Film as philosophy
Reading paths · 7 stations · 12,441 words · 54 min contemplative traversal
- 01Sacrifice, substitution, and the remainder of grief · Folk horror from The Lottery to Midsommar and Pluribus
- 02on Companion (2025)
- 03Christmas Eve Movie
- 042025-01-17 · On the death of David Lynch
- 052025-04-08 · On showing violence on screen
- 062025-01-22 · When a work of art speaks to you
- 07On Experiencing Art
Hop 01 Sacrifice, substitution, and the remainder of grief · Folk horror from The Lottery to Midsommar and Pluribus
This began as a simple question about a kind of horror I kept watching without being able to say why. Widow's Bay, Midsommar, Hereditary, Azrael, Best Wishes to All: an isolated place, or a line of generations, where a sacrifice is necessary for the order of the status quo. What is the metaphysics of it, and what are its sociological implications? I expected an answer about cults. What I found, over many months and…
Tangent this note links to Technology and its Discontents, a station on Technology, simulation, and the machine.
Hop 02 on Companion (2025)
It is the perfect time to release this movie. I guess I might have a different perception about it because apart from the unsolicited and intrusive screenshots I saw on Twitter about this movie, nothing prepared me for the twist. I see some who felt robbed of the experience because apparently, the core plot was already revealed during the trailer. Well, you know me. I don't watch trailers of films I know I'll watch.
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-04 · On machines that lie, a station on Technology, simulation, and the machine.
Hop 03 Christmas Eve Movie
Last night, Fatima and I watched Juror #2 as our Christmas Eve movie. It was something that has been brewing in my watchlist the moment I saw its poster online but I didn't watch any trailer about it.
Tangent this note links to on twitter drama_no.1, a station on Technology, simulation, and the machine.
Hop 04 2025-01-17 · On the death of David Lynch
Today marks the death of David Lynch.
Tangent this note links to A Return to Form, a station on Language and the unsayable.
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-29, a station on Language and the unsayable.
Hop 05 2025-04-08 · On showing violence on screen
Cinematic violence has become another topic at the back of my head, taking roots from, again, my recent experience with Adolescence. At this point, I have reached the thought that I may only be using this event as an exercise to throw real-world issues into abstractions because what I will do next is to mention another movie that is also a social commentary about right-wing ideology: Soft & Quiet (2022).
Hop 06 2025-01-22 · When a work of art speaks to you
There is an invaluable realm of human experience when you can definitely say that something—an inanimate object, an event, a piece of art—phenomenologically speaks to you. With the work of one's own imagination, they open the senses of the mind. This is akin to "listening with your mind's ears" when it comes to learning how to read poetry. The mind's ears introduce a sensibility of perception that rely on…
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-29, a station on Language and the unsayable.
Tangent this note links to Technology and its Discontents, a station on Technology, simulation, and the machine.
Hop 07 On Experiencing Art
Art can be experienced in various mediums. Each medium carries its own significance by existing because of its own limitations. Music, film, literature, and performance art can only be experienced by the unfolding of time. Photography and the rest of visual art are both experienced in an instant while at the same time requires a varied amount of time from each person for the absorption of time framed within that…