#vincent finally found way to fully himself connect with the colors he saw in the world!

[rokutouxei]

you are still the sun that shines for me

part 8 of atelier heart

ikemen vampire: temptation in the dark theo van gogh/mc | G | 3030 | [ao3 in bio]

Life couldn't get any better. You enjoy what you do here, spending your life without regrets with the person you love the most. That is, until you meet her. The woman who still loves Theo.

CHAPTER 1

maybe love stays / maybe love can’t / maybe love shouldn’t. When Love Arrives, Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye

A sight that would change the life of everyone who sees it. That was what one of the head sponsors of the gallery called the show when you and Theo finally showed them the results of months of long work. An extraordinary compliment, to say the least. Standing there under the bright lights seeing the works of your new-artists-and-also-close-friends there for the world to see… all you can do is grin in delight.

Theo can do anything.

Great with his words, even better with his actions, hardworking to a fault and with a persistence and endurance that’s extremely admirable. Then, under all that, a heart that’s molten gold, filled with nothing but love and passion. The fact that he’s so also strikingly attractive, his eyes piercing, is also bonus points on anyone’s book, for sure.

You’re so glad to be able to help him out with his dreams.

You walk around the gallery to mingle with the artists and congratulate them with the success. They throw the compliment and the gratitude back to you and Theo, and you fall back into a comfortable kind of banter. For a moment, you dream of the future: little family of artists and art dealers, standing up and rising towards a new tomorrow for art.

You turn towards where Theo is across the room, and the both of you share a smile at each other when you make eye contact. He’s currently talking to some patrons, and while you’re lucky that you’ve met a lot that aren’t as backward, there are still high-paying ones with great influence that are, at their very core, still rather misogynistic, so Theo had said he’d take over this discussion himself.

He’d asked you to enjoy the exhibit, have some of the food, ask the guests of their thoughts in his stead. (“You say that as if it’s hard—that’s the fun part!” you’d told him.)

While watching the coming and going of people, for a reason you don’t understand at that moment, you’re drawn to a particular pair of guests: a young boy, maybe in his pre-teens, fumbling awkwardly in his suit, and a woman in her late 30s, walking with him. A mother and her son, perhaps. They seem to be having a lively conversation with each other with every painting, discussing it with an intensity that probably mimics yours and Theo’s.

Perhaps they’re patrons of the arts too?

You get an odd urge to come up to them. You don’t fight it, knowing fully well you still have a job to do—again, check on the guests—so taking a sip out of the champagne you’re nursing, you approach them.

The boy steps into the next section of the gallery before you can get there. Well, you’re not really as good at kids as Theo—so that’s probably for the better.

“Bonjour, madame,” you say with a short bow. “Enjoying the exhibit?”

“Very much so, yes,” the woman says. “Are you perhaps one of the artists?”

“Oh, no, just an organizer.” The woman looks surprised, but oddly pleased—maybe she does this sort of work, too? You beam. “How are you finding it?”

“Brilliant, I have to admit,” she answers you. “The curators really had an eye for the style. Not the usual—no, near scandalous, but beautiful. Hard to take one’s eyes off the canvases.”

The two of you fall into a rather lively discussion, one topic flowing into another. What started with a rather sharp analysis of the painting you’d found her in front of (“the intimate brush strokes even at the tiniest of details really is what makes it so much more… dreamlike.” “I agree! All those little things in dreams that doesn’t seem to make sense, but make it all the more true in that moment.” “Exactly. It adds a personality to it, and with these colors—“ “These colors!”) slowly evolved into a quick back and forth about art, aesthetic, and culture. You get so into the discussion you almost don’t notice the young boy having finished his rounds at the gallery, now standing behind his mother, listening intently at the discussion.

“It’s so lovely to have someone as invested in this that’s a woman as well,” you finally comment, your champagne flute empty and your confidence soaring after an exciting conversation. “Sometimes I still get stared down when I talk to clients.”

She nods, a little sadly. “I can only imagine. I was not born of money, really, but I have a bit on me, and that’s really the only way I can get most of the influential powers to listen to what I have to say.”

“Oh?” That piques your curiosity. “Do you run a gallery or an artist workshop too, madame?”

She waves you off. “Nothing of the sort. I’d just inherited a grand array of valuable paintings—beautiful, yet, like most of these kinds of art, very much still misunderstood and looked down upon.”

“A consideration of the style, perhaps?”

“Yes, very much so,” she says. “They’re… intense, to say the least. But just because it is not understood now, doesn’t mean it will not be of importance in the future. So I’m looking forward to connecting with galleries, like this one, perhaps, and museums, bring his paintings out into the world.”

His paintings. Oh, how much like Theo. “That’s a remarkable goal.”

“Rather absurd for but a woman like me, I’d say,” she comments, a dry laugh at the end. “This wasn’t my mission, just one I have to continue. Besides, they’ll do better in galleries like this than hanging in rows in my kitchen.”

“Someone once told me the best art in the world is still hidden, waiting to be found,” you say. It was Theo who had told you that.

She nods. “For sure. And you’re doing your fair share of searching, if this exhibit is any clue.” She turns away from you for a moment, and then her eyes widen at the sight of something. You’re about to turn around to peep what it is when she turns to you abruptly. “I’m sorry, but I have someone I must talk to, so I’ll go ahead.” She turns to the boy. “Lieveling?”

“Can I stay a little longer with her, mama?” the boy asks. You’re… surprised, to say the least, considering he’s just been listening quietly the whole time.

Mama. Had you misheard that, or was that not exactly French in sound? Wait… what did she call him?

“As long as you’ll behave,” the woman says. Ah, the woman! You hadn’t even gotten to ask her name! You’re about to ask when she turns and—“I’m sorry, I’ll come back for him really quickly. You may leave him if you have somewhere else to go; he’s a big boy, he can handle himself.”

This time, with annoyance. “Mama.”

“Yes, yes.” The woman bows and starts to walk away, off into a corner where you saw the shadow of a few of the richer patrons disappear into much earlier.

Perhaps she’d recognized one of them? Maybe it’s related to the paintings she was talking about earlier—perhaps she’s about to reach out. You silently wish her good luck in your head as you turn to the boy in front of you.

Not knowing where to begin, you say: “How old are you, can I ask?”

“I just turned ten,” he says. “Being ten is great. I don’t want to be treated like a little boy anymore.”

You take note of that and straighten your back. He’d probably hate if you crouched to meet him eye to eye—not that you’d need to do much of it, considering he was pretty tall for a ten-year-old boy. “Ten is a fun age to be. Well, what does the big ten-year-old want to ask me?”

“Can you talk about the paintings a little more?” he asks, refusing to look you in the eye, looking around the exhibit pensively. “You and mama… really understood each other, and I can’t keep up with her…”

You narrow your eyebrows. So the expression you’d seen from him earlier was less of excitement, but more of… confusion? Asking questions to his mother about what he couldn’t understand, and less of enthusiasm of the artwork? “Your mama made it sound like you live in an art-filled house.”

“We do,” the boy admits. “And that’s why it’s hard. I’m ten now and sometimes I still don’t understand what she’s saying. I get it, they’re pretty, but… then what? Machines—those make more sense to me. All the art and feelings… I don’t get it. They’re like magic to me.”

A boy with a passion for art who hasn’t found his footing in it yet, the words to brace himself with, the road to walk. You used to be just like that too. This is a great way to pay it forward, you tell yourself. “Well, I’d love to talk to you about the art pieces, mon apprenti. But first—I’ll have to know your name.”

You introduce yourself with a bow in French, thinking a little roleplay won’t hurt. This is still a child, after all, and you want to be at least an enjoyable tutor. He plays along, taking your hand in his in a little formal bow.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, mademoiselle. Je m'appelle Vincent Willem van Gogh.”

Something inside your chest squeezes.

The little boy finally looks up, granting you the full strength of his gaze for the first time that whole day.

Deep, striking sea-blue eyes, just like Theo’s.

-

If Theo were to be completely honest, he would say he hated dealing with these patrons in particular. Misogynist and backwards, he couldn’t even bring you with him to discuss with them because they would just end up spending more time slandering your skills and knowledge about art than actually working out a good deal. But connections are things to be made, not broken, in this trade, and so with a half-hearted smile and a kiss from you to his cheek, that day at the gallery, he’d sent you off to enjoy the art while he talked with the stuck-up rich old men.

At least they have some interesting thoughts about art and money to entertain him, he thinks, as he nurses a glass of whiskey (“Just one! You’re not going to make me carry you home!” you had reminded him, jabbing at his lightweightedness, so he was taking his sweet time with it). He sure would rather have better, deeper conversation, the likes that stimulated the mind and kept him asking for more, but he can’t be picky in a place like this when he–

“Monsieur Theodore?”

A small voice that sends ice down his spine. He steels his features, but he can’t do the same to his heart.

He turns around and something deep inside of him, one that he’s long kept in dark sealed boxes in the shadows of the labyrinth of his mind, breaks.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, a small, elegant curtsey. “Je suis Johanna van Gogh.”

The part of him that’s human, the one he says has long died, the one that he’s buried, comes back to life in a searing flash of regret and pain. She looks older now–well, a near decade since he’s up and gone–the lines around her eyes deeper, but she also looks finer, more mature; the small blossom he’d left so long ago has now bloomed into a beautiful flower. Oh, his sweet Jo.

He tries his best not to look if she’s still wearing the ring he gave her on her left hand.

He doesn’t hear himself reply, as he tries not to bite down the words. He doesn’t know anymore if he’s lying when he says he is pleased to meet her. “It’s nice to meet a fellow van Gogh.”

She laughs, a little awkward one that’s full of pain. “Yes, a real interesting coincidence.” A beat; Theo sinks into familiarity. That hesitation, the way she pulls quickly backward into herself to rearrange her composure when confidence quickly fails her. She turns away for a moment—which Theo uses to step closer—before she faces him once more, her gaze making him feel small.

“I’m sorry for asking, but… have we met somewhere else before?”

And Theo wants to say yes, because besides the more obvious signs a decade leaves on a human body, Jo looks the same as Theo has kept burned in the backrooms of his memory. They’ve met before—he recognizes her. Her lovely, dark brown hair ever so impeccably styled practically and yet with a subtle kind of charm. The dimples on her cheeks, so deep he used to joke with her and poke a finger into it. The golden caramel color of her eyes, so wide and eager and passionate.

Jo had always been rather plain, and that’s what’s made her really beautiful. There was no need for excesses with her: everything was just exactly as was needed. And it seems that the years haven’t changed that in her, either. Her deep blue dress is fashionable but not extraordinarily so; her smile calculated for politeness but with enough genuineness in it to be truly lovely.

She’s exactly the same, and that’s why it hurts, that’s why Theo wants to say—

Yes. “I don’t believe so, no.”

She continues to look into him and it takes all his strength to not look away.

“I’m sorry, it’s just–my late husband was named Theo as well, and just–”

“I’m sorry to hear,” Theo fills, doesn’t want to hear the rest of it. There’s a knot in his throat and he’s trying not to think about it.

Why did he have to look so different? What curtain of reality is hiding him from the woman he loved most, in that past life? Why didn’t she recognize that it was him she was talking to?

Did he want her to recognize who she was talking to?

“Thank you,” she smiles. “I heard that this entire exhibit wouldn’t have run up without you. Congratulations.”

“I wasn’t alone,” not alone, not alone, not alone, “this was the hard work of the artists and my business partner.” Partner, partner, partner.

“It’s excellent work,” she comments, then pulls back. “Not–I’m not trained, of course. But my husband, he was an art dealer too, loved his career, it rubs off.”

“Art is a good thing to lose yourself into,” he finds himself saying. Theo doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore. He’s choking on the inside and he doesn’t want it to show. Who is he to tell her what’s good for her? When he’s the one who’s left all those wounds on her by leaving her? “It’s a beautiful thing, it grows.” Fills the empty spaces. There’s a thorn in his chest that’s becoming more prominent by the second.

And it hurts only worse when she beams. “Yes, that’s absolutely right. I have much to learn, he’s left me so much behind–aha, maybe one day I’ll ask for your help–and there’s so much I want to do.”

“You’re a passionate woman, Madame Johanna. You would surely make him proud.”

You will. You do. You always have.

She smiles. A steady, confident smile, the one that had made him fall in love with her what seems like a million lifetimes ago. “Thank you, Monsieur Theodore. Excuse me if it may seem rude, but it’s so hard not to think of mijn Theo when I see you.”

“I hope it’s not the sort that pains you.”

“Well, there is only so much time one can spend waist-high in mourning,” she says with a sweet smile. “He’s given me all that I can ask for, now it’s just a matter of getting to work.”

Theo wants to say something but his conscience holds him back. Jo has turned her gaze to the rows of paintings in the gallery, a smile filled with nostalgia on her face. Like she’s returning to a place a million years ago. Perhaps to the same place Theo is in as well, in his head.

She turns back to him slowly, the look on her face unearthing hidden wounds that suddenly feel still-too-raw. “I may not be able to do much, but you, sir—I think the both of you have the same kind of heart…I hope you get to continue what he only got to start.”

Theo feels helpless, left with nothing more to say, even if he knows there is so much left to tell. He doesn’t feel like he has the right to be part of this conversation anymore—a right he’d forfeited the day he’d left this life without second thought, blinded by the darkness of revenge.

Look at all this, Theodorus, he can hear Gauguin say in his head, the voice of the secret phantom who still lives in his unconscious, even if this was so long before, was it worth it? Has it ever been worth it?

Johanna, once his beloved Jo, does a curtsey, a quick excuse me as she finally sets off to leave. Theo tries to say a goodbye, a nice to have spoken to you, a see you again soon, but he doesn’t know if any of it has made it out of his mouth. Instead, he follows her away with his eyes, taking a sip at the whiskey that burns in his throat.

Was it worth it?

Sees her greet you of all people, and you nod at her with an indescribable look on your face.

What did it cost?

Theo’s gaze is glued onto the young boy Johanna van Gogh guides out with her, with his mother’s hair, the same sea blue of his father’s eyes.

Of Theo’s eyes.

Have you ever really ever known how much you’ve lost?

The cool tendrils of dread begin to fill him.

Across the room, you send the mother and child away with a heavy, empty gaze.

---

you are still the sun that shines for me is a 5-chapter fic that will be posted from October 25-28! catch what else is in the atelier later on in this fic. :)

[lefilmdujour]

Another 500th movie celebration

My Tumblr just reached the 1000 movies mark, so I figured it’s time I write something about my last 2 and a half years of movie viewings and recommend 50 more movies out of the ones I’ve seen since the last 500th movie celebration.

Times have been strange in the last couple of years, and my movie habits have reflected it. There have been times when watching films was all I would do, but there have also been moments of complete disconnection from the medium. I went from watching several movies every day to spending months avoiding anything to do with sitting through a movie. 

Part of it had to do with the space I share with my demons, but mostly there has been a change of pace. My laptop died, it took me months to get another one only to also die on me. On the other hand, an enormous chunk of my viewings have been in cinemas or squats, which is a very positive change but led me to watch more recent films in detriment of classics or ancient underappreciated gems. I also got my first TV in over a decade this month, and my very first Netflix account last week, so I may be exploring streaming a bit more, although so far I am not finding the experience  at all satisfying. All pointless excuses since I went through 500+ movies in a little over two years, which is not bad at all.

It was hard to pick only 50 movies this time, and the list would have probably looked a little different if I did it tomorrow. Regardless, here are 50 movies I recommend, and why. Random order, all deserving of love and attention.

Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff) - This movie is unfairly  ignored in the best comic book adaptation lists out there on the internet. The opening scene is memorable, the soundtrack is a lesson in early Blues, and the characters are quirky and well written.

Hate (Mathieu Kassovitz) - An absolute classic about the class system in France and its tendency to end up in riots. Beautiful shot and highly quotable. Saw it a few times, the last of them with a live score from Asian Dub Foundation. One of the greats.

Audition (Takashi Miike) - Whenever I’m asked about my favorite horror movie, I tend to fall back on this one. Audition is very slow, starting out soft but with an underlying tension that builds until the absolutely gut-wrenching finale that makes us question our own sanity. Brilliant subversion of the “hear, don’t see” rule, just the though of some of the sounds used in the most graphic scenes still send shivers down my spine.

Kedi (Ceyda Torun) - A Turkish documentary about street cats, what’s there not to like?

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-wook) - The third in the loosely-connected Vengeance trilogy by Park Chan-wook, and my favorite of the bunch, especially the Fade to Black and White edition, in which the movie very gradually loses color as the violence grows. A visual masterpiece.

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) - The poetry of routine. Adam Driver is one hell of an actor.

Love Me If You Dare (Yann Samuell) - Two people that obviously love each other but are not mature enough to follow it through. Frustrating. Beautiful. Made me sob.

The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel) - I am realizing that a good part of this list deals with frustration. A group of people finds themselves unable to leave a party for no apparent reason. Buñuel is a genious in surrealism, I have yet to watch most of his Mexican period.

The Mutants (Teresa Villaverde) - Kids on the run from themselves. Strong visuals, very moving interactions at times. A hard but very rewarding watch. Teresa Villaverde’s entire filmography also gets a seal of approval.

Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar) - A movie about sexuality and problematic relationships, taken to unbelievable extremes.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu) - The adventures of Mr. Lazarescu as he struggles to find help for the sudden pain he feels and ends up being passed on from hospital to hospital. Felt very real. Sold as a comedy, but I found it terrifying. 

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) - A classic greek tragedy brought to the modern age. My favorite Lanthimos film, ranking slightly below Dogtooth. The deadpan acting and the unnerving sound serves as wonderful misdirection.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt) - Three shorts stitched together to create a confusing, philosophical, absurd, funny and deep masterpiece. The animation skills of Don Hertzfeldt needs more recognition.

Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu) - A movie so good it didn’t even had an English name. Three tales of love, violence and loss, all linked by a dog.

Endless Poetry (Alejandro Jodorowsky) - Jodorowsky’s romanticized auto-biography, played by his own sons.Bohemian and poetic.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer) - Show this movie to someone who refuses to watch silent movies. The acting is so impactful and emotional, and the use of close ups was highly unusual for the time. A 90-plus years old masterpiece.

Everything is Illuminated (Liev Schreiber) - Sunflowers.

Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan) - I have a soft spot for war movies, as to remind myself how brutal people can be to their fellow man and how meaningless the concept of nations truly is. This movie in particular achieves greatness due to its usage of sound, the best I’ve heard in recent memory.

Vagabond (Agnès Varda) - Be careful of what you wish for yourself, you may end up frozen and miserable in a ditch (spoilers for literally the first few seconds of the film).

Stroszek (Werner Herzog) - I know Herzog mostly through his documentaries. His voice brings me the feeling of a deranged grandpa sharing stories of a reality tainted by dementia. I have yet to explore his fiction work in-depth, and this has been my starting point. Stroszek is bleak and desperate but humor still shines through it at times. Ian Curtis allegedly hung himself after watching it. Not sure if this story is real, but it once more feeds into the Herzog myth.

HyperNormalization (Adam Curtis) - Put together through found footage and newscasts, HyperNormalization is an unforgiving study on how we got to where we currently are. Fake becomes real. Trust is an abandoned concept. “They've undermined our confidence in the news that we are reading/And they make us fight each other with our faces buried deep inside our phones”, as AJJ sings in Normalization Blues. Which you should also check out.

Chicken with Plums (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud) - A man decides to die, so he goes to bed and waits. An apparent simple plot that uncovers a world of beauty and poetry, as life passes slowly through the man’s eyes.

The Florida Project (Sam Baker) - William Dafoe was born to play the role of a motel manager. He is so natural in his role that I think he would actually be great in that job. The rest of the movie is great too, but his performance is the highlight for me.

Lucky (John Carroll Lynch) - Speaking of great performances, Lucky is Harry Dean Stanton’s final movie and a great send off. IMDB describes it best: “The spiritual journey of a ninety-year-old atheist.“

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders) - More Harry Dean Stanton. The desert plays a more than decorative role in this wonderful movie, representing the emptiness that comes from estrangement. A story about reunion and all that can come from it.

On Chesil Beach (Dominic Cooke) - I sometimes cry in movies, but this one shook me to the core. A play on expectations and reactions and their devastating impact on relationships. We all fuck up sometimes. Try not to fuck up like these characters did, not on that level, you will never be able to make up for it.

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson) - An absolute classic. A movie about the concept of family.

No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers) - Murder mysteries and bad haircuts.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison) - I highly recommend this documentary for anyone who professes their love for cinema. The story of how hundreds of lost silent movies were preserved though sheer luck and human stupidity. Seeing these damaged frames coming back to life is truly magical.

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos) - Some films turn into cult experiences through the years, some selected few are already born that way. Mandy is a psychedelic freak-out and Nicholas Cage fits like a glove in its weirdness. If you didn’t catch it while in cinemas, you’re already missing out on the full experience. Mandy is filled with film grain, which adds to the hallucinogenic experience with its continuous movement, a feature that does not translate when transferred to a digital medium. 

City of God (Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund) - A masterpiece of Brazilian cinema, very meaningful and relatable if you grew up in a similar environment. One of the most quotable films in my memory, something that gets lost in translation if you don’t speak Portuguese. My Tumblr is mostly pictures because I “só sei lê só as figura”.

Loro (Paolo Sorrentino) - On the topic of languages, I watched this Italian movie with Dutch subtitles, by mistake. It is actually an interesting exercise, watching something without fully grasping every word and letting your mind patch the pieces together to make a coherent narrative. Impressive cinematography, amazing script. I learned a lot about corruption, not everyone has a price. I also learned I can speak Italian now.

Roma (Alfonso Cuarón) - Beautiful shot, every frame of it can be turned into a picture. Roma is about the meaning of family, seen from the eyes of someone who will never be part of it. A lot of people considered this movie boring and pointless. These people probably have maids at home.

Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard) - Engaging heist movie, well developed characters, amazing soundtrack.

Melancholia (Lars von Trier) - The World is coming to an end and the date and time has been announced. How would you react to these news? Would it matter?

Climax (Gaspar Noé) - A very scary experience, equal parts trippy and evil like all Gaspar Noé’s movies. A dark ballet that that shocks and confuses the senses. Dante’s Inferno.

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold) - A strong story about ambitions, neglect and survival. Katie Jarvis is very realistic in her performance, a little too much judging by her history after the movie.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour) - An Iranian feminist movie about vampirism and records. Watched it with live score from The Black Heart Rebellion for extra cool points.

Another Day of Life (Raul de la Fuente & Damian Nenow) - Based on Ryszard Kapuściński‘s autobiography, Another Day of Life consists of rotoscopic animation sprinkled with interviews. A look at the Cold War in the African continent, and an important watch for everyone, especially Portuguese and Angolan nationals.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) - Rich in dialogues and paced very slowly until the insane climax, this is probably the best Tarantino film after Pulp Fiction. Filled to the brim with cinematic references, it’s a delight to all film nerds. Looking forward for an Bud Spencer/Terrence Hill film adaption with Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt after this.

The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine) - Google’s top voted tags: Boring. Mindless. Cringe-Worthy. Forgettable. Slow. Illogical. Looks like this movie didn’t resonate well with the audiences, but then again Harmony Korine’s stuff is not for the masses. I personally think this is one of his best movies, a true exercise on nihilism. The main character is lovable and detestable in equal parts, and every action is pointless. Such is life, the only meaning it has is attributed by yourself.

The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky) - A man reflects on his life. Memories tend to get fuzzy, conflicting and confusing. More like a poem than a narrative. A dreamy masterpiece.

The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice) - The most charming child of this list, she couldn’t memorize the names of the characters she interacted with so they were changed to the names of the actual actors. The innocence of childhood in dark times.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson) - A series of absurd vignettes connected by a pair of novelty items salesmen and their struggle to bring a smile to a grey World. Slow, but humorous and delightful. An unconventional and memorable ride.

Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde) - Fake documentary about a serial killer. Heavy, gruesome and hard to watch, despite the false sense of humor in some scenes.A glimpse at the darkness of human nature.

Tangerine (Sean Baker) - Shot with cell phones. A story about love, gender and friendship. Funny, sad, touching.

The Guilty (Gustav Möller) - Focused on a shift of an emergency dispatcher, the camera focuses only on his face and phone interactions with the callers.A very effective thriller, its setting leads us to create our own narratives just to subvert them at the most unexpected times.

Cold War (Paweł Pawlikowski) - Loosely inspired in Pawlikowski’s parents, Cold War is a beautiful love story set against impossible odds. Powerful and heartbreaking. 

Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) - Poor family scams rich family. Rich family takes advantage of poor family. Everybody feeds off of everyone. Drama/Comedy/Thriller/Horror/Romance about control, delivered in a masterclass on cinematic rhythm. Best film of its year for me.

The Straight Story (David Lynch) - More than the fact that this movie is radically different than the remaining Lynch work, The Straight Story is a wonderful exercise in pacing and storytelling. Mr. Straight’s stories allow us to fill in the blanks with our imagination, and their impact in him is also felt in us. An underappreciated gem in its apparent simplicity.

Thank you very much for reading.