Exotica

“If you didn’t ask to be brought into this world, who did?” a longing to touch. a lust to be gazed upon. an egg waiting to crack at the right spot at the right time… melancholy in the club. finding meaning in this sacred place made for folks just like us; the desperate, the lonely, the grieving, the horny. people bound and inexplicably tied to their pasts. details of flesh and love unfolding as the night goes on and on. all of us here are suffering, all of us here are broken by our traumas. let’s try to understand each other, before it’s too late. i realize there’s an unspoken tension between us that’s just waiting to be acknowledged and resolved. don’t you want that too? no, no, you’ve already moved on. no point in doing that. is it better to speak or to die? a film uncompromising and empathetic in it’s portrayal of trauma as a mysterious and haunting cycle. seen someone on here describe this film as a “narrative striptease” and honestly that’s a more apt description for it than anything else. i have trouble trying to explain and figure out why this film feels so unique… i guess one way to put it is how whenever you have just woken up from a very striking and important dream, the specific details of it are scattered across your head and only the most memorable part lasts, but later on in that day those details come back together slowly but surely. smarter and more articulate people on here have written extensively about how genius the film’s structure is, which they’re right to do so, this film’s story is told so efficiently and beautifully. i am absolutely in love with how the film flows from scene to scene, slowly unraveling it’s details, leaving you begging and begging to understand how all of these people are tied together, until the final 10 minutes where everything clicks. there’s something so unbelievably devastating about how the film cuts back to how things used to be for these characters in that ending, after just being hit with the intense and powerful note their stories end on. i’ve always been drawn to films that tell stories about trauma and this is not an exception to that, i absolutely adore it. there’s a certain catharsis i get from seeing how people struck by pain and trauma figure their situations out and try processing their emotions (mostly because i see myself so much in these stories). goes without saying that this film is so, so layered with meaning in just about every single frame and line of dialogue. one thing i've come to appreciate about this is just how hypnotizing it all is, in the sense that there have been very few films that have completely transfixed me for every second of its runtime as much as this one. the melancholy atmosphere of the Exotica club has lingered in my head ever since i first watched this film a few months ago, and it will continue to stay there for a while. everything about this film is perfect. wish i could write something more in depth and “intelligent” on this but the words are escaping me.. might try writing something more tomorrow once i’ve processed my thoughts on this. big ups to Jerry for having this as his favorite movie ever