Four Favorites: Isabel Sandoval on sensual cinema, Punch-Drunk Love and blue balls

This episode, quadruple-threat filmmaker Isabel Sandoval talks to Slim and Gemma about cinematic edging, sensual slapstick, nuns on screen, modern Filipino cinema, Verhoeven’s camp supremacy, audience blue balls, and, of course, her four Letterboxd favorites: Hiroshima Mon Amour, Jeanne Dielman, In the Mood for Love and Punch-Drunk Love. Slim, meanwhile, googles “French New Wave” while Gemma pours yet another coffee. Isabel wrote, directed, edited and starred in Lingua Franca, and more recently the sensual short Shangri-La. Related links: The Letterboxd list of films mentioned in this episode Isabel’s Sensual Cinema essay French New Wave Criterion on Letterboxd Criterion’s list of Questioning Love Lists featuring Hiroshima Mon Amour: 90 minutes or less / Directors visit Japan / Conversations on Film / Memory and Yearning / Socialism and leftism / Atomic weapons / Horny Ave’s review of Lingua Franca Adam Kempenaar’s review of Jeanne Dielman Lists featuring In the Mood for Love: Fills the void / Soft & slow / Loneliness in neon cities Isabel’s Top 10 Criterion picks / Closet picks Isabel’s review of A New Leaf Letterboxd’s Halfway 2021 Credits: This episode was recorded in Pennsylvania and Auckland, and edited by Slim. Our theme music is ‘Vampiros Dancoteque’, by film and television composing trio Moniker. Transcript by Sophie Shin.