What About Bob?

The traditional meeting once a week between the maladjusted and their doctors, the routine format innocently encouraging freeflowing thoughts and observations.

A set time-limit producing boundaries within which to fluidly optimize potential, the information shared creating a narrative through which diagnoses can be stipulated.

The expansion or contraction of the framework occasionally necessary confidentially speaking, as dull humdrum repetitive stasis ridiculously shifts into ludicrous gear.

The quaint determination of coordinates bringing psychiatrist and patient together outside the office, likely universally frowned upon as far as professional relationships go, the possibility of misguided friction leading to awkward unorthodox quandaries, inherently structured by comic accident but at times reaching obsessed despondency.

The giving of advice so often unrewarded and intermittently resented by the genuinely insane, who can't accept a humble position within any sociocultural contract.

Tender affection can also characterize habitual desires to play or fraternize, degrees of comfort misread misinterpreted as unexpected meetings flow.

While the offering of modest counsel hopes to clarify points of confusion, the continuous embrace of unsolicited comment forged through madness can churn and fluster.

What seems irritating to you in consistent surprising recurrent conversation, may seem much less irksome to others who only entertain it in modest intervals.

As you point out your irritation and they swiftly counter with disbelief, the vexation itself can exemplify the obnoxious development of a syndrome.

If typically ensconced meaningfully within a reasonable scientific realm, burgeoning unacademic study may stifle clear-headed lucid imagination. 

Generally confined to the family unit it seems rather harmless as expressed by children, but continual confrontation with compulsive lunacy can sincerely obfuscate acute illustrations.

Steadfast reason having maladroitly transformed into random illogical glib orchestrations, dependable equilibrium wildly shuts down and leaves incoherent tense bewilderment.

Thank god for the onset of summer gleefully shouts parents everywhere.

Who have hopefully found enough time.

To regroup, decompress, and sterilize. 

Eraserhead

The generation of ideas overwhelmingly uplifting intent transcendental forces, motivation and effort and impact and relevance reflexively augmenting acrobatic flourishes. 

The barren landscape requiring fuel to effectively germinate healthy crops, thoughtful endeavours in bewitching fecundity profusely cascading integral lounging.

The gradual development at times uneasy the formal onslaught of ceaseless ambition, tirelessly adjusting and diffusely remodelling creative cognizance and bold revelation. 

As the seeds tumultuously take root the world at large commodiously ossifies, the general estimable uptight imposition of regulation and duty opaquely cataloguing.

A family prospers and grows communally depicting dynamic tethers, the enviable tradition wholesomely cajoling duplication and collegiality. 

Yet the unbroken ancient line between holistic custom and random alternative, offbeatly vibrates with tenacious recognition as distressing realities duel and challenge.

Thus the emergence of odd surreal fantastic escapes from the awkward humdrum.

Not necessarily cloaked in tedium.

As daring varieties innately juxtapose. 

The industrious dreamlike imagination inherently bewildered by verdant nutrients, yet still reacting to latent stimuli with in/direct in/coherent lucidity.

It's difficult to narrativize the random thoughts which peculiarly inspire dreams throughout the day, the continuous orchestration of improvised insights sub/consciously manifesting elegant distractions. 

What to do with the cerebral material as it suddenly appears within your mind, especially if there are other tasks at hand austerely demanding your strict attention?

The inexhaustible uncontainable ethereal ameliorations of the human spirit, can't be suffocated by even the most dire and dismal environments as Eraserhead suggests.

The spirit of creation still attempts to alter the blandest of circumstances even if untrained, like a natural intuitive humanistic instinct habitually disseminating art and culture. 

What to do with it remains up to you David Lynch went on to direct brilliant films and television.

Never losing the fascination first displayed in Eraserhead.

Which he spent 5 years making and took a paper route to complete.

Four Christmases

Vacation plans imperceptibly tantalizing quickly approaching festive holiday breaks, time to spend relaxed and stretched out elaborately elongated upright tenements. 

Traditional visits to old school loved ones siblings and family and nieces and nephews, incrementally harmonizing habitual happenstance gregarious growth uproarious sentiments.

But some imaginative couples creatively manifest alternative arrangements, to sneakily avoid the routine remonstrance and inconsolable awkward confabulations.

To Fiji they furtively plan to gallopingly go sans limitations, to lazily bask in freeflowing sustainable enriching waters immersive acclamations. 

Yet when they reach the airport on Christmas Day in fact no less, ominous fog discourteously blankets the surrounding skies with opaque languor. 

To further frustrate their Scroogey mendacity a local news station suddenly broadcasts them live, their relatives witnessing the distressing surprising grouchy exchanges on their televisions. 

Soon it's off therefore to reminisce with emboldened blood and the next generation.

Neither member of the couple prepared. 

For what they're soon to learn about one another. 

Immaculate bliss once exceptionally adorning their perpetual ensconcement in each other's arms, far away from the orthodox torments unsettlingly facilitating unrestrained fury.

They are quite different people leading quite different lives from different points of view, but does that hardboiled multivariable eclectivity not also inspire romantic love!?

The film did seem dialectically dis/oriented to either champion or lampoon family, synthesizing the divergent concepts throughout with varying degrees of symphonic success. 

Was the spirit of Christmas beatifically bound to bring them wholesomely together, to optimistically unite, to generously generate raw animate excursions fluidly fuelled with maladroit mallow?

Offbeat ridicule flamboyant caprice rambunctious sincerity disconsolate diatribes, randomly revolving with road weary rubber gallantly peppered through a hard day's night.

Unpredictable fanciful variety.

At home for the frosty holidays.

Eggnog and shortbread and willow.

Endless timeless specials!

Holiday Camp

I'm not sure if families still engage in collective activities such as these, but in Ken Annakin's Holiday Camp, dozens of peeps gather to vacation.

They head to what is/was known as a resort where they share their accommodations, while friendly festive ceremonious synergies earnestly envelope emergent mischief.

The resort in Holiday Camp coordinates activities for its visitors, and every day new engaging experiences tempt the diverse and curious clientele. 

The Huggetts aren't immune to the celebratory serendipitous surfeits, and take the time to bask instinctually within the hyper-reactive cavalcade. 

Young adults frisk through fancy, felicitously reckon and rambunctiously fathom, attuned to the old school patriarchal discipline at one time widespread with stern imposition.

But good times could still be had within the rather more severe limitations, and romance was indeed approved of in order to propagate the next generation.

Eventually, however, not perhaps quite so intently, people at this time still awaiting what's often referred to as "marriage" before diversifying the species. 

Alternative amorous shenanigans were still amicably encouraged through habitual experimentation.

The vast majority of guests indeed quite inquisitive.

Dancing, dining adored.

There's no doubt there was once a time when the rule of men was culturally assured, and their inclinations and intuitive tendencies effectively governed beyond key or code.

Should individuals engage in scandal they were still reprimanded, respective relational responsibilities still promoted and practically conditioned.

How strange would it indubitably be to suddenly be transported to the postmodern age, and negotiate a less one-sided sociocultural continuum wherein which multifaceted peculiarities complement?

And the traditional duel or the steadfast altercation no longer held ubiquitous sway?

Would it be easier for someone from the present to transport back to the ecstatic post-war Huggett era (if not invisible), or for someone from back then to randomly materialize within contemporary Manhattan?

The answer perhaps can be found in Star Trek: The Originals Series's Mirror, Mirror.

The Huggetts still put on a good show.

Startling semantics.

Transitional tides. 

The Lost Daughter

It's strange how much time I used to spend going to the cinema. In fact it's not strange at all, it was perfectly normal, everything about pandemic existence being strange, but it's been going on for so long that it's starting to feel normal.

That's depressing. And even with the vaccines, there's no end in sight.

Ah well, no use in dwelling, that's counterproductive, and at least we have vaccines and boosters available in Canada and Québec, and the risk of hospitalization is greatly decreased if you get them, I recommend getting the vaccine, getting it soon, I suppose it goes without saying but vaccines help prevent you from getting sick, especially if you get the virus, which is still spreading rapidly, and isn't showing any signs of letting up.

But I used to spend around 8 hours a week carefully or carelessly choosing films in cinemas and travelling back and forth to see them, sometimes while stopping for lunch, it was a great way to pass the time.

Now I've got all the time in the world just to choose two films a week and watch them on my computer or television, and it still seems like I have to find the time, how did I ever come up with all the extra hours?

It's certainly much less engaging watching films at home although there's an endless supply available, still, films are meant to be seen in theatres, and it's kind of lame always watching them on a smaller screen.

No end to the variety, however, and I'm super happy there's a Criterion channel, Criterions used to be really expensive films that you had to buy, if you really wanted to see one and couldn't find it at the library. 

I'm not sure if Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter has resonant artistic flair, but it certainly leaves an impression, and is like nothing else I've ever seen.

It's about an unappealing dull grouch who decides to go on vacation, during the off-season in a resort town, as locals celebrate liberation (Olivia Colman/Jessie Buckley as Leda).

Her ornery disposition and assertive dismissals ensure she doesn't make any friends, she's also generally annoyed when people talk to her, no matter how harmless or well-meaning.

She's plagued by haunting remembrances of the daughters she left behind to pursue her career, the surrounding carefree families at play only serving to vex her further.

She proceeds to steal one of their dolls and even buys it a new fancy outfit, and refuses to return it or just leave it on the beach even after a campaign is launched for days to find it.

The Lost Daughter's total lack of utility and uncanny investigation of gloomy self-obsession, lugubriously generates pathological charm through disorienting morose unabashed stern vision.

It's like a campy intellectual film that leaves you free to discern and judge, is it critiquing cantankerous agency or oddly celebrating unattached dysfunction?

Does she feel bad about not feeling bad about never having tried to cultivate feelings?

I think there's Criterion potential.

Resort towns are fun in the offseason. 

Summertime

An American tourist, curious and friendly, finds herself effortlessly immersed in Venice, wondrous monuments and sights to see resplendently resounding with ancient mystery (Katharine Hepburn as Jane Hudson). 

She's been saving for quite some time and her heartfelt sacrifice is finally paying off, the food and fireworks firmaments and fortunes felicitously fascinating with feisty fervour.

An enterprising urchin assists her endeavours as she graciously plays the tourist, his incisive knowledge of the local landscape providing entertainment and commercial escapades (Gaetano Autiero as Mauro).

She enters a shop within which a goblet illustriously guides her acquisitive proclivities, the shopkeeper, having noticed her once before, rather enthused by the striking coincidence (Rossano Brazzi as Renato de Rossi). 

Touristic and tantamount dialectic trajectories then tantalize tactician testaments, with sprightly spontaneous quizzical synergies, a night out on the welcoming town.

They hit it off seductively so soulful stature and synchronous surety, things warmly progressing to amorous awestruck inspiring mutual bold acculturations.

But she's only in town for a limited time and her hour of departure is swiftly approaching.

Could something enduring daringly bewilder?

Romantic poise, cavalier composure?

David Lean's Summertime celebrates love and innocent endearing enchantments, letting go to dynamically dream and embrace relaxed excursions. 

Spellbound sentience impressionable guides not much conflict like a favourite pillow, for once risk is resonantly rewarded beyond grief stricken dispatching doubt.

Venice is picturesquely presented an evocative blend of the old and new, at times it's like you're really there with an animate interest in its unique revelations. 

Not that you're trying to see everything you're rather led by convivial impulse, more of a feeling than a prescribed agenda which calmly takes in everything it sees.

As to how to proceed in similar situations I'm afraid I have no advice. I prefer the European style. Ms. Hudson has no regrets.

Jack Hildyard's cinematography breathtakingly captures so many sights and sounds, revelling in the aqueous undulating abundance as aerial vistas abound.

Perfect if you want to learn more about Venice and life and living too.

I hope to make it there one day.

Would be nice to see so much of Europe. 

Holiday in the Wild

A daring mom (Kristin Davis as Kate) is happy to see her only son (John Owen Lowe as Luke) head off to college, no doubt somewhat sad to see him go, but still abounding with hope, goodwill.

She's planned a second honeymoon in the wilds of feisty Zambia, and hopes her husband will be surprised by the sudden festive calling.

There's just one problem, he's decided to leave her, no debate, no negotiation, he just ends their marriage lickety-split, and leaves her confused and rather frustrated.

So it's off for a jaunt on her own to give herself time to think, why not still take the vacation?, better than moping about it back home.

Shortly thereafter, while sitting back to dine, she meets a stranger who seems like he's up to no good, drinking alone and preparing for a night of gambling, she still answers all his questions truthfully.

And the next morning she swiftly discovers that he's her aeronautic guide, as she sets out in search of wildlife focused ready for wild adventure.

Unfortunately, a tragic sight is soon to dampen her lively spirits, as a baby elephant is found, his mother having been shot by poachers.

But she trained to be a vet before marriage and family lead her down a different path, and she's soon moved into an elephant sanctuary, to keep track of baby elie.

Rugged Derek (Rob Lowe) lives there too, in fact he pops up everywhere she goes, the two playfully hitting it off, as she joins the dedicated team.

It's a cheerful lighthearted romance that proceeds at an athletic pace, hectic motion moving things along from bewildered state to state.

It isn't overflowing with detail or reflection or questions or alternatives, but its surface level concentration still lightly generates frisky fervour.

I loved Holiday in the Wild's sincere concern for the plight of elephants, whose numbers have plummeted in recent decades, a consequence of thoughtless poaching.

Elephants are wonderful creatures who add so much distinction to our biodiverse planet, loved by children around the world, and most adults too I'd reckon.

Isn't the world a more wondrous and thrilling place with an abundance of carefree elephants, don't they add so much distinction to a vibrant planet on which they too have freely evolved?

Every animal adds global distinction, it's not a matter of rank and file, but some animal populations bounce back much more quickly if they're hunted from time to time (deer for instance).

Bears, whales, lions, rhinos, tigers, leopards, and elephants (and others), take a long time to reestablish their numbers if they're hunted without concern.

I recommend they be left alone, they offer us so much more if they live, they enrich countless imaginations as they curiously exist.

We've evolved along side them and shouldn't leave them behind simply because we're more advanced.

What does it mean to be more advanced anyways?

If you're so often reckless and cruel?

Downhill

My apologies if Downhill was meant to be taken seriously, if it wasn't a clever attempt to make fun of itself for being so, um, unavailingly unorthodox. That's what it seemed like to me for a time but perhaps it wasn't meta-Will Ferrell (Pete) at all, perhaps it was a serious Will Ferrell film that was meant to be taken literally as a serious comedy? It seems like that at times. If so, I apologize for the misinterpretation. If I hadn't expected it to be purposely self-defeating after the scene where Pete and Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) eat room service together early on, perhaps I would have been less likely to say anything positive, meaning if I did misinterpret the film that misinterpretation has lead to something more productive, not that much more productive, but I'll at least smooth out a silver-lined missed opportunity. It's like directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (two directors can be a bad sign) were trying to make a Will Ferrell film with an indie aesthetic that subtly lampooned Will Ferrell films generally while still making another Will Ferrell film, like they can't decide if this is a film making fun of Will Ferrell films or is in fact another one of his traditional films. For years I've been meaning to suggest that Ferrell should make a film about making a Will Ferrell film but haven't found the right moment. Downhill is something different yet still embodies that same spirit. It's like the directors know it struggles and they're making fun of that struggle (was a second director brought in to save it?) as suggested by the stock mountain images that keep showing up, accompanied by jaunty lighthearted doodles, as if their idea was to make an appealing comedy for mainstream audiences where a family vacations at an adult-oriented ski resort with non-traditional staff (perhaps traditional for the resort in question), but then realized their idea was much more independent and wouldn't catch on, leaving them caught in the crossfire as they sought to blend everything, and couldn't reasonably orient the resulting disharmonies. It becomes clear that Pete is a huge douche for multiple reasons so I started to think, wow, this is what Ferrell's usually like (or used to usually be like) in his films but he often has no responsibilities so it's kind of funny, but with the added responsibilities it seems grotesque, so it's like the film is trying to make older Will Ferrell films seem grotesque as he continues to act the same way even though he has a family, and it accomplishes this goal but then still seems like it's also making his predicament seem tragic, as if it's tragic that he's had to take on responsibilities, and can't continue to randomly drink, fight and fornicate whenever and with whomever the moment unwittingly presents. The key moment comes when Billie is propositioned by her ski instructor before she remembers her marital commitments and they head off on their separate ways. Meanwhile, Pete is getting drunk with a friend that he invited to meet him during their family holiday and revelling in the assumption that women still find him appealing, until he discovers he's been mistaken for another and then tries to punch him in a drunken stupor. If Billie had gone further, not much further but further, Downhill would have asserted itself as a master of just reckonings, and the ways in which it made fun of itself for being a bit lame would have become much more appealing. But she doesn't and Pete returns drunk to his family to have an awkward dinner where everyone's disappointed in him and he has trouble eating his red meat. Soon Billie finds a way to help him reestablish his respectability in his children's eyes (he bailed on them earlier during an avalanche and then engaged in critiqued horse play at a family-themed resort), and their marriage moves forward with Pete still regarded as patriarchal liege. For a moment it seems like Downhill really is sticking it to lifelong juvenile shenanigans, but in the end there's no consequence, even though it's clear there should be. Perhaps it's saying that the fact that there's no consequence is awful, and there should have been a consequence resolutely, but since there often aren't consequences for such behaviour in real life, they decided to mundanely lampoon this reality instead. But why go for the mundane lampoon? Why not have the strong female character assert herself instead? The answer lies in the response she's given after she complains about the avalanche: a man tells her, "it was done perfectly". So it's like Downhill uses the indie aesthetic to suggest there's something more while still giving juvenile shenanigans a free pass. Difficult to watch consequently and lacking the courage to go further, it falls flat in the face of Me Too, and leaves you wondering, why? For what purpose? Ding dong.

Us

Spoiler Alert.

A family attends a local carnival in Summer, and as the father claims a winning prize, his daughter blindly wanders off.

She takes in the sights and sounds with quaint innocent wonder, before finding herself on the beach, approaching a mysterious funhouse.

Undaunted by her lack of adult accompaniment, and curious to see what amusingly jests inside, she boldly enters comma one two three, then delights in both razzle and dazzle.

Yet, ominously awaiting in the house of mirrors, as unaware of its fateful reckoning as its unsuspecting daylit lifeblood, is a startled provocative doppelgänger, who's never known true warmth or joy.

What happens next is concealed as time travels to the present day.

Upon which a family has returned to the same destination, without concern for its treacherous echoes.

Which they have often done, it appears they have often travelled there before, Jordan Peele's Us revelling in auspicious tradition, overflowing with romance embalmed.

People are somewhat happy.

There's cheer, mirth, goodwill, adventure.

They often get along well with one another.

A community, a pact.

A team.

But what if every inhabitant of the Earth, rich or poor, black, white, Asian, First Nations, in fact had a covetous doppelgänger, and they didn't exist in an imperceptible alternative dimension, but lived somewhere deep within the Earth indeed?

And what if the delineations demarcating the ontological zones dematerialized in chaotic rupture, and being became inherently combative, as neither group attempted to understand the other?

Us examines this dilemma through the lens of sedate horror, macroscopically manifested in stark haunting menace, improbability rationalized through dismal absurdity, disquieting comforts, confrontationally invested.

Like Star Trek's Mirror, Mirror if it was somewhat zombie.

More cerebral than it is terrifying, it still harrowingly gestates mayhem.

But without reasons explaining its dire conceit, apart from the mention of abandoned networks of tunnels at the beginning, sparse dialogue, clunky conversation, its narrative is somewhat comic, although the film isn't really that funny.

It's well-crafted nevertheless, and doesn't rely on sensation to tell its tale.

But its apocalyptic ambient cunning falls short of Get Out's daring shocks, a gripping tale in the moment no less, but not something I can't wait to see again.

A Room with A View

Sometimes it's important to make decisions when you lack knowledge and comprehension.

Contemplating exponential hypotheticals may only serve to sterilize raw emotions unpredictably cascading themselves as the unexpected taxonomically qualifies spontaneity.

Trying to make sense of them may result in an otherwise splendid evening stifled, presumption and preconception phantasmagorically belittling the experimental as if romance (or science) were something to be categorically disillusioned, prior to making first contact without ever having trusted irresponsibly.

Vacations during which you encounter individuals possessing alternative viewpoints semantically nurtured beyond localized frontiers can have rapturous effects, as they do in James Ivory's A Room with a View, as studious Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) meets daring George Emerson (Julian Sands) and potentialities previously merely conceptualized suddenly invoke unconsidered epistemic senses.

Practically so.

Even if less emotional interactions are to be found in relationships forthcoming, the memories of those fleeting moments may effervescently characterize the dependably conjugal with adventurous imaginatively epic allegories, narratively liaised in intricate domestic reverie.

Unless the thrilling distraction should appear back home at a point in time before you find yourself wed.

At which point the exotic and the classified bewilderingly synthesize in quizzical exclamatory periodic pulsation, hyperbole nor mischief nor heartache notwithstanding.

An awkwardly crafted deeply moving carefree sober exoneration of wills un/tamed, A Room with a View celebrates the impulsive and the accidental while showcasing traditional lives lived.

Blunt forms of journalistic expression masterfully serenade literary proprieties in conjunction, the amorphous blend innocently concocted consequently thoroughly mystifying the cherished theoretically adversarial methodologies apropos.

Dinner for two.

Tarte aux bleuets à la mode.

An all-star ensemble that wasn't commercially assembled to heart-throbbingly cash-in.

Acting, characters, in/discretion.

Flavour.

Is there an underlying self-deprecating cheeky layer of innocent extravagance lampooned, or was such an aspect ironically mixed-in to mockingly impress the interminably austere?

Something given to suppose.

Indubitably speaking.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

A getaway.

A surprise.

A much less terrifying Drac (Adam Sandler) heads out for some rest and relaxation, a well-earned break from managing his infamous hotel.

His friends and family enthusiastically accompany him, adding communal comedic style to his travels similar to that found in A Muppet Family Christmas (1987).

It's not Christmas, not even Halloween, yet the cruise they find themselves upon does come equipped with stunning Summertime festivities, attractions, designed specifically for monsters, who are unaware it's a vengeful trap.

The Van Helsings (Jim Gaffigan as Van Helsing and Kathryn Hahn as Ericka) have sought to finish Dracula off for generations.

Without success.

But now their family has come up with their most diabolical scheme ever, and have successfully lured everyone into their exhaustive clutches.

An aspect that has never been considered may foil their antiseptic ambitions, however.

Known to both human and monster kind.

As unabashed true love.

Or zinging, as it's referred to in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, and it does perhaps generate the odd blush or two, as aged Drac comes to terms with his emotions.

Nevertheless, daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez [not Winona Ryder?]) stays focused, and detects peculiar behaviour as she monitors the actions of dad's commanding love interest.

With the help of her chill surfs-up! beatbox husband Johnny (Adam Samberg), they may just be able to dispel the leviathan.

It's a cruise after all.

Replete with Bermudan triangulations.

Some funny moments, some serious camaraderie, death-defyingly wicked yet convivially chummy and endearing, Hotel Transylvania 3 innocently blends mirth with the macabre to highlight collective curses, synthesizing Capulets and Montagues demonstrously, while adding myriad spicy flavours askew.

An odd narrative technique that didn't really work with me, it consistently focuses intently on one character at the end of a sequence and then pauses for dramatic effect.

I imagine I'm outside the targeted audience's age range, but I found the technique to be more sluggish than profound.

The kids in the theatre were laughing though, and seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves as the credits rolled.

I did rather enjoy the ways in which so many characters were diminutively featured throughout nonetheless, especially Blobby (Genndy Tartakovsky), and lovestruck Drac in denial.

Plus the DJed dénouement.

Gremlin air.

The underwater volcano.

And the inherent ridiculousness of it all.

Nice.

Lost in Laos

Alessandro Zunino's sly transformational obscurely poised Lost in Laos potentially situates a metamockumentary between two worlds, wherein survival is latticed with familial, relational, and biological vertebrae, adrift in the Laotian jungle, anxiously struggling at home.

On the bilateral, feisty student Daniela (Daniela Camera) sets out with her partner Paolo (Daniele Pitari) to intermingle inebriated and impressionistic filmic observations as part of a wild abandoned ad hoc international trance known as Lost in Laos.

She keeps in contact with her traditional parents until too many substances are consumed at once and she wakes up with Paolo miles from town, down the river, passports and related pieces of identification missing, no food, soaking wet, lost.

The credits set up the film's serious yet sardonic transitional identifications by creatively yet dazzlingly introducing each letter of the crew's names before the name appears in full, at that point in time each character possessing a stable conception of self developed over time, after which the full name breaks apart into its individual components, thereby foreshadowing the upcoming psychological turmoil by the letter.

The creative yet dazzling dynamic sets up the surreal metamockumentary exposition as well, Lost in Laos intellectually diversifying its subject matter while picturesquely percolating a piquant self-awareness, whose bright abnegations voyeuristically mystify.

The boundary between truth and fiction forms part of Daniela's thesis and this dialectical deployment caused me to wonder if the film was really about either an aging professional couple imagining what life would have been like if they had taken more risks, or a young adventurous couple theorizing on the benefits of a bourgeois life spent together.

At which point I had to take mockumentary itself into consideration, wondering if Zunino was eruditely lampooning this style of analysis to simply present a troublemaking voyage of discovery.

Difficult to say.