Cinema and the Subconscious: The Power of Visual Poetry What if a film didn’t just tell you a story bypassed words entirely, speaking directly to your subconscious? What if it left behind images, sounds, and fragments of thought that stirred something deep inside you, long after the credits rolled? Very few cinematic creations achieve this transcendental effect, but when they do, they feel like works of art that shift something within us—like pebbles dropped into the still waters of the mind, rippling outward. For me, this rare power of cinema came alive through the works of Stanley Kubrick, Christopher ...Read More

At the very beginning of Knight of Cups, we hear a voice recount a parable: the story of a sent by his father, the king, to a distant land in search of a precious pearl. Upon arriving in the foreign land, the prince becomes distracted by its pleasures and splendor. Over time, he forgets his mission, his true identity, and his purpose.The narrative, which Rick's father Joseph (Brian Dennehy) tells, is a poetic summation of the movie's main theme—the search for meaning in a world filled with distractions. Like the prince, Rick is on a journey to reconnect with ...Read More

Long before we are shaped by the outside world, we are shaped by our families. They are the first we encounter, reflecting back our strengths, flaws, and deepest vulnerabilities. For Rick, the protagonist of Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, family is both a source of love and a source of pain. It is the foundation of his identity, yet it is also where his greatest wounds lie. As Rick drifts through the fragmented, dreamlike narrative of the film, his family looms large in his subconscious. They appear not only as individuals but as symbols—representations of his struggles with authority, ...Read More