Morcan Books & Films

“This movie does not merely depict the year 2020, it also captures the functioning of cinema during that time and reveals how people genuinely struggled to survive.” That’s film critic Sila Parla’s take on the Australian-produced, James Morcan-helmed, mystery-drama Anno 2020 in her review on the respected film site Letterboxd.

Sila Parla…film critic, screenwriter, director, filmmaker.

Anno 2020 review (unabridged) follows:

Most films, as we know, revolve around stories. However, this film transforms the psychological archive of its own era in one of the most powerful ways possible. Anno 2020 feels like an archive documenting its time. In the future, if people want to look back at the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, this is the kind of film they will watch as part of that archive, and through it, they will experience a sense of belonging to that period.

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Shot across four continents, five countries, and seventeen cities.

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Perhaps this is the best place to begin: we are talking about the most intense period of COVID. That alone is one of the most important aspects of the film. Shot across four continents, five countries, and seventeen cities, the question becomes this: how does a production that is so fragmented in its creation still manage to build a single emotional atmosphere?

The most striking aspect of the film is not only its scale, but also the deep contradictions at its centre. Anno 2020 may have a globally constructed narrative structure, yet it must not be forgotten that this is an independent film made with a budget of only $6,000. Under normal circumstances, such a limited budget would inevitably bring technical limitations. What makes the film fascinating, however, is that it does not attempt to hide these limitations. Instead, it transforms them directly into an aesthetic identity.

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The film becomes a valuable piece belonging to that year.

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For this reason, while watching Anno 2020, you may not encounter the polished cinematic language of conventionally edited films. Yet its fragmented narrative consciously creates an atmosphere of its own, and this becomes one of the film’s greatest strengths. The reason is simple: this sense of fragmentation is itself the spirit of 2020. In this sense, the film becomes a valuable piece belonging to that year.

We witness the fragility, loneliness, fear, and search for meaning experienced simultaneously by people across different parts of the world. This is where the film becomes most powerful: because of the fragmented nature of 2020 itself, the film does not obsess over presenting itself as “perfect.” This is not because it is unaware of its imperfections, but because it deliberately transforms them into a conscious aesthetic approach. It becomes a mirror for the fragilities, irregularities, and emotional disorientation within human behaviour, as well as for those learning how to survive alongside them.

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It prioritises emotional truth over rigid structural conventions.

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When it comes to the performances, the film avoids controlled theatrical expressions and instead relies on deeply natural reactions. In some scenes, the characters do not even appear to be delivering scripted dialogue; rather, they seem to genuinely carry the psychological pressure of that era. This is one of the film’s most important qualities:

As someone whose area of expertise particularly focuses on the screenlife and found footage genres, I found the sections of the film that embraced these styles especially successful. The fragmented digital communication, the sense of isolation created through screens, and the raw, almost documentary-like atmosphere worked remarkably well within the film’s emotional structure. Rather than feeling stylistically forced, these elements blended naturally into the psychological reality of the pandemic era, making certain moments feel less like scripted cinema and more like genuine pieces of lived experience.

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The film does not merely depict the year 2020, it also… reveals how people genuinely struggled to survive.

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Ultimately, watching Anno 2020 is not simply about watching a film centred on the pandemic. It is also about witnessing how the pandemic altered the very form of cinematic production itself, creating something that feels almost singular in its structure. One particularly significant detail is this: the film does not merely depict the year 2020, it also captures the functioning of cinema during that time and reveals how people genuinely struggled to survive.

For that reason, the film’s greatest strength lies in its willingness to take risks and present raw, realistic, and courageous experiences without fear. Even years later, when revisited, it still has the power to make audiences genuinely feel what 2020 was like.

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To visit Sila Parla’s film reviews on Letterboxd go to:

https://letterboxd.com/silaparla

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