A New Year, And A New Goal

I've finally made up my mind. I will apply for the most obvious film schools in Stockholm, and should I get in I will obviously accept and study there, but my level of effort or even desire has all but vanished. I have instead decided to temporarily alter my focus completely. I have had a tendency to let years be defined by a single entity recently. 2011 was the year of Tangled, or Disney and of finding the first major piece of my cinematic identity, the innocence and childish enthusiasm and love that far too many working in the film industry (or at least those who WANT to) seem to lack. 2012 was the year of Myrna Loy, of going from having a clinically sterile understanding of the past of film to acquiring a flavorsome love for it. The attraction to snappy dialogue, hilarious faces and wonderfully simple payoffs that were a large part of the comedies of the 1930's. 2013 was the most difficult of them all. To sum it up for the common man would be to say that it was the year of Asia. From coincidentally arriving at least four months late to the "Gangnam Style"-party while having about five unwatched Korean films in my collection at home, the way I rang in the new year wasn't by making resolutions to be a better man or losing weight (though I did try and failed at the latter, as well), but by starting off the biggest cinematic challenge of them all. This wasn't as simple as watching all the movies in the Disney-canon or all of the films of Myrna Loy's filmography. This was me diving into the entire cinematic culture of a foreign culture! To be even more specific it was actually diving into several cultures. 

My life was so much less complicated before this motherfucker came along. If I ever meet PSY... I'll hug him.

It of course started with Korea, especially with the works of Park Chan-wook. Whose film "Oldboy" along with Bong Joon-ho's "The Host" were the initial factors that led to this cinematic crusade. These two movies were the water behind the dam, and "Gangnam Style" was the log that dislodged, sending the pent up curiosity out. Soon I had consumed all of Park's works, moved on to Bong's filmography and started to dabble in other directors like Kim Ji-woon. Soon I had favorite actors in the form of Song Kang-ho, Choi Min-sik and Bae Du-na whose films I very much enjoyed. But it didn't stop there, but moved on to Japanese cinema and to a lesser extent mainland China and Hong Kong as well. They were all good at different things. The Chinese make beautiful, restrained love stories that say so much with their actions rather than words. The Japanese can seemingly master nearly any genre, making hilariously high concept adventures, action movies and downplayed dramas. And the Koreans make thrillers that can be impossible to match. Visually they are, at least to me the most impressive, every frame of some of the pictures I've seen feel, for lack of a better word; perfect. 

2013 was also the toughest year I have ever gone through. I suffer from tinnitus which means that my ears have a constant ringing that never goes away. Because of this I also suffer from Hyperaccussis, which means that I have extremely sensitive hearing. And I had during the first four months of the year built up a surprisingly strong tolerance to loud noises. All of this came tumbling down in May however where I was, because of a colleague who was going through her own issues pushed beyond my limit having to cover for her and some other people who feigned illness to enjoy the late spring sun. I also wasn't sleeping well at this point, feeling lucky to get four hours in any given night. 

I started to have an increased ringing in my right ear, while also experiencing reduced hearing on that ear. These problems haven't been resolved yet, but despite that my resolve is far stronger than it was then. I was on the brink, and I honestly doubt even my mother, whom I still live with partly because of my troubles, realized how bad I was. I cried for no reason, found myself counting my life backwards waiting for death rather than fearing it. Things were in other words, pretty bleak. 

But I pulled through, made it to 2014 and despite all my problems that were obviously coming with me into the new year I couldn't help but wonder what new thing would become my obsession during 2014? Would there be  anew obsession at all? Or would my "old" obsession continue? I'm almost a full month in and it seems that the latter is very much the truth.I spent Christmas Eve with my family, but once I got home from the annual holiday gathering, a pretty drunk Christian decided during a small walk that he would spend what was left of the night learning as much Hangul (the Korean script), which I then proceeded to go home and do. I'm still rough and don't know all the symbol combinations or even exactly how to pronounce the vowels, but I can at least read the language to the point where everything I read comes out close to accurate. Another aspect that must be mentioned for this whole thing to make sense is that beginning in late August I officially returned to school full time, becoming a student at a community college's film course. The experience as of writing this has been positive. Oddly enough not because of it being "fun" but rather for the lack of enthusiasm for playfulness in the environment. I have searched for a place in the cinematic space from film theory, to film criticism to acting and now overall filmmaking only to somewhat come to the conclusion that every single group I have tried to identify with has been difficult in one way or another. Most of the students that studied film theory were only there for an extra credit when they later applied for studies in overall journalism, the few who actually seemed interested to pursue a career within the world of film either too quiet for me to notice at the time or possessed the same snobbish air and supperiority complex that I imagine I have myself come to command in recent years. I (at least at the time) didn't belong there. 

The actors were fun, they mostly lacked the verbal precision of the theorists. A quality I severely missed when trying to discuss film. They also had a mostly mainstream knowledge of the medium, which I had long since overdiscussed and analyzed at this point (or so I felt at the time), but in exchanged they had a beautiful enthusiasm that I miss throughouly to this very day. In fact despite that we never fulfilled our promise to continue to meet at least once a month post-course I still house deep feeling for a few of them. Friendship, kinship and even an unfulfilled romantic longing for one particular one of them still exists in my heart. From them I took a more human understanding of film, and the dreams that so many of us secretly (or in these people's case openly) house. Of all the people I have met in this experience these are the people I mostly want to prove myself to. I want to see them succeed and be there next to them, because just knowing that our ties still exist is a wonderful feeling to consider. 

Then we have the class I am currently sharing my days with. Through the process of elimination, along with my private evolution from bumbling insincere film enthusiast to what I would myself refer to as semi-professional film theorist, critic, actor, writer and director I had come to the conclusion that these were the people whom I should find my place with. My mother spoke of finding her place and meeting the friends she still holds dear as she grew up, and I wanted to do the same. Hell, I wanted to beat her to it, and make her be jealous of the partnerships I forged when I finally started my dream. Instead I soon found myself in an environment which was both more stern and seemingly unenthusiastic than anything I could have predicted. We were all different, and expected to different things. That much I expected, but what the still 25-at-the-time Christian didn't forsee was that there would be such a strong will in certain members of the 16-strong class to keep the created products serious and filled with political or social messaging.
Part of me was devastated. My ears were terrible, and I was an emotional maelstrom where the biggest question was if this life truly was worth living, knowing that no matter what, the ringing in my head that caused me to not be able to relax would never vanish? And all I wanted was confirmation. Something to tell me that there was a silver lining. Laughter. Stupidity. I wanted hope.My personality immediately clashed with both these individuals and because of that my own goals as well. I have a tendency to clash with people that fill any sort of architypical extreme. Not because I am necessarily against the agenda or behaviour of said individual as much as I hate extremes. And yes, I am fully aware of how hypocritical that is, considering the fact that I am if anything the most extreme and intense person the people around me have ever known. My personality is however somewhat of a chameleon. I am not bound by an attitude to life, or film, or people, so when my classmates, who as far as I am concerned let their political agendas become their sole item of identification. It's all politics, all the time. Even when referring to film. 

Is film school supposed to be about as fun as this picture? I doubt it...

What I meant by calling myself a social chameleon isn't as much about me being able to adapt myself to topics being discussed by others (a quality I lack and envy those who have), rather I have a tendency to be able to take any conversation and hijack it, leading it back to a topic I can discuss. No what I do is that if I sense a lack of humor and insincerity in the room I will immediately compensate by being the most disrespectful and loud person in the bunch, trying to make the scales even as if insincerity and sincerity were actual elements that can be measured. The same thing occurs if I'm in the opposite situation, where everyone else is acting foolish and no one realizes that there is something to be done. At work I was the latter fairly often. In charge and being expected to laugh along because I was young, which I usually did when someone else was in charge, knowing that there was someone making sure that work got done and could make my collegues to the same. In school I have hardly ever shown this side, because the overly serious seats are already filled by the same few people every day. 

So of course, I became the class clown. Hard to respect, and even harder to take seriously. It... was not what I wanted or expected. But it couldn't be helped, because without the ability to at least partially counteract my classmates I would have never survived. I made friends, to say i didn't would be ridiculous, but when we started getting actual film assignments the teachers felt (and I understand why) that grouping extremes can make for fascinating results. After all passion is better than neautrality and much like with publicity, there is no such thing as bad passion. So for each of the three projects we made during the fall semester I was bundled with at least one of these politically charged people. 

 
However this created an even bigger problem for me. I wasn't completely against the idea of making something devoid of humor, but I could tell that these people were (on our first project one of them even said as much) set on making something that had a message. So there I was, severely depressed and forced to focus for four months of my life on the things that make our world a terrible place, rather than the things that make it great. 

In fact before the break we all had individual talks with our three teachers which let me tell them that I wasn't happy with the tone of the projects I was given which did result in me finally getting to work on something fun that I actually care about, but the impression that these people have left on me is huge.
In fact that is what all of this has been leading to, the change in world view that have given me. I wanted to make movies, that was all, and professionally it still is, but during 2013 I started to think more and more about the possibility of taking a break from this whole thing before it was too late, before I got too involved in anything to get up and leave. The idea of travelling came up. I have several friends who have been away to study, four of which have lived a year in Japan. And whilst I have been jealous of their journeys I also felt that my current situation would not allow it, but now I was desparate. I had actually applied (and gotten accepted) to the first step in Korean at the University of Stockholm, but chose film over that. That, along with my continued delving into the Korean film landscape fueled my curiosity. What if I went to Korea? Or Japan? 

So here I am, at the end of January of 2014, listening to my friends talking about where they are going to apply to, what their hopes for the future are and how they want to get there, and all I can think is: "I need a break from this. I need to see something else, be reminded of the size of this world I want to entertain."
The question remained however, Japan or Korea? Japanese is a language I know people who speak. I know of their cultures, their cities and parts of their history. I've taken a course on Japanese film, seen over a hundred films from Japan and have nearly fifty books by Japanese authors.
Korean is a language I know literally no one who can speak. I know more about their culture than probably anyone else I know, which is essentially nothing in the grand scheme of things and except for the last hundred years of their history I don't have a clue about where the country has come from. I have seen probably around seventy films from South Korea and except for one book called "The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema" the only books on Korea's film industry that I own are books that are both about their cinema along with Japan's. 

 
The knowledge and size of Japanese speaks in its favor. However I have decided to interpret it in the opposite direction instead. I have books on both languages, and will (if nothing gets in my way) eventually learn both these languages, but for now the fact that South Korea is such a harder country to find out anything about to me says that it is the place that needs to be discovered. Book stores here sell books by Kawabata Yasunari, Oe Kenzaburo and Murakami Haruki. On the same shelves they have books by Chinese authors such as Mo Yan, Geling Yan and Amy Tam. Korean authors? Not a single one as far as I could find. 

 
Maybe that is because Korea has no literature worth bringing over (which is a ridiculous notion) or maybe it simply is because Korea is smaller and less exposed to us? And unlike Japan, which I know some things about, Korea I know nearly nothing about. It started with Gangnam Style, that's what pushed me over the edge. One point for Korea. Other K-pop followed, as did more films. The first set of books I ordered were on Korean, not Japanese. Two points to Korea. It was a Korean war vessel that made a stop to comemorate the end of the Korean War last fall, and let us come aboard. Three points to Korea. It was the Korean films that topped my list at the Stockholm International Film Festival later that same fall. Four points to Korea. And as I've already said, it was Korean that my rather severely drunk self decided to learn late on Christmas Eve. Five points for Korea. 

 
Who knows? Maybe I will change my mind of something truly profound will come along and push me in an opposite direction. Maybe I will find a film school which I can't pass up or maybe I'll be dead as a door nail by the time the autumn comes around again, but that is where I stand as of now. This blog, along with videos I am shooting mostly for my own sake is going to chronicle my future experiences. From learning the language, to what will hopefully be a long journey. I apologize for this entry (which is like most of those I will probably end up writing) far longer than I first thought it would be, but I felt this introductory segment needed to establish essentially everything I think is important about the situation and challenges ahead.
These next few months will probably be rather uneventful, at least from this perspective, but I'll also try and talk about my taste in movies, maybe review some of the movies I see and maybe try and recommend some movies since I feel a lot of people sadly don't give foreign films a chance.
But that is a topic for another day. Thanks for reading, and I hope this whole thing is worth both our times!