You have been going backward. Not to live there, just to touch the texture of a time that felt different, to confirm that easier versions of things existed once and might exist again. The nostalgia is something you are constructing deliberately from what's available, and you are aware of the construction and doing it anyway, because sometimes the manufactured version is the closest thing. These films work in the same register. They hold an earlier feeling with enough honesty that you can borrow it for a while.
As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situati
It holds a register of warmth that belongs to an earlier time. Close enough to the feeling you're reaching for that you can borrow it for a while.
Safe to go backward
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.
The texture of this film is familiar in the way old photographs are familiar. It gives you somewhere to put the tenderness that has nowhere else to go.
Holds the past carefully
A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.
It goes backward in the right way. Not nostalgic for nostalgia's sake, but honest about what it felt like when the thing you're missing was still there.
Warmth without demand
Shizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: "Seiji Amasawa."
The warmth of this film is specific and it is real and it doesn't require you to explain why you needed it.
Real enough to borrow
The films that follow lean into the texture of memory. They know what you are looking for in the past.
After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.
It holds a register of warmth that belongs to an earlier time. Close enough to the feeling you're reaching for that you can borrow it for a while.
Safe to go backward
Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.
The texture of this film is familiar in the way old photographs are familiar. It gives you somewhere to put the tenderness that has nowhere else to go.
Holds the past carefully
A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events:in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
It goes backward in the right way. Not nostalgic for nostalgia's sake, but honest about what it felt like when the thing you're missing was still there.
Warmth without demand
In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.
The warmth of this film is specific and it is real and it doesn't require you to explain why you needed it.
Real enough to borrow
Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantank
It holds a register of warmth that belongs to an earlier time. Close enough to the feeling you're reaching for that you can borrow it for a while.
Safe to go backward
In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
The texture of this film is familiar in the way old photographs are familiar. It gives you somewhere to put the tenderness that has nowhere else to go.
Holds the past carefully
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by
It goes backward in the right way. Not nostalgic for nostalgia's sake, but honest about what it felt like when the thing you're missing was still there.
Warmth without demand
19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars. She's an artist in her mid-thirties, and appears to have everything - not least a constant stream of men at her beck and call. But when the two finally meet, they discover
The warmth of this film is specific and it is real and it doesn't require you to explain why you needed it.
Real enough to borrow
You can't go back. You can get close. These are close.