. • ☽︎ ◌ ⋆ ˖ · sadie . • ☽︎ ◌ ⋆ ˖ ·

films are cool.

[palaceoftherakes]

"You can not change somebody like him."

Passages (2023), dir. Ira Sachs

It was hard watching this. It was this mult-facited deciet orchestrated by a not very nice man and it was captured wonderfully. I could understand the relationship he had with both of them, a sort of dance even, balancing between conflicts. There's this beautifully poignant scene while the two male leads are having sex. Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is covered Martin (Ben Winshaw) completely, so that the audience can't see him. From a fairly revealing shot of Martin you can see all the hurt and pain that he is going through; you can see how he is under Tomas' control; you can feel how consuming he is. In this way, it feels like love. It's overwhelming, but provoking and unstable. It also feels like Martin has resolved some power over Tomas, if only fleeting, and demonstrates how easily he's pulled into his atmosphere again, even when he promised himself that he wouldn't.

It's interesting when you're presented with a sequence like this. To many it can be seen as an unnecessary sex scene, but in this case it serves the plot, it works for the narrative and moves it forward. It proves that while Martin wants to move on, he's unable and that's what makes it so interesting, pivotal even, because unlike many other recent pictures, sex is what makes this film. It's not this idea that 'sex sells' but moreso an intimate story of love, hate and deciet. Passages accomplishes that perfectly. Tomas weaponises sex, Martin uses sex to connect, and that is the same with Agathe, however, Martin feels more helpless. Tomas' volatility is present throughout and that manifests in his intimate moments which later bleed into real life.

[palaceoftherakes]

" you dream in a language i can't understand. it's like there's this whole place inside you i can't go."

Past Lives (2023), dir. Celine Song

watching this film broke my heart a little.

it perfectly represented feelings of longing, guilt, love and friendship in a way that i hadn't anticipated. for one, it depicted a love that potentially spanned different universes but also showed that love does not form in simply platonic or romantic, but can be tangled and messy and beautiful.

nonetheless, when i really thought hard about it, nobody can see inside ourselves, except for ourselves. the quote used as the title of this post followed me for weeks after watching it, because even if you only speak one language, the only person who can decipher your dreams is you. introspection is a funny thing, no? it makes you consider everything that you've done, thought, said, and then forget about it all over again. at least it does for me.

i wonder if Past Lives has had this effect on everyone? i hope so.

authors note: happy new year!!

[palaceoftherakes]

"All right, you look like a future pedophile in this picture, number 1. Number 2, it doesn't even have a first name, it just says McLovin!"

Superbad (2007) dir. Greg Mottola

i don't think i've ever laughed so hard watching a film. i literally had tears running down my face as seth monologued about his dick obsession as a kid.

however, there was this little voice in my head saying "you shouldn't be laughing at that," when there were a few unsavoury jokes. i don't think that's how i really think.

when i performed a monologue from the taming of the shrew, a lot of people who knew about the play looked at me as if i had committed murder. to those who know me personally, know that I'm quite outspoken, i have my set values and i stick to them. one of which is being a femanist, or at least as much as i can be without crossing the 'cancel line'. films like this are brilliant; complete unfiltered conversation between two best mates, and i think that's how people have got to see it when it was made 16 YEARS AGO!

we live in a society when a toe out of line means cancelling when actually that's not what life is really about. sometimes I'll say something that might not be entirely politically correct, but what does that even mean? what does it mean to be politically correct!! i think khloe Kardashian explained it best. Why should she put herself out there when the minute she slips up she'll be attacked.

now this little voice in my head will be quiet and i can enjoy superbad at my own free-will.

[palaceoftherakes]

"this bitch is crazy. bitch is crazy."

Get Out (2017) dir. Jordan Peele

is it bad that me and my dad use this as a reference when were uncomfortable?

Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' captures the essence of the feeling of 'other' so perfectly that now it's become a reference between me and my dad when we become the only black people in a situation. Like when we go to a seaside town on holiday and we get stared at in public like were alien. i was telling my friend about this actually, he's white. he'd never watched the film until about two days ago when he emphatically told me it was amazing. i then watched it with my mum a couple days later and she said the ending was predictable. but to me, this film will always be clever.

take the auction scene for example. chris wears blue, and everyone else (including his 'safe' girlfriend) are wearing red. immediately your eyes are drawn to him and how the blue singles him out. additionally when the brainwashed andre is standing alone in a tan suit he stands alone, but as his wife passes him a red handkerchief he becomes unsafe, unfamiliar and not a "brother".

the way that chris handles himself seems like very african-american culture, and as a British person i don't think it makes complete sense to me to act in the same way but the interactions Peele writes makes the audience understand that this is all very weird.

i don't think that if i ever go to America I'll understand black culture, even black culture in britian is a bit disillusioned to me. however, if there is anything this film has taught me about being black, it's not to go to your white girlfriend's parents' house in the countryside when you know that you're gonna wanna Get Out.

[palaceoftherakes]

"all this romance bullshit makes you vulnerable."

Fire Island (2022), dir. Andrew Ahn

the homosexual agenda is so real.

as one of the first films i watched of 2023, fire island stunned me. it was this absolutely hilarious, loose adaptation of pride and prejudice and i lived for it. the soundtrack for one stunned me, the visuals O-M-G, i was flawed. when donna summer's last dance started playing while noah and will danced in the sunset i screamed and danced for joy. this is a romcom!! this is a gay romcom like you have never seen.

the question is, would we get the same film if it was wlw? definitely not. there's this uniqueness to gay men falling in love that weirdly society accepts, but the minute we get an ounce of wlw representation, even in it's mildest sense, it get's repressed. take Paramount's rise of the pink ladies, it takes an iconic musical world and creates a prequal series with singing, dancing and acting far better than the original. but what really differentiates this series from all the others that came out in 2023 is the beautiful queer representation. cynthia and lydia's love story is so beautiful and timeless and air notartomosa's vocals are on another level. with a built-in fanbase and growing fans, the series gets removed from the streaming platform after only being released for around 2 weeks in its entirety.

i don't want to take away from fire island because i love that film with all my being, but where are the female and non-binary representation in romcoms and love stories that so many people in the queer community yern for?

[palaceoftherakes]

"i can't connect this life and that life. it just doesn't fit"

Normal People (2020), dir. Lenny Abrahamson; Hettie Macdonald

i first started watching Normal People about a year ago, it was popular at the time and there was this hyper-fixation on Paul Mescal that i kind of understood. my friends, to this day, rant and rave about it, about how they sobbed for hours watching it and it's changed the way they see relationships. a guy i know even compared him and his ex-girlfriend to Marianne and Connel. i never really understood it to be perfectly honest. a year ago, i stopped watching it after the third episode because i became frustrated with the miscommunication between the two: i found myself screaming "JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER!" when i told my friend that this was my response they encouraged me to keep on watching, "it'll get better, you'll understand as you watch it." so that's what i did, and instead of starting again, i picked it up from where i'd left off: the end of episode three. after i finished it, a lot of their early interactions made sense. they were young, figuring themselves out and yet to really mature to the point where they could be completely open, truthful and communicative about how they were feeling. as you watch the characters grow up, there's this mutual understanding that they'll be there for one another, always, with Connell baring the more protective, almost possessive at times, characteristics.

i can see where my friend was coming from, i get the hype over Paul Mescal; the acting was superb. i hung onto each of Marianne and Connell's interactions and i wanted them to succeed, not just romantically, but for them to reach a healthy conclusion in their relationship when the series ended. and they did, and it was beautiful.

however, i can't seem to connect them to me, and my experiences. we're of relatively same age, but i think that's the closest similarity i find with these characters. i don't have this long, perpetual romantic story, or even the friendship that Marianne and Connell have. the characters just get each other on another level. maybe it's a good thing that i don't connect with the characters because then i can view this as it is, a fictional story. the emotion was there, for sure, i felt anguish for them at the end, but it didn't run deep.

[palaceoftherakes]

"i suppose marriage has always been a financial proposition, even in fiction."

Little Women (2019), dir. Greta Gerwig

the idea of marriage has always been strange.

for me, well i'm bisexual, and i never thought that marriage would be a prospect to me because i didn't think i'd ever be capable of loving one person for the rest of my life. then, i watched Little Women (2019). it wasn't this epiphany, but a slow realisation about how i'd been brainwashed to believe that marriage was the way to fulfilment. while there are many things about Greta Gerwig's adaptation that i'd like to discuss, sisterhood, womanhood and youth being few to mention, i would like to focus on this concept of marriage as it is represented through the eyes of Jo, who up until my tenth watch, i identified with the most.

Jo March, as self-described, is frumpy, homely and unlike any woman, Theodore Laurance would ever want to marry. i too have always felt like that. never be the one to be asked out, or even noticed by boys in school, and when i realised i liked girls too, it became a taboo subject that left me with slurs and various degrees of internalised homophobia. growing older, I've realised that perhaps it is me being a poc in a majority-white setting that has made it so difficult to feel the right to be loved by others romantically. or maybe it's because i've been stagnant in my approach to sexuality that it's scared others away. enough self-evaluation: Jo sees marriage like a prison, and that makes sense. or does it?

a perfect home life, yes. a nuclear family, the husband, the wife, the children, the white picket fence and a warm hearth to surround when it gets cold outside. even though the love between marmie and father is one to be idolised, it is caring and unconditional love that surrounds Jo, and yet she finds herself opposed to the very notion of marriage.

the setting that the march family sit in is quiet, a cottage core aesthetic (to use contemporary reference) where the only people they interact with are the Laurences, the Hummels and one Mr. John Brooke. when Teddy and Jo pair off and become quick and steadfast friends the natural conclusion is that they'll get married and have a hoard of children while living a mildly happy life. it works for Meg and Mr. Brooke, so why wouldn't it work for Teddy and Jo?

to me, it's very clear. it's clear for the moment Jo leaves her family home and moves to New York to work in a boarding house. meeting the foreign professor is this sign shouting "THERE'S MORE TO LIFE THAN WHAT YOU KNOW!" he applies a different school of thought and challenges her in a way that Laurie and her family never did. the challenges she faces, the rejection from the publishing house, not being chosen to go to France with Aunt March, and most significantly the death of Beth, all push her to the conclusion of finishing her book and getting it published.

but the question becomes, why was i more satisfied with the ending of Jo and Friedrich (the professor) than with her getting her book published? i guess it becomes the conversation of what romantic films have periodically presented us with the 'happy ending', which has been, falling in love, getting married, having oodles of children and then dying. to be honest, it's not just romantic films, it's the disney princesses that surrounded me in childhood. its stereotypes that are perpetuated even further into media, and are ingrained into young girls from a young age. even now, as I'm meeting adulthood for the first time, the questions of marriage, kids and the future keep on cropping up in conversations. i don't think i was ever conscious of my own bias when watching films, but watching Little Women for what seems to be the 100th time makes me wonder what it really means to be married, what that commitment really means. Is it like Jo says, an 'economic proposition' or is it something much more than that?

author note:

amy and laurie >>>> jo and laurie