City Living

This is rather an artistic shot of Flinders Street Station from an angle I don't usually see. I'm always coming at it face on, but today I went the other way up Flinders Street and realised how majestic the station looks from this spot.

It was all about MIFF today! I went to a 1:30 session at the Forum Theatre this afternoon because I kept hearing amazing things about the movie. It's called Blancanieves, and it's a Spanish retelling of Snow White set in the 1920s and done as a silent black and white film. It's possibly one of the most obscurely pretentious sounding films ever, but it was actually completely charming and very funny. I liked the first half, when Snow White is a little girl, more than the second mostly because I felt the young actress was far more expressive than the older girl.

The film subverted the traditional fairy tale as well - instead of being a princess, Snow White is the daughter of a famous matador, and instead of becoming the dwarves' housekeeper she follows in her father's footsteps and becomes a matador as well. Also, there's no prince - her romance is with one of the dwarves instead. The evil stepmother is hysterically funny, which is impressive given there's no dialogue, and the look of the film was stunning. My only disappointment was that there was no happy ending - I know it's a bit silly, but I like that Snow White lives happily ever after. In this version, she certainly deserved to.

I rushed home after the film only to rush back out for a MIFF shift. I put my hand up to work in a certain cinema because I wanted to see the film - a music documentary called This Ain't No Mouse Music. I love music documentaries, because even if you've never heard of the subject you discover a whole new type of music and you learn about all these fascinating people that shaped the industry. I'd never heard of Arhoolie Records, or its founder Chris Strachwitz before, but I'm glad I know about it now. Strachwitz is a producer who single handedly brought regional American folk music to national and international audiences - music like blues, Cajun, Mexican folk, country. He basically travelled America, particularly the South, and found these people making this incredible music and he recorded it and sold it and preserved it for the younger generations. It was a great film.

I got this shot while I was walking back to the station from The Forum - I wish there was no traffic, but mid-afternoon on a Friday there will always be traffic in the city! Cropping the top of the cars out made the picture look too small so I kept it as it is. I really like this picture, and I love how spectacular the station looks.