3AM Cinema Club
3AM Cinema Club: Chapter 5
I thought about Ernest Hemingway. I thought about the passage in “The Sun Also Rises” when Lady Ashley says, “We could have had such a damned good time together.” And the protagonist—looking away from her and at the policeman directing traffic—replies, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” I thought it summed up everything I wanted for my films. I’d like to make films about the act of looking away.
Hemingway was resolutely alone. A reporter faithful to his profession, he went in and out of wars and revolutions in order to observe, not to participate. Maybe he believed that there was no point in attempting to change the nature of things. Maybe he preferred to imagine rather than to take action. And when reality became suffocating, he looked away, a gesture that, if impactless, is at least tender.
3AM Cinema Club: Chapter 4
The grill reflected the twinkling bonfire. Sizzling sounds emerged from the salmon steak and chicken fillet, unfit for my vegetarian stomach. A few people had started dancing, beers in hand, their figures standing out against the dark, velvety sea. The fluorescent lights of the harbor illuminated lonely gantry cranes in the distance. I suddenly felt like I was one of them.
“So, who are you?” The woman at the grill asked, with the professional smile of a hotel receptionist.
3AM Cinema Club: Chapter 3
“How’s it going?” Kwan Yin’s cheery voice came through the phone.
“Hey. I did some work on my screenplay. I was wondering if I could show it to you sometime,” I said.
3AM Cinema Club: Chapter 2
On the fifth day, I took out a scrap of paper and wrote down all the thoughts in my head:
1. The limbo between fantasy and reality. The violence that fantasy inflicts upon reality—That’s what I shall explore (as an individual and as an artist).
3AM Cinema Club: Chapter 1
On the flight from New York to Hong Kong, I watched three films, listened to an album, and drank three Tsingtao beers, a glass of red wine, and a glass of cheap whisky. The sky outside was turning from pitch black to pale white. I had forgotten which direction along the earth we were flying, so I wasn’t sure if it was sunrise or sunset.
The flight attendants started delivering refreshments again. I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t make it happen. So I thought, maybe this was a good time to reflect on my life. I tried to meditate by imagining myself as a compact cassette. The play button popped up with a crisp sound as the stop button was pressed, then the tape went “whoosh” like a roaring train, screeching to a halt when there was only white leader on the left reel.