the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF for short) is the largest film festival in Asia. even before coming here, it was something i had wanted to go to. i finally had my chance, but only after a lot of hassle and planning. luckily, zack’s friend hooked us up with hotel arrangement and train tickets to get to the festival, and then jay (my favorite korean staff person at work) spent an inordinate time trying to purchase us film tickets online. we had five people and could only buy two tickets at a time. at one point, we thought we couldn’t buy a single ticket for the fifth person. i was ready to curse out korea’s insane couple culture, when he finally figured it out.
armed with our tickets, i excitedly and sleepily got up early (for me) to my first trip outside of seoul. we jumped on the KTX express train, which got us to Pusan in about 3 hours. it was another example of what transportation could be like in the U.S. if we could get our act together to build something (here’s my little plug to vote for Prop 1A on CA’s ballot!). the trip normally takes about 6 hours on the bus, sometimes longer depending on traffic conditions. instead, we got there in half the time on a smooth train ride that even had a beverage and food cart. we got to take naps, talk, read magazines, and listen to music. i can only imagine how great it would be if there was a bullet train from SF to LA!
once we got there, we were starving and ended up at this really, really cheap joint that sold huge portions of tonkatsu. steven is 24 and can put food away. i had never met somebody who can eat as much and is as skinny as my brother, but lo and behold, i found steven in seoul. i promptly give him half my plate, and as we’re raving about the prices and portions for the food, juli all of sudden realizes that we are surrounded by high school students. not college, but high school, as in half my age. no wonder the prices were so cheap! no matter where i am in the world or how old i am, i think i will always have the poor starving student mentality.
we hit the beach. i can’t tell you how much i’ve missed the beach. it’s one of two things i really, really miss about LA (the other being film screenings), and somehow i was going to be able to experience both in Pusan. we had fun taking a bunch of pictures of people on the beach (see my facebook album). there is something just so wonderful about having the waves wash over your feet and digging your toes into the squishy sand, while watching guys (definitely not korean guys) in g-strings riding jet skis around. of course, the guys in g-string were soon overshadowed by a swarm of adoring fans surrounding a man wearing a white t-shirt that had a red heart on it. i took off running with my camera because it’s so much easier to be a hyper-obsessed celebrity stalker when you have no idea who it is. i have to say everybody else was quite well-behaved, which made it much easier for me to get in for those up close and personal shots. being a paparazzo was super fun – there is something very satisfying about getting the perfect photograph that captures a person’s smile and personality. once i got my shots, i was able to find a young woman who spoke english and told me who it was. i thought she said K Goodman, but i guess his name is simply “gag comedian” and he is funny man with his own television show.
lex and ray joined us later that night (they ended up on the long bus ride because they couldn’t get KTX train tickets) and we all ate fabulous Indian food. if you had to choose your two favorite cuisines in the world, what would they be? (lex always picks really great conversation questions). without a doubt, my choices would be italian and mexican, with thai being a close third-up.
the next morning, zack and i got up at at the awful hour of 7 am (it’s amazing what i can do when i’m motivated) and got in line for tickets. i was already very late – there were probably about 35 people ahead of me. it reminded me of my college days of camping out for basketball tickets. when i finally got to the front to buy tickets, i was told that each person could only buy a maximum of 2 tickets and luckily zack had come so we could buy 4. BUT, there were 5 of us so one person would have to sit out of each movie. i mustered every advocacy trick that i could think of, including even getting incredibly teary-eyed, but this woman was firm. i gotta hand it to her, she obviously had been hardened by the millions of people begging for film tickets.
i ended up seeing 3 movies that weekend. my absolute favorite was called “crush and blush” (even though the Korean title is different), and it is creative, zany, and quirky – essentially my kind of movie. SPOILER ALERT (skip to next paragraph if you don’t want to hear tidbits of the film): it’s about a socially awkward, unattractive woman who is in love with a colleague, and she has this horrible skin condition where she gets red, really, really red, really easily. any sense of anger, embarrassment, or frustration causes her to turn a deep crimson color. although she is madly in love with this man, he is married and has a daughter. in true male fashion though, the man also is interested in another teacher at the school (the typical pretty girl) and pretty soon there’s a possibility that he and his wife may end up getting divorced. The woman with the blushing problem ends up joining forces with his daughter to try to prevent him from being divorced and ending up with the pretty teacher. randomness, craziness, waiting for godot, and a lot of duplicitous IM sex ensues. a really hilarious scene in the movie is when the woman is talking to her dermatologist, who she treats as her therapist because she has nobody else to talk to about the situation, and she’s telling him this funny story about how when she’s typing for IM sex, she keeps making typing errors so it ends up saying BOOGER, BOGGER, BUGGER instead of BIGGER, BIGGER, BIGGER.
we got the added treat of going to a Q&A session with the two main actors and director afterwards. it’s amazing what they did to make the actress unattractive in the movie (she’s quite beautiful in person). the director talked about how she wrote the script while she was pregnant so she just kept getting all these crazy ideas that made their way into the movie. the last question from the audience was the best. ”you never answered the question raised in the movie – could the man and his wife really have fathered their child.” – you have to see the movie to know what i’m referring to (i don’t want to give EVERYTHING away).
one last highlight was the pusan art biennale had an entire outdoor art exhibit along the beach. steven and i made it there to see it one night. we’re taking a ton of pictures because there are so many cool things to capture. unfortunately, neither of us have tripods so we’re using whatever flat, nonmoving surface we can find to take long exposure shots. one planter ledge was too high so i couldn’t look through the viewfinder to take a good shot. i turn to steven and tell him to link his fingers together so i can put my foot in and have him boost me up (just like a cheerleading move from high school). steven obviously has never done this before as he says “i’ve heard of people doing this” and everything about his body language is just screaming “NO NO NO don’t make me do this.” not giving him a choice, i stick my foot in his hands and his superhuman strength (i don’t know where it came from in that skinny body of his) just propels me up and forward, until my face stops my momentum in the grass.
so not only did i bring back some celebrity souvenir photos, but also some cool looking face scratches. nice.
