Movies n Music

Well, yesterday was an excellent day of loafing and culture. Reto finished this big hideous exam that he has spent the past zillion years studying for on Thursday, so he spent the first half of Sunday being sort of hung over and vile, but by the afternoon everything was shipshape again (relatively).

We went to Zurich and availed ourselves of some more of the Film Fest. We saw this Spanish film called La Caja (aka The Wooden Box, although I do wonder if that should really have been "The Coffin"or similar, which seems more likely. Apparently I don't wonder enough to go and look at a spanglish dictionary though), which was really great and dark and full of secrets and grimness. There was a question and answer thing afterwards with the director, not something I normally enjoy much, but at this screening there were only about 50 people and so the whole thing had a really intimate feel. People were asking questions in all sorts of languages (well, spanish and german and english) and it all had a really informal, friendly, funny vibe, which is really pretty different from the Q&As I am used to at the Sydney Film Fest, which are often more about people pontificating and showing off. Interestingly, the movie only had english subtitles, and it was all in spanish. No german in sight.

After that we had some dinner and then went and saw a Crowded House concert with my Australian Zurich friends, Sarah and Kathryn, which was really fun. It was a nice change to be surrounded by english-speakers (let alone english-speakers with Australian and New Zealandy accents!) and to be able to eavesdrop on people with ease (not that anyone was saying much worth eavesdropping on). We stood behind the sound desk for the concert, which I always enjoy because it usually makes it easy to see the stage, and also because I enjoy spying on the set list (or whatever it's called) and spoiling the surprise for myself. As you would expect, they played some new stuff (which no one knew), lots of old stuff (which everyone knew), and the odd bit of this and that. Interestingly, Davey Lane was part of the band.

Swiss people, as it turns out, are strange in crowd situations. They have this mysterious mock mexican wave thing that they do that involves holding both arms out in front of you and waggling your fingers in a "spirit fingers" kinda way while simultaneously humming a constant note (ie. making you look like a zombie having a fit), and then ideally I think someone at the front sort of takes charge so everyone knows when they can then wave their arms in the air in a more traditional mexican wave type style (except not around in a circle as in an arena, but more of a front to back thing). I have seen this a few times (at the schwinging, and at this concert we went to in Baden a while ago), and people sort of tried to do it last night at the concert, but it was evidently confusing for the Crowdies. The first time it happened the humming was much more prominent than the hand wobbling (I think the lights were down) and Neil Finn dealt with it admirably by assuming we were giving him a note and then he turned it into "Friday I'm In Love", which was funny. The second time the hands were everywhere and the humming was nowhere and Neil looked confused for a while, then he tried to join in a bit as well and started waving his fingers in more of a "black and white minstrel" (or at least black-and-white-minstrel-as-featured-on-The-Goodies) sort of way. Then everyone sort of gave up (which we surmised might have had something to do with the fact that the audience was probably less Switzies and more antipodeans). Katherine, who is quite the veteran of Zurich living (7 years!), says it's always interesting to see how foreign bands deal with the zombie wave. I think the Crowdies coped admirably. Hopefully the next chance I have to see will be in November, when the Cat Empire are touring Yay!