A Sun

I was watching a YouTube video essay on the death of the cinema from the diametrically opposite but very nuanced views of Susan Sontag and Martin Scorsese (its death they predicted, nonetheless) when this 2019 Taiwanese movie was mentioned. As it’s a Saturday and I did not want to do anything that had to do with work and be confronted by the dullness of a weekend morning, I searched for the film on Netflix and found this gem. Cinema, argue both Sontag and Scorsese, is a dying art form—the cause of death varies, though; I am uncertain, however, whether to be grateful or not having seen this film on the supposed waning days of cinema. It is not that they do not anymore make beautiful and moving films like this, it’s the fact that we’re flooded with options and recommendations of some indifferent (but very personal) platform algorithm that stories and voices like this movie’s remain unheard until they’re actively unearthed or “discovered.”