Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Aftersun 2022

  Watched 05 Jul 2024

  I can’t get over the videocamera shot of the father; his body reflected on a blank TV monitor, except for his head. We’re watching, literally, on the blank TV screen a portrait of a man whose real face remains a mystery. I expected his ending but that didn’t save me from being unprepared for it.
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  I’m drawn to family footages/films because they’re comforting yet haunting. Even when you’re with those closest to you, you could still be a complete…

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  Drive My Car 2021

  Watched 20 Mar 2022

  murakami is kinda obsesseddd with mystery driven by a woman’s death or disappearance, and he oddly meshes a woman’s absence with the desire to fill in her absence with patriarchal sexual desires. as if killing women off, thereby removing their agency to “speak”, turns them into easier objects to control and fantasize about. weirdo — 

  buttt: this cinematography is my weakness and i enjoyed the film despite how annoying murakami’s tropes get

Popular reviews

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  The Battle Front for the Liberation of Japan – Summer in Sanrizuka 1968

  Watched 12 Nov 2020

  My first Japanese documentary film-watch, and I'm still sitting with the post-watch awe. I never knew polemical Japanese films that decried the police/carceral-state and industrialization existed. I wish Japanese documentaries made during the 60's and 70's were more readliy accessible -- because these ommited portions of revolutionary history are pivotal in painting a transnational, proletariat feminist struggle.

  This film is a masterpiece.

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  Past Lives 2023

  Watched 30 Jun 2023

  i bawled so hard when nora and hae soung were on their boat outing in the water, taking pics and being overly careful about not crossing the distance. to have your final sunny outing be at sea, the same source that separated you… i just wanted that moment to last forever

  and the clumsiness of their reunion was so playful, my heart was so full. they returned to a part of their childhood selves— a bit carefree, not tied to…

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