Old school Japanese maid

This Monday I was at another shoot. It turned out to be one of my favorite projects so far. Why? It was a Japanese period piece, and everybody gets to dress up in a kimono! It was my first official kimono experience. I was excited.

So even though it was another student film again, and I am again doing the shoot pro bono, it was a well-rounded crew. I mean there was a whole wardrobe department with kimono experts to help us dress. It was an extremely complicated job, to put on a kimono. Even though I was only playing a non-speaking role, as the maid of the Lord, they had me in a kimono just as well. And a pretty pink one too! After they put the 3+ layers on me, i feel like I was going to faint.. The obi (belt) was so tight around my waist I could only use 50% of my lung capacity. It was like a corset for Japanese people. I was exclaiming in my mind, how do old time Japanese people do this everyday?

After I was dressed, I put on my geta-or Japanese sandals, and walks painfully to hang out with the other maids in the back while they shoot the other scenes. My hair was in a bun in the back of my head, making me look really old. The kimono limited my movements so I could only take tiny steps at a time and couldn't bend down without looking awkward. And, did you ask about bathrooms? Oh yes that was some fun experience... I am glad I am not an old school Japanese woman 100 years ago before they had jeans.

The samurai looking actor seemed to whisper to me something like I look pretty when I walked past him... But I was too shy to say anything I just hurried and scurried down the path like a squirrel and barely acknowledges him and stayed in character, like a good old Japanese girl would have done in the old times.

I waited for 3+ hours total before my little scene. But then that was not that bad.
I was in my kimono trance the whole time.

Finally it was my turn. The scene took place in a Japanese garden (in real life the one in Van Nuys) I was to try to take the plate from the princess because I was the servant. She would ignore me and walk past me. Then I would turn back after the princess and her maids were gone and stare at their backs in confusion. It doesn't sound like much, but looking at it from a Japanese aesthetics point of view, I think I can say that it was a single action that spoke a thousand words.

And in my mind's eye too it was a beautiful shot. Maybe something close to what I have always wanted to be able to portray on screen. Like THE moment in a film that would touch some hearts and stay in memories. I am glad I accomplished it so early in my acting career. Hope the final product turns out well.

I hope nothing was stuck in my hair and my lipstick didn't smudge!!

It took a while to take all the layers off me and put on my real life clothes. I was really catching a cold and I had a bug bite on my face :(

But I was happy.

My Unofficial Amateur Review of The Bicycle Thief

Today I watched The Bicycle Thief or Ladri di Biciclette (1948) by Vittorio De Sica. I have wanted to watch this film ever since my film history class, in which we watched films from Rosselini, Fellini (La Strada)...etc and this film always came up somewhere in the discussion. So today I finally watched it.

I have to say it quickly rose to one of my top favorites. I still couldn't believe that I cried at the very end. Ok I have to backtrack first. At first it was just another black-and-white Italian film for me. I can still remember the segment that my professor showed us about how de sica, and many of the Neorealist directors, would sometimes move the camera away from the main characters and instead follows random background characters even while the main actors are talking. It was interesting.

And then when the father realizes that his son was more important than the bicycle and he brought the son to a restaurant to eat, that was heartwarming and I thought it would be a good wrapping-up, if it were a Hollywood film. But then the father still somehow insisted on getting a bicycle, to the point that he tried to steal one. Then, when he got caught and was released because the crying son won over the crowd, the camera focused on his hand holding tight onto the son's hand. But that wasn't heartwarming this time. Dad had done a shameful thing, and the son shared the shame as well. The real thief (who was the cause of this whole mess) got no blame and the helpless who turned into a thief out of necessity got all the blame. There IS no hope. Tears just welled up to my eyes at that point. I think I was probably relating to the son. But then the two just looked so hopeless that I got a little depressed myself.

I can read that the director was trying to say that there was no hope for Italy. Because it was during the war when the film was made?
But then I think the hopelessness also would apply to many other countries, even nowadays. I even felt somehow the hopelessness of mankind. And sensing that at the end of the film just made me so sad.

But I have to say the little boy in the film is such a good actor! He gets lots of props for making this film so moving. Sometimes he makes us laugh and other times makes us cry. He is just so adorable AND heartbreaking.

Anyway I can rant on forever... But I will stop here. I think I will watch something totally different now. I want to believe that life is full of color and it's not so bad to be a human being after all.