Cinemateca, Castro and my Countrymen
Today I could enjoy the benefits of Cinemateca membership for the first time. After enduring more than 40 minutes on the 64 bus in this freezing weather, I arrived at Cinemateca 18 to watch two chapters of Ignacio Ramonet's seven-part series of interviews with Fidel Castro. One was about "Che" Guevara and the other one about various errors and mistakes of the revolution. I know, it's nothing outstanding, but it still deserves to be mentioned, if only as a first step towards much more rewarding experiences - which is not to say that this one wasn't amusing or entertaining.
I was about ten minutes late for the movie, and the fact that the bus dropped me off two blocks past where I intended to get off didn't help. Worrying about my lateness, I hurried towards the theater, only to find, to my astonishment, that the movie hadn't started yet; in fact, the lights hadn't even been dimmed yet. It turned out that the movie was delayed, and would eventually start about fifteen minutes later, because they couldn't find the projector operator, who hadn't shown up yet in a characteristic display of my countrymen's care for schedules.
While I was waiting for it to start I began to look around me, and was instantly struck by the amusing characters surrounding me - I should not have been as surprised, for after all, I was watching a movie about the story of "Che" Guevara, told by none other than Castro himself. Besides the usual octogenarians, there were quite a few oddly-smelling students, bohemians and nostalgic 50-year-olds, all with their long hair and unkempt beards. The particular medicine student in front of me, in fact, had such dirty dreadlocks that I felt compelled to remain on the lookout for any vermin that may jump at me and attack me from the deep recesses of that mass of hair. Ah, I couldn't help feeling warm inside, despite the cold, while contemplating my fellow Uruguayans, and hearing their emotional guttural sounds and heartfelt applause at various points during Castro's exaltation of Guevara.
Anyway, the film itself wasn't exactly terrific, and Castro... Well, the man is not only in his seventies but also has a very particular way of talking that renders half of what he says unintelligible. But the overall experience was quite amusing. I certainly hope to have more over the course of the month, or else I'll be severely bored...
On a completely unrelated note, the Stanford PDF applications for fall 2005 are already available, and soon the online application will be too. It's the beginning of the end!
I was about ten minutes late for the movie, and the fact that the bus dropped me off two blocks past where I intended to get off didn't help. Worrying about my lateness, I hurried towards the theater, only to find, to my astonishment, that the movie hadn't started yet; in fact, the lights hadn't even been dimmed yet. It turned out that the movie was delayed, and would eventually start about fifteen minutes later, because they couldn't find the projector operator, who hadn't shown up yet in a characteristic display of my countrymen's care for schedules.
While I was waiting for it to start I began to look around me, and was instantly struck by the amusing characters surrounding me - I should not have been as surprised, for after all, I was watching a movie about the story of "Che" Guevara, told by none other than Castro himself. Besides the usual octogenarians, there were quite a few oddly-smelling students, bohemians and nostalgic 50-year-olds, all with their long hair and unkempt beards. The particular medicine student in front of me, in fact, had such dirty dreadlocks that I felt compelled to remain on the lookout for any vermin that may jump at me and attack me from the deep recesses of that mass of hair. Ah, I couldn't help feeling warm inside, despite the cold, while contemplating my fellow Uruguayans, and hearing their emotional guttural sounds and heartfelt applause at various points during Castro's exaltation of Guevara.
Anyway, the film itself wasn't exactly terrific, and Castro... Well, the man is not only in his seventies but also has a very particular way of talking that renders half of what he says unintelligible. But the overall experience was quite amusing. I certainly hope to have more over the course of the month, or else I'll be severely bored...
On a completely unrelated note, the Stanford PDF applications for fall 2005 are already available, and soon the online application will be too. It's the beginning of the end!