Setting Out My Stall & The Top Films Of 2023

Welcome to the first post on The Matter That Matters -- let's see where this takes us

Yours truly, going for monochrome ‘brooding author’ look

My ability to keep to a plan is dangerous. What I mean by this is that once I’ve formulated a plan, I stick to it with a doggedness that is so firm, it can turn out to be self-defeating. Even if it all becomes too overwhelming, I keep to whatever it is that I’ve decided I absolutely must do, instead of accepting that a plan is just that: something that can be changed and, if necessary, abandoned.

That’s why a part of me is wary of starting this Substack. I know my ability to create life-swallowing monsters all too well. And even though I have yet to publish my first post here, I’m already worried about the perfectionist in me insisting on producing a steady (ie time-consuming) stream of articles, because surely that was The Plan when I decided to set up my Substack in the first place, right?

So if this is the post in which I set set out the parameters of The Matter That Matters, then I guess the first thing I need to make clear (to myself as much as to any of you) is that I am venturing onto this platform with no objective other than seeing how the endeavour goes. Perhaps the posts will be numerous and easy to write. Perhaps the entire project will be pushed aside and forgotten in a few weeks. Let us see.

For this reason, I would urge you not to choose an annual subscription just yet. If you feel inclined to subscribe (thank you!) then please just go for the monthly option at the moment, because I would hate to think that you’d spent your money on something that might die a very unremarkable death quite quickly.

This brings me to the question of why Substack, and why now. (Mr Perfectionist has just spent the last five minutes considering the grammatical implications of whether this is one question or two.) The answer is complicated and relates to issues which won’t be of interest to most of you. But in summary…

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Throughout my adult life, I have written fiction, usually of the so-called ‘literary’ variety. Some of my short stories have been published and broadcast. None of my novels has been picked up by anybody yet. Until now, my attempts to find an agent have failed. I’m currently working on a novel (I’m ALWAYS working on a novel) and it just so happens that one agent has said she’d like to read it (on the strength of the first chapter and a synopsis) but it isn’t ready to be sent out to her or anyone else yet. Since 2005, I’ve had a personal blog, in which I’ve addressed a wide range of subjects (notably film), although I stopped updating it regularly quite a while ago, as my time was increasingly taken up by other pursuits (see below).

For nearly fifteen years, I’ve also written about perfume. The world of scent has long fascinated me and in 2010, I set up an anonymous blog called Persolaise, partly as a way of carrying out research into what I thought would be another fiction project. But people seemed to enjoy reading what I had to say about Chanel, Dior, Guerlain et al, Persolaise took off, and before I knew what was going on, I was commissioned to write a perfume guide book and I became one of the most respected independent fragrance journalists in the world. As a sort of off-shoot of the Persolaise website, I set up a YouTube channel, and in many ways, that’s turned out to be even more successful than the blog, attracting a growing number of wonderful, erudite, generous followers with whom it is always a pleasure to exchange views on new (and not so new) scent releases.

Fast forward to 2024. The YouTube work is more enjoyable than ever, but it takes up growing quantities of my time. The long-form, non-video-related perfume writing on Persolaise.com is sporadic. The DariushAlavi.com site is hardly ever updated. The work on the novel continues, but it too has to make way for all the other demands in my life (not least a draining and frequently challenging day job, but we won’t get into that today).

I would like to be able to do everything: to keep all the balls in the air at the same time. Make fantastic progress on the novel. Write regular articles for Persolaise.com. Publish musings on film, literature, society, politics, life and EVERYTHING™ on DariushAlavi.com. And keep going with the YouTube videos. Of course, I can’t do everything. (You be quiet now, Mr Perfectionist!) But I’d like to try to at least alter the balance of things to some extent, so that, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor, all of the balls can get a chance to be up in the air at least some of the time.

This is where Substack might turn out to be helpful. It’s an exciting, serious-minded platform that is attracting large numbers of readers. It will allow me to combine the kind of thing I used to write on the DariushAlavi blog with the longer-format articles that made Persolaise.com the success it is today (at least, I hope it will). And perhaps it will actually enable me to get something material back for all the hours that I put into my prose. (Sorry, I know this issue is cringe-worthy and embarrassing, but I think I just need to accept that I can’t continue to be entirely ‘pure’ and altruistic with everything I do. If I’m to be able to carry on, I have to make the work at least partly self-sustaining.)

So The Plan (gulp) is this. I will continue to broadcast videos on YouTube and they will remain free. I will almost certainly continue to publish brief posts about each video on Persolaise.com (they will essentially just link back to the videos) and these too will remain free. However, any long-format perfume articles will appear here on the Substack and they will be for paying subscribers. In addition, I will aim to resume writing the sorts of articles I enjoyed publishing on DariushAlavi.com and these will also be for paying subscribers.

The aim is for The Matter That Matters to be an idiosyncratic mix of thoughts on cinema, literature, perfume (of course!), human behaviour and all the million-and-one things that keep me up in the middle of the night. But I would also like it to be a safe space for my fiction… which brings me towards the end of this lengthy introductory post (I promise they won’t all be this long).

Over and above all the reasons I’ve outlined above, I’ve decided to start this Substack because I need your help. And I’m not referring to the financial sort now. Over the years I’ve come to learn that although I am an extremely driven person and I possess deep reserves of self-discipline, I do much better with my writing (especially my fiction writing) if I know and feel that it’s being read and appreciated by others. So that’s why, in addition to all the non-fiction content, I would also like to use The Matter That Matters as a setting in which to test out fictional ideas, present works-in-progress and consequently increase my motivation to keep going. I am determined to get the current novel finished (I’m convinced that its story is important and deserving of a wider audience), find an agent for it and get it published. And I have a feeling that Substack and all of you will help me achieve those goals.

So… as I said at the start… let’s see where this takes us. I hope you’ll come along for the ride. And now, as a way of marking the transition from DariushAlavi.com to Substack, I’d like to do what I’ve long done on the former at the start of each January: present a list of my favourite films from the previous year. I couldn’t quite keep it to a Top 5, but I’m sure you won’t mind. Here are my best films of 2023, presented in the order in which they were seen.

Thank you very, very much for reading, and I hope you’ll come back for more.

Dariush

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Best Films Of 2023

Return To Seoul [Davy Chou]

A brave, insightful and at times almost agonisingly moving story of a young French woman’s search for her biological parents in Korea. One of the most memorable recent works about displacement and the splintered reality of globalised modern life.

The Eight Mountains [Felix Van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch]

Based on the novel by Paolo Cognetti, this epic, almost Hardy-esque tale uses the backdrop of the Italian Alps to explore masculinity, the weight of parental expectations and, above all else, friendship. Meditative and grand.

Oppenheimer [Christopher Nolan]

Perhaps when he was making the film, Nolan didn’t know quite how timely the question of ‘Are we pushing the world past the point of no return?’ would be. But it certainly turns Oppenheimer into much more than just a study of one man and his scientific achievements. A triumph of story-telling and, crucially, editing.

Past Lives [Celine Song]

Korea, displacement and international borders are at the forefront here as well, but this time presented in an entirely different manner from that seen in Return To Seoul. In Song’s touching, tenderly honest debut, childhood sweethearts find each other as adults and are forced to confront the effects that their long life journeys have had on them.

Killers Of The Flower Moon [Martin Scorsese]

An extraordinarily, painstakingly detailed examination of a toxic relationship, set against the true story of the murder of several Osage people in 1920s USA. Wise, uncompromising and chilling, it proves that Scorsese is nowhere near losing his relevance or his talent.

Anatomy Of A Fall [Justine Triet]

With dialogue that almost blisters the screen and a fiercely selfless central performance from Sandra Hüller, this gripping courtroom drama cuts to the core of current tensions in gender relations and the alarming rise of misogyny. As ingenious as it is unflinching.