Let’s Go See a Movie

Every country has its own way of being at the cinema.  The last movie I saw in the United States was at Lakes Theatre in Moose Lake Minnesota.  Small town, small theatre…six dollars gets you into a 50’s retro place with a hundred seats that have been sat upon for as many years, but  I have never seen more than twenty people seated there at any given time.

Years ago I saw Arnold  Swartnegger and Jesse Ventura at the Odeon Cinema in downtown Cairo.  It was 1989; the movie was “The Predator”.  The projector bulb burned a hole through the haze of a theater full of cigarette smoking Egyptian men.  Women were not allowed.  They lit up and chain-smoked through two hours of Arnold’s heroic fight against the powerful hunter alien know to us as “The Predator.”   Predator liked killing humans.  Every time it smoked Jesse Ventura or another member of Arnold’s elite Seal unit the audience erupted with another enthusiastic “whoa, whoa, whoa”!  They didn’t care who bled and the alien became the American killing hero.   Until Arnold blew it away in hand to hand and a big explosion.   That event turned the audience into a brawny standing ovation.  Go Conan!

The first movie I saw in India was “Guardians of the Galaxy”.  One might be disappointed by my first choice of movies, but this is India and choices were limited to Hercules, Transformers, Godzilla, and a host of rowdy Bollywood action.  Action/Adventure is big here.

Ann and I bought our assigned seats.  They were four dollars apiece.  Look carefully in the dark and you can find Row 6, seats 10 and 11.  Take the wrong spot and expect to be unseated.  A middle aged woman with six kids paraded into our row me and politely told me we were in her seat.  I was right…. She was wrong.  She and I were both embarrassed.  I apologized for being right and she apologized twice for being wrong. That settled; we settled into “lazy boy” type chairs with a recliner but became unseated again when the first notes of the Indian national anthem were being played.  Next Friday is Independence Day, but I have a feeling this is the routine here.  The Indian flag waved on screen as a woman’s police choir sang their countries song.

“Guardians” the movie used a lot of high tech action, hand to hand, explosives,  high speed space chases ,and ultimately ploughed through space to save the universe.    The writers used a fair amount of misunderstood comic relief.  But then how would I respond to Indian metaphors, irony, and the subtleties of a Bollywood movie?  And with Hindi with subtitles?  No way. 

The ten minute intermission was an opportunity for me to go to the bathroom and for the attendants to come up our aisle with popcorn, beverages, and hot snack food.  No beer though.  I came back late because I was totally confused when I came out of the bathroom, forgot which theatre I was supposed to be in, had lost my ticket, and suffered the embarrassment of losing track of my seat.  It was a relief to see the woman with six kids again.

Guardians of the Galaxy was a nice bit of escapism from the grit of Mumbai.  The movie was fun, wasn’t a typical dark Marvel movie, had comic relief, and the heroes saved the galaxy.  The talking raccoon and the plant man were the best.

After the show I walked home on the Malad Link Road.  It is a straight shot from the Oberoi Mall to our own Elanza Tower apartment complex.  The Malad Road is wide enough to walk without watching your back for a bump from one of a mass of vehicles coming from behind.  It is only four kms, about forty five minutes, and follows a route past a small slum.  The slum is under a fly over, next to a set of tracks.  The view from the bridge isn’t revealing.  Roof tops of clay tiles, tin, and blue tarp cover the lives of thousands and hide the alleys below.  The BBC says that Mumbai is short 20,000 toilets.  This slum used to cover the sidewalk that makes the Malad road walkable.  The government pushed the shacks into a pile and threw them into the dump.  People moved to a different slum.  Walking into and seeing the slum is a bit compelling but is no business of mine today and I am not likely to become a slum tourist any time soon.  The fly over crosses the north south tracks of the Indian railway to downtown Mumbai and the heart of the beast.  No one was riding on top of any of the cars today but there were many hanging to the rail of its open doors.

Someday I will ride the rail in one of those cars but I’ll buy a ticket for first class.…. Save that story for another day.

By the way the Guardians and the talking raccoon get a weak thumbs up and only 2 stars.