Senses of Cinema World Poll 2021: my favourites

Rahul Jain: Invisible Demons (FI 2021), a visionary, apocalyptic documentary essay shot in Hindi in India.

Senses of Cinema has again published its megalomaniac World Poll, and I had the honour to participate. The first list covers new releases and the second one older films rediscovered. It was the strangest year in film history. Never have I enjoyed more returning to the cinema, a symbol of which was the global, much postponed release of Daniel Craig's last James Bond film No Time To Die.

I
Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019).
Hemingway 1–3 (Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, 2021). Screener.
Druk (Another Round, Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)
Dinosaurus (The Dinosaur, Veikko Aaltonen, 2021). Tampere Film Festival online.
Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020)
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung, 2020)
Ammonite (Francis Lee, 2020)
Fucking with Nobody (Hannaleena Hauru, 2020)
The Father (Florian Zeller, 2020)
Ikuiseen rauhaan (Ville Suhonen, 2021). A sober documentary portrait of the Finnish conscientious objector Arndt Pekurinen (1905–1941) who was executed on the Eastern front in WWII. The title is Finnish for Immanuel Kant’s study Zum ewigen Frieden (Perpetual Peace).
Gosudarstvennye pokhorony (State Funeral, Sergei Loznitsa, 2019). Midnight Sun Film festival online.
Dorogie tovarischi (Dear Comrades!, Andrei Konchalovsky, 2020). Midnight Sun Film festival online.
Sokea mies joka ei halunnut nähdä Titanicia (The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic, Teemu Nikki, 2021)
Guled & Nasra (Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, 2021)
The Card Counter (Paul Schrader, 2021)
Invisible Demons (Rahul Jain, 2021)
Spencer (Pablo Larraín, 2021)
Annette (Leos Carax, 2021)
The Truffle Hunters (Michael Dweck & Gregory Kershaw, 2020)

II
The Rain People (Francis Ford Coppola, 1969). Screener. A subtle and refined 2019 American Zoetrope restoration of a lasting achievement of the American New Wave.
Moonlight on the Highway (James MacTaggart, 1969, SC: Dennis Potter). YouTube. In memoriam Sir Ian Holm, a Dennis Potter revelation, predecessor of Pennies from Heaven.
Fehérlofia (Son of the White Mare, Marcell Jankovics, 1981). In memoriam Marcell Jankovics, a 2019 restoration of a Hungarian psychedelic animation drawing on ancient myths of Scythians, Huns and Avars. Midnight Sun Film Festival online.
Araya (Margot Benacerraf, 1959). A poetic documentary epic about people working at the salt dunes of Venezuela. A brilliant Milestone Film & Video restoration seen at Il Cinema Ritrovato.
George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey (George Stevens, Jr., 1984). Seen at Il Cinema Ritrovato, one of the most deeply moving portraits of a film director, the Dachau scene its burning center.
Lumumba, la mort du prophète (Lumumba, Death of a Prophet, Raoul Peck, 1991). Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, seen at Il Cinema Ritrovato. Raoul Peck’s breakthrough film radiates intelligence, complexity and energy.
Sambizanga (Sarah Maldoror, 1972). Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, seen at Il Cinema Ritrovato. A luminous and refined achievement of militant cinema.
Les Oliviers de la justice (James Blue, 1961). Restoration of a multi-dimensional drama of French life during the Algerian war. Il Cinema Ritrovato.
Alias Nick Beal (John Farrow, 1949). American politics as a Faustian pact with Ray Milland’s Nick Beal as Mephisto. Essential film noir. Il Cinema Ritrovato.
Kummatty (The Boogeyman, Govindan Aravindan, 1979). Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, seen at Il Cinema Ritrovato. A haunting, poetic discovery of Malayalam cinema.
Il mulino del Po (The Mill on the Po, Alberto Lattuada, 1949). Restored by Cineteca di Bologna, seen at Il Cinema Ritrovato. A neorealist historical epic worthy of La terra trema.
Geomsa-wa yeoseonsaeng (A Public Prosecutor and a Teacher, Yun Dae-ryong, 1948). Digital reconstruction by Korean Film Archive of a late sonorized silent film. An anachronistic production and reconstruction, yet indispensable because of the byeonsa (voice narrator) Sin Chul, a representative of ancient oral traditions. Le Giornate del Cinema Muto.

III
I’m fed up with distant work, online meetings and virtual festivals. I was never happier than visiting the live edition of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, although in Pordenone I was mostly distant working at my hotel room. There has never been such turbulence in the film world, and it was so exhausting that in 2021 I missed most films I wanted to see and had little energy to write.

Antti Alanen, film programmer (KAVI / National Audiovisual Institute, Helsinki)