adventures of a tired coder

  Gleaming Lights of the Souls, Yayoi Kusama

A few years ago, I visited the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. It’s a wonderful museum, and I’d spent a few hours walking through the galleries and enjoying the sea view outside. Happy with what I’d seen and almost ready to make the journey back to the city, I chatted with a stranger about my favorite parts of the museum. He said his favorite was a room with lots of lights, something that I’d managed to skip on my way through. It sounded like it was worth walking back for. It was so easy to miss because it was just a door, and there wasn’t a line of people to get in. I walked in with one other person and enjoyed this beautiful cosmic view of color-changing lights stretching into infinity. It was described as looking into a sea of city lights. I had forever to experience this universe and take all the photos I wanted (though I only took a few), and it ended up being my favorite part of the museum and one of the highlights of the entire trip.

Life (Repetitive Vision)

I noticed that Louisiana had a Yayoi Kusama exhibit for awhile, and I briefly considered flying back to Copenhagen to see it, but it didn’t end up making sense logistically. Then I noticed that an exhibit was scheduled to be at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, and I got really excited. The Asian Art Museum is currently closed for renovations, so it ended up being at the main Seattle Art Museum. I saw all the advertisements and figured I’d catch the exhibit some Thursday while they were open for later hours… then I found out that all advance tickets had already sold out. The only way to get tickets was to wait in line to get some of the limited day of tickets.

Infinity Dots

So of course, I did that. The exhibit has been immensely popular, but it seems like there have been enough day of tickets so that everyone in line early has been able to get in at some point in the day. The experience ends up being about infinity lines: line to get in the door when the museum opens, line to buy a ticket, line for your ticket time to get into the exhibit, and line at each of the infinity rooms. Of the hour or two you spend in the exhibit, the vast majority of it ends up being in line, with only 20-30 seconds allowed in each infinity room before an employee knocks on the door and kicks you out. The 20-30 seconds seems short, especially in Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity, which has lanterns that change brightness – 30 seconds isn’t enough to experience one cycle of change. And you can go in more than once, but it might be another half hour wait in line. There were other pieces of Kusama’s art to look at while waiting in line, but they weren’t nearly as interesting as the rooms.

Phalli’s Field

It might not be apparent to all viewers, since they’re so cleverly disguised in pop patterns, that those tentacles all over the place are actually phalli. Apparently back in the 60s, Kusama was busy making all sorts of phallic art, lots and lots of tentacles! She was working on Phalli’s Field, and she wanted more penises, but she got tired of having to sew them all. So she did some experimentation with mirrors and discovered that she could multiply the penises this way… and the infinity rooms were born. The infinity rooms in this exhibit are mostly full of whimsy: dotted phalli, pumpkins, and polka dot balloons. Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity stands out as more mystical, with its brightening and dimming lanterns echoing into infinity. It was the most similar in aesthetic and tone to Gleaming Lights of the Souls that I’d seen in Copenhagen, and it was my favorite in this exhibit. It also had the longest line.

The Obliteration Room

Kusama’s art isn’t for everyone. Critics might say that it isn’t anything groundbreaking, it just looks kind of cool and makes for cool internet selfies, etc. What I like about it is the way it invites the viewer to participate. In the infinity rooms, the door closes you into this small physical space, but the mirrors make you feel completely immersed in an expansive and beautiful world with a very pronounced mood. In The Obliteration Room, the participation is defined: each visitor is given a page of dot stickers, and each sticker must be placed somewhere in this previously white room. Together, they interact with the room to create the art.

Dots Obsession – Love Transformed into Dots

With such short time in each room, I tried to minimize the photo taking (but couldn’t force myself to abstain completely, except in the pumpkin room where photos are prohibited), and most of the rooms are not captured in the photos on this post. For me, the photos will help bring back the memories, but they can’t capture the real feeling of being there. Even though I griped about the lines and the short amount of time allocated for experiencing the art, I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience this unique exhibit. (Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors @ Seattle Art Museum from June 30, 2017 – September 10, 2017)

He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears;
Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie;
Which, being advanc’d, declines, and then men die.
-William Shakespeare, Coriolanus Act II scene i

Before the film, SIFF got someone from Seattle Shakespeare Company to give an introduction. One of the things he said was that the plays of Shakespeare, like a lot great literature, is both timeless and timely. This is how a story set in 500 BC and written in the 1600’s can feel relevant and important in today’s age. Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s least commonly performed plays, but it’s an appropriate time right now for a small resurgence. My original plan was to read the play, see it performed, and watch the film. I saw the play last month and watched the film today, but I’m still only about halfway through the play. Still, the part that I read definitely made a difference in the other two experiences, and I wish I could have made the effort to finish it beforehand.

Coriolanus
UK, 2011
Watched: in theater, SIFF
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

I’m used to SIFF Cinema being on the empty side, but the theater actually had pretty good attendance this time. It seemed to be the reverse audience of a chick flick… mostly guys and some girls dragged along with them. A good number of the guys did not look like the type to be watching Shakespeare. But who am I to judge, right? But recalling the trailer (that I’ve seen SO many times), it makes sense – to people who haven’t read anything about the film, it looks like a mainstream action movie. Though the lines in the trailer are indeed from the play, they show such short passages of speech that it’s not obvious at all whether or not the dialogue in the play will be Shakespearean. It is. Looking at current Rotten Tomatoes ratings right now, 93% of critics like it, but only 66% of the audience did. And the one reviewer who didn’t like it says, “No more Shakespeare until we agree it needs to be translated into real English, please.”

film trailer

It’s a difficult task to translate this sort of play to appeal to the modern audience, but I think they did a reasonably good job in this version. Television is used marvelously throughout the film to show “breaking news” (events like the Volsces attacking Rome or the plebians protesting) and to contain some of the scenes; for example: the scene where two officers are discussing Coriolanus’ bid for consul is portrayed as a television talk show, and it works perfectly. Overall, even if a viewer didn’t understand most of the language, he would still know what was going on.

I don’t really have the intention of getting into reviews of the plays I see because performances are temporary things. That means my review won’t be that useful when the run is done, and it also means that I won’t be able to see it again if I miss something the first time around. So I would prefer to immerse myself into the experience and not be caught up in how I want to review it. But in this case, it’s interesting to make comparisons between the performance I saw and the film I watched.

Therese Diekhans as Volumnia, Peter A. Jacobs as Menenius Agrippa,
and David Drummond as Caius Martius Coriolanus, photo courtesy of John Ullman

If I could have one wish for a change in the performance, it would have been for the group of citizens to feel more powerful. Of course, this is more difficult to do with a small cast, but the power and danger of the masses didn’t seem as real when it was just four people chanting in unison. In the film, the citizens had power. It was particularly relevant when they were clashing with the military, bringing to mind current events and news footage from Egypt, Libya, and other countries. The protests over the grain shortage (haves vs. the have-nots) bears an obvious similarity to the Occupy Wall Street movement. However, as is commonly noted, Shakespeare doesn’t seem to be picking sides with this play. Although the outrage of the masses seems legitimate at the beginning, we eventually see how easily they change their collective mind and have a little more sympathy for how Coriolanus feels about the public, even if we’re a bit disgusted about how he expresses it.

The place where I feel that the performance did better than the film was in the character of Coriolanus. I might be alone in feeling this, but he didn’t seem much like the heroic warrior in the film, more like an angry, slightly insane mommy’s boy. The reason for this is in how much they cut out of the battle of Corioles. It doesn’t show how badly they were losing at first and how Coriolanus’ motivation was what caused the victory. It doesn’t show the end of the battle, when he generously declines the spoils and leaves it to be split among the soldiers instead. It’s already hard to like this character in the play, and he’s even less likeable in the film. It doesn’t help that an angry, bald-headed Ralph Fiennes causes me to think of Voldemort.

Both the performance and the film did a little exploration of the homoerotic undertones in the relationship between Coriolanus and his enemy, Titus Aufidius. I dunno. It’s definitely written into the text, but to me, it seems more of something that is thrown in as a concept than a realistic part of the plot. I mean, can you imagine if Osama bin Laden showed up at George Bush’s house and Bush said, “Dude, seeing you here is even better than the first time I had sex with my wife”?! Hmm, well, maybe.

Overall, I do hope people see this film and end up with more interest in Shakespeare. Before watching, I’d recommend reading a detailed summary of the play (scene by scene) at the very least. Or read the play. I still do intend to finish!

It’s Day 7 of National Novel Writing Month, and since I just returned from a weekend at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I’m behind on my word count. And so my typing should be going towards that or towards the job that pays me so I can write a novel or attend a Shakespeare Festival. But I find that I have other thoughts that want to be written. And not really an audience to write them to. These posts don’t belong on Facebook. Most people don’t read Livejournal anymore. And I’ve deserted this blog so much that I’d be surprised if anyone checks it anymore. Oh well, thoughts to a mystery audience, that works just as well.

 
(right: fall colors in Jacksonville, left: historical charm in Jacksonville)

It’s been a week of what I can best describe as “passion overload.” I love this sort of feeling. It’s why I spend as much time as possible at the movie theaters when SIFF comes around each year. It’s why I drive almost 1000 miles twice a year to see 2-3 plays in 24 hours at OSF. It’s why I squeeze in full day hikes to gorgeous places as many times as I can during Washington’s limited summer season. It’s why I love the Seattle Nanowrimo community.

So.. the first week of Nano, two plays at OSF, lots of reading and plotting… I’m full of energy of people creating things, faraway worlds, and umm, the thrill of political assassination? I get into work today, sit down, and I am given a harsh reminder that my life and most of my time isn’t full of passion, visions, and creations. Running Powershell commandlets was so far out of the world my head was in that it yanked me immediately back to reality. Hello, dreamer. It’s time to wake up.

Every once in awhile, I find myself wishing that my life was completely different. (And oooh, that makes me sooo original.) Today is one of those days. Today I wish I could be an artist, a musician, a writer, even some fringe technical whatever in a creative production. The thoughts won’t last, of course, but for now, it’s nice to have them.

(banners outside of the New Theatre, photo credit: DK)

Hearing “Beware the Ides of March” yanks me back to high school English immediately. Probably the only thing that’s more effective in this area would be “sucks to your assmar,” but I don’t anticipate seeing a stage production of Lord of the Flies anytime in the near future. (OSF is kind of doing Medea in “Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella” next season so I might get to experience this regression again)

(OSF’s production of Julius Caesar, photo credit: Jenny Graham)

Julius Caesar was powerful. Even before we entered the theatre, it was clear that the production was a bold statement, from the very much talked about casting of a female (Vilma Silva) to the provocative banners along the entrance way and within the lobbies of the theatre featuring victims of political assassination and conflicting perceptions of them. Stark, minimalist set, with lots of black, tan, white, and bright red blood. Dramatic changes between dark and focused, bright lighting and silence and sudden, loud noise added to the suspense. Highlights for me were Caesar’s bloody death and haunting presence after her death, the very effective persuasions of Cassius, and Mark Antony’s famous “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech that really showed the audience how he swayed people from seeing the assassins as heroes to murderers. Yeah, okay, I should have re-read the play before I saw this. It’s been awhile. But even though I couldn’t remember who Metellus Cimber was or didn’t realize until afterwards that Calpurnia was missing, this production still had me completely engrossed. I’ve been a huge fan of Danforth Comins (Mark Antony) after seeing him in All’s Well that Ends Well and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Vilma Silva (Caesar) and Gregory Linington (Cassius) have been at OSF for a long time, but I’ve somehow managed to not see any of their performances until now. Hope I see more in the future!

Also saw The Imaginary Invalid, which completely lived up to my expectations of being continuous LOL. Really entertaining and a nice balance for the not-so-funny Julius Caesar, but it’s not something I’ll be musing about for years to come or anything like that.

 
(left: statues in Jacksonville, right: ducks in Lithia Park)

Rest of the trip: My friends Yamini and Nithish came along for this one (and they say they enjoyed it enough to do a repeat next year). All the driving time doesn’t allow for much extra stuff, but we did get to do some tax-free outlet mall shopping, Powell’s browsing in Portland, and exploring in Jacksonville. I love the Jacksonville Mercantile and that was my motivation for that stop. I was in great need of more aged balsamic vinegar, and now I’ve developed a new addiction to their toasted onion avocado oil, thanks to the free samples.

Looking forward to the 2012 season, and until then… back to the Powershell commandlets.

Seattle Stories (USA, 2010) – Part of Shortsfest weekend, this included 10 short films by local filmmakers featuring the Seattle area. Not the most technically impressive, but it’s great seeing the city get this treatment. A few of the shorts focused on local artists and musicians, including a few practically permanent fixtures in Pike Place Market and Belltown. The 3 Minute Masterpieces contest winner filmed around ACT Theatre, and I recognized it right away. Sitting behind me, I had a guy making priceless comments after each short and his wife kept trying to hush him. He stated that "he “didn’t come here to hear about about Ivan,” the guy who does the laser shows at Seattle Center and was the focus of one of the shorts. After Woman Seeks Man For Date On Friday, he announced that he was giving it a 2 (rating) and that he didn’t think she would ever get a date. When his wife told him to shut up, he added that she should try looking in the “women seeking women” section. Nice! Hopefully, that was his last SIFF screening.

After seeing both Cherdonna and Lou in separate shows at the ACT, I became a fan. They’re such great performers – beautiful dancers when that’s what they want to do and silly, hilarious characters when performing as the Cherdonna & Lou Show. Their short was the one in the bunch I was looking forward to the most, and I was not disappointed. And to make things better, they were there! And I got a picture!

Young Goethe in Love (Germany, 2010) – I have to refrain from calling this “Young Goat in Love.” Now we’ve got the German version of Shakespeare in Love! This film shows Goethe and his first love, which provides the inspiration for The Sorrows of Young Werther, a book that made Goethe famous and caused lots of European teens to kill themselves. The theater wasn’t even half full for Lope (the Spanish film about the writer Lope de Vega I saw earlier), but for this one… I got to the Neptune (same theater!) an hour before the film started, and there were already about 20 people in line. By half an hour before, the line went down most of the block. People like their German films! I liked this one better than Lope – cinematography was prettier and not as gritty, and Goethe’s love story was better than Lope’s lusty relationships with every pretty woman he saw.

Lesson Plan (USA, 2010) – The subject of this documentary was extremely interesting. In a time where experimental teaching was encouraged, new teacher Ron Jones responded to a question about why people decided to follow Hitler by implementing his own fascist regime in the classroom, which ended up being more successful than he expected. Unfortunately, this experiment was very short in duration, and there was very little documentation on it at the time – only a few pictures. So the documentary focuses on testimonies of Jones and the students 40 years later, which is not completely reliable and only somewhat effective. Still, the conclusion is a good one – we are convinced that we are rational creatures, but we are in fact rationalizing ones. And it’s quite scary what evils people will justify, especially when in group situations.

Wednesday night I decided not to see anything and volunteer instead. I picked up a short shift at the Harvard Exit because I heard good things about volunteering there. It was fun, but definitely all the travel time wasn’t worth it for only 2 hours of work. I liked working Uptown last year because there would always be a 5-9 or 6-10 shift. This year, almost all of the shifts were something like 3-7 and 8-10, with exceptions at the Admiral (too far) and Kirkland (worked there a lot), and I got one 4 hour night shift at the Egyptian. The film that exited at the beginning of my shift was Marrow, which seriously got the most split reactions I’ve ever seen from a SIFF film. I heard some people left early, and the people who left before the Q&A were saying very unhappy things to us as they left. One guy even said that he’d been going to SIFF since the 70’s and it was the absolute worst film he had ever seen. But many people who came out later said they loved it, and not all of them were affiliated with the film! Some of also had fun chatting about Finisterrae because the poster was hanging at the theater. Seriously, a whole film about two “ghosts” (guys with bedsheets over their heads with two eye holes cut out) wandering around with a horse. The trailer is awesome. Another awesome trailer? Shut Up Little Man! I love SIFF. :)

The White Meadows (Iran, 2009) – I wasn’t sure about this one, but I’m so glad I ended up going. It’s an otherworldy, allegorical film that’s starkly beautiful in its cinematography and hard-hitting in its message. A man rows a boat around a salt lake, stopping at places of tragedy to collect people’s tears. The tragedies make the filmmaker’s points very clear – there’s a girl who died (was murdered?) because the men found her too alluring, the most beautiful girl in a village is sacrificed as a bride to the sea to appease the gods, and an artist is tortured and imprisoned for painting the sea as red and refusing to say it was blue. The Iranian government was less than amused and threw the director and co-director in prison.

Film count: 14, Volunteer vouchers: 9

In real time, SIFF is almost over, just four days left to go. I’m getting a bit filmed out so I’m finding myself working more shifts and seeing fewer films. And I sure have a lot of catching up to do with my blog entries…

I look at the SIFF Flickr page every once in awhile. It’s usually the same old pics of people having fun at galas and directors answering questions at screenings. But the other day, I was looking at the set icons on the side and went, “OMG! I think that’s me and Alexis!” It’s actually, me, Alexis, and David, but David wasn’t visible in the icon crop. It’s us walking into the theater to see Littlerock and me looking like a doofus. I know photographers took pictures of me and David while waiting in line for another screening, so maybe that one will end up there, too. I feel somewhat important, since all the other photos in that set are of an actor answering questions. :)

Littlerock (USA, 2010) – Could be considered slow or boring to some people, but I love this sort of film. Quiet, subtle, and beautiful, Littlerock explores small town America through the eyes of a Japanese girl who doesn’t speak any English. The film does a fantastic job of putting you in her shoes, seeing how things we normally don’t think twice about in America can be weird or amazing to someone from a different culture. The characters are also great, especially the American character Cory who appoints himself the personal guardian of Atsuko and her brother because he’s decided he’s in love with her. You get to see both sides of communication without a common language: the amazing potential for humans to understand each other and the incredible frustration when the most important communication doesn’t translate. At the end, Atsuko and her brother end up at Manzanar, a memorial at the site of a Japanese internment camp. The actor (who played a minor character) mentioned during the Q&A that he never knew about those camps before, despite having grown up in the Pacific Northwest. Good thing it was mentioned in this film, I guess?

Mysteries of Lisbon (Portugal, 2010) – It’s 270 minutes long. And despite the announcement that there would be an intermission, the “Part 2” screen came up only a few moments after the “End of Part 1” screen. Oops. My butt was ready to be out of that seat by the end! I knew from the length and description that there would be lots of interwoven stories told in this period piece. It starts out being about a little orphan boy living in a church and a priest who seems to know everyone’s secrets. From there, you end up meeting many characters and getting a lot of information. By the third hour or so, the pattern started getting a little repetitive. A character would say, “Let me tell you a story,” the audience would snicker, and we’d see a mildly interesting flashback that involved one or more other characters. Some of the stories were interesting and drew you in – for me, I liked the plotlines about the boy and his parents the most – and others just felt like pieces of information. The love stories tended to be pretty lame and obviously written by a man – if there was more of an emotional connection, it would have gotten me more interested.

Paper Birds (Spain, 2010) – Craziness is attending a 270 minute film and then rushing (because the film started and finished late) over to see a 125 minute film. I didn’t really pay attention to this film when I made my original list, but when I saw that it was selling quickly and getting good reviews, I got a ticket. Keeping my schedule flexible definitely paid off with this one, it was one of my favorites of the festival. It’s one of those heartwarming and heartbreaking stories with a lot of similarities to Life is Beautiful. Set in Franco’s Spain after the Spanish Civil War (a handful of SIFF films were set during this exact time period this year, I was surprised), we follow a vaudeville troupe attempting to survive and entertain. Loss due to the war pushes three of the main characters into an unlikely family: an older gay man, a man turned reckless by the loss of his wife and son, and a spunky child who lost both of his parents in the war (played by a very talented boy who is a real life orphan). The director (Emilio Aragon) gave some interesting information during the Q&A… he comes from generations of clowns and performers, so many of the stories were true. His father was in the film (at the end). And he composed all of the music for the film himself. Pretty amazing.

I volunteered at SIFF Cinema Sunday morning. It was Shortsfest weekend, but the ones during my shift weren’t very popular. Sadly, they were enforcing the official policy of not letting us see films during our shift, so we just sat around during the first one, This Woman’s Work. I left to pick up some food at the Folklife Festival (my shift was early enough that parking was easy, thank goodness). The second set of shorts, In Extremis, was a little busier but still pretty slow. Our shift finished at this point so we were allowed to watch, but if you take a look at the photo on the film page, you’ll see clearly why I was not interested.

Late Autumn (South Korea, 2010) – Another one I picked up both because Alexis was interested in it and it was selling out quickly. I think both of the screenings ended up being on standby. It got hyped up a lot because it was a Korean film set in Seattle with a lot of Seattle-y shots. I also realized afterwards that I had seen the lead actress (Tang Wei) in last year’s Crossing Hennessy. Overall, I thought the film was okay. I liked it enough to be interested, but I wasn’t engaged the whole time. It got slow and the girl was overly mopey and silent. The producer told us it was a remake of an old, famous Korean film by the same name. Some great scenes, and I did feel the actress’s pain pretty well. I probably would have left with a more favorable impression if I didn’t go in with expectations.

Film count: 10, Volunteer vouchers: 8

Way behind! It takes me so many days to write these posts because I’ve been getting home late… 10:30 if I’m lucky. Doesn’t leave a ton of time to do anything else. Tonight I miraculously caught a 9pm bus back from Seattle, but I still got home after 10 because I had to go grocery shopping.

Lope (Spain, 2010) – I don’t have time to go through descriptions for 400+ films, so I tend to narrow down by things like genre, country, and theater location and only look at the filtered films. What is this I see? “Period piece” as a genre? Mwahaha… I’m definitely getting my fill of period pieces this festival. Lope was the first one of these. The Spanish people were rolling their eyes at everyone pronouncing it just “lope” (as opposed to “loh-pay”). Very small crowd at the Neptune, so I got seats in a great location. Not great seats, though, since they’re in the middle of a remodel and only had folding chairs on the ground floor. People complained SO much about the chairs and the sound at the Neptune that SIFF had chairs expedited from Sundance for the second week of the festival. Anyway, the film was pretty good. I’d call it “Grubby Spanish Shakespeare in Lust.” Lovely scenes in Madrid, Lisbon, and the Spanish countryside. Nice poetry.

Page One: Inside the New York Times (USA, 2011) – A good percentage of my picks this time were documentaries or films based on true events. I guess it’s a good sign that I’m having the desire to be more aware of things that are going on in the world. Page One was an entertaining documentary, particularly due to David Carr being such a character. It’s cool to get a small glimpse at how things work inside the New York Times, and the film is also a good wake up call to the fact that investigative journalism requires money. We’re very much in a “I want it free” time period, which means groups who are producing the journalism we want either need to find a different way to fund themselves or go out of business. There are a lot of ideas, but so far there isn’t a guaranteed solution. Brian Stetler of the New York Times was delayed by weather leaving Chicago (he was there for Oprah’s farewell) and missed my screening, so they had a panel of journalism-related people there instead. I was in a back-to-back film with the next screening of the film, so I asked to go inside just for the Q&A. It was a completely full house and they started the film late, so he only answered about three questions (including one woman who didn’t ask anything and just gave him a weird “thank you” from “all of Seattle”).

Bibliotheque Pascal (Hungary, 2010) – I knew this one was going to be weird, and it was weird. But it was also wonderfully creative, full of beautiful imagery, and not like anything I’d ever seen before. Mona is tricked by her father to go overseas, where she ends up being sold into a brothel called the Bibliotheque Pascal, where the workers have to play the part of literary characters. But all is not as it seems… This film probably has no shot of succeeding outside the festival circuit, so I’m glad I caught it. Only one drawback: pity the projectionist either fell asleep or left in the middle of the film because the sound totally went out during one of the few segments where the film was in English (so no subtitles to read) and it took five minutes for someone in the audience to get fed up and leave to tell them to fix the problem. SIFF and the Neptune Theatre were not looking too good… (On the other hand, I think at the same time, there was a bomb scare at the Harvard Exit during the screening of a documentary about the Earth Liberation Front, and they all had to evacuate)

Film count: 6, Volunteer vouchers: 5

I had such a great SIFF last year, and I really wanted to note down all of my impressions, but then life kept moving and I never got around to finishing it. It’s probably going to be the same this year, but it doesn’t mean I can’t give it a shot. :)

I volunteered two shifts for SIFF before I started seeing films. The first one was a special events shift, working the opening gala in Renton. SE is a nice change of pace from ushering… there’s a lot more to do, but it’s much harder work for the number of vouchers you get. I was clearing trash from tables, changing the coffee dispenser, and stuff like that. On the plus side, I got to eat the gala food, sampling some yummy stuff from Renton restaurants like Tea Palace, Naan-n-Curry, and Papaya and chatting with the restaurant people. Miss Washington was at the gala, too, but I didn’t talk to her. :) And… the owners of the venue offered me a job, in case I wanted to pick up some extra server shifts on weekends! (My mom laughed for a full minute after I told her this)

Second shift was a pretty busy one at Pacific Place. We were running pretty late for the first film, so it was really hectic getting everyone in, but I got to see a giant panda. =) Still not quite sure why Kung Fu Panda 2 was screening at SIFF, but oh well. They let us run off for an hour in between films, so I rushed down to Pike Place Market to stand in the Piroshky Piroshky line (potato onion cheese FTW). After the shift, I bummed around Seattle for a little while before seeing my first film.

Cairo 678 (Egypt, 2010) – I really liked this film. I really did not like the circumstances under which I got to see this film. Apparently, Pacific Place had technical issues in the second film of my volunteer shift (I’d left by then) and they took a lot of time to try to resolve the issues afterwards, resulting in this film starting at least 20 minutes late. And they didn’t seem to resolve it because we saw green bars and screen flickering a number of times through the film. Several people walked out. What a pity. Then I had to haul ass over to Seattle Center to catch an opera, and I would have had plenty of time if things had been on schedule. Annnnyway, this film followed three women and their responses to sexual harassment, which apparently is common (but not commonly spoken of) in Cairo. A wealthy woman goes with her husband to a soccer game, and she gets pulled away in the crowd and men sexually assault her. Afterwards, her husband says the pain is too much for HIM to deal with. Right. So they separate and the wife starts these courses on how to deal with sexual harassment and advertises on TV. The second character is a well-behaved Muslim wife who tries to take cabs to work instead of buses because she’s groped every day on the bus. She attends some of these classes, and eventually she gets so pissed off that she starts stabbing the gropers in the groin (audience cheers!!!). The third woman, against advice from her relatives, files the first sexual harassment case in Egypt. And of course, people put the blame on her. Men suck.

Apart Together (China, 2010) – Made the journey down to Renton to see this one. Nice that the IKEA Performing Arts Center has a huge parking lot! Not a ton of dining options in that part of Renton that were open for Sunday lunch, but I happened to stumble upon a hole-in-the-wall called Geri’s Casual Dining and picked up a catfish sandwich that brought back some Louisiana memories. Okay, the movie. While I was watching it, I didn’t love it. The acting was good, but it was slow. Even being Chinese-American, I think there were a lot of subtleties that went right past me. The background is one that would resonate with a lot of Chinese people. There’s a couple with a baby on the way, and they’re really in love. Unfortunately, they’re separated when all the KMT soldiers have to quickly flee to Taiwan, and they’re unable to reunite until many years later, when they allow people to return from Taiwan to visit their relatives. By that time, both have remarried. The woman’s family is closeknit and gathers at their house in an old neighborhood  where everyone knows everyone. The man’s wife has died, and his visit has a mission – to bring his old love with him back to Taiwan. The woman’s new husband is a well-developed, fantastically-acted charactor, definitely my favorite part of the film. The other characters seemed not very well developed – or did I miss the little nuances in their speech and behavior? Afterwards, I thought more about the film, and there was more to think over, ideas about sacrifice, the closeness of family, and differences between “old Asia” and “new Asia.”

How to Die in Oregon (USA, 2011) – Everyone talking about this film kept saying that it was a hard sell to get people to see a documentary about doctor-assisted suicide. Maybe I’m just morbid or something, but I didn’t need any convincing. It’s compelling subject matter, and I knew it would be a high quality documentary because it won the top documentary award at Sundance. Since I do live in one of the few states that already has a Death with Dignity law, that aspect of the film didn’t really affect me significantly. What did stand out to me was the how devastating a terminal illness diagnosis is to the person and his or her family. There were very different viewpoints about end-of-life treatment. One guy really wanted to die. One guy was extremely offended that Death with Dignity was an option offered to him. Then there were the in-betweeners, mostly people who would prefer a natural death unless it got to the point of extreme suffering, for themselves or their families. It was heart-warming to see the love in the families, but an important observation was that this love sometimes didn’t show itself when people didn’t understand or agree with the end-of-life decisions. I think it’s an important topic to be knowledgeable about and to discuss with your loved ones beforehand. This documentary has now been shown on HBO (not sure about the future schedule).

Wow, this post took way too long. I am never going to finish this series. :)

Film count: 3, Volunteer vouchers: 5

Did you know that there are about 7000 languages spoken in the world today?

And that about half of them aren’t being taught to children anymore?

Which means that soon, half of the languages in the world will be gone.

The estimate is that, with the death of an elder, a language dies every two weeks.

 
(Oregon Shakespeare Festival - left: The Language Archive; right: To Kill a Mockingbird)

There’s some interesting things to think about in The Language Archive by Julia Cho. There’s the elderly couple who are the last two speakers of the fictitious language Elloway. Rather than speak in their native language to document it before it disappears, they choose to bicker in English. When they discuss their use of English, they say that English is the language of anger (Elloway is a language of love) and that they choose to use English to fight and to say things they don’t wish to have permanence. Hah.

But George, one of the main characters, who’s a linguist and the main person behind The Language Archive (dedicated to documenting and preserving rare languages), mourns the loss of language. He explains to his wife, who is puzzled about his lack of reaction to world tragedies, that he finds the death of a language far more sad than the loss of single lives because a language represents an entire society and its worldview. Later on, when his wife leaves him and he’s trying to get her back, he says that there is a special language that only they understand – the language of their relationship – and he doesn’t want that to die.

What he fails to realize is what one of the elderly Elloway speakers clearly understands. George thinks it’s sad when a language dies because a world dies with it. But the elder says that it’s the opposite – the world dies first, and then the language fades away.

 
(left: Lithia Park in Ashland; right: historic Jacksonville)

On my trips to Ashland, I keep talking to people who make the Oregon Shakespeare Festival a yearly tradition. This time, we talked to a woman who had been going for about 20 years! She organizes a group that always goes for the same week each year, and they see all of the plays showing at the time. But even that is not enough – some of the plays only run for half of the year, so she makes additional trips to see some of those. I’ve been going twice a year – this is my fifth trip – and I am not tired of it yet. I think I’ve gotten my mom hooked, so hopefully we can continue this mother-daughter trip tradition… for the next twenty years?

The plays are fantastic. The town is a lovely getaway, full of B&Bs, cute shops, and delicious restaurants. Tax-free shopping in Oregon. And lots to see on the way – Portland, Crater Lake, and this time we stopped by historic Jacksonville. Ended up buying three loaves of bread! There’s still the whole Rogue River Valley to explore. Hiking? White water rafting? Hmmm…

  
(left: black cod at Larks Restaurant in Ashland; right: tofu chilaquiles at Morning Glory Cafe in Eugene)

And of course, the food is very important to me. My mom rolls her eyes at how far out of the way I’ll drive to make sure we’re not eating at Denny’s for lunch. “Izakaya” style small plates in Portland, hippie vegetarian breakfast in Eugene, fancy seafood in Ashland.

Looking forward to the next trip! Highly encourage any of you in the Washington/Oregon/NorCal area to make the trip as well – it’s totally worth it.

I’ve attended films from every year of the Seattle International Film Festival since I moved to Seattle, making this my 6th year. When I first started, I just thought it was cool that I lived in city big and diverse enough to support a festival that showed some international films. But I thought it was just as cool that I lived in a place that had Thai restaurants.

I’ve been in the area longer now, and I’m no longer excited about Thai restaurants, which seem to be located on every third block around here. But I’ve grown to really appreciate SIFF as something that we’re lucky to have. It’s the largest and most attended film festival in the United States. In a period of about three weeks, the festival screens more than 400 films.

Things that are cool:

1. I get to see films that not many other people get to see.

2. I get to see some films that many other people will see, but I get to see them before they do.

3. I get to listen to very interesting and insightful Q&A sessions with many of the directors. It’s even cooler when it’s for one of the films described in #2.

4. Newly discovered this year – volunteering = a chance to meet lots of great people and see a lot of free film!

5. SIFF, unlike the film festivals you normally hear about, is accessible to the general public and primarily attended by “normal people.” According to The Stranger, Ed Norton (who was in town for an award) said that most film festivals are commercial messes, but SIFF was a wonderful festival for a “great film town.”

This year, I definitely had my best SIFF experience to date. I saw about 18 films and volunteered 5 shifts. And my picks this year were great! No total clunkers and a lot of great films, including several that made the awards list. I also went outside my normal types of choices and added more documentaries, which were very informative and thought-provoking.

During one of my SIFF movies, I was trying to recall the name of a French film I saw in 2005. Google was failing me, and I didn’t want to search the SIFF site using my phone. Then I remembered that I blogged about it, so I went to my blog and found the name easily. Conclusion: I need to blog about SIFF this year so I can remember things in the future.

SIFF First Weekend (5/21-5/23)

I was out of town, so I missed the first weekend. Particularly bummed about missing Soul Kitchen and The Concert. The latter ended up on the Best of SIFF awards, too!

SIFF First Week (5/24-5/27)

The Reverse was a last minute addition to my schedule… a later (9:15pm) film the day after I got back from a state on Central Standard Time. A bit risky. And Polish dark comedy – I wasn’t sure the humor would translate. Turns out, this was possibly one of the biggest sleeper hits of the festival. It didn’t take itself too similarly, and the humor was compared to the Coen Brothers. And it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best New Director!

I normally don’t go for disturbing, gory war movies, but when I saw the description of City of Life and Death, I felt like I should probably put aside my dislike of violence to learn more about an important event that many American history books overlook, the Nanking Massacre. It was shot in black and white, making it look like documentary-style, and the production and acting was top notch. Most of the people in the group I went with didn’t realize how horrible that period was, and the film was a good jump start to conversation and research afterwards. And as hard as the cruelty in the film was to watch, they didn’t go as far as they could in the portrayal of the atrocities committed. For instance, they didn’t show any mutilation. And they didn’t just portray the Japanese as monsters.

SIFF Second Weekend (5/28-5/30)

I found out about volunteering and how easy it was to sign up. There was a Sunday shift at Uptown right before a film I had tickets to, and I signed up, not knowing really what to expect. It ended up being a lot of fun. We were betting on whether people coming in for the SIFF film or Sex and the City. :) I also got to see Khargosh, the film that was showing during my shift. I missed the beginning and the ending, but it was one of those slow, plotless films that’s visually appealing, so it didn’t matter.

The second film during the shift was The Hedgehog, a sold-out screening that has continually eluded me and ended up winning the Golden Space Needle audience favorite. (They added an additional screening, but I already had a film at the time. Then they added it to the Best of SIFF weekend, but I’m out of town. Sigh.) Interesting incident: the guy who got mad that we didn’t take his word that he’d bought a ticket, even though he didn’t bring it.

Then finally, I saw the film I had tickets for, Cairo Time. Interesting incident: a woman from Italy before me in line was complaining about the system being “so terrible” because she had to wait outside. Apparently in Europe, they give you assigned seats when you buy movie tickets. I’d compare the film to a prettier, less boring, and more mature version of Lost in Translation. Same “person in a foreign land” feeling, same unrealized attraction. It was a bit slow at times, but the subtly was nice and the shots of Cairo were beautiful. Some shots were oddly reminiscent of Sex and the City 2, which Ann and I had coincidentally seen the night before, at different theaters. I really enjoyed the Q&A with the director, who had funny stories about filming in Cairo and evading the government tag-along. Patricia Clarkson was a runner up for the SIFF Best Actress award.

And that ends week 1! Film count: 4. Volunteer voucher count: 2.