mid
"Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment. Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories."
Perhaps I’ve just run out of ideas.
It’s time to confess some important things about myself. At 38, my brain has dampened. The vitality of my youth is gone, replaced by persistent fatigue, body aches, and banal distractions. Often to excess, I’ve consumed THC and alcohol to buckle the despair; keep it at bay. Other times, I cycle for fifty, sixty, seventy miles just to feel exhausted enough to sleep for hours on end. I’ve mourned the loss of many relationships in that time and have emerged, in the year 2026, as someone with a long shadow. I did whatever I could to distract myself from the memory of losing an important woman in my life, and since then, sought to cast a new person in that role. To do so, I lied to myself and to those partners, before eventually realizing - through painstaking trial and error, self-defeat and self-confrontation - that I needed to find myself. A noose around my neck. Scars on my wrists. The ever-persistent image of a train barreling in my direction. My passage into middle-age has seen great tumult. I was grateful to find some footing, actual Earth under the soles of my feet, to traverse this painful period of my life. A wedding, where I got to celebrate with all of my remaining friends felt like a testament to my resilience; that I could actually be loved and cared for unconditionally. But just when I thought the ground was stable, a quake. More change. More pain. I’ve lost and regained community twice over in the span of six years. And now, in the Emerald City, I yearn for the comforts of the Second City. Life takes you to some strange, unincorporated places. Sometimes, when you reach the apex of one hill, you find yourself at the nadir of a new one.
Movies once held a totemic place in my heart. They’re still a refuge, but not like how they used to be. Great films still inspire, as evidenced by my favorite film of the year, Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron, but these days I’ve found myself returning to films of my young adulthood, where I thought I knew all the answers. More often than not, the films end up telling me more about how I used to think, exposing my naïveté, my inexperience, and my hopefulness. I see it everywhere now, a kind of understanding of the machinations of the world after having weathered one too many storms. It’s not just skepticism, but a deep-rooted sense that genuine connection is rare, and to cherish the relationships you have now, lest you be haunted by their absence. Many ghosts linger in my mind.
This all sounds woefully dramatic, in what amounts to little more than a middle-aged man combating intense bouts of homesickness. But this is my place to write and well, reader, it’ll be our secret. In moments where these concerns seem overwhelming, I retreat to the dark room of a theater house, losing myself to the screen. Like with a lot of things in Seattle, I find myself missing even the less savory aspects of the Chicago film scene; the wonky sound system at the Music Box is practically pristine compared to some of the audio systems at the Landmark Crest in Shoreline. I left just as the Chicago International Film Festival began to finely curate its programming, now coming to Seattle’s International Film Festival, I balk at their Sundance-heavy fare of American indie trash. Sometimes you learn to appreciate things in their absence. Or maybe I’m just perpetually dissatisfied. Both things can be true.
These are some films that have stuck with me over the last six months. The ones that unshackle me from the disappointment of the present, unburden me of the guilt of the past, and simply permit me to hope for the future. Sometimes, it’s good to forget, if only for ninety minutes.
Miroirs No. 3
Directed by Christian Petzold
Paula Beer’s work with Christian Petzold has been some of the more rewarding actor-filmmaker collaborations of the last decade, eerily reminiscent of the same excitement I got when seeing Juliette Binoche team with Oliver Assayas. In Miroirs No. 3, the two put together another subdued masterwork. Here we observe Laura (Beer), surviving a horrific car crash that takes her boyfriend’s life. She’s taken in by a local woman, Betty (Barbara Auer) and her family, who nurse her back to health after the accident. It’s an incredible examination of the propulsive need to recover from loss, and how time is a patient gardener, sometimes insisting that people’s unresolved trauma require more tending, more light, before being able to harvest and pave the way for something new. The summer hues suggest a sort of passage, the transitory growth that comes between spring and fall. As we observe how Betty’s family takes in Laura, we see how the relationships here are symbiotic, feeding off one another, without ever actually laying the truth all out on the table. The dark undercurrent exposes a dismal, yet uncompromising reality: sometimes we need people for a specific period of time, before realizing we’re enabling a kind of dependence that is harmful to all involved. The banal platitude that hurt people hurt people rings true here, but the added layer is that, in the end, we just want to be forgiven and understood. The pain we cause is felt both ways.
The Drama
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli
A movie that asks: “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? “and responds back with a smirk. Kristoffer Borgli’s arrival as a prankster prince of sorts has seemed inevitable, with Dream Scenario and Sick of Myself outlining a worldview that has updated Michael Haneke’s boomer nihilism for something that speaks to my millenial, post-cancellation heart. The Drama, taking millenial and Gen-Z stalwarts Charlie and Emma (Robert Pattinson and Zendaya) speaks to a specific moment of moral exceptionalism, wherein the privilege of a fair complexion, social status, and perceived mental health acuity, can make you an arbiter of social acceptability, or its victim. The thought police is represented by your classic heteronormative white woman in Rachel (Alana Haim).
Her actual confession of abuse is barely scrutinized, and instead she points to Emma’s calibrated thought of committing a school shooting years ago as being the more egregious and socially reprehensible (non) act of deviance. The film does what you’d normally expect of a Twitter mob, wherein guilt is assumed and questions are rarely asked beyond the superficial. I adore Borgli for identifying the inherent hypocrisy of this high ground moralism, where the notion of where someone is now does not necessarily mean it’s where they always will be. We rehabilitate so often outside of the public eye that it’s no wonder that there’s a fear to emerge out of the darkness, to connect again with humanity, when so often we are reduced to the worst things we’ve (n)ever done. Whispered about at a dinner table in our absence, I know that I’ve become a cautionary tale in other people’s stories. Often times a painful reminder of my past, what Borgli does in The Drama is inspire a feeling that being hated by losers is the price I pay for not being one them. I kid, mostly. If that sounds like resentment or bitterness, it’s probably because it is. Like anyone, I’ve wanted to be liked and accepted within all circles. But the reality is that I don’t control the narrative about you, me, or anyone else. What matters is not what some woman I slept with over a decade ago thinks of me, but instead, what the person that I married, and traversed the country with, thinks of me in this moment. And better yet, it’s really what I think of myself. And honestly, as despondent as I can be, I’m pretty pleased with how I landed, every wobbly stumble along the way.
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Directed by Matt Johnson
An absurd delight, Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie exists in its own universe, a uniquely moving film about the passage of time told through the lens of two doofuses who never gave up on their youthful buoyancy. The stitched together, guerrilla quality of its filmmaking aside, along with the debts it pays to Back to the Future and well, The Hangover, this often feels like the work two positively obsessive personalities, focused on every minute, painstaking detail for nothing more than The Bit. At its heart, you see Johnson and co-creator Jay McCarrol observe the time that passes between these locked-in moments of obsession, where they traverse through time to find their 2008-selves, changing the course of history and their friendship in the process. Johnson is a particularly gifted craftsman, and someone who values formalism as compulsory to enhancing the vitality of a joke. Like what he does in Blackberry, he’s capable of magnifying a scene through carefully deployed close-ups and precise tracking sequences; the result often times registers not just as funny, but truly melancholic and moving.
It’s the feeling I felt, when looking back at my past 2008 self, and examining how far I’ve come, the different forks in the road that has taken me on my present path. There’s been a lot of pain, a lot of joys, and a lot of people along the way but somehow I wouldn’t want to change a thing about. The lessons along the way have fortified my spirit, and made me a better man, equipped to handle whatever thunderstorms approach. And like Johnson and McCarrol, that youthful spirit creeps out every now and then, for all its good and bad.
Pillion
Directed by Harry Lighton
A film about S&M culture, Pillion reminded me of my cruelty, and how desperate people can become when in search of companionship. I don’t suggest that people who participate in the sub/dom lifestyles are inherently desperate, or that there’s something wrong with their lifestyle choices. But I do believe there are thorough, frank conversations that are compulsory before participating in these types of relationships, and what we observe in Harry Lighton’s film is a relationship where that conversation is absent from the dialogue. Timid Colin (Harry Melling) is a parking attendant that lives with his ailing mother and father. He participates in a barbershop quartet that sings at a bar, where he observes leather-clad motorcyclists from afar. His mother tries to set up him with locales but his interest is in Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), the 6’4” Swede with a muscular frame. He towers over Colin, and doesn’t so much as ask him out, but rather makes demands on next steps. Breadcrumbing, he dominates over Colin, expecting him to make him dinner, eat while standing, and sleep on the floor, at the foot of his bed. Colin happily obliges, citing his “aptitude for devotion”, wherein he worships at the altar of Ray. But the lopsided relationship leaves Colin isolated from his family, in what’s a stark contrast between convention and abuse. Ray ultimately affords Colin his own day, of what a normal queer relationship would look like, and in that moment we observe why such a relationship can’t happen.
What I saw was a man with a past, much like myself, who wanted to fulfill their fantasies. I know this, because I was much like this with Jackie. Whatever I asked of for, she gave. But I never had any intention of pursuing her romantically, in the conventional sense. She was a mistress but also just someone to talk to, someone to quench my deep, isolating loneliness. I’d lash out when I didn’t have my way, in part because I was operating in a fantasy world where my needs superseded that of hers. These one-way relationships, I’ve learned, like between Colin and Ray, do not last. One person’s emotional needs cannot be the guiding principle of any relationship. People become malnourished. And then they run away. For Colin, after Ray abruptly disappears, we see him return to same lifestyle, but with caveats and boundaries. One has to hope that knowing what you don’t want can be just as informative as what you do. I’m someone’s life lesson, and similarly, Jackie was mine. Whatever happens to Ray will remain unknown. Colin has to move forward. We all do.
Blue Heron
Directed by Sophy Romvari
My favorite film of 2026 interrogates the memories of my childhood, my relationship with my parents, and the reality of why I had say goodbye to them.
Blue Heron is an autofiction film about Sophy Romvari’s childhood, moving from Hungary to Vancouver Island in the late 90s. It details, specifically, what happens to the eldest child of the sextet, who’s erratic behavior prompts their family to send him away. The impact of his departure creates an intense search for answers within Romvari’s proxy, who from childhood to adulthood asks questions that ultimately have no answer.
The older I get, the more impossible it seems to be a parent. Even now at 38, I struggle with the idea of becoming a father. My wife is the first person I ever considered having children with, but even then, the overarching sense that the world is on the brink of collapse, from fascism to environmental decay, makes the notion of bringing a child into this world all the more dubious. And I’ve never had a positive model for parenthood in my life, beyond those that I see in the movies.
I received an email from my mother just earlier this week. I had blocked her phone number, my father’s, and any corresponding social media accounts since July 2024. My parents were not at my wedding. The reasoning is complex, but to boil it down: I needed an apology. I didn’t get one. This will be the one and only time I will catalogue this, if only to just get it out there, and out of my system. I suppose this would considered engineered catharsis:
I needed an apology for the silent treatment I endured after calling the police on them. On a winter night, where the sun set at 4pm, my parents left me to attend a party. I was no more than six, possibly seven. My baby brother was in a crib. I waited for them long into the night. It must have been past 10pm. I called the cops because I was scared. A male and female cop arrived, where I was told to pack my pajamas and get ready to leave. My parents eventually showed at the last minute. I begged and pleaded to the cops to leave us alone, that their job was done. They left, not until the female cop told my parents to not spank me. I didn’t expect the immediate coldness from my parents, with my mother pulling me by the ear in anger. I went down to one knee. What followed was months, nearly a year, of being belittled and rarely spoken to. I would massage my mother’s feet every night at her whim. And then one day she said I was forgiven. I remember feeling a great guilt being removed from my shoulders then. I was punished for being a scared child. I often wondered, after this all happened, into my teenage years, what an accepting an open family would have instead. They probably would’ve talked about it.
I needed an apology for the beatings. During that time of silence, I was so depressed as a seven-year old, I wanted to runaway from home. I had a plan. I took 50 dollars from my father’s wallet, and was ready to haul out. But like all plans as a child, reality set in quickly and I ended up returning home later that evening, maybe at 7pm or so. I did not spend their money. It was the late spring hours, where sunlight still crept through the window. Upon returning home, my father beat me with a belt so viciously, I collapsed to the ground instantly and attempted to take refuge in their laundry pile; duffle bags piled on one another. My yells were stifled, and the pain so brutal that my yelps were strained, with each lashing hitting so quickly that I could barely yell out before another one would strike my nerve endings. As the weather warmed up, for weeks I would wear long shirts and sweaters to cover up the bruises that decorated my back and arms. I kept their secret. They never asked me why I wanted to run away from them.
I needed an apology for the sex. This was one that only as an adult did I realize how massively inappropriate and ill-equipped my mother and father were for parenthood. Early, before my brother was born, I would sleep in the same queen bed as my parents. Some nights, my parents would have sex next to me while I slept. I’d wake up and if it weren’t the sounds that stirred me, it was the odor. Most nights I’d just close my eyes tight and wait for it to be over. One time, I shimmied my way out of bed, and just watched TV late at night. Saturday Night Live was on. My father fetched me after they were done, told me to go to bed, as if what was happening was natural. I don’t know if my relationship to sex has been changed because of these moments. But the inherent sense of wrongness associated with it, particularly as an adult now who has had issues with women and sex, just makes this all feel so painstakingly relevant. I don’t really watch SNL anymore.
Other things, like asking for financial and emotional help, the strings-attached compromises involving money, and the refusal to acknowledge any of these past incidences as anything remotely traumatic has made any attempt at a relationship with them impossible. The email Dorothy sent was an ALL CAPS request to communicate, to try to talk. But the post mortem has been completed. I don’t want them in my life. They only offer pain. And every time I think about them, it’s pain that envelops me. It’s a ghost that binds me, and one that I’m glad to have put away, and never think about again.
Blue Heron so often sang like an elegy. To put the past away means to do a thorough investigation of it, and to really get to the cellular level of why you are the way you are. I’ve asked this of myself countless times. Romvari’s movie is its cinematic equivalent. It is indeed Romvari’s story, but through it I see my life experiences, the loss, the moments of joy, the melancholy, and the search for something greater than myself. Life provides many unanswerable questions, twists and turns that often feel unendurable. I’ve tried to throw in the towel, raise the white flag, and surrender more than a few times. But I’ve kept going, through sheer ignorance or perseverance, sometimes I conflate the two. All I know is that the ground under me has shifted. The cells that comprise Daniel Nava have died and reborn again more times than I can count. The only reliable thing in my life is how the uncertainty of where I’m headed.