What’s The Right Way To Live? Some Days I Feel Like I Know, But I Really Don’t Know For Sure. I Just

I watched Dear Ex a couple of days ago because it had been recommended in a lot of LGBTQ Taiwanese film lists to me. And it was a good film. But what I found really interesting was how the film’s thesis statement about motherly love is ultimately one I think a lot of queer people, especially queer people who grew up in cultures emphasising filial piety, could find really cathartic.

In the film, there’s a teenage boy who decided to live away from his overbearing mother with a gay man (who was also his dad’s lover; the gay man functions as a sort of stepfather figure to him now since his dad passed away). And as revenge, his mom outed the man to his elderly mother, assuming that it would ruin their relationship (earlier the elderly woman also expressed confusion and admitted to not really ‘getting’ queer relationships too, which supported the assumption). She also spends much of the film helicopter parenting her son. Which her teenage son makes clear that he dislikes.

Later on in the film, mother and son go and see a play that the gay man directed and acted in. The play bombed. But at the very end, the gay man’s elderly mother was there, and gave him a bouquet of flowers and hugged him. The film ends with the teenage boy living with the gay man now, and his mother visiting from time to time. The teenage boy and his mother’s relationship is also shown to have greatly improved.

And I found this interesting, because ultimately, the thesis statement (or at least one interpretation one can derive from it) of the film is about motherly love. Or more specifically, how sometimes a mother can best show her love by stepping aside and allowing her child to live their life according to what they believe is right for them.

And I think this message is something that I think can resonate with a lot of queer people, because I think one of the big pains that a lot of queer people face in their lives is unaccepting families. Families who do expect something out of their child without giving them the freedom to live their life. Especially in a society like Taiwan, where children are very heavily expected to be filial to their parents. To have a film talk about motherly/parental love in such a manner - that the mothers eventually stepped back and allowed their children to be themselves and live their lives - would be very cathartic for a lot of queer people.

they really let this mf clock into work lookin like this

THOMAS SHELBY + smoking

Perfect Days (2023) dir. Wim Wenders

Great review!

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Of all the legal thrillers I’ve seen, Anatomy of a Fall feels the most genuine and relatable. While there are big revelations about the people involved and technically, they come suddenly, this isn’t a story of accidental confessions, surprise witnesses, or even earth-shattering pieces of evidence. Something happened while there were no witnesses present. The court must decide whether a crime was committed or not based on the evidence. That's it. In the process, the film peels back layers to reveal the truth and half-truths that comprise relationships.

Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is woken from a nap by her son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner). Her husband (his father), Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis), has fallen from their roof and died. She insists it must have been an accident - he was working on the roof when she went to sleep. The authorities are not convinced and she is indicted on charges of murder.

There’s a particular line in the film that summarizes what a nightmare this situation is. It's something like “What you hear, it’s just a small part of the whole”. As we're presented with testimonies from experts and people who knew Samuel, as more evidence is brought forth, we're given a version of Sandra and Samuel's relationship. In a way, it’s not even Sandra who’s on trial; it’s her marriage. If she and her husband fought a lot, if someone was unfaithful, if someone was planning on leaving, then it probably means Sandra killed him. It’s not even if the whole relationship was bad; it’s if it was bad recently. We're not talking about "a rough patch" or something they could've overcome. This fragment is now the whole.

In a way, the trial is a matter of life and death. The jury is deliberating whether Sandra killed her husband. It’s also about an intimate subject you could call mundane in the grand scheme of things: two people’s marriage. Drawing a conclusion from the snippets presented is an unfair way to judge their relationship but it’s also the best way to see what it was like because you get the “highlight reel”. By the time this film is over, you feel like you know these people so well that they're no longer characters in a film. Then, you remember that quote from earlier and you second-guess everything. Do you really know? That sentiment is amplified by the revelations that come up during the trial. They’re not the sort of bombshells you’re used to seeing in these legal dramas, but they’re just as earth-shattering and revelatory.

The film is as absorbing as it is because of the excellent script by Justine Triet (who also directs) and Arthur Harari and the performances. There are so many character moments in Anatomy of a Fall that I see it as the kind of film you would come back to in the future, despite so much of the suspense coming from the uncertainty of the final verdict. Even some of the minor characters I keep thinking back to, like the two forensic analysts who bring to the stand completely different interpretations of three drops of blood found outside. It makes you wonder if they - despite having no investment in this narrative whatsoever - somehow made up their minds about the case anyway and brought in their biases. Why else would they be so combative? Many characters are deliberately unlikable, but not in a way that makes them villains. Wait. Did I dislike them because of who they really are, or because of the way I perceived them based on the evidence presented? hmm.

Anatomy of a Fall is a film of complex emotions. There are so many details in the case, the way the characters behave or relate to each other that you forget everything else around you. The performances are excellent, as is the script. You've never been put on trial for murder before but you'll know what it must feel like once the end credits roll. (March 27, 2024)

You are allowed to exist alone in public btw. You're allowed to go to the movies alone and go out to eat alone and hang out in a park alone and go for a walk alone and whatever else. It isn't weird or creepy, it doesn't make you lonely or a loser or whatever. You are allowed to just exist as yourself.

Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin: So I rented some rooms for your mother and sister—

Razumikhin: oh from that place that’s nasty and stinks and has rats and roaches and smells bad and is dirty and dusty as fuck?

Can we stop acting like two people deeply loving each other has to mean they have something romantic or sexual going on? Can we stop talking as if platonic love just can't be that deep? Because that's not true. Platonic love can be just as deep, and sometimes even deeper, than romantic love. What I'm saying is, we need to stop putting romance on this pedestal and act like every other form of love is less important.

“Eun-hee… When you’re tired or sad, try looking at your fingers. Then, one by one, move them around. It’ll feel very mysterious. You feel like you can’t do anything, but you can move your fingers.”

House of Hummingbird (2018), written and directed by Kim Bora

I love this film sm 💚

誰先愛上他的 | DEAR EX 2008 | dir. Mag Hsu, Hsu Chih-yen