Over a decade ago I decided to use a free VPN to fool Netflix into thinking I was watching in The Netherlands. I don’t know why I chose that country, perhaps from my obsessive rewatches of Amsterdamned, but it was so serendipitous that I did because during that digital adventure I found Memories of You. And then my Netflix got hacked by the most polite hacker alive.

This Japanese art film meant so much to me that I have remembered the important story beats years later, even though its one of those movies where things just happen, by design, to people we’ve barely been introduced to. Think Bunuel or Fellini, but with that Japanese nantomo ienai miryoku.