When writing this top ten list, I happened to be listening to the album "Live Fish Swims Against the Current, Dead Fish Follow the Current".
I suddenly found that these movies in 2021 can also be divided by this album title.
In the domestic film market in 2021, you will find that more and more movies are going with the flow, as long as they can make money, as long as they can complete the task, how cheesy and how cheesy they are, how rigid and how rigid.
The movies are all filmed like the model houses on the construction site, face engineering, no human taste.
But fortunately, there are still some "live fish" tossing and jumping.
These movies made me see the same energy, that is, why should I be so pleasing and kitsch, I will not.
Although, the overall Chinese film in 2021 is not satisfactory.
But in my opinion, it is fortunate that there are these "live fish" that dare to go against the current, otherwise the audience will only watch the junk films that are released day by day, and will naively mistakenly think that it is a movie.
Of course, this list is completely my own choice, not objective, not professional.
I just honestly picked from the movies I watched this year that really touched me, the ones that amazed me.
I vividly remember the whole feeling of watching the movie at that time, and even some movies made me linger for a long time.
Below I will talk about chinese movies and foreign movies from two aspects, mainly to make a summary of myself, you can make a reference.
Top 10 Chinese Movies
10th place: "Midsummer Future" Director: Chen Zhengdao
Putting aside the slightly deceptive publicity, in my opinion, this is a very brave movie in 2021, and it is undoubtedly the best domestic youth film of the year.
In this movie, there is a sense of youth and reality that really belongs to young people this year, and the details of various lives are quite rich, there is no fabrication of dead and alive in previous domestic youth films, more is natural outpouring, ambiguity and joy, and there is a lot of imagination space.
For the criticism of "same sex" in this movie, I think of an interview with Lou Ye a long time ago, which probably means:
The feelings of homosexuality and your feelings are exactly the same, they are all the same joys and sorrows, there is no difference.
Love is actually a statement of the relationship between people, that is, the relationship between anyone is particularly colorful, and it is difficult to divide the relationship between people into one category.
Well, as the movie says, "I wish we could all be more honest with ourselves and be braver." ”
Ninth place: "Lion Boy" Director: Sun Haipeng
An animated film that swims against the current, it jumps high from a group of self-paralyzing, fool-fooling, and praise-singing cinema movies, and enjoys a hot life.
What is valuable is that in the end, it can return to the earth.
The lion was originally the embodiment of a dream, just like the football in "Shaolin Soccer", just like the unique martial arts in "Kung Fu", and the important thing is whether you were moved by this dream in the theater.
In my opinion, this dream-chasing story with a youthful spirit has a sense of proportion just right, no spilling dog blood, no successful learning, but the whole process of blood, people rejoice.
Therefore, I like the line in the movie "As long as the drums sound in the heart, we are lions".
Especially in this increasingly cold reality, these drum beats are particularly uplifting.
Eighth place: "See You Nara Again" Director: Pengfei
Director PengFei's last movie "The Taste of Rice Flowers" I liked a lot, and this "See Nara Again" also made people have a long sense of aftertaste.
In fact, the core of the film is very sad and heavy, through a journey to find relatives, unveiling the living conditions of anti-Japanese orphans in China from World War II.
If it is an ordinary director, it will make a big fuss with such a heavy theme, but Pengfei's quiet handling in the movie is not tragic, not sensational, but let the delicate feelings between people flow naturally.
Gentle, light, humorous, little by little to soothe the character's inner sadness.
I like the scene at the end of the movie, three people walking back and forth, the music sounding Teresa Teng's "Goodbye My Lover" Japanese version, all kinds of emotions rushed into my heart.
Many times this is the case, when we are happy and sad, honest with each other, and each other is considered a relative.
Seventh place: "Lonely Taste" Director: Xu Chengjie
Most domestic movies are the same as our family walking around to visit the New Year, it looks lively and glamorous, but in fact, there is no taste.
But this "Lonely Taste" has no gimmicks, let alone any explosive points, but slowly tells the story of a mother and three daughters.
But what is powerful is that it can detonate the depths of our emotions little by little, releasing the fireworks of inner freedom.
I really like the weight-lifting method of "Lonely Taste".
In our current film and television dramas, in the news, everything is a moral judgment, but the feelings of people presented in "Lonely Taste" are very real.
Like all of us, inner feelings are inherently complex and simple, which is also the most precious thing as a human being.
In the movie, one of the lines that touched me the most was "There are more things you don't know about TA."
Yes, we are looking forward to reuniting with our families, but together we have our own hearts, cutting continuously, rationalizing and messing, each with our own attachments, but there is always someone who has to let go first...
Sixth place: "Classmate Mynas" Director: Huang Xinyao
The so-called "life is like a play, drama is like life", which is shown very intuitively in "Classmate Mynas".
Their troubles in the movie are also our troubles, and our situation is also their dilemma.
In Classmate Manas, Tim, Electric Wind, Canned Goods, and Closed Knots often go to the "Bubble Tea Specialty Store" to play cards.
Their lives are like the dilapidated small shops, they are all "bubbles" abandoned by the times, no matter what cards they play, they can't get out of their predicament.
In my opinion, the four of them add up to a young man's life experience along the way.
When I was young, I felt that I was swallowing mountains and rivers, either Jackie Chan or Cheng Feng, but slowly I reacted that I was just a chicken.
Admittedly, "Classmate Meñas" is indeed loosely filmed, there is no main line, but it is full of the taste of life.
Just like ourselves, we are faced with a bunch of triflora every day, hoping and disappointing at the same time.
Fifth place: "Jiyuantai No. 7" Director: Yang Fan
This is really the weirdest and sexiest movie I've seen in 2021, with the whole movie described in four words as "dreamlike" and six words as "reminiscing like a year of water".
The film tells the intricate emotional story of Hong Kong in 1967, a mother and daughter who traveled from Taiwan to Hong Kong, and an English teacher.
This film has an extreme beauty, but the narrative is extremely slow, as if savoring the old time of Hong Kong, only slow, there is a mood, only slow, can clearly see those people and things that have disappeared.
Over the years, many films have been regarded as love letters dedicated to Hong Kong, but only "Jiyuantai No. 7" is so naked, how confused the love of men and women in the movie is, and how much the directors outside the film are attached to this land.
Fourth place: "Love Myth" Director: Shao Yihui
This year's favorite domestic romance film is always hit by the interesting confrontation between several men and women.
After watching walking on the road, I was like Xu Zheng in the movie coming out of Ma Yili's house, the high heels in my hand were for him, and the "Love Myth" was for me, that feeling, don't mention how excited.
Although the director did not shoot him in the front, it is conceivable that he must be grinning and smiling, with a satisfied face.
I am really surprised that director Shao Yihui is so young that he can present the emotional life of an adult so delicate and fresh every day.
This vibrant power is especially valuable in domestic films.
I am very fortunate to see this movie at the end of 2021, which makes the whole person have a sense of light and comfortable happiness.
In many domestic films, the happy scene is so false. But in "Love Myth", there is a kind of romance and mood in daily life.
It has solid and real details, both the taste of admiring Fellini and the mundane sense of fireworks, all of which are perfectly placed in the city of Shanghai, very rich and very interesting.
Third Place: "Make a Good Movie" Director: Wen Nianzhong
Although Director Xu Anhua's "First Burning Incense" hit the street, the most emotional Chinese documentary I watched in 2021 was About Xu Anhua's "Make a Good Movie".
After watching it, you will find that she really dedicated her life to the movie, just like she said herself: the movie is the wife, and literature is the mistress.
From 1979's "Crazy Robbery" to "Run to the Fury Sea" to "Guest Autumn Hate" to "Woman Forty" to "A Thousand Words" to "Man Forty" to "Day and Night in Tin Shui Wai" to "Sister Peach"...
It can be said that it was Xu Anhua who made me realize that Hong Kong movies can be so everyday and delicate, and there is a kind of silent beauty and touching.
Her films do not have ups and downs of the plot, full of life's fragments of helplessness and sadness, but Xu Anhua can use simple lenses to express strong feelings.
After watching this film, I can't help but love Xu Anhua more, love her casualness and persistence, authenticity and cuteness.
Second Prize: "Lyceum Theatre" Director: Lou Ye
Of course, there must be my favorite director Lou Ye, when more and more people regard the carnival of consumption as the victory of the movie, there are always people who are sober and sincere, and there will always be a movie that will unveil the appearance of glitz and take us to perceive the truth of reality.
In my opinion, Lou Ye's "Lyceum Theatre" is such a movie.
The world in the movie is just like the real world we have today, the true and false are inseparable, and the virtual and the real are lost.
For most audiences, watching movies is accustomed to simple and straightforward storylines, but "Lyceum Theatre" is not like this, it is trying to restore the complexity and realism of "chaotic life".
In the movie, Gong Li plays Yu Yan, she is not only a patriot, she is also an actor, but more importantly, she is a person with self-will, she has her own love and desire.
She couldn't stand being a mechanic agent, couldn't stand her adoptive father treating her as a pawn in the name of love, so she had to resist.
Under the lens of director Lou Ye, he is more about letting us see the "psychological reality" of an individual. It is to show the richness and depth of the individual, and to uncover the things that distort the voice of the individual into a consistent voice.
Just imagine, when later people talk about domestic movies in 2021, people will find that there is a movie called "Lyceum Theatre", which honestly records the inner state of individuals.
1st Prize: "Turbid Water Rafting" (Director: Li Junshuo) + "Wisdom Teeth" (Director: Zheng Baorui)
To be honest, it is difficult to choose the first place, so I thought about it, in order to have an explanation for myself, I put together the two favorite Hong Kong films in 2021, so that it is enough to put the first place, anyway, my list listens to me.
In my opinion, the movie "Turbid Water Drifting" is a real film for the bottom people, not selling miserably at all, but everywhere people feel overwhelmed by giants, in this turbid water-like environment, this group of wanderers drift with the wind like ants.
The whole film captures the delicacy and moving of Hong Kong society and the lives of citizens, but at the same time it is very sharp and directly points to the cruelty of this reality, so that we can truly feel the anger and powerlessness of individuals to defend their dignity.
As the deafening line in the movie says:
"Then why do you have to hold on?" "What did I do wrong?" I'm going to get justice!" ”
"I'm not sad, I'm angry!"
Especially the ending in the movie, it is really an incomparable accusation, which directly enhances the intensity and intensity of the whole film, as if only in the burning fire, his unwilling life has the last glimmer of brilliance.
It can be said that "Wisdom Teeth" shocked me.
The movie "Wisdom Teeth" gives people a very strong sense of impact, just like the poster above, black and white images, the human world is as dirty as hell, and people are trapped like ants.
With its raw and bold audiovisual technology, the film makes us feel as if we smell the smell of cinema: the smell of blood and garbage.
Whether it is performance, art, photography, music, props and the overall atmosphere, it is very eye-catching, and we seem to follow the director and really enter the purgatory of the world.
The people living in it are slowly distorted, alienated, and more and more alienated, constantly staged bloody violence of "cannibalism".
To some extent, whether it is "Turbid Water Drifting" or "Wisdom Teeth", they are like Wang Tao in "Wisdom Teeth", just like a small strong who can't die.
This girl has been humiliated and beaten up in the film, and whenever the audience feels that she is dead this time, she will stand up tenaciously and say: I don't want to die, I want to live!
In any case, do not be alienated by the environment, dare to fight against fate, and maintain the purest beauty of human nature...
The following is the top ten foreign countries, I will simply list.
The standard is still what I said earlier, which makes me feel touched and eye-opening, of course, only from the inside I have seen.
1. "Driving My Car" Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
2. "Our Lady" Director: Paul Verhoeven
3. "The Worst Man in the World" Director: Joachim Till
4. "Chance and Imagination" Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
5. "The Hand of God" Director: Paulo Sorrentino
6. "The Power of Dogs" Director: Jane Campion
7. "French Mission" Director: Wes Anderson
8. "Zishan Fish Recipe" Director: Li Maoyi
9. "In Front of You" Director: Hong Changxiu
10. "Monsieur Bachmann and His Students" Director: Maria Speight
Although this 2022 has already begun, to be honest in my feelings, these two years have a sense of suspension, fortunately, there are so many good movies to accompany through some difficult moments.
I will keep writing, not everyone can do what they like, if you do what you like, you have to stick to it.
I've been listening to the song of sound fragments lately, so let's end this article with the last lyrics from "The Golden Age", and encourage you:
It's a world of betting, and no one is a spectator;
Keep swinging, my naïve old friend;
Only rolling stones can not grow moss.