Here’s what we don’t talk about when we talk about movies: the theatres. This article is intended as a roundup of my year at the movies — and for the most part will be just that. But I wish to begin by dashing off a quick tribute to the dwindling structures that still house our favourite dreams.
This is partially fuelled by the recent announcement of the shutting down of Mumbai’s iconic Chandan Cinema, to be redeveloped into a high-rise and multiplex. The rest comes from my own guilt of not watching enough movies in theatres this year, waiting around for them to pop up on (legally accessible, subscription-based) digital platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. I must surrender, sure, like everybody else, but I must repent too.
So here goes: Cinema halls are the bellies of dirty magic. It’s not just how they look but how they smell — a mouldy, musty smell swimming down the end of the lobby and threatening to pull you into another time. (The smell worsens in the restrooms, especially in single-screens, where you must stand at interval with blinkered eyes, slightly perturbed by the man in the next stall flashing you a grin. Maybe he just wants to discuss a plot twist.)
I recently spoke to filmmaker Vasan Bala about these feelings and this is what he had to say: “I come from a generation that enjoyed the ritual of going to the movies: looking at the posters, buying a ticket at the box-office, going inside the theatre or simply listening to the audio leak out from the auditorium. It’s an experience that the Internet cannot replace.”
I bring up the romance of the big-screen for another reason. The communal experience of consuming a piece of art — any art (think concerts, book readings or performance poetry) — has obvious and invisible ways of feeding into our final assessment of the work. I first caught Pa Ranjith-Rajinikanth’s Kaala, released on June 7 this year, at a suburban multiplex in Sion, Mumbai. It was a first-day morning show and the rows were packed with Tamil-speaking youngsters, all roaring and bringing the house down even before Thalaivar made his entry.
Now the film was playing without subtitles, and I claim no knowledge to even broken Tamil, but I was readily swept up in the energy and the verve. I roared, teared-up and headbanged riotously to Santhosh Narayanan’s electric soundtrack. It was a mad rush, religious even. Some weeks later, when I rewatched the film online — this time with the aid of neatly matched English subtitles and an optional Hindi audio track — I missed the original impact.
A flipside of the communal viewing experience, though, is a confusion of feeling. But not all theatrical escapades are collective. Some are personal, at times quite literally when the occupancy’s low. This happened when I walked into a night show of Vikramditya Motwane’s Bhavesh Joshi Superhero, at one of the Gs inside G7 Multiplex in Bandra (Gemini, if I remember).
The film was riddled with flaws. What changed my mind about the film, however, were the closing few moments, the brisk ending montage where our desi, stick-wielding hero — now turned into a superhero by his resilience — faced off his nemesis against a thundering night sky. It was a classic comic book moment, soaring soundtrack cutting to a tight closeup of the hero’s mask, and it made my chest glow.
Walking out of the theatre, I watched stormclouds gather in the sky and neon signs blink at me. I realised I was turned into a five-year-old who wanted to go out into the night and ‘clean the scum off the streets’.