10 Best Films 2024: Joseph Wade
2. The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin’s penchant for deconstructing myths of American fiction and culture was, for a brief period of time in the early months of 2024, the talk of the world; even a TikTok trend was born out of the debilitating sadness that The Iron Claw viewers felt when experiencing the movie for the first time. This was heartbreaking melodrama that put the US’s exceptionalism to task, and brought an often overlooked American pastime into the spotlight.
Telling of the tragic true story of the Von Erichs, a famous Texan wrestling family renowned globally throughout the 1980s, Durkin approached exceptionalism through the lens of good ole Americana to express how the darkest of demons can spring from even the most American of landmarks, the Texan farmhouse. Zac Efron plays Kevin Von Erich, a wrestler and family man, who is constantly paying witness to the emotional, mental and physical abuse of his father Fritz (Holt McCallany), whose infamous approach brings tragedy to the family’s doorstep. There won’t be a dry eye in the house before you’re through with this one.
Durkin’s film is perhaps only the 2nd true representation of what it means to be a wrestler in film history (after Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler from 2008), which is quite remarkable given wrestling’s worldwide popularity and current mainstream appeal. His ability to marry his analysis of the American Dream, of family dynamics, of the myths of Americana and of the US itself, with a highly emotive and respectful true story of trauma and great loss, is astonishing. And the film’s original song, “Live That Way Forever”, is just one of the many aspects of this remarkable film that should have been honoured with an Oscar nomination.
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1. The Zone of Interest
There are remarkable films each and every year, but very rarely can we tell that we are watching an instant classic as we’re watching it. In 2019 (2020 for us in the UK) we had Parasite. In 2024, we had The Zone of Interest… one of the greats of 21st century cinema.
Director Jonathan Glazer, who made one of the best films of the 2010s in Under the Skin (2013), returned from his relative hibernation (10 year absence) to offer this post-modern classic of a war movie that had frightening contemporary relevance.
In The Zone of Interest, Christian Friedel’s Rudolf and Sandra Hüller’s Hedwig are a married couple living in the house next to one of the Nazi party’s infamous “extermination camps”. Rudolf is a high ranking official at the base, but Glazer points his camera towards Hedwig and the domesticity she enjoys just feet away from the towering wall that borders her home from hell. As the sounds of screaming, revolt, and incoming trains play beneath the mundane everyday conversations of Hedwig and her family members, The Zone of Interest paints a frightening picture. He asks, “If the Nazis were so evil for going about their lives with no care for the atrocities elsewhere, then what are we?”
Regular Pawel Pawlikowski cinematographer Łukasz Żal brought a washed out documentary-like feeling to the film through wide lenses often placed in parts of the home you might expect to find security cameras. His visual art, sprinkled with more arthouse segments filmed in heat vision, illuminates the themes of the piece, while Glazer’s tight focus on the evils present ensure that we never once feel sympathy, empathy, or even hope, for the people at the centre of his story.
There are plenty of things to ponder upon watching The Zone of Interest, many of which are more important than the quality of the film, but as a representative of our year in cinema it must be noted here that this WWII movie from one of the world’s premier filmmakers is about as important and spectacular as any in our lifetimes, and a magnificent artistic achievement unparalleled in 2024.
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Regardless of production pauses, studio shutdowns, exhibitor troubles, and streaming’s never-ending debts, the art of film has shone. Though 2024 may not have been the stellar year that others have proven to be, there were still some truly great offerings to examine, analyse, and most importantly feel. Should the future of cinema offer films of the quality we have already experienced this decade, then the next monumental and life-changing theatrical experience may be just around the corner.
Remember, there’s no substitute for the Great Dark of the Cinema. So turn your phone off and lose yourself for a while. You never know… it may forever change you.
For the 100 Greatest Films of the 2020s (So Far), buy The Film Magazine Edition 1 (2020-2024) – £2.
