Best of 2016

Terrific films, terrible year

Can't include any horror films because to my mind the entire genre has been rendered not only unfrightening but totally redundant by the world's recent turn into fascism. Can't in good conscience include any film that deals directly with aforementioned recent events because 1) there aren't that many and 2) I suspect we need to digest what's happened for a few years before the proper level of disappointment and anger and artistry can be expressed. 

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman)

In belated tribute to one of the greatest of filmmakers, who died this month

Women in cages

The late Chantal Akerman's best-known work and popularly acknowledged masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is the character study of a creature in her native habitat, the apartment over which she presides and maintains and operates with almost surgical precision.