Desultory Notes – April 19, 2024 – Discomfiting Film Technique, Buddha Quote, Rejected Carpenters Lyrics

And what’s more, Tropical Malady is a film that looks back at you. The characters have a habit of staring into the camera – a gesture that usually signifies complicity, though the effect is vaguely discomfiting here, since we’re not sure what we’re complicit in.

The Village Voice Film Guide
Tropical Malady Review
Dennis Lim

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.
THE BUDDHA

Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself
Mark Epstein
(Epigraph from)