this mostly ended in fruitless, anonymously directed arthouse fare – a commercial for prada, a decent fifth generation piece, maybe some snippets of some installations here and there, but nothing i would recommend to anyone other than completists. My exposure to the towering masterpiece that is Dawn Breaking in 2020 left me excited to check out more work by its director, yang fudong. one of the funniest things i have ever seen! his short from 2000, Gravidance, is the exception plays more like a vintage youtube poop with eastern bloc sensibilities and a style of humor that seems entirely impossible for someone born after 1990 to have. Relatively obscure soviet/post-soviet director vladimir kobrin seemed to mostly dabble in academic surrealism, an area of film that i can usually tolerate to a point but i usually wouldn’t call it my thing. i think more than anything i’ve been gravitating towards these more narratively simple tales of kindness, and this one (which even explicitly defines love within its text) was perfect for being in this mode of thought. given his idiosyncrasies, i was a bit hesitant on whether or not something with this dodgy of a love story (of sorts) could really be handled well, yet this culminates in moments of such beauty and tenderness that i was surprised that it was made by a relative newbie. Other than a stream for The Book of Life a few years ago, i had somehow managed to dodge seeing any hal hartley films until this year, where i finally saw Trust. it’s surreal to imagine that such high budget ventures were once as dreamy and nightmarish as this. whitewashed through and through, but, as is often the case, not to an extent particularly more egregious than the average picture today. i’m glad i did it ends up being this sort of marvelous dream movie, soaked in some of the most glorious technicolor that money could buy, and with no lack of imagination throughout the entire (admittedly bloated) runtime.

While i’ve never really categorized myself as a noteworthy fan of powell & pressburger, i had heard great things about The Thief of Bagdad for a while now, and this year on a whim decided to finally get around to it. here are the best films that i saw in the calendar year for the first time. additionally, while i didn’t get to see anything from NYC this year, i had a great time finding new sorts of films i like – a newfound passion for shaw bros, sov horror, and schizo-core cinema. i was lucky enough to have received a karagarga invite from a very generous friend, which will surely aid me moving forward in finding those hard-to-find flicks. film-wise, i think this was a good year for me, as they always are.

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