Best of 2018 - Best Production Design
Hello again! Sorry for the posting break. I got out of the habit after going on vacation, and then it took me awhile to get myself back in the habit again. I've actually been watching tons of movies, just not writing about them. You can follow me on letterboxd to follow along with my viewing history. I'm going to try to ease back into writing with an easier category. I actually feel a bit rusty. I've been in my head a lot lately. It's a bit odd trying to put the words back out there again.
Best of 2018 - Production Design
Annihilation - dir Alex Garland
Inside the iridescent, warped bubble of the shimmer, the natural world has started to bleed and fold into itself. The production design here varies from dreamlike and gorgeous to haunting and deeply disturbing as even human flesh becomes part of the landscape. This is one of the most unique looking films I've ever seen, on a grand scope and down to its chilling details. Production designer Mark Digby visualizes Jeff VanderMeer's novel in a way that is inventive and at times shocking. This is one of the most vividly realized sci-fi worlds in recent memory.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - dir Joel & Ethan Coen
The Coens' vision of the West is a bleak one, but it is also fanciful and lovely, in many cases lit and designed like an illustration from a folktale, as if the sets were lifted straight from the pages of the book within the film. Most of the characters are in near-constant motion, with horses, wagon trains, stagecoaches and carriages ferrying them between the land of the living and the dead (in one case, literally). In between they visit saloons, banks, dingy hotel rooms, and the softly lit stage above, making their mark on the world before they depart all too soon.
Roma - dir Alfonso Cuaron
Alfonso Cuaron lovingly, painstakingly recreated his childhood Mexico City home for Roma, from the narrow driveway his parents squeezed their cars through, to the posters on the children's bedroom walls. The house feels extremely self-contained, with its action spilling out into a concrete courtyard instead of the street, but from the roof, we catch a glimpse of the rest of the city, zig-zagged with clothes lines and opening up to a sky full of soaring airplanes. The film allows us to live comfortably in the rhythm of the home for quite some time, until the unrest outside starts to spill into the lives of the characters, and we have to venture to an ocean town to regain our composure. It's deeply intimate and visually arresting, a rare glimpse into a fully realized pocket of the past, both of one man and an entire country.
Black Panther - dir Ryan Coogler
Hannah Beachler rightfully made history by becoming the first black winner of the Oscar for production design for this film. It's a stunning achievement, and although she had the pages of comic books to draw inspiration from, her magnificent realization of Wakanda stands apart for its bold and colorful use of Afrofuturism. The world these characters inhabit doesn't really look like anything else in cinema. It's wonderfully creative and yet immediately recognizable as a part of the Marvel cinematic universe. Blending ultra high tech with tribal designs and traditions, she creates a backdrop that does most of the work in getting us up to speed with the place and time King T'Challa inhabits. It's an amazing work of art.
First Man - dir Damien Chazielle
I actually saw First Man well after I made these lists, which is why it hasn't made an appearance til now (it certainly deserved to be on my Best Music list). I bumped my final choice off the list for it pretty easily. First Man is meticulously crafted, using visuals and sound design in perfect harmony to transport you to a very specific experience, one that almost none of us will ever have. I am beating myself up hard for not seeing this one in the theater. The way Damien Chazielle recreates the extraordinary environments the astronauts find themselves in, for training, space exploration, and ultimately, on the moon's surface, is so realistic that it's impossible not to get caught up in the feeling of actually being there yourself. The period detail is spot on, but it's the creakiness, the shakiness, the imperfections, that really take you deep into the incredible moments that changed the course of history.
Best of 2018 - Production Design
Annihilation - dir Alex Garland
Inside the iridescent, warped bubble of the shimmer, the natural world has started to bleed and fold into itself. The production design here varies from dreamlike and gorgeous to haunting and deeply disturbing as even human flesh becomes part of the landscape. This is one of the most unique looking films I've ever seen, on a grand scope and down to its chilling details. Production designer Mark Digby visualizes Jeff VanderMeer's novel in a way that is inventive and at times shocking. This is one of the most vividly realized sci-fi worlds in recent memory.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - dir Joel & Ethan Coen
The Coens' vision of the West is a bleak one, but it is also fanciful and lovely, in many cases lit and designed like an illustration from a folktale, as if the sets were lifted straight from the pages of the book within the film. Most of the characters are in near-constant motion, with horses, wagon trains, stagecoaches and carriages ferrying them between the land of the living and the dead (in one case, literally). In between they visit saloons, banks, dingy hotel rooms, and the softly lit stage above, making their mark on the world before they depart all too soon.
Roma - dir Alfonso Cuaron
Alfonso Cuaron lovingly, painstakingly recreated his childhood Mexico City home for Roma, from the narrow driveway his parents squeezed their cars through, to the posters on the children's bedroom walls. The house feels extremely self-contained, with its action spilling out into a concrete courtyard instead of the street, but from the roof, we catch a glimpse of the rest of the city, zig-zagged with clothes lines and opening up to a sky full of soaring airplanes. The film allows us to live comfortably in the rhythm of the home for quite some time, until the unrest outside starts to spill into the lives of the characters, and we have to venture to an ocean town to regain our composure. It's deeply intimate and visually arresting, a rare glimpse into a fully realized pocket of the past, both of one man and an entire country.
Black Panther - dir Ryan Coogler
Hannah Beachler rightfully made history by becoming the first black winner of the Oscar for production design for this film. It's a stunning achievement, and although she had the pages of comic books to draw inspiration from, her magnificent realization of Wakanda stands apart for its bold and colorful use of Afrofuturism. The world these characters inhabit doesn't really look like anything else in cinema. It's wonderfully creative and yet immediately recognizable as a part of the Marvel cinematic universe. Blending ultra high tech with tribal designs and traditions, she creates a backdrop that does most of the work in getting us up to speed with the place and time King T'Challa inhabits. It's an amazing work of art.
First Man - dir Damien Chazielle
I actually saw First Man well after I made these lists, which is why it hasn't made an appearance til now (it certainly deserved to be on my Best Music list). I bumped my final choice off the list for it pretty easily. First Man is meticulously crafted, using visuals and sound design in perfect harmony to transport you to a very specific experience, one that almost none of us will ever have. I am beating myself up hard for not seeing this one in the theater. The way Damien Chazielle recreates the extraordinary environments the astronauts find themselves in, for training, space exploration, and ultimately, on the moon's surface, is so realistic that it's impossible not to get caught up in the feeling of actually being there yourself. The period detail is spot on, but it's the creakiness, the shakiness, the imperfections, that really take you deep into the incredible moments that changed the course of history.
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