Letterboxd Top 4 Rationale

 

Originally written this morning on an extra map of the National Mall because it was a slow day and I wanted to think about something other than myself. You can see a little more written (another post incoming) about my runner-ups. Totally incomplete thought since like hundreds more tourists came in after 11AM.

"Let's write something new: Top 4 Letterboxd rationale, from #4 to #1, my defense. 

4— ALICE IN THE CITIES (1987) : Very very fresh in my mind. The black/white put emphasis on the shapes and the silence. I like how Wim gets interested in something and dives deep. In Alice, the classic dynamic of disgruntled-ish old man (Philip) with a soft spot for a small, spunky child (Alice) is perfected here. We see him alone and  unfulfilled in America. He finds utility through his English fluency when Lisa and her daughter Alice need help getting back to Germany as well (though airline strikes prevent them from flying in directly, and they have to wait a day for a next and closest flight into Amsterdam). He is attracted to Lisa, who departs well before the halfway point to reconcile with her ex Hans. She says to take care of Alice and meet her at the Empire State, but then leaves a note saying she'll meet them both in Amsterdam instead. Throughout the journey, Philip and Alice alternate between irritated and endeared with one another. He's pointedly not her dad, but he develops a real affinity for her (and her for him!). We know by the end they may never see each other again, but we are left with a shot of them on the train home, which seems to go on forever when the screen fades to black. It has a lot to do with memory, whether you've scraped it away like Philip or whether everything is novel and blurry and fun like it is for Alice. Though different they are at very similar crossroads— a past to bear and the difficulty of reckoning with their own sense of self. They are both lost, with nowhere to be, and abandoned by all. I liked seeing closeness develop over the course of ~2 hours, especially knowing how hard it is to create fulfilling bonds with new people. It renewed my faith in the possibility of intimacy with anyone, regardless of age or circumstance. 

3— THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971): Besides the personal recommendation, I really really loved how this film was shot and the set and everything!! Every car is a jalopy and the town is, at its best, a dry cough. But you can tell that when Sam the Lion (a man that everyone in town knows, who runs the only social establishments there: a pool hall, movie theater, and diner) dies, it loses even more. We witness this through Bobby's eyes. He's probably in the last graduating class of that town's high school. To be exiting your youth while everything slowly falls apart disorients Bobby, and he begins to oscillate between carrying on normally and letting himself be swept away by his own vices into chaos. By the end of it, everything he had once known is gone. There is no respite, no picture show at the end of it all. With the theater's final showing, the town gets quieter and quieter. Such is the fate of these North Texas and Panhandle towns. I love the coming-of-age element— it very much fixated on sexuality and relationships the way that it is in reality over there: your future can be written in stone if you know you're never going to leave your little town. Only thing to do is have sex and hate it. But while everyone's a gossip, it's because everyone knows everyone, and takes care of one another. We see Bobby's father only once, and it is implied that Bobby has not been in his care for a long time. Sam is a more adept father figure for him, and when he dies and the town subsequently empties, it's no wonder that Bobby feels like he's allowed to have a dalliance or that reckless cowboys allow their livestock to trample a young deaf-mute boy. The two boys were practically raised and overseen by the town and townfolk, and suddenly they were left unprotected and to their own devices for good. The film is brilliant in conveying this sense of space where people should be, rooms full of reckless, mean, and naive kids with no supervision, and a withering elderly population. It feels emptier through and through, and then it's over.

2— HAPPY TOGETHER (1997): To ME! This is WKW's best. I think his style is so well-suited to a complicated queer storyline, where (especially for its time), communication was often relegated to glances and a lack of love surrenders to promiscuity [not necessarily or ever bad thing, I'm not Drake or the police lmfao]. For a lot of it, we do not even see them be "happy together," and the closest we get to it is Tony Leung's character slipping into the Nightingale effect and prolonged cohabitation even though they were fully disdainful exes at that point. Though maybe that's a symptom of trying hold on, even begrudgingly. They're still terrible possessive, but careless. Fuel to their fire, maybe. It's almost easy to pick a side as an audience member... Tony works day and night for both of their livelihoods, and Leslie comes off as a little ungrateful. But Leslie's like the entire reason that Tony can bear being in a foreign place and work so hard. And it doesn't help that the Chang Chen storyline is so endearing... he and Tony develop a subtle attraction, a will-they-won't-they that persists into the final scene in Taiwan. I guess I like it most as a story of innate stubbornness, and fucking up the timing on just about everything because it's easy to have tunnel vision and trudge through a bad situation. Chang's ears were good. Good enough to hear Tony's soft, lonely cries at the end of the world. It might be incomparable to everything that precedes the film's time, in Leslie and Tony's own bed back home, but it literally does not matter anymore. Every time I watch it I'm like 'did it fix me this time?'

1—MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS (1988): Honestly my ultimate favorite. Yet to be dethroned during my time as an avid watcher, and solidified by an early March viewing at Metrograph last year. It's just so funny. Male attention might be the catalyst, but it's really crazy the way the story escalates, and with every viewing I love keeping track of what information people know. I like how it wraps up— not every woman is a "girl's girl" per se, since Ivan's most recent woman is in the mix plotting deviously in his absence... just a master class in comedy and ensemble. Everyone's telling everyone else to get it together while freaking out the entire time. Only by the end do the unraveled women find peace among the burnt cot, drugged gazpacho, and unconscious bodies lying about. Problem for tomorrow. I should rewatch for Women's month..."