Friday, October 11
I did actually glance at showtimes before bed last night. There was a double feature at 8am that i was interested in, and the first showing at each theater every day is always half price, so i could've seen both movies for a total of €6, an incredible deal! ...but then, for some reason, i didn't make it to bed until 1:30 again.
I have no accounting for time after 10pm. I don't know what it is. I'm not even saying that i was lying in bed, scrolling through my phone for hours, i mean i literally did not get into the bed until 1:30am. The bars close at 11pm and midnight, respectively, and my laundry was done around 12:15. Was i in the bathroom that whole time? No? Did i start a fight club?
I remember waking up and checking my watch at 4:50, because someone was being pretty noisy with their reading light on. I managed to get back to sleep, and woke again around 8. The bed across from me was empty. He must have had an early train.
I should've gotten up at 8. I was awake. No reason not to. Instead i blinked again and it was 9. Then 9:30. I finally moved. Maybe i should've actually eaten something yesterday.
I did manage to take a shower, so that was nice, but i ran out of soap almost two weeks ago. The other hostels i'd stayed at since provided soap, so that was nice. This one does not. The last time i showered here, someone had left a bottle of gel in there, so i went ahead and borrowed a handful. No such luck today.
The shower situation at this hostel isn't great anyway. There's only two bathrooms on each floor, and they're gendered. Each bathroom has one toilet and one shower stall. So to shower, the only way to get any privacy is to lock the whole bathroom, ensuring no one else has access to the toilet. Since that's where i was at anyway, i slipped out of the shower, pumped out a huge pile of hand soap, and used it to hit the key areas.
I had meant to buy some soap in Nice, but kept forgetting while i was out and about. By now, there's no point. I'm flying out in three days and none of the toiletries are coming home with me anyhow. A lot of things are getting donated or trashed before i leave Barcelona, i need to cut my pack weight by like half.
I made sure to get breakfast today. I always consider the waffle, but end up going with the scrambled eggs. I sat down to purchase my film fest tickets.
Some exciting stuff today! ...which was sold out. Please Don't Feed The Children, the directorial debut of Steven Spielberg's daughter, Destry Allyn Spielberg. Sold out. It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This, sold out. The Soul Eater, which i wasn't super interested in but filled a nice hole in my schedule and had a 20 minute Q&A after, sold out.
So i did end up with a wonky hour-and-a-half gap in my schedule today. So maybe i'll end up exploring a bit of Sitges, and seeing what's going on in the city besides the festival. Or maybe just take the time to enjoy my lunch. I also ended up with a couple of kids movies. I didn't even realize that Sitges had a "Children and Family" section. And, i'm going to end up taking the 1:30am train tonight, but on purpose this time.
Here's what i ended up with.
13:00 2073
15:15 Cloud
19:00 John Vardar vs The Galaxy (kids movie)
21:00 Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary (teen movie)
23:00 Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning
The late night is mostly because i couldn't resist a movie titled "Idiot Girls and School Ghost," even if it is labeled as "teen." I could still catch the 22:58 train after that, IF IT EXISTS, but i didn't want to bank on that and end up sitting on the platform for two hours again. So i just bought another movie ticket.
To be honest, i'm not super excited about any of this, except maybe Cloud, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation). It seems to be more of a techno/crime thriller. You know, for the reputation that Sitges has as a key festival for horror films, i've seen an awful lot of stuff well outside of that genre.
I think i also need to find two postcards today. These will be the last of them.
Okay, that's the plan today! We'll see how it goes! Especially the 1:30 train part!
---
I've arrived in Sitges with almost an hour before the movie. I just wanted to take a moment to say, since i brought it up again at the beginning of this entry, i know i keep saying i'm not going to complain about how much everything costs, and then i go on to complain about things like ATM fees and mention that i might prioritize a screening with cheaper tickets. After the Couchsurfing thing fell apart, which was nearly two months ago so i don't blame you if you don't remember, i had more or less already forgotten that was ever a thing, i knew that adding hostels to the adventure was going to blow a huge hole in the budget. And it has! But not as badly as i'd expected. I saw September's credit card bill this morning and it was actually significantly lower than i thought it would be. So where i've gone extravagant and spared no expense in some parts, then pinched pennies and ate cornflakes and toast for sustenance in others (I'M SORRY I KNOW I SAID I WOULDN'T BRING THAT UP AGAIN EITHER), i think it's all worked out pretty okay. I don't actually have much to complain about. It's still true that i couldn't really afford to take this trip, and it's going to force me to make hard choices for the rest of the year when i get home, but it's not going to destroy me right now. And now that i know that, i think i can relax a little.
Might redact this whole paragraph later, idk. If you're seeing it, it's probably because i forgot to do that.
---
We rolled into Sitges at 12:10, so i had nearly an hour before my first movie. Might as well get a Nutella crêpe!
2073 was not the best way to start the day. The director came up to give an introduction. He talked about how all of his previous work has been documentaries, where he's worked exclusively with stock and archival footage. Interesting, you haven't conducted any of your own interviews for your documentaries? I mean, that's fine, i just think it's unusual. So for this one, he wanted to expand a bit, and shoot a narrative. It's not a narrative film, though, not completely; he mentioned that he used his experience working with stock and archival materials to assemble much of this movie, which also includes documentary components. Okay. Interesting approach, let's see how it plays out.
I feel like there's a better documentary in here if you strip away the narrative stuff. Let's see, so we've got a dystopian near-future full of pollution and climate change, fascist government, a scene with a sky full of drones, and some off-grid rebels avoiding detection until they get disappeared by the military...
I saw that movie yesterday. It was called Planet B.
Fortunately, his speech significantly downplayed the documentary aspect. I honestly think the movie was at least 80% documentary, with the future stuff just used as a framing device. The documentary is largely focused on the global rise of fascism, which we are undoubtedly living through right now. In America, yes, but it's so much more blatant in places like the Philippines, where their President gave a speech a few years ago directly stating that he'd like to kill as many of his own citizens as Hitler did, and since then, has been pretty successful.
I'm glad we got into that straight-up documentary stuff, because at the beginning, there's a much-longer-than-it-should-be montage of stock and archival footage. It's meant to show how bad the world has become by 2073, fifty years from when this movie was in production, but it just shows things that had already happened in the real world within the last ten or twenty years. So for one, that's not a good representation of how bad things *could* be if it's how things *already* are. But for two, i felt like using actual footage of things like police brutality, real footage of those victims being beaten within an inch of their lives, to drive a fictional narrative in a sci-fi film felt disrespectful. Same with all the footage of real natural disasters, and real war zones. Once it became an actual documentary, i felt a lot better about it, but those narrative bits just don't seem necessary or helpful.
I ended up giving it a 4 at the ballot box.
Cloud was...kind of meh. I know he's not related, but i guess i still had high expectations of a director named Kurosawa. The setup is slow, following a guy who makes his living buying things and reselling them online for much higher prices. The interesting part of the movie is that he spends all that setup time making enemies, and he's totally oblivious to it. The film does a good job showing things from both perspectives, so you know exactly why all these people are pissed at him, and it also makes sense that he has no idea. The second half becomes a revenge-driven action thriller, with all of the people he's wronged teaming up to take him down, and he's so confused when they come after him, and that bit was kind of delightful.
I do think there's a point where the logic of the movie completely breaks down, though. There's a betrayal that happens that i felt came out of nowhere, and then there's the opposite, a character who is fiercely loyal despite having no real reason to be. The latter is definitely intentional, to mess with your expectations, but the former...i don't know, felt like a dropped ball. A little too much of a heel-turn without a setup.
I gave this one a 3.
My hour-and-a-half gap ended up disappearing into thin air so much faster than i expected. I didn't have a chance to explore at all. I figured i'd go find the venue for my next film first, since it's a theater i hadn't been to yet, and then i'd find some food. Since i had that long break, i didn't need to constrain myself to food trucks, i could branch out and find a nice, local gem! But what i ended up with was somewhat of a compromise between the two. Not a food truck, but something familiar.
From the map, it looked like the Auditori Centre Cultural Miramar was over near the Casino Prado, so i headed that way. I passed by the food truck area, giving me the opportunity to fill my water bottles, and proceeded through the King Kong Area, where all the merch booths are. Past the Steeldeck arch for the King Kong Area on the opposite side, i proceeded forward, as though i was heading to the casino. A couple minutes later, i checked the map, to find that i had overshot the mark. It was two minutes back the way i'd come.
I started heading that way, then changed my mind. I knew there were a bunch of restaurants up this way, so maybe i'd just go find one of those, eat my meal, and then come back when i was done. After all, i had plenty of time, right?
I was walking in a familiar direction, passing many things, but a lot of their outdoor seating areas were full, or they just didn't appeal to me. Pizza? Nah, i've had plenty, i'm good. Deli? No.
And then i ended up at Eguzki Lizarran, the tapas place Huan-Hua had recommended, which i'd eaten at a couple days ago. The one that had the tapas all set up along the bar, to fill your plate and get the skewers counted later.
Well, i had said i'd like to come back again, understanding the counter system, or to order something fresh & hot off the menu. I chose the latter.
I got the battered mushrooms with tartar sauce, and the Izarra, which is toasted marinated entrecote with "our secret dressing." I realized after the waiter had walked away that i'd meant to order the Eguzki, not the Izarra, since often when i see that a restaurant has a self-titled dish, i go with that. If they want it to be perceived as their flagship, then i assume they're pretty proud of it.
Quickly, i googled "entrecote," since i didn't know what that was. It turns out it's a fancy French cut of a beef steak. Okay, that's fine; for a second i was worried it was going to be esophagus or something. The Eguzki would have been pork, otherwise pretty similar.
It was all pretty good! I'm glad i got the opportunity to try their fresh, warm dishes.
I finished eating, and realized it was somehow 6:53. I had seven minutes until the movie started.
I didn't wait for the waiter to come back outside, i just went in, found him at the bar, and asked for the check. There was no one else inside, or outside for that matter. As busy as the restaurants on the main road had been, it seemed no one had looked one building down the side street to find this cool spot.
Alright, bill paid, i have five minutes to make a two-minute walk. I cruised through the crowd, walking fast as i usually do, slipping through gaps like i had a star on my helmet. I was coming up to a turn. I checked my GPS.
It said the place was still four minutes away.
What? I thought it was a two-minute walk!
Oh, no. That's right, it was two minutes away from the spot where i'd realized i overshot. Eguzki Lizarran was still quite a ways down from that.
My ETA was now exactly 7:00. No margin for error.
I got to where Maps was showing. There was a large cluster of people in front of the building, and a paved courtyard with a stone fence around it. At the entrance to the courtyard were two women with badges. Corrals were set up, sorting people into two separate lines. A huge group of people in zombie makeup was milling about on the sidewalk, in front of the courtyard.
I asked one of the women at the gate if i was in the right place, showing her the ticket with the name of the movie and the venue. She struggled with English, but she said no. She pointed further down the road, and tried to indicate...something, i wasn't picking up on it. I hurried down the road, assuming i would see whatever it was she was referring to, and all i found was a big church. Surely they are not showing horror movies in a church?
The road came to a dead end at a beautiful overlook to the sea.
I turned back, reloading the address in my GPS. It took me past the spot it had originally dumped me, and had me turn on a road back toward where i had already come from, the direction of Eguzki Lizarran. Then it seemed to indicate another building, which was also clearly not correct. It was completely closed up, no lights, no one in sight, possibly residential.
I pulled up the festival's web site and looked through the "Venues" section. I found a picture of the building. Didn't look anything like any of the buildings i'd looked at so far. But it indicated that the theater was within the King Kong Area, so i walked back through that.
Still didn't see any buildings matching the photo. But i did find an information booth. I asked a guy in a red shirt where the venue was.
"It's right down this way," he said, explaining to go all the way back through the Kong Area, and go left. He pointed. "You see that terrace up there? It's right there. Just go to that building, you'll see a big poster on the front."
He was indicating the first building i'd stopped at. "I was just up there, and someone out front told me it was the wrong building."
He shrugged, and struggled to find words.
"It's okay, i'll figure it out. Thank you!"
I got back to that building, slipped around the two women, who were busy helping a group of older adults, and made my way up to the left side of the door, the side of the corrals that the whole cluster of people was on. I stood there, watching, for a minute, wondering if this could possibly be the line, as the movie had started fifteen minutes ago.
There was a poster on the front of the building with the schedule, though. It listed both John Vardar and Idiot Girls, in the time slots i expected.
A guy with a badge walked out of the building, heading toward the front of the courtyard. I followed him. He helped two other people with something, then i waved.
"I'm looking for this movie, is this the right place?"
"No," he said. "This is for the haunted house."
"The poster on the building has these movies listed, though," i said, pointing.
He seemed confused. "Uh, go ask at the gate," he said, pointing back toward the door where a woman with a lanyard stood.
I walked to the front of the courtyard, around the corrals, then back up to the building. Now i could approach her without the crowd between us. I showed her my phone, and asked the same question for the third time.
"No," she said.
I again pointed to the poster and explained. She also looked confused, and flagged down a fourth person with staff credentials.
"Oh, yes, it's in here," he said. "The movie has started twenty minutes ago though."
"I've been walking around, looking for the venue, that whole time!" i tried to explain.
"Follow me. It's okay that the movie has started though?"
"Yes, that's fine," i said. I barely cared about this movie anyway, it was just to fill time before Idiot Girls, which i was much more interested in.
He opened the door for me. I walked in.
This is unexpected.
It's a dark room, obviously, they're showing a movie. But there are no seats. It's just an open floor filled with dozens of beanbags. Tweens are strewn about everywhere.
I found a way to skirt the perimeter of the beanbags and get to a side somewhat close to the screen. I sat on the carpet behind a tall beanbag, with a back, as though it were a chair. There was a corner of a wall that was obstructing my view of part of the screen, but it was fine. i was accepting whatever i could get, having walked in so late.
Once i was settled and able to concentrate on the movie, it took all of two lines of dialogue to realize that this movie is a turd.
I watched for a few minutes. It was not getting better. After twenty minutes, i was at my limit. I'd missed the first 20, watched the next 20, i didn't see any need for 50 more. For the first time ever, i walked out of the theater.
I found a spot on a bench in the courtyard to sit and work on my log until the next showtime. The whole thing was made all the worse by remembering that this was the same time slot where i had hoped to see Please Don't Feed Children, the Destry Spielberg movie, and where i had intended to see The Soul Eater. So John Vardar was my third choice here, there were much better movies i could be seeing.
This experience had me doubting the next film. This whole venue is clearly set up for kids. The haunted house, the beanbags, plus there are additional family-friendly activities set up both inside and out in the courtyard. This must be the spot where the parents dump their kids while they go see real movies.
If John Vardar is any indication of the caliber of film that's playing in the Sitges Kids area, what can i even expect from Idiot Girls and School Ghost, the next film following on the exact same screen, in the same beanbag room? It starts at 9pm and is officially in the "Sitges Teens" section rather than "Kids," but STILL.
I'd already gotten the ticket, so i decided to at least give it a shot. I could give it twenty, maybe thirty minutes, and if it sucked, i would hit the bricks. That would give me plenty of time to head for the train station and get back to Barcelona before the other transit options shut down and i have to walk to the hostel. I could cut my losses on Exorcism Chronicles.
When the time came, i picked a beanbag on the corner, next to the walkway, so i'd have a clear shot to the door. Also, that way, i wasn't mixed in with a bunch of tweens and their parents, anyway.
I was surprised when one of the hosts came up and introduced the director, all the way here from South Korea. I had not expected this, at the kids area, where everyone's sitting on beanbags. But there he was.
Of course, as usual, i couldn't understand the introduction, because it was Korean translated to Spanish, but now i knew i would feel guilty if i walked out of the movie in full view of its director.
Fortunately, the movie was good!
I think you really get most of what you need right from the title, Idiot Girls And School Ghost. See, there's these four girls, and they get really bad grades, right? And their school is haunted. But fortunately for them, there's an old legend that if you play hide-and-seek with the ghost on the school's anniversary, and win, you will ace your SAT, and get into a good college! Of course, if you lose, the ghost will erase everyone in the world's memories of you, as if you never existed. The last time anyone beat the ghost was 1998.
It is very silly, not all of the jokes land, and there are definitely moments when i questioned whether the ghost was even trying to win the game. But overall, it has heart, it has a power-of-friendship theme, and believing in yourself, and all of that. It's just a good time.
Lotta f-words for a movie in the children's theater, though.
It also does a lot of horror movie meta-humor, like the Scream franchise, most of which actually worked pretty well. There's one specific gag i laughed out loud at, but i don't want to spoil it.
I also have to say, i feel like the experience was actually greatly enhanced by seeing this movie in a room full of young people who haven't yet seen enough horror movies to be jaded by them yet. They're still susceptible to every jump scare, every creep-out moment, every trope, and hearing them jump and scream at those moments was actually delightful, no matter how many times they did it.
I had a decent amount of buffer between those last two movies that i could be pretty leisurely meandering back to the Tramuntana. I filled my water bottles again. I actually only needed to drink one more of them to hit my goal, so i should be set to hit the sack as soon as i'm back to the Safestay.
The last movie is Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning. With that title, i really thought this was going to be another spinoff of the original Exorcist movie, as that seems to be a big thing to do right about now, even though no one seems to be enjoying any of them. This one is Korean, though, so i wasn't sure how closely it would relate.
Not at all, it turns out.
The director was here for this one too, and i was very confused when he first stepped up to the podium. Was this...the same director from Idiot Girls? He was wearing the same shirt and the same glasses, his haircut was damn close, about the same height and build, and using the same translator. But no, i took pictures of both of them, and side by side, you can tell their facial features are different. It was just. For a second there.
Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning feels like it was meant to be the entire first season of an anime, compressed into 85 minutes. It is Korean, not Japanese, but the animation, action, storytelling, and character design all use the characteristics we associate with modern anime. It's also hyper-violent, and uses religion as a springboard for most of its lore. Like, there's a Catholic priest who's basically a Jesus-powered superhero. The other characters, i'm not sure what religion they're based on, i don't know enough about Eastern spiritualism, but i wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't meant to be any one specific religion.
I do wonder if this was actually meant as a pilot, and if it does get picked up for a series, if they would break this down into multiple episodes and pad out the runtime with more character development and storylines.
One reason i feel this way is because, in the opening scene, our lead character, the aforementioned Catholic priest, travels to a church to check up on reports that their priest has been different lately. Outside, he meets a young woman, just for a few seconds, but she gets the kind of introduction that makes us pay attention to her as a character and feel like she's going to be important. The next scene takes place on another day, during Sunday service. The hero priest barges in, accuses the leader of the congregation of being a demon in disguise, and then Astaroth himself arises from that priest's body, and fights our hero. The young woman from the opening scene is a member of the congregation, and as things seem to be going badly for our protagonist, suddenly she bursts with superpowers of her own, shooting holy laser beams at the demon at a crucial moment, allowing the priest to break free and continue to fight. She then gets knocked out.
Once the priest has defeated Astaroth and sent him back to Hell, he turns around and leaves the church, never investigating the young woman who just saved him by shooting lasers out of her arms.
We never see her again for the rest of the movie.
...until the post-credits scene.
...where she's still unconscious on the church floor, but then her phone begins to ring, and it's her dad.
That's it.
Instead of bringing her back or developing her in any way, a young man with similar powers shows up midway through the movie and is given a complete backstory in a hurry, just so he can join the final fight with the Big Bad. He has no real effect on the plot, other than to be another pair of hands at the end. His power set, skills, and personality aren't unique or crucial to the fight, he's just additional power.
This is the kind of thing i probably would have been really into in my early twenties, but aside from a few of those shows that i keep around because they're core parts of my being and/or nostalgic (Hellsing, my beloved), i've moved on from that.
I was out of the Tramuntana at 12:30. Still an hour until the train. I moseyed on over to the food trucks. I could use a bite.
The only one that was still open was the place i've gotten my last two Nutella crêpes from. I was feeling like something savory, so i was working on translating their menu with Google Lens, when i realized that everyone else in line had just gotten drinks. They were shut down and cleaned up for the night. They were just hanging around to distribute caffeine.
I went to the train station. Guess it'll be snacks from the market down the block for me again tonight.
Shit. I forgot to get the postcards. Tomorrow, i guess.
I got a bag of chips from the vending machine on the train platform. Ham-flavored Ruffles. Interesting experience. Wouldn't buy them again.
Alright. Barring anything interesting happening on the walk from Sants to Safestay, that's about it for me tonight. Tomorrow's Saturday, so i'm sure it'll be difficult to get tickets. But i'm gonna try. I had skipped last weekend in favor of tourist stuff, so i have no idea what the festival will be like. All i know is that today, being Friday, was much busier than the last several days. Hence why i ended up at god damn John Vardar.
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