DAY ONE: DO NEVER TRUST THE TEXT.
October has arrived with what I most expected: The International Festival of Fantastic Cinema of Sitges, in its 52nd version. The 3th day was the starting shot, day in which (with all the enthusiasm involved in starting the game of choosing the daily banquet from here to 10 days ahead) I arrive with the minimal time to walk Sitges from top to bottom and look for my expected credential, catalog and backpack …gift that this time did not arrive and we will never know if it has been because the euros do not reach for all accredited, or because those of industry have simply been relegated to the category “welcome, but now we separate you from those that really matter to us”. OK, not a big deal, I will carry the huge catalog and the rest of my life in my precarious tote bag, secretly asking Mr. Bowie to help me with the task. I have 20 minutes to go to Meliá and return to the Prado Cinema to get to the first screening.
I approach the place just a few minutes before the appointed time and I’m amazed at how few people I see at the entrance, Could it be that in memory there are long lines that you have not been able to avoid in previous versions, which are not such when the first day begins? I ask myself meanwhile I enter the place and I confirm the low attendance of this screening. Ok, it doesn’t matter, it’s exciting to see the gorilla again attacking the plane in front of the City of the Church on top. The credits begin. I still don’t see it. The first scene begins and I think: “But how bad this girl acts, it looks like that awful movie I’ve seen a few months ago in …” HORROR!! The images gathered in my head: the memory of a cold night in Berlin, entering from the last to the cinema and looking for a good place to sit in a large almost full room, because of the crew’s great idea of letting in the credentials after they finish entering the tickets to fill the room… In those first seconds of the scene, I felt again the bewilderment, horror, and laughter of not giving credit to what I ‘m seeing. At that time, while half of the room came out in dribs and drabs, deciding they could not take it anymore, I decided that this would not be the first film that I would leave half in a movie theater. Why? Simply because I think that every movie has to have a chance when it’s chosen and something could have.
This movie: “Demons” (Singapore, 2018, Daniel Hui), is a horror story with satire key, where the themes of power, art, and violence hidden in society are touched. Vicky is an actress who takes what she thinks is the role of her life in the hands of a director who abuses her psychologically, which only she can overcome by her own means …Yes, it looks good … but everything we find here borders on that fine limit between satire and what can simply be a bad-very-bad movie because everything here is bad: the performances, the sets, the lighting, the photography, a script with some almost absurd dialogues, beyond being extremely over-acted.
Y luego de todo esto viene la pregunta: ¿Es a posta? En el Q&A queda esbozada la idea de que sí. Esta es una acción de protesta sobre la realidad en Singapur y lo realizado es un manifiesto casi neopunk conceptual en clave cinematográfica sobre la sociedad actual, el cine y sus prácticas y el poder. Ok, te creo. Logré ver el gesto y mi apreciación de la película cambió un poco, porque entiendo qué es lo que quieres hacer a través de este mensaje político en metáfora que sale disfrazado de película y lo muestra al resto del mundo, que seguro es completamente ignorante de la realidad interna que nadie extranjero puede (o quiere) ver.
While I have this terrific déjà vu, I think about whether I will be able to endure this adventure again, this time knowing perfectly what awaits me in the following scenes. Of course I decide to skip my personal rule and get out of there, since the idea of taking advantage of the couple of hours in the sun with a beer in front the beach writing this is much more seductive than enduring in that darkness as a kind of sacrifice or a self-imposed punishment for having been so clueless and not having done the task of reading beyond the summary and not seeing the trailer and thus losing my first ticket in this.
And no, I don’t feel bad about having come out of a projection, because in those two hours I have reviewed the film, but already in my head and on a stage that I never stop liking. Now, that we have started this madness in this way, I think that nobody knows very well what Sitges can offer you in each of its versions. Let’s see what it hides this 52dn one!
Recent Comments