pillbugm

Jacques Tati's Playtime (1967) has no shortage of spectacular shots, being a truly one-of-a-kind cinematic marvel that fully utilizes the visual aspect of film. But if I were to pick one shot that is truly emblematic of the film, I would pick this scene - cars circling chaotically around a small patch of decorated greenery within a concrete city, occupying most of the city but still going nowhere, confined with layers of cars in painted lines. It's an image that I find succinctly sums up how it feels living in the industrialized world - I am a lost tourist.

The phrase makes me wince, but I'm a big girl now so I return a big grin and thank my well-meaning co-workers. It reminds me of how far I've fallen, how far away I am from the woman I wanted to be at 13. I dreamt of smiles, being far away in a foreign country, wearing a lovely green slip dress that fits me perfectly with metallic, number-shaped balloons in the background, an intimate gathering of a close friend group and the love of my life with me, all neatly captured by a disposable camera. The image kept me going through the brutal social circus that was high school, though the thought never did translate into reality.

Some pictures of iconic Danish architect and designer Verner Panton's vibrant 70s interiors. Vibrant, psychedelic, and futuristic, these images have always been a source of inspiration in my own writing - I hope to one day craft a world that feels this colorful, excessive, and dizzying through words.

Following my last post about The Drift through a metropolitan city, a favorite of mine that shares similar themes is Aki Kaurismäki's 2023 film Fallen Leaves. I appreciate films that commit to a gritty, 'realist' approach, but I prefer films that fully utilise the visual nature of the medium. With its use of bright colors, delicately crafted shots and sweeping romantic ballads, Kaurismäki creates romance between characters drifting at the fringes of society, always in the face of economic and political hardship and personal failure. Of course, his films have always focused on the proletariat, but Fallen Leaves feels more hopeful.

On paper, the leads of Fallen Leaves are hardly the picture of glamorous Hollywood rom-com couples - Ansa is a Ukrainian refugee and Holappa is a depressed alcoholic who drinks on the job. And yet, I have still not found a film that captures the feeling of falling in love like this since seeing this in a (sadly) empty theater a month after it's release. Sure, the characters are comically stoic and life seems divinely unfair, but they are also ironically honest in their dialogue - they are completely earnest about their desire to love even when its inconvenient. They allow love to break through to them, and this is an active decision, not a passive side-effect. Love and romance is for the mundane, not the screen - now that's a message that hopeless romantic shut-ins like me need to internalize.