Weekend Viewings:

Godland(Icelandic: Volaða land, Danish: Vanskabte Land) (2022) is a hauntingly gorgeous, quiet work that demands a cinema as a 19th century Danish priest sets out to chronicle and oversee the construction of a new parish in the unforgiving icelandic landscape. Framed not unlike images from wet plate photos, the entire thing unspools like an voyeur's traverse into an uncomfortable moment in history. It's a beautiful lull of an experience with a truly indelible finale.

After Yang (2021) Video essayist Kogonada's quiet, all-vibe futuristic drama following a family's loss of a family member. It just so turns out the family member is a synthetic human. More a chilled out exploration of what grief, as well as what race and racial relations might look like in an era of clones and replicants, it's a piece that isn't aiming for profundity so much as a wondering about the bonds we forge in spite of the divides than tend to makes us feel disconnected. Performances by Colin Farrell, Haley Lu Richardson, and Justin H. Min are integral to the film's often tranquilizing, introspective feel.

A true vibe movie if there ever was one. (And damn, Kogonada seems to be a HUGE fan of Shunji Iwai.)