Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann (1996)
Watching this movie in my freshman-year English class is, to date, some of the most fun I’ve had dissecting and critically analyzing a movie for an educational purpose. Typically, I find that watching movies in class often feels more like a fun, relaxing break than an opportunity to watch something truly engaging or artistically profound, yet from the first couple of minutes of Romeo + Juliet, the prologue is immediately handled with such care that it cannot help but pull the audience in.
The story of Romeo and Juliet has gone through possibly more adaptations than any other piece of literature. Baz’s is by far my favorite. Resetting a traditionally Italian Renaissance story to a fictional metro beach in the nineties, symbolic of Miami, is an unexpected creative liberty, yet it works: modern visuals with the flouncing romantic language of Shakespeare. I could speak in depth about the fashion choices in the party scene and their reflections on each character alone. This film could turn a Shakespeare hater into a fanatic.
Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen (2011)
The lengthy sequence of Paris visuals at the beginning of the film is unskippable. It truly sets the tone for the film, putting you in the eyes of the American tourist Gil (played by Owen Wilson) and his longing for a life filled with the aesthetic of Paris in the 1920s, in the rain, of course. The message of this film is abundantly clear: nostalgia is a beast. Yet, if you are like me and a bit of a literary nerd, you will join Gil in his joy in meeting all the greats: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, and many more. This film never fails to bring out the strongest emotions in me. I am filled with anger, yet I rewatch it time and time again. This is a simple film, certainly not a masterpiece from a director’s or a writer’s perspective. Yet, it carries a candle in my heart nonetheless.
Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson (2012)
Wes Anderson is one of the most renowned and recognizable modern directors. He has a plethora of films in which he constrains himself to his style of strict color palettes, extreme symmetry, and deadpan, florid monologues. In my opinion, this hurts rather than helps his more recent films. I sense a transition in his work from individual pieces with charming attributes into the same recipe being churned out with only the slightest differences. This is not to say that he is not a remarkable director with many fantastic pieces of art. Moonrise Kingdom is by far my favorite. The film is able to truly capture a nostalgic aura—-the feeling of childhood and the subsequent longing to return. It’s the fuzzy dream you experience minutes before waking on a late summer morning: beautiful with a simplistic plot that will leave you aching for the warmth of simpler times.
Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels by Chantal Akerman (1994)
You won’t find this film on a typical streaming service. However, the search is certainly worth it. I hate this film as much as I love it. It’s pretentious and it’s boring, yet it’s relatable and human. The majority of the film is simply two people walking down the street, talking. There is almost no plot, and it revolves completely around the conversations between characters. If someone wanted to know me as a person, I would show them this and say, “watch.” But warning: the ending will no doubt leave you frustrated in its lack of totality.