haphazardfilmdiary

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Past Lives (2023) dir. Celine Song

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Perfect Days (2023)

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Our marriage is a success, isn’t it? A great success? We’re happy, aren’t we? Terribly happy?

Rebecca (1940) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

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Call Me By Your Name (2017) | Dir. Luca Guadagnino

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Chungking Express (1994) | Dir. Wong Kar Wai

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One Film One Shot:

The Graduate (1967) | Dir. Mike Nichols | Cine. Robert Surtees

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One Film One Shot:

A Most Violent Year (2014) | Dir. J. C. Chandor | Cine. Bradford Young

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Twin Peaks | Dir. David Lynch | Cine. Ronald Víctor García

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Little | Moonlight (2016) 

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One Film One Shot:

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) | Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour | Cine. Lyle Vincent

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The Graduate (1967) | Dir. Mike Nichols 

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One Film One Shot:

Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho/The Way He Looks (2014) | Dir. Daniel Ribeiro | Cine. Pierre de Kerchove

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One Film One Shot:

Plein Soleil (1960) | Dir. René Clément | Cine. Henri Decaë 

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Favourite Cinematography Tag: Captain Fantastic (2016) | Dir: Matt Ross | Cine: Stéphane Fontaine

Captain Fantastic is a classic dysfunctional family film in a different setting. It has so much typical family struggles, from rebellious children to controlling parents; it has so much typical family moments, from loving gift exchanges to sudden surprise trips. It shows you no matter where you grow up, you are still in, all senses of the word, human. It pulls on strong performances from a great ensemble led by Viggo Mortensen to bring the viewer into the family’s journey. It lets the children have their moments, and a father lead, make mistakes and grow to lead again. It is an entirely enjoyable film to watch, with wonderfully surreal moments (e.g. the wonderful scene on the bus with the police officer), entirely cringeworthy moments (e.g. the scene that ensues after Bo’s first kiss), and moments that have your heart drop; it holds all the magic and heartbreak of love that shines through beautiful visuals and wonderful colouring.

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Half Nelson (2006) | Dir. Ryan Fleck | Cine. Andrij Parekh

Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example, the sun goes up and then it goes down. But everytime that happens, what do you get? You get a new day. You get a new one. When you breathe, you inhale and you exhale, but every single time that you do that you're a little bit different then the one before. We're always changing. And its important to know that there are some changes you can't control and that there are others you can.

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Moonlight (2016) | dir: Barry Jenkins | Cine: James Laxton

Moonlight is easily my favourite film of the year and one of my favourite of all time. It is brilliant in its use of time, every single second in this film counts, nothing is squandered to for overly aesthetic effects. This film showcases characters so brilliantly - with Marshala Ali’s transformation from masculine hulk to a soft, wounded and guilty man from just two questions from Little - every key character in Chiron’s life is whole, flawed and never judged. This is one of these most tangible films I have ever experienced. The film doesn’t force you to take sides but shows you what becomes of a boy, forced to be one way when he himself is yet to understand who he is. Chiron’s transformation takes place over decades but seems somewhat imminent. He builds himself up into the only father figure he has ever known that was taken away from him so unceremoniously and so early. The armour he has built around himself appears to shut everyone including his own self out of who he truly is; it takes him a decade and an entire night to put into words that Kevin is the only person that has ever touched him that way, as if he has to peel off his layers slowly, those put on by himself and others, on his own. The emotion conveyed through this film, in its visuals, its minimal dialogue, its music, is rich, textured and complicated. You don’t quite realise how deep its taken you, or how much you’re feeling till a tear comes rolling down your cheek and they keep coming.

sidenote: I especially love how the concept of virginity is addressed in this film, Chiron, has never had sex with anyone. He is never shamed for it in the film. It is never made something he has the concur. It is simply how it has turned out as he develops. His process in trying to shield himself from the world and then trying to finally understand his sexuality is what is focused on instead. 

The cinematography of this film is yet another beautiful thing about this film. Mami has never looked so brutally beautiful and yet so vividly real. The influences of Wong Kar Wai’s stylings with cinematographer Christopher Doyle quite clearly come through; the same beautiful portrayal of small everyday spaces in a somewhat duo-chrome palette. 

I think this is a perfect film.

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Favourite Cinematography Tag:  Melancholia (2011) | Dir: Lars Von Trier | Cin: Manuel Alberto Claro

Melancholia takes the viewer through a depressive’s journey to the end of the world. Justine’s wedding plays out in a somewhat unrealistic time frame, she leaves on multiple occassions as she spirals into a depressive cycle; she takes a bath in one absence and falls asleep in another, but the wedding party appears to continue to be there no matter how long she seems to be away for. This seems to reflect the dissociative nature that time has for Justine as she battles with depression. Justine is broken and weak and struggles to complete simple tasks like bathing herself once her marriage fails having barely begun. However, once she knows the oncoming destruction of the Earth by Melancholia she is calm, collected and competent. Melancholia is destroying Earth as a whole, she no longer has to deal with the effects of her depression and its consequences on the people around her. Justine tried so hard to please her family throughout the first half of the film, attempting to follow through with the wedding and trying to ‘be happy’ as she had promised her sister and her brother-in-law, even with the apparent selffishness of both her parents. Justine’s acceptance of Melancholia is reflective of her seeing the end of the world as a full and complete destruction of her depression and its ripple effects through the other people it affects. 

The unravelling of Claire and John show this opposing inability to accept the futility of life - something that Justine has long accepted. John appearing so stubborn and strong in the first part is so weak in accepting his own mis-prediction of the planatery movement, that he chooses to kill himself instead of facing his family. Claire, Justine’s apparent constant pillar of support, becomes so fragile and lost. The role reversal between Claire and Justine takes us to the end of film with the destruction of the Earth; the things that made Claire and John so functional within the ‘real world’ become comepletely irrelevant and useless in the grand scheme of the earth destruction. Justine is finally at peace.

(This little write up barely scratches the surface of this film but I just thought I’d post this to make a little note of a film I watched and my thoughts on it.)