Ice Queen

My sister is currently recovering from her fever. Unfortunately, I am still in the process of recovering from the trauma that has struck me the day we were asked to move out of our parents' room to sleep in the middle "children's" room. It is not that the room is not elegantly furnished as the masters' bedroom, on the contrary, it suits exactly what I want - a small room packed with everything I could possibly need. The only problem was the aircon (A small room with an I-don't know-how-many-horsepower-but-I-know-its-a-really-strong-airconditioner, feels like being sent to the freezer).

Last night I once again suffered sleeplessness due to two specific reasons (a) I'm not used to sleeping on my newly-assigned bed and (b) the room was freaking cold. My brothers slept together on a queen size bed, beside the aircon wall. My bed on the other hand lies parallel to the air-cooler. I entered the room when everybody else were sleeping so I could not nag any of my siblings to change places with me. I placed a blanket around my bed (which is a double decker with no cushion on the upper deck) so the wind from the cooler would somehow be blocked. I also placed a blanket on the bed to keep it warm and two more blankets above me to keep me warm. The effort was not enough though, my teeth were still chattering and my feet were beginning to numb and my knees were feeling weak. I was wearing my usual pantulog, t-shirt and shorts, so I decided to add more covers. I placed on a long sleeve daster above my shirt, a knitted pedal (which my aunt gave me while she was disposing of her obsolete fashion wardrobe) over my shorts, socks and some feet binders (which my grandmother bought for me to wear at night to help remedy my sprained ankles).

I decided against turning the aircon to a lower temperature, observing my brothers were both sleeping soundly, kicking their blankets off. And so I went to bed looking like some big bulky bag lady with two blankets above her. Although the teeth-chattering no longer continued, it took me almost thirty minutes before my body temperature managed to adjust to make me comfortable enough to sleep.

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Last Friday, my friend accompanied me to watch the Eiga Sai (Japanese horror movie) marathon being shown in the UP Film Institute. Although I wanted to watch Kairo, the schedule of movies for the day were Hausu (House) and Pulse. Not meaning to sound culture-shocked, I was indeed shocked at the superficiality of the whole movie. I mean, the trailers were a lot more entertaining than the movie itself. With all respect to the fact that the trailers are more recent compared to the movie which seems to be taken out from a 1960 archive. It was more comedic compared to being scary. I even commented that the whole movie was not the sort of horror I was expecting - but it is as a matter of fact horrifying to watch.

(I mean, having characters named Scholar (for the intelligent freak of nature), Fantasy (for the pretty main actress with really bad teeth - she's pretty just don't make her smile), Mac (the generic fat girl who'd do anything to eat and who eventually ends up getting eaten by the monster first), Melody (the weird pianist girl who would get eaten by the piano after she plays the haunted lovers' piece) plus a typical predictable plot of a ghost waiting for her prince charming to rise from the dead and come fetch her, but eats little wandering girls for the time being to remain existent)

I guess I am being judgemental, but perhaps it is because I have been exposed to the Hollywood style of film-making that I place too much expectations of other films and end up almost always let down because of sometimes the poor quality of shots or the simplying horrible story the director agreed to work with. One such example of inconsistent shots could be seen in the Filipino movie, Lady of Manaoag, it could have been a good film, my mom cried. I didn't. All I did throughout the movie was think how my professor would react hysterically if I'd ever submit a work like that. Going back, Hausu was perhaps filled with funny moments like the superstar stepmom who has a perpetual electric fan following her around to highlight her "model" quality (always looks like a Karaoke clip everytime she walks in) or the constant breast exposures which I would easily dismiss as unnecessary.

Of course, I have considered the Japanese' obsession to the female bosom. I read it in one of the books in our university's library while waiting for my reseach-mate to show up. I forgot the title and the author but it discusses mainly of prostitution as well as the mentality of Japanese men. I got hooked on the book for an hour or two, voraciously reading two or three chapters. It interests me how the researcher managed to justify the mens' adultery, making a connection between the prostitute and mothers. I never saw the book again, although I intend to borrow it as soon as I complete reading the Tale of Murasaki written by Liza Dalby, who according to the credits is the first and only Westerner to become a geisha. Thinking about it, the book mentioned earlier is also by a Westerner geisha, maybe its the same person.. Bookmark - I have to check it out.

Returning to the movie, the director seemed to have this interest in showing off as much special effects as he could think of, not to mention editing techniques. It was a showy film with a repetitive piano piece, which in the end caught up with my sanity. The grand finale of the movie getting into my head, perhaps is when Fairy's robe was pulled by Fantasy, showing off her breasts. My friend, who is a guy by the way, made such a reaction which stuck to me for the whole 15 minutes remainder of the movie. "Brown nipples! Yech!"