Edinburgh, Scotland, UK – Wednesday, June 16th to Saturday, June 19th
Much has been written concerning my distaste for buses as a means of transportation. Often unclearly marked both on the street and on the vehicle itself and running on a schedule in which time is measured in centigrade rather than the standard units, it becomes all too easy to miss your stop while on the bus, miss your planned route altogether, and so on. Even when these are not issues, you still have the problem that they often require exact change and the ride is usually a slow and bumpy one. I preferred the smooth, timely efficiency of rail whenever possible, which often wasn’t while deep in the country side.
After bidding farewell to Lightwater Valley I had a total of three bus routes I would need to take to cover a distance of 30 miles to arrive in time (just barely) for my scheduled train from Darlington to Edinburgh that afternoon. The first two actually ran on perfect schedules, but the third was late by at least fifteen minutes. “At least”, because I didn’t hang around to see how much longer it would take before saying to hell
with it and calling a cab to cover the last stretch of highway. Fare was considerably more expensive, but I surely would have encountered far worse monetary setbacks if I had missed my train. Not that it mattered anyway, because I knew there would be no way I could put a price tag on the experience that awaited me that evening.
I arrived in Edinburgh Waverly station with an hour and a half to pick up my tickets, drop off my bags at the hostel, and find my way to the Festival Theatre. This proved to be slightly more difficult than anticipated when I discovered the hostel owners were out for the night for the same reasons I was here (more on that later) and after ten minutes of ringing the bell I was finally received by another resident, but nevertheless I made it in time. With a rip of a ticket I was now standing awestruck in the presence of the most beautiful theatre houses I have ever seen, led to my reserved aisle seat near the front third of the arena. The lights dimmed and thus began the opening night ceremonies for the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival, the worlds longest continuously run and one of its most prestigious.
Scarcely could I think of a better film to introduce both the festival and the city with: L’iIllusionniste, a spectacularly detailed hand-drawn animated film set in the very city I arrived in barely two hours ago. I had already been highly anticipating this movie before I ever knew I would be able to see its world premier in Scotland, as I was a fan of the director Sylvain Chomet’s first film, The Triplets of Belleville, and had been awaiting the seven years it would take to release his second (Chomet was present on stage to introduce his film). All throughout the movie I made note of another landmark that I would have to see over the next three days I’d have in Edinburgh. The film itself is gorgeous; a different, more realistic style than the absurd surrealism that made up the landscape of fictional Belleville, and its dialogue-less story
(based on an unproduced screenplay by French comedic genius Jacques Tati… find a way to watch Play Time right now!) conveys a depth and range of emotion rarely felt by Pixar’s canon of enjoyable but overrated films. Since I already wrote reviews of the individual films a while ago, I will post the links for each day’s film lineup, starting with Day One.
Despite its scale and international renown, I was surprised by how open, friendly and egalitarian the Edinburgh Film Festival was. Ticket prices were an extremely reasonable £5 per showing for students (£7-£10 for a few special screenings including the opening night show), and you had to join no special members clubs to get first priority tickets; basically I was able to get
such fantastic seats by being online the moment tickets went on sale a few weeks prior. More than that, everyone involved was extremely friendly and helpful, and the audience make-up was fewer producers, critics and film industry bigwigs than it was ordinary people (a majority was city natives) who just wanted to see a lot of really good movies this week. The only thing I didn’t like was that a number of films were scheduled to take place in a nearby Cineplex (with unadjusted concession prices) rather than in independent theatres of a local flavor. The film selection was similarly mixed bag, as there were some remarkably good films I discovered, but mixed in with some real stinkers. This, however, is getting ahead of myself; reviews of films from the next three days are to come.
After the opening night film I wandered back to my hostel, where I once again had to wait for admittance by another resident of the hostel. I hung out in the common room and talked with the two or three other people that were still up before they wandered off to bed, me stuck there with no room key yet. Around 2:00am I found a phone and was able to give the owners a call, where I found they were out at the festival opening night party but agreed to come let me into my room right away. It seemed unreal to consider that in a single day I had woken up in York, found a new top five steel roller coaster, and attended the opening night screening of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I had no troubles sleeping.
The rooms were all empty, and this was by far the nicest, most comfortable hostel I would have stayed at in Europe regardless (blankets and towels provided in actual beds!) Since it was only owned by two people who were big film and culture buffs with no additional employees this meant that the frustration of there not always being someone present was balanced by staying in a place that seemed more like a home than a dormitory with people who knew your name and would casual strike up a conversation. The next morning the owner came up to apologize about the previous night, noting that as I could tell by the empty rooms they basically stopped taking reservations except from online for the week so they could go to the festival, and I was their only new guest. He stayed for a half hour to talk about movies, the festival and Edinburgh, describing his attempts to buddy up with Sean Connery before proclaiming that the weather today was only the second time he had ever seen the sun and so was going to get his kilt to go out on the town. I would stay in a bit longer as the travel schedule from the previous day had worn me pretty thin, but would soon venture out as well.
The first day after lunch I set out to walk the side of the hill Edinburgh Castle is located atop of (never went inside, guess I’ll have to do that next time), spent a few hours inside the National Gallery of Scotland (admission is free for all), explore Princes Street with its impressive Scott Monument (Sir Walter, of course), enjoy the vista atop Carlton Hill, and perhaps most thrilling of all (at least being a student of philosophy) was stumbling
into a cemetery and unwittingly discovering that it contained the burial site of David Hume. This was all before catching three movies in a row, the first (The Red Machine) a middling independent American buddy caper film, the second (Fog) a postmodern examination of memory and personal identity from Hong Kong (my favorite of the day and maybe of the entire festival after the Illusionist), and the third (Two Eyes Staring) a smart horror genre film from the Netherlands. Click here to read the reviews of day two.
Edinburgh is a magnificent place. All of Scotland for that matter. Maybe it’s just the accents. You walk the streets and find a modernized, cultured city, but right in the middle of it all is this giant rock outcropping with a castle straddled on top of it straight out of J.R. Tolkien. Everywhere you turn is history, but it’s preserved and integrated with the modern world in a way that’s more ‘cool’ and less ‘cold’ like other locales in the UK. I would probably rank it equal with Rome and slightly higher than Vienna and Barcelona for best European cities to simply stroll through without a map in hand or destination in mind. An abundance of hills and overlooks with miles of rich greenery help tremendously. If I could pick a single European city to live in, it would be Edinburgh… admittedly in part because there wouldn’t be a language barrier, also because in addition to the film festival they have multitudes of other festivals and events year round, but also because there was just a great vibe to it.
The third day’s films were a bit of a step down from the previous two, although the first ‘screening’ wasn’t even a film at all but a Q&A with several filmmakers; sadly Werner Herzog who was supposedly at the festival was not one of their guests. The other two films were Ollie Kepler’s Expanding Purple World and Monsters, the first being the worst film of the festival and the second going on to some popularity after its debut at Edinburgh for the director’s ability to assemble a full-scale, Hollywood-style monster extravaganza on a shoestring budget with a combined cast and crew fewer in number than the fingers on my hands. It may have been slightly more interesting for that reason than as a film itself, but given the polish of the final product it opened
my eyes to the new possibilities that cheap digital technologies will allow independent filmmakers over the coming years, and I’m optimistic to say the least. My sympathies and congratulations to these directors for the difficult work it is to produce even a bad film as I myself once attempted filmmaking before giving up and switching to a discipline that doesn’t require me to leave my armchair. Reviews for day three films here.
These few days in Edinburgh were supposed to be my “relaxation time” to break up what otherwise would have been constant travel and roller coaster riding, yet this somehow involved climbing a mountain before watching three more movies in a single night for the third day in a row. I guess I need to do
this sort of stuff while I’m still young and able to. This third day started with a tour of the Gallery of Modern Art before walking through the historically preserved Dean Village, crossing down the Royal Mile (Edinburgh’s most famous, alas, also most touristy road)
where I caught a street performer’s show, out to the Holyrood Palace and Scottish Parliament, and then a long walk up the mountains in Holyrood Park to a view overlooking the entire city, all before wandering back down so I wouldn’t be late for the European premier of Toy Story 3 (while that sounds impressive, I was slightly deflated after discovering my dad and sister had already seen it back in the States). After that were two more films, the European premier of Winter’s Bone which has since gone on to collect several Oscar nominations, and a surrealist fairytale horror film set in Edinburgh called Outcast that I frankly remember few details from because after all of this I was falling asleep in my seat, which at least made those parts I was half-awake for seem even more trippy than it already was. Reviews from day four here.
It was well before I was boarding my train out of Waverley station the next morning that I decided Edinburgh was easily one of the highlights among a five and a half month long odyssey that was full of other worthy highlights. I say this about nearly every place I visited in Europe but I promise myself I will return one day.
Comments