You’re Projecting #1

Hi. I’ve just moved out of London, the city of my birth, to Bristol, the city of my university days. I’m 40 and unattached, and in a weird way it feels, at a deep level, that I’m going back in time to my early twenties and starting again where I left off. It’s exhilarating. Bristol is like London in the 1990s—analog, heterogenous, independent, scruffy.

I’d love some film recommendations of midlife new starts, nostalgically freighted psychogeographical city explorations, or films with a general sense of arriving where we started and knowing the place for the first time.

Sincerely,

Born Again in Bristol

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Dear Born Again,

You’re projecting, but I feel seen. I’m (almost) 50, unattached, and recently relocated for work, albeit to a part of the world I have no prior connection with. Nevertheless, the feelings accompanying your return struck a chord and made me reflect on how a change of space often feels like a shift in time, an effect common to both life and the movies.

Given our proximity in the elder-millennial/Gen-X twilight zone, I recommend Gregg Araki’s Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation (1995), and Nowhere (1997)—collectively known as the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. Nothing takes me back to my own scruffy youth in the ’90s quite like these raw, impudent tales of moody teens hanging out in Los Angeles. The films are ultra-specific in their references and subcultural codes but universal in how they map the angst and yearning for connection accompanying the cusp of adulthood. They are, to borrow your phrase, “nostalgically freighted psychogeographical city explorations”—with a vengeance.

My second suggestion is perhaps obvious but irresistible: Martin Scorsese’s 1985 black comedy After Hours. Griffin Dunne stars as a yuppie undertaking a very weird odyssey through pre-gentrification SoHo (New York’s, not London’s), where the freaks definitely come out at night. A movie of sustained bewilderment, unnerving repetitions, and frantic meltdowns, After Hours plays like the eternal return on cocaine.

Finally, a movie to nurture the soul: Here (2023), by writer-director Bas Devos. I recently stumbled across this small miracle knowing nothing about it, and was enchanted by the way it speaks—in a delicate, eloquent whisper—to being at home yet not at home, heading somewhere but not where you planned, and how moving through spaces both familiar and strange can open up new possibilities in one’s life.

Good luck in Bristol, and happy viewing!

Sincerely,

Nathan Lee

What are some of the best films to watch if you want to get more into experimental cinema?

Sincerely,

David H. of Fayetteville, NC

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Dear David H.,

When I heeded Film Comment’s call of advice-giving, I somehow imagined that I would be offering suggestions on the polite way to tell a stranger to turn off their phone during a movie. I like to think that I am fairly good at doing that, though one time, during a screening of Lawrence of Arabia (a 70mm print, mind you), a woman who was shopping for what looked like socks hissed in response to my gentle shoulder tap: “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!”

But, David, you have come asking another question, in an area I feel far less qualified to address. Although I have taught and written on experimental cinema for some time now, I have never felt like an expert. I suspect that many people feel this way, even if not all would admit it. For one thing, there is endless debate about what experimental cinema is, beyond the work of some widely recognized figures like Stan Brakhage or Kenneth Anger or Maya Deren. Fortunately, Deren herself gave us all permission to be “amateurs,” the Latin root of which is “lover,” suggesting one who does something for the love of the thing. She was talking about filmmakers, but I think it applies to viewers as well.

There’s really no way to prepare yourself to watch films that defy categorization or even basic description. But at the same time, it can be quite simple. Toward the end of a screening of James Benning’s Ten Skies (2004), after most of the room had emptied out, a woman next to me lamented that people “didn’t know how to look at the sky anymore.” I heard what she was saying, but I also sympathized with the people who had left. Experimental cinema can be profoundly humbling; it guarantees nothing for its audience. More than any other type of film, it trusts in the openness of the viewing experience. That can be frustrating to the point of walking out of the theater. But also, wonderful, unpredictable things can happen. After years of showing Hollis Frampton’s (nostalgia) (1971) in class, I recently had a student react in a way I’d never seen before. “How are you doing?” I asked. “Tripping!” he said emphatically.

Now, I realize I have been avoiding your question. So, here are some filmmakers I’ve been thinking about lately: Jordan Lord, Pablo Marín, Ana Vaz, Dora García, Tiffany Sia, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Jem Cohen, Adam Piron, and Morgan Fisher. If you absolutely need a beginning, try Bruce Baillie’s All My Life (1966). Even the shitty version on YouTube cannot dampen its magic.

Hopefully these will get you started!

Sincerely,

Genevieve Yue

Nathan Lee is an assistant professor of film at Hollins University and a longtime contributor to Film Comment. 

Genevieve Yue is an associate professor of culture and media at The New School and the author of Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality (Fordham University Press, 2020).