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I like this movie for the same reason I like attempting to study string theory:
I understand the film enough to make me want to talk about it, but I am not confident enough in my knowledge and researching skills to adequately tackle it. What I do understand is that I have too many thoughts on this film on not enough time to properly organize them after one screening.
This film feels like it can be, and likely has been, read through a multiplicity of lenses. The psychological presence of identity, duality, and uncertainty certainly renders emotion in a melodramatic way. Social standings and norms are also confronted in this film through the women question their roles in family and society. There is also a documentary-like feeling through the stories of these two women being told on screen. Yet, the surrealist elements make me want to reconfront those elements in their entirity. The experimental filmmaking, like the mirror reflection of the two womens' faces on top of one another, truly stunned me. The audio at the start of this film convinced me I was watching a silent film until the first words were spoken.
The feelings this film left me with was "unbalanced" to put it vaguely. I constantly felt that the moment some stability came into this film, my mind was immediately leg sweeped back into a hazy prone.

Watched on Wednesday May 7, 2025.

Watched on Monday April 21, 2025.

It's like the Star Trek series if you really squinted your eyes. Also, wild this is technically the first movie adaptation of Star Trek.

Court case narration style was interesting.

Amazing film by a group of amazing people. Clemson filmmakers will be the future!

I feel like this is a master class on close ups and expression acting. Absolutely stunning film for its time. If I rewatch this film, I may make a game out of counting all the reaction shots of Renée Jeanne Falconetti.

I've never thought to myself "what would a suicidal road movie look like?" But this movie does answer that question. Enjoyable film narrative and overall a peculiar shot style. It may be better to watch with a group of people due to the subject matter of suicide.

I've been reading Linda Williams's "Melodrama Revised" in my classes this year, and this film definitely checks all the boxes to be a Melodrama narrative mode. Although I cannot say I was a sobbing mess for this film, I did get brought to tears. What profoundly struct me was the handling of storylines of the characters. The interactions between many of them felt genuine, also the consequential undertones within each conversation profoundly attributed to the emotional climax.

Without any explicit spoilers, the final scene of the film struck me the strongest for a more philosophical reason which left me with a question: Who will weep for me when I die? It is a thought, morbid as it may be, that is important to consider while living. It reminds me to do better about maintaining relationships and expressing interest in others. This may not be the intended moral resolution of this film, but it is one I reached with assistance from it.

Watched on Thursday November 14, 2024.

A nice slow burn that explodes into a glorious emotional flame at the end.
Tokyo Story (1953) utilizes a combination of form and narrative techniques to synthesize an emotional response with its ending. The very personal frontal, close-up shots (which existed in excess throughout this film) were potent at creating a personal connection between the characters and the audience. [ittedly, it was jarring at first but became charming in practice.] Additionally, there were shots that were repeated at the beginning and end that brought me to tears. The characters' relationships and their interactions throughout this film further pushed me to resonate with the ending. My only complaint is that some of the line delivery was slow at times.
Overall, it is a very effective family melodrama with a solid moral message and pleasant shot design.

• Your Name.
• In the Mood for Love
• Halloween
• Ugetsu
• Scream
• Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
• The Seventh Seal

  On 35mm.

• Zombi Child
• F for Fake
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies mentioned in Jean Baudrillard's essay "The Evil Demon of Images" (1988).

• Chinatown
• Three Days of the Condor
• Barry Lyndon
• 1900
• All the President's Men
• Apocalypse Now
• The Day After
• The China Syndrome
• Network
• Zelig

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films mentioned in film scholar Christopher Sharrett's essay "Genocidal Spectacles and the Ideology of Death"

• The Birth of a Nation
• Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
• Wild Bill Hickok Rides
• Wild Bill Hickok
• Collateral Damage
• Black Hawk Down
• Zulu
• The Hunt for Red October
• Patriot Games
• Clear and Present Danger

...plus 32 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A collection of noteworthy Japanese Melodrama films. This list is based on personal opinion and film list websites.

• Tokyo Story
• Good Morning
• Yearning
• Sansho the Bailiff
• Gate of Hell
• A Story of Floating Weeds
• Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts
• Floating Weeds
• Prior Convictions
• Tokyo Sonata

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.