Paterson

A gripping account of Paterson (name), bus driver and secret poet, and the careful choices of his life in Paterson, NJ (place). This location is both a substitute for any American town, but the details also so specific to this somehow fascinating place. We get to look through the eyes of a poet, living poetically, noticing unhurriedly. Each day building a rhythm, that repeats and builds. On the seventh day, a climax so completely devastating, and what comes after, poignant, life-affirming, like watching water fall.

Silence

Two Jesuit missionaries enter a Japan whose old order is violently ridding itself of the scourge of Christianity. Yet the Japanese captors are truly sympathetic making the conflict unnerving. And the missionaries are in shock witnessing Japanese Christians more saintly than themselves. This film is austere in its commitment to the power of its story. The lack of meaning behind the suffering maddening. Scorsese averts his typical grandiosity, but his camera paints no less of a portrait. Deliberate and never dull nor gratuitous. And a uniquely Scorsese final act continues to stun well after viewing.

Arrival

Akin to Paterson in its unhurried approach to unfurling our protagonist's use of language to define their world. A linguist, she is primed to understand that language is at the core of how we view ourselves and relate to the world. Amy Adams is riveting intuiting her way towards an inconceivable alien way of communicating and being. An original, tremendous science fiction film by Dennis Villeneuve (Sicario) that feels grounded and light. I wonder what it would be like to live every moment with the awareness of your entire timeline. I think the sense of inevitability wouldn't be so much despondent, but agreeable.