Best of 2015: Cinema

With each passing year, my annual lists (which seem to mark the only time I have in a given year for writing “for fun” about film) become increasingly, unintentionally esoteric, purposefully defiant of any form of order, woefully incomplete, and predictably homoerotic. As each year comes to an end, I lament the films upon films I haven’t seen and frantically try to fit as many of those into my December schedule as possible. This year, I realized that my list was going to comprise of a bunch of films most people hadn’t heard of, no matter how many Oscar screeners I try to hustle through, and I accepted that. When I was in my early 20s, I would have marveled at a list of films only the most elite of cinephiles had even heard of, but these days, I just feel like an asshole.

These 10 films impressed me more than all the others. I’m slightly embarrassed that there isn’t a single film by a female filmmaker on the list, but I suppose I’d be more ashamed if I included one just for the sake of inclusion. Feel free to share your thoughts or possible suggestions (my to-see list is already epic). I’ve included distribution information for all of the films I could find it for (in the U.S., U.K., and France). And without further adieu, my 10 favorite films of 2015, listed alphabetically:

• All Yours (Je suis à toi). David Lambert. Belgium/Canada.
• Carol. Todd Haynes. USA/UK.
• The Club (El club). Pablo Larraín. Chile.
• Everlasting Love (Amor eterno). Marçal Forés. Spain.
• Full Contact. David Verbeek. Netherlands/Croatia.
• The Here After (Efterskalv). Magnus von Horn. Sweden/Poland/France.
• Neon Bull (Boi Neon). Gabriel Mascaro. Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands.
• Nova Dubai (New Dubai). Gustavo Vinagre. Brazil.
• Tales of the Grim Sleeper. Nick Broomfield. UK/USA.
• Te prometo anarquía (I Promise You Anarchy). Julio Hernández Cordón. Mexico/Germany.

I also wrote about 10 additional films that left an impression on me, as well as the two films I hated the most in 2015: Jurassic World and The Overnight. Look for my 2015 television and music wrap-ups later this week.

Oh, and the most overrated film of 2015? Mad Max: Fury Road, which might have made my honorable mentions list had the world not praised it to high heaven and set my viewing up for disappointment. Alas.

Best of 2015: Neon Bull (Gabriel Mascaro)

Neon Bull (Boi Neon). Gabriel Mascaro. Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands.

What’s most impressive about Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull isn’t its lush cinematography by Diego García (who also shot Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendor this year) that gorgeously captures the sweeping landscape of the northeast region of Brazil as effortlessly as the tight, confined spaces where the characters (and the bulls) spend their more intimate moments. It’s not the truly remarkable performance by Alyne Santana, making her screen debut as precocious girl named Cacá who travels with her go-go dancer mother in a troupe of traveling vaqueiros (essentially Brazilian cowboys), at the heart of the film (and know that I don’t often find a lot of praise to give for performances by children).

It isn’t the epic, hypnotic sex scene that occurs late in the film and actually manages to break new ground (as difficult as that may be) in the canon of cinematic sexuality… nor is it the languid pace Mascaro uses to tell his story… nor the refreshing sensitivity that he employs to approach his characters, flaws and all. What makes Neon Bull so impressive is the fact that there’s almost no frame of reference for everything we see transpire onscreen. Unlike, say, Quentin Tarantino (for lack of a subtler example), Neon Bull is not the culmination of all the films, all the music, all the stories Mascaro has seen, heard, or read. It almost feels defiant against the notion of allusion, but rejecting the viewer’s expectations just for the sake of doing so can be a really cheap move… and that’s not what Mascaro doing here.

Nothing that happens in Neon Bull follows an expected course of action or fits into a familiar mold. This extends from the characters’ interactions with one another to the role of the titular “neon bull” to the images that inhabit the screen—whether those images function on a purely visual level like a long shot of Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) on an empty dirt field littered with rainbow-colored streamers and broken mannequins (pictured above) or whether they service the story itself like a sequence involving two men masturbating a bull.

Despite some of these lascivious details I’ve mentioned, Neon Bull’s strengths are so quiet and unassuming that it might seem easy for a passive audience member to miss them altogether. Kino Lorber will release Neon Bull in the U.S. later this year. No word on either a French or U.K. release at this time.

With: Juliano Cazarré, Alyne Santana, Maeve Jinkings, Carlos Pessoa, Vinícius de Oliveira, Josinaldo Alves, Samya de Lavor, Abigail Pereira, Roberto Berindelli, Marcelo Caetano