Really happy to see this thread open already, and excited to finally take part as a programmer!
Following Beavis' lead in the ICMFFF4 thread, I created a joint recommendation and watchlist which I aim to watch through - along with the nominees from this thread - and add the best films to my nominee list. Overview:
https://letterboxd.com/gloede/list/icmf ... -viewings/
Re: 6 vs. 8 - I vote 8 - though I aim to watch more.
As I am still going through my watchlist I will be cautious, and will start by nominating a small set of 6 (I will likely add a second batch shortly, but need time to write something up, be it short or long).ab
Early Nominees:
Longa Noite / Endless Night (2019, Eloy Enciso)
This is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection (2019, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese)
Om det oändliga / About Endlessness (2019, Roy Andersson)
Transit (2018, Christian Petzold)
Der goldene Handschuh / The Golden Glove (2019, Faith Akin)
O que arde / Fire will come (2019, Oliver Laxe)
Reviews:
Longa noite / Endless Night (2019, Eloy Enciso)
I am not sure if I have ever experienced a film that manages to sweep you into eternal darkness and place you on a true journey of day into nights, the way Eloy Enrisco's latest near-masterpiece has accomplished. If you recall the sensory experience of being lead into the night, wandering as if in a daze, in Bi Gan's aptly named Long Day's Journey into Night, I can only say that Encisco has managed to outdo it - and add actual meaning and poetry - complementing the increasing darkness - and the sense of being lost in the night - to perfection.
Endless Night opens, surprisingly, with day: We see little vignettes of life, with a cold, sad underlying note that could perhaps be construed as irony - but hits a little deeper. At first glance it could almost seem comparable to a non-comedic Roy Andersson - merely without the long takes - with a pinch of Rohmer and Straub/Huillet - but all new notes and a style of its own. There is a purity and simplicity in the way the dialogue is delivered and captured that immediately places us on the outside looking in. We are spectators, and we are viewing an almost timeless age that quickly reveals itself to be Franco's Spain - and we shortly realize that we are not just seeing vignettes, but that there is one solitary person travelling through them - this is merely the world he is walking through.
It should go without saying that the visuals by Mauro Herce (the Cinematographer of Fire Will Come) are exquisite - both in its restrained observation - gracious encapturing - and haunting contrasts. I particularly loved the quiet moments when the camera would linger at a detail of a scene - such as the bread, with a knife next to it, in the opening scene. The composition akin to a beautiful traditional painting - and allowing us to see a kind of surprising beauty in the midst of what we are observing.
The narrative is divided into 3 clear acts, each separated by title cards showing I, II and III - and while there is a continuity of style, atmosphere and if you will, narrative - each section brings something new - and each section strips something away: as we drift further and further into night. It is a cry of the time, a memory of the past, an echo of suffering - with the characters (to the extent you can call them that) arguably being placeholders for humanity/Spain/Galicia as a whole. As we move from dialogue, to monologue to narration/recitation - a change so simply - yet so pivotal I almost considered adding a spoiler warning for a structural/poetic device we get a picture, broad and wide of Franco's Spain, the indifference/callousness of those who supported it - and the pain, fair and ambivalence of those who stood against it.
Undoubtedly one of the best films of the last decade.
9.5/10
This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection (2019, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese)
The film is simply stunning in its composition, and makes you feel incredible awe at the surroundings. So many of the shots are films with contrast to the sky - people against surroundings.
But it also opens like this:
This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection quite floored me, as it lures you in with trippy, nightmarish sounds and visuals - slowly centres you, before it unleashes you into a slow brooding and poetic work which is simultaneously gorgeous (obviously) but grieving a loss.
You may be tempted to believe the title in a more literal sense, as we find in our protagonist a grieving, elderly woman, Mantoa, who has just lost her son - but what it really captures is progress vs. tradition, or more specifically cold progress vs. people - as the entire village is set to be flooded with a new dam, and the villagers - all seemingly poor farmers - are to be relocated to the capital.
What we see is the beaurocracy, speeches and push for modernity and leaving all you know - including your dead - in contrast to Mantoa's complete disbelief, bewilderness and sorrow.
The film could so easily have taken the classic route of the underdog fighting back, trapped in a beaurocratic mess, but this is not what the film is concerned with.
And yes, you do have futility - and the idea of the new and old god - and we see how those in positions of power try to nudge the people along:
But this is not really the story.
Even the backdrop of government workers cutting down trees, or the more solemn clarity in the chief informing all that it is the king's land, not theirs - are really the story.
Instead we peer into humanity, and into what stands to be lost. We spend time in the beauty and serenity of the village, we see the bonds form, we see the pain in leaving, we see Mantoa's despair - and we feel it.
9/10
Om det oändliga / About Endlessness (2019, Roy Andersson)
I love Andersson's Living Trilogy, A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence is my favourite film of the last decade, and the only thing that really speaks against About Endlessness - except the fact that it is just too damn short - is that it really could have been the fourth instalment, or even the epilogue.
Over these last 4 films Andersson has developed a unique form of finding tragedy, and comedy, in the hyper mundane - a kind of existential horror that is at the same time cleverly amusing and deeply unsettling. Once again we are presented with a long set of vignettes, some fantastical, but most mundane to the point of bizarrity - and with a broad array of characters and situations - some repeated - but most are not.
Each scene in this film consists of a single shot, and the elaborate sense of detail and movement is absolutely incredible. We really need to look at how Andersson creates tragedy and dark comedy with such limitations and makes it even stronger because of it. He makes us feel every second, and the limited movement and careful composition only adds to his usually dead, miserable and uncaring world.
The big difference from the trilogy is our new omnipresent narrator, who will, in most scenes, say what she sees ... Such as "I saw a man ..." or "I saw a woman ...", or "I saw a middle manager ..."
And the sentence will finish with a fairly general fact, such as having a problem with her shoes, or had gone into the wrong bar, or more poignantly I saw a young man who had yet to find love.
It truly is a film about endlessness - you can feel it - and the narrator picking these exact scenes only adds to this feeling - though again - for Andersson this is nothing new. I don't think it cuts as sharply as Pigeon, but if you love Andersson's work - you will love About Endlessness as well. The filmmaking is near flawless, the the bleak, existential humour and muted emotion is a dark delight as always.
9/10
Transit (2018, Christian Petzold)
The conclusion to Petzold's thematically connected "Systems of Oppression" trilogy sees him transport the nazi occupation of France to modern-day - but without stating the obvious. He has taken a book set in the midst of WW2 and reportedly. altered nothing except clothes, weapons, cars and the time it takes place. This leads us into a strange neverworld - a memory of what was, and what could be.
Petzold is absolutely fantastic when it comes to minimalist thrillers, but they often feel surface level - in this film he really managed to capture a very very specific experience, a philosophical thought experiment in a way, letting us see people from our time in that exact same experience and reality - while also keeping things beautifully vague, so it can feel like a tragic dream. There are touches, that if set in its proper setting could have been seen as melodramatic or off - which here feel almost surreal - and the thought of a war/occupation of this kind being so close to Europe in the 21st century - and seeing the plee for escape today - makes it an incredibly strong and unique viewing.
8.5/10
Der goldene Handschuh / The Golden Glove (2019, Faith Akin)
The Golden Glove is a serial killer drama that could make a fittingly depressing and thoroughly unnerving double feature with Henry. Jonas Dassler delivers one of the greatest performances of recent years, as the awkward, mysoginistic and abusive serial killer Fritz Honka (loosely based on the real story) - and with transformative and unnerving makeup (akin to Charlize Theron in Monster) he strikes a pitiful posture while slumming it in a drunken existence in 70s Hamburg.
What Akin truly managed to do here is capture not only the frightening qualities of the character, in a seedy world - but recreate the 70s aesthetic to the point that you can almost get a slight Fassbinder vibe. The world of booze and lost hopes and dreams come alive in all its frightening reality - and with Dassler's central performance - and a few viewer's discretion warnings: as this is one cold and cruel film - it is one of the films with sights and scenes that will stay with you.
8.5/10
O que arde / Fire will come (2019, Oliver Laxe)
Fire Will Come does not open with fire, but rather harrowing, hypnotic destruction - as trees fall - seemingly by mystical forces - in the midst of night. We see them lifted up, we see the forest torn apart - while what can only be described as a bass sending us further into a uneasy trance.
Then: hands - a document being sent from person to person - no faces shown: an arsonist will be released - and his face - alone, in a bus, going down the highway, is the first face we see - though even here we drift - following his gaze at the apparent nothingness outside - all accompanied by classical music.
Fire Will Come - a forewarning akin to There Will Be Blood - makes it clear where this will all end. This foreboding tension - the knowledge that fire will come, makes the understated scenes of aging mother and son, as well as the slow scenes of daily chores and herdics cows in the galican countryside eerie, and adds a more intense bite to the soft melancholy as we attempt to read anything into Almador's muted expression.
I could also give a few negatives, though as they will border on spoilers I'll abstain beyond wanting the fire - when it does come - to be even more mystifying - but this is a thoroughly wonderful film and one of the best of 2019.
8.5/10
), and then get back with more details and my nominations later on
After again a few successful changes made last year, I don't think we need to change anything this time, except starting a little early. 
