Upon a quick glance of my favorite new movies released in the U.S. in 2024, I’ve found that the top two are actually from 2023. One earned a best foreign film nomination for last year’s Oscars before a summer release in the states followed by a gradual increase in word-of-mouth attention through streaming; the other had no fanfare before release and unfortunately just a modicum thereafter.
Both are by filmmakers well past retirement age, and both stand as my favorite pictures by those directors. Both also rank with the great films made by elderly auteurs, not quite up there with Agnes Varda’s late non-fiction masterpieces but above Martin Scorsese’s immensely impressive epics of the past five years.
The first one is by a filmmaker I’ve enjoyed since becoming aware of him in the early nineties: English working-class stalwart Ken Loach. I got on the bus with Riff Raff in 1993 or ’94, and while I never went through his back catalog to check out lauded works such as Kes, I’ve seen around a dozen of his pictures since and liked them all to varying degrees. I particularly enjoyed collaborations with Robert Carlyle and Peter Mullin, as well as Loach’s political forays into our hemisphere with Carla’s Song (partially set in Nicaragua) and the U.S. labor movement piece Bread and Roses.
Impressive as his resume is, I hadn’t seen anything to prepare me for The Old Oak. Set in a former coal mining town in North England town that has been in decline since the closing of the pits at least a generation prior, the picture revolves around the resettlement of Syrian refugees who have endured even more hardships. Loach examines the local resentment that escalates into violence and sabotage, along with a growing cooperation that enhances the entire community despite backlashes and setbacks. He’s always been polemical while still illustrating a variety of motivations, but the artistry he reaches here is the most complete I’ve seen from him– a significant statement, that. In his mid-eighties when the film was made, I’ve heard he’s talked about retiring after this one. I’m good either way on that: The Old Oak shows he’s still got a lot to say, but he would definitely be going out on a high note.
The other 2023 movie I fully embraced in 2024 is Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days. Essentially a Japanese film by the German filmmaker who’s always been a citizen of the world, this is also a capstone for a comparatively young director, in his late seventies almost a decade younger than Loach. In Wenders’s case, I’m less of a long-time fan than an appreciator from a distance. I loved his English-language effort Paris, Texas when I saw it on video not too long after its release, but it hasn’t proved amenable for repeated viewings for me. His signature work Wings of Desire is clearly a masterpiece, but I admire it more than I like it. On the other hand, I am completely on-board with his Cuban venture Buena Vista Social Club, especially for introducing me to the music of bassist Cachao and pianist Ruben Gonzalez.
Perfect Days shows me what others I respect have seen in Wenders all along. It also illustrates how filmmakers can explore other cultures with marvelous and illuminating results: my favorite contemporary Japanese filmmaker, Hirokazu Kore-eda– despite brilliant Japan-set works like Still Walking, After the Storm, and The Third Murder (which features Koji Yakusho, the star of Perfect Days)– has never been better for me than in his foray into French film with La Verite, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche.
Although Wenders is famous for his variety of subjects and approaches, Perfect Days offers a singularly pure, uniquely philosophical vision comparable to Japanese masters like Ozu and Mizoguchi. In results, however, it’s even more rewarding than Ozu and more watchable than Mizoguchi, in part because it reflects a less restrictive society than the post-war expression of protagonists struggling against rigid societal expectations and varieties of discrimination. Like the Japanese masters, Wenders’s lead character is highly individualized. But the writers and director extend that quality to supporting characters who in previous generations would have been mere types. Lead actor Yakusho presents a poetic quality through simple but unique routine; Wenders enhances this via a number of devices from musical selections to a visual approach that is both engaging and unpretentious. Overall, Perfect Days is for me at the level of top Kore-eda and short of only peak Kurosawa in the Japanese canon I admittedly have only sketchy knowledge of.
It’s no disgrace to my previous 2023 standard bearer Past Lives that these wondrous pieces pushed it down to the bronze; so far, they’re likely my favorite two movies of the twenties. The Old Oak presented itself more strongly in the theater; they both enhanced on second viewing, with Perfect Days narrowing the gap. So, I’ll table ranking them with respect to each other, and instead just be grateful that these cinematic visionaries in autumn years are still able to enlighten, explore, and even broaden their horizons as they continue to hone their craft and further expand their art.