It’s been a while since I’ve seen this beautiful mess and god am I glad to have seen it where and when I did. I found the quaintest little cinema in Amsterdam - there’s literally only one theatre and it’s a damn cosy one at that! Sadly, not that many people showed up to this 9pm screening in Leidseplein.

There’s this silly phrase I’ve been touting for years now - human texture. To me, human texture is when an image or piece of writing is able to make you feel a myriad of subtle emotions all at once. The three films I’ve seen where I get this sense the strongest are Satantango, Chungking Express and... Mirror.

Some of these shots and fragments of poetry are just so heart-achingly beautiful. Something as simple as a character’s wistful glance or their fey smile is occasionally enough to overwhelm me. Enough gushing though.

Amsterdam is genuinely a film lover’s heaven. All across the city every night there are screenings of all types from all eras. Tonight I had to pick between Mirror and a 70mm restoration of Jacques Tati’s PlayTime. In Sydney, you’d be lucky to get either of those happening at any time, ever. Super sad to be leaving and hitting myself for not going out and watching a film literally every night I’ve been here. The to-do list for the next trip has already been set: Rialto, Cinecenter, The Movies, EYE, and Tuschinski. Ugh.