Tale of Watching Two Movies at Chennai
Last Saturday , my daughter came home from Bangalore for the week end and four of us went to see “Vettayadu Vilayadu” at Albert Theatre. The theatre is chosen by default as it is closer to my office and my office colleague arranged for the tickets. There are two classes of tickets – Rs 100 and Rs 80. I could get Rs 80/- tickets. The show timing was indicated as 06.15 p.m. They did not allow us to enter the theatre upto 6.40 or so. We settled at B 1 to B 4. AC appeared to be comfortable to start with.
After the routine advertisements the movie started. While one is getting involved with the racy sequences, suddenly a slide is shown and the dialogues only are heard. Its an announcement about a car owner being requested to remove the car from its present parking slot. In spite of whistles and shouts from the audience, the slide stayed on for about a minute. The movie resumed.
One theatre staff came with the torch and asked us to show our tickets to verify the seat numbers. Possibly the same seat numbers were given to another set of people. He got satisfied and left. As Kamal is investigating on the murder of Prakash Raj’s daughter, another theatre staff came investigating whether we are sitting in the allotted seats. After satisfying himself that we have occupied the allocated seats, he left.
When Kamal has found Prakash Raj’s daughters body buried in the forest, the theatre management could not identify the car owner . Again the same slide appeared with a request to the car owner. Whistles and shouts again. Movie resumed after a minute.
After some time , there was a song sequence. I saw a no of persons from the audience taking out their digital cameras and mobile cameras and started recording the song . I could see one person capturing the entire song sequence. Possibly, he was using a comact video camera. Thereafter when any song came, he took out the camera and began shooting. In between the theatre staff came in and did not object to the songs being shot in digital / mobile cameras
Many in the audience were talking in loud voice through out the movie. Suddenly a person in the back row, with a huge noise spit on the floor.
Mosquitoes also found the movie interesting and they were present in large numbers as guests.
The airconditioning was comfortable in the beginning of the movie. As the movie was halfway through, my suspicion is that the AC plant is switched off.
I have gone to Albert Theatre before and I have not felt so bad as I felt during the recent visit. In spite of VV being a decent movie, good acoustics and projection system at Albert Theatre, the movie could not be appreciated fully.
(This post has become a bit lengthy and I reserve the other tale for a subsequent post)
gives a new twist to the word ‘reality movie’ :)
I could understand your feelings. I have experienced much worse in the so called elite Cinema Halls.
The A/C will be switched on only for 1/2 hour.
The broken seats will never be repaired.
The toilet will be stinking.
This has been happening for a long time. Almost 30 years.
Can you believe it.?
Every now and then Government will murmur about this happening. That is all. No action will be taken.
Anybody who questions will be “Properly” taken care off. If the person is a public, he will be taken care by goondas. If the person is a Government official, then he will be taken care of by a pack of notes.
NOTHING WILL CHANGE UNLESS WE DECIDE TO BOYCOTT these cinema halls.
These are one of the reason why people shy away from the Cinema Halls.
The funniest part of all, no body connected to this industry will ever speak openly about it nor condemn it. If the cinema industry does not care about how its product is presented to the public, then they have no right talk about people who prefer to view the films through the alternative medias like DVD/HOME CINEMA etc.
Let them make the experience of going to the cinema Hall itself a good one, then more people will come back to the cinema and the industry will be better off.
Ravi
Good points Ravi. I agree with you.
Chennai is always like that. If only people boycott, these theatre owners will even think of cleaning these stinking places.
Already the pirted cds are flurishing and by their activities the theateres are further inducing the public to avoid them and to go for pirated CDs.
GV, Sorry about your sad experience. With other theatres in chennai going the Albert way, maybe there is justification and sense in paying high rates for tickets at Sathyam Complex. What say?
Nice blog.. Had fun reading it.. Your comparison b/w the movie tale and the situation was apt, infact a bit humorous too.. I enjoyed the movie as well as reading the blog..