ITINERARY
• 5.00 PM: 9 SQUARE METRES FOR TWO
• 7.10 PM: THE GREAT HAPPINESS SPACE – A TALE OF AN OSAKA LOVE THIEF
• 9.25 PM: LUXURY CAR
I’ve arrived in Melbourne at 12pm, 3rd August 2006, all geared up to head to the movies that i have pre-booked way back in Sydney. I was originally scheduled to watch a 3pm screening of Our Daily Bread, a documentary about the ‘crises’ we call famine, when as a matter of fact, our food production capacities can feed twice our beloved Earth’s population. I gave that up, seeing that it was a little too rushed, having to take a 45 minutes bus ride from the airport to the city, and decided to go for lunch instead. I’m really thinking that my eyes wouldn’t outlast the movies that I have booked for anyway; realistically speaking, 50 movies in 10 days is a little incomprehensible to the average human being. And my thoughts for the day were about how long I can hold out my enthusiasm in the air, missing out on the luxury of another companion validating that what I am doing really is a good experience. Not many share this enthusiasm that I have for movies in this regards, the tagline already bearing warning; “IT’S A LONG WAY FROM HOLLYWOOD”.
With movies from across the globe, I am sure it will more than just re-spark my interests in looking at the world outside of the nutshells that I’ve cracked out from; movies here are either driven by Hollywouldn’t ideas or by perfectionist and masterful storytelling that either compel or bore the living hell out of you. What I’m so sure of is that I’ll be meeting different people here and there, that I will be so engrossed with everything about the movies that I might seem disinterested to talk about anything to anyone else and that some ideas will stick with me that I will repeat it to everyone I know when I’m back in Malaysia. What I’m not so sure of is that I would be able to keep my schedules, remember everything I have watched to maintain a proper dinner time conversation and actually make it a point for me to be part of a film festival every year. At least I know I’ll be sure in a week’s time.
