A Film I Watched Recently
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Looking back at my two years of phlogging, the anniversary
of which just passed, I think it's fair to observe that a
great many of my posts fall into the category of "nostalgic
reminiscence".  Perhaps this is to be expected, or at least
tolerated, from someone facing the undeniable truth that he
is well past the midpoint of his earthly journey. (Though
hopefully not, pace Lawrence Durrell, quite yet at the point
where the pilot announces "Ladies and gentlemen, we have
begun our descent"). Be that as it may, the fact is I enjoy
writing about times gone by, and I don't anticipate that
will change any time soon.

A couple of months ago, prompted by Christina, I wrote of a
time in my life when I was a bit of a cinephile, back in the
heyday of repertory cinemas like the old Princess Theatre in
Edmonton, and (a bit later on) the Pacific Cinematheque,
Ridge Theatre, and Van East Cinema in Vancouver [1]. I've
since moved on, away from those cities and away from
cinephilia, so I'm not sure how many of those venues are
still in operation. But I know at least a couple have fallen
by the wayside, casualties of the endless churn of
technology-driven change.

I hadn't thought about that sort of film-going in quite some
time; the intervening years of family life having limited my
cinematic excursions to a steady diet of Pixar and Marvel
fare. But those days too have drawn to a close, and my trip
down memory lane led me to wonder, how possible would it be
to recapture my earlier art-house experience now, decades
later?

Quite possible, as it turns out. There aren't that many rep
cinemas left in my town, but there is at least one,
Cinecenta, conveniently located in the Student Union
building a short walk from my office.  I'd paid the
occasional visit since I settled here, but probably fewer
than a half-dozen over that 20 year span. Dating from 1971,
its retro decor and old-school cinema seating were not much
appreciated by those most likely to accompany me there,
which is to say my wife and son.  Neither of whom,
surprisingly, had any great fondness for subtitled art house
classics.  (I know, I know, what sort of 8-year-old doesn't
appreciate "The 400 Blows"?)

But seasons change, old orders are overturned, and now as
the years advance I find my familial responsibilities
diminished such that I am once again able to take in the
occasional movie by myself. And, once I had started to
entertain the possibility, it did not take long for a film I
wanted to see to turn up in the calendar: "Nouvelle Vague,"
the new Richard Linklater film that pays homage to the days
of French New Wave cinema, as it chronicles the making of
Jean Luc Godard's "A bout de souffle", aka "Breathless".

We were a motley crowd indeed, making our way past the
concesssion to space our twenty or so selves equidistantly
out in a theatre built to hold ten times as many. I had
wondered what sort of folks would share the darkened space
with me, and I'd have to allow "older and shabbily attired"
would be an apt generalization.  Perhaps surprising, given
campus demographics, but it was 5pm on a rainy Friday near
mid-December with exam season winding down; any students who
had not already fled the campus would likely be hunkered
down over their laptops, cramming the syllabus into their
heads before their turn came to face the examiner.

The film was quite wonderful. I mostly know Linklater from
the "Before" trilogy, but this was not that. It's literally
a New Wave film about making a New Wave film: black and
white, mostly in french with english subtitles, shot in the
old Academy aspect ratio. Of course, you could also say in a
certain way it was the opposite of a New Wave film; its
adherence to the conventions of a bygone age the antithesis
of what the New Wave was all about.

So, remarkably apt for an evening spent attempting to
recapture the art house experience of my youth. And as the
lights went down, and silence descended upon the assembled
few, I found myself transported in a way I had not been, for
a very long time. There is something about watching films of
that sort in a place of that kind, that can only, it seems,
happen there.



Reference
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[1] Films I Have Watched Many Times
gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/jdd/phlog/20251011-filmsihavewatched.txt

If you haven't read that, this post probably won't make much
sense. (Assuming, of course, that it makes any sense at
all.)

Sun Dec 21 15:59:47 PST 2025