5 Best Watch of 2023

2023 has been one of the greatest year for movie fans. Many awesome movies were released last year with an intense analysis of the main characters. And my analysis right now will be focusing on the best characters from my best watch of 2023.

Hunger Games: The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes

A rainbow of destruction, that’s The Tenth Hunger Games motto according to the head gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, in the latest Hunger Games’s adaptation released in 2023, The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes. But unlike the sequels focusing on how tributes saves their life in the Games, this prequel shows the fate of young Coriolanus Snow who once just a normal teenage and changed into one of the most megalomaniac tyrannical president of Panem.

Coriolanus Snow played by Tom Blyth had been one of the most interesting characters introduced in 2023. At first, people were rejecting the cast of him because some were afraid the image of tyrannical President Snow would change and people would grew fond of him.

But the movie did not dissappoint anyone. We could see how fate had brought President Snow’s paranoia attitude and his ambition. 

“It’s the thing we love most that destroy us.”

This phenomenal quote from President Snow indeed came with a reason: Lucy Gray Baird, a weak tribute girl from District 12 that could do nothing but sing. He wanted her to won the Games because if they win, he could get the Plinth scholarship, so he could save his family and go to the university. Winning the Games was the only way for him to get the life he wanted for his grandmother and Tigris. 

Everyone around him suffocated him, such as Sejanus Plinth and Clemensia Dovecote. They wanted to get Dr. Gaul’s attention and securing their own position, but they didn’t have the gut to make their hand dirty. The only one who dared enough to do it was none other Coriolanus Snow.

With his gesture and determination, Coriolanus gave an advantage to Lucy Gray so that she could win the Games. Sadly, he was caught cheating in doing it so he was punished to be an anonymous peacekeeper in Districts. His heart led him to bribe the officer to send him to District 12 so that he could search for Lucy Gray. 

And Coriolanus found her, finally. Their reunioun was sweet and tender, and we almost believe that this time Coriolanus could be happy. But his exile to District 12 was not a peaceful journey because Sejanus followed him only to be allied with rebellion group. Coriolanus finally did the unthinkable because he knew when Sejanus was caught, he would get caught too.

At first, all Lucy Gray songs after the Games were about Coriolanus: that he was tough, poor, but kind and tender as snow. Their conversation were everything, because slowly Coriolanus asked Lucy Gray to come to Capitol with him. Lucy Gray refused it and said that her life is in District 12. I believe that at that point, Coriolanus wanted to build his love with Lucy Gray slowly so that he could persuaded her.

When Coriolanus couldn’t resist Sejanus’s anxious movement, Lucy Gray made him worried too. The scene in the woods when they were going to the north were everything. That was how the paranoid Snow was formed. He trusted someone so dearly but they decided to betrayed him.

I think when Coriolanus cried for Sejanus, he cried for his life first. He imagined his life would be perfect, that he would get the Plinth scholarship, he would save his family, Lucy Gray would live with him, and he could get rid of Dean Casca Highbottom. But harshly he learned that he couldn’t control everyone. That was when his patience dried up.

Coriolanus hated Lucy Gray for leaving him, he hated Sejanus for not thinking about him, he hated Dean Highbottom for not letting him won while he knew Highbottom knew about his family struggle.

Coriolanus faced everything alone. He was alone when he needed to be calmed. No one helped him actually. No one could be trusted to talk how poor he was and how important Plinth money for his family.

And ironically, Lucy Gray were daunting for him. She might be gone but Coriolanus had to meet the younger and braver version of her when he faced Katniss Everdeen. Just a first meeting with her and it all reminded him about how scary to trust someone.

Suzume no Tojimari

I’m gonna put two animation movies as part of my best watch in 2023. Suzume no Tojimari is one of them. I know that this movie was released in 2022 but my country couldn’t accessed it until 2023 so I put it in 2023. 

This movie also has an interesting character, she is Suzume. You might think Suzume was just an annoying girl who stalked a guy she had a crush on and what happened rest in the movie was just a reaction for her stupidity and clumsy act.

But Suzume knew exactly what she wanted and she was just a teenage who had an impulse thought. Her determination to leaving her aunt wasn’t just formed in 5 minutes. She knew she was alone most of her time ever since she stepped the Ever-After and losing her own mother.

I think Suzume’s sense to follow Sota was not only because she loves him but also because she could sense that with him, she could find her mother. What once only a teenage rebellion was actually a spiritual journey to finding closure about her mother. 

With the journey, Suzume could learn about sacrifice and why certain people had to leave this world, even if it was painful for us. The message is so clear and subtle until it feels like a warm hug you get from someone you truly love. I cried with the ending of the movie because it was divinely beautiful.

I think, this movie is also the best film from Makoto Shinkai.

The Boy and The Heron

The next one was also Japan animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and The Heron. This latest Ghibli movie is focused more metaphysicial journey to find peace after losing someone we love. 

This is the story of Mahito, a 12 year old boy who finds struggle to adapting in a new home after his mother’s death in a brutal hospital fire from Pacific War. His father then decided to marry his late wife’s sister and moved from Tokyo to the countryside. Mahito knew he had to accept his new mother but he still felt a distant gap with her.

Mahito was charmed by a male heron bird which said that his mother was still alive. Mahito then followed the metaphysical journey to the world his granduncle had built to find his mother. But that journey changed into something deliberating him from his grief and he finally could accept anyone who loved him, including his new mother.

This is a simple coming-of-age movie with amazing way to understand about the complex world of boy’s thought. For boy, it wasn’t always easy to overcome grief and sadness. They were also be pushed to stop conflicts and war and it wasn’t always easy for them. They have to study about logical thinking but they couldn’t lose their emphaty, so it’s complex to be boys.

Oppenheimer

The story about a guy who made a nuclear bomb inspired by Bhagavad Ghita is my next best watch of 2023.  Oppenheimer himself was a very interesting character but this movie has successfully shows that the characters around him were also quirky.

Here I want to examine about Oppenheimer wife, Kitty, and his lover, Jean Tatlock. They both were extremes only in different spectrums. And how exactly Oppenheimer ended with them?

Some people think that Oppenheimer was a womanizer, but after seeing the movie, love was more like his escapism from intellectualism. Both Jean Tatlock and Kitty were presented in his life such like a prize he couldn’t look away and by that, he was starstruck to them.

And because they both were extreme in different spectrums, they gave Oppenheimer a color he couldn’t think before. Jean was the girl who gave a space for his ambition. She nurtured it and it was probably what had made her love him. Their sex scene was the one which made me sure of it, when Jean asked him to read Bhagavad Gita’s poetry while they were doing it. 

For her, Oppenheimer was like an elligible bachelor at that time and his popularity was the one which made Kitty loved him. She thinks Kitty was only interested by his fame. But was it true?

Kitty had been married three time before with Oppenheimer. Her previous marriages were confusing as how she talked about it. Her exes husband were also some people associated with leftist movement but we need to pointed out that she unsuccessfully keeping them responsible with their ideas. 

How she had been dealing with Oppenheimer, on the other hand, was quite good. She sternly believed Oppenheimer could made the bomb even though they had to bear the guilty feeling together. I saw something beyond admiring Oppenheimer’s ambition there, for it was more like the consciousness to do a greater good. 

What had lacked in their marriage was Oppenheimer’s responsible to made her happy. Kitty was unhappy and depressed in Los Alamos because she wanted to work but she was ended as a at-home-mom.

I wanted to blame Oppenheimer for making her depressed, cheating on her and everything, but she neglected their children too and there was no time to communicate, but they both were probably had been calculated it because Kitty asked Oppenheimer to do the job in the first place.

It was like a strage connection, a misplaced love, but to think what happened back then, it was close to normal.

Killers of The Flower Moon

Scorsese’s latest movie is my best watch of 2023. Killers of The Flower Moon is the best movie I’ve ever watched in my entire life. This movie focuses on how Indigenous People of America had been murdered by White People for their land and oils. It was brutal and scary.

Mollie Burkhart was the true MVP here. She was the member of Osage Nation and she fell in love to war veteran, Ernest Burkhart. At first, their love seemed sincere and pure. But Mollie’s mother reminded her to not fall in love only with looks. The warning came without surprise, as Ernest was the nephew of William ‘King’ Hale. 

Hale was the leader of white people in there. His intention was clear: to rob Osage Nation’s oil and land. He used Ernest to acquired Mollie’s land and his plan was to get rich by it. 

This move is based by David Grann’s nonfiction about the investigations of the murders dozens of Osage wealthy individuals in Oklahoma, 1920s. As the murders investigated, the true nature of white people in Oklahoma was revealed: corrupted, greedy, and racist. 

As the story went, I kept asking myself did Ernest love Mollie or was it only to gain victory? But Hale didn’t waste a chance to destroy him while he could, and after knowing the truth, Mollie left him. There was no justification to what he had been done to his own wife, but I wish he never lied to her or brave enough to say no to Hale.

When Ernest realized what he had done was wrong, he couldn’t even protecting himself or his family, and it was so tragic. Perhaps, the scene more tragic than that was the ending part which made us remember that the white people won…