Lune

Best Movies of 2021 – So Far

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Photo caption: RIDERS OF JUSTICE, a Magnet release. © Kasper Tuxen. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

Every year, I keep a running list of the best movies I’ve seen this year.  By the end of the year, I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here are my Best Movies of 2020 and Best Movies of 2019 lists.

To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.

THE BEST OF THE YEAR

Here’s the running list as of mid-July:

  • Riders of Justice: A character-driven comedy thriller, embedded with deeper stuff. Marvelous. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
  • Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised): Questlove’s magnificent revelation of the long-overlooked 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival – glorious musical performances at an important moment in our history and culture. In theaters and streaming on Hulu.
  • Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain: An unusually profound, revealing and unsentimental biodoc of a complicated man – a shy bad ass, an outwardly cynical romantic, a brooding humorist. A triumph for director Morgan Neville, Oscar-winner for 20 Feet from Stardom.
  • About Endlessness: The master of the droll, deadpan and absurd probes the meaning of life. One of the best movies of the year, but NOT FOR EVERYONE. Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Slow Machine: An incomprehensible art film that is surprisingly engrossing.
  • Special mention: Lune: This Canadian indie, the Must See at this year’s Cinequest, is an astonishingly authentic exploration of bipolar disorder. A mother and teen daughter must navigate the impacts of the mom’s illness. Played by writer and co-director Aviva Armour-Ostroff, the mom Miriam is the most singular movie character I’ve seen recently. Miriam’s streams of manic speech have the rhythm of poetry. On the festival circuit and not yet available to stream.

Note that you see Summer of Soul and Roadrunner in theaters this week, and you can stream Summer of Soul and Riders of Justice at home.

There’s still plenty of room for more excellent 2021 movies. I’m especially eager to see the new works from directors Sean Baker, Asgar Farhadi, Joachim Trier, Hong Sang-soo, Todd Haynes, Joanna Hogg, Pedro Almodovar, Jacques Audiard, Emmanuelle Bercot, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Arnaud Deplechin, Leos Carax, Francois Ozon, Paul Verhoeven, Ruben Ostlund and Valdimar Johannson. Stay tuned.

Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson in SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)

talking with LUNE director Aviva Armour-Ostroff

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Aviva Armour-Ostroff

My choice as the Must See in this year’s Cinequest was the Canadian indie Lune, an astonishingly authentic exploration of bipolar disorder. In the film, Miriam and her teen daughter Eliza must navigate the impacts of the mom’s illness. I spoke wih writer and co-director Aviva Armour-Ostroff, who also starred as Miriam.

I asked Armour-Ostroff what drew her to the topic of bipolar disorder? She replied “My dad is Miriam. The character of Eliza is based on me.” Wow. There you have it – the key to the authenticity of Lune. “I was so clearly loved by my dad, and we were so close.“

Armour-Ostroff’s parents split when she was a baby, and her dad was her primary care giver during some years in her childhood and youth. He could go an entire year without a bipolar episode. But when she was a teenager, he suffered one or two episodes per year, each lasting two or three months.

“I think there are so many people who, when they are depressed, can’t get off the rug, and, when manic, can’t harness the energy to achieve anything.“

Miriam is the most singular movie character I’ve seen in a while. Her streams of manic speech have the rhythm of poetry like rap or beat poetry. Armour-Ostroff says that her dad was highly intelligent and talked rapidly, like that. “with the tangents and then the change of topics, a lot of wordplay.” She credited her dad, Brian Ostroff, as a co-writer of Lune.

You can see Brian Ostroff himself in a three-minute forty-second documentary, Dr. Bro’s Traveling Medicine Show, that is embedded on Cinequest’s Lune page. Armour-Ostroff describes his state in the clip as “6 on a manic scale.” He had nicknamed himself Dr. Bro.

Armour-Ostroff has made Miriam funny, but not only a subject of comedy, and neither harmless nor a dangerous monster. “He (her father) never had the right concoctions (of medication). My hope is that people can see both the humor and the danger, without stereotypes.“

Despite the rockiness of her upbringing, the character of Eliza seems very well adjusted. Armour-Ostroff notes that the phenomenon of child-as-caregiver is common in such situations. But there was an impact – “In my 20s, I developed anxiety because I needed so much control.”

Miriam’s back story is as a fervent anti-apartheid advocate but, during a psychotic episode, she hurls a South African racial slur at Eliza’s Black boyfriend. Armour-Ostroff said that this is intended to depict Miriam’s underlying racial attitude. “It’s the product of her background, not her insanity, I think we need to dive deep and explore our own racism.“

Armour-Ostroff’s half brother is a Dutch musician who only met their father five or six times; he contributed the music played during Lune’s end credits.

Lune‘s next stop on the festival tour is RapidLion – the South African International Film Festival. Armour-Ostroff has returned to her Toronto theater company and is continuing to work on projects with her partner (and Lune co-director) Arturo Pérez Torres.

LUNE: funny, searing, and richly authentic

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Aviva Armour-Ostroff (left) in LUNE, world premiere at Cinequest. Photo credit: Samantha Falco.

The Must See in this year’s Cinequest is the Canadian indie Lune, an astonishingly authentic exploration of bipolar disorder. Miriam and her teen daughter Eliza must navigate the impacts of the mom’s illness. Played by writer and co-director Aviva Armour-Ostroff, Miriam is the most singular movie character I’ve seen recently.

Miriam is her disease but not just her disease. Smart and funny, and devoted to her daughter without smothering her, she would be the Cool Mom if she weren’t always on be edge of mortifying everyone.

But then there is the bipolar disorder. Miriam’s streams of manic speech have the rhythm of poetry. When she becomes totally absorbed in a manic episode, she tries to enlist everyone she knows in wildly impractical schemes, like a spur-of-the-moment trip back to her native South Africa to vote for Nelson Mandela. And it can get inappropriate, as when she invites Eliza’s high school boyfriend to tag along to Africa.

Aviva Armour-Ostroff and Vlad Alexis in LUNE, world premiere at Cinequest. Photo credit: Samantha Falco.

Having survived previous episodes, Eliza is forced to parent her own mom, always beseeching her to take her meds. The illness has led to their being evicted countless times, and Eliza bears the emotional scars. Miriam often makes Eliza cringe, but Eliza knows that it can get even worse. Eliza’s boyfriend, with no reason to expect otherwise, vastly underestimates the consequences of Miriam’s illness.

Armour-Ostroff has made Miriam funny, but not only a subject of comedy, and neither harmless nor a dangerous monster.

Now, this authenticity is not easy to achieve. Having had family members with mental illness, I particularly despise the exploitation of mental illness for entertainment. I am painfully knowledgeable about multiple personality disorder, and I can tell you that it may be unpredictable, but it sure isn’t amusingly entertaining like in The United States of Tara. (The Three Faces of Eve, on the other hand, is acceptable to me.)

Chloe Van Landschoot in LUNE, world premiere at Cinequest. Photo credit: Samantha Falco.

I asked Armour-Ostroff what drew her to the topic of bipolar disorder? She replied “My dad is Miriam. The character of Eliza is based on me.” Wow. There you have it – the key to the authenticity of Lune.

Armour-Ostroff’s performance is riveting. The rest of the cast is excellent, including Chloe Van Landschoot as Eliza and Vlad Alexis as Eliza’s boyfriend.

Lune, which she co-directed with her partner. Arturo Pérez Torres, is the first feature as a director for Armour-Ostroff. The two co-produced 2017’s The Drawer Boy, which Pérez Torres directed. The Drawer Boy can be streamed on Amazon.

I screened Lune for its world premiere at Cinequest, and it made my Best of Cinequest 2021 as the Must See of the festival. Lune‘s next stop on the festival tour is RapidLion – the South African International Film Festival. There’s one more night to stream Lune at Cinequest for only $3.99.

The best of CINEQUEST 2021

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Aviva Armour-Ostroff (left) in LUNE, world premiere at Cinequest. Photo credit: Samantha Falco.

I’ve already seen over a dozen offerings from Cinequest 2021, and here are my initial recommendations. As usual, I focus on the world and US premieres. Full reviews are on the way.

MUST SEE

  • Lune: The Must See in this year’s Cinequest is this astonishingly authentic exploration of bipolar disorder. A mother and teen daughter must navigate the impacts of the mom’s illness. Played by writer and co-director Aviva Armour-Ostroff, the mom Miriam is the most singular movie character I’ve seen recently. Miriam’s streams of manic speech have the rhythm of poetry. Don’t miss this Canadian indie. World premiere.

THRILLERS

Michaella Russell in ECHOES OF VIOLENCE. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.
  • Echoes of Violence: In this well-crafted revenge thriller, a woman enlists an Everyman to help her escape a deadly hit man. Loyalties change and lethal new skills (and a novelty weapon) are revealed as her position pivots from defense to offense. World premiere.
  • Carver: In the wee hours, a guy strides through his gritty urban neighborhood dressed in a ridiculous, homemade superhero costume. He has no super powers except his drive to make things right, vigilante-style. A sexy, stoned woman of uncertain reliability engages his interest. Will she bring him down? World premiere.

DOCUMENTARY

THE BOYS IN RED HATS. Photo courtesy of Shark Dog Films.
  • The Boys in the Red Hats: Remember the Rorschach frenzy when the Kentucky prep school boy at the Lincoln Memorial smirked at the indigenous tribal elder? Documentarian Jonathan Schroder is an alum of that very prep school; his point of view shifts as he peels back the onion on what really happened. It comes down to insights into media, social media and, especially, White privilege. World premiere.
  • Atomic Cover-up: Japanese and American film crews documented the destruction from the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These films were suppressed by the Japanese, and then the US military. The films have now escaped the censors and are seen in Atomic Cover-up with the testimonies of the original Japanese and American cameramen. As told matter-of-factly by the men who captured these images, it’s a great story. World premiere.
  • I’m an Electric Lampshade: We meet the most improbable rock star – a mild-mannered accountant who retires to pursue his dream of performing. The final score: Doug 1, Expectations 0. World premiere.

INDIES

  • End of Everything: Here’s a powerful thinkpiece – the “End” in the title means, literally, the end of the world. Set in a future where climate change has made the human extinction imminent, the story imagines how people would react as the very end nears. More profound than grim, End of Everything takes the sensationalism out of the apocalypse and leaves the humanity. Set in the stark beauty of Iceland, this is a visual stunner.

WORLD CINEMA

IN THE SHADOWS from Turkey: North American premiere at Cinequest. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.
  • In the Shadows: The charismatic actor Numan Acar (Homeland) leads us through this gripping dystopian fable. If you admired the 1984 Super Bowl Commercial Introducing Apple’s Macintosh, you’ll like this Turkish film. North American premiere.

COMEDY

Justin Kirk and Jennifer Prediger in HOLLYWOOD FRINGE. Photo courtesy of Sleeper Cell Films.
  • Hollywood Fringe: Filmmakers Megan Huber and Wyatt McDill return to Cinequest with a change of pace from last year’s inventively constructed thriller 3 Day Weekend. Hollywood Fringe is about a married couple of hopeful creatives. They have been pitching their projects to Hollywood execs in futility; (she’s turned forty and her mom still helps with their rent). Popular interest in their experimental theater performances has been (ahem) limited. They give themselves one last chance to make it – but when a studio buys their idea for a series, things don’t go as planned…

AND FOUR I HAVEN’T SEEN YET

  • Death of a Ladies’ Man: With a brain tumor starting to cause hallucinations, a professor (Gabriel Byrne) relocates to an Irish village. With Jessica Pare (Mad Man) and Brian Gleeson. US premiere.
  • Six Minutes to Midnight: WWII espionage suspenser with Dame Judy Dench and Eddie Izzard trying to frustrate a Nazi plot.
  • Drunk Bus: Young slacker is stuck driving the shuttle between college town bars and the dorms until he is mentored by a 300-pound Samoan security guy with facial tattoos. This was a hit at the 2020 SXSW.
  • Summertime: Directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada (Blindspotting), this comedy revolves around 25 characters intersecting on one hot Los Angeles day – and making poetry.

Stream these films for as little as $3.99 each at Cinequest’s online Cinejoy.

As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) about thirty Cinequest films from around the world. Bookmark my CINEQUEST page, with links to all my coverage. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

CARVER: world premiere at Cinequest, Photo courtesy of Select Films.