Now that the SanFran/Berkeley leg of the Festival has closed, it's time for me to reflect on my experience. (The festival's over for me since I can't make it down to the San Jose leg. I don't own a car and CALTrain is temporarily not running on the weekends.) I must say that I didn't enjoy the festival as much this year as last year. But the problem is me. See, I chose to see three films I'd already seen, two (A GOOD LAWYER'S WIFE and BEING NORMAL) because I hadn't seen them on the big (somewhat) screen yet and another (DOLLS) because I hadn't seen it w/ English translation yet (I saw it in Vienna a year ago and my German is below preschool level). So the excitement of the new that comes w/ festivals was dampened by my decisions.

At last year's festival, . . .

. . . a friend of mine spoke aloud her thoughts this way, "I wonder if its that the festival is getting better or if I'm just getting better at picking films to see." This statement hung there in the ether, not expecting a response, just asking me to sit with that thought for a while. This is the effect a film like BRIGHT FUTURE has on me where I can not appreciate it immediately, but the next day I'm struck by the rhymes of the young hooligans w/ the school of jellyfish. This being my 7th SFIAFF, I have to say that, along with the Silent Film Festival, it's definitely one of my favorite festivals in SF. The festival is consistently packed w/ fascinating and challenging films.

Thus, the responsibility is now solely mine to curate my own personal festival from the offerrings in the catalogue. I wish I would have seen 15, THE OTHER FINAL, THE ADVENTURES OF IRON PUSSY, SECOND-GENERATION, COSMOPOLITAN, and at least one of the Anna May Wong flicks. I don't really regret going to re-see the films I did because I got a lot out of what IM Sang-soo had to say after the film and the discussion my friends and I had after seeing BEING NORMAL. Such made those experiences valuable. Plus, having to abandon a seat saved for a friend stuck on the Bay Bridge during DOLLS ended up being a nice serendipitous moment for the friend who did make it, because the stranger who ended up taking the seat next to my friend turned out to be a future fellow classmate of hers at the Chinese Medicine school they will both be attending. But still, I wish I had the stamina to see more films so that new could have outweighed the re-visited by a greater ratio than 1 to 1.

Also, the fact that I saw my favorite film first, INVISIBLE LIGHT, kind of set everything else up for being less impressive. If only I'd seen INVISIBLE LIGHT last, it would have been a nice personal finale. Instead, I ended w/ DOLLS, a film I was impressed by previously but w/o understanding the dialogue. Now I have a greater appreciation having access to the dialogue on the screen and the dialogue w/ a co-worker and his brother whom I encouraged to see the film. So I still had a good time, just not a blown away time. More subdued, like a DOLLS, DREAM CUISINE, BRIGHT FUTURE time, nothing like I heard the time was at MASTERS OF THE PILLOW.

Replies: 1 Comment

on Friday, March 12th, Ravi said

I agree - Invisible Light was my fave. I've seen 24 screenings so far, and more to go in SJ. Lots of high points, though. Actually my only sour point was Purple Butterfly, which I enjoyed less than any other movie at any prior SFIAAFF. But others liked it.

Maybe I'm less picky, but NAATA does such a great job of filtering that I don't feel like I have to do much filtering myself, as opposed to the Int'l Film Fest in April/May.

Rock On, NAATA!