Titles that impressed us in 2022

Once again this year, our critics have covered some of the cinema news in cinemas and on platforms. Here are the creations discovered in 2022 that, in one way or another, didn't leave us unmoved.

Jordi Gabioud

Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)

Antonioni is a filmmaker of today. Or of tomorrow. In either case, he was not of his time. This is quite a feat for a director who sought to describe the reality around him. His work is a Tower of Babel doomed to collapse and Zabriskie Point is the pinnacle of destruction. Here, two young people suffocated by reality flee into the desert to lose themselves in an ephemeral love before everything explodes. And this final scene, which is rooted in its time, with its cathode-ray TVs exploding to the sound of Pink Floyd, unfolds its full violence and force today. Despite all our words, the years remain the best critics.

RRR (S.S. Rajamouli, 2022)
Netflix CH

The cinema industry is struggling to get out of the quagmire created by streaming platforms, which are forcing a new trend away from the big show, which some say is no longer profitable enough. This is neither Top Gun: Maverick or Avatar 2, but the Indian blockbuster RRR which sets a new horizon. Through a plot of friendship and revenge between two men against the English colonist, the film offers the most exhilarating and exhilarating aspect of spectacular cinema, without ever sinking into the cynicism of its American colleague.

Leïla Favre

Bullet Train (David Leitch, 2022)
blue TV CH
UPC CH

I haven't watched action movies for a few years now. I don't know whether it's because I never really liked them, or because I watched an absurd amount of them with my older brother when I was a kid. I even have the slightly contemptuous thought that action comedy is an inferior genre to pure action, and I avoid as much as possible watching films where humor is mixed with stunts.

It was while listening to a podcast that I discovered Bullet Train. The reviewers were unable to agree on a common opinion of this film. As for me, I honestly forgot it existed as soon as the review was over. However, one Wednesday evening, I decided to see this film, because I wanted to clear my head and because Wednesday evenings are neither the beginning nor the end of the week, and can therefore be a bit depressing. Bullet Train far exceeded my expectations. I found myself laughing out loud many times and totally immersed in this zany, unsubtle adventure. Despite its two-hour plot, Bullet train is an effective antidote to boredom. Far from perfect, I consider it special, because it made me rediscover action comedy.

Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch, 2005)
Canal+ CH

I discovered this film during a retrospective of Jim Jarmusch's work in my living room. A gentle slap in the face. At the same time, the master of wandering cheated just by his choice of cast. Including Bill Murray already made it, in my opinion, a hit. The combination of the usual Jarmuschian poetry and the actor who perfectly embodies the «detached loser» can only be a success. I've always had a weakness for stories that seem to tell nothing, but in the end are profoundly revealing.

Read also | Sofia Cappola: do you really know her?

Well... Jim Jarmusch has played with my expectations: the fiction opens with a story in the guise of an investigation, which is only a pretext for telling another, perhaps less entertaining, but profoundly interesting story. Broken Flowers teaches us to accept things as they are presented to us. Sometimes there's good in letting go. In addition to my particular attraction to Bill Murray and his acting, I was also drawn to the female cast, made up of the charismatic Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy. I was also fascinated by the photography. Each image is a painting that perfectly represents the aesthetics of everyday life, particularly in the staging of interiors. I've never found the ordinary so captivating, so I'll remember Broken Flowers as a true cinematic and narrative revelation.

Indra Crittin

A legendary vintage (Radio Télévision Suisse, 2016)
RTS

Téléjournal of Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), April 2016. One of the reports is shot in a single sequence, a rarity on the small screen. Beyond the subject matter, the technical prowess is astonishing. Twelve takes are needed to master the timing in this way. The result is almost superficial, highly choreographed, and raises questions about the staging of information - at least explicitly, in this case.

L'enfer (Live Performance) (Stromae, 2022)
TF1

A stylistic exercise reminiscent of Stromae's interview on TF1, last January, which concludes with a singular live performance, also in sequence: an exclusive performance of one of his new songs, with instrumental accompaniment added to the live editing for the audience. A way of standing out from the usual a cappella or accompanied by an instrument, making it both a poetic interlude and a remarkable publicity stunt. It's a good opportunity to pay a little more attention to the images that reach us, and in a more creative approach, why not further blur the boundaries between different disciplines. 

Mathieu Vuillerme

Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022)
blue TV

What more can be said or learned about the King? Never has a star fascinated and been represented or pastiched so much through the arts. Through a nervous three-hour montage and from the point of view of his manager, Baz Luhrmann attempts the exercise of reappropriating Elvis Presley and offers a brilliant film with a pop aesthetic that sweeps the audience away from the opening credits. But if the rock star is so well showcased, it's essentially thanks to his interpreter. Austin Butler delivers the performance of his life at just 31 years of age. Adopting the accent, speech patterns and body language of the man who revolutionized contemporary American music as much as he renewed it, his mimicry is breathtaking, and he has earned himself a place among the greats.

Masquerade (Nicolas Bedos, 2022)

After the excellent Mr & Mrs Adelman (2017), La Belle Epoque (2019) and the highly commendable OSS 117: Red alert in Black Africa (2021) - especially given the many risks involved in reviving such a series - Nicolas Bedos returns with a truly acidic film. It's an ode to the Italian comedies of the 50s and 70s, with deliciously monstrous dialogue and performers as brilliant as they are magnificent, Masquerade presents a couple of hustlers, each infatuated with a prey in order to escape their condition and finally gain access to the wealth so often observed around them. The editing - one of Bedos's great strengths, as he works with the same editor - gives this film a crazy rhythm: accentuating laughter when it's desired, or violence when it's ordinary in this fake, postcard-like world.

You've just read an open-access article. Debates, analysis, cultural news: subscribe to support us and get access to all our content!

Cover photo montage: © Indra Crittin for Le Regard Libre