My partner and I watched Mother of George on Criterion last night, by Nigerian director Andrew Dosunmu. Set in New York, the movie follows a married immigrant couple who are trying to conceive a child, and the lengths and pressures they go through. She had been trying to get me to watch it for a while now and I was resistant cause it seemed like it would be a bummer. And it was, lol, but also it was so resonant! The cinematography (by Bradford Young) is stunning, it is just a gorgeous film that understands how to create dynamic imagery using relatively simple staging. More than once there is a scene that is a dialogue between two characters, but instead of a traditional two shot the camera stays on the face of Adenike (Danai Gurira) so we just see her emotion as she navigates the circumstances escalating around her. It is gripping and lived in and by the end it turns into a horror film. Over on Mastodon I posted this in relation to my hesitance to watch it initially:
I think "turn off your brain" is one of the great lies of our time when it comes to how we engage with art in the age of media overload. Your brain is gonna be on anyway, it's a mind not a stove! Give it something to wrap around properly!