We are exactly one month away from this year's Oscars, and these may or may not be the most critically acclaimed films among Best Picture contenders. Are they good? They are, to various extent.
Also, just to be clear on this. I found the first part of Avatar practically unwatchable due to the fact that the aesthetics seemed ugly and offensive. Blue people with tails just do not do it for me, I'm afraid, so there is no chance in hell I am going to sit through more than three hours of that thing. Under water, too.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
This, to me, is easily the best film of the year. It is not perfect but it is also the case of you realising that perfection is wrong, odd, and deceptive.
The Banshees of Inisherin is a quintessentially Irish film, to the point where some of it may appear grotesque. There is that breathtaking scenery, that famous vulgarity residing side by side with timeless art, the dense accent that will force you to say 'feck it!' and resort to subtitles. Still, what a gripping story. Simple, minimalist and, again, quintessentially Irish. A lifelong friendship goes astray after Colm Doherty decides one day that he no longer wants speak to Pádraic Súilleabháin. Colm is a musician, he plays the fiddle, and he wants to aspire to a lot more than dull small talk over a pint of beer.
This leads to a classic tragicomedy that could easily be imagined as a lost play by Samuel Beckett. There are painful moments of ball-breaking misery and then there are equally painful moments of awkward hilarity. Mostly, though, there are moments of magic, because the story hits you hard and the acting is ridiculously good (four actors from the film are nominated for the Academy Award). It is also remarkable that the 'events' are happening in the early 20s of the previous century, against the backdrop of the Irish Civil War, which obviously pushes the story into the complicated and highly dysfunctional realm of religion that is, inevitably, home to the best art coming from Ireland.
On a personal note. I was once on a day trip from Dublin to the Irish coast, to places similar to the ones portrayed in The Banshees of Inisherin. At some point, I got to the very edge of a cliff overlooking the Irish Sea, and precisely at that very moment a strong gust of wind hit me from all sides and almost blew me away into the abyss. I remember that a Polish tourist we were walking with threw himself down on the sharp stones while I was in some sort of stupor, very slow to react. The force of the wind moved me several inches closer to the edge. To this day, I find this to be the closest brush with death I have ever experienced. And to this day I thank those banshees standing over the stony cliffs of Ireland. They spell trouble - but they spared me that day.
The Fabelmans (2022)
The Fabelmans is the sort of film I would recommend to anyone - because even if you hate the sentimentality (well, yes), if you cannot stand Seth Rogen (I sympathise - but he is harmless here) and find the whole thing overlong (again, I understand - the film goes on for two and a half hours), there are two cameos that will knock your socks off. One will appear in the middle of the film and the other at the very end. Those scenes are priceless, whatever you may think about the rest of the film.
And as a matter of fact, I happen to like the rest of The Fabelmans. It is Spielberg's most autobiographical film and it starts with Sammy going to the cinema and being fascinated by the famous train-wrecking scene from The Greatest Show On Earth. He then comes home and tries to recreate the scene on the model set he got for Hanukkah. He does that again and again, right until the moment his mother says he can just use a camera and capture those seconds for all eternity. Thus, the fascination with cinema begins.
It is a beautiful story, beautifully told. There are problems in the family, school-bullying and antisemitism, first love and betrayal, and Spielberg as well as the screenwriter Tony Kushner do a great job of showing how each small step becomes a life lesson (art lesson, too). I did not like all of it (Jesus those 'Russian' scenes were cringe-worthy - and the audience in Warsaw went deadly quiet), but I left the cinema strangely elated. It is a film about art, a critic's wet dream, but it is infused with so much love and great writing that I ended up completely disarmed.
Tár (2022)
Tár is a classic example of a work of art that is easy to admire but difficult to love. At times, the film feels like an intellectual game where you are given pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle that you have to place at the right spot. Which is totally fine - in fact, I do not mind confusing films. It is confused films that I am not especially fond of.
Cate Blanchett is, of course, mesmerising. She plays a world-famous conductor who has it all, fame and love and adoration and envy and everything in between. What she also has, however, is strong opinions and a penchant for favouritism. The former is manifested in an extended early scene where she confronts a young student who believes in social media and the moral right to cancel Bach, and the latter becomes the reason for her painful downfall when an aspiring young woman from Tár's past commits suicide. If that sounds complicated, it should. The film has a lot of themes: art versus life, cancel culture, bullying, power struggles... The problem is, I do not quite believe the film does anything particularly interesting with them. They just hang there at the end, loosely, and while no such thing as closure exists, the film does not really reach any artistically satisfying resolution.
Tár is verbose and pretentious (down to the vowel in the main character's name), but despite its many flaws - I still found it thrilling all the way through. Much of it is the sheer immensity of Blanchett's screen presence (the way she conducts is something else) and the intriguing plot. The latter may confuse you in places, and frustrate you at times, but the whirring sound in your brain will not stop for a second.
