Coffee and Cigarettes: Stars and White Stripes forever

Something I noticed in this film, was that the actors all seemed very... soft... in their performances, the way you feel something with the back of your hand, rather than your palm, to disturb it less. Skin, or sand. It was the way real people reach out to each other across a gap, when they are sensitive. Or when they care a great deal about the other. On one hand it seemed almost unprofessional in it's little-rehearsed rhythm. But at the same time I found it off-putting because I didn't feel like I was watching a performance. I mean, these people are sitting across from each other at a little table, drinking and smoking the titular vices (hot). It looks very staged. Yet it doesn't play out staged at all.

The table was the literal point where two opposites connect. The point where two things that are inverse, are one. Each chapter had people who were identical on some dimensions; and the conflict (and thus the scene) was the dimension on which they were unable to see eye to eye. The interplay between, not just the two people, but the agreeing and disagreeing sides of these pairs, is a very fragile thing. Feeling it put me in a trance.

Also, the photography was beautiful. This film felt really good.