At home in the theater — the ritual of catching a flick while abroad.
by Melanie Renzulli
illustration by Grace Molteni
Mention French Guiana, and I will always think of Hong Kong. It’s an unusual association, but one that makes sense for me because of the Steve McQueen film Papillon.
In spring 2006, my husband and I went to Hong Kong, our last big vacation before becoming parents. I was in the middle of my pregnancy, already showing and a bit slower in my movements. After days spent island-hopping to temples and eating pork buns and crispy duck, we were tired. Exploring Hong Kong’s nightlife was not really an option, since I tired easily and couldn’t drink, so we decided to go to the movies.
While it would have been cool to see a Hong Kong action film, for which Hong Kong is internationally known, we decided that a noisy film in a language we could not understand wasn’t our speed. Luckily, because of Hong Kong’s history as a former British colony, there were (and still are) plenty of English-language films playing in cinemas around the city. We discovered that the 1973 film Papillon, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, was headlining a film festival that night, so we made plans to see it.
It seems an act of cognitive dissonance to see an English film with a French name in a Chinese city. But I have come to cherish my memories of seeing movies while traveling or living overseas. My mind makes strange connections between some films and actors that I have only seen in darkened rooms in foreign cities.
Going to the movies while on vacation instead of, say, checking out the bar scene or visiting a museum, also seems to be an act of isolation. Travel is supposed to be about soaking up the culture, seeing and doing everything that a distant city has to offer. But taking a pause to see a film while traveling or living overseas can not only provide some necessary recovery time – it can also create a unique memory marker and give you insight into how people in another place live their lives in their free time.
Germany
My first taste of viewing movies abroad was in Osnabrück, a small town in Germany where I was an exchange student during high school. I arrived without knowing a lick of German.
Less than a month into my stay, I went to the Kino (the German word for cinema) with a group of German friends to see Silence of the Lambs. Most foreign films in Germany are dubbed, so I could get neither my tongue around the title — Die Schweigen Der Lämmer — nor my ears around the dialogue. But even without German fluency, the graphic scenes and actors’ actions and facial expressions were enough to terrify me. I squirmed in my seat until intermission, when they brought out the ice cream carts.
Ice cream at the movies? An unexpected intermission? Those were almost as foreign to me as the sweetened popcorn sold in the lobby – a bright contrast to the dark film.
The movie haunted me for weeks. At night, I pulled the covers tight over my head for fear I’d catch a glimpse of my creepy, Goth-clad host brother in night vision goggles hovering in the corner.
I survived my year in Germany unscathed. I even look back on the experience fondly, as it was my initiation into a life of travel. But the initial uneasiness I felt of being in a strange land could have broken me. I’ve never seen Silence of the Lambs in English and I never plan to. Because even though I didn’t catch every line of the film, I know that there are some experiences I don’t need to revisit.
Italy
I visited Italy for the first time in 1996, the summer after college graduation, as part of a whirlwind Eurail trip with my boyfriend. I can’t recall if we went to the cinema in Verona or Venice, Bologna or Florence. But I do remember the film: Dead Man.
Directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Johnny Depp and enhanced by a spare Neil Young soundtrack, Dead Man was a psychedelic spaghetti western that intermingled William Blake poetry, Native American themes and dialogue, and existentialism. This film, too, was dubbed, not subtitled, so it was hard at times to discern when the actors were speaking Italian and when they were speaking Cree or Blackfoot.
“It might as well be a silent,” wrote Greil Marcus, in hailing Dead Man as one of the best films of the end of the 20th Century. “You can read the whole film off its faces.” I was literally and figuratively in the dark—and I loved it. The entire experience felt like what I imagined a peyote trip would feel like.
Italy had the same effect on me. I understood, but I didn’t. I could read faces and hand gestures—but was I getting the whole picture, the nuances? Italy, with its ancient theaters and leaning towers rising among stylish shops and piazzas abuzz with Vespas, presented such a surreal scene, and it became my mission to know more about the place. I’m living in Rome now, but still encounter surreal scenes, some of which trigger in me thoughts of Dead Man and my cinema-induced acid trip.
India
If Italy felt surreal upon first glance, then India felt otherworldly. Even in the center of Mumbai, a city with a population of more than 18 million, one can see oxcarts alongside taxis or the occasional elephant as a special guest at a birthday party. And the colors—hot pinks and yellows and turquoises, visible on everything from saris to political posters—create an everyday Technicolor world.
India’s main movie industry, Bollywood, whose studios are located on the outskirts of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), reflect the colorful jumble of India’s street scenes with exuberant song and dance numbers. During the two years I lived in Mumbai, where my husband and I worked for the U.S. Consulate, I ended up seeing a lot of Bollywood films, mostly so I could keep up with the latest radio hits. But movie-going itself was a lesson in Indian history and culture that I couldn’t have gotten from simply watching DVDs.
A curious thing happens before the beginning of every film shown in an Indian cinema. When the lights go down, Indian movie-goers stand up for the playing of their national anthem “Jana Gana Mana.” A waving flag comes up on screen, the music pipes in, and patrons sing, or at least mutter, the lyrics.
At first it seemed strange, though no stranger than singing a patriotic tune prior to a sporting event. And it didn’t matter whether the film was domestic or an international import. We hummed along to “Jana Gana Mana,” a tune we eventually learned after several trips to the movies, before seeing Batman as well as before Swades, a Bollywood film starring Shah Rukh Khan as a NASA engineer returning to India to reunite with old friends, families and traditions.
Mumbai used to have hundreds of single-screen theatres, but many of those have closed over the years to make way for sleek new cineplexes with reclining seats, reliable air conditioning, and more international blockbuster options for locals and tourists. But even with these changes, there are a few things that make the cinema experience in India different: reserved seating (don’t be late) and drinking a cup of chai at intermission. And of course, the anthem.
Hong Kong
My husband and I ended up in Hong Kong in 2006 thanks to airline miles and the relative proximity of Hong Kong to Mumbai (a 6-hour flight as opposed to a 16-hour flight to the States). We had been in India for almost two years, save for one “rest and relaxation” trip home to New York, and wanted to go somewhere that might not be within reach once we had a baby. Hong Kong offered an antidote to Mumbai, as it had elements of East and West, calm and clamor. We knew we could get by on English, get around fairly easily (despite my growing belly), and find foods and attractions we wouldn’t find elsewhere.
It was apt that I saw my first Steve McQueen movie in Hong Kong because Hong Kong reminded me so much of San Francisco. Both cities have impossible hills bearing impossible multi-flight staircases. Both cities are steeped in Chinese culture, with tea houses and noodle houses and people doing morning Tai Chi in the park. Both cities are on the water, inviting grey, foggy days.
To be fair, these are my observations after having visited each city only once. I can only go on the impressions that are stamped in my memory. But travel is like that. Comparisons to places you have been are inevitable and broad-brush characterizations of cities, which are always evolving, can only last so long.
Which brings me back to French Guiana circa 1930, the setting for Papillon. The movie, which has Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, and many other actors playing French prisoners doing time in a distant Caribbean island work camp, makes an impact wherever you see it. For long stretches of the film, McQueen’s character Henri Charriere is held in solitary confinement where he subsists at times on the bugs, grubs and weeds that crawl across his open-air cell. Henri goes crazy but remains resilient, always preserving his desire to escape. I remember the few times in the film when Henri got to taste freedom, the theater felt electric as we all exhaled together.
It was strange sitting in that cinema, contemplating freedom and what it meant to me, just months away from parenthood and a move back to the United States. I also contemplated what freedom meant to my fellow movie-goers from Hong Kong, who were in the ninth year of Chinese rule since Great Britain handed over the administration of the colony. Did they feel more or less free since the transition? How would I feel after mine?
—
Of course, going to the movies while traveling doesn’t have to result in any kind of epiphany. There have been times when I’ve headed to the cinema to cool off (or get out of the rain), to save money, to pass the time until the next activity, or simply because something was playing that I wanted to see. I’m still not sure how I ended up seeing Jack Black’s School of Rock one sweltering October night while visiting Miami. But in retrospect, I realize that it was the perfect, hilarious cure to the overpriced nightlife scene in South Beach.
It was never my intention to create a travel ritual of seeing a film, foreign or otherwise, in a far-off city, foreign or otherwise. But now that I’ve noticed this pattern, I’d like to continue fitting it into my itinerary. Instead of feeling isolated by the experience, I usually leave feeling invigorated, relaxed, and as if I’ve done something the locals do—exactly how I want to feel when I travel.
[hr style=”striped”]
Melanie Renzulli writes about travel and culture on her blogs missadventures.com and italofile.com. Follow her on Twitter @melanierenzulli.
Grace Molteni is a Midwest born and raised designer, illustrator, and self-proclaimed bibliophile, currently calling Chicago home. For more musings, work, or just to say hey check her out on Instagram or at her personal website.
