I went to go see ‘In the Last Days of the City’ at the Cornell Cinema. I work at the Cinema, so most people expect I that I am used to seeing movies with subtitles and inevitably say things like ‘ah, yes, I enjoy the neo surrealism, but I think Goddard far better encapsulates the american consumerist ideal in 1944.’ That is not the case. I like to brag about my deep understanding of Pulp Fiction, but if I’m entirely honest I only saw it once and it kind of freaked me out.

That being said, I probably would not have gone to this movie if it weren’t for Rose Scholars. I didn’t even realize that the filmmaker would actually be there until I got to the movie. I am so glad I went. Being in the presence of the maker of a foreign film made the world feel smaller, in a good way. It made me think about how there are people making things everywhere, and I have access to that everywhere if I just get my crap together and show up.

The movie itself was really interesting. It really felt like I was just watching a man’s life and the sort of fleeting life of the city go by, in a natural way. The camera often zoomed out of the main scene to people working or going about their day in the background. It made the movie feel really organic, just like zoning in and out of a conversation. People go about their lives, and those lives are inevitably intertwined with the politics of their city. There were also lots of shots of mannequins with varying amounts of clothing, and I would like to note that I realized that this was significant, but I couldn’t really figure out what it meant [see: title].