il mare (2000)

il mare is both calming and emotionally-wrecking. this story is told from the heart & every shot is a gorgeous still. it makes me want to live in a house by the sea!

it's a charming & romantic melodrama that makes me want to live peacefully and live lovingly. it's not for everyone, and many complain about the pacing toward the end——but il mare was in every way perfect & intriguing to me. maybe i just love a cute sweet romance story and that's it! maybe i love lee jung-jae! who wouldn't?!

il mare honestly reminds me of key visual novels as its told in the exact format: fun & warm-hearted beginning, sudden depressing twist, supernatural circumstance solves everything. and i cannot recommend it enough if you're looking for a feel-good (but also feel depressed for a few minutes) romance film :-)

fallen angels (1995)

it's one of the most uniquely-told films i've ever watched & stands out from literally anything i've ever watched. that's wong kar-wai for you. one thing i really took away from the film (in terms of how it's directed) is the drastic switches from static shots to quick-moving, low shutter-speed shots that follow the characters. it feels a lot more interpersonal this way

the only "gripe" that i might have about fallen angels is its lack of a clear story. this is definitely a personal preference thing...i like knowing what the story is about. so maybe fallen angels is just too sophisticated for me, but i had a hard time actually getting hooked on it story-wise (but visually, i loved it!)

fallen angels is about several different stories colliding without the other characters realizing it. i've always been a sucker for those kinds of stories where several different things are happening at once and they all interlink; and fallen angels is perfect in combining it with its setting. this film is super popular for its aesthetics, and understandably so, because the atmosphere as you so curious as to what's going to happen next

it's unique. i couldn't find it overly inspiring in a storywriting way, but definitely in a filmmaking way. wong kar-wai is super iconic. it's a good one!

secret sunshine (2007)

an insanely tragic movie. i couldn't bring myself to cry over it just because i was on edge the whole time, literally unable to determine what was going to happen next (even when there were only 20 minutes left in the film), but it keeps you hooked. secret sunshine is about lee shin-ae, who moves to her late husband's hometown after his death, with her son, only to befall tragedies upon tragedies as her grief challenges romance, madness, and faith. and madness is genuinely the best way to put it

it's got a super unique vibe. eerie, close-knit city in lee chang-dong's lens is depicted perfectly; the slow-panning shots were the best......especially during shin-ae's breakdowns. every moment in this film is a still in itself. everything leaves you with a pit in your stomach for its entire two hours. i briefly mentioned faith earlier, and i think that was my favorite part of the film.......shin-ae finding religion & then dealing with how unfair it is was really powerful & something i definitely walked away from this movie with.

if you want to sit and feel uncomfortable and upset with how fate works for a whole 140 minutes, this is an amazing movie to do it to....

blue (2002)

such a beautifully-made queer movie. feels like the definition of "beauty in simplicity." everything feels blunt but calm and complex at the same time. so many layers of emotion & love put into this film & it really shows in every single shot & every single interaction. i'm going to have that flute playing in my head forever. moral of the story: heterosexuality SUCKS!

the movie is definitely slow-paced but every frame makes it worthwhile and perfect. i can't help but to connect blue to my own love for a girl i knew back in eighth grade and how the indecision of both leads felt like a reflection of myself. it's a movie that captures adolescence perfectly——and even more so given the fact that it was made in 2002!!! it has that gorgeous muted color grading from the 2000s that makes you wish everything in the real human world looked just like it. i loved the shots that lasted like 3-5 minutes long. i loved the one hour and fifty-eight minutes i put into blue. and holy shit i love kirishima's haircut!!!!

i can't recommend this movie enough. only if you're looking to sit and feel empty for a while once you're done, though. but honestly, i feel so inspired........

taste of cherry (1997)

ouuuff........controversial to think of taste of cherry so lowly as its one of kiarostami's most very loved films but the message & visuals were all so unengaging. i didn't anticipate a thrilling, high-action, fast-paced story at all.......in fact, i really like when silence is drawn out and you're left to your own devices to sit alongside depressing characters and their depressing emotions, but not once did i feel any sense of intrigue with taste of cherry. i can't believe such a serious premise like intently searching for a person to bury you after your suicide is handled so.....boringly?

"don't kill yourself, look for the simple joys in everyday!" like that was the message? i could see it from someone else's perspective in that the film is a retrospective of what feeling suicidal is like in iran, how you feel stuck and unwelcome, and i really liked the discussions of religion in the film......but jesus christ SNOOOOOOOOOOOZE FESTTTT holy fuck! sorry!!!!!!! oh my god, the message could have been conveyed in any less amount of time and in any less of a visually-aesthetic way and it probably would have had more of an effect on me than these hellish 100 minutes did. "i didn't kill myself because berries taste good" or something like ????????? not to sound really dramatic or overly-impassioned but i've seen more well-thought drabbles on a tiktok for-you page than in this film

some great monologuing here and there, my eyes started closing in the last 16 minutes, arguably not that even visually exciting. i watched a guy get in his car and get out of his car and watch dirt for 100 minutes. it's artistic, though.....i want to gauge this as maybe i missed the point but i don't think i did. it's a film about suicide and it's just handled so stupidly