COVID casualty: What movie theatres taught us about loving and living life

A village bustling with people, its streets decked up with balloons and bunting. While folk artistes play traditional instruments and dance along, a song by noted Carnatic vocalist Sirkazhi Govindarajan hums in the background.

Amid the flurry of activities, a group of villagers honour an old man with a garland of flowers. And then the man speaks. “I built a temple but no one came to worship. I built a school, no one came to study. I dug a pond, no one came to bathe. But I built a cinema theatre, and you all welcome me with so much respect.”

This is the opening shot of Aan Paavam, a 1985 Tamil classic directed by Pandiarajan which went on to become one of the biggest blockbusters that year. The old man is Ramasamy (played by VK Ramasamy), the owner of Ramasamy Touring Talkies. And his matter-of-fact words set the tone of the film, aptly accompanied by music maestro Ilayaraja’s songs.

Thirty years back, the scene in Aan Paavam captured the importance of cinema in the lives of common man in Tamil Nadu. Going to see a film in a theatre was more like a festival, albeit with its cultural limitations.

Theatres those days were dark and dingy, lacking proper ventilation, a narrow pathway beside the ticket counter leading inside. People would sit on the floor or on wooden benches or chairs, and fans would run overhead. The canteen sold tea, soda and fried snacks (no popcorns then). Restrooms were make-shift. And another norm then in Tamil cinemas were songs by Sirkazhi Govindarajan that would be played through the loudspeakers before the start of the film.

Over the years, the theatre has evolved as a concept both figuratively and structurally.

Today tickets can be booked online, and you have cushion seats, air-conditioning, popcorn and coke and other mouth-watering snacks at the café, and at intervals, ad films have replaced slides.

From being called as a ‘kottaai’ (a slang for the Tamil word ‘kottagai’, meaning shed), the theatre halls are now being referred to by their brands such as INOX, PVR, Satyam, etc. Govindarajan has given way to songs from latest movies.

For a regular movie goer, visiting a cinema hall is like being in a dream, where reality is forgotten and imagination is brought to life.

But in these last 5-6 months, the COVID-19 lockdown has put a stop to those dreams. What is worse, due to the lockdown, the theatres are shutting down, unable to sustain the prolonged lockdown.

Agastya theatre in Chennai, established in 1967 with 1,004 seats and 70 mm screen, the first largest non-AC movie hall in the city, and one of the landmarks of north Chennai, closed permanently on August 31 after 53 years of running shows.

Earlier, iconic theatres like Anand, Pilot, Krishnaveni, AVM Rajeswari and Shanthi, which were once popular and present in the key parts of the city such as Anna Salai, Royapettah, closed over the years, unable to face competition from the multiplexes. They were either destroyed and turned into shopping malls or marriage halls.

And with that, many who depended on theatres for their livelihood were ripped off their employment.

Paradise in the time of lockdown

This inability to cope with modernity costs businesses their future, and the film industry is no different.

This can be seen in the way people have taken to watching films on their mobile or computer/TV screens through OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Hotstar and others during this lockdown. On the other side, many from the film fraternity are pleading to #SaveMovieTheatres on social media.

But this shuttering of cinemas and evolution of film over a period of time was well epitomised in the 1988 Italian classic Cinema Paradiso directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. The film talks about memories of a filmmaker whose younger days were spent in a movie hall named Cinema Paradiso.

On hearing about the death of Alfredo, filmmaker Salvatore Do Vita reminisces about his childhood spent with his middle-aged friend who used to be the projector operator at the only theatre, Cinema Paradiso, in his village in Sicily.

A young Salvatore, called fondly as Toto, son of his single mother, learns to operate the projector from Alfredo and becomes the replacement when Alfredo loses his eyesight in a fire accident triggered by then-used nitrate film.

Over time, Toto dreams of becoming a filmmaker, which he goes on to become after a love failure and completion of compulsory military training.

When he returns to the village after many years to attend Alfredo’s funeral, he witnesses the demolition of the theatre Cinema Paradiso.

Most of the film happens inside the theatre, bringing out a smorgasbord of characters such as a viewer who is always sleeping, a balcony viewer who spits, a bunch of standing viewers, a couple having an intercourse, and school children who have obviously broken rules by elders.

An interesting aspect that many will appreciate in the film is the censorship of intimate moments in films by the village church priest, before the films are shown to the public, but is booed at by them when not shown. These parts of the film reels are cut by Alfredo, who makes a film out of all of them and ensures it is given to Salvatore, after his death.

For Tamil audience, this scene would evoke scenes from the film Dhavani Kanavugal (1984) directed by K Bhagyaraj, where the protagonist takes his sisters to a theatre, and whenever an intimate scene comes, he drops a coin and asks them to search for it under their seats.

That was the culture then. Youngsters going to a movie was seen as abhorrent. And yet, boys would somehow make it to the movies. Women were mostly accompanied by men, and vulgar scenes were banned for them as they were expected to be sanskari and not develop sensual and sexual interests.

However, that perception was changed with the 1999 Tamil film Housefull, which showed theatres as a ‘democratic stage’ where individuals irrespective of gender, caste and religion come together.

Directed by Parthiban, the film happens in a theatre complex where an unidentified terrorist has kept four time bombs, which the police are trying to find and save the people. With a limited set of characters and without any songs, romance or stunt sequences, the director is able to keep the viewers glued. But in the end, while the police saved the lives of people, they were unable to save the theatre which is destroyed by the bombs.

The Bengali film Cinemawala (2016) also deals with a man’s relationship with a theatre he built and its destruction in the end. Directed by Kaushik Ganguly, it narrates how single screen theatres are suffering due to issues like pirated CDs.

Pranabendu Bose, whose family is into selling fish, also runs a cinema hall named Kamalini. He is assisted by Hari, a projector operator for many years. The film is set in a time when filmmaking has started embracing digital technology and the film reels are disappearing and you find DVDs and CDs in the market.

Prakash, Pranabendu’s son, used to make his ends meet by circulating pirated CDs. This infuriates Pranabendu who stresses that films are meant to be seen only on big screens. He also warns him that someday police will arrest him. But Prakash dismisses these arguments, saying theatres are no more profitable. Their relationship turns sour even as they live in the same house.

One day, Prakash buys a DVD Home Theatre system by selling his mother’s jewels. During a festival in his village, he screens new films using pirated CDs, which turns out to be profitable for him.

Shattered by this, Pranabendu orders Hari to sell the projectors. Hari requests the owner to allow him to sleep in the theatre one last night, since it would be his last working day.

The next morning, police arrive at Pranabendu’s house and tells him that Hari has died by suicide in the theatre. Pranabendu rushes to the theatre to retrieve the body. Later, Prakash accompanies the body to the crematorium while Pranabendu stays in the theatre. After everybody is gone, Pranabendu locks himself inside and sets the theatre ablaze. The movie hall turns into ashes along with Pranabendu.

Cultural importance of theatres

“Earlier, cinema was the only form of entertainment for people. On any given day, theatres were filled with audiences. But today, people, particularly youths, visit movie halls on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays mostly. The box office formula also changed accordingly,” says V Jeevananthan, a banner and cut-out artist based in Coimbatore.

Gone are the days when a film would run for 200 days in a theatre. Today, the first three days’ collection decides whether a film is a hit or a flop.

“The family audience comes to theatre only when films like Baahubali are released because such fantasy films need to be seen on big screens to feel the immensity. They don’t show interest to see the films like C U Soon which is suitable to watch on OTT,” says Jeevananthan who also won a National Award for best book on cinema, for his book Thiraiseelai in 2011.

We became addicted to hero worship which enabled stars to raise their salaries to skyrocketing levels. That reflected in the price rise of tickets, and because of that, theatres focussed only on making profits, he adds.

Chennai-based photographer Balaji Maheshwar, who documents theatres in Tamil Nadu, says by shutting down cinema halls, people are missing the “collective experience” of watching a movie.

“Ours is a tradition of koothu (an art form staged in the streets). In olden days, we have seen koothu throughout the night. Theatres are the extension of such art forms. When we see a film along with the crowd, the experience is better. But now viewing tends to be alone,” he said.

“In cinema, the film Veyyil (2006) directed by Vasanthabalan has captured life in a theatre close to reality. Other than that, there are some passing references we can find in literature and in films,” says writer Perumal Murugan, the author of the novel Nizhal Mutram (2005), which is the only book to have documented theatres in Tamil.

According to him, in Tamil Nadu’s context, the theatres broke the caste system.

“It also brought many women outside of their homes. People used to travel in bullock carts at night to see films like Aattukkaara Alamelu in the 80s. That kind of social inclusion happened only through movie theatres,” he said.

Both Murugan and Jeevananthan see a silver lining amidst the closure of movie halls. Like them, many theatre owners and workers hope that people will return to the movies once the government allows opening of the cinemas.

“We still have people saying that watching a film in the theatre gives them full satisfaction. Until we have viewers like them, the concept of theatre will thrive,” said Jeevananthan.