by Christiane Salamat

Maybe it’s just me, but the ushering in of the new year has felt decidedly swift and unceremonious. Amongst the backdrop of a global health crisis, it has been made painstakingly clear that years are mere constructs – that 10 days ago is still 10 days ago, never mind the fact that 10 days ago, it was a whole other year.

Just because things feel stagnant doesn’t mean that we have to. When it comes to new years, it’s always been more about what they symbolize (new beginnings, new goals, ends of eras) than what they amount to physically (the Earth finishing its trip around the sun). The advent of a new year is always a great time to reflect on yourself and your intentions. Cinephiles that we are, we’ve put together a list of films that have inspired us to take some time off and reflect on life, at least a little bit.

GHOST WORLD

Following her high school graduation, cynical teenage pariah Enid isn’t sure what to make of her life. As the summer goes by, her plans to forgo college, get a job and move into an apartment with Rebecca, her best and virtually only friend, fall apart. Instead, Enid bides her time playing jokes on old, sad men, taking remedial art class and listening to Buzzcocks. Basically, Enid is us. A cult favorite film based on a cult favorite graphic novel, Ghost World is the perfect movie to watch when everything feels a little aimless and up in the air (ie. right! now!).

MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI

Co-written by Céline Sciamma, the mind (and heart and soul) behind last year’s Portrait of a Girl on Fire, My Life As A Zucchini is an unassuming little masterpiece that explores the grim realities of loss and abandonment from a child’s perspective. Based on the novel by Gilles Paris, My Life was adapted into a stop motion animation film in 2017 and has become a personal comfort movie of mine for its ability to confront heavy themes with a childlike optimism that we could all use a bit of. Poignant and tender in its best parts (really, throughout all of its 65 minute running time), My Life is a thoughtful story of resilience and friendship, and it’s one that sticks with you long after it’s over.

BEGINNERS

Feeling a little lost? For the greater part of 2020, I felt like I’d been floating – from job to school, from bed to desk, and amidst the countless transitions, the ennui had gotten to me. Last month, I rewatched Beginners on a whim and felt that spark of livelihood for the first time in what had felt like forever: the spark you get when you watch the sun set in real time or when you emulate Lorde and reel through the midnight streets, subject to no one and nothing. Based on director Mike Mills’ own experiences, Beginners stars Ewan McGregor as a man adjusting to life after the death of his father, who had come out as gay only five years beforehand. The beauty of the film is in its raw portrayals of grief, acceptance and love.

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

Call me corny, but watching Billy Crystal profess his love for Meg Ryan after not being able to process or articulate his feelings for her for the rest of the movie simply just does something to me. It might not be the introspective indie film you’d expect to be on this list, but it’s a classic! With all the uncertainty coming into the new year (every new year, but this one even more so), an annual viewing of When Harry Met Sally is basically required viewing for me. It reminds me that some things never change – from Meg Ryan’s timeless autumn-in-New-York wardrobe to its depiction of slow-burn romance that’ll never get old. Plus, it has graced us with one of the best New Year’s scenes in film history, and for that, we’ll always show it some love this time of year.

CLEO FROM 5 TO 7

The auteurs of French New Wave are distinguishable from their contemporaries by a few marked characteristics: their stories that find the golden mean between whimsical and understated, their sharp visuals, and the themes of existentialism and self-reflection prominently featured in their bodies of work. No one’s films are better described by these descriptors than those of Agnès Varda, recently hailed as “one of the gods” by Martin Scorsese himself. Varda’s seminal work, Cléo from 5 to 7, follows Cléo, a popular Parisian singer, for two hours as she awaits results from a medical test. The film is a feminist commentary on the male gaze, a testament to the timelessness of bare-bones filmmaking and a reminder to invest in the things that mean the most to us.