Watched in July 2021Minari The Female Closet Lover Other Ad Astra Knife+Heart (Un Couteau dans le c&
Watched in July 2021Minari The Female Closet Lover Other Ad Astra Knife+Heart (Un Couteau dans le cœur)The Tall ManWinter’s Blight Fire in My Belly The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak (Les prostituées de Lyon parlent)Air Conditioner (Ar Condicionado) Forgettable filmsMinari (Lee Isaac Chung, 2020): I get it. It’s very sweet. It’s also solid Korean-American representation. In a way I’m glad that this film was successful. It was just a bit too formulaic for me, and none of the characters felt three-dimensional. Without knowing that it was in part autobiographical, I could also really feel that in that the characters didn’t really feel like characters so much as imitations of real-life peopleAd Astra (James Gray, 2019): I’ve already forgotten the plot?? I watched it because it takes place in space but really, who caresWinter’s Blight (Claire Campbell): This… is a beautiful short I guess?Fire in My Belly (Ayo Akingbade, 2021): A short documentary about British youth in Brixton. I think I would have appreciated more had I been from London or even BritainAir Conditioner (Ar Condicionado, Fradique, 2020): This was my first Angolan film so that was cool. There were definitely some good elements in this – loved the mystery, loved the science fiction, loved the photography – but over all not enough happened and I was boredAll right filmsKnife+Heart (Un Couteau dans le cœur, Yann Gonzalez, 2018): This one is definitely not forgettable although I’m still not sure I liked it. Let’s say I enjoyed being in this colourful, over-the-top, and hypergay universe for a while. Also loved seeing the older Vanessa ParadisThe Tall Man (Pascal Laugier, 2012): I think this is one of the better sort of mainstream horror thrillers? But yeah, the plot definitely hangs by a threadFilms I really enjoyed (that are also documentaries by and about women)The Female Closet and Lover Other (Barbara Hammer, 1998 and 2006): These are both documentaries about lesbians. The first one portrays three different women artists, two from history and one contemporary, and highlights the way that their attraction to women was highlighted or silenced. The second one is about Marcel Moore and Claude Cahun, a fascinating lesbian couple living in the Channel Islands in the first half of the twentieth centuryThe Prostitutes of Lyon Speak (Les prostituées de Lyon parlent, Carole Roussopoulos, 1975): Since this takes place in my city and was on Mubi this month I pretty much had to watch it. In 1975 French sex workers started to occupy churches throughout the country to protest harassment from the police and the government, and to demand change. This forty-five-minute documentary showcases their demands and also some personal histories, and addresses the stigma these women faced*On the whole my film-watching July was better than my June but now that I’ve reduced my intake so much I feel like I need to start watching more stuff again… We’ll see.* Follow me on Letterboxd! -- source link
#watched in 2021