SDAFF DAY 6: AAAAAAAAAAAH!

Well last night for me was a creepy, creaky, wikety, blickety, blookety, whipety and wappity evening, essentially a jumble of words mixed in with a jumble of screams, shrieks, freaks and early Halloween surprises.

Starting off with the anime feature 5 CENTIMETERS A SECOND, apparently the speed of which a cherry blossom petal falls to the ground, it can also be the speed at which the heart drops when you get wrapped up in the known and unknown love stories of Takaki through three vignettes tracing the kid-teen-man’s life.

At some level we can all associate with his path of love and relationship, and it makes you think about your own past and if there was anyone out there that loved you but never told you and so you both missed out of the possibility of what could have been.

The tragedy of love (as it can also be with friendship) is not speaking, saying or sharing at the right moment in time the right words, because maybe we are afraid of the results or rejection, or putting one’s self in an awkward position.

Just say what you’ve to say and do what you’ve got to do.

Suffice it to say, our world is full of clichés and they exist because they become. So when the sage strikes, “Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be” and “love will find you and not the other way around” rest assured the spirit of Takaki is with you.

As I’m next watching the much-anticipated latest film by Korean director Park Chan-wook I’M A CYBORG BUT THAT’S OK, a ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST-ish character study of the various mixed personalities that inhabit a South Korean psychiatric home, I also noticed many blank faces in the audience.

Was it just me that wasn’t getting this film? I must have missed the boat. Don’t get me wrong, it had some pretty far-out things going on and the whole machine gun sequence inside and outside the psychiatric ward was hilariously sickening, but for the life of me, I could not figure out what was the point of the film.

This is the classic example film of why you never ask a Hollywood producer like Jerry Bruckheimer (like I did on the set of ARMEGEDDON back in 1998), “What is the message of this film?” He quickly snapped at me blurting, “You want a message? Get it from Western Union.”

So I relegated myself to the visual sight gags, did not look for any deep seeded meaning in what was tossed in front of me and when I got home, checked my mailbox for a letter and waited up for a telegram, of which neither came.

But really, I had no choice but to wait up for a telegram because there was no way in hell that I was going to bed after watching the Thai horror film THE VICTIM. Even walking to the parking lot late at night after the film was weird.

It also didn’t help that as I strolled to my car in the dark, dungeon-like corner of the underground parking lot that one of the fluorescent lights blinked off. Duuuuude.

THE VICTIM is one of those horror films that just jumps right into the ghosts, the scare and chills, not bothering to drag out the moment when we first see the specter in question, just…BAM… in your face.

Then with all that fear that just keeps growing…growing…elevating throughout the film…freaky, creepy music constantly shrilling in your brain, I am surprised that I stuck it out.

Then just when you think it is over, the credits are running, these filmmakers felt the sneaky urge to get you one more time by picking out certain movie stills from the film and pointing out to you that the film was actually haunted by real ghost as the images of shadowy faces can be seen in the background of the production stills.

Thank you very much for that by the way (yes, I’m being sarcastic).

By the end of the film, lights on, I’m outta there. It was good to be in the lobby, in the light, with real people. But then again, there was that walk to the parking lot.

I think I’ll keep away from horror for a while.