There’s a sort of poetry in what is going to the movies. And I miss it.
I miss sitting in a dark room in the company of strangers for two hours whilst we all stare at the same few pixels on a screen.
I miss the smell of popcorn, that specific smell that really only just smells like burnt butter- the type of burnt butter only cinema popcorn is able to declare ownership of. I miss pretending to be persuaded by the candy bar clerk’s not very enthusiastic I’m-being-forced-to-ask-you-this offer of upgrading my drink to the largest wheelbarrow-sized option for only an extra fifty cents.
I miss the corridor that connects all the cinemas, the one at the heart of the entire building. A pumping organ that separates the arteries, streaming life onto the screens with the same persistent excitement of the life that walks through the doors and sits in front of those screens. I miss not being able to tell which cinema is mine, maybe even walking into the wrong one and witnessing a sex scene that I never asked for.
I miss finally arriving at those doors, my doors, the doors that announce the entrance to the long-awaited haven of familiarity and comfort. Even if I’ve never been here before, in this specific room, I’m yet able to bask in the comfort of knowing that every cinema has been carefully constructed so to welcome me like a warm hug from my mum. With its recognisable smell and cosy seats, it might as well squeeze me tight and whisper, I’m glad you’re home.
And those seats! My lordy lord, those seats. After the quick inspection to make sure the staff have fulfilled their duties (this may need to be followed by a subtle dust of popcorn crumbs onto the floor), sinking into those seats may as well be the beginning of the end for all of us who surrender to the ritualistic pleasure of storytelling.
I miss the ads, and the trailers, and the ads again. I miss wishing that I’d arrived twenty minutes late or taken too long in the ticket line. I miss wishing I’d bought that box of Maltesers to toss into the bucket of popcorn I’m now funnelling into my mouth like someone who hasn’t eaten for days. And right when I’ve finished methodically calculating the risk of missing the start of the film for the sake of my sweet tooth, it begins.
I miss the way the lights dim, the collective hush and shush of my fellow cinema goers. I miss the odd cough or slurp or crunch or phone-buzz in the sometimes awkward yet always electric silence that prefaces the start of the journey we’re all going on together.
I miss the toilet breaks my bladder will always forcibly suggest, sending me literally sprinting up and down the corridor. I miss giving the ticket collector the same knowing smile as they watch me succumb to the effect of that wheelbarrow-sized drink they didn’t want to sell me in the first place. I didn’t realise the movie was so long, I awkwardly half-laugh, before turning and speed-walking back into my cinema.
And, just like a mirror of the beginning, I miss the silence that follows the film’s end, the gentle hum of reality that fades back into our consciousnesses as the lights glow up and the credits start to roll. I miss every single person collectively staring at the screen, pretending to care who the Third Assistant Director or Camera Operator Four was.
What I miss the most though, what I miss more than that dark room and its smells and noises and cushiony seats, is the eruption of life back into that corridor. I miss passing by newcomers on my way out, ordinary people who are just about to enter the two most exciting hours of their day, and knowing what it is they have in store, having just come from the two most exciting hours of mine. Because the excitement that erupts through this corridor, streaming from the arteries and pumping back to its heart, is the excitement of the experience of it all.
It’s everywhere I look. It’s there in the Orange Fanta that some kid spilt outside cinema two, it’s in the movie posters lining the walls, advertising the next blockbusters and arthouses. It’s in the staff, who know us all too well, no matter who we are or if we’ve been here before. They see us every day, with our kids and mums and friends and dates.
The excitement of the cinema lays not exclusively in the couple of pixels that we stare at for two hours in a dark room in the company of strangers, but in the feeling of home, in the ritual that is going to the movies. Oh lordy lord, I miss the cinema.
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