The annual Chinatown Lunar New Year festivities will welcome in the Year of the Rabbit (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Sara D. Roosevelt Park (and other venues)
East Houston St. between Forsythe & Chrystie Sts.
February 3-12
Admission: free
www.betterchinatown.com
The Year of the Rabbit is upon us, and the celebration kicks into full swing today, with the Chinese New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony and Cultural Festival in Sara D. Roosevelt Park beginning at 11:00, with live music and dance, speeches by politicians, drum groups, lion dancers making their way through local businesses, and lots of loud noises to ward off evil spirits and welcome in a prosperous new year. On Sunday, the twelfth annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade & Festival takes place, with cultural booths in the park (11:30 – 4:00) and a parade with floats beginning at 1:00 in Minuscule Italy. The annual march through Flushing, which also features lion dances, drummers, and fireworks, is scheduled for Saturday, February 12. For the next few weeks, Chinatown restaurants will be offering all kinds of special New Year dinners; it’s a tradition to eat a whole fish, with the head on, to bring good luck. Gōng xǐ fā cái!
Written and directed by first-time feature filmmakers Antonio Naharro and Álvaro Pastor, ME, TOO is a beautifully told story about a man with Down syndrome trying to make it in the so-called normal world. When Daniel (Pablo Pineda) first shows up for work at a government disability agency in Sevilla, Laura (Lola Dueñas) mistakes him for someone who has come seeking help, not the person who will be occupying the desk next to hers on a daily basis. Daniel does not see himself as a victim, and he is clearly not a charity case; instead, he has earned a university degree and refuses to allow his disease — or, more important, the way his disease is viewed by others — to limit the things he can accomplish in life. Soon Daniel and Laura grow very close, but she is unable to let their relationship reach the next level, regardless of how much they care for each other — and how many times she instead goes to a local bar and picks up strangers. Meanwhile, Luisa (Lourdes Naharro) and Pedro (Daniel Parejo), who both have Down syndrome and are members of the Danza Mobile dance company, which works with people suffering from intellectual disabilities, have fallen in love, but they feel free to express it, even in public, which gets them in trouble with Luisa’s mother (Catalina Lladó). The contrast between the two romances, one of which is “mixed” but both of which are complicated, is well handled by Naharro (who also plays Daniel’s older brother in the film) and Pastor, steering clear of the kind of sappy melodrama that could have compromised the film’s point of view. They deal with the issue of the infantilization and stereotyping of people with Down syndrome with just the right amount of honesty and subtlety to avoid becoming a pedantic message movie. Both Dueñas, an Almodóvar regular, and Pineda, making his cinematic debut, won Silver Shells for their acting at the 2009 San Sebastian Film Festival. Pineda is in fact the first person with Down syndrome in Europe to earn a major university degree, and he is endearing in the lead role, never overly sentimental, and the script avoids treacly moments, as does Guille Milkyway’s soundtrack. ME, TOO will be screening as part of the ReelAbilities NY Disabilities Film Festival on February 5 at the JCC in Manhattan and on February 6 at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington.
