She was the heart in your heartbreak / She was the miss in your mistake / And no matter what you take / You're never going to forget
Let's finsh it. After a buch of films in PART 1, these five were even better - although I've once again got to mention that nearly all of them are great - so the distinctions are reeeeealy small. Enjoy!
5: Blade Runner 2049, dir.: Denis Villeneuve 2017 - DVD / Bluray
A technical marvel to behold. You could pause this movie at any few seconds and you could frame this scene, put it on your wall and you would have an incredible piece of art. This ranking seems to be really low and I am sure I will watch this one for the following years to come and appreciate it even more. For the moment, one of the greatest sci-fi movies of the last few years, creating a unique, harrowing atmosphere in a nightmarish, neon environment. A young blade runner named 'K' (Ryan Gosling) unveils a massive conspiracy relating to the missing Deckard (Harrison Ford).
4: Wind River, dir.: Tyler Sheridan 2017 - DVD / BluRay
Life in a reservation can be unimaginable hard for Native Americans, especially when this reservations is one of the largest, located in the rough north with long winters and nearly any of escape or a bright future. A young woman is found dead, walking barefoot through the freezing night. The FBI is consulted and Agent Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), an unexperienced rookie, enters the crime scene. She is received sceptically not only by local police enforcement (Graham Greene from "Dancing with the Wolves"-fame) and hunter / tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) who will help her in her investigation. A thrilling and unexpectedly compelling movie in a part of the USA I was not aware of.
3: I Am Not Your Negro, dir.: Raol Peck 2016 - DVD /BluRay
Here we have an incredibly immersive, angering and completely mesmerizing documentary feature focusing on the struggle of Afro Americans in America. The film is based on an unfinished novel by James Baldwin and it... I am quite lost for words to be honest with you. Baldwin was close friends with civil moment leaders who were all assassinated - Dr Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. He wanted to write a novel about their lives, but upon his death in 1987, only 30 pages were completed. Raol Peck used these remaining documents to span the focus of his documentatry even further, up unto our current time. I've very rarely seen a piece of art that left me this speechless.
2: Lady Bird, dir.: Greta Gerwin 2017, DVD / BluRay
This movie has it all: hilarious moments, grand emotional scenes and the ability to capture not only the zeitgeist of 2002, but also what it means to grow up in a provicial town (for Lady Bird at least) and wanting to get out of there. Christine (Saorsie Ronan in one of the greatest performances of the last few years) gave herself the name 'Lady Bird' - ICONIC SCENE - and she is attending a catholic high school in Sacramento, California. She is unhappy with her boring envorinment, she wants to go to the mundane east coast and is quite the rebellious young woman. But her mother (Laurie Metcalf, rightfully nominated for an Oscar - you guys should know her as Sheldon's mom from "The Big Bang Theory") has other plans - "With [her] work ethic [she] will attend city college" and naturally there is a lot of conflict between those two. I don't want to spoil anything just go see it, preferibly with your mom, you won't regret it.
1: A Silent Voice / koe no katachi (The Shape of Voice), dir.: Naoko Yamada 2016 - DVD / Bluray
I already loved the manga it was based on, one of the greatest books I've read in the last years, regardless of its genre. The story is ultimatly very much relatable and you feel yourself caught in memories in some of the scenes that are presented.
The story centers around Shouyu, a reckless and wild student at a Japanese high-school who, upon arrival of Shoko whose hearing is impaired, is getting even more unhinged. He bullies her which finally leads to her leaving the school. Shouyu is accused of being the leader of this harassment and the other students are avoiding and ignoring him. From this moment on, the story jumps ahead in time and Shoyu meets Shoko many years later and he is living a life full of regret.
I've got to be honest with you: This is not your typical happy anime, this is the heavy stuff, a glass case of emotion so to speak. But man is it worth it. Despite all the sadness, sorrow and anger, there is also a whole lot of affection you feel towards these masterfully created characters. A whole lot of humour is also found in there, a welcome light moment, which makes this film to be a whole lot easier to digest. Highly recommended.
