an affair to remember

much has been said of rage in our culture in recent years. films and investigative reports have focused on episodes of citizens gone mad in traffic, at hockey games and in line at the grocery store.

last night i bore witness to one such episode at the bloor cinema.

upon entering the theatre, my friends and i were still catching up with one another, animatedly sharing a story as we walked through the doors of the almost empty theatre,when a voice bellowed "gotta keep it down ladies, talkin too loud. gotta be quiet in here"

an older man with indiscernable features stood in one of the back rows, his belongings spread out across a number of seats, arms splayed across a couple of seats as he issued his warning.

we turned to one another,grinning,somewhat amused by the unexpected etiquette lesson and took our seats. this got us talking about previous experiences with noise nazis at the theatre. between us, we'd been on both sides of the fence at some time or another. nothing drives me crazier than a talker during a movie. i remember the first (and last!) time that i went to see a film at the rainbow cinema(chain of divey discount theatres). it was a screening of the passion of the christ and among my fellow moviegoers were children on booster seats in the back row, teenage kids on dates and a row of saggy-ass pant wearin' youth. while i knew i was in for a less than peaceful viewing i was not prepared for the pimplefaced savant to my right who read all of the subtitles to his girlfriend as they were posted to which she responded, "oh it's just like in the bible,..."

i remember thinking to myself...who were these people? did they really think no one could hear them?

anyway, back to last night...we were watching paris je t'aime, a series of short films by a myriad of directors who were each given a different neighbourhood of paris to serve as an inspiration for their film. not long into the film, our own personal mr. manners started to laugh inappropriately during the quiet bits of a moodier piece. then he started responding to the dialogue in french. his voice was a bit slurred sounding but it resonated loudly.

now the rep theatre is a different beast than a multiplex. patrons of these hallowed halls dig their flicks and have a collective understanding of the old school approach to moviegoing. you don't show up late, you get your snacks before you settle in and once the lights go down, you don't say a word.

true to form, mr. commentaire's contributions to the experience were not appreciated and a couple of voices replied "shut up" and "be quiet". this seemed to be effective and for awhile, his verbalization was simply comprised of louder than normal laughter to the funny parts.

now, the shorts were not all great. they weren't conventional in terms of narrative and some went in odd directions, had unresolved ideas. but, considering the number of shorts in the film, most of us were willing to endure the bad in anticipation of more good.

not so for mr. noisy pants. during a short featuring maggie gylenhaal he shouted "this movie sucks". some laughed but one guy boomed in a voice that screeched somewhat "shut up!". my friends and i were a bit taken aback. mr. noise repeated his displeasure again and the same guy yelled "shut up or get out". it was a guy on a lawn in a cops episode kind of yell that you don't hear in public often. it was full on rage. it hung in the air like a cloud, more dramatic than anything on the screen in front of us could have been. was odd to have this drama within a drama going on, very surreal, like edgy performance art.

anyway, the defender of the sanctity of the movie theatre's girlfriend seemed to sense that he wasn't going to let things go and she got up and left the theatre, we assumed to get management involved. in the meantime, a dialogue between the two where noisy pants started saying he wasn't going anywhere along with other slurred phrases with hints of french intermixed. we all sat there, tense, waiting for someone to intervene.

sure enough, moments later we heard mumbling and shuffling. he was being escorted out.

couldn't help but think about how stressed we all are and how scarily close to the surface the resultant quick to be pissed offed-ness it creates. know something of it myself, have almost taken out a couple of grannies on the left side of the escalator during rush hour in the subway. am always shocked by how visceral the anger is and how hard pressed i am to find a reason as to why it should bother me so much.

took about two shorts to get back into the film. odd to just continue watching as though nothing had happened when he had gone.

never wanted to talk during a movie so much in my life!