Tay’s review published on Letterboxd:
“to get our emotions going, we are going to play who can cry first”
cool bc i started crying less than 20 seconds into this because the opening frame makes me want to perish!
probably cried a good six or seven times throughout this rewatch. big, ugly, bodily "uh-huh-huh-uh" hiccup cries, and also sniffly and quiet tears because of the tenderness, the lightness, the ache, the yearning. this film is a fist and a heart, beating and relentless and crooked and resilient.
here are some notes on yearning:
1. perfume genius, "on the floor"
2. "you aren't going to get in the car with a guy who honks, are you?" / "i think i am, yes." / "even you deserve better than this."
3. dave matthews, "crash into me"
4. "why are you crying?" / "i'm just crying. some people aren't built happy, you know."
5. julie and lady bird eating all of the cheese! julie having a dress for months! going to prom anyway!
6. slow dancing, twirling, spinning, running down the street and a sparkling scream of triumph
7. last night leaving to run "an essential errand" and the street empty, black, silent. the fences are low in my neighborhood and you can see over into the backyards on the street. from my driveway i could see lights strung up, warm white, and the tops of two heads moving in the dark. there was a couple dancing, leaning onto and into one another—no music, no apparent reason why, just two bodies in the dark moving slowly
8. mitski, "two slow dancers"
9. last december, visiting Sacramento for work. my coworker walked me down to the bridge where lady bird and julie hold each other. the sky purple, soft light, dusk into night
10. li-young lee's poem "From Blossoms":
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
