Atanaria
Following the emotional swells and aesthetic violence of Romanticism, Hana Vu’s latest EP Movies is a quiet, melancholic exhale—a stripped-down coda to a record already heavy with introspection. Where Romanticism was dramatic in both theme and sound, a bleeding-heart dive into youth and vulnerability, Movies is Vu turning the volume down to let the raw emotion breathe. If the former was a sonic oil painting, the latter is the pencil sketch beneath it: looser, starker, more fragile.
Vu’s intent with Movies is clear from her own words: to return to the emotional purity of her demos, “no frills, just pure emotion.” This minimalism is felt immediately in the EP’s opener and only new track, “Records.” It’s a fitting lead-in, setting a tone that is subdued but heavy, like the aftermath of catharsis. Vu’s voice is as emotive as ever, but here, it feels closer—less performed, more confessed. There’s sadness, yes, but also a strange comfort in the quiet devastation.
The remaining four tracks are reimagined versions from Romanticism, but they’re not just acoustic covers—they’re emotional rewrites. Vu isn’t interested in recreating the grandiosity of the originals; she’s revisiting the same diary entries with a different pen. Songs like “22” and “Dreams,” which once carried punchy rhythms and distorted guitar textures, now float in subdued melancholy. What was once clenched and cathartic is now soft and resigned. In this form, lines like “I’m just getting old, I’m just 22” hit even harder—there’s no instrumentation to buffer the ache.
This EP also deepens our appreciation of Romanticism, which in hindsight feels almost theatrical in comparison. That album’s ambitious blend of indie-pop, grunge, and even electronic flirtations (like the glitchy outlier “Play”) showcased Vu’s sonic curiosity. She was both the subject and the director, staging scenes of heartbreak, reflection, and rage. Tracks like “Care” and “Find Me Under the Wilted Trees” offered moments of fierce self-possession and compositional daring, while “Love” closed the album with poetic surrender—“I guess I can’t hide as much as I want to.”
But Movies doesn’t want to hide at all. It’s about exposure, raw and unresolved. It offers no big sendoff or climactic ending. Instead, it lingers in the emotional debris Romanticism left behind. It’s an EP that mourns, but doesn’t dramatize its mourning. The songs feel smaller, but somehow closer, like Vu’s pulled up a chair and is whispering them just to you.
If Romanticism was Vu reckoning with the tempest of feeling, Movies is her letting the storm pass through her—still soaked, still cold, but oddly still. And in that stillness, she once again finds resonance.
Movies may be brief and subdued, but its impact is lasting. It’s a beautifully sparse reflection of an artist learning how to speak quieter, and somehow say even more.
