What I Did on My Pandemic

Yesterday, June 13, 2021, I finally returned to a movie theater, the Paris in Manhattan, to revisit Chaitanya Tamhane's excellent Court (2014). The last movie I'd seen in a movie theater was in Cartagena, Colombia, on March 12, 2020 at FICCI: another fine film, Nicolás Rincón Gille's Valley of Souls (2019). Unlike many film buffs, I didn't go into theater withdrawal during those intervening 15 months, and actually quite enjoyed the liberty of dipping into reserves that get short shrift in peacetime because I run around to arthouses so much. I don't yet know how I'll adapt to the new world - assuming that the Delta variant doesn't shut us down again - but, for purposes of commemoration, here are the home screenings of new-to-me films that excited me most during the pandemic. I left out very new films that I would likely have seen anyway, and restricted myself to historical titles that did not wield the urgency of festival or theatrical or streaming release. In reverse order of release date:

• Alice T. - Muntean - 2018
• Aferim! - Jude - 2015
• Beautiful Valley - Friedlich - 2011
• The Beginner - Coccio - 2010
• Tourists - Scherson - 2009
• Kippur - Gitai - 2000
• Aux Petits Bonheurs - Deville - 1994
• Changeling - Saless - 1987
• Les capricieux - Deville - 1984
• The Willow Tree - Saless - 1984
• Offre d’emploi - Eustache - 1982
• Reifezeit - Saless - 1976
• Street of Joy - Kumashiro - 1974
• Memories of Helena - Neves - 1969
• But What If This Is Love? - Raizman - 1962
• Mashenka - Raizman - 1942
• Le grand jeu - Feyder - 1934
• The Murderer Dimitri Karamasoff - Otsep - 1931

Special thanks to pandemic all-stars Sohrab Shahid Saless, Yuli Raizman, and Michel Deville - the last still with us at age 90, doing well, I hope.