I nearly finished a very delicate, beautiful, mysterious little movie last night. It’s not ironic at all, I don’t think, or maybe only just barely. I have “range.”
I need a delicate, beautiful, mysterious title for it that is a little ironic in that it will need to very gently mock poetic art movie titles while also being a sort of paragon of such titles.
Something, maybe with the word “charm” or “scrawl” or “lorn” combined with some very rare word, maybe something from the renaissance, and it should be a phrase… two words would be OK, or three, or some kind of tentative fragment… and it should sound genuinely beautiful while also blushingly aware of its own pretensions…
I’m open to suggestions. All of the images are from b/w Bollywood films: lots of dance, Hanuman and genies flying in the sky, a lantern reflected in water, kohl-rimmed eyes, a woman eating grapes… that sort of thing. Music: a slow and plaintive Japanese folk song. Any ideas?
Otohime 
I love Hanuman.
Charm Scarf?
Hi Nada,
I have a Romanian friend whose first book miraculously made it past the censors in Ceaucescu’s Romania. The publishers, though, thought the title was too political. So he named it:
BRIGHT COLORS, BEAUTIFUL FORMS
Maybe some variation of that?
Hmm.. I think it needs some really pretentious word like “nacreous” or “tinge” or something. Keep ’em comin’!
Rodney: I like that title, but it’s gotta be more enigmatic. I’m amused by the idea of using some kind of color in the title, though, as the whole thing is b/w.
I also like the idea of foreign language words.
OK, I think I’m onto something. I’ll report anon.
Thanks for thinking through this with me. I think I’ll call it
TAMEIKI
which means “sigh” in Japanese
although it might be nice to combine it with some other words, too.
maybe
TAMEIKI NO ODORU
which means “dance of sighs”
that’s kind of pretty, right?
“Rogue Cop vs. Scum Vixens II: Raunched Up the Fudge Tunnel by Pigs”?
Or is that a little <>too<> delicate and mysterious?
Nice one, Kasey!
God have I gotten dumb. It should be TAMEIKI NO ODORI, which sounds better anyway. I need to go back to Japan, like, immediately.
Hi Nada,
I like this super dorky website a lot and use it as a writing source frequently. One of the things there is a list of lost words. Maybe you can find ideas there:
http://phrontistery.info/clw1.html