State

It began on the first of the year.  I watched Nymphomaniac: Vol. I with newfound awareness of an experience that would be documented.  Each film I watched bore historical significance.  To finish is to acknowledge.  A film is an emotional experience; it is an escape which necessitates a reflective return.  

A more holistic documentation of my experience in film is necessary.  I will offer a snapshot of my thoughts in a way which describes my experience in the medium.  My thoughts will be organized through parallel hierarchies of films and directors.  

Great

Synecdoche, New York   to live one must acknowledge death--it is everything.  

Lore   the tragedy of adolescence is the most beautiful.

Inland Empire    when art reaches peak subjectivity, maybe it is peak.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night   everything is as it should be, but it is somewhere that cannot be.

–

Noah Baumbach - the light of Frances Ha \ the dark of The Squid and the Whale

Nicholas Winding Refn - style: music, violence, dialogue (lack); the longing

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Below Great
Blue is the Warmest Color / I struggle to relegate this film to even here.  During the re-watch, I found myself recognizing an expanse I had not seen before.  This film is about valuing things and acting on those valuations.  How does one balance individual intimacy with societal acceptance?  What price will one pay for societal or individual validation?  

Mulholland Drive / The world is mysterious; we are comfortable.  We feel the accumulation.  But it falls, slowly--all of it.  Just enough remains.

Taxi Driver / The power of the individual, specifically within the individual, is present in this film.  A man is amidst a structure seemingly so pervasive, yet he is not pervaded.  His mind holds him captive.

Apocalypse Now / This is a descent into ignorance.

–

Adam Wingard - awareness of genre; satire; the power of apex

David Lynch - film as dreamstate; surreal

I am satisfied with this result.  It is not comprehensive, but the effort was made.

Gravity

When I watched this in theaters a year ago, my experience was quite ordinary.  I recognized several moments of visual excellence, but didn't find any sort of enlightenment.  I didn't feel obligation to rewatch, despite my incomplete understanding of the plot.

But yesterday I endured again, in the presence of another, and found myself blissful.  The story is so simple, yet of paramount importance.  Will she survive?  It's Ryan's battle with the expansive eternal, both physical and emotional.  I was satisfied with Bullock's performance, which showed her instinctual drive to survive as well as her inner quest for for recovery, for renewal.  Maybe Salma Hayek would've been better, but that's a discussion for another time.  

Cuarón's direction and Lubezki's cinematography seem to identify the ethereal against all odds in a sea of blackness.  The physical gravity looked and felt real, and was always used in tandem with the emotional gravity of Ryan's journey.  

Gravity felt different, almost like it occurred in a galaxy light-years away.  Each moment held leadened profundity; there was meaning in this world.  The planet was beautiful outside the atmosphere, within it, and upon the surface itself.  Ryan's emergence from the water into the yet incorrupt land was a triumph over the indifferent expanse.  

My experience during this film is certainly comparable to 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Allow me to clarify.  Gravity has a much more minimalist feel, despite the grandiose visual ambition.  The story is told with simplicity, because the story is simple.   The visual poetry offers an expanded interpretation with possible philosophical undertones, but such exploration is purely voluntary.  2001,  however,  is an unescapable exploration of humanity and its significance.  Each moment is fully developed for this expressed purpose.  Both films will likely hold significance with me for extended time.