Kino

[Moonlight-Moonlight]

taiwanese new wave movies always felt very warm, romantic, and pro-human (not misanthropic) to me. even though the critic buzzword for all of them is "alienation." it's more like the romance of crushing loneliness... that is why i love tsai ming liang's movies. only someone with severe difficulties relating to other people despite having a very heavy heart could really understand.

the feeling of your empathy reaching out and not finding anything. the feeling of wishing someone would talk to you.

 

[Moonlight-Moonlight]

Tokyo Story is probably the template for all of this.

 

[Moonlight-Moonlight]

vive l'amour is the most genius and purest culmination of these concepts. it is about 3 people living in the same apartment without knowing it. extreme distance despite extreme closeness. really struck me having watched it when i just moved into a dorm in the city (much closer to lots of new people) and yet was the most isolated and alone i had ever been in my entire life. the contradiction between closeness and distance makes the distance hurt even more. there is a lot more than this going on in ming-liang's films but this was what really drew me to them.

 

[Moonlight-Moonlight]

 

[$lave]

soooooo good. back during the fall i watched coraline for the first time since i was in elementary school and it really holds up.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1907313759070097563

 

[$lave]

i haven't had a movie leave me with existential dread like the irishman did last night. after 3 hours i had successfully self-inserted as the main character and could sense how terrifying it is

Spoiler: Spoiler

to get to the end of your life completely alone and filled with regrets. jimmy hofa (al pacino's character) is the only light in the film. once he's killed you are left to sit quietly with frank and wonder where it all went wrong.