Point of Order! (1964, dir. Emile de Antonio)

past lives is like kimi no na wa for adults? in that neither are really movies about relationships as much as they are movies about what it feels like to just vibe with someone really hard and the big emotions that supposedly come with that. in fact, if the characters were more fleshed out, maybe it would even detract from those vague, projectable vibes.

Fernando Pessoa - The Book Of Disquiet

my beloved mutuals.... have you heard of the korean concept of in-yun?

Phoenix (2014, dir. Christian Petzold)

trying to meet a woman of a melancholic disposition who is not chill or fun to be around

Perfect Days (2023, dir. Wim Wenders)

one man's cringe is another man's... no i can't even say it

Past Lives (2023, dir. Celine Song)

808 STATE ft. BJÖRK QMART | EX:EL, 1991

The Taste of Things (2023, dir. Tran Anh Hung)

Passages (2023, dir. Ira Sachs)

Ouroboros (2017, dir. Basma Alsharif)

Catherine Breillat in Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Cinema/Filmer le désir: Voyage à travers le cinéma de femmes, dir. by Marie Mandy (2000)

For a certain kind of person — the person who, usually, strives to be a responsible parent, a sensitive friend, an upright citizen, a person who tries to care about their community — it can be impossible not to succumb to the incessant urge to mimic someone else’s supposed balance and feeling of wellness in life. What do we even know about them really?

I’m increasingly seeing this in my work as a therapist in New York City. So are my colleagues. One said to me recently that he was tired of listening to his patients talk about the impossible advice inhaled on Instagram and TikTok — to say nothing of the self-help industry. “Doesn’t anyone come asking to be more free?” he exclaimed. “They don’t,” I said pessimistically. “Everyone wants to make the right decisions.” The problem is it’s very hard to tell someone that pursuing the abstract question of “right and wrong” ways to live will lead you into a cul-de-sac. It avoids the deeper question of desire, and desire is a compass.

The promised image of goodness skirts pleasures that — for obscure reasons — you aren’t sure you can want. I see patients grow fearful when they can’t tell if what they desire is compulsive — just another rote, maybe addictive, behavior, or a real attempt to test the boundaries they live under. How do you locate free will in a world this compulsory? Unsettling desires challenge our perception of who we are and what life might look like. ...

My patients have spent time on the couch struggling with the joys and pains that come with their wish to take drugs, not to expand consciousness but just because; quit their job, not to re-evaluate life but simply to stop working (along with the bonus pleasure of thumbing their nose at their employers); or give in to an irksome captivation with the wrong person at the absolutely wrong time. ...

These pursuits certainly aren’t what you ought to do — much less post about — and yet I find that it’s when we dwell on our secret enjoyments that we learn the most about ourselves. Sexual and aggressive feelings, veering self-destructive, are finally confronted without the veneer of rationalization.

--Jamieson Webster, "I Don’t Need to Be a ‘Good Person.’ Neither Do You."

Ostende (2011, dir. Laura Citarella)

vibey late night jazz tune with my friend turner on alto sax!

(spotify!)