THE TOP 5 BEST INDIE SCIENCE-FICTION MOVIES OF THE LAST FEW YEARS
From Beyond the Black Rainbow to Coherence: because you don't need too many gadgets to make a good story.
Blade Runner 2049 showed that science fiction filmmaking (the real, the "serious" one) still has a place in Hollywood. Villeneuve himself had already prepared the way with Arrival, and previously Nolan and Cuarón had also done so. However, it is in the independent market (and let's consider any film with a budget of less than $15 million as "indie") that the most attractive and irreverent proposals are found.
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Panos Cosmatos' Canadian film has a lot of Elfen Lied and a little bit of Tarkovsky's Solaris; perhaps the comparison with the latter is an exaggeration considering the poetic nature of the Soviet director's films, but there are still parallels in form and rhythm. Beyond the Black Rainbow devours itself like the uroboros, plunging the viewer into a trance whose atmosphere is everything. You have to be patient to face it for the first time, but the rewards are there for those who let themselves be carried away.
Upstream Color (2013)
Shane Carruth directed, wrote and even musicalized this small experiment of great proportions. Some call it a film that is not understood "without a manual", and to a certain extent it is an adequate observation. But the fact is that, despite possessing a linear narrative, Upstream Color is less about history and more about sensations; it is a journey in memory, in the places and people that make us feel real (to simplify). Moreover, and although it may sound trivial, it is a visually very beautiful, stylized, well cared for film, almost raising to the extreme all that technique camera in hand and shallow depth of field that identifies the indie made with DSLRs.
Under the Skin (2013)
This was a film that brought Mica Levi's talent as a soundtrack composer to the table, leading to an Oscar nomination last year for Jackie. It is fair to mention it first because, although Jonathan Glazer's film also benefits from a necessarily inexpressive Scarlett Johansson, the soundtrack is, in essence, the soul of the film. It would be wise to say "Do yourselves a favor" in case you haven't heard it yet, but it would be sacrilege if you do it before you see the film; you complement each other in such a way that it hurts to separate them from each other. So, let's watch the movie first.
Coherence (2013)
It is less well known and celebrated than the rest of those who make up this list (although he won important victories in Sitges), but it is a real exercise in ingenuity and creativity. How do you make a science fiction film without big sets, or enough money to conceive a futuristic or dystopian production design? Here's the answer. To say too much would be to spoil the plot, but just as The Invitation gave a satisfactory twist to psychological terror, Coherence does so without too many pretensions within the conventions of his genre.
Melancholia (2011)
It appears last because it is possibly the least "indie" of the five: it is directed by Lars Von Trier, the heavyweight with Nicolas Winding Refn of Denmark. It narrates the end of the world because of a planet approaching the earth, after a sumptuous wedding almost as uncomfortable as death itself. Melancholia is Von Trier condensed. Although he himself tried to turn Nymphomaniac into his magnum opus (and even gave him references from Antichrist, almost like a "Trierception"), Melancholia is the real jewel of his belated filmography. And to return to Tarkovsky: as in Solaris, The Snow Hunters of Pieter Brueghel the Old Man symbolically weaves the anguish of the plot.