The Art That Sticks With You

When you just can't shake something, even if you're not sure if you liked it.

Author

Jesse Raub
January 22, 2024

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Who Cares If You Liked It

There’s always something interesting to sort through when trying to dissect art: how much does liking something matter? There are plenty of examples of movies I liked watching (The Expendables 1-3, for example) that I wouldn’t necessarily consider “good” or “thought-provoking,” and there are a handful of things I can’t stop thinking about after seeing them or reading them whether or not they sparked a certain level of enjoyment inside of me.

I really liked Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave, but more than whether I liked it or not, I can’t stop thinking about that movie. While it’s somewhat of a detective story, it’s also an in-depth examination of desire from multiple perspectives, and Park Chan-wook’s unique choices create more questions than they do answers. Nothing is explicitly explained, leaving the viewer to try and piece together the story by assessing what the character’s motivations are.

But more than anything, it was last year’s The Boy And The Heron that really messed me up. For a Miyazaki animated feature, it’s a bit obtuse and labyrinthian in its story and setting. While his movies usually have a standard set of rules by which the world they exist in operate, The Boy And The Heron almost takes the approach of a tone poem, pushing viewers to pay attention to the heart of the story and care less about specific analogs, such as “what do the parakeets represent?”

Overall I wasn’t too sure how I felt about The Boy And The Heron. I didn’t leave the theater thinking “Wow, I want to see that again immediately!” the way I normally do with Studio Ghibli tentpoles. But I also felt like I didn’t quite “get” the movie until a few weeks later when I began rolling the ideas around in my head more and more.

Good criticism is vital to unpacking art, but so is time. Most art needs logistical processing as well as emotional processing, and the best art sometimes leaves the two split until you consciously tie them both together. I didn’t particularly enjoy watching Killers Of The Flower Moon, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think it was a staggering work. It made me feel a lot of conflicting and upsetting emotions, and I’m not sure I could have gathered my thoughts about it immediately after the credits rolled.

It’s another reason why I think the Barbie movie was a smashing success. Whether it delivered a political message that you agreed with or not, it forced people to think about gender roles in America, how they’re portrayed, and how they’re talked about. Sometimes the best movies don’t quite match your own personal belief system, but I believe that’s even better than only consuming art that reinforces your own viewpoint. How do you truly know what you believe until you’ve been confronted with a well-argued alternative?

In any case, I’m still thinking about The Boy And The Heron, a movie about creation and legacy. I’m not quite sure how to view my own life and my life’s work just yet (this newsletter being a key part of that), and I’ll likely have a good number of years before I truly have to. Watching someone else process those emotions through a gorgeous animated movie, however, has at least given me a focal point at which I can attach my own feelings.

And that, my friends, is good art.

Read

I always had a one-way rivalry with Pitchfork as a Chicago-based wannabe music writer whom they never assigned anything, but it’s still sad to see the site’s growth leading to cannibalization. On December 22nd, I quit my job at Serious Eats because it was clear to me that as a person with a disability, media jobs were just too volatile for me to make long-term bets. Losing health insurance means I will not be able to afford my life-saving medication, and I just can’t risk that. In another era I would have been trading bon mots with a healthy and thriving literary class; now I help sell espresso machines for a living and write about movies and music and TV for fun.

Watch

The Traitors is a competition reality show set up similarly to The Mole where some contestants are actively working against the group. Only, in The Traitors, the contestants are reality TV stars. Now, nothing makes me want to drive my car directly into a tree more than watching a Bravo reality show, but watching those characters be placed into a real-world situation where they’re competing for cash is incredible: these people’s brains are truly mush, and The Traitors involves a lot of strategy that no one seems able to apply. Just gorgeous television.

Listen

I’ve completely fallen off finding new rap music to listen to, and I’ve learned to be okay with that. I’m just not that up on any new music these days. Every few months, though, I’m reminded just how good and concise and conceptual Vince Staples’ self-titled album is. It burns through 10 songs in just 22 minutes, and it really makes me appreciate re-imagining rap music outside the lens of pursuing a three-minute hook-heavy pop hit. Not that I don’t love those, either, but this album is an extremely vibe-heavy piece worth digging into.

Consume

  • Cheap Wine

Cheap wine doesn’t have to be bad wine. I’ve been a huge sucker for Boutinot’s Uva Non Grata, which usually shows up for around $10-12 a bottle here in Madison. It’s dynamic, fruit-forward, medium-bodied, and hands-down drinkable. Its screw-top means you can pour a glass guilt-free on a Monday knowing that you can kill the bottle over the next few days, and it’s great for cooking, too. Food and drink always present an enjoyment equation balanced against the cost of what you’re consuming, and finding an affordable, delightful bottle of wine juices those numbers in your favor.

Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.