Cinemas Open Again

 

Today, the first day of October, marked a long-awaited partial re-opening in the more extreme Covid-hit provinces, including Bangkok.  Bars and nightclubs are  still closed, but now movie theaters and gyms are finally open again. 

I, of course, had to be there for a first showing of one of the few movies now available.  Since there is still an early evening curfew enforced, I will not yet see multiple films while then coming home late.  I will view a film at midday, returning home before the dread rush hours. 

The nearest train station is the new MRT (mass rapid transit) only one mile away, and it is partially elevated (across the river) and then underground.  It connects with the elevated BTS (“Skytrain”) system that takes me to all points in the downtown city worth visiting. 

The great Chao Phraya River is really high, and there has been a lot of serious flooding upcountry, in the North and Northeast provinces.  Seasonal monsoon rains from the Indian Ocean have run into Pacific depressions, and a lot of rain has been dumped up-river.  I don’t anticipate disastrous flooding for us here, but one never knows. 

Of the films showing on this first day of the cinemas’ opening, I chose a less popular one, Reminiscence (2021), reasoning that it will not be available here as long as some of the more blockbuster ones.  This is a neo-noir, sf, thriller with a great cast, including Hugh Jackman, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis (a favorite actor of mine), and Rebecca Ferguson (whom I’m not familiar with).  It is post-apocalyptic, with hints of horrific wars in the recent past.  The sf element involves a future device that can retrieve a person’s memories, and Jackman’s character is a kind of private eye who specializes in this.  Newton, in a great supporting role, works with him. 

Reminiscence is a film I want to see again, preferably on DVD with subtitles, since the dialogue is mumbled and garbled, especially by the actress Ferguson.  This is a common sin of modern films, obscuring clarity by trying to be true to idiosyncratic dialects.  I do admit that dialect authenticity is of great value.  But if you want an audience to understand what the characters are saying – where the story is going – you must enunciate important dialogue clearly. 

It doesn’t have to be the perfect Shakespearean elocution of a Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but a director can certainly try to find a compromise between, 1. perfectly authentic dialect speech that only comes across as jabber to the many, and, 2. speech that is both rich in accent yet understandable to most English speakers.  The first will be hailed by a few purists.  The second will be appreciated and perhaps relished by a much wider audience. 

I am part of this wider audience, and I want movies whose dialogue I can understand. 

I plan on seeing many more movies in the next weeks, including the return of James Bond.  I never misunderstand the speech of Bond, James Bond.  

-Zenwind. 

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