On film addicts and Cinemania
 

by Elmo Fernando

Who is a film addict? Are you one? Here comes an amusing story in the form of a documentary.

Cinemania is the title of a film made in New York city directed by Angela Christibe and Stephen Kiak about five self-confessed cinemaniacs. They used to see at least five films a day at various cinemas. Jack Angstreich who lives on hs parent’s inheritance seems to prefer serious cinema to soap opera. On the other hand Roberta Hill, an old woman in her sixties, hoards film ephemario.

It was revealed that once she attacked an usher at the Museum of Modern Art who daringly tore her subscription and was soon evicted from her memorabilia stuffed apartment. Roberto and the other two cinemaniacs Eric Chadbourne and Harvey being disabled live on a charity allowance. Eric has an innate desire for musicals and possesses a vast collection of sound tracks though he didn’t have a turn-table.

European cinema

Meanwhile lonely hypochondriac Bill Heid Breder is devoted mostly to European cinema. His compulsive addiction to the cinema has deprived him of a love life which he didn’t bother at all.

This film about five cinephiles illustrates how thin the zone between passion and dysfunction is. These cinemaniacs explained to the co-directors of the film Angela Christlieb and Steven Rijak how they arrange their unemployed days entirely around movies each seeing three to five films a day. In 2003 this film had a good run.

Nevertheless critics like the late Menaken attacked it devastatingly that it mocked its own theme stressing that these hapless film addicts never could perceive the thematic content or the filmic value of any of the films that they see. The visual impact for them is hardly plausible.

Incidentally that remarkable war film All Quiet on the Western Front was released in some cinemas in London. This film that won an Oscar for its depth which depicted German conscripts with rare sympathy retaining the anti-war sentiments was daringly captivating, giving life to Erich Maria Remarque’s award-winning novel that brought out moving sequences of the horrors of war, reminiscent of Andre Waidya’s daring film Kanal.

Incidentally, Jeremy Wooding’s Bollywood Queen relates how Jay a young man from the West Country arrives in London to work with his brother Dean in a factory making designer-jeans.

Here Jay meets Geena an Indian woman whose family is also in the same business. She has formed a band with her friends without her parents’ knowledge. Romantically she dreams of emerging as a super star.

Jay and Geena falls in love but ends in an abortive dead end since the groom happens to be English. They elope but returns for the traditional Indian wedding of Geena’s cousin. Here Geena’s singing encupulates all her hopes and dreams and her family is won over leading her own life with Jay.

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