NYAFF: Day Whatever
I think it’s Thursday, but here at New York Asian Film Festival central time is a long-forgotten concept. The sun goes down, audiences come, audiences go, the sun comes up, audiences, audiences, audiences, movies, intros, prize giveaways, drink, day, night, day, night. It’s a big swirl. So forgive us for giving up on the day-by-day for the time being.
Last night was another sold-out crowd for SPARROW and it marked the first time that the Subway members who programmed the film got to see it for real. Previously all we had was a little tiny screener copy with giant watermarks all over it so the picture onscreen was barely visible. But projected in widescreen on a great-looking print with that beautiful international jet set soundtrack kicking in our ears in surround sound it was a damn-near religious moment.
If you want to hear the soundtrack for yourself, then head over here and take a listen.
(The SPARROW soundtrack, streaming at you like a bar act from a Melville film)
And of course, the night before we had a massively and gruesomely oversold screening of Lee Myung-Se’s M with the director present. He’s hanging out in NYC for a few more days working on his next script, but the screening itself was great and M proved to be as divisive as ever. The audience gave the movie an enormous number of “10″ ratings (although those were balanced out by some who gave it a “5″), and director Lee confirmed his reputation as the esoteric master of the Q&A session. His intro was brief, “I first wrote this movie in New York, then I made it, and now you’re here watching it. I want you to enjoy the film.” When asked about how he chose the leads for the film he said, “I knew Jang Dong-Won and he wanted to do it, and Lee Yeon-Hee was right for the part. So I put her in the movie.” Later that night, bombarded with technical questions after the Q&A he said, “I don’t know anything about lighting. I don’t know all these things. I’m the director. I only know how to direct.” Modest, cryptic and funny - it’s exactly what we wanted.