august challenges debrief
on my birthday!
It’s my birthday! I’m in Berlin. The sun is shining, the future is promising, good food is on the docket, and that’s about all I’ve got to say.
Last month I mentioned my desire to embark on a few challenges. I shared them because I needed a tiny bit of accountability and I knew it would be embarrassing if I didn’t make some moves. Today it’s time to look back on what I did and did not accomplish.
As a refresher, below are the four challenges:
Watch 15 films
Do 15 Pilates classes
Cut coffee
Finish my draft
found via @vanyIac on twitter
As back to school energy is in the air like an infectious disease, sullying my otherwise mostly happy disposition and congesting the streets with buses and the like, let’s look at my challenges through the lens of pass/fail:
Watch 15 films: pass
Do 15 Pilates classes: pass
Cut coffee: fail
Finish my draft: big fail! we’re ignoring this for now!
Now, let’s go deep and do a proper debrief in a different order from the one in which I shared above.
CUT COFFEE:
I was making BIG moves on this, slowly weaning myself off the addictive beverage such that, by August 5, I felt ready to unshackle myself from coffee and live a life sans caffeine. But then I was thwarted by a good enough—not just good, but rather—a great coffee! A historic coffee! And; everything has just gone to heck since then. However, I did manage to curtail my coffee consumption to just one cup a day. (Only in the most dire of situations would I have a second coffee, and then I would rue the consequences of that ill-fated decision. (i.e. I would not be able to sleep until late lol.))
Maybe, I’ll try this challenge again later. But not in the month of September because I’m busy, sooo busy. Before the end of the year, I want to quit coffee and become a matcha drinker because apparently its high quantities of L-theanine make people happier.
DO 15 PILATES CLASSES:
Surprisingly, I felt the least resistance to this. In fact, I actually enjoyed it and I am absolutely flabbergasted because I’ve been trying to get myself to go for a walk every day since April or so, but I am always confronting a massive obstacle.
The obstacles include the following: too hot, too cold, rather cloudy and/or rainy, don’t you think? And worst of all, too many people!
I might just keep up with the whole Pilates thing—I don’t want you guys to think I’m a Pilates novice, so I will interject to tell you that I’ve been doing Pilates on-and-off for ten years.
WATCH 15 FILMS:
The most exhausting challenge. Truly! I even considered giving up multiple times. Despite how exhausting I found it to watch 15 films in 31 days, I succeeded!
This challenge further fueled my belief that I could make a film. Literally, on god, I could make a brilliant, award-winning, critically acclaimed, cult classic kind of film that would go down in history. I don’t know if this is a belief that I should have but I will continue to sustain this belief because I think it’s a fun and important one.
Below, are the films I watched and the order in which I watched them. Now some of you might say, I don’t care, just get a Letterboxd like the rest of us! and to that I say no.1 I don’t like Letterboxd, just like I don’t like and have never liked Spotify and I’m neither impressed by your one liners nor the silly little playlists and wraps and whatever else keeps Spotify in business.
The films I watched, in the order I watched them can be found below:
Blanche directed by Walerian Borowczyk, 1971
Brother directed Takeshi Kitano, 2000
Listen Up Philip directed by Alex Ross Perry, 2014
An Unmarried Woman directed by Paul Mazursky, 1978
Café au lait directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, 1993
The Doom Generation directed by Gregg Araki, 1995
Ariel directed by Aki Kaurismäki, 1988
The Daytrippers directed by Greg Mottola, 1996
Nine to Five directed by Colin Higgins, 1980
Withnail & I directed by Bruce Robinson, 1987
Two Can Play That Game directed by Mark Brown, 2001
The Vampire Lovers directed by Roy Ward Baker, 1970
The Heroic Trio directed by Johnnie To, 1993
All These Women directed by Ingmar Bergman, 1964
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs directed by Guy Maddin, 19972
The Doom Generation, Ariel, and The Daytrippers are three vastly different films.3 The former turns its lens to the alienated youth of '90s America with slick cinematography, cringe dialogue, and over-the-top violence, while the latter is an intimate portrait of the nuclear family, where a dialogue-driven script reveals a layered story. Meanwhile, Ariel, a Finnish film of the '80s, is a nihilistic exploration of the common man who cannot, for the life of him, catch a break.
I somehow watched these three movies back-to-back and was struck by how they are each defined by their respective cars: a 1968, or 1969, Lincoln Continental, a 1962 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible, and a station wagon that I am declaring, with no real proof, a 1985 Chevrolet Caprice.
Now, let me start by saying, I love cars! I might not know anything about the mechanics of a car—I theoretically understand how to change a flat tire and do that thing you have to do when you accidentally leave the car lights on all night and the battery needs to be electrocuted back to life—nor do I even know the names and logos of most car brands, but I still respect the symbolism and the promise that a car provides.
A car means power, freedom, and control.
It also means: bumper-to-bumper traffic, oil changes on a Saturday morning, a looming awareness of oscillating gas prices, offensively bright envelopes revealing an egregious parking ticket, moving the car at an ungodly hour because of alternate side parking, the threat of an officer’s speed radar, possible accidents, insurance mark-ups, and the list continues to infinity… But, on my birthday of all days, let’s not focus on the negative because I’d like to think that all you need in life, and in these films, is a car.4
In The Doom Generation, our disaffected teenage lovebirds Jordan White and Amy Blue get involved with an even more disaffected drifter, the slightly older and definitely more experienced, Xavier Red. The trio are doomed (ha!) from the start and embark on a roadtrip through Southern California where religious and demonic imagery abound. They pass the time by visiting mini marts, dive bars, seedy motels, and fucking. As the film progresses the violence and threats against Amy intensify and escape is only feasible via Amy’s Lincoln Continental. In this film any situation can be left with the aid of a car. In fact, any consequences and the law can be avoided when all you need to do is get in the car and slam the accelerator out of whatever jam you are in.
Red, White, and Blue (hello US flag!) grow closer, building a rapport of anal jokes and jabs, developing a sort of bond that marketers might label as “found family,” but the film is building towards a crescendo that eviscerates any feel-good emotions one might have with an act of violence that perverts patriotic motifs with a dark, depraved glee. The car, parked outside of the abandoned building the trio is fornicating in, is not easily accessible. It is not an option and all seems lost…
In Ariel, Taisto Kasurinen’s father bequeathes his son his beloved car moments before committing suicide in the bathroom of the restaurant they are patronizing. The shocked man hears the gunshots and sees the body of the paterfamilias, and has no choice but to take his father’s final gift and get out of their small town. After all, the father knew the admiration his son had for the white convertible and he must honor his father’s sacrifice.
When the former miner leaves town, his life savings in his wallet, there’s an air of optimism in the frigid Finnish winds. But then the snow begins to fall and the viewer and Taisto realize that the convertible’s hood is broken. There is no reprieve from the elements nor any other outside forces that may toy with our humble hero. Nonetheless, Taisto takes his scarf and wraps it around his head and sets off to the city where he looks for work only to be wrongfully arrested and charged before beginning a long prison sentence. Mind you, he had just found the love of his life and agreed to sell his car at a loss so he could make some money!
In prison, things are set in motion; an escape is orchestrated and a plan is hatched courtesy of his prison roommate Mikkonen. It is Mikkonen, melancholic and resigned, who, in his dying breath, presses a button in the convertible for the vehicle’s roof. It is a beautiful and sad moment. Shelter from the elements has been found and safety, alongside a future, is on the horizon.5
The Daytrippers begins with Eliza, blonde and reserved, discovering a love note during Thanksgiving weekend. She doesn’t know what to think but the fear is there: is her loving husband having an affair?
The first thing Eliza does is call up her mother who demands she come to the house for a tribunal. The war council is assembled: younger sister, Jo, sardonic and stylish; Jo’s boyfriend, Carl, pretentious and naively try hard; father, Jim, begrudgingly silent yet present; and the matriarch, Rita, overbearing and loud.
Gathered in the kitchen, the family pools their knowledge and examines the letter. Faced with the evidence, the only logical next step is to pile into the broken station wagon and drive from New Jersey to Manhattan and confront Eliza’s husband.
It was only a crumpled slip of paper with a few lines of a love poem from a 17th century poet yet it set off a series of comical cahoots: a car chase, a fainting spell, party crashing, and a stolen kiss or two.
Though the streets and offices of New York City play a role in this film, it is the car that is our set. It is in the car that becomes a symbol for the home and it is here where the family, shivering with cold, and unable to hide, reveals themselves. In the safe, metallic cocoon of the car, alliances shift and relationships metamorphosize until the status quo of the morning no longer exists.
Anyways… That’s all for now. Wishing me and you more life on this auspicious day.
Actually, I’m really ambivalent on Letterboxd lol. But, Spotify! That behemoth is not for me. No, thank you.
I watched this one at the indie theatre for a treat to celebrate my accomplishment and it was such a silly film!
Interestingly, both The Doom Generation and Ariel are from trilogies!
I don’t want to hear a word about how modern cars are ugly (they are) and how these metal contraptions are ruining cities and further atomizing people because today’s letter is not the place!
The deadpan delivery of all these characters’ line and their attitude of regal resignation is something else—absolutely poetic!
Special shout out to Meg for her edits. Any errors are mine and mine only.
Happy belated birthday Kiran !!! Crazy how I have heard of a total of zero of these movies..... I am curious, how did you hear about them ??
The only film on your list that I've seen is "An Unmarried Woman", which I enjoyed seeing years ago. As I recall, my main reason for wanting to see it was because Alan Bates appeared in it. Along with Michael Caine, Oliver Reed, Peter O'Toole, and Richard Harris, Alan Bates was among those young British and Irish actors who rose to stardom during the 1960s and '70s. I always liked him because of the humour and intelligence he brought to his screen roles.
The only scene I remember is towards the end of the film, when the Jill Clayburgh character tells Alan, her artist-lover, of her future plans, and Alan says, "... and I approve." This sets Jill off on a tirade in which she tears a strip off Alan as the la-di-da artist and tells him she doesn't need his Goddamned approval for anything! At least, that's what I remember.