Cinema Memoirs (2004)

There’s a small movie theater, on a hidden alley, near a quiet street, in the middle of a town. It makes special screenings on Sunday’s afternoons. The other days it’s closed. The tickets are too expensive. But the owner knows that people are always willing to pay anything for this chance. Cinema Memoirs – that’s the movie theater’s name – is not well known. The owner and his assistant are the only workers there. Every week they rotate their functions. One sells the ticket and the other one operate the projector. To go to Cinema Memoirs is a luxury that one can only experience once in a lifetime. The policy is clear. It prohibits categorically a viewer to enter twice to the projection room. The procedure to follow if one wants to watch a movie at Cinema Memoirs starts on a Monday. That’s when the film for the next Sunday is assigned. Whoever calls first and reserves the theater is the privileged viewer of the week and decides which film will be shown. Other callers have to wait one more week and pry for better luck. On Tuesday, the assistant visits the home of the privileged viewer of the week and performs an inventory. He writes a detailed list of all the material possessions of the viewer. The owner decides on Wednesday, with the help of that list, the price for the ticket. It is usually half of all the viewer’s possessions, although it feels always cheap. On Thursday, all the necessary legal paperwork is done to ensure the payment as quickly as possible. On Friday, the owner and his assistant search for the requested film all over town. Sometimes the movie is easy to find. But other times the request takes them urgently to another city. Saturday can be a day of rest or a last minute journey to find the film. On Sunday, there is always tension in the air. The viewer meets with the owner and his assistant for lunch. And every week – it doesn’t matter who the viewer is – there’s the same conversation. The owner tells the history of Cinema Memoirs; of how he built it with his own hands and brought the ancient projector from a small forgotten town, placed in the end of the world. After that, while they are eating dessert, the assistant proclaim the rules of Cinema Memoirs: 1 - The privilege of watching a movie in Cinema Memoirs will be enjoyed only once in a lifetime. 2 - Any movement – slow or fast – towards the second seat will be punished automatically with the projection detention and the expulsion of the viewer from the theater. The ticket fee is – in that and any other case – non-refundable. 3 - Any word spoken aloud by the viewer – directed or not to the second seat – shall be punished, as explained in the rule number two. 4 - Summing up the two items above: the viewer can only look ahead at all times during the projection and if he or she wants can laugh or mourn in relation to what it’s seen on the screen. 5 - After the screening is finished, the viewer will wait for the theater lights to be switched on to stand up and leave. Then, there are ten minutes of silence. After that, the viewer is allowed to enter. The owner or his assistant waits with the ticket. The viewer leaves his empty wallet, as a token payment, and takes the ticket given in return. The projection room has only two seats. The viewer sits in one and waits for the lights to go out. It is then, when it happens. The viewer cannot move anymore. The movie is about to start. At that point the second seat is occupied. And so, throughout the duration of the projected film, the viewer will be accompanied by his or her loved dead one. The viewer can only watch him or her sideways and cannot speak or touch him or her. Nevertheless, the viewer thinks, the price for the ticket is worth it. When the lights are on again, immediately after the end of the projection, the second seat is empty and the viewer is usually crying.