FEATURE 093he weather was glorious, and I was delighting in the company of
a chaffinch who joined me for lunch every day. At peace, I looked
at the details of my next screening, due to start in 30 minutes.
The cinema was, according to Google, 40 minutes away. With scarcely
time to pay the bill and say goodbye to my avian friend, I ran through
the streets of San Sebastián with my laptop bag keeping rhythm at my
side. I hadn’t yet seen the Basque coast, and as it passed me by, I knew I
must return one evening.
Dehydrated and sweating, I thrust my press pass at the steward and
plonked myself down in the only remaining seat, right at the front next
to a whirring subtitle projector. Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on
Fire began to play above me at a slightly oblique angle as I struggled to
catch my breath. It was then that I burst into tears, and I continued to
cry profusely until the bitter end. Sleep deprivation, hours of taking
notes, and an endless stream of screenings hit me with full force,
intermingling with the unbearably beautiful melancholy playing out
on the screen. Entering the toilets after the credits, I collapsed in the
cubicle.
Cinephiles won’t just tell you about the films they love (and hate),
but also their best (and worst) viewing experiences. I could talk about
Portrait of a Lady on Fire for hours, with its exquisite framing and
pitch-perfect performances from Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant.
However, it is the event of the watch that will remain with me as being
formative in my career as a film writer and human being. After all, I
haven’t been in the game long – having just finished a degree in history
and now embarking on a Master’s in film, I’ve had little time to indulge
my critical instincts. Recovering from my episode with two lesbians in
18th century France, I realised what a privilege it was to be covering a
film festival and be but 21.Perhaps the saddest part is that I had few people to share it with.
Being a Spanish festival, the language barrier was isolating, and one
man I tried to talk to just shouted at me in the street. There were a
few lovely critics who clearly thought this shy English girl could do
with some company, which made watching James Franco’s horrendous
Zeroville somewhat more bearable. Being new to this whimsical world,
I was unfamiliar with its customs, and spent a lot of time in solitude.
It can be an overwhelming place if you don’t already know some
people there.
This sounds terribly parochial, the issue stemming from my
inability to speak Spanish. I felt like Owen Wilson’s Western writer in
Midnight in Paris, strolling back to my hotel at night having bungled
another conversation. Ernest Hemingway was even my literature of
choice, having recalled that ‘The Sun Also Rises’ was partly set in San
Sebastián. That book is about fiesta, of coming together to celebrate a
spectacle regardless of background. While I struggled to forge personal
connections, once the lights went down, I felt that sense of belonging.
Be it laughing with Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, or being baffled by I Was
at Home, But... by Angela Schanelec, there’s a collective individualism
to watching films in a darkened room that prevents one from ever
feeling truly alone.
Sitting through twenty films over a few days can be exhausting, and
on my last evening I finally returned to the beach that caught my eye
on the way to Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Reading love poems by Pablo
Neruda and breathing in the warm, tobacco-scented Spanish air, I was
filled with optimism. This is a life I could get used to, provided I gain
some confidence and meet new people. There’s a community of clicking
keyboards out there who love cinema as much as I do, and it was in San
Sebastián that I found the door. I can’t wait to see what’s insideJOURNEYS Words by LILLIAN CRAWFORD Illustration by SOPHIE MOT
San Sebastian