In this episode of Water we discuss a hauntingly poignant tale by French director, Mati Diop. Her masterpiece, Atlantics, is a refreshingly unexpected story that we both consider a must watch. Join us as we break down the duality of water as both a comfort and a threat and the way it centers the movie. Yes, we talk about the love story that lies at the surface, but we also discuss the way in which this story is a meditation on possession of the female body, the physical stress of socio-economic disparity, and colonialism in Senegal.
Next up in Ghost Stories, I present to you Ana Lily Amirpour’s 2014 stylish vampire western horror film, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Amirpour evades categorization in her nuanced, intertextual debut feature and successfully creates the perfect desolate atmosphere in the fictional Iranian town, Bad City, for her cool-girl vampire to prey on men. Amirpour challenges both the male and western gaze with her morally complex depiction of a vampire girl.
Up next in Ghost Stories I am here to present Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 “mind-boggling mixed-media spectacle”, House. Join me in a discussion of this Japanese classic that looks like horror on the surface but evades typical generic categorization. This is not so much of an attempt to analyze a film as absurdly surrealist as this one as it is a chat about the historical "why?" and "so what?". In this experimentation with the medium using a mixed-media approach, Obayashi captures the attention of a youthful audience thought to be lost to television in a spectacle that uses striking visuals on the surface and grapples with the intergenerational trauma that lies beneath.
After a little break, we’re back. We ask you to please bear with us as the show goes through some changes and growing pains; nonetheless we are here to present you with our next chapter—Ghost Stories. Join us for today’s episode featuring Víctor Eríce’s 1973 Spanish masterpiece The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena). Upon first glance this is a story about a little girl discovering the mysteries of life, even the scary ones, but we are to provide you with the historical context to understand its specificity in Spanish culture and the start of Francisco Franco's brutal 35-year regime. We hope at the very least this episode introduces you to a mesmerizingly spooky movie rooted in real events and national trauma.
For our final chapter of Love we are talking about Christopher Petzold’s poignant 2014 drama, Phoenix. Petzold cleverly uses the love story between Nelly and Johnny to drive and inform a conversation about postwar Berlin. It’s rooted in emotional realism and is narratively straightforward, but join us to discuss the fantastical tone which haunts it and the complexities of identity within the framework of trauma and reconciliation with a horrifying past. It is suspenseful and its ending is equally climactic and satisfying. We hope that this episode leaves you wanting as much Petzold as you can get, because his oeuvre is worth a deep dive.
In Episode 3 of Love we present you an official podcast favorite: In the Mood for Love. A movie that not only explores love and desire, but also the way we fit into this universe with other people connected by fate, choice, and chance. Wong Kar-wai's signature dreamy style brings to life that we are only partially privy, and like the protagonists getting to know each other, we have to pay attention. Join us for a conversation about the way these themes fit into Hong Kong's rich history both in terms of cinema and otherwise, and the way the two leave their mark on each frame on the film.
In Episode 2 of Love we focus on a movie that highlights the voices of two girls in a community whose story has long been erased; Carmen y Lola by Arantxa Echevarría is a first love story between two Romani girls from Madrid. This work of social realism explores the intersectionality of the queer identity, and while tragic, is actually quite hopeful. So far we are 2/2 for tears in this chapter, so we apologize if you are not ready to have your heart broken and put back together in the span of 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Welcome to our fifth chapter: Love. This is a chapter we could fill infinitely, so picking movies has not been easy, but we decided to start with Wim Wenders' iconic Paris, Texas as it is all-encompassing when it comes to love. It's a structurally perfect story about longing, loss, and memory that drives a journey through the the myth of The American Dream, but what makes it such a nuanced take on love is that its backdrop is the Southwestern United States, and it's a French-German production.
To finish up our Biopics chapter we are talking about our second movie directed by and highlighting the story of a woman. Frida by Julie Taymor is a productorial feat, led by the will and vision of Salma Hayek. We want to highlight her efforts while also being sensitive to the gravity and trauma of the situation she faced with Harvey Weinstein in order to have it made and distributed. In this episode we discuss the importance of Frida Kahlo and the historical significance of the movie, but we invite you to join us to engage with some of the aspects that may not do Kahlo justice, like the male gaze that plagues it. It’s an episode fueled by passion and emotion, and we can’t imagine a better way to leave Chapter 4.
In the second half of our Biopic Chapter we are shifting the focus to stories about women, and this one is particularly exciting, because it is also our first discussion of an animation. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis based on Satrapi’s graphic novel of the same name is a refreshing take on a coming-of-age autobiography that is not only rooted in the specificity of a childhood during the Iranian Revolution, but also uses the medium to explore universal themes. Join us to talk about its historical significance, the possibilities of animation in revealing the essence of cinema, and the dualities that form an identity. They demonstrate that the pursuit of truth does not necessarily rely on an indexically sound imitation of this world.
In Episode 2 of Biopics we take a retrospective look at David Fincher’s The Social Network. While the movie has only been out for 12 years, the hold that Facebook has over the fabric of society has grown and shifted exponentially. In this sense, we discuss the movie and Facebook’s founding, but, perhaps much more importantly, we reflect on how we can understand the movie’s messages within the context of how we understand the entity of the Metaverse today.
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