Past Lives

I just watched Past Lives. It was overdue and I didn’t quite realize until tonight that my time to watch Oscar noms is rapidly dwindling. I forget how to write about this stuff and booting up this old laptop took a bit of brain power so I’m not sure my creative juices are at top notch any longer. Therefore, let’s get started.

The film started out strong. And, to an American crowd, interesting in a way we cannot typically culturally relate. The parents of the main character, who was 12 at the time, knew that they were immigrating to Canada; however, instead of trying to keep her from growth while still in South Korea they encouraged her to grow and make connections aka “memories”. I feel as if in American culture parents are always sheltering, hiding, covering the lives of young children who have to move. It’s a weird protective stance, as I actually believe that allowing your kids to experience their lives in the fullest at any point should be encouraged.

I loved the camera work and paid attention to it throughout the film without it bothering me. Sometimes I get caught up in noticing the camerawork and what it’s attempting to portray, but the work on this just felt natural yet noticeably different. Maybe I’ll try to distinguish that further tomorrow.

I had a lot of great thoughts while watching, but frankly I feel this writing is quite dry. I apologize for those of you who read this. I still want to get out some thoughts since it’s been so long, even if it will require a strong edit and revision later. It’s a blog, so does it really matter? Can just be a journal for all intents and purposes… I digress.

The allowance of stillness and free time on screen was poignant and well-done. As in most things, including conversations, people are afraid to leave pauses. We fill them with “um” and “so”, etc. to fill the space. Sometimes we don’t even make eye contact; we just look at a phone, or pull on a string on our clothes, or pick at our own hands. The time spent in onscreen not talking was well utilized and powerful. The expressions of the characters were so well captured, there was no need to fill in the gaps. Now that is kudos to the DP and the actors themselves, for the spaces to provide the feeling and emotion to complete a scene without dialogue necessary. I know it has been done before, but the way the camerawork complimented the actors in a “secret-feeling” way made the audience feel privy to something typically not allowed. In fact it allowed me, as someone who works closely with actors on set, to feel like I was a part of the filming and was comfortable with certain scenes before it was even edited and released. There’s something special here, and I don’t think I’m hitting the nail on the head, but something about it made me write for the first time in idk how long (so I’ll take it).

Have not yet watched all of the BP noms but this is up there, for sure. For now, thanks for reading.

i’m thinking of ending things

i’m thinking of ending things.

i’m thinking of ending things.

the mantra our Young Woman repeatedly thinks and feels, which is only reflected in the viewer’s feelings: i’m thinking of ending things (RE: this film)

So incredibly bizarre it almost does too much, but my thoughts throughout watching were how much of a festival film this starkly original film seems to be. Never would I ever expect to go to a movie theater that typically showcases blockbusters and expect something of this high caliber. I say “high caliber” because it’s thoughtful and poetic, painstaking to watch — and even more so to contemplate. I’m not saying that I liked it. I’m not saying that I disliked it. I’m just saying that i’m thinking of ending things.

So which character is crazy? Is anyone? Or is this just a glimpse into the way the world is viewed through one person’s eyes. Don’t we all invent the past we’ve not ourselves experienced and create a prospect of some sort of future, even if it is all in jest — full of suppositions and “what if’s”?

This thought allows me to circle back to a thought I had earlier this week, “humans don’t know how to live in the present”. We’re all bound to our past and fumbling in utter darkness towards our futures. What about the here and now? Could this film represent the numbing of our own presence due to interfering thoughts of what has happened and what is yet to come?

Here and now: I’m writing this. I’m experiencing my thoughts on the film as I write them – I didn’t think this post through. I’m on some strangers’ couch with two Frenchies I met yesterday. I’m bingeing films like this isn’t 2021 and awards season hasn’t been pushed to April. But wait – The bingeing of films cannot, by definition, allow me to be fully in the present. It implies a film or films watched prior to this one, and/or additional film(s) viewed after. A natural past-present-future inclusion in one single term: Bingeing. The TV is quiet and so are the dogs. I hear the wind, and some traffic, and the keyboard clicking at the push of my fingertips. I’m not currently bingeing. I’m sitting. Here and now. Breathing and listening.

i’m thinking of ending things.

Toy Story 4

Mostly I liked it.

Bo is non-hetero normative AF.

So I loved all of those ~vibes~ until her and Woody ended up together at the end.

HOWEVER I DIGRESS:

Intro well done, sucked me in because it left the intrigue of missing so many YEARS.

I haven’t written in a while.  I suppose I don’t completely know howEVER:

I did get really sucked in, I thought in general it was great.  I mean number 4, come on you have something that strikes a fancy.  I wasn’t initially the right clientele:  I didn’t watch TS3 and after the original and MAYBE the second, I wasn’t ever interested.  Then TS4 had a shortlist song nomination, so I put it on when I was basically ready to watch 20 minutes and go to bed.  Obviously, became invested enough to finish the film.  Interesting premise with the trash/fork/toy/spork idea (My younger brother BASICALLY INITIATED THAT BANDWAGON, ty)

I feel I should break it down:

Slinky: Faithful old bastard, stand up for yourself more.  You’re always going to extra lengths (is this the first time I’ve been punny on my blog?) to help others.

Bo: You’re so not straight and so not right for Woody.  I mean… “WOODY”?  C’mon, embrace yourself.

Sheep: Sad you don’t have voices.  You’re freakin’ hilarious.

All dolls (including Gabby Gabby): You’re all so fRRRREaking terrifying I almost stopped watching in your first scene.  I don’t think you deserve a happy ending.  Good bye forever ( I hope ).

Buzz:  Buzz was my favorite for the first time EVER(??) what a chivalrous and like NORMAL PERSON who was a loyal friend and did what was expected.

I realize now I’m doing too much.

I realize also Woody is not included.  Maybe he should be left out of TS5 too, because we pretty much saw he makes all of the bad decisions.  Always.

Blue Valentine

I’m behind on the train, I’m always behind on the train.  Running in the tracks in the back of it, really.  Picture it, you’ve got it.  Probably tripping over my shoelaces and falling down and scraping my knees.  Maybe breaking an ankle (or two).  Anyway, I got there.  And now I’m writing.

 

This movie is gritty and down-to earth.  Realistic and heart-breaking.  Filled with fiery passion and broken hope and forgotten dreams.  Isn’t that what all of our lives are?  In one way, or another, each of these can be found in the nooks and crannies of our own lives.  Is that why the scenes hit hard?  Like an emotional roller coaster, sure, but how when you go around a corner your hip bone hits the hard plastic or when you go upside-down the harness strangles you a little bit.  A too-real too-feel, I-can’t-quite-place-it, are you happy?  I think I’m happy, what is “happy” sort of ride.

 

A memoir of types, I suppose.  Just one that captures the moments so raw and so real it hurts, you know?  The soundtrack.  The gentle uke chords that sneak in and most viewer’s forget that Gosling’s character had even been playing the same instrument in scenes prior.  The death of an animal.  The protection of a child’s young, inquisitive mind and fragile, but still whole heart.  The death of our loved ones, the intense touch during sex that is so filled with love, yet simultaneously with anger.  A drunkenness laced around the image, tight like a noose.  It just feels all there, the whole package:  Here, these are emotions and they are for you, because you’ve felt them.  Remember the times like this in your life.  There you go, you feel it for real now, don’t you?

 

As I said, “like a noose”.  Comfortable, intentional, strangling, claustrophobia, a last attempt, a clutching of lost hope, fade to black.  Slowly.  Nothingness.  It’s all there.

The Hollars

The film was wonderfully thought-provoking while still being a pretty standard film about a pretty normal family with pretty common problems. It was a laugh til you cry and cry til you laugh film. Margo Martindale blew my mind with her wit and sarcasm, meanwhile transitioning so naturally into the utter fear people often feel when suddenly faced with the overwhelming possibility of death. The brothers played off of each other so well, and the father fit right into the puzzle. The film just made sense. It wasn’t too much or too little, it was the right balance of breathtakingly beautiful, shockingly comical, and superbly plain. It’s one of my favorites that I’ve watched this year, even if it’s several years old by now. Glad it stayed on my list and that I finally unearthed this tucked-away gem. Highly recommend. Oh also THE SOUNDTRACK: A+.

Duck Butter

For lack of a better creative starting point, I’ll commence with the obvious:  The title.  DUCK BUTTER?  Like.  Foie gras right?  Well no.  Thank you, Catalan language.  For coming to such an interesting, grimy, collision with the English language.  Yet for some reason this slang for, “a sebaceous secretion in the folds of the skin” (thank you to the Google dictionary for this dictionary definition) works so impossibly well as the title of this film.  It is just kind of a flippant, unresolved peek at a collision of two worlds within 24 hours.  But I liked it.

Not to mention the actresses of the two main characters are none other than Alia Shawkat (Maeby Fünke from Arrested Development) and Laia Costa (BAFTA nominee).  Putting that in the back of our minds, these characters created a relationship on screen that was easy to crave.  Despite the tears, and the hurt, and the anger, and the misunderstandings,… it felt that neither was really culpable.  After all, their relationship was created to spend 24 hours together and see what happened.  A social experiment.  We all know that whatever passed in that time period would be, at the end, either everything ten years down the road or all but forgotten.  It made the pain seem like something to be desired.  I wanted to be there.  24 hours, no strings attached.  I guess I’m still at a learning phase in my YA life, so hey, there’s that.  But still I think it was something more.

The style of the shots framed the characters so intimately, so realistically, and so it felt like I was there with them.  Maybe also because I was watching using a projector against a wall and I was all alone, but still.  They kept me company for that time.  When Sergio’s (Costa’s character’s) mother came to Nima’s (Shawkat’s character’s) house, I felt that I was being intruded upon.  Get out of my space.  Get out of OUR space.  Get out of this film.  (The mother’s acting was absolutely believable, though.  Clearly, or I wouldn’t have felt her presence so realistically.)

Loved the soundtrack.  Don’t have tons to say about it, in fact I don’t know much about soundtracks in film.  I pretty much notice them when I like them, notice them when I hate them, and don’t even recognize that there was a musical soundtrack when I’m ambivalent to them.  It was light but somber and brought the undertones of the film, especially during the small lapses in time, to a more balanced place.  Being it from a playful tone to a humorless tone, a melancholic tone to a joyous one, the music created an equilibrium whenever the tone changed, and however abruptly it seemed to happen.

Most of all, I liked the film.  It prompted me to write.  Points for that.

 

 

Nos Années Folles

I don’t know whether or not I should write in English or in French.  It’s a French film, so I suppose French is appropriate.  I’ll summarize in English.  Alors…

Quel film beau, déchirant, terrible et incroyable au même temps.  Ceci ce n’est pas juste un portrait aux deux vies qui se sont entremêlées, mais un exploit dans plusieurs mondes qui se chevauchent pour créer quelque chose dynamique et d’un autre, nouveau monde.  L’intrigue est une compilation d’un récit-cadre et récit enchâssé, qui marchent ensemble bien.  Enfin, la difference entre les deux histoires est quelquefois confuse, comme un tableau qui doit être interprété.  Dans l’autre côté, le film aide le spectateur parce que ce n’est pas comme le travail pour comprendre tout ce qui se passe.

What a beautiful, heartbreaking, awful and phenomenal film.  It is not just a portrait of two entangled lives, but an exploit into many worlds that overlap to create something dynamic and of another, new world.  The plot is a compilation of a frame story and the story it contains, which work well together.  In the end, the difference between the two stories is sometimes confusing, like a painting that should be interpreted.  On the other hand, the film helps the viewer because it is not difficult to understand all that happens.

*Disclaimer:  I wrote this about a year ago and never took the time to edit it.  To be honest, I probably won’t anytime soon, either, so I am publishing it as is.  Please excuse my errors.

Moonlight

Moonlit night, skin blue.  Maybe the connection wasn’t strong enough for this to be the title, but I like a stretch when it comes to clever film titles.  I’ll take it.  There were many aspects of this film that I was not fond of, though, and I am a bit surprised that it took home the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama.  I’ll hit those, and if you don’t want the negatives I’m hitting the best part at the end, so skip to that.

First, since anyone who has seen it is thinking it, can we just talk a bit about the last “chapter” of the film?  Chapter III. Black in which the grown version of Chiron looks absolutely nothing like his previous two versions of himself?  And by different I don’t mean his hair changed or even that he got a bit bulkier – it had been about a ten year difference at this point – but he does not look remotely similar, he does not act the same, and he does not seem to hold the same values as he did when he was younger.  These are what we have come to know and expect from Chiron throughout the entire story, why does he wake up one day and look like the man who turned his life around?  From his overbearing frame and stature to his head wrap he resembles this figure in his young life much more than his own self.  I guess he is a drug pusher, but where comes the part where he saves some other kid’s life because someone once helped him out?  That’s the bugger cliché, meaning I think an actor with some sort of resemblance may have been the better pick.

Also, why the hell was Juan killed off just after Chiron had spoken to him for the last time?  It seemed to be set up in a way where Chiron made a decision to no longer speak to him after he realized that Juan was selling drugs to his mother, but instead of it acting as a stand-up move on Chiron’s part or as a warning not to follow in his shoes, Juan’s death was empty and we only know it happened because of the mention of the “funeral”.  Speaking of Juan, what was his relationship with Teresa?  To be honest they could have been father and daughter or lovers — who makes a relationship unimportant to the plot so damned confusing?

There were some weird stylistic choices, but in all the cinematography was pretty baller.  The decision to have the rotating shot around Juan and his friend in the beginning was terribly difficult on the eyes, but I realized after it was a great way to get someone invested in a movie.  Use that as a distanciation technique, allow your audience to think “what am I watching why is this happening to my head and my stomach”, have them realize that they are in a movie theatre or on a couch or what have you and that they are living their own independent lives, but in this moment they are watching this movie.  Bam.  Movement stops, interest piques, viewer gets lost in the film.  What an idea.

Also, the acting was killer.  Let’s be honest.  And I loved the nuance of Chiron not talking much – who can dislike a character who doesn’t even talk?  No one.

In all, good film… but a Globe winner?  Did not see that coming.

 

Sing Street

John Carney.  Damn.  What a story.  What a show.  What a creation.  I hate watching good movies if not only because they leave me without words to provide some sort of proper feedback on them.  Anyway.  Phenomenal film.  It was like a dramatic story about young love without the drama and without too much love.  The kids were rendered in such a realistic light, and the plot in plain words sounds completely cliché but manages to escape from the grasps of something that seems so.  The sibling love becomes just present enough, and Conor’s older brother’s reaction to Conor’s escape of Dublin was enough to make me grin visibly.  Music = A+.  Band kids have a great transformation and each character in the band is developed well enough to have their own nuances and lovable aspects without having too much verbal plot involvement.  Camera shots are immaculate, and inclusion of the music video pieces is awesome (but maybe not presented quite often enough throughout the film – I love film on film so I think this may be one aspect that was slightly lacking).  The non-overbearing but ever-present inclusion of the hardships of friends and family was lurking in the plot but never became so involved as to change the direction of the film overall.  I feel like my words are shit in comparison, but I just really liked this film.  Hopefully I’ll follow up later with more compelling and accurate words.

Dans Paris

Je l’aime bien. C’est intéressant, fascinant et… quelque chose de plus.  Je ne sais pas exactement, mais quelque chose qui me fait penser de quelque chose dans ma vie, dans mon adolescence je crois. C’est confus et un peu énervant parce que je n’aime pas quand une pensée est juste là, dans ta cerveau, mais c’est impossible pour une connexion entre l’idée dans le forme des produits chimiques et la vraie idée avec les mots humain.

    Malgré tout ça, j’adore la representation des rapports dans le film.  Ils sont authentiques et mystérieux, avec des questions et sans les réponses.  Comme ça c’est tellement comme la vie, plus que dans beaucoup d’autres que j’avait regardés.  J’aime l’agitation et la sévérité qui est toujours là, avec un place dans le film, et je l’aime aussi les transitions.  J’apprécie les intrigues différents et les chemins de chaque personnage.  Je crois que l’oeuvre est réel, vrai et tellement représentatif de beaucoup de mes sentiments sur la vie (en général).  Enfin, le film est un rappel fort de la nécessité d’avoir des autres gens importants dans sa vie, de plus d’une copain ou copine.