Ok, I was definitely a little ambitious with my volunteering.
After getting home last night at 12am, I was buggered this morning when I woke up to start my True Lies essay and then had to rush off to another session at 1:30pm followed by another session at 5:45pm. Heavy. But definitely worth it. Again, it was more forms handouts, friendly chats with customers and Kimiko and watching wonderful Australian films.
I have two favorites from the Top 100 screenings today. One was for this afternoon’s session featuring Primo Bacio, a beautifully crafted film about the first kiss of the producer’s grandparents. As the couple, mainly spoken by Mama, discuss their first kiss and how that has progressed for them within their relationship during the 50 years of marriage, we see images of young couples embracing, frolicking, caressing and kissing one another in various stages of passion, age and events. The cinematography is beautiful. Filmed in slow motion, pastels and creams are the main color palette the DOP has obviously chosen to work with using natural light sources and sometimes black and white. The images have a soft quality about them but are not unfocused. Rather, they appear angelic, serene, adding to the description Mama gives us of the feelings she gets when kissing her husband. I thought it was a great example of a film that doesn’t necessarily need to go anywhere or develop as such. It’s a re-telling, an information session for the audience about what has happened but done so poetically different to any other boring documentary. Thinking about this in relation to our short film, it’s common among shorts to feature snippets of the present interspersed with long sequences of the past so that what has been becomes the main focus of the film until the very end. Primo Bacio is different. The past is celebrated and admired as the old couple look back upon their intimates times with one another and the film ends with a nice fuzzy feeling for the audience who know there is a happy ending for them both after the credits have rolled.
My second favorite film of the evening was Tomorrow (GPS), a short that was featured in the opening night sequence but didn’t quite measure up to Road To Tel Aviv. Tomorrow lasts for exactly 60 seconds and in a mad rush, we are introduced to a nameless, young, white-collar wannabe driving along a Sydney freeway. Along the way, his GPS begins to give him random directions that don’t appear to be taking him to where he wants to go. The driver is upset but complies with the robotic female voice who eventually starts to tell him to do other things such as call his mother, take the day off work tomorrow and walk down to the beach. The film’s climax ends with the man rushing to the ocean’s edge to discover a beautiful sunset, a spectacle he obviously hasn’t seen in a while. Turning away, he then notices a young girl, about the same age as him, also carrying her portable GPS system. With a quirky tinge, the film ends as the GPS lady says, “You have arrived at your destination.” I loved the film for its ability to say so much in such a short space of time. We can all relate to those days where we feel so obliged to do the things that need doing that we forget about things we want to be doing like falling love. Shot on what looks like a mobile phone, the film’s quality is it’s only set-back but at the same time, I can appreciate their reasons for going down that path. Exploring the GPS system and our reliance on fast technology that can provide for us the immediate benefits that we need, like the GPS, the mobile phone is also that instant and I would make an educated guess that by using this technology, the filmmakers make the further comment about our high paced, technical world.
But after watching way too many films today, I have to admit I need to go to sleep. Tomorrow is my last shift and I’m really hoping it’ll be a good one.
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