Je me lâche

We went to a Caribbean/Spanish film festival once, but the only screening we could attend was entitled Miranda. Not really knowing what it was about, we spent three hours watching some obscure Venezuelan general recount from prison his rise and fall from greatness. It seemed like a South American version of Napoleon, mixed in with a bit of The Count of Monte Cristo. When we left it had not nearly finished and we felt like we deserved three hours of our lives back.

Another time we (haha, a different we) went to see Ping Pong Bath Station at the 2010 Japanese Film Festival, and it was a great night. The film is about a Japanese housewife who feels ignored by her husband and teenage son and returns to the hot-spring resort where they spent their honeymoon. She finds it neglected and creates a ping-pong event to attract new visitors to the area.

The next year we went to see Kamome Diner about a Japanese lady that opens a traditional diner in Finland and her encounters with two other Japanese ladies and the Finns who don't enter her diner. After the film ended, employees from the embassy handed out these enormous rice balls with salmon at the centre, which the ladies in the film make constantly. I'm not very much into fish but it was cool walking out and smelling what one had seen being made in the film.

Another time we went to a Canadian screening of Saint Ralph about a boy who believes that if he can win the Boston marathon his mother will awaken from her coma and he won't have to become an orphan. I appreciated the not-so-seriousness and lack of grand effects because the films we have to watch at university are [intense] and often uncomfortable. Those being screened at cinemas are usually blockbusters laden with all sorts of crash/boom/bang additions.

Now, the opportunity presents itself to visit another, this time in French.
French films will be screened at Brooklyn's Nouveau from the 10-12 August, but there are sessions in Cape Town, Joburg, P.E. and Durban as well.

Here is the link to the program. I've read and seen Love lasts three years, by Frédéric Beigbeder, about how after three years your wife leaves you and you start writing a book about it. It is an easy-watching rom-com type of movie.

I'm thinking The Intruder, 35 shots of rum, Declaration of War... Well, all of them, really. One shouldn't say no to free cinema.