"What a funny face! Are you a woman, really? Or an artichichoke?"
Words from The Fool in Fellini's beautifully tragic 'La Strada'.
I saw La Strada in my second last year of high school. As we often did, my parents and I canoed across the Brisbane River, scrambled up the muddy embankment and headed up to the University of Queensland's Schonell Theatre. The film had recently been re-released, though I had no prior knowledge of it or any of Fellini's work; my folks had invited me along and with nothing better to do, I joined them for the journey into Italian neo-realist cinema. As corny as it sounds... that night I fell in love with cinema. As we paddled back home across the river in the peaceful darkness, the tune from Gelsomina's melancholic trumpet played over and over in my head, and followed me all the way through film school and beyond. (And I still have a habit of drawing the 'Gelsomina' eyebrows on my forehead for parties or no reason at all!)
For the past year I have been travelling around the UK and Ireland, volunteering and interning for various film festivals and production companies. Like many on the festival circuit, I've experienced the usual cinematic overdose; I've been moved, shaken, bored, intrigued, disturbed and inspired... And as the festival season kicks off once again, I'm ready to do it all again. But this time, I'm going to write it all down! First stop is Berlinale... With a limited budget, I'm going to get as many cheap last minute tickets as I can get my hands on. No need to be choosy- obscurity is a friend of mine!
Please feel free to comment, argue... or simply yabber on about whatever you please.
Some favourites from 2009 to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment