The Best Films of 2021 that Most People Haven’t Seen

From box office failures to festival darlings

DAYS (dir. Tsai Ming-Liang; dist. Grasshopper Film)

Lee Kang-sheng quietly watches a storm brew outside his window.

What little dialogue there is in Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days is intentionally unsubtitled. The content of the communication is less important than its presence or absence. The deftly precise soundtrack draws on the ambient sounds of spaces, such as the rain against a window or the cacophony of passersby on a bustling street. Within these spaces are two men, separated by wealth, age, and health, but joined by a deafening isolation. When the two come into contact, the warmth of their intimacy and the charge of their touch is a brief respite from the solitude they share.

Days is a big-screen experience. Its still spaces are to fall into. Its sounds are to envelope. It is an atmospheric absorption. Unfortunately, few had the opportunity to see Days at its optimal scale. Distributed by Grasshopper Film, its theatrical release was very limited, but it is widely available to stream at Projectr.tv. Seeing it at home is better than not seeing it at all.