This past weekend, I attended both my first film festival and my first festival in Korea. Although, with the number of foreigners there, it was easy to forget that it was a Korean festival at all. I mean, look at these whities with this sign. And look at the English! This festival almost shouldn't count as a Korean festival...I felt a little more at home being a foreigner than if I were a Korean. Korean festival or not, it was still super fun and I had some of the best Waygookins I know to keep me company.
Cait and Patrick showing off this lovely sign.
Liz and I arrived on Friday night around 9:30 or so. Never having been to Busan before, we knew we had to get about 26 km from the bus station to our hotel. Liz was all over this. She used her superior knowledge of Naver Maps and took us by both bus and subway to our remote location. Our motel was quite erotic even though the name was quite innocent: the Apple Motel. The hallways, elevator, and our wallpaper was lined with both love quotes and couples in mid-embrace. Liz and I were drawn in by this loving atmosphere and promptly bought those 2 huge bottles of beer and ordered some spicy chicken. Half a bottle of beer later (each), our chicken still had not arrived. We had deep discussions about Korean bathroom etiquette and whether or not our robes were free for the wearing. Our 2 late arrivals, Amanda and Cait, were due to our hotel around 2:00am. I was supposed to wait up for them. Instead, I decided to shut my eyes for a moment at around 2:00 am confident that I would not fall into a deep enough sleep to miss their phone call and let them into their room. Wellllll, at 5 am that morning I woke up to Amanda and Cait banging on our door and telling us to get our fat asses out of bed. Luckily, even though I had not woken up, Liz had and let them in. I pulled all my fashion interest together and summoned up my 15 minute outfit. Actually, I am a little impressed with myself. I even put makeup on that day. We spent an unfortunate amount of time looking for taxi, but then we were finally off to BIFF.
The deserted BIFF building made for some prime photo opportunities that Cait was more than happy to take advantage of. Doesn't she look like she's just waiting to give someone some fantastic information?
Ain't she adorbable?
Yes, this is what a pre-dawn festival looks like.
This picture proves that Busan, unlike NY, does like to get some sleep sometimes.
While we thought getting there right around 5:45 would get us a primo spot in line, one quick glance showed us that we were nowhere near the hard-core fans. Obviously, people had started camping out for tickets the night before. Actually, they probably started as soon as their previous movie ended. So we got to the end of the line and waited for 8:30. That's when the ticket booth would actually open. We were joined by some other friends, Patrick and Carolyn, and even ran into some Jeongeup foreigners. The line also gave the very unique opportunity of cuddling with a sleeping Korean couple nearby.
Yes, that is what a professional 3rd wheel looks like
The wait certainly paid off. I got my three top choice movies which guaranteed a day straight of watching movies...and IT BEING COMPLETELY ACCEPTABLE. Think about it. When people normally ask me what I did in a day and I say, "Er...I watched three movies today," they usually seem concerned. Sometimes, they even ask how recent the breakup was. In this case, I wasn't being lazy. I was being CULTURED!
Yeah...I realize I look slightly deranged. Just...don't worry about it.
So what were these lovely movies that I spent all day watching? I know you are dying to know.
My first movie was Miss Zombie, a contemporary Japanese adaptation of the traditional zombie myth.
WARNING SPOILERS: In this world, the term zombie covers a variety of beings. Zombies can be the brain eating hoard that is popular in American cinema and video games. Or, the zombies can be more docile creatures. Reminiscent of Fido, these zombies can even be used for household chores and whatnot. They also have a sense of identity and can remember some of their past. This zombie tale follows a young woman who was turned into a zombie while pregnant. Now, she works for a doctor and his family. Her job seems to be a maid, but really all she does is clean the same patio over and over. Also, she is very slow at cleaning this patio. But, apparently the family is holding her for a friend, or something, so they might as well have her clean the same patio, slowly, everyday. Plus, the patio cleaning offers construction workers and view of her on her hands and knees cleaning the patio every day. From behind, she doesn't even look like a zombie! She attracts the sexual interest of the construction workers...because I guess construction workers being inappropriate to young women not only stretches to different cultures but even to the undead! Basically, push comes to shove and the movie ends up with some zombie rape. The little boy of the household ends up dying, which leads to him being turned into a zombie. He instantly is drawn to the zombie as a mother figure and then the father of the household seems to see her in a sexual light as well. Hence, more zombie rape. Then, the mother of the household can't handle a zombie being chosen over her by both her husband and her child. She goes a little crazy and ends up murdering some people...
Anyway, it was a fun movie. It was like a Japanese version of Warm Bodies...but way darker. I was the only one of my friends who wanted to see this movie, so it was a nice zombie 10:00 am wake up.
The only thing do watch after some zombie rape is a lovely lesbian love story. And by a lovely lesbian love story, I mean a really bad relationship that ended up with both parties getting hurt but was really a great life experience. But, this movie was actually really good and had quite a bit of lesbian porn so I'm offering no more spoilers.
This was Adele, chapters 1& 2. It was three hours of heart wrenching lesbian love.
Finally, my movie choices ended with a Korean Drama called "Fasten your Seat belts" in English and "Roller-coaster" in Korean.
From what I could tell, it was essentially Korean "Airplane" with significantly less Shirley jokes. It was pretty hilarious.
Of course, the weekend wasn't all movie watching. I also ate Sannakji 산낙지 or live octopus. Yeah, it squirmed in the mouth. Well, technically you stun it with sesame oil and then masticate for a while. If pieces are still attached and moving when you swallow, it can attach to your throat and kill you. Overall, I enjoyed it. We definitely ordered too much and it wasn't worth the cost, but it was preeeetty tasty.
The whole process of trying to pick it up.
Make sure you analyze whether your meal has feelings before you eat it.
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