Saturday, February 28, 2009

We sat in the Korean restaurant across from the movie theater on Birger Jarlsgatan, me with my chop chae, A. the TV producer and O. her stepdaughter having some kind of salmon thing with lots of vegetable-y stuff, bowls of kimchee and sauces in front of us, surrounded mostly by what must surely be the entire Korean population of Stockholm.

"You know it's good Korean food if the restaurant is filled with Koreans," O. said.

"They have a sign on the bathroom that's only in Korean," A. said. "I can't believe it's not in Swedish, too. And then there's another sign inside that's also only in Korean! What do you think it means?"

We ate our food and ran over to the movie theater across the street, to watch the nine o'clock showing of the much-touted Milk, which opened in Sweden yesterday.

As we sat in the audience, I looked around me, noting that unlike the Korean restaurant, the crowd for this very gay movie was decidedly non-gay. Did this mean the movie wouldn't be as good as if it were a gay audience?

"How do you know there are no gay people?" A. asked. "People probably think we're a couple seeing this movie with our daughter. All these people could be just friends you know."

Well, I thought. Maybe not those people next to us kissing, nor the people next to them kissing. All this kissing - I guess they were making sure that we didn't mistake them for being just friends? 

Um, probably not.

Despite the crowd being overwhelmingly not gay for this very gay movie, it almost lived up to the hype. Almost.

The Swedish word for the day is likartad. It means of a similar kind.

6 comments:

do Ó Pires de Sousa said...

well, here in portugal the cinema was full of the gay crowd (except the prime-minister, his girlfriend and few others)
it looked like there was some kind of membership card that was necessary to be validated if you wanted to continue to be gay in lisbon

ó

Eileen said...

It will be fascinating to see who will be in attendance in (pretty conservative) Chile. Except that I don't really go to the movies. But this seems like a good reason to change my tune.

I like your blog and will surely add it to my read-frequently list! (nav'd from Beverlyreverly, if you're wondering)

Rob said...

Funnily enough in Edinburgh the straight people I've spoken to about it liked Milk better than the gay ones. There seemed to be a little resentment of straight actors "playing gay" - though from the end credits it seems clear that the casting was mostly on the basis of physical resemblance.

. said...

OK, so I've seen it in Milan on a Sunday afternoon, at a movie theater in one of the poshest areas of the city. The audience was, apart from me and boyfriend and a small group of gay guys, mostly Milanese couples, many of them well over 60. Gay kisses and PDA, gay "content" were each time greeted with much throat-clearing, sligthly embarrassed little coughs... But then again, I thought, they came to see it and they might have learnt a thing or two... We gay can only like the movie- but if it can help other people change their conception, then all the better!

Kimberly said...

if you can, i would like directions to this restaurant, we are going to be in sweden in september, and i am half korean so it will be funny to be in sweden eating korean. also as an fyi, we are from chicago too!!

Francis S. said...

Kimberly - it's called Nam Kang on Birger Jarlsgatan. And Arirang is also good...

 


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