020
5. ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI
Two or three times this year, I found myself reading works of fiction that were so finely-crafted I was surprised to learn they weren’t true stories. The voices that told the stories were so clear, the prose so sharp, the experience so damned human.
At the movies, one gets that feeling with ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI.
The chances that Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, Malcolm X, and Sam Cooke said everything or even anything to each other like what we hear in Regina King’s film are silm-to-none. But we believe it possible. We hear the well-chosen, powerful words that these legends lob back-and-forth and we hear them. We believe every challenge was volleyed; that every retort hit its mark.
These men were bright celestial bodies in the solar system of the 1960’s – who’s to say that their orbits didn’t converge in the way that Kemp Powers writes here. After all, this was an era before every waking move and thought was documented, so while we know a lot about these four legends of The Civil Rights Movement, we don’t know everything. They might not have expressed themselves in this way – but then again, indeed they might have.
ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI is a story of the people in our lives that recognize our best qualities…and still push us to be better.
4. NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS
It’s not an “Abortion Movie”. Not really.
It has no interest in engaging in debate whether things are morally right or should be legal. The voices that argue the sides of that issue have been screaming at the top of their lungs for so long, it’s a wonder anything else can be heard.
It’s not an “Abortion Movie” – It’s a movie about one young woman trying to do what’s best for her, and showing us what it takes to do “what’s best”.
Eliza Hittman’s NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS is dedicated to the unsung heroes in our lives. We all have them, but we don’t talk about them as openly as they deserve because of how it embarrasses us. They are the people who lend us large sums of money, people who carry us home at our most inebriated, people who return our needy texts at ungodly hours, and people who hold our hands when we’re waiting for the worst news. They keep our secrets, they take our rebukes in-stride, and they show us the true nature of love and faith.
This is also a film dedicated to silent struggles in an age where every grievance is logged so loudly. We have become so damned quick to whine about any slight, any injustice, any infringement upon our civil liberties. We do so publically, at great volume, whether people want to hear it or not. This story wants us to imagine the opposite end of the spectrum – where we face multiple challenges that seem entirely unfair, and yet want to call no attention to ourselves.
What then? Who leaves comments of support? Who waves a banner of solidarity when we are most solitude?
It’s not an “Abortion Movie” – it’s a deeply private moment made very public. We come away from it feeling moved, saddened, angered, awe-struck, ashamed…and rightfully so.
#3. FIRST COW
It’s hard to feel like you matter when so many make you feel worthless. It’s hard to feel like you have a purpose when you are just one interchangeable part in a larger machine.
In the face of this, what matters most is recognition and validation…no matter what you have to do to earn it.
When we watch the two men at the centre of FIRST COW create tasty treats with stolen ingredients, we understand the windfall as much more than monetary. In the eyes of the physically and politically powerful, these two men are lesser betas. They are a necessary nuisance, a disposable means to an end. Eventually, when these two men create something that makes the mighty and the powerful line-up at their door, we share in the victory.
It’s admiration for good and hard work – something we all want so dearly.
Of course, any leap forward in life comes with great risk, and that too is what makes FIRST COW so special. These men know they are being allowed to be good, but not too good. To attract too much attention would give the game away. They can feel like they matter a bit more, but they still need to remember their place. The stakes involved are incredibly high, even though the endgame for these two culinary creators is so modest.
Kelly Reichardt’s FIRST COW is a tender poem for anyone who dared to dream just a little bit higher…and an elegy for the ones that couldn’t reach the next rung on the ladder.
#2. MINARI
Minari is an herb that grows almost anywhere. It is pleasant-tasting, robust, and even remedial when used in certain ways. It is easy to grow, easy to harvest, and easy to use…why would one want anything more?
Because we can – and because “more” is usually synonymous with “better” for ourselves and those we love.
Lee Isaac Chung’s MINARI is about a Korean family trying to make a life in 1980’s Arkansas. They are isolated, lower class, and with limited prospects. The patriarch (Steven Yeun) is daring to dream just a little bigger, but as mentioned with the previous film on this list every leap forward comes with great risk.
MINARI is about simple families living simple lives. It’s about sacrifices parents make for their children, and the way those sacrifices don’t end when their children have children of their own. It’s about the way husbands and wives challenge each-other, and sometimes even overreach when they are just trying to do “something good”. This film wants us to remember that: how we can sometimes become so wrapped up in trying to build a better life, that we manage to leave those closest to us on the outside looking in.
All of this goes over and above the way MINARI underlines the challenges of a Korean family trying to make headway in Reagan-era middle America…and they are many.
For so many of us, the margin of error between failure and success is so damned narrow. A few good days aren’t enough to truly rise above our station, and all it takes is one bad day to wipe out all of those good ones in a hurry.
What then?
MINARI doesn’t offer up a singular solution to that tragic equation, but it does hold our hand and let us come to grips with the realities of life’s challenges.
#1. NOMADLAND
Two years ago, I came away from a film by director Chloé Zhao feeling like I’d just seen something tender, honest, and hopeful in times that are increasingly abrasive, selfish, and cynical.
Now here we are in times even more abrasive, selfish, and cynical and Zhao returns with even more tenderness, honesty, and hope.
NOMADLAND is not a sonnet dedicated to rejecting modern society. It neither waves a flag nor makes an impassioned plea. What it does is offer us a few moments with precious few who are content to live with precious little. Frances McDormand plays Fern as a woman who only takes what she needs and works when she must. She is neither lazy nor reclusive, just a person who wishes to live a simpler life.
Outside of the flimsy walls of her ramshackle van is America in all its splendour. Not the picturesque corners that usually illustrate tourism ads, but the grandeur of the hills, canyons, and plains that lay in wait in every so-called “flyover state”. Zhao’s camera captures them in all of their breathtaking beauty…leaving us to wonder how much we happen to miss when we aren’t looking out from our own front porch.
This was a year when so many of us felt like we were losing so bloody much. We worried ourselves sick, we pushed back, and we rejected rules put in place to ensure our safety. NOMADLAND asks us to take inventory of our lives, and consider the fact that we haven’t lost a damned thing. It underscores the value of every soul we encounter, and how little we truly need to live a happy life.
What’s more, it does all of this humbly and with the very best manners.
Despite all of the anger in the world and just how much we believe we need to survive, NOMADLAND presents a simple and stunning counterpoint. It offers us coffee, compassion, and company…and makes no judgment on us if we decide to decline the offer.
Other films on my shortlist for 2020 include THE ASSISTANT, BACARAU, BIRDS OF PREY, BLOODY NOSE EMPTY POCKETS, DA 5 BLOODS, DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA, THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION, THE HALF OF IT, THE INVISIBLE MAN, MISS JUNETEENTH, ONWARD, PALM SPRINGS, THE PHOTOGRAPH, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, SAINT FRANCES, SHE DIES TOMORROW, THE SMALL AXE ANTHOLOGY, SOUL, SOUND OF METAL, and WOLFWALKERS