The Art Of Not Asking Why

Some of the best movies I've seen earned four or four and a half stars because I wanted to reserve the five-star rating for the perfect movie. You know, the one that will change how I think of movies, something with a unique and amazing story I haven't heard before - a true masterpiece.

I was content with this choice ever since I started reviewing movies on Letterboxd, until I watched this movie last night.

When I woke up, this movie was the first thing I thought about. It's not that I can't get it out of my head - I don't want it to get out of my head. I don't want to start my work week, yet another Monday, after watching it. I want to explain why, but I can't. I guess going to make a few futile, miserable attempts. Where the hell do I even start? Maybe I shouldn't.

Maybe I should just tell you to watch it and decide for yourself. It will click for some of you. For others, it will be just a pretty romance flick, and others yet still will just shrug and move on.

But I hope some of you will end up in tears. Tears that come from just feeling. Being human. Understanding an ultimate language that we just know on some level, somehow. If you believe this langauge exist above (or below) words, if you've listened to its whisper before and nodded with confidence without full understanding on a cognitive level, then yes, maybe you will also be angry that rating systems exists and that things such as this movie need to be chopped down, broken, and shoved into a logical boxes so we can communicate to each other in conceptional way.

I'm not trying to write a dramatic introduction for this film on purpose. It's a good movie, sure. The cinematography is amazing; each shot is a lesson in lighting, angles, and colors. The audio is rich with background details you can pick up without taking away from the main dialogue, whether it's ocean waves, birds, or, somehow, even the air itself. I'd say the same for the dialogue, but I don't speak French, and as a bilingual person I know firsthand how much is lost in translation.

This movie, in my opinion, needs to be in the syllabus of any professor teaching film classes. I can say all of this and more, but I'm butchering it. I'm forcing it to be something that it's not. I'm not being dramatic; I'm just feeling this movie, and I wish for you to feel it too.

There's one moment when Marianne looks at Héloïse at the beach. Marianne, tasked with painting Héloïse without her knowledge or consent, tries to capture the details of her face so she can later secretly draw her. She looks at Héloïse's face, who's looking at the ocean; this makes Héloïse's turn to look back at Marianne, who, you realize, is staring at her. Marianne immediately looks away, not wanting to get caught. That's when I said my first "wow" to myself watching this film.

This scene is captured from a side angle that allows you to see one's face only when the other turns hers. It's a thoughtful shot and a genius storytelling taking place without a single word.

Much later, when the two lay in bed and ask each other when they knew they wanted to kiss each other, I was frustrated they didn't bring this moment up, but I realized that they probably didn't know that when it happened - not yet.

The movie is built on moments like this, on the constant play between the layers of what we (and they - Marianne and Héloïse, and possibly Sophie) know needs to happen and what we want to happen. It could make the movie sad, yes, but the fact that they met and managed to spend precious few days together doesn't let sadness linger. Further, it's not the time they spent together, but what they created together. The memory that will be cherished forever, and no sadness (or arranged marriage) can take away. It's not a cliché, not in this film. You see it happen toward the end, after... well. I will let you see for yourself.

And there's so much more. Everything is a symbol, or a metaphor, or a sign. One of the most obvious ones is when Héloïse's dress catches on fire, and she notices it, but can't avert her eyes from Marianne; and Marianne, who watches Héloïse's dress catch on fire, does not respond either, because she can't; she's locked in the same magnetic force field that paralyzes them both. It's a beautiful scene (does this movie have any bad scenes? I don't think so).

I will need to watch this movie again (and again?) to catch more of these moments, but I don't know that I can, now that I know how daunting it is. Simply put, It's not the kind of movie you watch on a Sunday night before another workday Monday.

An indie horror movie from the 1970s, with very fake blood and everything.

It had an interesting story, though I'd say some of the concepts of the time didn't age well - tropes of mental disabilities, conjured twins, hypnosis, etc. Still, it was fun to watch, a nice trip from that era.