-0-1280-0-720-crop-fill.jpg?k=4388fcc288 "a heartfelt starter pack of twenty sad girls in love • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada")
Asako I & II (2018)
Any Ryusuke Hamaguchi feature hits with the force of an emotional hurricane, but it’s Asako I & II that best fits today’s brief: the story of lovelorn Asako, a young woman living in Osaka, who falls in love with Baku. But what happens when he disappears? Two years later, Asako has moved to Tokyo, and she meets another man, Ryohei, who looks just like her lost love. Lena praises the film’s push and pull between “the instinctive rush of young love, thrilling, dangerous and impossible to preserve” and “the discomforting adjustment to more calm, but respectful, comforting and honestly communicative romance” while Ji asks, “Must loving be a museum of faults and bruises?” it’s a valid question, and one answered by Erika Karata, who captures Asako’s dissatisfaction and constant searching as a young woman in love. The film builds towards what Esther describes as “how it feels to be a girl who caused all of her own problems”. Time to queue up ‘the cure’, perhaps.
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
“I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass,” Tish (KiKi Layne) tells us in a mournful voice-over in Barry Jenkins’ achingly beautiful adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel. Tish leads the way, recounting the story of the love of her life, Fonny (Stephan James), and her journey to clear his name after he’s wrongly imprisoned, shortly before she gives birth to their child. Jenkins captures the young couple’s love with tactile warmth and magic, without ever losing sight of the systemic injustices making it impossible for Tish and Fonny to ever completely feel the joy of their once-in-a-lifetime connection. Layne, carrying so much of the film with her soulful eyes and the longing they contain, is a miracle. Ultimately, Jenkins’ film is a lesson to trust love all the way.