The movies are back! Okay, technically they’ve never been anywhere, but theaters are reopening in most places in the US, which means we’ve got a summer of big blockbusters and hopefully some interesting little movies. to hope. Some worthy films were also released before our big vaccine summer, or just in time for it. To that end, with half the year over, here are my favorite movies that have been released so far this year. (Note: some of these movies were eligible and included in the 2020 Oscars, but we’re counting them as 2021 movies because, well, they were released in the US in 2021.)

About infinity

Swedish avant-garde filmmaker and commercial director Roy AnderssonThe latest collection of melancholy and tired comic vignettes considers the banality of life as it collides with depth. Or rather, as it echoes the depths, becomes it, survives it. A woman waiting on a train platform for a late pickup is seen as a phalanx of Nazi prisoners of war marching towards Siberia, or a man tied to a pole, on the verge of execution. Andersson is shy about the film’s deeper meanings, until he’s not. A student, sitting in a dorm with a classmate, explains the infinity of energy – about how our dead do not create a void, but rather a transfer, then another, and another, into the eternity. The characters in About infinity tend to hang around, hampered by age or illness or a broken high heel. But time ends up rushing them into the sequel, just as it pushed them into Andersson’s frame for a brief, compassionate and pathetic glimpse into life in the world. (On demand)

Acasa, my home

Another tonically immersive documentary from Romania (Collective was one of the most successful films of 2020), Radu Ciorniciuc‘s Acasa, my home recounts three years in the life of a poor Roma family living on the fringes of Bucharest. Gica Enache, his wife Niculina, their nine children and various animals have built a makeshift off-grid house in a huge wildlife sanctuary sprawling incongruously in the middle of town. Once meant to be a reservoir, the expanse has since grown into a thriving swampy ecosystem, with Gica – conceited, impulsive, and certainly a little reckless – and his clan as unofficial stewards. Civic demand eventually weighs on the family, and Ciorniciuc closely follows their difficult transition to urban life. Acasa, my home is an essential document of a nation always on the move, and of what individual lives are disrupted and put aside in the whirlwind of progress. (On demand)

Army of the dead