Army-run Cinemas!

JUNE 2002 - The last time I had journeyed to Alfalah Cinema in Lahore, there were fat and fairly jocular rats that outnumbered the cinegoers three to one – the rats are not visible anymore, though it is unlikely they have migrated, but their replacement, the human variety of rodents is infinitely more obnoxious and unbearable. After 50 years and more, civilized public behaviour seems to have eluded us just as much as a sense of direction. With the passing years, the common people have simply become more and more common, having degenerated into a race of louts and hooligans.

Last week, walking into Alfalah to watch the Chinese classic, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ it was a pleasant sight to see a renovated cinema with fresh paint, new carpeting and upholstered new seating. Although the hall was just barely air-conditioned – you can tell when the thermostat is lowered down so much that the air begins to carry a dank smell, it was reasonably cool-ish. By no stretch of the imagination – and contrary to the claims of the lying ticketing staff was the hall ‘fully’ air-conditioned – that is a condition one has yet to experience. At best, you could have called Alfalah ‘air cooled’ and that too wore off quickly as the evening progressed. Why managements can charge for a service that they neither provide nor have any intention of providing, is beyond me – well not really – all this saves money and like the weak projection system where perfectly natural and bright colours take on monochromatic hues, costs are cut at the expense of the cinema visitor. When a ticket to the ‘Dress Circle’ – a misnomer if ever there was one, costs a walloping Rs 55 no management has any right to turn off the air conditioning or even minimize it. But then who is to check this and protect the rights of the money paying public? I suppose the answer to that silly question is, no body.

The film, an exquisite elegy of moving forms and half-lit halls and courtyards against which this medieval drama unfolds, is visually stunning. The sets recreating ancient China are beautiful and an aura of peace and tranquility with minimal words is soon created. It is almost a ballet as the story unfolds and the beautifully constructed fight sequences flow like smooth water in a gentle stream – that the characters literally float through air, over water and across forests of green swaying bamboos, adds a touch of pure magic and creates a fantastic panorama against which the story is set. There is minimal dialog and minimal movement and virtually no scenes of violence, sex, torture or battle; all this of course constitutes very boring cinema for the louts who had freely spent the Dress Circle costs and now lay supine on reclining chairs, shoes off, shalwars rolled up to their thighs and hands constantly exploring their nether regions. In no time at all, there were cat calls, guttural animal snarls, roars and hyena-like laughter – they imitated dogs, lions, roosters, donkeys and in between, for the sake of variety, they also made smacking noises with their lips imitating drool-laden kisses and other sounds which defy description. In spite of strict checking at the security gate, there were smokers puffing away in open violation of the signage forbidding the activity. In a little while, it was impossible to concentrate on the film because the noise and the laughter and the shouting overwhelmed the hall. There were no more than three women in Dress Circle and the rest were sex-starved, ill-bred hooligans who obviously have no problem blowing Rs 55 on a Chinese film and then making sure no one stays to enjoy it.

This last thing has perplexed me no end for years. Why would any one watch a film, which is clearly boring and incomprehensible – then constantly create noise that prevents anyone else from watching it? After all, the cinema is not anyone’s personal living room, where should the thought strike them, the hooligans can hang themselves from the nearest fan for a lark, but to callously deprive others who too have paid good money is deplorable– yet there is no end to it. There is a certain kind of cussedness that comes into play – the slow thought pattern that travels agonizingly into pygmy brains is that since what is on the screen is beyond them or is not what they thought it would be, the best recourse is to behave like morons and make as much noise as is possible. With encouraging noises and raucous laughter emanating from other morons in the hall, a kind of exchange of banalities is set in motion. That takes care of the best films. One can sympathise with those who cannot understand a word of English and end up in a cinema where the film may be heavily dependent on dialog, but should that be the case, there is always the option to walk out if the urge to bellow like an elephant becomes too strong. Of course no such thing ever happens. The hooligans stay to the bitter end and those who have the misfortune to be in the hall have little choice except to suffer – or stage a walk out, which is what we did. There was little point in punishing ourselves any more than we had and rather than suffer an epileptic fit, it was better to step out into the hot June night and send up a few expletives into the air.

Cinema has steadily at first and then in avalanche style, lost the public. Every conceivable excess was committed in the name of making profits from this trade, so conditions in the cinema halls worsened at an alarming rate. Films would never begin on time, would suffer from every technical glitch imaginable and the audience grew worse by the day. In a matter of a few years, the decent folk simply stopped going to the movies.The ubiquitous VCRs took over, followed by their digital progeny, the VCDs and the DVDs. People were content to see panoramic epics on 14-inch screens and consoled themselves by imagining what the real thing would be like. A few years back, cinemas started to make a brave attempt to stage a comeback – halls were refurnished and refurbished, sound systems restored and improved and general facilities and cleanliness miraculously appeared. When ‘The Titanic’ opened, it brought back the cinemagoers in droves but since then, the honeymoon seems to have reached a sudden end and the hooligans are back in full force.

The answer to the current plague that mars the viewing pleasure of genuine, ticket-spending cinemagoers, is the need to have adequate security guards inside the halls who can swiftly catch and throw out those who break the norms of decent behaviour. Those who defy No Smoking bans should be thrown out as well, if not fined and those who yell and scream should simply be evicted. After all people are evicted from bars, restaurants, hotels, matches, airports – you name it, for half the bad behaviour that is on exhibit in the cinemas here, so what is so sacrosanct about the lot that is hooting and hollering for three hours? A few 'dandas' and things will settle down pretty quickly, but who is going to take the first step and who gives a damn about the rights of people who are spending money to have a good time? I can agree with a lot of people who would think that asking for order and good sense to prevail in a cinema house when it is happily absent from the entire republic, is as loony as can be, but hey let’s face it, the country is sunk anyway and no amount of artificial resuscitation is going to save it, but the cinemas are a smaller entity and manageable. Speaking for myself, I’d root for the first posse of khakis I see patrolling the aisles.