It’s a weird one. Normally, at this stage in the festival I’m barely able to function as a human being. Through a combination of four films a day, copious amounts of red wine and chorizo sausage and a night’s sleep that even Margaret Thatcher would wince at, I’m normally not able to make it through a whole film and there’s every chance I might nod off while standing in the queue.
But this year, something’s definitely different. It’s been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, it is not fear that grips me, only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. But enough of that, we both managed to make breakfast and aimlessly ambled around Sitges before we took in our first film of the day…
COLD SOULS – AUDITORI – 14:45HRS
First looks at this made it look like a remake of Being John Malkovich starring Paul Giamatti. Thankfully, that was a far too simplistic view on what this actually was. A clever story about removal and swapping of a person’s soul, it could have got bogged down in trying to be very deep and meaningful but actually kept it light and extremely enjoyable with stand-out performances as usual from Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn.
With barely enough time for a cold one, we were back in the press queue for the second film of the day:
ACCIDENT – AUDITORI – 17:00HRS
As the producer was Johnnie To, hopes weren’t high for this one (see yesterday’s blog post) but were were fairly pleasantly surprised. Colin was a bit keener on it than me but this tale of a team of elaborate contract killers who make all of their hits look like accidents was pretty good, although my own personal thoughts were that it tailed off a bit in the final third.
So, in ‘pleasantly surprised’ mode we legged it past the massive queues that were already forming for our third and final film of the day…
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY – AUDITORI – 18:45HRS
As we took our seats in what had now been coined “Corridorstyle Row” (at least by us) there was a fair bit of nervous excitement in the air due to a trailer that looked terrifying in a [REC] / Blair Witch kind of way, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. I don’t think I’ve ever been as uncomfortable in a cinema as I was watching this film, and that includes the castration sequence in Hard Candy. A well acted, written and shot film, they have a really clever way of cranking up the atmosphere in the ‘non-scary’ parts so that by the time the scares actually arrive, your trousers are already full.
So, with a final festival bonus of free ice-cream on the way out (thanks to both Ben and Jerry) we headed off in the night to say goodbye to all of our friends and local haunts and talk rubbish into the wee small hours.
It’s been emotional Sitges. In the words of Richard Ashcroft “See you in the next one, have a good time”.
corridorstylefilms.com 
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