Welcome to the 2024 SiftPop.com Sifties!
This year, the SiftPop writers came together to nominate five movies for Best Visual Experience. Since two of the major pieces that work together to create a complete cinematic experience are a film’s visuals and audio, we thought it would be important to highlight them for our Siftie awards.
Luca Guadagnino had made lots of beautiful-looking movies before Challengers ever came out. He’s always had a unique and distinct eye for displaying the beauty of both landscapes and the human body. In cases like Call Me By Your Name, A Bigger Splash, or Bones and All, the events that Guadagnino depicts are lower energy, allowing shots to linger in a feeling. But he turned that all upside down with Challengers, a movie that’s so high-energy and intoxicating that it’s almost impossible to look away. He employs a lot of his typical cinematographic and editorial tricks, but in the tennis scenes in particular, there’s a level of invention and excitement that’s hard to deny. When Guadagnino lets it all fly in the final scene, we have a tennis ball POV, final closeups of the sweaty actors, shots from below the court, and so much more, culminating in a euphoric final moments whose images will etch themselves onto your brain.
To get the obvious out of the way, Furiosa does not soar quite as high as its predecessor Fury Road. That said, it comes pretty darn close. Occasional CGI overreliance aside, Furiosa is the most visually ambitious film of the year. The war rig sequence that occurs midway through is the most thrilling action set piece in years, and a true mark of director George Miller’s skill behind the camera. Miller, by the way, released this film when he was 79 years old. The achievement of Furiosa would be career-defining for any filmmaker, but it is made all the more impressive given that it sprung forth from the mind of a man old enough to have been born at the tail end of World War II. The Wasteland remains one of the richest, most exhilarating backdrops in cinema, and future film-lovers will look back to Furiosa and wonder why general audiences and awards bodies took the film for granted.
Ever since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse changed the game, the increasingly homogenized art of animation has become thankfully less so. Every year, there seems to be at least one shining example to remind audiences just what can be done creatively in the medium. The Wild Robot is one such beacon. From director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon), it’s an absolutely breathtaking visual experience. The world of the forest, the animals that inhabit it, and the robotic visitor that crash lands there are brought to life vividly with lush colors and captivating contrasts. This is one of those films where any image is worthy of being framed. It’s become cliché, but it doesn’t make it untrue. There’s a real painterly feel to what the animation team is able to put on the screen. Though animated movies may often be siloed to their own category, The Wild Robot shows that animation can provide as much a visual spectacle as the best cinematographer.
Nobody does gothic quite like Robert Eggers, and Nosferatu is just the latest example. Taking his black-and-white cinematography from The Northman and The Lighthouse, it’s used to even greater effect here, as it allows the shadows to really shine. The shadows, cast in the eerie glow of the moonlight, feel foreboding. The white of the snow pops when contrasted with the blacks that bathe the screen. It utilizes the darkness in a way that effectively chills, without being drowned in it and forcing audience members to strain their eyes to be able to see what’s being projected on screen. When it does shift to color, outside of black and white tinted with blue hues, the screen pops, as it’s often bathed in the orange and red of flame. Outside of the color palette and lighting choices, the shots are framed masterfully. Case in point: Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok. The audience is only given the slightest peek at a time, never really a full picture, which only services to increase the trepidation. It’s a prime example of how a director can use their entire toolbox to effectively set the tone on horror storytelling.
We see mega-budget sci-fi movies released regularly, but it’s hardly an exaggeration to say that none of them come close to looking as good as Dune: Part Two does. In an age where it’s easy to look at one of these blockbusters and point out a dozen instances of bad CGI, it’s a testament to Dune’s quality that even when there’s a giant sandworm on screen, there’s a little part of you that thinks it could be real. On top of the impeccable CGI, there’s also grand, tactical set design, beautiful costuming, and the creation of lots of weapons and gadgets for the futuristic science fiction world of Dune. And Giedi Prime, the home world of the Harkonnens, being black and white is an inspired choice.
Make sure to check out the previous 2024 Sifties winners, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow for the winner of Best Narrative Experience!