Nary a date movie guide caters to us intellectuals, but I’m here to fix that. When Vince asked me to write guide to date movies for Valentine’s Day, I was a quarter of the way through re-watching Godard’s filmography and told him I could not be interrupted. Art does not start and stop with the coincidence of philistine holidays! Art, like love and like this guide, is timeless. Tarkovsky once wrote that “love can only be one-sided.” If thus is such, then such is my love thus truest for cinéma. I remember my first film: Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. Yes, yes. Typical, I know. And yet though albeit despite the fact that I was in no fancy infancy, I evolved into an expert in everything from the French New Wave to the Czech post-New Wave. I hereby bequeath that expertise unto you, so that you may utilize a formidable reverence for the art of cinéma and enjoy the transcendent opportunity to preach the gospel of celluloid to the common moviegoers.
With this invaluable guide, you can impress and educate your date with a night of class, impeccably curated taste, and perhaps a lovemaking session worthy of the silver screen.
Frame your night around this 4-hour version of von Stroheim’s masterpiece. Yes, yes, I hear your uproar. Though most of you will dismiss the abbreviated cut, this shorter screening is a veritable alternative. Your date is not likely to have curated the cinematic appreciation that you have, so understand that the 4-hour version—though abhorrently short to any true cinephile—will atone for their ignorance more than it will frustrate your refined sensibilities. Of course, a screening of the 8-hour film would not be necessary, since just the ownership of the coveted reels should be enough to seduce any sound-minded woman (or man).
Suggested food pairing: A full-bodied red wine, properly decanted, with steak tartare, veal, or other palatial meat dish.
The title alone primes you and your date for artful lovemaking, which is quite convenient in the absence of a sensual narrative. Capturing costumed seniors vandalizing Nashville, Korine’s anti-aesthetic masterpiece captures the vitality, the spontaneity, the sublime grotesqueness of intercourse, while mocking the pornographic sensibilities of the post-Kubrickian generation. There’s simply no way your date won’t appreciate the breathtaking symbolism of the old people breaking windows and humping trash. Obvious in any proper screening, but especially so in this case, is the necessity of high-quality projection equipment. If you’re unable to acquire a 35mm print for your personal exhibition, the next highest definition (until Criterion accepts Korine’s magnum opus) is DVD. It is thus essential to view on a small screen in order to preserve the quality of the film’s original VHS grain. Shot on tape and edited in VCRs, Trash Humpers is a beautiful ode to Korine’s own Nabokovian mistakism—seemingly haphazard, foolish, confusing, and lowbrow, but in sooth genius.
Suggested food pairing: None. Chewing diminishes the audio artifacts of the VHS.
Though a departure from his Dogme 95 movement, there is no better romantic fare than Antichrist. The initial child suicide, juxtaposed with the operatic insertion of Dafoe’s sopping sinewy member into Gainsbourg’s hauntingly noir vulva, is far from the poshlust rom-com material to which your date is probably accustomed, proving that any true bonding experience takes more than light humor and shapely bosoms.
It takes a guided tour of the clit-shearing, ball-stomping, blood-cumming realities of human intimacy. Take her on this tour. Let a date watch Antichrist and you’ll be making love before you even get to the auto-cannibalizing forest animals. Romance reigns.
Suggested food paring: Venison.
If Antichrist is too on-point for you and your date, try the relaxing and meditative Uncle Boonmee. Winner of the 2010 Palme d’Or, the Thai film will lull you and your mate into a state of reflective pseudo-immortality. The stiff acting, contemplative pacing (Weerasethakul captures that certain euphoria inherent in forty-five minutes of inactivity and babbling brooks), and languorous anti-narrative conjures an unstoppable sexual tension between audience members. To capitalize on the potentially uncomfortable Catfish Cunnilingus scene, perhaps call attention to the fish’s enthusiasm, compare the whiskers to your impressive beard, or recite a recipe. Mention that the fish’s prowess is nothing compared to your own past sexual conquests and diverse experience. If your date isn’t aroused, she has bad taste.
Suggested meal pairing: Catfish
Hypnotize your date with Warhol’s eighty minute drone-masterpiece. Filmed at the Factory, the finale comes with the interruption of the NYPD, proving that art is dangerous and sexy. Mention that, like Herzog, Warhol was not concerned with film permits and the livelihood of others. Cinéma waits for no one. Unlike Warhol’s trite Sleep, this seemingly aimless jam session both captures the undoubtable influence of the Velvet Underground and eschews conventional criticisms of Warhol’s hack pop pastiche. The camera darts, dives, swings, and blurs like a drunk caught between a dream and a rage.
Suggested food pairing: Aspirin.
More of a tone poem than a film, this documentary follows Venezuelan workers through their brutal and eventually hopeless process of extracting salt from a nearby sea. The film ends with the construction of an industry salt plant in the workers’ town. Be sure to tell your date before starting the film. If anyone gets upset about spoilers, explain that a true cinephile mustn’t be distracted by narrative ploys, and that most people cannot view the film several times due to the catastrophic dearth of quality film distribution. Cinéma is the ultimate artform, and any good date should celebrate the medium with worthy examples that hopefully lead to exemplary intercourse. Araya presents an inimitable sense of poetic agony and inevitability, evoking life’s exquisite hopelessness, the glorious discomfort of truth, and the promise of sex with you.
Suggested food pairing: Kale chips.
And there you have it, my droogies. Don’t forget to comb your hair and change your shirt before your date arrives.