Favorite Films of 2023, Part 2
From enjoyable gems to the most-loved, my best picks of the year.
Continuing on from my Honorable Mentions in Part 1, here are —-once again, at this moment in time — my Top Favorite Films of 2023.
THE HIDING PLACE — Directed by Laura Matula, Stage Adaptation written by A.S. Peterson
This was a global cinema event I caught on the big-screen, and it was a powerful and moving experience. Produced in part by The Rabbit Room, it’s a stage play adapted to film, but not in a manner that simply uses a static camera master-shot and some choice close-ups. The camera weaves and interacts with the set changes, lighting, and staging of the actors in a wondrous way, bringing a creative flourish to the act of adapting stage-to-screen. I was stunned into silence by the beautiful work done by everyone in this production, and its brave & challenging look at history, forgiveness and faith. (I’ve been Facebook-friends with the playwright A.S. “Pete” Peterson for years and we finally met in-person at Hutchmoot.)
Here’s where you can now find the film for home viewing (hopefully on your largest screen for the full effect): lambandflagstudios.com
ENYS MEN — Directed by Mark Jenkin
Okay folks, we’re shifting from faith-filled drama to folk-horror surrealism. This film is weird and I recommend it with a grain of salt if your weirdness-threshold isn’t that high. Pronounced “En-eez Main”, it’s not so much a story as a mood — not so much a film as a dream — and not so much a linear narrative as a trip backwards or forwards in time. Or something. Lots of creepy faces, haunting & messed-up images, what am I watching?!? moments and one of the scariest films I’ve ever seen —but I find it fascinating. It’s Cornish folk horror at its slowest and strangest. Never has lichen been so frightening!
NIMONA — Directed by Troy Quane, Nick Bruno
The story of how this film almost never happened is really interesting, and while I don’t hold much weight to the validity of the Oscars these days, I am very pleased to see it be recognized with a Best Animated Feature nomination. There’s plenty to marvel at in terms of its unique production design, in particular the gorgeously animated & heartbreaking flashback scene of Nimona’s childhood. Being unfamiliar with the source material I can’t speak for how faithful it is as a graphic novel adaptation, but there’s a great deal of powerful stuff going on here. In particular, its themes of queer and gender-fluid representation and the emotions these characters feel are important, and need a good listening to. For these reasons and many more, it’s one of the best films of the year, a triumphant game-changer for animation, and a helluva fun ride.
SOCIETY OF THE SNOW — Directed by J. A. Bayona
Unimaginable and unreal. Harrowing and haunting. Tragic and transcendent.
Fair warning friends, this is a brutal & challenging experience to watch, and even more so to contemplate that it actually happened. It will haunt your psyche for days — especially if you’re not already familiar with the real-life plane crash and its aftermath (I never saw the 1993 film Alive — but this is based on the same event.) On the flip side, the Christian themes and life-affirming faith & grace behind it all touches a huge nerve, spiritually-speaking. (I would expect no less from the same director as the Christ-haunted wonder that is A Monster Calls.) It’s a grand testament to the human spirit, treats its real-life subjects with respect and restraint, and is altogether emotionally hard to articulate into words.
Of all my top films of the year, this is the only one I might have a hard time watching again — but it riveted me, stirred something in me and moved me, so I sure as hell won’t stop thinking about it.
FREMONT — Directed by Babak Jalali
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built.”
I was fascinated by this movie, which has received many comparisons in vibe & feel to some of Jim Jarmusch’s filmography: slow, quiet, patient and deadpan with a hip yet touching quirkiness. It’s a film that loves people and drew me in to its irresistible characters — it also features the best karaoke scene since Aftersun.
NANDOR FODOR AND THE TALKING MONGOOSE — Directed by Adam Sigal
Virtually nobody I know is talking about this movie nor seen it — and though it riveted me on the first viewing I scratched my head over it for days, wondering if I had just witnessed something profound. Another look convinced me that I had, and now it’s a film I want everyone to see. It’s a weird little dialogue-heavy British film with a great cast including Simon Pegg, Minnie Driver, the legendary Christopher Lloyd, and the voice of Neil Gaiman as a talking mongoose.
Under the surface of the quirky deadpan insanity of the whole thing is a Christ-haunted meditation on grief, life, death, mortality, faith, belief, poetry, beauty, and art, brought to life by an understated & powerful musical score to lift up its dry wit and wisdom. And watch through the end credits for a hilarious epilogue by cast & crew.
BEAU IS AFRAID — Directed by Ari Aster
Okay, so…remember that one time you and your buddies got really stoned and one of you asked, “Hey, what if the director of Hereditary and Midsommar made a 3-hour comedy?” And then you all looked at the ceiling and spent hours talking about travelling theatre troupes in the forest and the most bat-sh*t-crazy things you could possibly imagine, to the point where it just turned into a nightmarish therapy session and you all just started whimpering?
I don’t remember that happening either, but there’s a film of it, and it’s actually amazing. Just don’t watch this with your mother.
I was weirded-out by Hereditary and Midsommar the first time around, but the experience stuck with me enough to give them another try one day soon, as Beau is Afraid has me now leaning towards Ari Aster as a season ticket director-to-watch. I don’t see this film showing up on many Top 10 Lists, and there’s reasons for that. It alienated audiences upon release and is not a crowd-pleaser. But if you have a threshold for 3 hours of uncomfortable insanity, the rewards pay off in spades. A second viewing won me over completely, and is just as hilarious, haunting, and ultimately WTF-ed-up as the first time’s “What the actual —“ reactions, but with deeper layers and insight into its brilliance. The variety of commentaries and analyses on YouTube for this film go into some helpful rabbit holes to unravel the methods behind Aster’s madness. But so far the one scene that nobody seems to want to touch and analyze too much is — that one. Yyeaaah, I don’t even know where to start with that.
BARBIE — Directed by Greta Gerwig
It’s the most talked-about film phenomenon of the year, and rightly so.
I love that a movie this weird and this thoughtful has made a billion dollars and shows so signs of slowing down. There's so much to take in through its rapid-fire jokes and pacing, yet it knows when to slow down enough to take a breath and let you double-take over what you just heard.
There's a line from the late William Friedkin's director's cut of The Exorcist that sticks with me, about the point behind the demonic threats in the film: "The point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as animal and ugly. To reject the possibility that God could love us."
What BARBIE says in counterpoint to this is: "The point is to make us wonder. To see ourselves as made in the image of a Creator. To affirm the possibility that God could love us." Madeleine L'Engle said the whole idea that God could love us, let alone like us, is absurd because we are so weird. And this movie revels in how weird, how confused, how naive and how aimless we are when we simply go along with the mess we've created rather than pause to reflect on the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and meant for so much more than the ridiculous system we find ourselves in. And yet we are loved and cherished in our weirdness.
I will give them a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. - Revelation 2:17
“Yes.”
There's so much more to unpack here, much more than meets the eye, and enough to see this again and marvel at its complex wonders.
HOW DO YOU LIVE? (THE BOY AND THE HERON) — Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Watching this made me think often of Hiroyasu Ishida's enigmatic Penguin Highway -- a gem of a film I still don't understand, but I fully know what it's about. This one, I also didn't quite understand, but I don't need to know what it's about. It's like watching someone else's dream and trusting that it means something deep and personal to someone else, and that's okay too.
In this case it's Miyazaki's dream, a reflection on mortality and death which is full of more heavenly visions than anything else he's conjured. It raises more questions than answers, and I feel like repeat viewings will reveal new insights and deeper thoughts each time. The dream logic of the narrative is otherworldly and the animation is next-level gobsmack -- but THE BEST THING IS THE MUSICAL SCORE. O my word. I can't wait to see this again.
ASTEROID CITY — Directed by Wes Anderson
I wrote an entire post about this film after my first viewing, and still stand by much of what I said after seeing a few more times since. (Although my overall ranking of Anderson’s filmography has been shifted around a bit.)
We wonder about meaning, and whether we will achieve or do something meaningful in our lifetime, and the answer is…
“Yes.”
We are doing it right. The universe will burn an eclipse into our retina and give us an answer. It will inventory us, mark us with a name as on a white stone. We will have grief, we will lose the ones we love, we will pretend to be other people in order to escape our pain, we will take pictures for no other apparent reason than to say we are photographers. And in the eyes of the universe, all of our pictures will come out, a roadrunner will attract the attention of children and dance in our wake.
For much of the year, I felt ASTEROID CITY was and would remain my #1 favorite film of 2023 — until I took a second look at another one that was already in my Top 5. I realized just how much it resonated with me on an even more personal level, so much it wrecked me to the core.
I’m not an Academy member. I’m just Ken.
But for my personal Best Picture, the Oscar goes to….
SHOWING UP — Directed by Kelly Reichardt
“Art is the earth talking. Poetry is the voice of the earth. So it’s all earth work. These are mouths. Listen. You have to listen to what isn’t being said.”
First time watching this, I thought Man, did I see people I know in this movie. As a former art student and employee of an art college, it captures the vibe of art school so well, in such a deadpan and hilarious manner. Michelle Williams is a gem in this, playing off a stellar cast of weirdos.
I kept thinking of Tolkien’s short story Leaf by Niggle. It captured the tension between the drive to create and the “distractions” of relationships and the necessary burden we have to love people — only realizing in the end that the two are intertwined, and realizing “It is a gift.”
I wish I could pinpoint exactly why I feel seen — and moved — by this quiet, patient film where hardly anything happens — yet everything happens. I don’t know why it affects me so deeply. Like Penguin Highway, I can’t explain it but I know what it’s about. And it strikes a nerve that’s almost unbearable.
That’s all folks. I hope you find something here that pulls at our heart and promises that you’re doing it right. Please tell me if you do, so we can talk about it.
What were your favorite films of the year? What do I still need to see?
I didn’t see very many new movies in 2023, but I did enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and the Super Mario Brothers movie. This post is making me realize how much I miss being about to rent DVDs!