The Black Man with a White Soul

This is the Spanish entry to the Second Manila International Silent Film Festival, and also the first film to be shown.

Being the indecisive kids that we are, we only decided this afternoon to watch this movie at Shangri-la at 7 pm. So we trooped off, in our student clothes and backpacks - to discover, upon arriving at the cinema, what seemed to be a roped-off wine-and-bread-sticks party. For people in suits, and their equivalents. After the initial snicker or two at the sheer ridiculousness of the suits crammed - roped! - together in such a sad fashion, it dawned on us that, hey, this is actually a Silent Film Festival, with Capitals, and these people were in on it!

Anyway it wasn't really so bad, although as the cinema was just beginning to fill up, I couldn't shake the feeling that some of the people standing around (and obviously part of the proceedings in some way) were looking at us amusedly.

The silent film was to be accompanied by live music, for this film provided by the Novo Concertante Manila, and in fact we found the members of the chamber choir sitting in formation up front right by the screen. So, it turns out that we fortuitously decided to attend a silent film exhibition with the score provided by a live choir, which I'd suspect isn't such a common occurrence? In any case, it must be double the culture points?

It was a strange experience, having a choir a few feet away rendering a score for a blurry old racist (but also charming funny) silent film. The score was consistently good (I'd say excellent, but I don't have the authority and am crippled by a fear of failure and a lack of self-esteem OH WHOOPS did I say that out loud).

The film's ostensible flaws (blurriness, racism) were for the most part just artifacts of its context. Of course it would appear blurry to modern viewers, since cameras have improved astronomically since then (and the blurriness isn't entirely a flaw, either, since (a) it looked pretty at times and (b) when it isn't pretty, at least one gets used to it after the first few scenes). The racism (apparent from just hearing the title), well, it was an era before political correctness, and perhaps a more complex, redemptive plot just couldn't be fit into the film, using the techniques of the time.

The other entries in this year's festival also seem interesting; it's really too bad that their schedules mostly don't work out with ours. Ah, well, at least I can say that I've seen at least one silent film (with live music!) in my life.