Another Round of Plane Movie Marathon

Underground

Turns out art films can be this entertaining.

Good Bye, Lenin! and Underground really are two films working the same trick from opposite directions. Good Bye, Lenin! is sunnier, more romanticized — the fake country the protagonist keeps alive is sustained out of kindness. Underground is more ironic, more absurd, darker — the fake country its protagonist builds is sustained out of self-interest.

I completely get why people call this a work of genius. It really is bursting with talent — every single act has an idea sharp enough to carry a whole film on its own. The second act's underground life, and the play-within-a-play, are especially good. So is the third act's reunion amid actual war, the spinning wheelchair, and the underground transport network. The reunion in the water is gorgeous too.

Shouting at Stars: A History of Interstellar Messages

The whole reason I watched this documentary was to gather material for Resonance. I've always felt that even though Resonance takes place entirely on Earth, at its core it's a story about the cosmos — similar in spirit to the main thread of Fellow Traveler.

Parasite

Honestly, I went back and forth on whether I even needed to watch this film. I'd already seen so many breakdowns of it that I figured I already understood its strengths and its limits pretty well. But having actually watched it, I still think it's worth seeing.

Good Bye, Lenin!

I couldn't help asking myself: why was I born in this particular era? Why did the 20th century world — the Balkans, Europe, China, the Americas, all of it — go through such upheaval? And why did I happen to be born right after all that upheaval ended, into that relatively calm twenty-year stretch? And now that I've grown up, the world seems to be on the verge of changing again. It's almost like someone's telling me: kid, the world went through so much before you were born — don't assume it's always been the way it is now. Every country behind the Iron Curtain went through a similar story: nostalgia for old ideals, frustration with everything broken inside a rigid system, disgust at the ugly core of capitalism, and a longing for a better life. That was true in China, in Yugoslavia, in East Germany — everywhere.

The Master

The PTA film I was most curious about out of all of them. I'd already seen One Battle After Another, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood — finishing this one basically completes my map of PTA's filmography. Turns out it's a film about a cult, and honestly, I didn't fully get it. It's the only PTA film where I couldn't quite grasp the point.