Saturday, July 16, 2005

Spending all day at the movies

The Film Festival has started. I'm about to exhaust myself with a two-and-a-half week movie marathon. Fun. Thursday night was Gala Opening with then copius amounts of bubbly and beer. Movie was okay. Anime not really my thing.

Next day had 9 Songs on a hangover. Too many grotty old pervy men who didn't look like they belonged at a festival film. Managed to block their presence out for most of the film. The sex scenes to Michael Nyman's piano was by turns erotic and sweet. It was better than I expected. I had read a bit about it and knew it was essentially sex interspersed by rock gigs all the way through, but the sex marked points in the relationship until the end when she left. You could see the relationship faltering towards the end when they started getting into sex toys and domination. At the beginning all they needed was each other. Interesting film. I can see why some people don't like it, but my thinking is that sex is mostly portrayed in our cullture through pornography, and it was enlightening to see a mature film deal with it as pure subject matter instead of titillation. In the context of the film I didn't find the explicit portrayal of intercourse at all degrading or offputting. I wonder if the raincoat brigade got anything out of it?

Last night was the public opening with Hidden, a film that still has me thinking.

Today started with Cinevardaphoto, three films by Agnes Varda. Exquisite. Had moments of overwhelming sense of wonder and joy contemplating how much humans can express with their art. I know there will be films I will see during the festival that will have me crying tears for the other end of the spectrum of life as a human being. That's what the festival is all about.

Now off to Delamu, then tonight to Les Pont des Arts. Four films tommorrow!

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