Friday, April 13, 2007

Subtitle Film Festival

On Thursday, April 12th, we headed out to the opening night of the First Annual Subtitle Film Festival. After enjoying the opening festivities - cocktail party reception with yummy appetizer foods in the colorful lounge of the new MPark4 Theatres - with our friends Jenny and Trevor, everyone then gathered into Theatre 1 to watch Memories of Tomorrow, a film featuring Ken Watanabe as a man diagnosed with early Alzheimer's. The film - in all its aptly subtitled glory - was amusing, touching, and heart-breaking as it portrayed the struggles of a Japanese ad agency man and his wife, who must individually cope with this unexpected illness.

The film is among one of many great foreign films featured in this first annual festival. Convenient to the Wilshire/Vermont Red Line station stop, it might be helpful for those taking transit to know that you walk west on Wilshire (turn right, once you leave the station on Shatto Place) and then make a left onto New Hampshire. Once there, you'll note some colorful movie posters in the lit windows of a dark converted Art Deco-esque building. Walk behind that building, pass some Korean storefronts, and then go up the elevators to the third floor where the theatre is.

Find out more great films in this too-short-of-a-run festival that closes on April 15th at ExperienceLA.com!

-Charity Tran and Sarah Koo, ExperienceLA Staff

1 comment:

trevor said...

I loved the opening film from this festival! It was thoroughly involved with the wife and her struggle to adapt to Watanabe's Alzheimer's - in many ways a more intriguing story than that of the afflicted. We get to watch as she reexamines the roles each played in the past, and how they have changed - or not changed - due to her husband's unique condition. A great Japanese film to start off the weekend...catch it when you can!