Remembering my friend and rehearing two films

Abstract

This article revolves around two soundtracks Walker has admired along with the person to whom this issue of Alphaville is dedicated: Danijela Kulezic-Wilson. The soundtracks come from Soul by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers and Nomadland by Chloé Zhao, both released in 2020. The films are sonically worlds apart: Soul is dominated by jazz music by Jon Batiste and contemporary electronic music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, while Nomadland features modern classical music by Ludovico Einaudi and Ólafur Arnalds. Ironically, despite sounding profoundly different, both films draw from true stories in order to teach audioviewers about living well, even in the midst of death. Or, to reapply Danijela’s words about Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001), these films emphasise “the dualistic nature of human experience, the pleasure of being alive and the implicit proximity of death.” Walker combines cinematherapy with sound studies to make a case for the wisdom of both films that have helped her cope with the grief of Danijela’s death, in the hope that this might resonate for those readers who find similar comfort in their own film-to-person relationships.