I'm so guilty of a lot of these. I actually made a list of movies I'm gonna buy at the Barnes and Noble Criterion Collection sale at the end of this month. Steps 6, 7 and 9 are the best 😂
Join a movie club where other people have the same interests. I used to go to a cinema cafe which became like a club to the regulars who met there. The city where I once lived had various cinema cafes run by owners with a passion for movies. You mention French movies, like Godard,Truffaut etc. Some are good, but generally they are not everyone's cup of tea (Les Uns et Les Autres - otherwise known as BoleroI, is one of my favorite French movies, as well as Le Grand Homme avec une Chaussure Noir). Personally feel that Japanese movies have a lot to offer (The Hidden Fortress, Good Morning, Labyrinth Of Dreams, Shoplifting, Survive Style 5+, Azumi, Lady Snowblood, Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion, for example). Various Japanese movies have been remade by America (Seven Samurai for example) and China (The Lost Gun for example). Also the Korean (South Korean that is) movies are very good (Shiri, Parasite, Mother, Three, for example) as well as some Chinese movies (The Road Home, Not One Less, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, or The Eye 2 - The Eye 2 is a Hong Kong movie). Being able to share an interest with someone is a very good feeling. I really miss those cinema cafes, there were quite a few of them in the city where I lived, they showed movies from different countries. Unfortunately I now live in a place where there are no cinema cafes and no cinema clubs. I really miss the cafes, and I miss the circle of people, the club, each time we hung out together. I really have to move out and find another more interesting place.
As a Scandi film-major I would add: Watch persona one... twice... watch it again... watch it some more. Apply lacanian psychoanalysis. Feel lost yet? Apply apparatus theory. Your eyes might hurt. Now : explain how it represents reality. (Or does it?) - NOW try and make a joke and just enjoy the echo of complete silence when people give you that strange look, trying to judge your mental health. Look at their faces. Their faces that look at you. Are you real? IS THIS BERGMAN? (...it is good to have a pet at home to bring you back, there are no pets in persona... I think... maybe I should go and watch it to find out wait nooooooooo)
