Barry Jenkins' "Medicine for Melancholy" Blu-ray - Wyatt Cenac / Tracey Heggins @Criterion (Patreon)

BONUS CAPTURES:

Barry Jenkins' "Medicine for Melancholy" Blu-ray - Wyatt Cenac / Tracey Heggins @Criterion

US: https://amzn.to/3LvlCmj

OUR REVIEW:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film11/blu-ray_review_174/medicine_for_melancholy_blu-ray.htm

One of the great debut features of the twenty-first century, Barry Jenkins’s captivating, lo-fi romance Medicine for Melancholy unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco, where a one-night stand between two young bohemians, Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo’ (Tracey Heggins), spins off into a woozy daylong affair marked by moments of tenderness, friction, joy, and intellectual sparring as they explore their relationships to each other, the city, and their own Blackness. Shooting on desaturated video, Jenkins crafts an intimate exploration of alienation and connection graced with the evocative visual palette and empathetic emotional charge that has come to define his work.

***

Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy has one-night stand partners Jo and Micah 'hang' over 24 hours expanding their superfluous hormone-influenced relationship by verbally sparring as they wander through San Francisco in Eric Rohmer-esque fashion. Race, Urban displacement, black identity are broached with modest-to-high passion surrounded by the joys and frustrations of hipsterism. I started to dislike Medicine for Melancholy but it eventually won me over and I look forward to another viewing. The Criterion Blu-ray won't appeal to those who want to showcase their home theatre but rather a movie-night of well-realized, cerebral, alternative-romance. I really enjoyed the director's later Moonlight and hope more of his films will be covered by Criterion. Barry Jenkins is a relevant, important filmmaker.