On the Trail of Cinema Gratis

It has long been my personal belief that the one thing in life better than a postprandial nap is a free film in a cinema.

During my student days I sought out free flicks all over London, travelling to shiny multiplexes and sweaty front-room joints with penny-pinching calculation. I took it very seriously, going as far as to dub the object of my pursuit Cinema Gratis (the exotic name masked my miserly impetus, I thought). Unfortunately, few things in London come for free, and Cinema Gratis in those days rarely amounted to more than a couple of films a month. 

Here in Kolkata the story is joyfully different. Free films grace the city’s many cinema halls (and what cinema halls they are!) with wonderful regularity. In fact, so taken have I been with these charitable offerings, during a recent conversation with a friend I recklessly laid claim to the possibility of finding the holy grail of Cinema Gratis in the city: A week of free film.

As friends so often do, he immediately challenged me to prove my words…

Friday: Swimming Upstream (dir. Matsuoka Joji). Nandan.

The inaugural Cinema Nippon Japanese Film Festival kicked off on Friday with a showing of Swimming Upstream. The film was a bit of a bore, but I’ll forgive and forget on the basis that I got to spend two hours in Nandan without paying a paisa. Quite simply, it’s my favorite cinema hall ever – I’d happily sit through a three-hour film of a masticating cow as long as it were shown here.

Best Bit: Walking through the Nandan gates and setting eyes on its looming grandeur. Is it possible to wed a building?

Saturday: Hinokio (dir. Akiyama Takahiko). Nandan.

Back to Nandan for another Japanese film – this time for the surprisingly enjoyable Hinokio, a flick about a stay-at-home boy who sends a robot to school in his place. As you can probably guess, Hinokio is more for kids than adults. But still, it was fun. And free. And that works for me.

Best Bit: A member of the crowd stood up before the screening to deliver a rousing monologue on why everyone should turn their mobiles off. “A cinema is not a place for these gadgets,” she said, a split second before a loud ringtone of Fur Elise went off. Ah, life’s little coincidences.

Sunday: Adrenaline Drive (dir. Shinobu Yaguchi). Nandan.

The last day of the Japanese Film Festival offered this unassuming gem of a movie – a Yakuza-heist tale with a healthy sense of self-deprecation. Adrenalin Drive mixes a twisty Tarantino-esque narrative with the dry humor of a Takeshi Kitano flick, and while it’s not quite the sum of those parts, it was certainly a good choice to close the festival. Nandan does a lot of these ‘National Cinema’ festivals and more often than not they’re of high caliber. Need I mention they’re free to boot?

Best Bit: The film’s protagonists Suzuki and Shizuko steal a pot full of Yakuza money, but they can’t use the cash as it’s literally stained with blood. Their solution? To put it in the washing machine – in other words, to literally launder the money.

Monday: Fahrenheit 451 (dir. Francois Truffaut). American Center.

Compared to Nandan’s décor of flowing lattices, the cinema at the American Center is positively ascetic: all black and white and minimal. It made for a great setting in which to see Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian flick whose future-world just about treads the line between legitimacy and absurdity. This is Truffaut’s only English film (he barely spoke the language) and his first to be shot in colour. At best it’s a patchy masterpiece (Scorsese cites it as a particular influence); at worst it’s a bit of a joke.

Best Bit: Trying to figure out whether Julie Christie – the film’s star actress – realizes she’s playing two different roles or not. The only thing that truly sets them apart is their different hairstyles.

Tuesday: Les Visiteus (dir. Jean-Marie Poiré). Alliance Francais.

The Alliance Français is more of a library-cum-screening room than a cinema hall. Still, you’d be hard pressed to find a more atmospheric venue elsewhere in the city. This tiny cultural centre on AJC Bose Road hosts one of Kolkata’s best kept secrets: a cinema club that convenes every Tuesday at 6pm for a French helping of Cinema Gratis (or should I say Cine Libre?).

This week it was the turn of Jean-Marie Poiré’s cult favorite Les Visiteus. A time-travel comedy, it throws a hyperactive Medieval knight (Jean Reno) into the macadam of modern society with slapstick consequences – think Back to the Future crossed with Crocodile Dundee and throw in a few more toilet jokes for good measure.

Best Bit: Watching an audience of Kolkatan cinephiles laugh its guts out at the sight of a medieval warrior languishing in a bathtub of perfume.

Wednesday: The Unbreakables (dir. Dominik Wessely). Max Mueller Bhavan.

If ever I needed a slice of intelligent German documentary-making served à la Cinema Gratis it was today. The Unbreakables proved a great antidote to Les Visiteurs, telling the story of a group of socially concerned financiers who seek to resurrect a traditional glass blowing factory in Theresienthal, Germany. It’s a great doc, shot with a keen eye for tension and interspliced with well-timed and visually poetic montages. Combine that with the pleasingly urbane surroundings of the Max Mueller Bhavan and you have a near-unbeatable recipe for Cinema Gratis.

Best Bit: The static, sped-up shot of a day in the life of the disused glass factory. Gorgeous.

Thursday: The Halfmoon Files (dir. Philip Scheffner). Max Mueller Bhavan.

And so my week in search of free film comes to an end with a return trip to Max Mueller Bhavan for The Halfmoon Files, another captivating German documentary, this time shot with a well-managed experimental edge. It’s by far the most accomplished and intellectually rigorous film I’ve seen all week, and as I sit in my cushioned chair watching on I have to stop myself from levitating away in joy. This is it: My faith has been rewarded; the holy grail of Cinema Gratis has been obtained.

All that’s left to do now is the same thing next week…

Article reproduced courtesy of The Statesman. Originally published 26/9/09