Recent Netflix:
- Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) - Easily one of my favorite films ever, Nair's masterpiece is an intoxicating swirl of color, music, and of course marigolds. Even though the film centers around the arranged marriage of young couple Aditi and Hemant, Shefali Shetty steals the show as the cousin who harbors a terrible secret from her childhood. Nair interweaves scenes of wedding chaos with poetic shots of day-to-day life in India and touches on issues of class and modernization while skillfully juggling about five different storylines. It all culminates in that huge rainshower at the end, full of laughter and hope for the future.
- Departures (Yôjirô Takita, 2008) - This won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, undoubtedly for its touching portrayal of a very unconventional career path: encoffining. Cellist Daigo has moved back to his hometown with his wife after his Tokyo orchestra is dissolved and doesn't quite know what he's getting into when he answers a promising job advertisement, but soon enough he is preparing dead bodies for burial with the best of 'em. I don't know that anyone but a Japanese director could tell this story without it being clunky and heavyhanded, but in Takita's hands the film is often hilarious and also quite the tearjerker.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2, Episodes 9-22 (various, 1997-1998) - As predicted I blasted through the remainder of Season 2 in record time, regularly going through four episodes in a single night. I was experiencing some intensely painful personal shit about the same time I hit the ep where Angel loses his soul, so suffice it to say Buffy served as an unusual kind of therapy. On a lighter note there are all kinds of awesome cameos (John Ritter! Wentworth Miller! John Hawkes!) in this season and that noticeable leap in snappy dialogue every time Joss Whedon writes an episode. Now I just need a short break before I attempt Season 3 because I'm still imagining Der Kindestod creeping past my bedroom door when I'm not looking.
- Ballerina (Bertrand Norman, 2006) - I still haven't seen Black Swan but decided I wanted to observe the real deal instead in this doc about five Russian ballerinas, each at a very different point in her career. I did ballet for about a minute when I was a little girl and have always been glad my parents never forced me to pursue it, and that gratitude was only reinforced watching what these girls and women put themselves through. The film actually concentrates more on the beauty of ballet rather than much of the dark side, and I will be the first to admit I'm completely susceptible to the ethereal charms of a well-danced pas de deux. But as an art form ballet seems to be nearing the end of its days and holds little energy for me, whereas modern dance seems so much more adaptable and even just healthier. Our bodies are meant to connect with the earth, not defy it.