Sunday, March 27

Had trouble going to sleep last night, maybe because I'd seen so many movies yesterday that my mind was reeling. But I got up at 7:30, anyway. Didn't exercise today, though, since I needed a day off. Spent the rest of the morning doing the usual Sunday things...laundry, programming the DVR, reading the Sunday newspaper, etc. Mother came over mid-morning and put a recipe of barbecued pork chops into the oven, which we had with baked potatoes and steamed vegetables.

Afterward, I went to the film festival at the college down the road, where I met and sat with two other women who were attending sans husbands. The feature we saw was called "Etienne," (pronounced ATN), about a man whose best friend, a dwarf hamster, is diagnosed with cancer. The vet recommends he put the animal to sleep, but the man instead decides to show the hamster the world before he has him euthanized. Along the way, he meets lots of interesting people, one of whom suggests he release the hamster to live in the woods until it dies, which is what the man eventually does. After he returns home, the vet calls to tell him he's made a mistake and the hamster doesn't have cancer. So he sets out to go find it. In the meantime, a young woman finds the animal, but turns him loose again. The man and woman meet accidentally, and the man tells the woman he's looking for his poodle, instead of his hamster, thinking the woman will laugh at him if he tells her the truth. So the man never finds the hamster. Phooey.

The next feature is about a chef who fixes food that creates "living dreams" for his patrons. A man who has lost his wife thinks he sees her across from him. Another man, who wants to be a writer, becomes one in his own mind. A bus boy and a waitress become Romeo and Juliet. I returned home after this, deciding not to stay for the documentary showcase, because there wasn't a sufficient break for supper.

A couple of hours later, I returned to the college to see a documentary about a 96-year-old man who created some 4,000 pieces of hobo whimsies and tramp art. During filming of the feature, the man reveals his life history, which was filled with alcohol addiction in his earlier years, heartache at the loss of his wife, estrangement from a son (who was born intersex, and upon whom "corrective" surgery was performed when he was a child, which later in life he resented, causing him to break with his family), his estrangement from his church, regret for not trying the hobo's life instead of getting married, having a father-in-law who belong to the Ku Klux Klan, being one of ten children of a widowed mother, living through the Depression, etc. He bared his soul in this film. His art was bought for about a half a million dollars for display in two museums, and he died of bladder cancer in a nursing home at the age of 97.

Hubbie joined me for the last feature about a pregnant woman who abandons her husband and moves into a derelict motel in order to sort out her life and figure out where she wants to go. She balances on the edge between self-discovery and self-destruction. Not my favorite film. We were back home about 9:30. I had challenged myself to see every film this year, but didn't quite make it. But at least my eyes aren't about to fall out tonight.