5th Silent Film Fest: Liguoro's L'Inferno with live musical score

Last Saturday, I found myself at Shangrila to watch the 5th Annual Silent Film Fest. Razorback was chosen by the Italian Embassy to do the live musical score for the silent movie they were to present.

The equation in my head looked like this:

 Italian embassy+ silent film from 1911+ Dante's Inferno + Razorback = I'm sure as hell going.

After rushing to Shangrila all the way from Paranaque amidst the rain and the traffic, we finally got there at around 6:30. I did not expect to see the queue so long, good thing Brian already got our tickets. (again, sorry for being a little late)

When the movie started, It literally gave me chills, grabbed my friend, Lej, out of excitement. It was solid.  The sound was amazing, it gelled so well with the movie. L'Inferno, though obviously old, was a cool film. The effects were simple, yet they worked. My favorite scene was one where Satan was chewing up a dude, it was so funny how the guys legs were just wobbling around while he was supposedly chewing him up. We wondered how in the world Liguoro and his guys were able to think of how to execute this whole project given that they had no templates, examples, or anything at all.

Razorback set up in front, but they were facing the screen, too. All throughout the movie I found myself getting distracted by how Bri played the drums. For the first time, I could see whet he was doing while playing the instrument as opposed to just seeing his head bobbing up and down with the view from the front. Conclusion was: Bri is way hotter when he plays the drums with his back to you. OO, Seksi.

For those of you not familiar, here is info on the movie from Wikipedia:

"L'Inferno is a 1911 silent film by Giuseppe de Liguoro, loosely adapted from Dante's The Divine Comedy.

L'Inferno was first screened in Naples in the Teatro Mercadante on March 10, 1911. The film took over three years to make and was the first full-length Italian feature film ever made. The film was an international success, taking more than $2 million in the United States alone. It is considered by many scholars and fans as being the finest film adaptation of Dante's work to date."

So yes, It was a grand night. A rock concert/movie of sorts. I was hell bent on using the one phrase I learned from my Italian for Dummies audio books. Though opportunity did not present itself that night (I didn't want to harass the Italian Ambassador), it's still very much applicable: Molto bene! Grazie!