Arthouse Films in 2023: Something in the Air

Each year, film festivals around the world showcase a multitude of arthouse films. Out of all of them that I have watched, some regrets remain, as I have not watched The Zone of Interest, Close Your Eyes, Monster, and The Boy and the Heron.

As seen from the hundreds of films available at the festivals, this year's movie industry is thriving. Familiar faces make new attempts and show innovations. New films emerge continuously, as people from more regions and of different backgrounds join the pool of creators, gradually stirring up the once stabilized movie landscape.

The Gender Conversation: Different Shades of Femininity

Gender issues have undoubtedly become one of the most important political and social topics globally in recent years, with a large volume of feminist works being released annually. This is partly because of female filmmakers’ continuous efforts to create works addressing the issues, and partly due to the changing selection systems and evaluation criteria that direct more attention to works centering on females. In this regard, the world’s two biggest film industries, the United States and France, have presented the highest-quality responses to this issue in recent years— Barbie and Anatomy of a Fall are not only the most important works of the year that talk about gender issues, they can also be considered as the two most globally notable films of 2023. The former has grossed over US$1.4 billion at the box office, while the latter won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

It is safe to say that Barbie has become a paramount production in the global feminist movement within the film industry, a milestone work and the most popular one in recent years that criticizes the patriarchal system most directly, fiercely, and satirically; Throughout the first three-quarters of the film, it satirically lists the typical patriarchal brainwashing techniques, but in the last quarter, a change gradually occurs: Barbie realizes that Ken is not just someone who needs to be defeated but also saved. So, what needs to be achieved in the end is not the binary opposition of love and hate but true gender reconciliation and equity. For Barbie, both women and men are victims of the patriarchal system, so the Barbies and the Kens should establish their own subjectivity rather than do what "others" tell them to.

In comparison to the fantastically plastic Barbie, Anatomy of a Fall is solemn and substantive. With a case of a fatal fall as the main storyline, it explores marital issues and extends to more universal themes. The trial in the movie seems to have been based on facts throughout, but facts no longer exist. Lawyers on the defense and plaintiff sides create their own narratives; even the protagonist's novel is under suspicion for instigating the murder. It all serves only to destroy the son's trust in his mother and the audience’s trust in the protagonist. In the end, it turns out Anatomy of a Fall is clearly not just about family relationships, or the survival difficulties of women, but more about the eternal problem of mutual understanding and trust between people.

Overall, both Barbie and Anatomy of a Fall are models of films that approach female issues on a systematic level. Both are very concerned about how women are subject to scrutiny and the problems they face while living in a particular systemized environment. However, this year's films about gender issues are more multifaceted. Some focus on the transformative relationship between women’s desires and power, such as Last Summer (selected for the main competition at Cannes), The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (an entry of Director’s Fortnight at Cannes), and Home (competed for the main award of the Locarno Film Festival). Two films featuring midwives, The Rapture and Midwives, discuss the inseparable connection between women and reproduction, especially the formation of non-blood-related and more universal motherhood. Documentaries Smoke Sauna Sisterhood and Notre Corps focus on the female body, with the former pointing its lens at women in a sauna located in Estonian forest, their bodies, their narrations, and each sauna bath of a gender ritual; the latter addresses women’s physical suffering and how they live with them, reflecting a body subjectivity.

Interestingly, along with extensive list of works about gender issues, two important female creators have produced films that are not so feministic: Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera combines gender and class issues while Angela Schanelec's Music brings back the concept of ancient Greek tragedy to create a solemn modern fable. This shows that female creators do not limit themselves, and truly seek depth and breadth in their works.

The Masters of Filmmaking: A Colorful Symphony

It can be seen from La Chimera and Music that works with strong authorial voices still occupy an essential position.

Among them, prolific film director Wes Anderson is particularly eye-catching. His feature film Asteroid City and four short films including The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar all premiered at European film festivals. Together, they form a new series of Anderson films. If The Grand Budapest Hotel is said to have pushed an element of literature/ books to the forefront, and The French Dispatch have manifested the element in its physical form, then Asteroid City opened a new field: theatre space. We can see the connection between this film and a play from many aspects, such as the involvement of theatrical settings (both on- and offstage) in its play-within-a-play segments, and the creators’ intentional design of the movie set into a large outdoor stage.

Moving away from Asteroid City, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar has almost no real-location and exterior shots except for interior design, which does not attempt to build up tangibility but indicate that it’s all assumed. Although the film’ composition and palette are still distinctively Andersonesque, there is still a significant difference compared to his previous works: the dominant element of mise-en-scène shifts from camera to set movements, a transition from being real space-based to theatrical space-based. The relationship between the four short films and theatre shows is also demonstrated through stage lighting, changing of sets and moving of props by stage assistants within a frame; the actors' performance is neither film acting or stage acting, but lies between naturalness and exaggeration, between acting and becoming. In constructing the triangle of theatre, literature, and film, Anderson demonstrates all the assumed ahead of everything else, which is not only a further exploration of formal aesthetics but also an attempt to liberate films from simulation as well as an interesting experiments of credibility and empathy.

Also advancing further down the path of one’s own style is Frederick Wiseman, a documentary master whose new work Menus Plaisirs—Les Troisgros has premiered at the Venice Film Festival, lasting four hours. Similar to his previous work "City Hall," it also focuses on the operation of an institution. Compared to food and their tastes, Wiseman is more concerned about how a restaurant becomes Michelin-accredited. From the finalization of the menu, selection of ingredients, and coordination within the supply chain to intergenerational inheritance, the film connects the operation models of all institutions related to the family business, like trees extending their branches. Wiseman always emphasizes that he is "writing essays with movies," but just as how the Troisgros family transforms ingredients into exquisite food, he mobilizes much more complex skills beyond just writing essays to "cook up" a movie.

Experienced film masters, though proven to be able to create films that we enjoy, may also be a disappointment at times, and the latter isn’t a rare thing in 2023. Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon is one of them, and it is is completely devoid of the vibrancy seen in Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, or even Wolf of Wall Street. In comparison, Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped, Philippe Garrel’s The Plough, and Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days truly reflect the vitality of experienced creators. The iconic stylistic elements, captivating plots, and subtle self-transcendence all demonstrate awe-inspiring artistry and touches people’s hearts.

Directors of younger generations have delivered commendable performances this year. Christian Petzold's Afire and Bertrand Bonello's The Beast powerfully depict men’s weaknesses, and showcase a kind of unfounded narcissism in its full glory. The former delves into the inner world of a male writer using a melodrama format, presenting him as a repulsive and unforgivable character. The film offers more than that, of course, by goings beyond the portrayal of a single character and tellings of an "elemental story." The ruthless wildfire adds a touch of mythical allegory to the entire narrative, a common characteristic shared with The Beast.

The Beast tells a sci-fi love story spanning three lifetimes from the ancient ages to the future in France. Various symbols such as green screens, doves, dolls, and witches weave together to contribute to an eerie atmosphere and narrative structure that are Lynchian. George MacKay skilfully portrays the complete degeneration of a man from a gentleman to a simple machos figure. This is an integral part of how the film showcases the meaning of male existence and the dissolvement of such meaning, offering a narrative with both contemporary and allegorical significance.

Let’s train our lens to Asia now; we can see China, Japan, and South Korea each have their strengths. Prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo presented In Our Day and In Water this year. The latter is certainly not Hong's most significant work but his most "earnest" production, and the whole film appears like an hour-long masterclass. The "defocusing" in the film is not an optical technic but an impressionist effect deliberately created in post-production. The images of fish in the water are not that of real fish, suggesting that his films never strictly simulate or conform to life but seek improvisation, extension, displaced reflection, and totality, and manage the relationship between fiction and reality using images.

In Japan, the most noteworthy film is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist. It is rich in texture and diverse in technique. Compared to his past epic films which often lasted two or three hundred minutes, this film feels lighter and more ghostly. Its mise-en-scène is elusive, leaving its audience feeling unsettled. The slightly melancholic music and its abrupt ending also foreshadow that the film is by no means about the reconciliation of human relationships. Natural retaliation will sooner or later be revealed through personification—namely, the villagers.

In China, Wang Bing's Youth must be mentioned. The film captures a group of young workers mainly from Anhui and Henan. They work in the largest children's clothing manufacturing base in Zhili Town of Huzhou City located in Zhejiang province. After a few years, each of their views on life changes. In terms of filmmaking style, Youth continues along the path of Wang’s previous works, and the greatest charm of his films lies in the intimate distance between the filmmaker (often Wang himself) and the subjects being filmed. It is this distance that determines the infinite significance and value of his films: brave yet intimate, objective yet moving, dramatic yet ordinary, brief yet enduring; love and time, vibrant life, and every single moment of life are all captured within them.

The Politics: Crossbreed between Documentary and Fiction?

Political criticism has always been an important theme in art films. This year, Iranian films are particularly outstanding in this regard. Many of them focus on the enormous spiritual power that filmmakers possess and confront terrifying authoritarianism: Both films, My Worst Enemy which was in the Encounters competition at the Berlin Film Festival, and the winner of the Compass-Perspektive Award Seven Winters in Tehran, present the enormous destructive power of a system on an individual's body and mind in the form of documentaries. Meanwhile, Critical Zone, winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, attacks the conservative religious system in the form of a rebellious and fantastical narrative film that challenges traditional Iranian roads: a marijuana dealer wanders through Tehran at night, not only selling goods but also healing people and providing them with comfort.

Expanding from this, many films from various countries also explore the relationship between individuals and systems. In the Berlinale's Encounters competition, the film "In The Blind Spot" emphasizes the constant surveillance individuals face through ever-changing perspectives, portraying and echoing Michel Foucault's concept of a ‘panopticon’. Similarly, "The Settlers," which was featured in the Cannes Film Festival's "Un Certain Regard" category, reflects on these hierarchies from a historical perspective. In contrast to Iranian films, these works place a stronger emphasis on the expression of content through structure and form, as structure becomes a representation of ideas. This structural emphasis reaches its zenith in Nanni Moretti's "A Brighter Tomorrow." The film not only features complex plays-within-plays but also intertwines various elements of history and reality. In Moretti's perspective, there is an incredible and remarkable chemistry between Eurocommunism and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Left-wing creators in Europe continue to place undiminished attention on class issues. Ken Loach uses "The Old Oak" to depict how members of the lower class mutually harm and help one another using solemn realism; Quentin Dupieux’s "Yannick" satirizes the middle class’s relationship with the arts through a security guard; "The Goldman Case" turns the lens to a Jewish far-left activist called Pierre Goldman, and attempts to cover issues such as the resistance movement during World War II, 1968 movement, global communism, the Cold War confrontations, racial discrimination, and interrogational torture.

Among all these works, the most extreme and wild one is none other than Romanian director Radu Jude's "Don't Expect Too Much from the End of the World." This film is fully experimental and extremely straightforward. It depicts the extremely exhausting life of a female assistant advertising producer over two days. She has to interact with the subjects (lower-class disabled Romanians) whom she has to film, while also taking care of her boss who came from Austria for a business trip. Tens of hours of consecutive driving and working leave her utterly exhausted.

The long take at the end of the film digressively depicts how a lower-class worker and its family must go against their will and admit their mistake to receive compensation. Jude roams freely between history and the present, Eastern and Western Europe, between reality and fiction. This film is even more radical (both in form and content) than his previous work, "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn," which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. For Jude, films can rekindle vitality only when they empower every poor-performing, seemingly aesthetically unpleasing, and unfairly treated person within or outside corrupt systems.

From a global perspective on film creation, narrative films seem to have entered an endless bottleneck in recent years. Fiction appears to be consistently distant from life and falls far short of matching the power of reality. In this situation, elements of documentaries are increasingly permeating narrative films (and vice versa), giving rise to a new subgenre that is challenging to classify. Many films at this year's Cannes Film Festival have adopted the form of non-traditional, hybrid docufictions, such as "Four Daughters" (documentary + reenactment), " Mambar Pierrette," " The Buriti Flower," and "Little Girl Blue." Because the Berlin Film Festival has a diverse range of film categories and huge volume of film entries, such works are very common, such as “The Klezmer Project” which was nominated as one of the Encounters selections and won the Best First Feature award. Docufiction has become a convenient "tool" for low-budget filmmaking and is becoming increasingly popular among independent filmmakers, especially those from third-world countries.

In this context, it is worth mentioning Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça's "Pictures of Ghosts." Mendonça is one of the most prominent directors in South America. This time, he presents not a narrative film but a documentary with fictional elements. The film combines historical footage, movie clips, personal memories, and even some special effects to narrate the disappearance of several cinemas and the long-gone film industry in the declining city where Mendonça resides— Recife. Accompanied by memories of this ghostly city, he connects his own past with the entire urban space, infusing the entire film with melancholy and nostalgia. Of course, the film itself is also a ghost, forming the last echo of the previous world in Mendonça's home and on the streets of Recife.

To some extent, the hybridization of documentary and fiction itself is a form of politics. It opposes "racism" in filmmaking and emphasizes the endless possibilities brought about by mutual influence and penetration. At this point, we must mention an amazing film category: the Encounters category of the Berlin Film Festival, as the spirit described above is vividly reflected in it. Films in the Encounters selection such as "Here," "Orlando, My Political Biography," "Samsara," "The Adults," "Mummola," "The Cage is Looking for a Bird," "The Echo," "White Plastic Sky," "The Walls of Bergamo," "Living Bad," and its twin film "Bad Living" blur boundaries and lays bare the creators' most intimate feelings and perspectives on the world. These films no longer seek false "commonality" but are touching because they arrive at the most unique place and capture the most splendid scenery. Seeing these images, we can be sure that we are not alone, and they also show us that the way to promote sustainable film production is not through refinement but hybridization.