Detail Shot, 1.19.24 (Double Features)
I close-read things.
Watch this, then that, then consider this, then maybe read that.
Gomorrah (dir. Matteo Garrone, 2008) and Spring Fever (dir. Lou Ye, 2009)
Moment 1: An Italian fashion designer picks up work training the staff of some Chinese garment bosses and nearly gets killed in a drive-by when mafiosos move to eliminate their competition in the dressmaking business.
Moment 2: A woman, trying to make sense of her photographer boyfriend cheating on her with the woman who hired him to catch her cheating husband, steps into the office of her boss at a garment factory. Right after he tells her he wants to get out of the bootleg business and into producing luxury clothing, the factory is raided by the police.
The Thread: Things are not going well down by the sewing machines.
Bonus Reading: “Made in Italy” by D.T. Max
A Summer Diary (unproduced screenplay by Kathleen Collins, early 1970s) and The Doom Generation (dir. Gregg Araki, 1995)
Moment 1: A recently separated set designer goes to a thrift store, and the director of the play she’s working on (who she’s also been slowly falling for) buys her an outfit that she's worried makes her look like an eccentric.
Moment 2: A couple begins their slow embrace of a third after picking up some clothes in a junk shop.
The Thread: There’s a new identity hiding in those old clothes.
Bonus Reading: “How thrifting became problematic” by Terry Nguyen
Days of Being Wild (dir. Wong Kar-Wai, 1990) and What Time Is It There? (dir. Tsai Ming-liang, 2001
Moment 1: A playboy flirts with a woman by telling her to look at his watch with him for one minute, then says that those 60 seconds will be theirs together forever.
Moment 2: After a woman leaving for Paris convinces a watch salesman in Taipei to part with his personal watch, which was his dead father’s, he sets the rest of his watches to Paris time.
The Thread: Timepieces that hold pieces of time.
Bonus Reading: “The Watch” by Danusha Laméris
Beetlejuice (dir. Tim Burton, 1988) and In Fabric (dir. Peter Strickland, 2018)
Moment 1: A dead woman is reincarnated in a wedding gown and immediately starts dying again.
Moment 2: A saucy little wrap number kills everyone who wears it.
The Thread: Dresses to die for.
Bonus reading: “The Clothes They Were Buried In” by Philippa Snow
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (dir. Adamma Ebo, 2022) and Holy Spider (dir. Ali Abassi, 2022)
Moment 1: The first lady of a disgraced pastor goes hat shopping in preparation for their comeback service and suffers the humiliation of running into an ex-congregant.
Moment 2: A Tehrani journalist trades her headscarf for an al-amira when she visits the holy city of Mashhad to track down a serial killer targeting sex workers.
The Thread: A woman puts something on her head before she goes out into the world to perform an upsetting duty.
Bonus reading: “The People vs. the Ayatollahs” by Kamin Mohammadi
Send me another entry.