I hardly know where to start. 2020 may be the first time the phrase "this year has been unlike any other" is anything more than a trite cliché. COVID has devastated the world, changed lives, health, businesses and almost unnoticed daily routines in ways no-one could have predicted. Days have become months and in the UK we're currently on our third national lockdown (degree of restriction yet to be fully announced) following a Tier system that will continue potentially for long enough to become a mundane normality, all with the spectre of Brexit looming and mishandled by an increasingly right-wing government in the background. Bars and restaurants have closed, borders have closed, many workplaces have liquidated, film sets and cinemas alike have closed, opened, closed again, repeated. The repercussions on people's relationships and mental health have also been massively destructive - the story of 42 Chinese couples coming out of quarantine and immediately filing for divorce was hard to miss. At the other end of the scale when I commented that a regular customer at work seemed to be losing her voice she sheepishly admitted that, being elderly, judged at risk and without any close family, she hadn't spoken to anyone in 3 weeks or so. As many could have probably predicted I haven't been impervious to these repercussions either. I've struggled dealing with the small things, let alone the endless bigger ones; in September I had a major depressive episode, and this year (or last year as it now is) has marked the worst sustained period of mental ill-health I've suffered in some years. As 2020 closes just about all I can say is that I'm a year older, still (and perpetually) single, I haven't seen my closest friends for a few weeks shy of a full year (with a couple having reached that point in November) and I'm desperately unhappy. In many ways I'm very lucky and this year has shown me that more than others but there are so many things I want to change. Churlish as it is to complain in many ways, everything feels more insurmountable than ever when you can't go further than the cornershop, or in my case to work, for months on end, can't be within a 2 foot distance of people or are attempting conversation through two layers of masks and a pane of perspex. There doesn't seem to be an end in sight, a time where any of us can do what we once did or what we dream about doing. The counter to all this is that film and TV have become more important than ever in isolation and I too have found my viewing becoming freer and less restrictive. I finally watched films I obsessively recorded on VHS then left on a shelf for 11 years, binge-watched TV shows I first saw in my insufferable teenage years that I wasn't mature enough to understand or appreciate then, cast my net wider. As a result I'm accompanying my (admittedly small) 2020 list with another made up of the best films I've seen in the last 12 months that aren't from 2020. Also of note in that vein is that, while I've often told practically anyone who will listen that I think the Tamil film scene is one of the best in the world (often to the point of tedium), in 2020 the Malayalam industry has blown all other contenders out of the water in terms of creativity, writing or just plain delirium. From the clever, understated medical procedural Anveshanam, the ferociously bombastic Mammootty-vehicle Shylock, the inventive comic misfire Halal Love Story, the ethereal, mysterious Sufiyum Sujatayum or my film of the year, the swaggering fever dream Trance. I don't know what's in store for 2021, personally, cinematically or for life as we no longer know it, and making predictions seems if not senseless then unwise. Really all I can think of is to quote a friend "find strength in your passions, sometimes that's all we have"
2020
1. Trance (Anwar Rasheed - India/Malayalam)
2. Oh My Kadavule (Ashwath Marimuthu - India/Tamil)
3. What Did Jack Do? (David Lynch - USA)
4. Shylock (Ajai Vasudev - India/Malayalam)
5. Sufiyum Sujatayum (Naranipuzha Shanavas - India/Malayalam)
Not 2020
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders - USA - 1984)
The Silence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf - Iran/Tajikistan - 1998)
Nagina (Harmesh Malhotra - India/Hindi - 1986)
Oliver! (Carol Reed - UK - 1968)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo - Japan - 1988)
O Lucky Man (Lindsay Anderson - UK - 1973)
Dr M (Claude Chabrol - West Germany - 1990)
The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone/Byron Haskin/Hal B Wallis - USA - 1946)
