No. 42 - Feeling Wistful
A short film that made me feel nostalgic and a novel about memories are the focus of this week's issue.
The Good Old Days
Director Juzo Itami is likely most famous for his love letter to ramen, the 1985 film Tampopo, which, if you haven’t seen it, is a must-see and is available on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel. It acts as a sort of slice of life story with earnest, silly, and, sometimes, erotic depictions of how deeply food connects people. Also available for streaming on The Criterion Channel is his 1962 short film Rubber Band Pistol. Like Tampopo, Rubber Band Pistol highlights human connections, but in a far less stylized way.
Rubber Band Pistol opens with a group of friends hanging out in a small apartment. They’re all young adults and they’re having fun drinking, playing guitar, talking on the phone, joking around, and playing a silly game with their rubber band pistols. There are no stakes to the game and no major conflicts between the characters. This continues throughout the film as it shows members of this friend group go thrifting, ride the train, joke around, lay in bed, and fantasize about lives in much larger homes. The film ends, almost cyclically, with them back at the same apartment at the beginning doing the same thing, playing with their rubber band pistols.
Films like Rubber Band Pistol are what many call “hang out movies”. Movies where the stakes are incredibly low and, in general, the audience just spends time with a cast of characters just hanging out. Director Richard Linklater is famous for making films like this with his film Dazed and Confused (1993) more or less being the definition of the term. Other “hang out films” include Linklater’s Slacker (1990) and Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), but what can be certain about these films is their lightness, their casual nature, and their youthfulness.
What struck me the most about Rubber Band Pistol wasn’t the cinematography or the blocking (both of which are really superb), but was just how it made me nostalgic for the carefree days of my early twenties. Like in the film, responsibilities weren’t looming over every chill hang with my friends. Even though there was major political turmoil in those years, most of the tension was easily diffused by humor. These youths in Rubber Band Pistol lived on the threshold between adolescence and adulthood where they had the freedom of both groups. With this freedom, the film can jump to these young adults navigating the smaller moments in life where they laugh, hope, and, well, just live without some struggle on the horizon. The way the film sort of loops gives the impression that these days, while not very special or remarkable, have a timeless quality to them. I cherish the moments I had like these folks are having and, in a way, I remember them like this movie: in fragments, larger than life, and cozy.
I realize that I am very fortunate to have had a period in my life like that and, while you may feel the same, that is what makes thinking on this time so important. Even though no massive achievement was made or some conflict was overcome, I long to return to the feeling where things felt more carefree. This isn’t a “youth is wasted on the young” sort of sentiment, but rather a certain kind of nostalgia for a time where I was young and I didn’t waste it. I lived.
Rubber Band Pistol is available for streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Life in Entropy
The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa, is a novel about an unnamed young woman who lives on an island that is ruled by the oppressive Memory Police. At an unpredictable rate, objects and concepts disappear from the memories of everyone on the island, but those who do not forget or destroy the disappeared objects are taken by the Memory Police to be mysteriously taken care of. Some return dead and others don’t return at all. Members of this island community, including the protagonist, live in fear of what will disappear next and some even take bold steps to elude the secretive and nigh omnipresent Memory Police.
The novel isn’t really a mystery or a science fiction story, as it is not really concerned with why or how this is happening, but it is more focused on how the loss of memories affects those who suffer from it. One would cry over the concept of losing the precious memories of a lost loved one, but once it happens you don’t even know it’s gone. Even holding onto the contraband objects that represent these memories do not stir the sentiments. Time heals all wounds, yes, but it also smooths over everything else.
It is said that, more often than not, your memories are more like the last time you remembered them than how they actually were. Storytelling is an important element in The Memory Police as the unnamed protagonist is a novelist. The novel within the book is an impressive in-universe story that addresses how a person might feel in a disappearing world like The Memory Police’s. Any resentment, loss, or fear may eventually be give way to more comforting memories we’ve designed for ourselves. In a world where things are lost, feelings fade, and people disappear, isn’t it important to hold onto what we still have? To find and give comfort to those who love us? As long as we have keepsakes in the form of real objects or the stories we tell each other we have reminders that the world, for as much as it can take away, can still give us pleasant things.
Stray Observations
Quite a wistful issue this week! As I’ve said before, sometime these things just work out like this and a theme appears out of nowhere.
Since the issue where I reviewed it, I’ve seen Everything Everywhere All At Once two more times in theaters. I think it is pretty much an essential movie for 2022. I highly encourage everyone to check it out in the theater as soon as they can.
An upcoming film that’s worth getting excited for, George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing released its first trailer. The plot appears to be “Tilda Swinton finds a genie lamp with Idris Elba inside, chaos ensues.” If anything, it reminds me of a sort of gender swapped Bedazzled. Watch the trailer here:
I am spending the weekend in New York! Planning on going to the Guggenheim for the first time ever (all my other visits I spent most my museum time at The MET), eating a New York street hot dog, and getting some real Brooklyn pizza!
Almost finished with the first season of the Amazon Prime series The Wilds which is really quite good. Really compelling character studies done in an extreme and unusual situation. I hesitate to say much about the show lest I spoil some really fun reveals. Check it out!
This is also the third trip I’ve made this month so, once this is up I’ll likely return to a more frequent release of my newsletter, but no promises!
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