Picnic (1996)

I love how otherworldly this is. It feels almost like an innocent little coming of age story at times, but it's so dark and far from that. It's a beautiful adventure.

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)

I am so glad I came into this movie knowing nothing more than the fact that is was about Japanese drag queens. I feel like it happens far too often that I come into a film with a set of expectations about it--like with Safe, I knew a lot and so I was consistently comparing my actual viewing experience with my initial expectations. But with this, I knew nothing, so there were tons of great surprises and discoveries and the ending was completely shocking and amazing. I feel like I can't talk too much about this in case...anyone ever looks at this blog, ha, and I don't want to spoil anything. I will say that this was wonderfully complex and fragmented and layered and it all comes together in the end. This is probably my favourite thing I've watched lately.

Safe (1995)

Safe is such a scary movie. I liked the insidious hum of the 20th century in the background of every setting, and the slow unraveling of her well-being was pretty chilling. The final segment didn't work as well for me than the rest of it, though, and I'm not sure why. I guess it was effective in a different way, as it was the part where the film sort of...expanded. The change in setting was pretty powerful...the first parts of the film were filled with tiny claustrophobic places in the city and her home, and then the end of the film brings her to this wide open desert but she ends up this tiny safe house anyway where obviously nothing will be solved. She keeps saying she's getting better and things will get better as the exact opposite is happening.

Audition (1999)

I watched this in an airport at seven in the morning. It was so hard not to squirm when the horrific parts actually happened. I liked the slow slow build up, and the shocks felt pretty genuine when they finally came. There were two sudden moments that made me gasp, and then I was certainly freaking out during the final segment. And it was pretty! Look at these screencaps! I have seen very few horror movies, though, so I have little to compare this to in my mind. I think I would like to see more.