Editors’ Picks: Humanity Beyond the Film Screen
Even after the credits roll past us, we often find ourselves lingering upon the films we just watched, entrenched within a moment of reflection. This month, members of the Review’s Editorial Board have curated a selection of films that strain against containment and instead lodge themselves within us long after the screen fades to black.
The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019)
It started as a story on the radio show This American Life: the director Lulu Wang, talking about the time her family hid a stage 4 cancer diagnosis from her grandmother – her grandmother’s very own. It was easier than it sounds.
In China, relatives often receive a patient’s cancer diagnosis before the patient, so, as next-of-kin, all Wang’s great-aunt had to do was not tell her sister. Wang’s grandmother lived with her sister in China, one son lived with his family in Japan, and another son, Wang’s father, lived in America with her and her mother. But there was a dilemma: the doctor had given her grandmother three months to live and the family had to figure out a way to see her without raising suspicion. (The dilemma about lying to her grandmother is another one, and best explained by the movie or by Wang herself, so I won’t cover it here.) So they moved up Wang’s cousin’s wedding by a year, and everyone reunited in China. Speeches were made, tears were shed, connections were reaffirmed and many, many hijinks ensued.
And then Wang turned that whole experience into a film.
Fittingly, it begins with the epigraph “based on an actual lie.” Throughout the movie, Wang powerfully realizes different family dynamics: parents and children raised in different cultures, brothers unsure of how to approach the mother they’ve spent their adult lives without, grandparents with their adult grandchildren, in-laws who don’t speak the same language, and more. She shows a family spread across several countries together for the first time in a long time and trying to figure out what to do. It’s heartfelt and sorrowful and painful and also quite funny. Watch if you have the time to spare and listen to the This American Life if you don’t. It’s worth it.
— Fiona Stewart, Personal Essays Editor
The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra, 2013)
Love is an elusive character to pin down, one that popular media rarely gets right. Once in a while, however, someone will make a film like The Lunchbox. Set against Mumbai and its dabbawalas, a tangled network of delivery men who transport hot lunches from the home to schools and offices, the love that transpires here is quiet and resilient, emerging where two lives of urban weariness intersect. Starring an intuitive yet devastating performance by the late Irrfan Khan, The Lunchbox endures as a Bollywood classic in every sense of the word.
— Anoushka Subbaiah, Fiction & Poetry Editor
The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017)
A good movie is marked not by its ability to capture the viewer in the moment, but by its capacity to leave them thinking about its content long after the ending credits have rolled. I first watched The Florida Project in 2017, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
The Florida Project follows 6-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) who, despite living in poverty on the outskirts of Orlando’s Magic Kingdom, sees the world through rose-colored glasses. As viewers, we get a taste of her point of view through the captivating cinematography and saturated color scheme, which is juxtaposed with the heaviness of the narrative. It is this juxtaposition that makes the film so incredibly impactful—we can understand that amidst all her childhood wonder is a young girl afraid of what’s to come.
A perfect representation of both childhood wonder and worry, The Florida Project is a must-see.
— Ellie Tsapatsaris, Movies & TV Editor
Tangerines (Zaza Urushadze, 2013)
Georgian director Zaza Urushadze’s 2013 Tangerines is an intimate and, of course, topical portrayal of the absurdity of war; while its message is not exactly groundbreaking, its sheer humanity serves as an important reminder of how to treat conflict. The film’s hero, Ivo, is an Estonian tangerine farmer living in Georgia who is staying at his farm for the harvest despite an ongoing war (the 1992-93 war in Abkhazia between Russian-backed separatists and the Georgian government). As a battle occurs nearby, he nurses two soldiers of opposite affiliations, who vow to murder one another once they are healthy. Hijinks ensue. Although the story’s structure follows a relatively predictable arc, the sylvan setting foregrounds a genuinely touching human story, at times funny, occasionally philosophical, and always well-acted. Ivo in particular, played by Lembit Ulfsak, is perfect as the neutral party, a picture of weary stoicism and a mirror for the two belligerents’ best qualities to bounce off of. Tangerines is no longer than it needs to be—a clean, compact, well-executed film.
— Alexander Del Greco, Music Editor