We humans like clearly constructed stories, our brains enjoy them: stories that have a beginning, and an ending – that’s what I make my living on, too, as a filmmaker. We create these artificial constructs and color our existence by claiming we are part of some kind of a story, that our life goes through some kind of an Aristotelian arc, and we position ourselves along that life-long story at an arbitrary point and wrangle the truth so it feels like it makes sense. Ending of the year is oftentimes the very epitome of such narrative – while we’ve traveled around the Sun for yet another full round, what happened to us is in no way more or less part of an ongoing story than your next visit to a local supermarket. You can make it sound like it, but honestly, it’s just a bunch of telomeres shortening and cells dying, until we as an organism drop dead and make room for others.
So I’m not so big into this “what a wonderful year”, “what a hard year” or “a full restart at the beginning of a new” -bullshit. There are few things, though, that mark the progression of the year – and for me it’s the movies that come out during the year.
My top 5 films of 2023 are – I edited this after giving it a bit more thought…
1. FALLEN LEAVES (“Kuolleet Lehdet” Aki Kaurismäki)
2. OPPENHEIMER (Christopher Nolan)
3. THE BOY AND THE HERON (“Kimitachi Wa dô Ikiru Ka”, Hayao Miyazaki)
4. ASTEROID CITY (Wes Anderson)
5. THE CREATOR (Garteh Edwards)
Now, mind you there’s still missing big ones I assume would end up challenging the list, like Killers of the Flower Moon or Holdovers, but as I didn’t watch them in 2023, they won’t be on this list.
Other than that, the year begun on a peaceful note. We had a long walk along the beaches of Lauttasaari with Lea, admiring the beauty of the island we live on and enjoying the brisk negative fifteen degrees weather. Lauttasaari looks magical this time of the year and I love how nicely people put the lights out and make it inviting and pretty.
The year looks overall a bit uncertain but interesting if things fall into places. There’s two new movies I’m dabbling with, and I should try to finish my driving school if still possible. I’m also hoping to finish the current one I just finished shooting and get it out late 2024, but these tend to get easily pushed as post production schedule can be basically anything.
Anyway, happy new year everyone, and enjoy your 2024!
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