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.
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
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 Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a
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
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency
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
Erik, a loner, finds a friend in Dexter, an eleven-year-old boy with AIDS. They vow to find a cure for AIDS together and save Dexter's life in an eventful summer.
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.
Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld - The Batman.
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
Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager t
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
Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.
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
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
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 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
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
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
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 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 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.