Praying to the Gods

Dear Kate,

Every five years the Busan International Film Festival (a South Korean film festival) would update their list of the "100 Best Asian Films" by curators from around the world, with the aim to highlight and promote Asian cinema internationally.

The latest list is HERE, and I can't be happier to see Hou Hsiao-hsien's "A City of Sadness" crowned the best as it should be--and on any list.  In fact the top four films all have a legitimate claim to be the best in the history of cinema.  (You would be happy to see Wong KarWai's "In the Mood for Love" high up on the pantheon, but yes, I still hate it, for the exact same reason you love it.  But that's another topic.)

The world is big, made small by comfort we could afford, special effects to effect nothing special, as shown in the cinema of our time--our life, hidden from the rain and storm, wallowing in our fear and frivolousness, super-humdrum-heroes we are in the domain of our pettiness.  The list of movies here, if nothing else, is a window to the possibilities of being human.

Yesterday I was in the downtown library, walked up six floors to meet Homer and Nabokov.  Not a sound on this floor, everybody came so high for nothing but peace and quiet, to find a corner to sit down and study, virtually not a soul between the tall long shelves.  I imagined, how ironic, if all the characters housed in the books on this floor are to be let loose from the pages, nothing below could stand a chance to close the gate of hell and stop the flood.  Maybe then we will pray to the gods and angels.

Yours, Alex

PS. I am showing you a Japanese trailer of "A City of Sadness," so that you would focus on the sight and sound, not to figure out the plot.