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2019 ROUNDUP FILM maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 DECEMBER 2019 6 The best and worst films Teodor Reljic 1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire The past is certainly a foreign coun- try and they doubtlessly do things differently there. But that doesn't mean that same-sex desire was non- existent or exclusively doomed to historionic tragedy in 18th century France, as Céline Sciamma's crys- talline drama shows. Its very exist- ence registers like an unexpected miracle, so subtle but precise are its grace notes, so razor-sharp its psy- chological observations. 2. Knives Out Rian Johnson was too good for the toxic Star Wars fanbase that shunned him after The Last Jedi blasted into international thea- tres at the tail end of 2017, so it's good that we have him back with us making clever genre films on his own terms. With Knives Out, he expertly commandeers a stellar ensemble cast who gamely follow him into an Agatha Christie pas- tiche that will be talked about with glee for years to come owing to its airtight script and entirely on- point humour. 3. Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood Quentin Tarantino's ninth feature continues a latter-day tradition for the indie film wunderkind done good: a meandering and propulsive genre film whose period trappings are so sumptuously reproduced, the film almost unspools as a pure fetish object. But it is animated into rough and rag- ged life by two gloriously on-point performances by Leonardo Di Caprio and Brad Pitt, respectively taking on the roles of a Hollywood has-been and his stunt double, whose paths digressively meander in the cross-hairs of the Manson family, with unforgettable and entirely unexpected results. 4. Happy as Lazzaro Written and directed by Alice Rohrwacher and arriving to us a bit late in the day after building good buzz in Cannes back in May 2018, this fable-like meditation on friendship and the oft-forgotten communal obligations that should supposedly bind us but are rarely respected is heartbreaking but irresistible, with an indignant screed against capitalism right at its centre. 5. The Souvenir Joanna Hogg's autobiographical portrait of the filmmaker as a young woman is a tender and quietly immersive expe- rience which tightrope-walks across nostalgia and devasta- tion, where both budding filmmaking and terrible romantic choices collude to depict a crucial set of years for one of Britain's most exciting contemporary auteurs.