I got to watch my first silent film last night thanks my friend Mar and Elma who were kind enough to give me the extra ticket. Going there, I had no idea what I was gonna see nor hear. I was expecting to sit in a dark room, watch a black and white film, and hear my blood sloshing at sheer silence of the experience. Seeing what I saw and hearing what I heard made me so wrong...my expectations were quite naive, but the festival made my week. It was that awesome!
We got there around forty minutes before the movie, but there was already about thirty people in front of us...I did not expect a lot of people would come...silly me! And Elma even said that it was a pretty good day as the line wasn't that long. There were days when the line would zigzag across floor.
The movie was at 7:30 pm, and we were let in exactly at 7:30, after the VIPs have taken all the good seats. But, the movie was for free so I can tolerate sitting on the upper left-most side of the cinema (a seating position I would otherwise give up a movie for.)
Before the movie began, there were speeches to be read and applauses to be made...people were wearing some formal clothing (I wore shirt and jeans) as the ambassadors of Japan and Italy were there, as well as directors and some academics to make the crowd. I was simply a first time guest...but definitely not a first-and-last time guest! I am so coming back for more--next year, maybe?
When the everything was done with thirty or forty minutes later the lights were shut and the band began playing the introductory piece. It was so awesome and cool especially when I'm a fan of ambient music. It was a combination of electric guitar, drums, and base with a synthesizer to make the notes bend into a dreamy state of sound. Add to that a cute bassist...it was a euphoric state of experience. Plus the fact that it was a live band playing in a small movie theater made the acoustics sooooooo darn good that it made it so intimate. Suggestion: We should play live concerts in movie theaters because live music never sounded so gooooooooooood! There were even times that the movie just goes to a blur and all you're left is the sound of electric strings playing in your ears. I'm so in love with Pulso!
The movie itself was a film noir shot in Japan and released in 1933, so what you see are raw footage films in black and white. Entitled Keisatsukan by Tomu Uchida, it's about a police officer whose senior officer was shot in a robbery chase, and in pursuit to finding the criminal he goes undercover only to realize that the suspect was his best friend who is one of the gang lords. The entire movie is in black and white and the conversations can only be read with translated subtitles as the whole movie is muted with its sound left to the band's bidding to interpret the scene with their music. The theme was about a sense of duty as the police officer was torn between arresting his best friend or serving his country. Well...the highlight of the whole scene that summed up the visual with its theme was the ending when the police officer shot the hand of his criminal best friend who attempted to escape by jumping off the bridge. With a bleeding palm, the officer tears off a piece of his sleeve and wraps the cloth around the suspects hand to bandage the wound before finally placing him on handcuffs. It's touching really...
The whole experience left me in awe and in question why I haven't done this before since it's been seven years. Well, I had my first go at it and I look forward to the next.
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