Quick change of continents

I believe that when you saw me last I was living as an hispanohablante (or hispanophone, if you're on the northern side of the Pyrenees).  My trip was both a break from Franceland and an opportunity for me to gauge how much my confidence has been boosted living abroad; while I spent most of my time with English speakers so I wasn't really thrown to the wolves I still had to buy bus tickets, find my way around strange cities, and try to move past my language insecurities to make friends with people who don't speak English.  And I made it!    All this reminded me of my time in Rennes, and I definitely was really awkward then so I'm glad that, comparatively, I've become more comfortable with taking chances in order to make the most of my time in a different culture.  Yippee!

To prove how true that last statement is I'll tell you about the time I spent recently experiencing life in Asia, albeit in Deauville.  

That's right.  As part of the service d'anglais we were given free passes to another film festival.  We have a pretty sweet existence here.  The American film festival this September happened before I started keeping my blog (back in the stone ages before we had internet here at 28bis) so you may not be completely au courant, but that was a ritzy deal.  The red carpet was literally rolled out for big and small name directors, movie stars, and film crews in town for their films' showing and the streets of Deauville were packed with people there for the event.  Lines were very long both to get into the movies themselves and to get the invitations to get into the movies, and we got turned away on multiple occasions because the theatres were full.

Nearly the opposite was true for the Asian film festival.  I think I got turned away from one film, and generally there were tons of empty seats for the high profile evening showings with the directors at the CID (Centre International de Deauville), which suited me just fine because that place has very comfy seats!  I was also interested to note that when the directors were invited to the stage to speak there was very little fanfare and their speeches were very uncomfortable and short.  I don't blame them at all. English was nobody's first language and I don't think anybody really spoke French, but the difference was still obvious.


I don't feel that I can comment intelligently on most of the films because I know so little about any Asian culture, but from a purely subjective and uneducated standpoint I'd say there were more real stinkers than at the American festival.  To be fair, though, Sex and the City II didn't make it while I'm afraid that it's Asian equivalent did on a few occasions.  Here's my film lineup, picked largely based on which would interfere the least with my meal schedule.  Actually, that's a lie.  I was listening to some of NPR's pre-South by Southwest music festival coverage, and the music critics were saying that with so many different concerts to attend it's hard to decide how to divide up their time but they try to see at least one from each genre.  Never having heard of any of these films before I figured that the NPR model might be a good one, so I tried to see films by directors of as many nationalities as possible.
Thursday:  La femme est l'avenir de l'homme (Woman is man's future) by Hong Sangsoo.  Thumbs down on this Korean film.
Hahaha, by same director.  I liked this one much better, though I was left with the impression that all people do in Korea is drink and smoke.
Friday: Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, from China.  The premise is much the same as the Pixar film The Incredibles, but I really enjoyed it, despite its ridiculous.  How can you go wrong with a movie that has SuperGazer and Aroma Palm as its protagonists?  
Udaan, from India.  This was probably my favorite film from the festival.  It's about a boy who has to go back to live with his abusive father who doesn't support his dream to be a writer and forces him to work in his steel factory and study engineering.  I thought this film was really well made, particularly since the director said it was his and most of his crew's first film and would suggest it if it came to a movie theater near you.
Saturday: The Piano in a Factory, from China.  This one was about a divorced Chinese musician who goes to great lengths to try to procure and then make a piano in order to convince his young daughter to stay with him.  I saw this one with Ivan and his friend Jean, and neither of them liked it (Ivan fell asleep), but I thought it was okay, although I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again.
Eternity, from Thailand.  This one was awarded Best Film, which shows why I'm not a film expert.  Katherine and I saw this one through to the bitter end, unlike the hordes of people who left partway through, and I appreciated what it showed about life in Thailand, but boy was it SLOW.  Eternity was definitely the nom juste.  
Saturday: Detective Dee et le mystere de la flamme fantome (Detective Dee and the mystery of the phantom flame), from China.  The name tells you pretty much all you need to know.  It was pretty horrible, but I still enjoyed laughing at its badness.  Actually, I learned a lot from it.  Did you know that in 7th c. China Spanish speaking Europeans (who bore a strong resemblance to Alexander the Great) visited China?  I didn't.  

All in all, I'd say that I've become very cultured and well-traveled this month.  Trop cool.