I started the first full week of the Festivals having lunch with some friends up from the south. It was a lovely day and after lunch they went of to board the Royal Yacht and I had a wee wander in the sunshine.
To the Playhouse in the evening to see Pulse which as I said before was the main constituent of the EIF free opening event. I had a much better view in the theatre but the show was 99% the same. The other 1% was the buiding of a tower of 4 people standing on one another's shoulders. Astonishing.
Counting and Cracking the following evening began in 2004 when we met a 20 something first generation Australian of Sri Lankan origin and his Aboriginal girlfriend. The play then takes us back to Sri Lanka in the 50s and follows the fortunes of his family through the tensions, upheavals and bloodshed that culminated in the arrest of his father and the flight of his mother from the island. It was a good production. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even the somewhat contrived revelation that the young man's girl friend's DNA analysis suggested that her forebears came from South Asia. Sri Lanka perhaps?
Taraf de Caliu billed as legends of Romanian folk music played in the lovely but sadly underused Leith Theatre which could also do with a lick of paint. They turned out to be a highly amplified electric lot who played at the extremes of dynamic and tempo. Mercifully they stopped for breath after 40 minutes or so and I left.
The Grads presented The Merchant of Venice and Bloody Wimmin. Shakespeare's play needs no introduction but Bloody Wimmin is less well known. Its action starts with the peace camp at Greenham Common set up by women protesting against the coming of American Cruise missiles to the base there. Protests that went on for nearly 20 years. The play goes on to explore other protest movements, the role that women played in them and the significant impact on male female relationships that ensued. Both productions were very good. The Merchant's silent opening scene in which Shylock is taunted and demeaned by the Venetians was chilling. A brilliant idea whosever it was.
The Film Festival has returned to August which adds to the delights of the season but also to the difficulties of choice. I have rather neglected the Fringe to take in several films. The opening gala film (which I saw at a cheaper re-screening) was Aftersun, the excellent debut feature of young Sottish director Charlotte Wells. I'll quote the IMDB summary of the "plot" which sums up the bones of the film very well - "Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't." and direct you to Peter Bradshaw's five star review.
Kinuyo Tanaka was a very successful Japanese film actress who for about a decade beginning in the early fifties turned her hand to direction. The Film Festival are showing all six of the films she directed in newly restored and digitised prints. I managed to see five and hope to see the sixth when the films are shown in Glasgow next month. They are all different, ranging from sweet comedy through social realism to historical epic and all place women at the centre of the film. I thought they were all brilliant. Mind you, to the modern viewer much of the acting is somewhat "heightened". I list them here without commentary as an aide-memoire to myself and in honour of my ongoing attempt to learn it, their Japanese titles. 恋文 ( Love Letter), 月は上りぬ (The Moon has Risen), 乳房よ永遠なれ（Forever a Woman), 流転の王妃 (The Wandering Princess) and 女ばかりの夜（Girls of the Night).
Official Competition is a Spanish comedy about the making of a film or at least the acting rehearsals for it. We never see the cameras rolling. It will be released in cinemas shortly and should entertain especially the amateur theatre practitioners amongst us.
I've always enjoyed short films so I put a couple of screenings into my schedule. New shorts from Scotland were:
The Barber, a refugee in Glasgow discovers something troubling about the man who cuts her son's hair.
Infectious Nihilism and Small Metallic Pieces of Hope, is a gang the answer to a young man need to belong somewhere?
Kafia, love for the filmmaker's grandmother as she approaches death. With Wrinkled Years she made an earlier tribute to her grandmother who recounts her son's death.
Maureen, is a comedic tussle between aunt and niece over the ashes of the former's sister, aka the latter's mother. It could also be looked on as a tribute to Tupperware. The link takes you to its crowdfunder page though obviously they got the money. However it's an interesting read.
Too Rough, is a tense drama but has moments of humour as Nick tries to conceal the boyfriend he has been foolhardy enough to take home for the night from his alcoholic and dysfunctional family.
Who I Am Now, tells the story of two trans refugees who having had to leave their birth families form new families from their friends. Adam Kashmiry whose story was brilliantly brought to the stage by the NTS a few years ago is one of the principal protagonists.
The festival also featured short animation films. I enjoyed the selection I saw at the time but for fear that I forget them and that the records of the 2022 film festival disappear I'm copying the programme blurbs.
Children are dancing to music under the supervision of their teacher. A young lady witnesses the scene and disrupts their rituals.
Tonight is the big night for Lucie, Maya and their friends. Even Jimmy came: he is here for Maya, and everybody knows it. But at the moment when everything is supposed to happen, Maya and Lucie discover they have hidden feelings for each other, tender and confused, and they struggle to find their footing in this evening punctuated by alcohol that flows freely, music that rocks and hormones that boil.
Well Wishes My Love, Your Love , A boy lends his friend a prosthetic arm for the day.
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