AFFD: Day 4
We missed out on Friday and Saturday due to prior commitments (mostly the Sabbath, but also spending time with friends on Saturday evening). So we committed to attending on Sunday.
This meant seeing 4 films (we skipped two for reasons outlined below), three were documentaries and one was a drama/comedy.
And Thereafter I & II
We started with a double feature of two documentaries, “And Thereafter” and “And Thereafter II”, about Korean women who had married American GIs during or after the Korean War and how their lives have been difficult since coming to the U.S. This was an eye-opener as I found out just how shunned they were by their homeland and people only to come here and be equally shunned as a foreigner (though both documentaries brought out that the exile they felt from their people was far worse than what they received on our end). It was sickening to know that we push forth the idea that this nation is ideal and a land of plenty, only to bring them over here and treat them like trash here. The language barrier, the general exile by other “true” Koreans, the hate for foreigners, and many other things and we still call this a land of opportunity. I guess we’re just not specific enough to say that the opportunities are not necessarily good ones.
I had one problem with the filmmaker. He went into the second with the agenda of showing how American GIs mistreat their Korean wives. He hoped to become the next Michael Moore. However, in my opinion, I lost respect for him because a true documentary tells the story without judgment or bias. The filmmaker was actually defeated in his purpose on the second film as it turned out the woman’s husband never did anything wrong. The rest of his family was a different matter, but nothing compared to the shame expressed by her own people. He failed in his own agenda and ended up actually telling her story without bias. The results were what I expect from a documentary. I only hope he learns to keep his own biases out of future ones.
Jump! Boys (YouTube trailer)
The next documentary, “Jump! Boys”, was much lighter as it was about a group of 7 Taiwanese boys (ages 7-9, about the same age as my nephew, Zachary) training in gymnastics. I loved it because it was a true documentary in that the filmmaker showed all sides of it. It wasn’t a propaganda piece showing how happy these kids were (because they hurt, they injured themselves, they cried) nor was it an anger piece attempting to show the horrors of gymnastics training. It was just a full story of how these kids train, play, get-along, fight, go to school and just be kids. I look forward to seeing this group of kids in the 2012 Olympics (I have generally lost interest in sports, but I do want to see how they grew up and how many managed to stick to it).
We decided to skip the showing of “The Owl and the Sparrow” as it would be played the following night. We took that time to take a break from the festival and go to Borders Books and Music. We made it back in time for the 7pm VIP reception just before the centerpiece film.
Hula Girls (YouTube trailer)
The last film of the day was the comedy/drama centerpiece of the festival, “Hula Girls”. This formula of drama/comedy I’ve been seeing more lately (”No Reservations” with Catherine Zeta-Jones is a current example) and this follows the same formula that Shakespeare used for most of his tragedies. However, in Shakespeare’s case, most of the comedy would immediately precede tragedy. This would almost accentuate the tragedy and make it a greater fall from the former frivolity.
“Hula Girls” went the other direction in using comedy to lift us out of the tragedy the mining town faced as their main source of income was about to shut down. The company had the idea of turning the town into a tourist attraction by creating an indoor “Hawaiian paradise” in that cold northern Japanese town. The story details the pains and shame thrown upon the girls who chose to seek to be dancers for the resort instead of supporting the mining community.
The ultimate story told is that when change comes (and it always does), are we ready to change too? Tradition is constantly a barrier broken down by progress or failure. Tradition cannot stand up to change when it means life or death.
It was a very happy ending to the story and an epilogue is given about the people the true-to-life story was based. We ended the evening on that note as we were tired and needed to get home to be ready for tomorrow’s long day. After all, we plan on catching two films after work and the latter one starts after 9pm.
