Critics Choice 2025 - Turn of the Century
It’s already 2025. Before we knew it, the 21st century has already entered its 25th year. Remember how we made it from the 20th century? Why do those who weren’t born yet at the time obsess over everything from Y2K?
Do you remember (or know) the millennium bug, ICQ and 56K? The internet is undoubtedly the most influential technology of recent times. “At the time I wrote this film the internet was just starting to become popularised. It was before anybody really had a full idea of what effect it was going to have on our daily lives.” Keeping his finger on the pulse, Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi carves a spiritual totem of early 21st century mankind with Pulse (2001), foreseeing how the internet would erode the hearts of modern humans. “Maybe it was the effect that the turn of the millennium had on me. The more modern and developed our society is, the sense of alienation between people grows stronger and stronger.” Chinese Fifth Generation filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang had a similar sentiment, but he chose to take a different route and remake a 1948 Chinese classic into Springtime in a Small Town (2002), getting away from the hustle and bustle and returning to the mysterious realm of the old days.
As the new century approached, world cinema saw many new developments. The early 1990s saw the rise of many American independent filmmakers. Among them, New Queer Cinema pioneer Gregg Araki made the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. Its middle chapter The Doom Generation (1995) taught Gen X to get high and has become regarded as a cult classic; in Germany, a group of graduates from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin – later labelled the Berlin School – quietly made their way into the spotlight of world cinema. Among them, Christian Petzold began the “Ghosts” trilogy with The State I am In (2000), outlining German history with new cinematic aesthetics; the Dogme 95 Movement may have begun in Denmark, but it managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean and inspired the then-unknown Sean Baker to make Take Out (2004) with his creative partner Shih-Ching Tsou for an extremely low budget, laying the foundation for his vérité cinematic style. Little did anyone know that he would achieve unrivaled success 20 years later by sweeping both Cannes and the Oscars for the same film.
Just as people were looking forward to better days in a new century, conflicts that had been culminating for years exploded: The 9/11 attacks, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Iraq War...Many filmmakers chose to use their creative works to respond to the chaos. Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention (2002) satirises the Israel-Palestinian issue with absurd deadpan humour. Watching it again as the war continues to rage on in Gaza, the film still feels as on point as ever; made when he was over 90 years old, Portuguese maestro Manoel de Oliveira’s A Talking Picture (2003) uses a cruise ship that sailed in 2001 to speculate on the history of human civilisation and question the source of chaos all around the world; Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’s Battle in Heaven (2005) uses shocking images and sounds to paint a portrait of post-millennium Mexico City and dig deep into its class problems. It’s an interesting companion piece to the depiction of migrant workers in Take Out.
With these eight films, we look back at the once-in-a-hundred-year “Turn of the Century”.
It’s already 2025. Before we knew it, the 21st century has already entered its 25th year. Remember how we made it from the 20th century? Why do those who weren’t born yet at the time obsess over everything from Y2K?
Do you remember (or know) the millennium bug, ICQ and 56K? The internet is undoubtedly the most influential technology of recent times. “At the time I wrote this film the internet was just starting to become popularised. It was before anybody really had a full idea of what effect it was going to have on our daily lives.” Keeping his finger on the pulse, Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi carves a spiritual totem of early 21st century mankind with Pulse (2001), foreseeing how the internet would erode the hearts of modern humans. “Maybe it was the effect that the turn of the millennium had on me. The more modern and developed our society is, the sense of alienation between people grows stronger and stronger.” Chinese Fifth Generation filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang had a similar sentiment, but he chose to take a different route and remake a 1948 Chinese classic into Springtime in a Small Town (2002), getting away from the hustle and bustle and returning to the mysterious realm of the old days.
As the new century approached, world cinema saw many new developments. The early 1990s saw the rise of many American independent filmmakers. Among them, New Queer Cinema pioneer Gregg Araki made the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. Its middle chapter The Doom Generation (1995) taught Gen X to get high and has become regarded as a cult classic; in Germany, a group of graduates from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin – later labelled the Berlin School – quietly made their way into the spotlight of world cinema. Among them, Christian Petzold began the “Ghosts” trilogy with The State I am In (2000), outlining German history with new cinematic aesthetics; the Dogme 95 Movement may have begun in Denmark, but it managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean and inspired the then-unknown Sean Baker to make Take Out (2004) with his creative partner Shih-Ching Tsou for an extremely low budget, laying the foundation for his vérité cinematic style. Little did anyone know that he would achieve unrivaled success 20 years later by sweeping both Cannes and the Oscars for the same film.
Just as people were looking forward to better days in a new century, conflicts that had been culminating for years exploded: The 9/11 attacks, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Iraq War...Many filmmakers chose to use their creative works to respond to the chaos. Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention (2002) satirises the Israel-Palestinian issue with absurd deadpan humour. Watching it again as the war continues to rage on in Gaza, the film still feels as on point as ever; made when he was over 90 years old, Portuguese maestro Manoel de Oliveira’s A Talking Picture (2003) uses a cruise ship that sailed in 2001 to speculate on the history of human civilisation and question the source of chaos all around the world; Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’s Battle in Heaven (2005) uses shocking images and sounds to paint a portrait of post-millennium Mexico City and dig deep into its class problems. It’s an interesting companion piece to the depiction of migrant workers in Take Out.
With these eight films, we look back at the once-in-a-hundred-year “Turn of the Century”.
Battle in Heaven Critics Choice 2025
98 Minutes
Following a botched kidnapping attempt that left a child dead, the dark- skinned and obese chauffeur Marcos wrestles with guilt while becoming obsessed with his wealthy employer’s daughter Ana, newly returned from abroad and a dabbler in high-class prostitution. Opening with an explicit, slo-mo fellatio (scored ethereally to Tavener’s “The Protecting Veil”), Reygadas’s provocative vision of social inequality scandalised audiences at Cannes with its potent mixture of religious feeling, avant-garde shock tactics, the autobiographical blending of documentary and fiction (Reygadas cast his own family driver as Marcos while Ana is a well-to-do nonprofessional), and sheer cinematic spectacle. Marcos’s journey towards redemption through sin takes viewers on a tour of Mexico City and its surrounding countryside that characteristically for the auteur juxtaposes the sacred and the profane, with a notable accent on the disposable ugliness of the mundane. While Reygadas’s lurid sensationalism may leave him open to charges of exploitation, the film appears in retrospect prophetic not only of our present world divided between the haves and the have nots, but of the cinema it has inspired, whose opposing paradigms must be ROMA (2018) and PARASITE (2019) – visions poised between hope for reconciliation and fear of retribution.Post-screening talk in Cantonese with journalist Jacky Lin & film critic Derek
Lam.
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Take Out Critics Choice 2025
88 Minutes
With Sean Baker’s ANORA (2024) winning an unprecedented four Academy Awards, we look back at his creative trajectory, going all the way back to when he first found the independent spirit with his longtime collaborator Shih-Ching Tsou. Made for only US$3,000 and with a MiniDV camera, Baker and Tsou wrote, shot, directed and edited this story of Ming, an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggling for survival in New York City. To pay off his debts, he delivers as many takeout orders as possible every day, but he eventually sees both the hot and cold of human nature. In this melting pot of a city, he is doomed to drift aimlessly like a lone boat at sea. Influenced by cinéma vérité and the Dogme 95 movement, Baker adheres to a style of realism here that has become his trademark, even foreshadowing the emotional reversal in the end of ANORA. Seeing the film’s approach to marginalised communities feels even more prescient 20 years later when we look at the delivery courier controversy in Hong Kong, as well as the plight of refugees in Europe and the U.S. Perhaps seeing Baker’s concern for the disadvantaged could give us a way to find solutions together.
With a 10–15-minute introduction in Cantonese by film critic Horace Chan.
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A Talking Picture Critics Choice 2025
96 Minutes
On a contemporary grand tour from Lisbon to India along the Mediterranean Sea, stopping at cities such as Marseilles, Naples, Athens, Istanbul, Cairo and Aden, history professor (Leonor Silveira) and her young daughter visit the most significant of historical sites – some of which now only remain as ruins.Encounters with interlocutors from different cultures and identities prompt them to muse on how the cradle of civilisation – The Mediterranean – was (and is) also the centre of evolving cultural conflicts, and the rise and fall of kingdoms and legends, while wars erupt in succession, and they debate the contradictions arising through the foibles and excesses of human intelligence.These reflections extend to modern time hegemony and idiosyncrasies in the dining table dialogue with the American cruise captain (John Malkovich) and his lady guests (Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas, Stefania Sandrelli).Ostensibly presenting itself as a travelogue, with a splash of his distinguished formal inventiveness, the film holds dear the enduring variety of civilisation we have created for ourselves, and is a fable of the precarious circumstances of such abundance when civilisation itself is threatened.
With a 10–15-minute introduction in Cantonese by film critic Kiki Fung.
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Divine Intervention Critics Choice 2025
92 Minutes
The city of Nazareth is mainly inhabited by Arabs living under the Israeli occupation. Life seems to be peaceful here, but violence can be triggered at any time: Teenagers chase Santa Claus down and kill him; drivers curse at each other; neighbours toss trash at each other; an old man punctures a youngster’s football. Some are spectators while others beat people up, shoot guns and set fires, just like any other day. Israel sets up a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah in Palestine; after a son visits his heart attack-
stricken father in the hospital, he goes to the checkpoint for a silent date with his lover, who is in the Ramallah side. As the pressure cooker nears breaking point, a red balloon with Yasser Arafat’s face floats across Jerusalem, and a female ninja fights Israeli soldiers. Writing, directing and starring in the film, Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman portrays everyday reality in Israel and Palestine using absurd surrealism, denouncing the cruelty and injustice of the occupation. The Cannes jury led by David Lynch fell in love with the film, making it the first Palestinian film to win a major award at one of the “Big Three” European film festivals.
With a 10–15-minute introduction in Cantonese by film critic Timmy Chen.
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