On Loving Film

Not exactly a report from NZIFF

(For those that are wondering who the hell I am and why I’m in your inbox, Substack does this thing where you can automatically subscribe to Substacks someone you follow recommends, and chances are you followed Dan Slevin’s Substack, and since I’m posting for the first time since January: surprise! FYI, I am not one of those guys that gets offended if you unsubscribe.)

So the New Zealand International Film Festival is on in Auckland, and it’s Saturday, it’s an hour before a film narrated by a dead hippo that’s in Colombia because of Pablo Escobar, because of course I picked that out, and I’m meeting with a friend who has driven in from out of town for the weekend, one who I’ve been attending movies with for 15+ years off and on, and one who has recently had a major attitudinal shift.

“I stopped watching movies with some friends because, if they watch a movie and are three-and-a-half stars out of five, that means they liked 70% of it, right? But I guarantee they’ll spend 100% of the time talking about the 30% they don’t like.”

I nod, shifting uncomfortably. I resemble this insinuation. Partly because, professionally, as an editor of film and television, one should be spending limited and precious time talking about what doesn’t work instead of what does. And partly because even before that, I’ve been writing about film critically for decades, and quite frankly, it’s often easier to put into words what doesn’t work instead of what does.

My friend, like myself, loves to love movies. And, like myself, he is easily shaken from his reverie by the criticisms of others. A foundational anecdote in my marriage: when we were dating, I sat awestruck at the end of Under the Skin, awestruck, only for my wife to whisper in my ear as the credits rolled “well, I wouldn’t want to be Mrs. Glazer!”

My friend has chosen to insulate himself from this - well, any - feedback. He refuses to elicit or share feedback, strategically avoids groups of acquaintances after screenings, even puts headphones on during credits to avoid overhearing dismissive remarks from random audience members.

These are extreme measures, but in these times, perhaps we need to take extreme measures to preserve joy.

As I’m absorbing this, I consider my own default position. My internal contradiction, one I didn’t quite recognise, is that while I love to take joy in movies, I rarely approach them from a position of finding joy.

(Well, the good ones, anyway - this may be why I have had so much joy from bad movies in the last two decades. The question of quality is settled before the picture unspools, and all that’s left is taking joy in what is present in the absence of quality.)

My friend approaches a fresh screening from this position: there will be something he likes in the film, and he will focus on that. If there is something he loves, he will focus on that. And if there are other aspects of the film that he does not have that feeling about, he will not focus on them.

This is not a critical mindset, and for much of my life I aspired to a critical mindset. Part of it is building professional skills, but also, I imagined that, somehow, I might be one of those guys that made a living as a film critic, without ever fully taking the steps to make it happen, and yet clinging tenaciously to the attitudinal mindset, even when watching films ostensibly for pleasure.

(And here I must pause and clarify: not only is there nothing wrong with the critical mindset, it’s an important set of tools in many different ways. This is not an anti-critical piece.)

But my friend’s approach left me with a challenge: if one has the choice of what mindset to approach a film with, what do I gain from approaching it with a critical mindset at this phase in my cinephilia - and, more importantly, what do I lose? Because this is what I do when I watch a movie critically: I seize upon loose threads, failings, and I try to unpack them. I think about how to put my reservations into words.

There are, as it turns out, other viewpoints. And the truth is, no film made with artistic intent needs my criticism (others can handle that, and the rare times I’m wildly outside the critical square, as with Pictures of Ghosts, I suspect it’s a personal problem, not a craft problem), and no film made with entrepreneurial intent will wither under my criticism.

And even if I’m wrong, and the world does need my criticism - and this is not a prompt for lots of comments saying “yes! that’s exactly what it needs” - I need the joy more.

An hour later, I sat down to Pepe, finding a seat away from people (audiences have been terrible at this festival), and focused on a new mindset. It felt like a new hat at first: you can’t help but be self-aware of it, and you move it around, to see what fits. But quickly that feeling disappeared.

I loved Pepe. I might have loved it anyway; it’s the sort of daring film that’s unafraid to take big swings. But there were moments that I questioned formal decisions, and I felt on the precipice of leaning into that question.

And then I leaned away. Because when you’re paying for a movie, and life is short and unpredictable, and I can find a way to love it: why wouldn’t I?

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Anyway, I’m in one of those semi-regular “rethinking my Web presence” modes. Quick update: I’m back from some amazing travels to Europe. Editing work is thin on the ground at the moment (you might have noticed the media industry is in free-fall worldwide, plus we here in Aotearoa New Zealand have a government that hates the arts), and I’m sending out my new feature Gut Instinct to film festivals, and my band The Sea Plus is ever-so-slowly gathering momentum, and I’ve recently had two interviews with the makers of Hundreds of Beavers published for FilmMaker Magazine. And my stupid churro joke about Challengers got 20,000 likes on Letterboxd, which, in case you’re wondering, does absolutely nothing for one other than make your activity tab useless.

What to do with all those disparate strands, along with several other smaller projects, and the proliferation of social networks? I recently signed up with LinkedIn, but apart from providing zero in terms of job leads, it’s just kind of weird, to be honest - people I see ranting like sailors on other platforms taking pride in collaborating to launch flagship products. Meta products seem to be going down the tank in terms of utility, but both Facebook and Instagram are difficult to unplug from. Bailed on Twitter ages ago, and I’m mildly enjoying Bluesky, and thankfully some of my favourite tweeters are there, but it’s vastly unpredictable in terms of whether or not what I post gets a response, and has a much smaller audience. Some of my friends on Substack and Patreon have active communities, and another friend has started a Dischord, and others sing the praises of Mastodon.

It’s all a lot, and I kind of want less. But I also want to share important things with important people, and while ideally it wouldn’t have to be on a one-to-one level, maybe that’s an integral part of what the future is. A friend texted me yesterday asking if I was going to Brief History of a Family at NZIFF, which he had seen the previous day and thought was up my alley. I had investigated it briefly on Letterboxd when it was announced, and the popular reviews described it as “a mid Saltburn”, which was not something I needed in my life.

My friend told me that was wrong, and my friend was right, and I loved the film (albeit, see the main essay for reasons that should not be considered a critical response), and I definitely shouldn’t trust a bunch of people who aren’t aware of Parasite or The Talented Mr. Ripley or Teorema or The Housemaid or a hundred other films that explore the intrusion of an interloper into a family space.

To wrap this up, then: I’m going to try to use this Substack not just for self-promotion and flexing long-dormant writing muscles, but also for sharing enthusiasms. To that end, if you feel inclined to comment on this, share something that you’ve enjoyed recently - or not so recently, I don’t mind! - that you think I might like.

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Now reading: Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle
Now listening: Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow