Ladies and gentlemens, coffee is good for you.
That is all.
Oh, and now that I have your attention, Edward Yang’s four hour masterpiece, A Brighter Summer Day is on this Saturday in the Melbourne International Film Festival, starting at 10.45am.
You won’t find a decent DVD, there are few subtitled prints, and the film is very hard to restore. The version usually shown in the West is a hundred minutes shorter. If you happen to be one of those poor victims of the ABC book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, you should note that this film is one of least likely films on the list that you will actually see. It is described like this:
“A masterpiece of the Taiwanese new wave, and a cinematic highlight of the tail end of the 20th century, this is a film whose grasp of period and place is masterful almost beyond the realm of mere storytelling. It’s like a multifaceted photo album composed of truly moving, thought-provoking pictures.”
Tickets are still available. And it will cost you a mere $16.50.
Having said that, I may not be able to make it, even though I pedalled through the rain like a glum middle aged Yang character to buy a ticket. I may have to work. Will I be strong enough to resist the baleful gaze of a filmmaker in town for only a few days who has toiled through Friday to do a rewrite he needs to talk about?
