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NiteEyas (5)
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Priscilla putting makeup on, on the way to deliver her baby…
Really good, but also not interesting? Idk
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Although I’m very interested by a lot of what they’re saying, I’m not sure the comparison is apt. That wave of those ‘revisionist’ Westerns were not really revisionist - they were works of the same genre, of the same ilk, of the same style, and of the same morality; only more socially conscious, as the times have changed. IStTVG is not at all in the same form as the Spielberg, Lucas, Marvel IP works. Rather, it references them and tells a story that relates to the effect they have had on their (mostly young) audience; it displays the effects of the culture created by glossy IP, but does not reflect those works.
I appreciate ISTTG but I don’t understand why it’s being compared to The Matrix. Also, I feel that the trans thematic undertones of The Matrix are just as clear as in ISTTG, considering it came out two decades prior. The Wachowski sisters didn’t just J.K. Rowling the transness in there - they admitted explicitly to the trans themes, around the time they came out, after years of it being a popular interpretation.
Also also I get the romance in Matrix feeling tacked on, from a storytelling standpoint it totally is, but I think it was just of the utmost importance to show that people outside of the matrix (gender binary) can have love and sexy romance. Seeing it as a gender-confused kid only ten years ago gave me such hope, I can’t imagine what it must have felt like in 1999.
The first segment was my favorite too. I don’t know why, but I always find myself enjoying the segments of anthologies less and less as they go. The dynamic between Jesse P and the imposter Mia in the second segment threw me for a loop at first, but with his personal outbursts (that hand lick) and constant, ever subtle abuses of power, I think he’s Lanthimos’ vision of the bad person everyman, especially in relation to American culture and politics (the police stuff is really charged). And that he is validated in the end, at least to us, is such a purposefully morbid bow to put on it - as if to look you (or whoever he’s addressing; police, abusers, those neglecting love) in the face and ask, “Is this really a happy ending?” Of course, it clearly isn’t - that’s the point, to expose the typical happy-ending-delusion; perhaps, to choose a possible allegory of many, that scorning a devoted lover for a ‘true love’ is not romantic, but cruel. Yorgos thinks a happy ending would be a world run by dogs. I wasn’t crazy about the third segment overall, but I really dug the crash. The whole movie is about unpredictability and fragility and lack of control, and when the genuine happy ending does come, it’s followed by, in some ways plagued by the effects of those subjects. But I also think it’s important that we really get to bathe in the happy ending before the crash; it almost feels like the movie has a happy ending still, with a silly gag after. Loss does not sully victory. There are ups and downs, but no real endings.
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