Rough start to VIFF

Yesterday was Day 1 of the Vancouver International Film Festival. I am still recovering from a powerful influenza, which gave me a small fever, a blistered throat and complete laryngitis a day and a half earlier. I was exhausted after seeing 2 films at the media pre-screenings on Wednesday so the effort of seeing five seemed daunting in and of itself.

I made it through, but the day was difficult from start to finish. It began in the ticket line-up at the start of the day. I got there just after 10 and the first film, "Milk of Sorrow" from Peru, was at 11. The computer that prints the tickets wasn't working so we stood in the line-up almost an hour before it started moving. It was raining steadily and I was quite wet.

Finally, they ticket manager pulled those who wanted to see "Milk of Sorrow" from the line-up and ushered them in, but in spite of the ticketing problems the theatre manager had started the movie without an audience. I missed the first crucial 20 minutes of the film, and while I got the gist of the plot, there were still many unanswered questions at the end.

When I came back out to pick up the tickets for the remaining 4 films, two of them were already sold out, so I picked a couple films I was not keen on seeing. My laryngitis returned from being damp so long.

The second film was a French one, "Bluebeard", a period piece featuring a mixed bag of anachronistic costumes and manners that made little sense. The main girl, who played Bluebeard's bride, could have been my present couch-surfer Tibi's sister. It was followed by a Chilean film "The Maid" in the same theatre, but we had to leave the theatre so the director could do a sound check. It was an excellent film with the dour lead so well acted. One of the children, a pubescent boy named Lucas, was terrifically cute in looks and mannerisms too.

My throat was still improved greatly over Wednesday but the blisters were being replaced by a deep, chest-rattling cough. Fortunately it wasn't too frequent. The last two films of the day were both documentaries in Theatre 1, the first being a laconic Swedish account of farm life, called "The Way of Nature", which I thought amusingly of as "Way Too Much Nature". It featured camera close-ups of colourful roosters, hens, goats, cows, turkeys, dogs and the goings-on on the farm throughout three seasons of the year.

It was very quiet hour sitting in wait for the next film. Until five minutes to play time it seemed I'd have a vast area empty around me, but the crowd who can't arrive on time arrived and pressed in around me as the film began. The last film was called "At The Edge of The World" and traced a two-month campaign by the Sea Shepard organization to hamper the Japanese whaling fleet in the Ross Sea of Antarctica. The was exciting and visually chilling. There was a Q&A afterwards and I was hemmed in on both sides for an hour after the film ended. Beware of Q&As and sit near the aisle when you see one coming....

My place was a mess when I got home, every room, as my two Hungarian couch surfers have made themselves at "pig sty". I refuse to clean, shop, or cook for them anymore. I'm not even taking out the garbage for them for a couple days and see how they like that.