Locarno Film Festival

Ciao. With three weeks of work under my belt, a healthy caseload, and several other arbitration projects going on, having moved/unpacked, cleaned, and attempting to organize on Thursday and Friday, this weekend felt an apt time for an adventure. So, along with my new friend and co-worker, Rodolfo, I headed out of Geneva at 5:00 a.m. this Saturday for Locarno, a Swiss “post card town” for the 60^th annual Locarno Film Festival (www.pardo.ch); somewhere near the Switzerland /Italy border. Among other films, we eagerly anticipated viewing the European premiere of the Bourne Ultimatum outside on the Grand Piazza just after the sun set. Arriving before noon, we watched several films including Bleak Moments (1971), a film about the unspoken, unrealized desires and uncomfortable silences that often seem to carry us from moment to moments in life. Admittedly I thought the film a bit odd, and painfully slow until the Q&A afterwards with director Mike Leigh at which point the poignancy of the film revealed itself. Next we watched La Comunidad, a Spanish film about the tenants of an apartment complex in Spain fighting over the hidden lottery winnings of a former tenant. It was sort of Quentin Tarantino / Four Rooms-esque. Strange, gruesome, a tad cheesy, light-hearted (as evidenced by the late-revealed star: a man in his 30s living at home with his mother gallivanting about in life-sized Darth Vader and Storm Trooper outfits, the laughing stock of the complex), but all-around entertaining. Following that was Contre Toute Esperance (in English, roughly: “without hope”) a French film in the International competition about the once idyllically happy wife of a stroke victim and the struggles they endure. This film was mildly dry (e.g., no soundtrack), but riveting (the wife snaps after being laid off, her husband recovering, then having a second stroke, and finally committing suicide). These viewings put us towards evening, so with the Bourne Ultimatum fast approaching (showing at 9:15; 6:30 then), we headed for a beer and then to find seats on the Piazza. We got there as the crowds were just beginning to gather, so found incredible seats; middle, center. As the sun set, the excitement building, the crowds gathered. And did they gather, there were people all over making it difficult to get around. The Bourne Ultimatum on the big screen, outdoors, in the Piazza in Locarno was worth the trip alone; once the film finished, we proceeded to try (fruitlessly) to find a place to rest until our train back to Geneva at 5:00 a.m., or so we thought – turns out the train left at 8:30 a.m., so we spent a very long night moving from place to place trying to find a table, grassy area, anything, anywhere to rest our heads (normally this might be out of the question, but we were two among many many people doing precisely the same thing, sleeping at the train stop, in phone booths, etc.). Once we boarded the train, we passed the hills and vineyards intil we approached the lake. What a sight for sore eyes anticipating a rest in one’s bed. The festival was a blast, work is shaping up, and I am adjusting (as much as one possibly can) to life, virtually non-existent business hours (e.g., everything is open 8:30 to 6, and closed Sunday with the exception of late night shopping to 9 on Thursdays), and apparent general disdain for customers that makes Geneva (and Europe from what I am told), that much more far from home. I look forward to seeing the Obitts’ next weekend. Arrivederci.