Letterboxd — Your life in film

This film sort of exemplifies everything I love about classic European films. Even when they were made about difficult topics like domestic abuse, human exploitation, manslaughter, abject poverty, and alcoholism (such as is the case with La Strada), they always managed to shoot it in the most beautiful, poetic way.  Every frame in this film feels like a captured moment in a distant, melancholic and nostalgic dream.

Indigenous actors look so beautiful on camera. This is a very, very lovely film.

Very cool! Adam Driver is an acting king 👑 

Love the way Baumbach can take the most mundane, plain, everyday locations and settings, the most banal, unremarkable of situations and interactions, and just really locate the vivid and interesting aspects of them to make something truly cinematic and engaging and lovely. The film is well framed, well blocked, and obviously well written. Unexpectedly, although maybe it shouldn’t be because it’s Baumbach, the movie is also just really hilarious and fun to watch. Good stuff.

Underneath this film’s veneer of cruelty, depravity, and animalism is a hidden spirit of beauty and poeticism. A fascinating piece of low-budget independent horror cinema. Michael Rooker and Tom Towles breathe a vivid breath of humanity and pathos into the ambient synth nightmare landscape of this film.

A rich, magnificent piece of 90s cultural heritage.

Charming and nasty

Dream sequence with the giant camera is classic Gondry.

Dang I literally just came out of the theatre from this and I already forgot what happened in the movie.

Wow the kids in this movie are sooooo wonderful! Excellent casting on this one. Also the movie just looks very pretty throughout. Definitely one of the most pleasant WWII movies I’ve seen in a while.

Wow this film is truly a quiet and reserved masterpiece. Perhaps the most dreary, evocative,and poignant slice of life film ever. This film says so much about the frustrations of modern living, the crippling pressure of professional ambition, and the ephemeral nature of existence, in less than 90 minutes of film. It’s a poetic piece of writing, acting, and photography. Most notable though, is how masterfully edited the whole piece is. Tight, succinct, and wholly effective, without sacrificing a single beat of emotion or meaning.

Today, I saw this film at precisely the right time in my life. I really loved it.

Zizek is a really entertaining guy to watch. No one else talks about movies quite the way he does. I also really liked the production design in this, the classic movie set recreations, with all their close attention to detail, really take this film a giant leap further than other video essays in terms of style and aesthetic.

Kinda fascinating actually.