Letterboxd — Your life in film

My patience for historical dramas “based on a true story” keeps on dwindling and dwindling, but after years of holding House of Sand and Fog near to my heart as the best studio melodrama of the 21st century, I’ll surely show up for a new Vadim Perelman feature. 

It’s a shame the narrative doesn’t know how to properly include one of the side plots, and how it falls prey to didacticism near to its closing — the overbearing score also isn’t…

But don't you give up on yourself
I've heard a story, a girl, she once told me
That I would be happy again

I’ve been waiting for this film literally since I was 5. My degree of anticipation was huge— huge as in, and I have witnesses, the day the teaser trailer came out on July 2019 I literally stopped dead in the middle of a music fest because that was more important.

I even bought tickets for IMAX. I…

“And then I started moving my hand, and then he stopped talking.”

I don’t think it’s perfect by any stretch, from some strange-sounding monologues to the very sound editing of these — is it deliberate that we hear from a phone as if directly whispered to one’s ear, and then once in a while they do sound like if they’ve been through a landline? —, but… hear me out…

This is such a huge exploration on a lot of things that…

Este filme foi absolutamente stressante e claustrofóbico!

Que coisa horrorosa. Qual é a mania das famílias só falarem mal de toda a gente, comentarem o corpo de qualquer ser vivo com menos de 30anos e darem o maior overshare à face da terra?
Jesus fucking christ

Mas como é esperado de momentos caóticos, aqui vêm as quotes icónicas: "You have zero gaydar.
Excuse me, kid? I lived through New York in the 80s. My gaydar is strong as a bull"…

“Baby, you'd better get me back to that hotel. You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt.”

To watch this under the recent light of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is to somehow appreciate it differently, and seeing a completely different breaking point in Cage’s methodical madness. 

But more than that, come its ending, after a slew of incredibly forbidden-yet-perfect editing choices, a senses-filling Badalamenti score and some completely random narrative detours, it’s a marvel to bask on those credits and…

“Let's check and see if we're still bad for each other.”

One of the finest things possible about rediscovering a film you already love is also getting to dive into what makes it special to other people. Watched it on the big screen as part of a cycle for this puppetry festival, and I feel like I’ve now awaken for a whole other side of Véronique.

Adored hearing from people in the know about everything that makes this film special…

“Don't allow anyone to humiliate you. No one has the right to do that to anyone.”

There are some gender and sexuality politics that have aged fine or just very poor, depending on how you choose to regard Molina character; the same goes for Agustin, who’s a stereotype of a revolutionary. But brilliant filmmaking sometimes lies between the lines; and at the end of the day, this is one hopeful movie on resilience and the ability we all possess, to…