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I love this shot from Asteroid City because it immediately visualizes the initial fissure between son-in-law and father-in-law. Augie appears on the left, standing in the arid desert of Asteroid City on a black telephone, while Stanley Zak is on the right in the lush, verdant green of his estate, holding a clean white phone. The split screen is not just about two diametrically different places, but about the emotional and physical distance that already existed between them even before the death of Augie’s wife and Stanley’s daughter. The contrasting landscapes, the different phones, and the invisible barrier of the frame together make their separation legible in one single, elegant shot
