Cine Arte Normandie
Cine Hoyts isn't that bad. Actually, it's horrible. Shrek and Spiderman 3. The effect of Hollywood on an austere latin country like Chile, it's strange to think what Chileans internalize of the vapid heroism and cheap sentimentality pushed by United States. Words like 'prosperity' and 'rugged individualism' and 'the American way'. Like the cowboy who ran on a treadmill until he hurt his knee and now is reduced to peddling around his the grounds of his southerly estate, sorry, 'ranch.'
Anyway, there's hope. Wild, obscure and foreign films -- foreign meaning non-U.S. -- are available in diverse selection at the Cine Arte Normandie movie theater, in Santiago. In Chile, all movies that are not mainstream are called "Cine-Arte" ("art film"). This latest cycle of films is Italian and French. So the day before Mayday we saw the film about Sacco and Vanzetti. And before that we saw an awesome Italian movie with Sofia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni called A Special Day.
Cine Arte Normandie is as old as I am. Yet while I'm at the peak of my youth, this poor movie theater is like a decrepit old man. Every time I lie and tell them I'm a student I feel like I'm stealing change from a blind panhandler. Still, it's nice to pay CH$1,400, rather than CH$2,500. The movie theater could fit about 300 people I'm sure, but every time I've been there only 10-15 show up. They can't be making more than 60 bucks a night in ticket sales. And they've got at least 4 people working there. The seats creak loudly and the bathroom is one of the grossest ever. Anything, however, for the sake of Art.
After the movie, go to the bar a few doors down on the same street (turn left as you're walking out, and the bar will be on your left). You can drink cheap wine or Piscolas with old men stooped over the tables telling one another in the pathetic voice of drunken confession, "Soy un weón!" ("I'm a loser," basically). They've also got a movie screen jukebox and the woman at the bar wears gaudy silver rings on four fingers of each hand and lots of eyeliner. The man at the bar is studying history at a local university, and you can have long discussions with him about the comparative strengths of the rightist movements in Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
In other words, it's all about Cine Normandie. Their address is Tarapacá 1181, Santiago.
Anyway, there's hope. Wild, obscure and foreign films -- foreign meaning non-U.S. -- are available in diverse selection at the Cine Arte Normandie movie theater, in Santiago. In Chile, all movies that are not mainstream are called "Cine-Arte" ("art film"). This latest cycle of films is Italian and French. So the day before Mayday we saw the film about Sacco and Vanzetti. And before that we saw an awesome Italian movie with Sofia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni called A Special Day.
Cine Arte Normandie is as old as I am. Yet while I'm at the peak of my youth, this poor movie theater is like a decrepit old man. Every time I lie and tell them I'm a student I feel like I'm stealing change from a blind panhandler. Still, it's nice to pay CH$1,400, rather than CH$2,500. The movie theater could fit about 300 people I'm sure, but every time I've been there only 10-15 show up. They can't be making more than 60 bucks a night in ticket sales. And they've got at least 4 people working there. The seats creak loudly and the bathroom is one of the grossest ever. Anything, however, for the sake of Art.
After the movie, go to the bar a few doors down on the same street (turn left as you're walking out, and the bar will be on your left). You can drink cheap wine or Piscolas with old men stooped over the tables telling one another in the pathetic voice of drunken confession, "Soy un weón!" ("I'm a loser," basically). They've also got a movie screen jukebox and the woman at the bar wears gaudy silver rings on four fingers of each hand and lots of eyeliner. The man at the bar is studying history at a local university, and you can have long discussions with him about the comparative strengths of the rightist movements in Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
In other words, it's all about Cine Normandie. Their address is Tarapacá 1181, Santiago.
posted by Chileno @ 1:26 AM
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2 Comments:
Those bathrooms look like they have not been cleaned in ages.
Cine Normandie is a ratre thing in the world. It was closed for a while and reopened a number of years ago, and strugling you would think, but its there unlike Pedro de Valdivia recently, before the Las COndes, The Golf, the Las Lilas..an many others, all replaced by buildings that have no value. Its Chile, a country that only looks ahead, it has no memory or wants one.
Great story.-
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