Perfect Pairings
Watching movies and reading books has been a steady way to pass the time over the years. Simply, here is a list of pairs of films/movies that have become linked in my mind, for one reason or another. I guess it’ll also serve as an “if you like this, you might also like this.”
Yi Yi (film) and Hit the Road (film)
Two extraordinary family dramas released 21 years apart (Yi Yi - 2000 and Hit the Road - 2021) are remarkably similar. Both films paint portraits of a family whose various family members are connected by the imminent loss of another family member; in the case of Yi Yi, it is the elderly grandmother and in Hit the Road it is the older son. Both films also star a chaotic younger son whose naivety and innocence drive the tension and despair of their respective stories; incidentally, the theatrical posters of both films feature only the younger son. Both made me cry.
Yi Yi traces the lives of various family members in their monotonous daily lives - school, first love, career decisions etc - they are quite literally, sprawled over Taipei; in contrast, the family in Hit the Road are forced claustrophobically together in the car as they journey towards the Iranian border. Ironically, this difference only highlights just how similar the auteurs’ portrayal of shared grief and trauma actually is.
Yi Yi is one of my favourite films of all time. Hit the Road is a stunning debut.
Is Mother Dead (novel) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (novel)
Is Mother Dead ends with a line about spaghetti. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle begins with a line about spaghetti. Spaghetti is important in both books. It represents loss and growth and family.
Is Mother Dead is a psychological thriller where one woman attempts to find the truth and her mother. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is also a thriller where a man attempts to find his wife’s cat, and then, his wife. This crude summary makes the two novels seem much more similar than they are. The power of Hjorth’s novel comes from just how slow and real the descent into madness is (something akin to the protagonist in the film Taxi Driver). In contrast, Murakami’s novel is the poster boy for magical realism - time moves in strange ways and banal reality is tossed aside.
Anyway, spaghetti.
Territory of Light (novel) and The Lost Daughter (film but adapted from a novel)
Being a mother is difficult. These two texts are spearheaded by female protagonists whose motherly instincts leave something to be desired. But despite the generally unlikeable heroines, Tsushima and Gyllenhaal are generous and kind to them.
In Territory of Light, the mother is young and her daughter is too, the father is not present in the story. In The Lost Daughter (I should say, that I have read the book and it is better than the film but I really love Olivia Coleman so I’ve chosen the film for this pairing), the mother is older now and her daughters are in their 20s. The key difference, actually, is that the protagonist in Territory of Light has to deal with her daughter every day; whereas, The Lost Daughter’s protagonist is on holiday by herself and sees a young woman with her young daughter and is forced to confront her past.
Either way, I am a sucker for mother-daughter narratives.
Aftersun (film) and Cold Enough for Snow (novel)
Aftersun and Cold Enough for Snow both follow protagonists on holiday with one of their parents. This is the first pairing on this list that isn’t released 20+ years apart (released in the same year, in fact) and also is in the same language. In light of this, I’m adding a short film (also released 2022) called The Feeling of Being Close to You. This 13-minute short features a phone call, in a blend of Mandarin and English, between a child and their mother that is played over old VHS tapes.
This trio continues my general obsession with parent-child narratives that gnaw at my heart. I imagine these three on a scale of confrontation with Aftersun being the least confrontational to The Feeling of Being Close to You being the most. To clarify, when I say ‘confrontational’ I mean the extent to which the protagonist confronts their parent, and not, how the text confronts the audience.
Aftersun - a woman reflects on a holiday she had with her father when she was a kid. She grapples with the man she knew, and, the man she did not. It’s clear that her father has passed in the present day, so she will never be able to speak to him in the way that she so clearly yearns for.
Cold Enough for Snow - a woman goes on holiday with her mother in Tokyo. As they eat, drink and speak, the woman reflects on the impossibility of a singular mother-daughter experience. Described as an elegy and a reckoning, nothing explicit is discussed between the pair, both seeming to make concessions for the other that quietly swell in their minds. By the end, you’re sure that something has happened, but it’s hard to say what.
The Feeling of Being Close to You - a child confronts their mother over the phone about their upbringing. They try and fail to understand each other. The child begs for their mother’s explanation and vulnerability.
Memories of Murder (film) and Cure (film)
Murder mysteries with ambiguous endings!!! Lead detectives as protagonists!!! Unstable!!! Chaotic!! Violent!!! Dark!!!! Great for Spooktober.
Confessions of a Mask (novel) and No Longer Human (novel)
Mishima committed seppuku and Dazai committed suicide. Both Confessions of a Mask and No Longer Human are semi-autobiographical. Mishima’s protagonist grapples with his homosexuality and Dazai’s with social alienation. Both texts portray kids simply trying to fit in and understand the world around them.
Very sad.
The Worst Person in the World (film) and The Cloud in Her Room (film)
Featuring flawed female characters who have no idea what to do with their lives. I don’t really think I have much else to say other than that.
The Worst Person in the World is a stunningly produced and immaculately acted feature film. The Cloud in Her Room is a debut that is filmed in black and white, a classic arthouse indie.
Lie with Me (novel but now also a film) and Au Revoir Les Enfants (film)
I toyed with the idea of pairing Lie with Me and Confessions of a Mask together as they’re both about queerness in some form and, at least ostensibly, have more in common with each other than this pairing I’ve gone with. But the similarity kind of begins and ends with queerness.
Lie with Me is a story of first love and is told by a now older Philippe. Au Revoir Les Enfants (trans. Goodbye Children) is about two boys who become unlikely friends during WW2 and is based on the director's actual lived experience. Released 30 years apart, the core of these texts is a friendship/relationship that broke apart due to no fault of any of the characters but, instead, great injustices.
Lie with Me is dedicated to Philippe’s love interest in the novel and real life. Au Revoir Les Enfants concludes with what really happened to the characters in the film. Hurts because it’s real.
One Cut of the Dead (film) and Synecdoche, New York (film)
Ok, so, wildly different films. One Cut of the Dead had a budget of $33,000 USD but made over $30m USD in box office - a thousand times its budget!!! Synecdoche, New York had a budget of $20m USD but made only $4.5m USD. Also, One Cut of the Dead is a zombie comedy and Synecdoche, New York is a postmodern psychological drama. One Cut of the Dead is set over the course of a day whereas Synecdoche, New York spans literal decades.
The only thing these two films have in common is that they blur the lines between fiction and reality. Synecdoche, New York is about a playwright trying to put on a play about life that is so realistic that life and the play begin to blur. One Cut of the Dead is about a film crew that is making a movie about zombies that get attacked by zombies - you’re never quite sure if you’re watching what the filmmakers are making or if you’re watching the filmmakers (if that makes any sense).
Honestly, Synecdoche, New York is SO depressing I suggest forgoing that to watch One Cut of the Dead. It’s definitely good though lol.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (novel) and Nostalgia (novel)
Both short stories but not? Dreamy, perverse and challenging reads coming from less popular European countries.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting tackles challenging themes of memory, sexuality and politics. It was first published in France and is still, I believe, banned in Czechia. It’s unhinged, very perverse and occasionally wonders into the magical realism world. Nostalgia is a fucking WILD ride - a character becomes obsessed with the sound of his car horn and this spirals out of control. It’s a portrait of Communist Bucharest that also addresses memory, sexuality and politics.
That's the end!!
