Despite going into university with the full intention of getting a degree in journalism, I ended up concentrating on film studies and getting minors in both creative writing and sociology. A year of learning to report and being held to strict structural rules about how I could write left me feeling creatively stifled and running for the hills, straight towards the things I’d realised I actually wanted to do. I spent the rest of my time in university writing scripts, stories, and personal essays, plus making films and learning to critique all of those varying mediums in modern contexts. Lots of people think the humanities are useless, but they’re essential to cultural literacy and healthy discourse. That’s why I value the job I have now.
Doing that, though, means that I have to keep up with the cultural climate. This was easy enough as a student – I could watch classic films during class time, study directors like Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier, read touchstone texts and books, and discuss contemporary films and novels with my classmates and teachers. In fact, that’s what you’resupposedto do as a student. Learning means engaging, and as much as possible.
The first time I ever watched Breaking The Waves was in a classroom setting. Let’s just say there were some very queasy expressions when it was over.
Trying to do that as an adult sucks, because your life can no longer revolve purely around the pursuit of knowledge. I worked part-time when I was in university, but that’s obviously very different from having a full-time job. Back then, I still had time to drop into cinemas and watch whatever was showing then.
Now my primary priority is making money so I can survive. Consuming media has fallen somewhat to the wayside, which I feel terrible about considering it’s not just an important part of my job, but an important part of my identity. I want to be able to keep up with cultural discourse, not because I want to make my voice heard, but because I’m a discourse goblin. I love reading what other people have to say and deciding if I agree or not. I love reading other people’s perspectives.
My Letterboxd Wrapped has made my failure to keep up extraordinarily clear to me, and it’s making me very sad. For one, I didn’t even recognise the name of my most watched actor or director, Taro Suwa and Rob Savage respectively. Googling them made my brain click in recognition, but it means I haven’t really been paying attention to the people in the movies I watch or who makes them, whichsucks. Both of those people also only hadtwofilms each that I’d seen, which shocked me. How is it that I’d only watched two movies last year that featured the same actors, and two by the same director? I’m obviously not diving deep into filmographies of actors and directors like I used to.
Unsurprisingly, I watch the most films on Saturdays and Sundays – my friends usually come over on Saturdays so we can start watching horror movies just before midnight. What did surprise me was that my “most watched theme” was “terrifying, haunted, and supernatural horror”. Scrolling through my diary revealed that I’ve watched basically nothingbuthorror, meaning that I’m not watching things outside of those scheduled movie nights.
Also, only 13 of the movies I watched in 2023 were released that year. This is partly due to the fact that living in Southeast Asia means films reach cinemas later, and many streaming services aren’t here at all, but it’s also because I’m just spending less time in cinemas. I don’t have time to work, go to the gym, see friends, play games,andcommute to theatres on a regular basis to catch whatever’s showing.
That sucks, and I want to say I’ll make a concerted effort to watch more films as they come out, but I know I probably can’t. I’ve bought tickets to catch Poor Things with my friends, but I can’t say I’ll do that for every film that strikes my fancy. As much as I love watching movies, it no longer comes close to the top of my priorities, and that makes me feel like I’ve lost something.
