At Home With… April Picks
Friends of Metrograph Joanna Arnow, Katie Merchant, Nea Ching, and Elizabeth Purchell each share a film they love, streaming on demand on the Metrograph At Home platform.
2 Friends, dir. Jane Campion, 1986
This is a great film for anyone who has had a friend, currently has a friend, or might have a friend in the future. Campion’s first feature hits hard in the loveliest way including broken presents, long handwritten letters, and mention of a stolen flower press.
Joanna Arnow is a filmmaker, writer and actor. Her film The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed will be released this month. Three by Joanna Arnow streams now on Metrograph At Home.
Boyfriends and Girlfriends, dir. Éric Rohmer, 1987
“Fifteen TV channels, a lake, tennis courts, golf soon, two legit theaters, who could be bored?” Set in a suburb just outside of Paris (the Eiffel Tower can be seen from one viewpoint of the palatial apartment complex), Boyfriends and Girlfriends is a breezy romantic comedy where nothing bad really happens. I love Rohmer’s films for their inspiringly stylish visuals, and in this one, the colors, clothes, and interiors are delightfully considered, as the wardrobe plays off the setting and story. One of my favorite scenes, clothes-wise, is a party where Blanche and Lea wear complimentary outfits made of white, black, and blue satin—though Blanche’s wardrobe is a particular standout throughout. From her ensemble of a glossy blue blouse, its neckline perfectly askew, tucked into a white pencil skirt, cinched with a black belt and black almond-toe pumps, to her navy sailor dress, her blue blazer (the shoulder pads!), her marigold tank that matches the juice she is drinking, the colors popping against the stark white walls. I could go on, and on, and on….
WATCH BOYFRIENDS AND GIRLFRIENDS
Katie Merchant is a consultant and creative director in Toronto. Follow her on substack here.
Made in Hong Kong, dir. Fruit Chan, 1997
A never-coming-of-age tale that blends social realism with poetics and style to tell a love story about Hong Kong’s bastard youth. Our hero, delinquent triad debt collector Moon, falls for Ping, a terminally ill debtor, and his only friend, mentally disabled Sylvester. The three are a doomed trio in the overcrowded public housing high-rises they inhabit. Violence happens in cramped spaces and narrow corridors. It always strikes me how the only peaceful open space the three really explore is the cemetery, hopping around from headstone to headstone, acting like the kids they are.
Nea Ching is a writer, programmer, filmmaker, and leatherdyke artist. She is based out of San Francisco and NYC.
Variety, dir. Bette Gordon, 1983
It’s maybe a bit corny to say this, but movies made in New York played a large role in me wanting to move here—especially the sense of possibility they often present. Gordon’s feature debut is one of the best films like this, right down to its typically brief cameo from the great Cookie Mueller, here playing “Woman in Bar.” Made at a time when many feminists held hardline antiporn beliefs, Variety stands out for the way it depicts the squalor of NYC’s porn scene not necessarily as a space of degradation and exploitation, but as one of self-discovery and excitement. I’m forever fascinated by films centered around porno theaters—I’d also recommend Jack Deveau’s NYC-set gay hangout film A Night at The Adonis (1978), which plays like a hardcore version of Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)—because there’s something about them that seems so alien now, especially in this age of endless debates over sex scenes on Twitter. While watching Variety may be the closest most people my age ever get to seeing a dirty movie in a theater, the charge and thrill is still there.
Elizabeth Purchell is a Brooklyn-based queer film historian, programmer, and creator of the found footage film Ask Any Buddy. She currently hosts and programs series at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn, Austin Film Society, and IFC Center.
