The drill today was pretty much like Monday's. I left the apartment just before three and caught the 22 Fillmore to J-town to catch the 4:15 film at the International Film Festival. Today, it was a French film called "In My Skin", ostensibly an SI film. At first I thought it was going to do justice to the topic, but then it started going out into left field and I was wondering what the hell the director was saying. The director was there and there was going to be a Q&A afterwards. I knew I wasn't going to ask anything, but I had questions formulating in my mind. "Since you're doing a film on the subject, of course you must have studied some cases to create the character. I'm curious why you chose to portray the protagonist in such an extreme light, as someone who is clearly disturbed, freakishly disturbed, certainly not someone typical". Other peoples' questions elicited her response that she did no study on the subject, her portrayal was not based on any actual case, and that she did not want to delve into the psychology, but just wanted to portray the drama. Big THUMBS DOWN for the film. Given what she said, this was not a sympathetic portrayal of SI victims. She portrays an extreme example, and by doing so portrays them all as freaks. Furthermore, all the other characters are portrayed as totally unsympathetic. This portrays everyone else as untrustable. If that's the way people are going to react, you don't tell anyone, you don't tell confidantes, which is often the first step towards getting help. And I was so hoping that the "cannibal" scene would be allegorical for the self-consumption involved in the behavior. Nope. This film was pure exploitation of a serious condition for the sake of putting gore on screen and making audiences queasy. I'm glad I saw the film, it's not a bad film, I'm just highly critical of it from a social perspective.

Unlike Monday, I had Sadie pick me up for rehearsal, saving me lugging my bass from J-town to the Tenderloin. Tonight was my second rehearsal with Han and Sadie to play with them at a gig next week. I'm pretty sure this is a one-off, so I'm treating it that way. It was fun playing with other people, but music just isn't a priority anymore. For me it's more hanging out with Sadie and Han, rather than rehearsing with a band.