Film Festival 2008: Day 18
Hah! I bet some of you didn't think that I'd get around to writing up this, the last day of the festival! Well, given past experience, that's fair enough. But I've managed to claw back some free time, and I get to round out my (and your) Festival experience!
My first movie was The Order of Myths at Te Papa, about the way Mardi Gras is celebrated in Mobile, Alabama. This is the oldest continuous celebration in the States, starting several years before the founding of New Orleans. It's made slightly more complicated by the fact that there are, effectively, two Mardi Gras - one run for whites (where the only black people involved in the parade are torch-bearers, marching bands and dancers), and one for the blacks. There are two Kings and Queens of Mardi Gras elected, two sets of elaborate costumes prepared, and two parades. There is no real movement to integrate the two celebrations (there is one integrated "mystic society", and it has a grand total of one white member), but we saw the black King and Queen turn up at the coronation ball of the white King and Queen, and they were welcomed very graciously, and there seemed to be indications that the two groups might, if not integrate, acknowledge one another more.
The two groups definitely had different flavours of approach. The black celebration seemed to take itself a little less seriously, while still getting into the pomp of the thing; the white celebration was much more about the history and tradition, and many of their "mystic societies" had rules that meant that you had to be from the right sort of family to join. The white Queen's grandmother was the oldest living former Queen, and was from a wealthy landowning family; her n-th great-grandfather brought over the last slave ship to the USA, after it had been made illegal, and arranged to have it set on fire, fully loaded, to cover up the crime. The slaves that escaped the ship settled in the woods nearby, an area that is now called Africa-town.
There were plenty of indicators that there were definitely still some issues going on; one of the white Queen's court talked about how she felt a bit weird about the whole thing, and there was a scene set at a country club (white patrons, black service staff); we see this woman talking to one of the dishwashers in the kitchen (getting in the way of people trying to work), and then she goes back out the front and sits down with her mother and a bunch of other well-off white women. And very few of the blacks in Africa-town own the property that they live on; it's all leased from the family of the white Queen.
But there was the new "mystic society" that seemed to be full of beer-drinking blue-collars, who got costumed up and went out to a school for kids with developmental challenges (or whatever the right term is these days). And the black King and Queen were both school-teachers, and the kids were obviously really proud of them. And the designer of the trains for the black royalty was absolutely chuffed when the main designer for the white royalty had nice things to say about her work.
It was an interesting documentary, and I'm glad I saw it.
Speaking of ancient traditions - I'm happy to report that one of my Festival traditions was kept intact for another year, because I managed to bump into Morgue's parents at this showing. I'm sad that I didn't see more of them, but it was good to have a quick chat, get filled in about some of the movies that I've missed, and compare notes about some of the films we'd all seen.
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Then I was off to the Film Archive for Revue, a black-and-white Soviet propaganda film presented without commentary, full of news of the patriotic plays being put on by farming collectives, and how noble the young medical students choosing to go and live in the new settlements were, the way that various factories were going the extra mile and producing over quota to honour various events... and the wicked peasant woman who was feeding bread to pigs - bread, that valuable commodity! And look at her house! And owning animals by yourself, not in common! Shameful.
It was a really interesting piece of propaganda, and relatively sophisticated. For example, when they have a kid asked whether he enjoys work, rather than bursting with Soviet pride, he looks realistically (and humorously) dubious. It would have been nice to get some context for some of this, but I think that seeing it unfiltered like this was really interesting, too.
I might not watch it again, however.
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Then it was off to a very different sort of documentary - The First Saturday in May, about races, racehorses, and the people who own the racehorses. This was very much a "let me show you how this world is" sort of narrative, rather than any sort of questioning of the world or it's structures. There was nary a hint about the shady shenanigans that tends to be synonymous with the racing world - just a bunch of guys (and it was mostly guys) who are passionate about horses and racing. This was all about the personalities, and the races - getting the audience on the edge of their seats as we see these horses and trainers on the racecourse, and feel their tension and anxiety as the trainers watch a situation which they can't do anything, trying through sheer willpower to get their horse into a position that will let them compete in the Holy Grail of racing, the Kentucky Derby.
There were a lot of good little moments - a kid putting up a "Get Well Soon" sign and a bag full of carrots on the fence outside an ailing horse's stable, for example. Or the contrast of the fancy hats in one part of the Kentucky Derby, and the guys with beer bongs in the other parts. Or all the family stories, with the New York stable-guy interacting with his son, or the three sons of another manager demanding new skateboards if their horse wins. The documentary did a really good job of helping you keep track of the various horses, stables and jockeys, and is definitely one worth watching to see how to make sure a story with a large number of characters can remain distinct from each other.
I don't need to see it again, but it's a fine example of a "feel-good" doco.
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And then, the Embassy, a live orchestra, and The Freshman, a black-and-white silent comedy lampooning the then-current passion for all things related to university life. As you might expect, a fairly straight-forward story, and the occasional clash with modern mores; but some classic slapstick that works just as well now as it did then made it well worth seeing for me.
The music was especially well suited, and once you got past the initial oddness of having it all come from one place (i.e. the orchestra) rather than from the sound system, it was actually quite fun to be able to glance down and see them beavering away at the score.
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And then my final film of the Festival, Not Quite Hollywood - a documentary about the "Oz-sploitation" genre films of the 70s and 80s. Quentin Tarantino is apparently a huge fan of these films, and for all I've ragged on him in the past here, he is a guy who can convey his passion for things well.
There was plenty of interest going on - they interviewed one of the film critics who lambasted the films at the time (and still doesn't like them), as well as many of the actors and actresses, and the people who actually made the movies; to give you an idea of the sort of guy one of the directors was, they had him sitting in an animal-print chair with a stripper gyrating in the background.
A lot of these movies were about nudity, violence and occasionally gore. There was a definite group of films that took a moderately affectionate poke at the "Ocker" stereotype (and it was implied that the film-makers were sometimes a bit annoyed when the people they were making fun of saw the characters as a tribute, and something to aspire to). And there was definitely a bit of grumpiness that the modern Australian film has to be a historical outback story in order to get funding. And the stunt work that they talked about was recklessly dangerous, pure and simple - they were ridiculously luck that more people weren't killed on the sets.
All in all, an interesting look into a set of films I really don't know very well.
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So, how is it to be back at work? Sadly, I think it's actually less stressful to be at work then to be on leave; while I was away, the spectre of a fatal phone-call was ever-present, and it is several orders of magnitude easier to diagnose and fix problems in person than over the phone. There's also the fact that being at work forced Support to work out what was wrong with my machines, so that I could actually log into various systems; and I'm earning money again, as opposed to spending it on delicious icecreams. Dammit, now I want that yummy Kapiti pear icecream. :)
My team has been moved to one of the satellite sites, which means that the walk to work is a manageable sub-20 minutes, rather than 40+; I've walked to and from work every day bar one, so far. (It would have been every day, but I needed the car to get somewhere after work once.) Being away from the hub makes everyone more mellow, and I'm seeing a bunch of people that I haven't seen since I worked at Rongotai; but on the other hand, you can't pop downstairs and hold the hand (or watch over the shoulder) of someone who is having problems. So far, this hasn't been a huge issue; but I can see that it's going to come up.
Also, it puts me in the same building as someone who keeps finding things that are broken or messy, and who comes and wants me to clean it up; or who just has this question about a database schema; or who would like us to track this, or that, or the other... I mean, he's made plenty of neat tools, and he's a really smart guy, but I think he's popped in every day since he's found out we moved over to his building, which tends to interrupt the flow of whatever you're doing.
Of course, at least once what he interrupted was "watching a online video of little girl climb inside one of those grabber machines to lie on all the stuffed toys inside the case", but he didn't know that when he decided to pop by my desk, instead of sending an email! ;)
Anyway, we don't have much light, but we do have windows, which is more than many of the people in our building can say; and on the whole, it's not too bad to be back at work.
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