6u532b

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

still dwelling on this as i kept watching and rewatching multiple times without getting to the end in one sitting but the ending was so worth the wait. 

too berlin though

i know a white devil like this

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

love the bloodlust high but the racialized overtones in this...

—it's the voice of God.
—i hear Him. i hear Him.

lol whatever

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 11, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

spellbinding incantation. death as initiac for a collective spiritual transition through colonial entrapments of the body (of the miner, of the mineral, of the spirit) into a tether-world of liberatory divination

this is how you lay the dead to rest. 
divination through dreams and ritualistic practices to retrieve the dead. returning to them so as to return ourselves to our bodies.

i thought a lot about saidiya hartmann's offering of a narrative writing methodology called critical fabulation (in her piece "venus in two acts") and how we revive the dead when the path we travel down to find them is laden with death, how do we ensure we don't deal death twice? we return through fabulated myths in (transit)ory states where we meet the dead in the spirit realms. we let their hauntings guide our living. and we know that we'll return to ourselves with a sense of incompleteness, that the work is never completely done.

the body of the earth carries the residue of colonial history, of war, and we the wounds on this body in ours, in collective memory. the vietnamese title of this film is trong lòng đất which means in the heart of the earth. this wounded body cradling the precariousness of life in postcolonial vietnam...

i grew up hearing lots of stories about families communicating with their dead loved ones through psychic mediums. the surreal quality of this filmmaking only seems mythic to the viewer who doesn't understand that our reality doesn't assume colonial notions of Truth/fiction (trinh t. minh ha). we know this because we know what it means to honor our dead. we find the sites of living through our spirit, myth, ritual, and faith. we through the transmissions of stories that reanimate bodies into collective carrying, mourning, and release.

this is so absolutely sick and twisted and the entire theater being packed with fetishistic white voyeurs makes me deeply uncomfortable and paranoid

Watched on Wednesday March 12, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 18, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 18, 2025.

Watched on Friday February 14, 2025.

Watched on Thursday February 13, 2025.

we are worth wanting each other 🧎

Watched on Friday January 24, 2025.

oh?????

Watched on Saturday January 11, 2025.

adorable, watch it!

https://youtu.be/P9CnrMv4rqk?feature=shared

how many more lives must be robbed and taken before we finally put an end to it all? what of the butchered half-lives of captives now?

these political prisoners and survivors are my grandparents' and parents' age. these are our elders. so much grief i can't bear it.

so barry jenkins has always been exquisite?

this film made me more & more nauseous & what i just experienced right after the screening just epitomizes it all

Watched on Wednesday January 1, 2025.

so is it a yes?

don't forget to pray for the angels

everything about this annoyed me

Watched on Thursday December 19, 2024.

Watched on Thursday December 19, 2024.

this is sooo transcendent i swoon

i believe that i'm going to be able to die doing the things i was born for!!!!! IM HIGHHHH OFF THE PEOPLE

hypnotic, haunting, and moody film with sex and violence and revenge at a cemetery you can't escape... then you're delivered to an almost transcendent eroticism... 

how did i find exactly what i needed?

shoutout eshqa for enlightening me to this moving gem

she really loves christ... has anyone written anything about theological sexuality? i need to read more about the saints madness...

xem phim này vừa nhớ nhà vừa tủi thân 😔

Watched on Thursday December 5, 2024.

Watched on Wednesday December 4, 2024.

everyone get on this now

i did not expect this rewatch to be as heartbreaking as it did. i was not as sensitive to all the glances and silences... i'm contemplating all the things being left unsaid and all that still goes lost in our utterance. it is better to speak than to die. it's our mortality and the fatality of the utterance's aftermath that gives urgency to the need for risk. i love how torturous it is to not get what i want, or denying myself it. i don't think i'm more courageous for itting that. elio's denial is essentially to delay the inevitable and i think my case is similar. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point. 

you want who you want and there's nothing you can do to explain it away. you wouldn't really want to either. when you deny your desire, you become cruel to yourself, and for elio, the cruelty is directed towards marzia even though she understands by the end, again between the silences. control does not dull desire—it's antithetical. the most painful experience we have is memory. why is it also the most beautiful? that there is something to at all. is that why oliver seemed so remorseful every time he showed his affection? because he already made his choice and the summer only lasts until it doesn't. they still chose love knowing it would end. and it doesn't end because the memory of their love exists as marks to their being. 

i'd choose that gladly. i want to be unafraid and i want to run through all the barriers at the risk of hurting myself, because then, at least, i'd be sitting with the comfort of knowing i tried and the pain is proof.

why was this more devastating than i thought

i have such a soft spot for twin peaks and seeing multiple actors from that show in this film influenced my viewing of it. all the technical elements in this film is heightened in twin peaks, but i did love the overt performativity of the characters in this one. willem dafoe's character is kind of hot... whatever shoot me

Watched on Tuesday October 29, 2024.

This review may contain spoilers.

this film is so reflective of the current social climate around identity politics...give the intersex king the holiest throne and rest assured change will come. rebrand of the church with a bandaid and a corny and woke "God made me this way" (okay gaga) speech. i'd rather they lean into the predictability of having a white man for the sake of the film instead. 

on another note, this film reminded me of my catholic phase. i was really high on the train on the way home from a show one night. this man with a deck of iridescently dark cards offered me one. i was too high to comprehend the situation, that i was being offered a message, and only made eye with the man. he took back the card he offered me and proceeded to read it and laugh to himself. as i exited the train, i confirmed that what had transpired was in fact real and i regretted not accepting what i thought to be a sign from God. later in bed, i went down a rabbit hole looking into divinity schools to make up for the regret.

"humanity is waiting for something other than us."

Watched on Monday October 7, 2024.

• The Piano Teacher
• Bones and All
• The Little Girl of Hanoi
• Taipei Suicide Story
• The Lobster
• Dogtooth
• The Farewell
• A Bride for Rip Van Winkle
• Nobody Knows
• Ritual

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Tongues Untied
• Looking for Langston
• The Northman
• The Piano Teacher
• The Lobster
• Secretary
• Bones and All
• Y Tu Mamá También
• Happy Together
• Crash

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Blue
• Heavenly Creatures
• The Shrouds
• A Cure for Wellness
• Reality Bites
• Waking Life
• Swing Girls
• Blue
• Fireworks
• Hellraiser

...plus 45 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Man Push Cart

   random number generator

2. The Room

   made in belgium

3. Yi Yi

   made in taiwan

4. The Brood

   made in canada

5. Ossos

   made in portugal

6. Cat People

   animals in the collection

7. Wings of Desire

   films to fall asleep to

8. Anthem

   black music films

9. Black Is… Black Ain’t

   black lives collection

10. The Hand

    heartbreak heaven

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.