Scrumtrulescent

New Directors, New Films

Why is my intuition so awesome? The two movies I’ve loved the most so far at SIFF—Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st and Karl Markovics’ Breathing—written up together in the NYT.

About the latter, Dargis writes: “…the film earns its power through its revelation of a material reality so palpable you can almost smell the perfume in a dead woman’s home.”

That’s exactly it. At that exact moment in the film, I thought I could smell that room. I forgot until I read this. People loved this film. They were deconstructing it in the bathroom. A yoga teacher told me that its Austrian title, Atmen, is one letter away from “self” in Sanskrit, “atman.” Then he told me memory begins in the womb, and I had to excuse myself. 

And while most people around me were upset by the ending of Oslo, and the lack of revelation about the character’s trauma, I also agree with Dargis here:

“Mr. Trier is less interested in why Anders arrived at this moment in his life — and how he makes it to Oslo on a very specific date — and more interested in illuminating a precise state of mind.”

I can sit inside a well-crafted state of mind all day. That’s what I aim to achieve in my writing. I love these long snapshots of grief, these struggles against inertia.

I’ve been trying to come up with an answer for why I love Oslo so much. The character isn’t sympathetic. But then ironically, in his very humanness, he is. It occurs to me that I’ve loved these small, indie, foreign, sad types of movies all my life. They simply make me feel less alone in the world. And I tried to go to some comedies tonight, but they were sold out!

Seattle International Film Festival

I’ve been happily working for SIFF since March as a Publications Editor. Well that part is finished—the guide is now hopefully in your hands if you live locally!!! I accepted another job in Production, as a venue manager at the Harvard Exit. The madness starts tonight at Opening Night with Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister. We’re all super stoked. Tomorrow I plunge into my new job from 9 a.m.-midnight and keep similar hours until June 10. Here’s hoping I can save every cent I make this month, and spend my birthday (a couple of weeks after the fest) lying on a beach in California. Posts will be few and far between. Instagrammed festival madness available at randomsumm3r. Take care and watch lots of movies!!! If anyone wants a list of my top picks, email me.

Blowing My Mind Part 1

I loved Against Me! when I was in my early 20s in Florida. Their music has the spark and drive of young life, it just made me want to make out on a (hopped) train, damn the man, damn the world. Then I saw them once in Seattle at Neumo’s and that was a pretty electric show. I lost track of them and it looks like they’re pretty famous now. So this news about lead singer Tom Gabel coming out as transgender is really incredible. So brave. And dude still lives in St. Augustine. It’s kinda shocking me back into the reality that people can live authentically, or attempt to, anywhere…not just in the liberal bubble of Seattle which I’ve become so ensconced in. Tom Gabel I salute you!