This morning my morningpersonitis made a strong return. The last couple of days I have been bordering on zombie-ish – exhaustion a constant companion. For much of yesterday afternoon and evening, I couldn’t help thinking that a night off from filmfest would be really nice. Though given the shorter length of filmfest, I would feel a little guilty about reducing the films I can get to. While I wasn’t nodding off, I wasn’t exactly at my best consciousness levels either. I got home a bit before midnight and headed off to bed fairly quickly. This morning, to my amazement, I woke up around 6; on the last few mornings I have struggled to wake with the alarm at 7. I am wide awake now, no zombie mode for me today. I had several cups of coffee yesterday which didn’t really help much, but today I’ve had one…and I didn’t need it, but it was nice to go for a walk and have a cuppa.

On to the movies…two last night starting with If I want to whistle, I whistle, by Florin Serban from Romania. This was a decent flick/prison drama. Well told and well ended. A lad mere weeks from being released after 4 years of good behaviour runs off the rails when his mum returns after several years absence. While the plot development was somewhat predictable, it was handled with intelligence and empathy and finished in an honest way. An impressive piece of work.

The second movie, Ajami, directed by Copti and Shani, set in Israel reminded me a little of Pulp Fiction. The story was told through several chapters that intersected but weren’t necessarily chronological ie some chapters retold earlier events from a different perspective or brought to light new information that some of the protaganists weren’t aware of. It wasn’t a gangster per se, in the way that Pulp Fiction was, but it was playing with story telling and did concern gangs and shootings, with a more serious element of what some folk might need to do to ensure their safety or pay for a life saving operation. Plus there was an udnercurrent of cultural relations running through to it too. It was a wee bit long but was ultimately satisfying I think.