In Filmology I contemplate on the psychology of film and the metaphysics of cinema, explore its new long-form formats crossing over into television, focusing on the moving image as remedy, my own emotional responses to a film text, as well as contemplation on the psychological engagements of the filmmaker and spectator. This is an intuitive symbolic approach to text interpretation, embracing the capacity of film to bring our consciousness into relationship with our unconsciousness through the emotional impact of film itself – the compensatory function of symbolic art, as well as the dynamic nature of symbols.

Author: Milana Vujkov, writer, artist, psychologist and film historian. Independent scholar, researching psychology of film and spectatorship, psychology of art and creativity, the female gaze in cinema, and alchemical storytelling and art. Two decades of experience in the arts, media and entertainment industry – reporting, curating, event management, film marketing. BA in Psychology, MA in History of Film and Visual Media. Tomatometer-Approved Critic. Currently shooting a documentary on female ancestry.

Filmology

Mystery Of Love: On Body And Soul (revisited)

The evolutionary 2020 broke us down into essentials: the flesh we are made of, the dreams we inhabit, the lives we lead within our beating hearts. The immovable end game that is our mortality. This film was made for this year. In the way scriptures were made for a particular time in history, and for all times, at the same time. It is a holy text of cinema. And if you have never crossed paths with it, this is your moment at the crossroads. [read more]

Chernobyl HBO Aftermath: Seeing In The Dark

The only way to look at Chernobyl is through a rear-view mirror, the complex ocular shield of the camera. Otherwise, we’d be staring at Medusa’s face, unprotected. An open nuclear reactor core burning our synapses through sheer magnitude of existential incomprehension. An apocalyptic serialised memento mori. [read more]

The ABC Murders & Fascism Redux

You know this is a race against time, and that the time in question might not only be diegetic. So informed we are of our world, it seeps into this story, uninterrupted – history hiding underneath its own frayed repeats. Fascism as collective narcissism. Narcissism as ultimate isolation from life source. This is esoteric Christie, avenging angel, her agent, screenwriter Sarah Phelps, at the steering wheel. [read more]

Film vs. Death: One More Time With Feeling (revisited)

A testament to the inexplicability of mourning, and the therapeutic nature of art. In this case, the art of the moving image, the most conjuring art of all. The camera becomes a dignified way to navigate the grieving process, to share it. There is a great generosity in One More Time With Feeling. This is film as communion, echo of a longing, an evocation of love in that eternal painfully human quest to transcend death. [read more]

Sharp Objects & The Initiation Of The Screen She-Shaman

Camille emerged fully formed, a she-shaman forged in the era of the return of the witch, expanding the liminal space between traumatic events, taking the silver bullet of all audience assumptions and projections in a tale of female rage – of women hurting other women – all those dark vagina dentata materials blooming a venemous crimson red in the patriarchal dollhouse. [read more]