Crème de Sens

Category: INSPIRATION

  • strange darling: a movie you feel through music

    strange darling: a movie you feel through music

    // love hurts, love scars…(c)

    Two minutes…That’s how long it took after pressing play for me to start googling the soundtrack. I still don’t really get why I kept putting this movie off. The music is insanely good. And the movie itself too. If you haven’t seen it yet, honestly, just trust me, it’s worth it. And the less you know before you start, the better it works. Seriously. Don’t watch the trailer, don’t google the plot, the cast, or the reviews. Just turn it on and let it pull you in — the tension, the visuals, the sound. It’s not really about what happens. It’s about how it feels. This isn’t a movie you watch and think, “yeah, that was nice.” It’s more about the tension. You’re done watching, but it doesn’t let go right away, stays in your head long after the movie ends.

    A lot of that comes from the music by Z Berg. It isn’t just background sound, it’s woven into the story itself. Quiet, acoustic ballads that sound like they could’ve been recorded in the ’70s on old tape, but without that dusty, overdone retro feeling. Somehow they still sound clean and current. Vintage, but sharper than nostalgic. Everything feels very deliberate, very precise.

    I really wish I could watch this again in a movie theater on a big screen, with that full, immersive sound you can feel vibrating through your body.

    // What it awakens:

    ∙ nostalgia
    ∙ a subtle, hard-to-explain anxiety
    ∙ the urge to rewatch it
    ∙ wanting to play the music out loud, not in headphones
    ∙ the need to drive somewhere at night, for no real reason

  • Strange Darling: Terribly Beautiful. Humidly Unsettling

    Strange Darling: Terribly Beautiful. Humidly Unsettling

    // not all who run are victims

    This movie had been sitting on my watchlist for a long time, and for some reason I kept postponing it, saving it for one of those moments when there’s absolutely nothing left to watch. And then, not long ago, I stumbled upon it during a flight and thought, fine, I’ll finally give it a go.

    And you know how there are movies that don’t just “entertain” you, but get under your skin and stay there, like a splinter you can’t ignore? Strange Darling is exactly that kind of movie.

    It was shot on real 35mm film, and you can feel it immediately. The image is gorgeous—warm, slightly vintage, like watching an old VHS tape from the ’90s. Muted colors, visible film grain, none of that clean digital sterility. Everything is intentionally old-fashioned, and it works incredibly well.

    What really hooked me is that the movie doesn’t move in a straight line. The storytelling is nonlinear—scenes are shuffled, like fragments of flashbacks. And it’s not done for style points. It genuinely heightens the tension. I kept revising my own judgment of what was happening. Who’s the victim? Who’s more dangerous? Or maybe nothing is what it seems? It feels like a Tarantino-style thriller, but without his trademark chaos. Here, everything is tense—almost stretched tight, like a wire about to snap. They take the classic “maniac and girl” setup and slowly, carefully turn it inside out.

    The music is almost a character of its own. Very atmospheric, old-school in spirit, but not cliché. The tracks are woven into the story rather than just playing in the background. The actors deserve a separate mention. The chemistry between them is palpable. And Kyle Gallner’s porn-stache alone could stop your heart—he’s dangerously bad-boy charming. After this movie, I immediately wanted to watch everything he’s ever been in.

    “Love… doesn’t have to be something that develops. The purest, most primal kind can hit you like a wave… in a moment … or over the course of one night.”

    — The Lady, Strange Darling

    I wouldn’t call the movie deep, but it definitely has its own temperature. Somewhere around a scorching car hood after a high-speed chase. The plot, for me, isn’t the main thing here. The feeling is. A mix of adrenaline, mild discomfort, and that lingering thought: damn, that was good.

    // WHAT IT AWAKENS

    ∙the urge to watch every movie with Kyle Gallner
    ∙ a soundtrack you didn’t expect to carry with you all week
    ∙ VHS-shaped nostalgia
    ∙ a quiet whisper in your head: “watch it again”
    ∙ the subtle desire to visit a small American town and just watch someone fix a car outside a motel