2024 End of Year Round Up Part 2 - Films and Books
We are so back!
Welcome back everyone to part 2 of my End of Year Round Up, with this one I’ll be taking a look at some of the films and books I enjoyed most this year. Films will follow the same as music being separated between 2024 and non 2024 releases, books will just be from ones I read, I do not read enough nor keep up with the publishing cycles to declare my favourite books published in 2024. Equally these will not be ranked. If you haven’t read part 1 yet please read it first (check your inbox). Let’s go!
Films
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
released in 2024
Challengers - Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Its mid-June and my exams are done, Juno and I decided to go to the cinema to see Challengers. I had no expectations coming into this film but the opening scene set me straight. First were two shots of leads Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist sporting this film’s hottest accessory, sweat. And in abundance. This was followed by an electric point of tennis set to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ thumping score. This film did not hold back, the rhythm established in this first point of the match is maintained as the story volleys between the New Rochelle Challenger final and the origins of the love triangle between O’Connor’s Patrick Zweig, Faist’s Art Donaldson and Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan, bringing the viewer all the way up to present day in a riveting final scene.
In Challengers everything is about tennis, even sex. This fantastically horny film is ripe with euphemism and homoerotic tension. Smirks, churros and tennis balls build to an impressive climax. Each look, hug, forehand is charged with meaning. Each conversation is a point of tennis, forehand, backhand, volley, backhand, forehand, drop shot. Game Zweig. Its no surprise the only ace in this entire film comes after Patrick reveals to Art he slept with Tashi. How do you respond to that?
Guadagnino’s first film of 2024 is a smash hit. It does not hold back and slaps you from one side of the court to the other. It is a nonstop ride that bounces between tennis, sex and power - yet it is remarkably light and fun, Challengers is a complete delight to behold and the most fun I had in a cinema last year.
The Taste of Things (La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) - Directed by Trần Anh Hùng
The opening sequence of The Taste of Things will move you. It is 38 minutes of gourmand Dodin (Benoît Magimel) and his cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) preparing a sumptuous meal. Eugénie gathers vegetables, there are achingly perfect shots of meat being sautéed and sauces are prepared. The whole sequence contains little dialogue and music thus the primary sound is that of the kitchen, bubbling, steaming, frying, chopping, stirring. The film leaps off the screen and into your mouth.
Trần Anh Hùng’s film is about the relationship between Dodin and Eugénie set in a 19th century bucolic French farmhouse. The two share a deep and intimate love and yet Eugénie does not wish to be married. However there is no shortage of intimacy, each shot of an ingredient or a meal being prepared conveys more tenderness than most films will muster in their entire runtime. Their relationship need not be formalised with a ring and a ceremony but is consummated every day in the kitchen. Food acts as the medium for expressing their love and as much pleasure is taken in a kiss as in braising a joint of veal or the chopping of an onion. As spectacle its one of the very best, as a story its incredibly moving and gentle.
not released in 2024
Blood Simple - Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Asher and I saw this in an empty Picturehouse back in April. The Coen brother’s first film is a sticky neo-noir set in Texas about a bar owner who engages a private detective to find out whether his wife (debutant Frances McDormand) is cheating on him with one of his employees. The four become embroiled in a slow game of last man standing as men disappear and descend into madness in a grimy texan landscape.
Leaving the cinema I brushed this film off, ‘that was alright’ I thought. My subsequent Letterboxd review was a positive but uncommitted 3.5 stars. Since, something has changed - Blood Simple found a way to notch itself in my brain. The cinematography is haunting, shots of car headlights and hidden guns mix to form an unforgettable appearance. There’s one shot in particular of Dan Hendaya’s character crawling along a road that I find particularly unsettling. Then there’s Loren Visser, the private detective, whose line ‘In Russia, they only make 50 cents a day’ is repeated over and over in an unnerving drawl. The final scene by itself is enough to send anyone into cardiac arrest - Abby hides out in an abandoned apartment and Visser closes in on her. It is an unsettling and deeply haunting watch.
A Summer’s Tale (Conte d’été) - Directed by Éric Rhomer
What would you do in this situation? You’re renting a friend’s place up in Brittany for a month, whilst there you meet Margot at a café and quickly get close, then at a party you start seeing Solène and all the while after a few weeks your off again on again girlfriend Léna arrives. Such is the problem of Gaspard in this film. And he is humiliated at every step. This is not a film about an alpha male who “conquers” women but rather an idiot with a masters degree and a guitar who thinks he’s the shit and is proven time and time again by each of the three women to be the opposite.
Much like many of Rohmer’s films this one revolves aorund young people falling in love and having extended conversations. The setting is the beautiful north Brittany coast, captured in a haze of warm yellow and greens. Rohmer is a master of dialogue and each conversation feels as though it is plucked out of your own life. His characters are fully fleshed out, with vivid presences. This could be called a work of “slow cinema” and whilst it does take its time, rewarding the viewer for their patience, A Summer’s Tale extends past this, contrasting the worries and stress of youth with the film’s laidback nature. Being a quasi-autobiographical movie for Rohmer this feels like his most sincere work, whilst balancing the heady possibilities of sun-soaked summer love of Call Me By Your Name with the Before trilogy’s spontaneity and lifelike dialogue.
The film’s best moments are in Margot and Gaspard’s long conversations, on the beach, in the town, walking through the coastline. The razor sharp dialogue is at turns funny and in parts cut through me like a knife. Rohmer articulates ideas of waiting and isolation as a young person with such clarity it felt like he had pulled my thoughts from my brain. I could live in this warm film. Take it as lightly or as deeply as you want, soak it in like the sun’s rays.
Check out my full Letterboxd list of 2024 favourites here!
Books
Another Country - James Baldwin
Baldwin’s New York is imbued with feelings. Every block, avenue and neighbourhood means something. Another Country is about a few primary characters who make their homes in the city. The book follows Rufus, his sister Ida, his friend Vivaldo and a host of others in post World War Two America. Baldwin uses this setting, along with the American South and France, to explore deeply complex topics of race, sexuality and love. Each issue is knotty and interlinked, drawing on Baldwin’s own experience. In fact, nothing in this novel is simple, Rufus’ death shakes up the fabric of everyone’s lives and the repercussions are felt in ripples across the pages. Another important theme in this novel, one so visceral that it leaps out of the writing is rage. This emotion is an undercurrent that drives and pulls characters in their respective directions, particularly black rage. In the sections that focus on Rufus and Ida their anger is striking. Baldwin is becoming one of my favourite writers and his work looks at being a human in all it’s complexity.
My Brilliant Friend (L’amico geniale) - Elena Ferrante
I previously wrote about this novel in August and I wanted to revisit it at the end of the year. It follows Lila and Lenuccia, two friends who grow up in the same neighbourhood in Naples in the 50s. One aspect that struck me is how Lila and Lenuccia are almost two sides of one person. Lila is confident, sharp and at times aggressive, Lenuccia is shy, bookish and reserved. However, during an early episode in the book the two decide to leave their neighbourhood to go to the sea and the roles reverse, Lila is plagued by doubt and worry and it is Lenuccia who urges her onwards. The dynamic shifts and tilts in this way throughout the book, especially in their relationships towards men, Lila has suitors and capably handles advances towards her whereas Lenuccia may not be seen as attractive but knows her own feelings inside and out. The girls are constantly circling each other, like a double strand helix, bouncing off each other and colliding. Ferrante’s portrait of their friendship is as vivid as the Ischean sun.
Limonov - Emmanuel Carrère
Another one about deeply complex characters except this time its a biography! Eduard Limonov is brought to life by French author Carrère in this stunning book. It tracks the course of Limonov’s life, through many many twists and turns in which he goes from poor kid from backwater USSR to Moscow socialite to a New York bum to Paris to Moscow and everything in between. Limonov’s story is one of a daring defiance at all costs against authority. He’s deeply flawed, and in parts of the book quite a shocking character but also compassionate. Carrère’s portrait of this artist cum activist is profound and plays out in evocative prose. For someone with such humble origins his life reads like a movie against the backdrop of a crumbling USSR.
That’s the round up everyone hope you enjoyed! I’ll be back in your inbox in about a month’s time with my end of January newsletter.
Lots of love,
Luca