Ok, the Italian success of Parthenope and The Boy with the Pink Pants, but the most significant films of this year must be looked for beyond audiences and box office receipts. Starting with Costabile's Familia, a noir withdrawn from distribution. This is followed by the ultra-current dystopia of Civil War, Wenders' Perfect Days, the 'sculptural' Tale of Two Seasons and the frontier of Horizon – An American Saga.
The box office success of quality films of the year 2023, such as for example, has not been repeated Oppenheimer o There's still tomorrow. The big grosses still concern those films to just have fun, animation o super heroes.
The three golden rules for a successful film
Il Italian cinema greets the case of The boy with the pink pantssettled at around 10 million euros, which deserves attention, but I doubt it makes law. A studied promotional campaign, calibrated and widespread, projected ParthenopeOf Sorrentinoaround 9 million euros and, what is more important, it would also have brought a young audience closer to both a commercial and quality film. Poor creaturesOf Yorgos Lanthimosanother quality commercial film, achieved exactly the same amount of revenue, suggesting that there is a segment of the public, of all ages, capable of responding to a specific offer. Which? First: the signature of an author who is capable of communicating with them rules of the show. Second: a leading theme that concerns theactualityfor example the sphere of the feminine. Third: one visual style based on one original and bizarre iconographic dimensionbut also immediately recognisable, with a moderately exotic impact, as well as non-unexpected and everyday science fiction. If this is the case, real news is not emerging on the horizon. From the point of view of language we waver along a reasoned and conscious level fellinismwhile for the contents and themes, as we said, the strict relevance prevails which involves and monitors everything. An example is the case of Anoraof the talented American Sean BakerPalme d'Or in Cannes: a film as they were already made in the 60s and 70s, that is, a youthful and para-gangsteristic raid through the streets of the city, camera on the shoulder, with rebellious and at the same time defeated characters, but covered in contemporary glamor : that is, the world of escorts and Russian oligarchs, combined with the good heart of a crazy lovethe true main theme of the film, which redeems and reassures everything.
The five best films of 2024
Family by Francesco Costabile, a noir canceled from distribution
At this point, i five best films of 2024 they must also be looked for beyond audiences and takings. Nice problem. If I mentioned, for example, Family Of Francesco Costabilefocused onautobiography of Luigi Celeste who killed his father to defend his mother from repeated violence? Who saw it? Fortunately, a genre film, that is, a noir, in which sensitive themes are intertwined: the suburban metropolitan neighborhoods in the hands of Fascist-Nazi groups, whose ethos is described to the millimeter, and the ability of the State to monitor and protect those who suffer , active capabilities but perhaps, without perhaps, still insufficient. Film canceled from distribution, Medusa, immediately after its release, despite the young protagonist, Francesco Gheghihad won the prize for best actor in the promising section in Venice.
Family he was accused of having described with excessive benevolence the figure of the violent father. The director, when asked by me, responded like this: «I had no intention of doing it again Shiningbut to make all the elements available to the viewer for an independent and complete judgement.” Did he do it? For me who managed to see it, yes. Political filmaccording to the tradition of the best Italian cinema, because films about characters who do the action, not vice versa, and the action synthesized to expose the contradictions of which the characters themselves are the bearers. Father, mother, children, girlfriend, friends (neo-fascists), law enforcement, everyone believes they are right but the right never comes out: on the contrary, they get trapped in the labyrinth of institutional, social and personal contradictions that strangle all happiness. It's up to the viewer to try a way out, if possible.
Civil war by Alex Garland, a very real dystopia
From Italy to America. The most important film of the year, for me, was Civil War Of Alex Garlandin which a second civil war is imagined suddenly breaking out in the United States. Civil War it does not concern the usual and overused theme of dystopiabut the current American reality. He also states it Donald Trumpafter being injured during the election campaign, shaking his fist and shouting: “Fight!”. Fighting, in fact, is the answer to all problems, social, political and economic. If you fight, you don't ask yourself what was or will be, because you have other things to do, you only look at the enemy. You don't think. America abandons the battlefields scattered around the world to concentrate them all at home. And it stops reflecting and planning every hypothesis of democracy. Civil War, Gone with the wind on the contrary, where the rebels finally win and conquer not Atlanta, but Washington, where, the greatest irony, the film was entirely shot in Atlanta with the White House rebuilt in a parking lot. Fight!, anyway, and so be it. Even the most commercial Gladiator II Of Ridley Scott cultivates the obsession of civil war, in one Fantasy Rome which is evidently America, where the hero only manages to avoid the fratricidal clash at the last moment.
Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, the fight against time
Europe and Asia. Perfect days Of Wim Wenderswhich nevertheless earned something: films about the feeling of time passing and the things that remain. What will happen tomorrow? What really happened yesterday? And what is happening now? Living in Tokyo, in the impermanent ritual of cleaning public toilets, dinner at the diner, cassette tapes and books. Stopping time to observe better, as cinema sometimes manages to do when it is great. Both the protagonists of Civil War be that of Perfect Daysin fact, they are photographythe first professionals and the other amateur, but with the same desire: to prevent things from escaping and seize the momentto feel strongly the moment that is there but cannot be seen, in which perhaps the secret of life is hidden. Like when the protagonist invites you to block your shadow with your foot, a splendid metaphor for the full feeling of life, to stop what you would never want to lose or misplace, while time instead passes by quickly and far away.
Tale of two seasons by Nuri Blige Ceylan, the most beautiful sculpture film of the year
Do you understand the direction taken in this personal ranking? The cinema as first and last antidoto ai mass mediacollages of film-sculptures, audiovisual statues, against the furious, slippery, insinuating news-events of TV and the Internet. In the year 2024, in this direction, the most beautiful of all was Tale of two seasonsby the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once upon a time in Anatolia, The Kingdom of Winter – Winter Sleep). Three and a quarter hours long, for a clear and simple story. Maybe too much, but never enough. Same rhythms as 2001: A Space Odysseythe rituality, clear and mysterious but very simple, of the things that happen in space. In the galactic cold, as in the Anatolian winter, equally vast and frozen. The snowy landscapes seem truly sculpted in the frame, together with the figures of the living beings, humans and animals, that pass through them. What happens in space and develops in time is the subject of cinema. In the film, we witness a 20-minute dialogue between two characters at the table, on the themes of social justice and political rebellion, and the spectator has the impression of finding himself a comfortable third, sitting discussing, replying, sculpted in the light and in the words together with the actors. At a certain point I tried to anticipate the replies, but never succeeded. Three hours and a quarter, another Gone with the windbut under the snow, in which it is the earth, not the Planet but the trampled surface, the dried grass as the original title of the film states, that relaunches the enigma: where on earth, sculpted in the rock or carved out of the ice, will he find the house to finally live in? In which space will it finally be possible to stop time? Here too the characters are in fact photographers, and when they shoot, the shot freezes, frozen and sculpted, in the instant where everything seems really clear, sharp and limpid. Film sculpturefor a spectator called to work with the chisel together with the director.
Horizon – An American Sagathe frontier film that advances without ever ending
In the pseudo globalized world, launched at supersonic speed, cinema relaunches the questions of lost home to live in and of tempo what it takes to make it hospitable. Also for this reason, every now and then the generic westernwhere the experiment of transforming the wild frontier into a habitable dwelling is told. This is the theme of Horizon – An American Sagawestern directed and starring Kevin Costnerof which the magnificent chapter 1 was released in Italy in 2024. We don't even know if it will be possible to complete the saga, which is the contradictory foundation of the American nation, because chapter 2 is on the way, but the following ones are not, as there are not yet sufficient production supports. You know what? It's better that way! A film that talks about the border must be, literally, a frontier film that progresses but never ends. Seeing it while knowing that the story doesn't end, isn't it perhaps a liberation from the nightmare of being condemned to narrate everything that can be told on TV and the Internet?
Here, in summary, is the ranking of the five best films of 2024, and their respective motivations: one Italian, two Americans, one Japanese with a German director, one Turkish.
Best film to see, because it was poorly distributed: Familyby Francesco Costabile.
Best film not to be underestimated, because it has already happened: Civil Warby Axel Garland.
Best movie to hear, because it happens while you see it: Perfect Daysthe Wim Wenders.
Best film to experience civilly, because it is a sculptural shelter from the long winter of a false globalization: Tale of two seasonsby Nuri Bilge Ceylon.
Best film to be enjoyed, because it is unspeakable: Horizon – An American Sagaon Kevin Costner.
Can more be done? To the films of 2025, the arduous sentence.
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