Favorites of 2024: Movies and television

"The sleep of reason produces monsters," Plate 43 of Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, 1799. Image source: History of Medicine Division, US National Library of Medicine.

Favorite movies seen in 2024

In a year full of horrors with no end in sight, we gravitated towards disturbing, unsettling movies that seemed to capture the foreboding spirit of the times.

Vampyr (1932), screenplay by Christen Jul and Carl Theodor Dreyer; directed by Dreyer.

Image source: carlthdreyer.dk

A traveler, Allan Gray (Julian West), arrives at a remote chateau-turned-hotel in what seems to be an almost deserted village. He is surrounded by an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear, and becomes convinced that the innkeeper's youngest daughter (Sybille Schmitz) is the victim of a vampire. Events unfold with the logic of a nightmare; in the film's most horrifying sequence, Gray is sealed in a glass-fronted coffin and witnesses his own burial. Director Carl-Theodor Dreyer wrote, "With Vampyr I wanted to create a waking dream on the screen and show that horror is not to be found in the things around us but in our own subconscious."

Thanks to some dear friends, we saw this film in a restored print with the live orchestral accompaniment of Wolfgang Zeller's original score performed by the SF Conservatory of Music Orchestra conducted by Timothy Brock. For my full-length review, please see "A waking dream": Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr.

Poor Things (2023), screenplay by Tony McNamara, based on the novel by Alasdair Gray; directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Poster for Poor Things. Image source: CelebMafia.com

A kind of postmodern Bride of Frankenstein, Poor Things is the story of a young suicide victim reanimated when she receives a transplant of her own unborn child's brain. Naïve and (literally) childlike, Bella (Emma Stone) soon attains the "bitter knowledge of deceit, injustice, and cruelty: the immense suffering that humans, and the social and economic systems we've created, cause other humans." For my full-length review, please see Poor Things.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from her play based on Muriel Spark's 1961 novel; directed by Ronald Neame.

Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie.

Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) is a charismatic teacher in a girls' school in Edinburgh in the early 1930s. She tries to instill in her charges her own admiration for all things Italian: its Renaissance art, its food—and its dictator, Benito Mussolini. She herself is a kind of classroom dictator, anointing favorites from among her students and playing manipulative emotional games. She fights furiously against anything that threatens her self-image or her position at the school, even if it's her own happiness. The film shows how fascism and cruelty are perpetuated not only in our political but our personal lives. When teeth are bared is it a smile, or a snarl?

Gordon Jackson as Gordon Lowther and Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie.

Maggie Smith died on 27 September of this year. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was her 11th film, and it made her an international star. And rightly so—her performance of the imperious, magnetic, troubled teacher is indelible. But there are other compelling performances in the film as well. The first is by Celia Johnson (of the great Brief Encounter (1945)) as the school's headmistress, Miss Mackay, who has increasing misgivings about Miss Brodie's sway over her "girls" and her power in the school. And the second is by Pamela Franklin as the watchful Sandy, one of Miss Brodie's favorites, who like the others not only wants to be like her, but wants to be her. She becomes aware too late of the moral compromises that will entail.

Pamela Franklin as Sandy and Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie.

Franklin, 18 at the time of filming, gives a performance that is assured, daring, and deeply disconcerting. Young as Franklin was, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was not her first major film role. Eight years earlier she had starred in another milestone of British cinema:

The Innocents (1961), screenplay by Truman Capote with William Archibald and John Mortimer after the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; directed by Jack Clayton.

Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens and Peter Wyngarde as Peter Quint. Image source: Silver Sirens

Perhaps the best Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock, The Innocents creates a mounting atmosphere of suspense and dread. An inexperienced young governess, Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), accepts a position caring for two orphaned children at a remote country estate. She is welcomed by the sympathetic housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), and finds 10-year-old Flora (Pamela Franklin) to be sweet and charming.

They are soon joined by 11-year-old Miles, who has been expelled from boarding school for bad behavior (we don't learn the specifics; the headmaster simply writes that "he is an injury to the others"). After Miles' arrival, the governess begins to see ghostly apparitions of a man and a woman. She learns that they must be Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde), a valet, and Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop), the former governess, both of whom died within the past year. In life, the two were secretly lovers; are the spirits of the dead trying to possess and corrupt the children? Or are the strange visions and sounds all in the governess's mind? The film never allows us to decide what is real and what is her dark fantasy; whatever the case, horrifying consequences result.

https://youtu.be/muz-0gY5RtM [song ends at 1:03]

The eerie "O Willow Waly," from the opening credits of The Innocents. Although it sounds like a old English folksong, it was composed for the film by Georges Auric with lyrics by Paul Dehn. This performance is generally credited to Isla Cameron, the Scottish folk singer and actress who plays Anna in the film. However, Cameron was 34 years old at the time and often sang with a distinct Scots accent; could this voice belong to an uncredited Pamela Franklin?

Favorite television series seen in 2024

Mr Bates vs the Post Office (4 episodes, 2024), screenplay by Gwyneth Hughes; directed by James Strong.

The cast of Mr Bates vs the Post Office (Toby Jones, center). Photo credit: ITV Plc. Image source: New Stateman

In 1998 Alan Bates (played by Toby Jones) and his partner Suzanne Sercombe (Julie Hesmondhalgh) invested £65,000 of their life savings in a post office in a town on the Welsh coast. Two years later the Post Office implemented a new automated sales and accounting system, Horizon. Almost immediately huge financial discrepancies appeared: in the first couple of months Horizon reported an erroneous £6,000 deficit in their accounts. Like other subpostmasters Alan and Suzanne were contractually liable for making up any shortfalls. Although they submitted nearly a hundred complaints about the reliability of the system, no investigation of Horizon took place; instead, Bates was told that no other post office had reported any problems. Alan and Suzanne's contract with the Post Office was terminated in 2003, and they lost their investment.

Bates started a campaign, seeking other subpostmasters who had experienced problems with Horizon. After setting up a website and receiving some publicity about his case, in 2009 he called a meeting of subpostmasters affected by Horizon discrepancies. More than twenty people showed up; all had been told that no one else had reported any problems. Many of those attending had been subject to unjust prosecution for theft and fraud by the Post Office. Ultimately it turned out that there were hundreds of subpostmaster victims. Huge judgments had been assessed, people bankrupted, prison terms served and lives ruined. Meanwhile the Post Office stonewalled or tried to coopt all complaints and investigations. Screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes brings her skills as a former journalist and documentary filmmaker to the dramatic retelling of this multifaceted story, and the ensemble cast led by Jones does a superb job of embodying the disbelief, anguish, and growing anger experienced by these ordinary people.

When this series was broadcast earlier this year on Britain's ITV network it finally brought broad public attention to the flaws in the Horizon system and the persecution of the subpostmasters. Thanks to the public outcry cases are being revisited, some compensation paid, and the former head of the Post Office was shamed into returning her CBE. But that does not make up for the devastation of hundreds of lives and the decades the subpostmasters have had to spend pursuing justice. And as our financial transactions, power grids, 911 call centers, oil pipelines, elections, and other essential services become ever more dependent on electronic systems, we should all be very concerned about their vulnerabilities. Mr Bates vs the Post Office is not a feel-good story, but an urgent warning.

Your Lie in April (22 episodes, 2014–15), screenplay by Takao Yoshioka, adapted from the manga series by Naoshi Arakawa; directed by Kyōhei Ishiguro.

Kaori and Kōsei in Your Lie in April. Image source: justfocus.fr

Teenaged pianist Kōsei Arima has been drilled from childhood into becoming a technically flawless competition-winning machine. But when his demanding mother dies, he loses his ability to hear his own playing. Then Kōsei meets free-spirited violinist Kaori Miyazono, who chooses him to be her musical partner despite his struggles. For Kaori, playing from the heart is more important than winning competitions. Her approach inspires Kōsei to free himself from the crushing burden of his mother's expectations and find his own authentic musical voice. He finds himself falling in love with Kaori—but heartbreak awaits.

Your Lie in April incorporates many time-honored elements of teen stories: the manic pixie dream girl who sweeps the socially awkward hero off his feet, the tomboy secretly in love with her oblivious best friend, tragic events that threaten newfound friendships. But the series avoids formula through the quality of Takao Yoshioka's writing, the striking animation and Kyōhei Ishiguro's fluid direction. I found it to be engaging and unexpectedly moving; many thanks to the relative who thought (correctly) that we would greatly enjoy it.

Coming up: Favorites of 2024 in music and books