[Hello, new blog readers! I post at the beginning of every month. Click here for an index of recent notable posts.]

A few years ago Roxanne Ray at the IE interviewed me about my bus driving work, the results of which you can read here, and I wrote an essay (here) at the time about being Asian-American, which I tend not to write about.

The Examiner's Kevin Phan now interviews me about photography and image-making. As much as I love talking about bus stuff, and as rewarding as it was to share a word on racial identity, I'm especially grateful for the opportunity to speak in depth about art. Thank you Kevin for your thoughtful questions, and for everyone involved (Alan, Angela, and more!) for putting this together!

Read the interview here.

The above picture (by Larry Huang) is me in 2008, with a Pentax ZX-7 film camera that I still use today!

Reposting this 2019 breakdown of the story behind the making of the photograph above, by popular request! Enjoy!

This is my favorite photograph I've taken of the Notre Dame. I stood in front of it for a long time before making it. I pride myself in creating images without electronics, that are difficult to replicate, and more importantly, try to capture something of the feeling of the place. The emotion. What did it mean, to stand there, in the days after the murders?

I'd gone there in the weeks prior, more than once, usually in the mornings, searching for the right frame– of mind, of light, of mise-en-scene. Everybody with a camera who comes upon that great facade for the first time does this:

These are the pictures where you look over them and say, "okay. Fine." Not bad. But not good, either. Abandoning depth, the most important compositional element in the two-dimensional format that is photography, needs to be for a killer reason, and these weren't it. I didn't know how to photograph the Notre Dame because I didn't know what it meant to me. Yet.

It was in the days after the massacre that the great facade and its plaza would gain new meaning for me. All of Paris was in shock. As I wrote in the days following November 13, 2015:

We stood there in the hours after. We stood there during the day, and we came back at night. Dumbfounded. That's sawdust in the lower left, absorbing the blood.

We stood by, paralyzed. 

​Do you know about being alone in the world, like she is there? Or him, defined now not by what is there, but what isn't there, what is forever lost?

Everything was different now. Time moved differently; shadows became longer. Even in a crowd, silences were louder than noise: 

This post is not about Notre Dame. It's about what we were thinking about when we thought the fire would ruin everything. Before we learned they preserved the essentials, that the structure still stands, that no one perished. It's about what the parents of those kids in Las Vegas still think about every night and every day, after the world has moved on and somehow managed to forget about 851 killed or injured, an event that remains low profile because it has no political, religious or otherwise easily blameable motivation. It's about what I think about when I think about Paris. 

If I had walked the regular way home on November 13, 2015, this would have been the last known photograph:

I took note of the surroundings in a way I hadn't before. The quiet reflection of the city was especially potent now, in spaces normally packed but now empty. ​​

The absence of tourists made me think back on them. There was an East Asian family I remembered from a week earlier (visible in the "okay fine" photos above), in the plaza, taking photos of each other and the grand facade, skipping about and laughing in a manner both silly and reverent. They would pause, and a moment later the daughter would do a cartwheel. You can sense their happy-go-lucky sensibility in their gestures above. 

Without succumbing to the myth that tragedy makes people wise (that only happens sometimes), I want to voice the possibility that terrible experiences can open your eyes to goodness in ways you only thought you knew before. You learn the value of things.

I now saw how much that family was onto something. You have to laugh your way through this life as much as anything else. I am most impressed by those who conflate lightness and wisdom, playfulness and thoughtfulness in the same breath of their lives, without compromise to either. If there is a hidden presence linking all things, don't you imagine it would approve equally of the Notre Dame's intricate artistic virtuosity... and the giggle in a preteen cartwheel? That there might be as valuable of an answer in her spirited and innocent verve, equally deserving of echoing through the centuries?

I like to think so. It was with that in mind that I picked the camera up again, and exposed three times on the same negative. The girl was gone, of course, but I wanted to impose her joie de vivre onto the great cathedral in a way that would let the best things about both attitudes live. It cannot all be somber. There must be movement, energy, and sometimes it won't be sitting there waiting for us to pick up. We have to create it from within ourselves. 

That was what I could see now, that I couldn't see before.

The most lasting advice I received in Art School was to "think about how I think." To question why I respond this or that way, and to remember that the response is always a choice. Now that people talk to each other less on the bus, there's a lot more time for me to think while driving– and much tougher things to think about. We who step out into the streets of Seattle are faced daily with a proposition: what are we to make of all this? Will it ever change? We live on the precipice of despair. How do we keep from falling in? Read on (and pardon the length– this is a month's worth of blog posts all at once! Bookmark it and enjoy!)!

1. Of Laughter and Forgetting

I walked into the base after another rewarding evening on the mighty 7/49. Operator (we'll call him) Jim was there. I like Jim. I don't need people to be like me in order for me to enjoy their company, but he and I have a fair amount in common anyway.

"How was your night?"
“Mellow," Jim replied. "Except kids on my last trip through Union southbound, the trip before I see you, that's when they always wanna get on and smoke that shit. I went back there and told em, hey–"
"You went back there?”
“Yeah, man!”
“Wow!”
“What, we're not supposed to?”
“Well,” I said, “I'm not gonna tell you how to drive, but shoot man, I admire your courage.”
“Sometimes you got to! These clowns–"
"Jim, here's– okay here's what I worry about. I think to myself what if he has a weapon. What if that's his friend across the aisle. What if he has five brothers and you're gonna see him again in an hour.”
“True. Okay. True.”
“But I understand wanting to do something about this stuff.”
“I can't stand it! I can take everything else. I don't mind all the other stuff." He paused, then spoke again. "You know what gets me about it? Is these youngsters don't care if there's kids on the bus, or elderly, they don't care about anyone else–"
"Exactly," I said. "Exactly! These new kids, 'cause not one of them is from Seattle, and–" he was nodding vigorously– “you know how beforehand, the whole concept of the street was, the ultimate currency of the street is respect? These kids don't get that!"
"Yeah! They don't understand!”
“The street has always been about respect. It's the whole point of how everything works out here. And now we have all these new people who–”
"–don't care.” 
“Exactly.” 
“You know, I watch 'em. At Pike. I wanna see how this shit works. Have you seen those puffs of smoke they get? I seen this lady had a piece of foil this big, with a huuuge–”
“No way! She's gonna overdose in no time!”
“Yeah! I thought the whole idea they smoke on buses is to get outta the wind and get the biggest hit a smoke they can, but they're gettin' it out there too! Just a mountain of fumes. You shoulda seen this lady. Like this.”
“She's gonna be dead in a week!”

2. The Lament

Yes, we were laughing. I dare you to call us insensitive. We, who in the early days of this drug melee saw the rows of dead bodies every pre-dawn morning, laid out on Third between Pike and Union, getting wrapped in body bags and tarp so they could quickly be removed from view before the day's commuters arrived. We, who are forced to inhale opiates against our will. Who are faced with impossible decisions. Some of us have failed drug tests as a result of being too close to offenders. 

We, who witness crimes we can't stop, because no one will intervene, no one can stop this. My first experience with fentanyl was a young mother coming up to apologize for her toddler son, who'd vomited on the bus floor due to the fumes coming from the teens smoking right next to them. 

We, who spent a lifetime making sure we didn't expose our bodies to this garbage, because we wanted to live long and healthy lives with our loved ones. That care, those decisions– are being taken away from us and every passenger who's done the same. Secondhand smoke of all kinds has lasting effects. Additionally, today's opiates are the sort which can cause addictive behaviors from a single use, permanent brain damage from a single exposure. Even if some fears are overblown, you have to admit this isn't kid stuff. Shouldn't consent be a necessary component of drug abuse? Especially indoors?

We watch as those with real power to change things remain distant, vocal but unmoving. We read with amazement statements from officials which reveal they don't know the first thing about what goes on out here, in the deep hours of the night (I'm not talking about Metro officials, where there have finally been some positive personnel changes). No, it is not us who are insensitive. It's the system. The system is a monster, unstoppable and insatiable. 

The pattern was first revealed to the public in 2017: "vagrants" from small and mid-sized cities in the rural Midwest and South are given one-way Greyhound tickets to major West Coast cities. They get dumped in Seattle, where possessing, using and distributing drugs not only won't land you in any legal trouble, but the goods can be had for dirt cheap. Where ordinances are not enforced, shoplifting and breaking and entering are not prosecuted crimes, and no arrests will be made that don't involve physical assault. These are mandates I’ve learned about on the street from those with rueful personal experience. Basically: it's Disneyland. This is the kind of once-a-century lawbreaker's heaven you'd think would result in the happiest of delinquents. 

3. However.

The fact that street people are so uniformly miserable (which wasn't true pre-pandemic, but is now) is a testament to their humanity. They are not enjoying this melee. It is not fun for them. 

They are hurting. 

They are, like most of us, abandoned by those who profess to look out for them. They are waiting for someone to ask them what they need. Can you believe it has occurred to no elected official to do so? When will those in power learn that solutions are immeasurably better if those affected are involved in the decision-making process? Though it is true that kindness doesn't always mean giving people what they want, it is usually worthwhile to collaborate, to co-create.

Of course, Seattle's problems are well beyond the purview of Metro's responsibility. Metro is merely the setting, the whipping boy and scapegoat who takes on the frankly heroic role of the unwilling venue, while we– operators, commuters, passengers, residents– wait (im)patiently for a solution. Something needs to be done about the practice of shipping les miserables in from places that don't want them, and dumping them in cities unprepared to respond. It is not the way to take care of people.

4. Picture Yourself in Other Shoes

You've just been relocated to a new city, Seattle. Bigger than anywhere you've been. You have no contacts. You don't know about the Real Change Directory because why would you, you don't know where anything is, and it's obvious the streets are dangerous. You're out of your element and you know it. They said it would be Amazon and Starbucks. You don't need a latte; you need a weapon. And you need to figure a lot of stuff out. Where to get meds, where to get a state ID and how, learning what you can and can't achieve in Seattle based on your past, finding lists for housing, looking up shelters, food, clothes for living, clothes for interviews, a phone, where's a shower, a dentist for this toothache that's killing me, how to get insurance, a job, a job, a house, a job, my education records, a prescription renewal, internet, a library card, an address, more food, painkillers maybe, something for this headache, maybe a drink so I don't feel the cold…

And then, of course, you learn about the drugs. You learn they have that thing they had back home; not as much of it (Seattle isn't even in the top 20 cities for fentanyl, if you can believe it– see below), but still dirt cheap. And they can't arrest you over it?

Here's a description from a former user:

"Think of it this way….think about the most sick you’ve ever been in your life. Think about the cold sweat and chills running down your spine and the dreaded stomach cramps where you know you need to find a bathroom NOW. Now add on being nauseated. Now add on your whole body being sore and achey as if you worked out for 6 hours without stretching. Now add on your skin feeling like it’s going to explode. Now add on some yawning, eye tearing, HIGHLY bad anxiety, restless legs and the knowledge that this is going to last an entire week… or you could just get some Fentanyl and when you do it, allllll the sickness goes away INSTANTLY. It’s an amazing feeling if you’ve ever experienced it. And not only does it go away, your anxiety goes away and is replaced with good feelings. If you could live like that all the time with no consequences, why wouldn’t you? A lot of addicts think it’s worth the risk. I know I did while I was using. Addicts will literally seek it out not caring about whether it’s deadly or not because they need it to survive their day. They need it to not be sick, to stop the withdrawal and to get the high so they can function."

Why fix your problems when you can just forget them? Why bother with struggling to live when you can die instead? All deaths are suicides, someone once wrote. I disagree, but these deaths make you wonder. The new generation, this rural Gen Z influx, doesn't currently have the ability to take care of itself. That much is obvious. Seattle has the ability to take care of them, but isn't.

If you can't stop a generation from killing itself, you could at least create a safe space where they can do so while you figure out next steps. For nearly a century the city's most extreme cases to resided in the Jungle. With that enormous and largely autonomous facility closed, what was once hidden plays out in broad daylight. What are we to make of a society that allows such behavior? I hear conspiracy theories everyday. Similar to the dog days of 2003, when everyone had a solution to the Iraq war, now everyone has an opinion on what would fix everything, what's really going on, and why no one's taking action.

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” Einstein wrote. What weapons indeed, you ask. How about these: drugs? The Internet? Manipulation of information? Taking advantage of a country's most vulnerable people?

This is a picture of the mind racing.

5. The State of Things

"You can get a contact high from fentanyl, you'll black out," I was saying to Jim. "I've talked with passengers who've had that happen to them, just last night this mom from Texas. She didn't know what hit her. Woke up on the other side of town, had to walk all the way back."
“It's sad,” Jim said, in a tone representing both defeat and discovery.
“They're all new. These kids.”
“Yeah," he added. "And they don't hang out with the old guys. Have you ever noticed the guys who drink, and the guys who smoke that shit… never mix?”
“Never! In fact if someone cracks open a beer, I'm honestly relieved because I know for sure, that that guy's not gonna smoke any fentanyl!" Jim howled in recognition as I continued. "And you know what else? I kinda like having people who smell bad now, because they'll clear out a coach!"
Jim could barely keep his composure. In between guffaws he said, “You know that, you know that guy who shuffles?”
“I know exactly who you're talking about!"
"He's my magic, my little good luck charm!"
"All you have to do is get him on–”
“–and you can ask him to go sit in the back, he doesn't even get mad, just says okay, and starts going back there, and then– and then–"
“They can't handle it!”
“They can't take it!”
“It's beautiful!”

No, we are not being insensitive. We laugh because laughter is the only tool we have left. When all power has been taken away, there is nothing left to do but make music. Our lives are short, and while civilization crumbles around us– if indeed it is crumbling– I will laugh, smile, share joy, including with those individuals alluded to above, they who are most scorned and feared. 

We can remember that people have different starting points in the game of life, some with less resources than others, and this isn't their fault. Everyone makes stupid decisions; only some of us have to live out giant chunks of their lives defined by our worst moments. Can you blame them for their hopelessness? Can you blame them for not caring about the rules of a society they feel has rejected them? For flaunting their disregard, the way a child does who feels humiliated, wronged? These are the grapes of wrath. "Kill me please, or else I will," reads a scrawled plea on a light rail seat.

This is the state of things.

6. How I Live Now

I greet the new boys and girls on the block with the same gusto as ever, and they respond with ignorance or confusion. They're on edge because they're on foreign turf, a new city with boundaries and histories they know they're clueless about. Survival mode. They're not expecting anything approaching kindness, but I give it to them anyway, without expecting a response… and then it starts to happen. 

It begins.

There is one, then maybe another, not as much as pre-COVID but even still, in these conditions, there are glimmers. You can't stop humanity, can't curtail its hunger for connection. "This guy's cool," I'll hear them say. "He actually talks. Actually likes his job, gives a shit about the people." Eventually they begin to understand you're not looking down on them. Building relationships with some of the crew at 12th and Jackson has been one of my great post-pandemic joys. 

A young man running out from his hangout spot behind a bus shelter, stepping away from his friends for a moment to pump his first in the air toward me with gratitude, pounding his solar plexus and nodding with a mighty grin, returning my bow and salute. These are the moments I was made for. 

A lovely conversation with two young men that ends with one sheepishly telling me, "I'm sorry if you ever see me, uh you know, passed out on the street or acting out. I'm kinda hooked on that stuff."
"We all have phases, right?"
He beamed with appreciation. "Exactly."

Or another, chatting it up with a young man in recovery. He's on methadone now, and employed, reveling in the de-stressed headspace of clean living. Look at the kindness in his eyes. I know that face. I've seen it on others. It is my own face, the child who lives inside the man, still somehow hoping for goodness, sometimes hesitant to believe. Here it is again in a prematurely aged man, likely a veteran of time behind bars, miraculously still in possession of a certain recognizable softness in the eyes. I want to give him a hug.

You realize there are degrees. It isn't the same level of unstable, or type of usage. Some street people are scared of other street people.

"Sorry 'bout that," a woman said after her screaming partner stormed off the coach. "I ain't even with him."
"Well, I'd rather have you on the bus than him!"
"Ha! Yeah, he's got his own, uh, problems."
"Don't we all. 'Specially these days."
"Right. These days is crazy, with them blues…" Blues means fentanyl. "They still overdose every night! Addicts! Dumbasses! I'm a drug addict, but shit…"
"Moderation, right?"
"Right. I don't smoke that shit. You'd hafta be crazy to go near that stuff." 
"Totally. Too much… death!"
"Right, all you do is overdose on that bullshit. You take it, then ya die. Simple. People thought heroin was something, pssshhhh, heroin ain't got nothin' on this."

A man behind me, speaking to his ladyfriend as they watch another panoply of incomprehensible behaviors at a bus stop; a fellow outside had desperately yelled for me to wait for him, only to lose interest and start doing handstands. "Man, shit like that is why we get left." Referring to how often buses pass up zones now. "No wonder!" 

7. New Frontiers

I realize it's the same game as before, just under harsher circumstances. Street people used to be from Seattle, and they weren't all on drugs. Now they're strangers in a strange land, further ostracized by pandemic fears, surrounded by cheap temptation and money they can't have. But we can still push toward connection. Society's given up on them, they seem to have given up on themselves, and yet…

Seattle has always been a frontier town. This is a place of beginnings. The recent corporate takeovers have tried their best to conceal it, but no amount of homogenized, artless extravagance can suppress the city's grit-grime texture, its envelope-pushing origins, the cluttered vibrance and dirty beauty of its enterprising spirit. Cities are living things, with forces of gravity that extend beyond the control of leaders and interests. Frontiers are born in rebellion. They involve strife, violence, unorganized angst that dreams of something greater. These are the ingredients humans have for rebirth. We are failing forward, stumbling together in the night, and it is all pointing in a direction, no more visible to us than to our forbears who lived through worse hardship. Suffering is when we grow, learn, bind ourselves to something higher, and Seattle is currently in labor. 

Am I afraid? Sometimes, yes. Am I saddened and frustrated? Sometimes, yes. I'm saddened when street people assume I hate them, because others do, and act accordingly. I'm frustrated when they default to believing they are unloved, that the world's against them. They, like the rest of us, see only what they're looking for, and they accordingly fail to see my smile, fail to hear my words and tone. They were respected and acknowledged for a moment in the night, appreciated by a stranger for their common humanity, and they didn't have a clue. 

It's their loss.

I keep on. I do my part. They don't have to respond. I do this for myself. I do it for the greater good. 

It is a part of me I wish to keep alive.

–

Sources and further reading:
Importing unhoused people:
The Guardian US, 2018: “Bussed Out: How America Moves Its Homeless.” Online Journalism Awards.

Seattle's problems less severe than other cities:
American Addiction Centers, 2023: "Highest Drug Use by City." Primarily midwest cities; breakdowns by drug type.
American Addiction Centers, 2023: "Top 10 US States with Drug Overdose Deaths." West Virginia sits at #1. Data and context for each state.
Monarch Shores Recovery: "10 Cities with Worst Drug Problems." With info for each city.
Families Against Fentanyl: "Fentanyl By State: Report." A data compilation primarily using 2021 CDC data.
CDC: "Drug Overdose Mortality by State."

On policy:
ChangingTheNarrative, 2023. "The Tired Narratives of Drug Policy." Clarification of stigmatizing/reductive language regarding addiction and policing issues; however, not Seattle-specific (in practical terms, dealing and possessing are not illegal here).
ChangeWA, 2020: "A Loophole that Effectively Legalizes Most Crime in Seattle." Analysis of Seattle city council action to excuse and dismiss most misdemeanor crimes.
Seattle City Attorney: "Seattle Isn't Dying."Alternate opinion to above.
KUOW, 2022: "Why is Seattle dropping 2,000 misdemeanor cases?" Explanation of the backlog and choice.

Drug impacts on the body:
CDC: "Health Problems Caused by Secondhand Smoke."
Johns Hopkins University, 2023. "Opioid Use Disorder." On addictive behaviors and impacts.
American Addiction Centers, 2022: "Opiates, Overdose and Permanent Brain Damage." Brief explanation of hypoxic brain damage.
NIH, 2020: "Fentanyl panic goes viral: The spread of misinformation about overdose risk from casual contact with fentanyl in mainstream and social media." Analysis of various comments, their impacts, and degree of foundation in fact.
WhiteHouse.gov: "Fentanyl: Safety Recommendations for First Responders" (PDF). Unlike operators, first responders primarily encounter fentanyl in solid form.

The international perspective
DEA, 2020: "Fentanyl Flow to the United States." Executive Summary, Unclassified Document (PDF).
The Guardian, 2023: "The China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline: increasingly sophisticated and deadly." Brief overview of business models.

The Urbanist's Ray Dubicki chats it up with Nathan. We talk about buses, photography, the changing face of Seattle, its evolving crises, the need for creativity and ways of harnessing it, and so much more.

Listen and read all about it here!

Enjoy!

Updated for 2025–resources and ways of navigating this fascinating job. Welcome new operators; and welcome to the old-timers, too. If we don't have refresher courses, we lose our touch. Maybe this post can serve as a refresher course of sorts while we wait for the County to pony up the cash for such things in real life.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty below, let's focus on three things going forward in the new year.

1. Stay in your seat during security situations. You're safer there, with access to the radio, and the shield to protect you. Opening the doors makes the shield more effective for you, and gives others an opportunity to move around or exit if they wish.
2. Let them "win." Don't give in to pride and try to win arguments with passengers, even if you know you're right. In the moment this can be very hard to do, but keep reminding yourself: Avoid contests of will. Why? Because you have a lot to lose. Some of the passengers have nothing to lose. It's not an equal playing field. Deep breaths!
3. Check your left mirrors *before* you move the coach. You may be tempted to begin pulling out from a zone while checking those mirrors; look at them first, and then move.  Otherwise you're re-entering traffic blind, and that's not worth it. Now, on to the nitty-gritty:

A few reminders about operating downtown:

Third Avenue is the street which has the most bus traffic per hour, per day, in the world. It requires focus and skill to make this work, and you have focus and skill. Take pride in what you do. Do the Weave. What is the Weave? It’s explained fully in the Book (now called the Manual, under "Third Ave Operations"), but for now, you can condense it all into three easy tips:

1. Use the left lane except to service a zone, or prepare to service a zone. This way, you don’t block zones that aren’t yours.
2. The bus in the right lane has the right of way. It goes first when a red light turns green.
3. Don’t pass buses that use the same stops as you (unless their 4-ways are on). It’s easier than you think to learn which routes use your stops and which don’t!

• Don’t, please don’t, be that bus who just sits in lane 1 all the way up 3rd. You annoy everyone behind you, and you make things more complicated for yourself by reducing right-side clearance and creating opportunities for impulse riders who want you at a zone that isn’t yours. Their bus will come shortly.

• Don’t use your 4-ways at a zone in the CBD, unless you’re going to be there for a while (wheelchair, issue, etc).
• No right turns on red in the CBD.
• Every zone in King County: Third bus in line makes a second stop. Scan the zone just in case.
• Be careful crossing 3rd at Spring. Cars coming up Spring have a line of sight that has them looking at the traffic light at Fourth Avenue, not Third. There have been many accidents here. You shouldn’t be charging any intersections in the CBD, but don't risk this one. Not worth it.
• Use the left lane approaching the NB 3rd/Virginia zone, so coaches turning right onto Virginia can use lane 1. (While we're talking about 3/Virginia, remember to never roll the curb during that right turn, as your coach will get damaged by the overhang there. This is a fireable offense.)
• NB 3rd/Pine: Pull all the way up to the driveway, past the zone flag. This allows more room for coaches behind you. Similar to NB 15th/42nd (Pull well past the flag, for the same reason), or EB Campus Parkway/Brooklyn (when another coach is visible behind you).

 

• Take care of each other. If you see a trolley operator putting his poles back up, and you’re the bus coming up behind him, don’t pass him/her. Use your coach to block traffic so (s)he can perform that task safely. Or, do like in the old days and hop out of your coach and help them put their poles back up.

• Working at night, like me? Know where the security teams are in the CBD, and feel free to reroute your coach to them (head up to 3/Virg instead of turning right for your 36 layover, etc) if you need them. In the aforementioned example, there’s even wire that allows for you to go to them and then return to your terminal without dropping poles.

Speaking of trolleys:

Hello, operators new to trolley! A few reminders:

• You don’t need to power through deadspots. It’s bad for the electricity (you’re arcing the power every time you do that), and it gives a jolt to the passengers, which they don’t like, especially if you’re doing that for the whole ride. Instead, coast through them. Take pride in your work! Memorize where all the deadspots are for your route. This is easier than it sounds: start with the CBD, which has the most complicated wire. Make a note of where the front of your bus is when you hit a deadspot. I use the middle of the front doors as my reference point. When I pass by that tree, or that newspaper bin. The next time you go through that deadspot, lift your foot off the power pedal right before you pass that point. You'll get to where you know where every deadspot is on your route within a couple of inches. What a pro you are!
• You don’t need to go fast. Trolleys are designed to roll. Diesels have pretty strong retarders; trolleys don’t. They roll further than you think. you’ll make it through your deadspot fine. Also, because they roll further than you think, you don’t need to use the power pedal as much as you do in a diesel. If you do, you’ll end up braking too much, and we all know how much that hurts our knees. Maximize the time you spend coasting.
• Use the side wire at every opportunity, especially at 5/Jackson, NB Pike, and SB Union. You don’t know what’s going to happen in these places, and you may be there for a while for whatever reason, and you don’t need to hold up trolleys behind you.
• Slow down to 9-10mph for special work. You'll get written up at 11mph.
• Some people like using the route override switch. I don't. I never use it. Too much chance of forgetting it later and creating problems for myself. Turn signals only for me. Which brings up:
• Worried about your turn signal accidentally triggering a switch, because you're not familiar enough with the wire yet, or because you have to merge where there is a switch? Use your four-ways instead! Much better than not signaling at all. Let cars know you're about to do something weird.
• Don't accelerate until after the back of your coach has completed the turn– remember, the poles are still going through the turning wire.
• Pay attention to the wire. Pay more attention to the road, but pay attention to the wire. If you're not completely sure which lane of wire your poles are on, get out and confirm.
• If safe to do so, I find it faster to put the poles up manually, rather hitting "lower poles" and ESSing. This is what we all did not so long ago, when trolleys had no ESS!
• Hot tip: Open the rear end of your front roof hatch so you can hear the wire. Try driving with the AC/heaters off for a while, so you can familiarize yourself more easily with what you want to hear– and especially what a fahslabend sounds like.

Generally (diesels and trolleys):

• Don’t rush. Don’t charge yellows. Take your time. Accidents and arguments happen when you're rushing. I know what you’re thinking: that if you take your time, your break won’t be as long. I have two answers to that: firstly, it’s less true than you think. Driving at 35mph instead of 25mph only gets you to the terminal 2 or 3 minutes earlier. You can't fight it. Doing the route at 25mph is much more relaxing. There's no point punishing yourself to get an extra couple of minutes. It’s not equal to the degree of added mental stress, and added physical strain. I’ve only recently discovered that half the reason my body doesn’t ache is because I keep it under 25-30mph. It’s worth 2 minutes of your break to be relaxed your whole ride down. Remember this also when you’re getting toward the end of your route, end of your shift, or running late– don’t speed up. You’ll want to. Don’t. That's when accidents happen. You want to keep this job!
• Secondly, if you’re relaxed during your trip, you end up not needing as long of a break. You’ve taken a bit of a “break,” as it were, while you were driving!
• Don't like your schedule? Neither do I. Fill out a green sheet (OSFR) so Scheduling knows about it. I know you think that'll lead nowhere. I was filling one out for the route 2 many years ago when I was new, and a senior operator laughed at me the whole time, watching me and telling me what a hopeless waste of effort I was creating for myself. And you know what happened? They fixed the 2 schedule. Don't complain about your runcard if you haven't filled out a green sheet.
• Pull forward at terminals. This makes room for your coworkers behind you.
• We’re a team. Be nice to other ops. Don’t run them off the road, pass on the right, or do things that cars do. You’re a professional. You’re beyond stuff like that. You’re not in a rush. Run it late and stay happy. Wave hello.
• See an operator having an issue at a terminal? Go over and see what they need. You can tell if they’re having a passenger issue because their doors will be open. Everything suddenly becomes easy to handle when there are two operators. Sleeper, unruly passenger, etc... suddenly it’s a cinch. Be that cinch. Operating can be a lonely job. Our colleagues need to know there are others out there who care. Who will step in. Be that person. Wave hello!

Further reading, including passenger stuff:

-What I've Learned From Other Bus Drivers (half of everything I know comes from my awesome colleagues. Tons of hot tips here)
-A Love Letter for My Colleagues: Exercises and Stretches for Operators (half the battle of a happy mental state is taking care of your body. Those lil' aches and pains you're having may be impacting your view of the job more than you think!)
-For New Bus Drivers: Thoughts, Tips, and Stories
-Skip-stopping and Newbies (explanation of the Weave vs skip-stopping outside the CBD)
-How to Drive the 7: The Complete Care Package (everything from stop-by-stop directions to tips on fights and sleepers!)
-I Don't Know What a Trolley is, Part I
-I Don't Know What a Trolley is, Part II

Click here for some background plus the bottom half of this list. Without further ado, here's the top half plus runners up:

7. Mr. Bachmann and His Class (Herr Bachmann und seine Klasse)

"I think we should stick together as a class."

Dir. Maria Speth
217m.
Synopsis: Document of a middle-school teacher teaching his final class using an unorthodox approach.
Trailer.

I tend not to think of documentaries as being cinema; they’re a different medium, doing their own thing with different standards of expectation. As Frederick Wiseman says about his own films, though, and as he would undoubtedly say about this very Wiseman-eqsue piece, this isn’t a documentary. It isn’t seeking to impose an opinion on reality. It just is. Due to the necessity of editing, of what’s kept in the frame and what’s kept out, no film can escape subjectivity; but this is as close as we can get to a true fly-on-the-wall experience. Herr Bachmann is 217 minutes spent in the classroom and with the lives of these very real people, and this very real, deeply inspiring beacon of a teacher, bringing souls and minds together in that unique and somewhat rare anachronism: a small town that (due to certain historical specificities) is ethnically diverse. The film is a microcosm of many things, and a reminder of how we can behave.

Most of the films on this list, and great films generally since 1960-70, are depictions of what not to do, presented for the edification of the audience. Cinema is often afraid of being sincere. Sincerity is delicate, sometimes very nearly too beautiful to handle. In the wrong hands it loses its spark and tips into schmaltz. But director Speth modulates her depiction of life with great, subtle finesse, and offers us that rarest of things– an inspirational and entirely rejuvenating example of what's still possible. A model for living, and a hope for our future.

6. All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues)

""In the name of humanity, I ask you to agree to a ceasefire."

Dir. Edward Berger.
148m.
Synopsis: A German soldier in World War I loses everything.
Teaser.
Trailer.

You are wondering what another war film could possibly bring to the cinematic conversation. There are already excellent war films. You have your favorites. But this one is different. The landmark German novel was famously adapted in 1930 into a decades-ahead-of-its-time version as successful as Saving Private Ryan in shocking audiences into the realities of war, and ended on a punishingly sudden note that still horrifies to this day. Edward Berger’s new version is the first German adaptation of the novel, which itself continues to grab people because of passages like this:

“But the bayonet has practically lost its importance. It is usually the fashion now to charge with bombs and spades only. The sharpened spade is a more handy and many-sided weapon; not only can it be used for jabbing a man under the chin, but it is much better for striking with because of  its greater weight; and if one hits between the neck and shoulder it easily cleaves as far down as the chest. The bayonet frequently jams on the thrust and then a man has to kick hard on the other fellow's belly to pull it out again; and in the interval he may easily get one himself. And what's more the blade often gets broken off. "

You’ve never seen that in a film. You won’t see it here either, but you’ll feel it: the freshness of unvarnished perspective. The novel and its story pull back layers of enculturation, socialization, misguided beliefs. It emphasizes the reality of war not only on the ground (as many films do) but also ideologically (which most films avoid): that it’s nothing more than rich men hiding in rooms, sending poor people to do their fighting for them, and considering those poor lives completely expendable. Says director Berger, “Normally, the moment I bring up my next project, my kids disappear. They think, ‘Oh, it’s so boring.’ But this time, my daughter heard the title and she whipped around and said, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front? You absolutely have to do it. It’s the book that’s touched me most. I cried three times. I just read it in school.’ She was 17 at the time. She’s now 20. I thought, ‘If a book still has such an impact on a 17-year-old girl something like 90 years after its publication…’ — and it’s a war novel, it’s not really meant to entertain a 17-year-old girl— there must be some relevance left to it.”

And so there is. This adaptation belongs in the conversation of the best three or four war films ever made. Why?

It remains faithful to Erich Maria Remarque’s famous lines: “death is not an adventure for those who stand face to face with it.” It understands that courage, bravery, morality, ethics, accountability, and respect do not exist on the battlefield, and if ever they do, they are the exception proving the rule.

It understands that men are never tough; they only pretend to be. All men are children, and the toughest of them are merely convincing actors. Casting the distinctly 'unmanly' theatre actor Felix Kammerer in the lead was a wise coup, and emphasizes the fragility of humans in inhuman spaces.

It reminds us of the overstepping humiliation of the November armistice and Treaty of Versailles, without which WWII might have been avoided. World War I more specifically encapsulates the regular problem of war being the result of territorial or ideological squabbles and leaders hungry for power and recognition. All violence is an attempt to restore pride. All violence is an attempt to eliminate shame. In this case, the wounded pride of a few child-men who happen to be leaders.

Its spectacular photography. Consider the painterly frames in the trailers above, and their rich, saturated blues, teals and oranges. Note the depth in the compositions. The awareness of texture (especially mud) and deployment of it as a motif. Berger and lenser James Friend take a page from Deakins’ work on 1917, particularly in Deakins’ use of color and shadow, but they put all their camera movements and cutting in service of the narrative and its ideas, rather than as an (impressive) showcase of technical virtuosity. Berger also pushes much further in tackling the ramifications of what he’s depicting than 1917 does.

And most successfully, it manages to avoid the trap Ursula K. Le Guin warned us about:

That the treason of the artist is to make evil interesting. To conceal “the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”

5. The Blue Caftan (Le bleu du caftan)

"No wants to learn the craft anymore, Halim."

Dir. Maryam Touzani
124m.
Synopsis: A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship turned upside down by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice.
Trailer.

Perhaps I found the pace glacial because the chairs in the theatre were massively uncomfortable. Did that affect the film? Did it, perhaps, help the film? Sometimes a slow pace is a good thing. It encourages us to think. It invites further reflection, thoughts we wouldn’t have had otherwise, like standing before a painting for a long rather than a short time. I found myself incomparably moved by the enormous decency these characters have. What deeply embedded goodness. That alone makes the film worth seeing. It keeps authentically to the gentle pace of their lives, during a period of simultaneous decline and rebirth. Are all of our days perhaps the same? Can we fashion our lives to include beginnings, and not only endings? If we were judging films by their conclusions, this would be my pick for the year.

4. Babylon

"It's a disease."

Dir. Damien Chazelle
189m.
Synopsis: During Hollywood's transition to sound, a production assistant witnesses the declining fortunes of those around him and tries not to get lost himself.
Trailer.

Okay. Let's talk about this.

I. Context and a warning

Firstly: Babylon is a victim of the laziest marketing campaign I can recall, which managed not to convey the simplest facts of the film’s story (the effects of a changing industry on three characters), time period (Hollywood at the inception of sound and censorship), who its main characters are (an inexperienced PA with a talent for improvisation; a breakout female star; a popular male actor in decline), the fact that its director previously made the critical and commercial smash hits La La Land and Whiplash, nor its main theme (the monstrous and inviolably destructive impact of celebrity). Paramount underwent a regime change between the greenlighting and release of this film, but even so you’d imagine the marketing department could have done better, considering the gold they were given to work with.

But in time we'll forget all that. Only the film will remain, and the film is magnificent. But should come with a warning: you will not be prepared for the level of depravity in this film. It puts The Wolf of Wall Street, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge and others to shame. I was surprised to learn how much of it is accurate. The film’s most outrageous moments have inspirations from life, and the title is, in every way, spot-on (even Mr. Maguire’s underground nightclub has antecedents in life; such a place existed in 1920s Paris). We easily forget the incredible difference between the '20s and the period lasting from about 1930 to 1960. Los Angeles in the '20s was a town, not a city, a desert town with dirt roads, and it seemed highly improbable that the place would ever become bigger. It was an unregulated space. What were these people doing out there in the desert, and who were they?

II. Desperation and its clutches

The medium of film was still new, and the system for making them in Hollywood hadn’t been codified. Overseers were few. There were more women directors. People of color could make moves they couldn’t later on. Money was flowing. Drugs, parties, overdoses and suicides were aplenty. People were coming out of a world war and a worldwide pandemic, and there was desperation in the air. New drugs were overrunning the place. (Sound familiar?) People were coming in from small towns all over the country, totally unprepared for the worlds they were making, falling in with, working in a medium that people weren’t even sure was art yet, a medium that stumbled behind the innovative spirit that was pulsing through 1920s painting, music, literature, and architecture. It was on the verge of joining them, of peaking, in the wild fever of silent film, the most creatively fertile period in the history of the movies… when the nearly simultaneous twin introduction of sound films and conservative morals came along and, incredibly, made things worse than they already were.

Chazelle’s new film is only partly a hate letter to Hollywood, following the love letter that is his 2016 La La Land. He reinforces the idea of this being a companion piece in reworking a musical motif from the previous film. But in a vein closer to Scorsese’s famous penchant for not telling the audience what to think about his characters, Chazelle here asks us questions while rigorously withholding answers.

The outrageous nature of the behavior shown in the parties and elsewhere in the film belies a certain desperation. People act out when they’re desperate. They hide when they’re desperate, through escape, distraction, excess. What are they hiding from? What is the logical extension of such excessive behavior? What lies at the end of running, and running, and running away? That’s the elephant in the room in the opening party scene, not the four-legged behemoth which crashes into the space. Notice how joy progressively seeps out of the parties until all that remains is a nightmare. Some things are not sustainable, and 1920s Hollywood was one of them. The town was then, as it is today, a place that destroys people, and Chazelle’s canvas conveys the all-inclusive power of the death drive we call celebrity. Only the meek, the wise, the untainted, stand a chance of getting out.

Formally, you won’t find a more intoxicating experience. Shot in 35mm and readily detectable as such, the image positively oozes life with its swimming grain, deep, rich tone curves, inky blacks and use of anamorphic period lenses barely able to hold focus in close-ups. Observe the wild enthusiasm of the tracking shots following Margot Robbie through the outdoor set and elsewhere; the deft precision of the montages, most notably in the ‘first sound take’ scene and its escalating tension through repetition; and the astonishing first hour, which is two huge sequences you won’t soon forget.

III. That Ending

Like TÁR but less so, Babylon presents its ending as a Rorschach test, letting us interpret as we wish. [SPOILERS] I don’t see the final montage as an homage to cinema, as many have written. In the same way that I don't think Brad Pitt's monologues extolling popularity are to be taken literally (witness his inability to recognize the gift he later receives): a depiction is not automatically an endorsement.

I see Manny Torres as a man who’s been smart enough to get out of the game, and who remembers with conflicted feelings the world he left behind. Yes, he and especially his actor friends achieved a sort of immortality… but at what price?

All his friends are dead, and they’ve been turned into punchlines.

The film he’s watching has no idea what those battlefields were like. What losses and joys were sustained, what hardship and suffering and vitality. He sees that the film image cannot compete with the complexity of life. Existence is eternally unresolvable, and cinema can only reflect it, never solve it. Cinema is a mere shadow... oh, but what a shadow! What a hypnotic mix of creation, as filled with garbage as gold! Chazelle is keen to include not just obviously great films, but mediocre ones too, as well as pictures as awful as some of the duds Manny and his friends sweated their hearts out making.

Is Babylon itself aware that it may be the last film of its kind? A large-scale, big-budget dramatic picture for adults only? Something about the conclusive finality of this montage hints at that for me. We are at the end of the road, and this audacious picture, in its last sequence, seeks the impossible– to contain all the madness which came before. The montage is imperfect; all montages of the entire history of cinema are. But you have to admire the audacity of it. The images turn to shots of processing emulsion and finally to pure washes of color, reduced to the elemental. All things come to an end. It’s 1952 in America, and like today, everyone is spelling the end of cinema, at long last destroyed due to television, declining attendance, declining quality. It is on its last legs. It is dying. It is dead. But that’s okay.

When it was alive, he was there.

3. Happening (L'événement)

"What's wrong?"

Dir. Audrey Diwan
100m.
Synopsis: A pregnant high-schooler in 1960s France wishes to continue her schooling, but finds herself pregnant.
Trailer.

How solitary is lived experience, and how especially so when our trials must be kept private? Those of you who've had to live with traumas that can't be shared, or feel like they can't be shared, will relate. Perfect films are rare. This is one.

Director Audrey Diwan’s degree of formal rigor in this, only her second film, astounds. The 1.33:1 frame is an appropriate choice for the claustrophobic storyline and its singular focus on its protagonist, a high schooler who seeks desperately to get an abortion at a time when it was still illegal in France to do so. Diwan’s precise compositions recall Andrea Arnold’s assertion that the 1.33 ratio is a portrait frame, and implicitly respects a figure who’s centrally placed in it. The world may not respect the girl’s livelihood, goals, and needs (the material is based on novelist’s Annie Ernaux’s own harrowing trials as a teen), but the mise-en-scene does. Diwan’s careful decisions in sound, and especially silence, are best experienced in a theatre. Winner of the Golden Lion (Best Film) at Venice.


2. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)

"You don't have to say anything."

Dir. Colm Bairéad
94m.
Synopsis: 1981, rural Ireland. A neglected girl spends a summer with foster parents.
Trailer.

Gentle kindness can be rare. Are we so callous that we don’t afford it the same wonder we reserve for more obviously shocking things? Can we summon up enough of our best selves to celebrate it, foster it within ourselves and appreciate its quiet grace? It is a perfect film. Kind and small, every note containing volumes, with an attentive and sensitive camera registering the smallest details as the important moments they are. Note the narrow depth of field, the limited color palette, deft interweaving and elongation of time and space.

1. TÁR

"Don't be so eager to be offended. The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring kind of conformity. "

Dir. Todd Field
158m.
Synopsis: An exploration of the intersection between the impulse toward creativity and the impulse toward power.
Teaser.

I’ll reuse Rivette’s famous comment on Journey to Italy as the best way to sum up this film: with the arrival of TÁR, all other films have instantly aged ten years.

Films usually lag behind social movements because they take so long to make. This is the film, finally, that comprehends the modern age. It sees, and pierces, and elevates us with its forceful, prodigious being. With more rigor than any film I’ve recently seen, TÁR withholds its opinion on what it’s showing us. Director Field does not ever tell us what to think of his remarkable main character, the things she does (or perhaps doesn’t do), and the things that happen to her. Does the final scene represent a downfall? Or an awakening?

The film can be seen as a portrait of power and its corrupting influence, but without denying the truth of that, I think that’s the easy interpretation. It is as easily a film about how power structures stand exhaustingly in the way of making great art rather than facilitating it. It can be seen as a culture closing in, a death of the possibility of art; a portrait of a world where creativity can no longer blossom. Or as the great critic Justin Chang says, of “a world where everyone wears masks, and the power of the sublime no longer holds sway.”

It is a film which rejects the either/or dichotomies we so readily embrace now. It encourages us to consider how these characters got to the point in which we see them. Certainly Lydia Tár and Sharon had a healthy relationship beforehand; what happened? When did Lydia’s priorities begin to shift, probably without her realizing? Unlike many films this one acknowledges the reality of the COVID pandemic and depicts people, like us, coming out of it, and also like us, with psyches damaged by its constraints and not fully aware of the impacts.

There are truths to be found in Field’s Kubrickian control of the camera. His precise compositions and remarkable use of silence and sound. The impressionistic intercutting of fears, visions, memories all as one, the incorporation of how Lydia hears the world around her, how her predilections result in constant paranoia… this is all conveyed through form, not dialogue. Second viewings will reveal figures in the distance. Patterns that shouldn't be there. Field’s insistence on shooting all exteriors and window-facing interiors during a specific three-week period in Berlin’s November, because there’s a quality of light then that he found important, is only one example of the endless detail this slippery picture possesses. Even more than Lee Chang-Dong’s Burning (essay of mine on that one here), I can’t think of another modern picture which respects its audience to this degree. It gives you no instruction on how to decode its protagonist, no decree on how to judge her. The film is instead a Rorschach test which tells you about yourself (and changes on different viewings).

The finale can be seen (SPOILERS) as her final and deserved humiliation; as her finally stripped of her power, with only  skill left behind. The film is slippery. It can be seen as an indictment of a system that feeds the worst behaviors, condemning them while also, hypocritically, demanding the hunger for power that fosters them. It’s also a magic trick, pulling our attention away from what’s in plain sight. We wonder whether she’s preyed on the student(s) or not, but that’s a distraction from the undeniable crime right in front of our faces: the monstrously selfish and transactional nature of her interactions with all the people she comes into contact with. It’s the mundane, unconcealed, quotidian interactions which tell you the truth about a person. The film trusts us, enormously, to have the intelligence to come up with our own conclusions, our own interpretations.

I see the ending (still SPOILERS!) as her having, at long last, transcended her pride. She has finally, and not by her choice, had to put behind herself her transactional lust for control, for the limelight, and let what was always there take precedence: her passion for creating. Power is addictive. Who are you when it’s easily available? Who are you when it’s taken away from you? Art demands risk-taking. Here she is stripped clean. She takes the work, ridiculous and lowbrow as it is, seriously. On her terms. It was always the artmaking that was her passion, and here she can do it, finally, without having to chase power. How many films are aware the how matters more than the what?

TÁR is a film of questions, answered with more questions. It will outlast all the titles on this list.

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Runners up

The titles below are included because I saw them only once and they were too overwhelming to process on a single viewing and I don’t know how to rate them, despite getting much out of them. I had to see TÁR and Babylon twice to appreciate their effect. Maybe these titles are similarly masterful, or not; but either way they didn't reveal themselves fully on first viewing, and this is to their credit.

A. Close

"Will you ever come back home?"

Dir. Lukas Dhont
104m.
Synopsis: A boy learns a crucial fact about himself, too late.
Trailer.

A boy who doesn’t know a crucial fact about himself. When does it come to him? There is no exact moment. Or is there? How are insights born? There are epiphanies we have which feel more like afterthoughts; a surprise at something our body already knew, which we are only now coming round to consciously grasping. The less said about this extraordinary film, the better. Relinquish yourself to its sensitivities. Notice its remarkable natural light cinematography.

B. RMN

“Stay away from wild animals when you’re unarmed.”

Dir. Cristian Mungiu
125m.
Official synopsis: A non-judgmental analysis of the driving forces of human behavior when confronted with the unknown, of the way we perceive the other and on how we relate to an unsettling future.
Trailer.

Everything in this film, like the line above, has a double meaning. his respect for the audience approaches that of Field’s TÁR– how about that ending, which could be interpreted at least four different ways, all of them legitimate. It’s a puzzle box, and it makes us ask ourselves how we think, what we believe. RMN as a title suggests “Romania,” where the film takes place, but it also means “MRI,” and it lives up to that title in being a thorough dissection of the country’s cultural attitudes. What’s to be done in the face of such awful racism? The ending, in combination with Mingiu’s other pictures, hints at a solution, and it’s neither belligerent nor optimistic.

As for style– Mingiu is the 21st-century formalist par excellence. Notice how he only moves the camera when a character moves in such a way as to motivate the movement. He composes in a manner that recalls both the tableau and the deep-focus composition. Note his 17-minute shot of the town hall meeting– the careful overlaps of dialogue, the cramming of detail into the frame and skillful drawing of our eye from this area to that with speech, head turns, and other movement (click here for an interview with Mingiu about the construction of that scene).

C. Hold Me Tight (Serre moi fort)

"She won't come back."

Dir. Mathieu Almaric
97m.
Synopsis: A woman one day simply walks out on her family. Or does she?
Trailer.

Reknowned actor Almaric serves here as director, and like his previous La chambre bleue, makes demands of the audience hardly any American film would dare. I had to struggle to keep up– not because things were convoluted, but because I was being asked to think differently. To step up and use as much of my brain, memory, knowledge of people and life– as possible. Don't you love that feeling? When you rise to your fullest self? How often is any form of that asked of us? I was reminded of reading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and needing to draw charts to figure out what was going on. This is cinema at its most sophisticated... and its most emotionally searing. The beguiling structure doesn't confuse, but somehow rather instead pulls us in, asks us to engage and grapple, and we feel involved, experientially, in a way most films don't realize they can attempt. Hold Me Tight goes there. I'm glad I took the journey.

It's been a year of challenging cinema, and beautifully photographed cinema. As with Close, note the absolutely gorgeous natural light cinematography, and the tendency toward evocative shallow focus.

D. Armageddon Time

Dir. James Gray
114m.
Synopsis: Based on an incident Gray lived through as an eleven-year old when he transitioned from public to private school in 1980s New York City.
Trailer.

No filmmaker since Bresson so knows himself, and can speak about his work with such accuracy, as James Gray. His numerous press appearances are treasure troves for students of film and life. Here, taking the memoir format a la The Fabelmans, he spares his child-self character no mercies of depiction, aiming for the truthful jugular at all times. He expects us to pay attention (for example, not spelling out that that red-haired racist classmate is a future US president). And Gray refrains from pointing fingers, not letting himself off the hook over an admittedly minor culminating incident, but lets us decide how to feel. Unlike so much contemporary discourse we're not asked to take sides, and more than that Gray doesn't tell us which ideas are the film's; in interviews he points out Hopkins' eloquent advice is a contradiction to his own past behavior, and that Strong's well-meaning suggestion to his son is given with blinders the speaker doesn't know he has on. Life is complicated. The oppressor can also be oppressed. An outstanding film I feel I need to see twice in order to say I’ve seen it once.

He has the nerve [SPOILERS] to end on a note of complete limbo, resisting all impulses to deviate from the maxim we know is true: peace is found not in answers, not in understanding, but in relinquishing the need for them. Life is merely to be experienced, and we do the best we can, improving as we go along.

E. The Radiant Girl (Une jeune fille qui va bien)

"I pretended not to see."

Dir. Sandrine Kiberlain
98m.
Official Synopsis: “Paris, summer 1942. Irene is Jewish and French. She is 19 and living a life of passions - Her friendships, her new love, her desire to be an actress - Nothing suggests that Irene's time is running out.”
Trailer.

The synopsis says it all. That, and the original title, which translates more closely as “A young girl who is well.” We know with historical hindsight that humiliation, suffering and death await her and all her Jewish friends and family. But she doesn’t know any of that. What don’t we know about our own futures, now? And does it matter? What else can you do but go forth as well as you can, as radiantly as you can, with your best and most joyful foot forward? To be happy as fully and richly as possible, right up until the moment you can't?

F. The Whale

"Think about the truth of your argument."

Dir. Darren Aranofsky
117m.
Synopsis: An obese English teacher attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter.
Teaser.

It’s so nice to see kindness enacted onscreen. Empathy, forgiveness. As mentioned earlier, many of these titles enlighten us by illuminating the harsh realities of bad decisions. It’s been said that a Tragedy is a story wherein a character experiences the consequences of their actions, and a Comedy is a story wherein the character doesn’t experience the consequences of their actions (which is why 2019’s Joker is, as its main character correctly notes, a Comedy, though my main beef with that film is that the character evolves into an abstraction). If that is true than The Whale is a Tragedy, but it doesn’t feel like one, because the protagonist’s actions lean toward the good. Kindness is the goal. Samuel Hunter's screenplay believes not the cynic's gospel about how positivity covers up harsher truths, but rather the opposite: badness is superficial, and beneath the layers of protection, posturing, and hate is a wounded animal who is hurting, who would like to be loved. And doesn't know how to ask for it.

What enormous impact we have on others when we learn to love ourselves.

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Thanks for reading!!