THE WATCH LIST WITH CELINE SONG
“I think there's so much in it that I think I feel connected to”
With Celine Song’s heart-wrenching debut Past Lives out now, we sat down with the director to chat about inspirations, AI and her love of Tom Cruise.
1. CHILDREN OF MEN (2006)
“I love the way that the ideology and the political storytelling happens in such an organic way, and I’m just so immersed in that story - it is just so powerful and I think it really speaks to the world that we live in now.”
2. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
“I think that this really does reveal my background as somebody who was in theater because I think it’s a really theatrical film, and I think there's so much in it that I think I feel connected to, especially being somebody who lives in New York City.”
3. DOGTOOTH (2009)
“I think that Yorgos [Lanthimos] is an amazing artist who knows how to depict fascism, and I think that that movie is about what it's like to sort of live in a fascist state, but in a kind of smaller way which then makes it feel so massive.”
4. COMPUTER CHESS (2013)
“I really love the way that this movie's made […] it was sort of talking about those early moments of AI, where there’s so much in it that also feels so dangerous and very hard to manage about AI, that is built into this movie that is kind of made like it’s a home video.”
5. EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014)
“There is a kind of amazing character development that happens through Tom Cruise, who I love, and I think that he goes through something […] that only he can go through, given the the sci-fi and fantasy element of the film, that it really makes that character's psychological life and this psychological journey feel so grounded, even though, of course, it's an alien movie.”
Quotes taken from our original video The Watch List with Celine, which you can check out here.
Started as a way to end our scrolling during the first COVID-19 lockdown, The Watch List is a series of film recommendations handpicked for you by those in the know - actors, directors, filmmakers and writers whose work has been inspired by the films that came before them.