Tuesday and Thursday films
On Tuesday, I worked at home, got out into the sunshine to walk to campus for a meeting, and the film of the day was Sister. About a 12-year-old boy and a young woman he says is his sister (later in the movie the relationship turns out to be something else). They live in cheap housing near a ski resort in the Swiss Alps, and the boy earns a living by stealing skis and ski clothes and selling them. Depressing start, but it ended on a pretty up note.
Came home and ate microwaved (homemade) mac & cheese and then had online class at 8:00.
Wednesday was a day of no movies, lots of meetings and online class at 7:30.
Thursday I took some time off to do a little consulting work at Willy Street in the morning, then the last two film fest films, starting at 1:30. Both Japanese. Key of Life was really funny – making fun of all the stereotypes we have in both the U.S. and Japan – the hapless kind of stoner dude; the driven super organized successful young Asian woman. It had some good plot twists too – one of the main characters turns out to be not exactly the “elite assassin” he’s described as in the blurb.
After Key of Life, I went over to the dumpling place and got pork bao (not bad at all when doused with hot pepper relish and soy sauce), because I knew I wouldn’t get dinner later – online class at 7:00. Mark & Kanari didn’t eat between the films – they had time for pizza after the second one, which was Grave of the Fireflies – an animated classic that I had never seen. Really sad – about two orphaned children in post-World War II Japan. The big brother tries unsuccessfully to keep his little sister from starving to death. Even though it’s animated, some of the details seemed to me more realistic than some live actin films I’ve seen – the little sister has a tin of fruit drop candies and, as it starts to get empty, her brother dumps the last of them out into her hand – and there are crumbs and three whole candies stuck together. She chooses to eat the scraps first and save the whole candies for later.
After my week of online classes every night, and film fest movies squeezed in between work every other day, I took Friday off to cook for a cocktail party – more on that in a bit.
Commemorative tin with Setsuko looking for the last candy
