WATCHING FILMS – BACK THEN...
Those of you who have grown up in
India during the seventies, eighties and nineties will be able to relate to
most of this article. Those were the days before the television, internet and
mobile phones had invaded our lives.
Television at the national level
had started in the late seventies, but programs were limited to a few hours in
the evening. It was only in the late eighties that popular TV programs made
their debut, and late nineties when 24x7 TV channels started breaking up the
lively neighbourhood chat sessions and turned people into couch potatoes.
But the Indian film industry and
Hollywood kept churning out movies and movie halls in India ran to full
capacity almost always. Those who could not make it to the movie halls had
another option – the neighbourhood film shows. These were experiences to
remember.
The venue was any open space in
the town or city, or open air auditorium where one was available, with free
entry. The organisers funded these events through contributions or
sponsors. A large screen that was white
once upon a time, but now of a pale yellow or light brown hue, with patchwork
where there happened to be a tear, was strung up between two makeshift poles. A
speaker or two of significant antiquity would be placed behind the screen. The
projector and the operator would be hired and the films came in numbered boxes.
Quite often the sound and light
failed to cooperate and work together – sometimes the images flitted in utter silence, sometimes a dialogue would be delivered in utter darkness. Naturally
there would be vociferous calls for re-runs. Re-runs would also be called for
specific song-and-dance sequences and thus the shows would last much longer
than the length of the films.
The occasional breeze would cause
the billowing screen to distort the faces of the actors to hilarious
proportions. People would be rolling in laughter at a supposedly serious
sequence and dances scenes projected on a wildly flapping screen, would have anyone
in splits. Rain, of course, would disrupt the entire show.
You get the hang of it, I guess.
***
In the mid-nineties I happened to
land up in Vietnam on an assignment. Movies there were an altogether different
experience. The entire soundtrack would be blocked and a single male or female
voice would read out the dialogues in Vietnamese in a dull monotone !! That was
their idea of censorship, I guess.
After a few months, a few of the
Indian expats like me got together and persuaded the Indian Embassy to arrange
for viewing of Indian films. They said they had to get permissions and it would
take time. And time it did take. A good few months later, the Embassy informed
us that they would be able to organise a film show, but the only available
movie was a Telugu one !! Only one person in our group spoke the language, and
he was asked to translate, if necessary.
On the assigned day, a screen,
like the one described above was set up in the Embassy premises – only this one
was much whiter. This was an “uncensored” version of the movie, with the original
soundtrack. The projector operator was a local boy who did not speak a word of
English. It was a successful end to an endeavour for us, the early expats to
that country.
After almost three decades I
do not remember the details of the film – it was about a boy dreaming big and
then falling in love, getting married, having a kid and all that routine
melodrama, with quite a few song-and-dance sequences where they ran around
tomato plants, rice fields, up and down hills and fell into a swimming pool for
the “wet heroine” episode.
What I do remember is this :
First reel : Hero does his usual
stuff, has food at a restaurant of sorts, meets the heroine and the
song-and-dance sequences start.
Next reel : Hero is trying to feed a bawling baby with his left hand... No wait !! Everyone is left-handed in the
scenes.
We stopped the show and tried to speak
to the operator. He had put on the reel incorrectly. He kept saying “lay lam
tiec” (Vietnamese for “sorry”) while re-fixing the reel. We tried to tell him
that the reel sequence was wrong, but failed miserably.
Thus the film continued with a
right-handed hero and supporting cast and the bawling baby, till the reel ran
out with the obligatory scrolling credits.
Last reel : We see the
unmarried hero and heroine again, running around tomato plants and rice fields,
all over the local hills, till they fall into the pool and a wet heroine
emerges.
End of show.
***
Those were fun times !!
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