A Rich Film Decade 2011 to 2020 – for example ‘Certain Women’
Inspired by Seventh Row, the ‘Canadian not-for-profit publication founded in 2013 and dedicated to in-depth film’, I’ve started to work at my own Top 50 Films of 2011-2020. Seventh Row emphatically makes the point that they only cover films they care about.
Like them I am interested in under-the-radar films, in new filmmakers emerging from around the world often through film festivals and in the ability of good film to engage you in depth through storytelling. So, I am working on my purely personal Top 50 of the decade list. Just as a pre-taste of the kind of films that will show up on this list, I like to remind you of an earlier recommendation I wrote for the 2016 film Certain Women by the American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt.
In December 2018 I wrote about this film:
”The last thing you can say about Certain Women is that it overstimulates! On the contrary, it has an unusually slow pace, giving us lots of time to pay attention to facial expressions, to body postures and to silences between people. The camera takes long sweeps over the wintery Montana landscape, taking in the white-peaked mountains and the desolation of the place. Kelly Reichardt has the eye of a painter.”.
Certain Women is a triptych; it tells three stories of women who are trying to acquire something, but are faced with a reality that is less grand than they might have hoped for. True fulfilment is just beyond reach. In everyday life they are caught within the personal limitations that govern their grey realities. None of the stories leads to a conclusion. They leave us with observations about the realities of life, with thoughts about what might have happened if …, with questions about choices made in life. They describe another modern American experience of missed connections and profound desires that rarely are fulfilled.
This film may not be for everyone, but for me this is as close to what I hope for in a film. As one reviewer expressed so well:
”A gentle storytelling about ordinary people longing for connection and meaning as they face the challenges of another day.”
Done in such a way that I need to mobilize all my senses to float along with the ebb and flow of the story and to distill the nourishing elements out of the personal experiences.
Certain Women might very well be the number one film illustrating the value of Space from the Nexus Central Themes. It is a film about how personal space is invaded and lost, about how imposing yourself on the other causes the loss of safe space.
Rinus, Jan 2021
*Image posted for non commercial purposes
under ‘fair use’ of copyright material in recommendation of the film
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