Author: ineedaparrott

portrait of a lady on fire (2019)

Recently, I’ve found myself discovering a great sense of appreciation for even the most minuscule parts of movies. Whether it’s the performance of an actor, the beautiful shots that will stay with me forever, or the score that managed to entrance me even further into the story than I thought possible. To put it plainly, I didn’t have to pick one for this movie. Just as a disclaimer there will be spoilers in this review, and I very much implore you to go and see this film. It’s stolen a very significant place in my heart. 

Every single moment in this film lingered not only in my mind but on-screen with the longing that could be felt between Marianne and Héloïse throughout their forbidden romance. I sat with intense anticipation as Marianne followed behind a cloaked Héloïse, whose face had yet to appear on-screen, and the gorgeous shot of her reveal once she turned around still sits with me. Céline Sciamma’s direction was so good that it’s sort of beyond my capacity of comprehension how she did this. 

I’m actually having some difficulty in writing this review because of how good this movie was, how well-written the story was, and how badly I now want to revive my high school French knowledge so that I can watch it again and understand the beauty of this romance without translation. Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant gave two of the most brilliant and truthful performances of 2019 in my opinion. This movie hurt me but also provided me with enough catharsis to feel inspired to go into the rest of my week. This movie dwelled and thrived in the unsaid. Every moment, every glance, gave way to a breadth of emotion that is by no means easily put on or captured.  

After finishing the movie, I thought back to the scene when Héloïse was reading the story of Eurydice (a Greek Myth that I was particularly familiar with) and realized the stunning parallel to the ending of the story of their romance. After being haunted by the image of Héloïse in a wedding gown throughout the film, when Marianne is leaving Héloïse calls out to her, asking her to turn around and look at her before vanishing into the darkness. Earlier in the film, Héloïse theorized that Eurydice asked for Orpheus to look back at her, sending her back to the underworld to die a second time, never to see him again, and as some prophecy for the fate of their forbidden romance, Héloïse does the same. It was stunning, to say the least. 

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a beautiful, poignant, display of the artistry of story, with a message of feminism and love that stretches from the late 1700s to today with an honesty and vigor that will make this a piece that will never grow old. I truly hope that international films only continue to get more and more recognition following the deserved success of Parasite, because it’s truly an injustice to miss out on amazing films like these all over having to read captions. 

Stories are as universal as the human experience, and movies like Parasite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire are only a couple of examples mixed in with the many that truly deserve to be seen and regarded despite the hold that the US has on the world of cinema. I absolutely loved this movie, and I hope you did (or will) too.  

10/10.

Disclaimer: I do not own the image I’ve used here, nor do I have any intention of taking credit for it. 

midsommar (2019)

Now, before we begin I would like to say that this comprehensive review will contain spoilers, so if you’ve not seen the movie and you do not want to know any of the macabre details then please, by all means, go and see it for yourself and come back to join in on all of the fun.

Personally, I am not typically one to indulge in horror films, but after hearing buzz from a modicum of my friends about this film, I decided that I was interested. I’m going to start off by describing the various things in this film that blew my mind as a viewer.

The cinematography. From the moment that I watched the trailer, I knew that I would be in for one of the most visually stunning films of the summer, I was intrigued by the story, and overwhelmed by the sense of need that I felt to find out what the movie had in store. And boy, did it have something in store for me (we’ll talk more about that later). In the first fifteen minutes of the movie, I found myself in what can only be described as complete and utter awe of not only the events that ensued but the way it was all shot and stitched together. Every pan and transition indicated the exact feeling the events were supposed to invoke. They were smooth and looming when the audience was left to wonder, jarringly abrupt when everything in Dani’s life had suddenly imploded following her sister’s murder-suicide of her parents. I felt my head turning as the camera spun, following their car deeper and deeper into the trenches of Sweden that the majority of them would never escape.

I think going into the film I had a feeling that there would be something intricate and delicate about the work that was done, and I couldn’t have been more correct. It made me care. The writing, the IMPECCABLE acting, the cinematography, the utter lack of music at the beginning of the movie that dropped a boulder in the pit of my stomach, and made me feel immense empathy for Dani’s character and what she went through.

I would also just like to take an entire sidebar to give credit to Florence Pugh, there was something so raw and vivid about her performance that left me completely dumbfounded. I’d never seen her in a film before but the moment that I heard her sobs over the phone to her boyfriend, I knew that I was getting to see something truly special. Pugh has talent beyond words, and personally beyond my comprehension, so there’s that.

The entire cast did a fantastic job, I just can’t get this movie out of my mind because of their amazing performances. I have struggled, my entire life with being comfortable with my passion for stories and telling them in any way that I can, be it acting, writing, or what have you, and I can safely say that this movie has reminded me what it is about art that makes me feel truly alive. I haven’t seen Hereditary, but everything in me has the desire to because I am that impressed by Ari Aster’s mind and the things he’s created. Midsommar was like a twisted fairy tale in the best way, the story and its message and its execution all carried with them something untouchable, and I am so very glad that I got a chance to see it.

I will say that I couldn’t bring myself to look at the screen many times when they showed the smashed open faces of the elders, and I definitely dry-heaved a bit upon seeing Mike’s (I think his name was Mike?) lungs flipped outside of his body like angel wings, but all in all I was just so astounded by everything else and how good the movie and the plot was that I was willing to put those apprehensions aside. The friends I saw it with, on the other hand, could only see as far as the excessive gore. Oh, and the graphic ceremonial conception scene between Christian and that girl from the village. That’s about as far as they saw.

The entire story was so well done, and well written and the parallels between Dani hiding her emotions in the beginning out of fear of running Christian away, and her finally embracing her trauma with the women of the village…beautiful. Seeing this movie was a jarring, enlightening, and intriguing experience, and while it seems like I enjoyed everything except for the extremely graphic scenes, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if they weren’t there. Midsommar was twisted, and dark, but also light and intricate and beautiful and I loved it despite its bloody gory details.
I need to establish a scale of rating these movies. I just really enjoyed it and I wouldn’t change a single thing about my experience, nor would I want to take it back.

9/10

Disclaimer: I do not own the image I’ve used here, nor do I have any intention of taking credit for it. I don’t really know how else to cite it.

My (somewhat) conquerable film list

The plan is to take you all along for my literal 40-hour journey through this list of films. Once I’ve finished a movie, I will cross it off of the list and post a short review to keep you guys updated. Each movie will be given a specific rating, and once I’ve finished all of them, one of the movies below will be crowned supreme.

Wish me luck 🙂
  • Whiplash
  • Black Swan
  • Kill Bill (1&2)
  • Jennifer’s Body
  • Fight Club
  • Avatar
  • Ex Machina
  • Atomic Blonde
  • Split
  • Get Out
  • I, Tonya
  • Green Mile
  • Good Will Hunting
  • Matrix
  • Jurassic Park
  • Goodfellas
  • American Psycho
  • The Dark Knight
  • The Wolf on Wall Street
  • Call Me By Your Name
  • Love, Simon

I’m writing a book :)

On June 16th, 2018, I decided to take the NaNoWriMo challenge. The task was simple, 50,000 words in 30 days. I spent hours on end cooped up in my room, jotting down my ideas, and trying to remember how to spell ‘necessarily’. At the end of my 30 days, I was exhausted, my knuckles were sore, and I couldn’t help but wonder why I spent my summer on this project; it was all worth it in the end. Not because I reached my goal, because I was definitely nowhere even remotely close to 50,000 words (I’m still only halfway there) but because without the work I put in back then there would be no way in hell that my my first draft would even be off of the ground. As of today, I’m nearly at 27,000 words with a very loose plan of how I’m going to get from start to finish so please bear with me as I stumble my way through this; it’s going to be messy.