Seeing the movies in Bowral.

 

We are not sure where this came from. Out of nowhere we decided to watch movies at our local cinema. It used the be one large cinema. The invention of TV resulted in many single cinemas in closing down. That was a great pity. I remember seeing a movie was almost as good as a long week-end. In those early times it was an outing. Often two movies would be shown. There were intervals whereby we could go outside and replenish our intake of popcorn or Smarties, even an ice-cream. Some cinemas had a Hammond Organ rising majestically from below the screen. A white-suited Liberace type man would play it.

At one particular film the audience were forced to be separated into the two sexes. Even weeks, men, and uneven weeks, women. Or was it uneven and even days? It was supposed to be an informative movie on love, sex and pro-creation. There were long queues.  Many men and maybe women, of course thought there would be a fair bit of eroticism if not a fair sprinkling of nudity. There might not have been much nudity in love but surely with sex there would have to be nudity, including female nudity, which was my speciality and object of desire. The decision to show this movie divided by the sexes came from the Government which gave it enough spice for me to see it with some urgency. I was very young but above 16 years old which was the cut-off point. I had till then not experienced much nudity except that shown by skinny models wearing stiff-solid brassieres,  boned-undergarments and nylon stockings in my mother’s Dutch women magazines, sent over to Australia by her sister…

This sex film was a shocker. It started with the obligatory Hammond organ thumping out the God Save The Queen on stage, after which a man warned the male audience to remain seated, calm, and in control. One could hear a pin drop. The movie started and soon progressed to the informative part of sexual congress. There were black and white ovum,  black and white swimming sperms and mothers pushing black prams, but no nudity or genitalia except in such a medical manner that it killed all eroticism. Within twenty minutes some of the male audience started to walk out. I gave it another twenty minutes in the hope of at least seeing a glimpse of something. I would have been happy with some female pubic hair. But no, not a breast, lonely nipple or any hair, just drawings of medical stuff and quivering sperm. All in a morbid black. It was a most boring movie and a sad trip home to my parents.

During the seventies and eighties the Bowral cinema was made into 4 smaller theatres and they are all thriving. The movies we saw were in the order of; Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society.

1. https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society-review-1202753994/

A very well made film, excellent acting, if somewhat sentimental towards the end but still a very good, worthwhile movie. We liked it.

2. https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-bookshop-review-1202701795/

‘The Bookshop’. A masterpiece of filmmaking. A story about a culturally backwards conservative English village resisting the coming of a bookshop. We thought it the best of the three movies.

3. https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/cinema/film-review-tea-with-the-dames/

Another brilliant movie, very funny if you can follow the dialogue which with my impaired hearing had difficulty with. None the less for us a very entertaining film. How could it not be with those gifted actors?

 

 

Le ” Week-end.”

Marygolds

Yet another storm was predicted for this Sunday. Over the last week or so we kept emptying flower pots that had filled up with water. I like rain, especially if it pelts down and makes a roar on the iron roof. I feel things are on the move with weather showing of its dominance over what we are doing. Let’s hope weather will continue to do so and that mankind will fail in changing its power.

In the morning I just had the urge to make a curry. I bought stewing steak and snow peas. We still had onions, red capsicums, kipfler potatoes, carrots and all the spices needed for a curry, including the essential turmeric, fresh chillies, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves and limes. Curries are best made in ‘le creuset’ or cast iron saucepan. Slowly cooked till the meat falls apart.

We thought is best to let it simmer while seeing a movie at the local cinema. Le Week-end was what we decided on. A film about an ageing British couple on a week-end in Paris. I could not hear the dialogue very well. Lately I have found that it is almost obligatory in modern films to have the audio part as incomprehensible and difficult as possible. Perhaps it adds an edge to it. Perhaps it also forces the patrons to pay extra attention to an otherwise lukewarm movie. We found ‘le week-end’ to be lukewarm. It seemed a bit disjointed at times.

The husband was a university lecturer and the wife a teacher. Inexplicably, this English couple in Paris did a few runners from a restaurant and the very chic hotel they were staying in without paying. We could not see the humour in it. Perhaps it was just us. Was their marriage perhaps a bit in need of stealing? Who knows.

The best part, perhaps the reason for the dialogue’s vagueness, was that a storm was lashing on the tin roof of the cinema. Thunderclaps and hail almost broke through the roof. At least, that’s what it felt like. Another spectacular thunderclap and the movie’s visual dropped out while the sound kept going. It is credit to the Australian laconic easy going-ness that not a word of protest was uttered. Calmly and ever so acceptingly the audience kept on sitting sweetly in their seats, some munching their popcorn or licking the obligatory choc-tops. (It must be a harrowing experience to go the whole one and half hour without food)

Finally someone in the audience and near the door went out and must have notified the staff. A couple of young attendants ran up the cinema’s stairs and fiddled with something. The cinematic visuals were restored. Never mind an important part of the dialogue was missing. Everyone was happy. We sauntered out but felt the adventure of the storm and the visuals dropping out more entertaining than the movie. I loved how everyone took the breakdown in good spirits. No one asked for a refund. Smiles all around.

We walked to our car still pouring rain. We switched off the curry and I chucked in some snow peas wishing them to turn bright green but remaining snappy. Un peu de vin rouge, et voila; a perfect week-end.