Our respective 3 favourite films of 2019.
Emmett:
The Souvenir and Pain and Glory
Two movies that LB and I watched back-to-back one Saturday afternoon in Dublin’s IFI, screen 2. I note the screen number because, as some of you may be aware, it is quite possibly Dublin’s smallest screen – more like the preview screening room of a Hollywood studio.
Why is this important? Well, I’m not sure that it is, other than to say that, perhaps, the setting contributed to the feeling of intimacy demanded by both films. No, not intimacy, for intimacy implies a certain comfort. Both of these movies showed the internal. At times I felt like I didn’t belong. Like when, as a kid, my parents would socialise at home and I would silently shimmy halfway down the stairs to catch fragments of adult conversations emanating like faint wisps of cigarette smoke from the kitchen.
And, so too with these films – both portrayals of the respective filmmakers – yet rather than the intermittent reception ones gets as an interloper on the periphery, here, in both movies, the viewer was invited in. We were given a pew, offered a drink (or perhaps something stronger) and asked to make ourselves comfortable. But never as an interlocutor. We were there to observe. To shift in our seats and wonder if enough time had elapsed to politely get our coats and quietly leave.
The details of the respective films matter little to me here. Or rather, they matter a lot, but I was confided in and asked to entrust a secret. One they will have to tell you themselves.
The Souvenir: Dir – Joanna Hogg
Pain and Glory: Dir – Pedro Almodóvar
The Irishman
Scorsese defines America. His career, in many respects, is the great American novel or the great American songbook. It is a story told in volumes. It is a story of supplanters, a continuous stream of usurpers who, once freed from their colonial masters, sought to emulate them in every respect, though, without titles or lineage and where the only bloodlines that matter are extracorporeal. “I heard you paint houses.”
Scorsese’s America is violent. It is a primitive violence. Like that of the natural world, lions devour prey, new cells replace old ones. Life, it seems, is a constant renewal. In Scorsese’s America, life is death. Or more accurately, life is killing. “I heard you paint houses.”
There have been many houses painted, many shoes shined in Scorsese’s America. But in 2019, this movie is too long. Not because of the running time but because you only had to buy one ticket to see the whole story*. It is a trilogy, in of itself. We didn’t have to grow old with it. It is the unreleased director’s cut. It is the beginning, middle and end of the finest directorial career in American cinema. It gave us back Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. It loaned us Joe Pesci. Anna Paquin deserves an Oscar nod and she hardly had a line.
The Irishman: Dir – Martin Scorsese.
*Or one subscription.
Honourable mentions: The Sisters Brothers, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Birds of Passage.
Lynsey:
The Irishman
When I was a teenager I had a poster of Goodfellas on my wall. It’s not quite the Henry Hill opening line, but it is a testament to my abiding love for Martin Scorsese. The Irishman was an absolute blockbuster with queues out the door in the IFI, my local Dublin cinema. Netflix broke with its tradition of secrecy to let us know that it had been viewed to at least 70% by over 27 million accounts. This paragraph isn’t enough for me to go into why I loved it – I’m not sure I have fully worked this out myself. But, for now, let’s say it may have had something to do with the haunting performances of all the central players, and the great tragedy of a job well done.
Dir: Martin Scorsese
The Favourite
Yes, ok, this was released in 2018, but I didn’t see it until it was released in Ireland in 2019. I’m a sucker for a good period drama, especially when pathos and humour are woven together with skill (such as in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility). This absolute gem of a film showcased huge acting craft, sublime writing, sumptuous design, as well as the exquisite cinematography of Robbie Ryan. All three leads, Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz, were pitch perfect in a twisted and sordid tale of court intrigue.
Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Brad Pitt and Leonardo di Caprio captivate in roles they sink into with relish. Margot Robbie does a huge amount with (intentionally) little (that’s kinda the point for me, and not unlike Anna Paquin in The Irishman). Throughout the movie I had squirmed as I waited with anxiety for the dreadful denouement… which, when it came, made me so happy. After all, this is ‘once upon a time’ (a fairytale) and ‘in Hollywood’ (a land of happy make-believe). I’m glad Tarantino rewrote history, the movie demanded it
Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Honourable mentions: The Souvenir, Pain and Glory, Happy as Lazzaro
Martin:
La Belle Époque
Going in blind to see this, with only the briefest glimpse of a synopsis, was an absolute delight. As I said at the time, this is the kind of smart, heartbreaking, life-affirming, surprising, profound film that French cinema is best at. It plays with memory, nostalgia, and desire, and I just hope it’s as good as I remember.
Dir: Nicolas Bedos
Us
Peel has brought a fresh breath to the horror genre, here proving Get Out was no fluke. What can’t be underestimated is how the themes and genuine cerebral dread that the director has brought to his two features thus far means that they really stay with you. A few elements may not land quite successfully, and some developments work better in hindsight. The many levels written into the thing, and the iconography throughout mean it’ll continue to be a satisfying watch for years to come.
Dir: Jordan Peel
Avengers: Endgame
I couldn’t resist. And to have this alongside The Irishman (twice) seems fitting. It bends my mind how this film exists as it does, being a satisfying conclusion to the 22 (22!) films that preceded it. A rollercoaster of an experience, and joyfully delivers on all counts. The time travel logic may be a little questionable, but you have to let that go when so many plates have been so elegantly juggled, and landed with such satisfaction.
Dir: Joe & Anthony Russo
Honourable mentions: Midsommer, Little Women, Marriage Story, Knives Out, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Hustlers.
A Room With No View 