DAN MURPHEY AND FABIAN MELI
There’s a long line of people outside the North Melbourne Meat Market, but no one in the queue knows exactly why they’re here. It has been weeks since this crowd bought their tickets to this mysterious event, but only three days since a message arrived in their inbox, revealing a secret location. Waiting anxiously, strangers swap whispers and guesses, clad in leather jackets and rockstar wigs. A van arrives and a band hurry across the footpath as if dodging lightbulb flashes. Is it a gig? Is it a rave? A film premiere?
Actually, it’s all of the above. This is a night out at the cinema, underground style, where ticket holders are kept in the dark, until the lights finally go down and the mystery movie begins.
In recent years there has been a lot of talk and fearmongering about the future of cinema. With movies all too easy to download and homes kitted with state-of-the-art theatre systems, leaving the house can seem a big ask for the most dedicated of film fans. Add to that skyrocketing ticket prices and the couch seems almost irresistible.
While multiplexes attempt to lure punters with the luxury and service, two Melbourne initiatives are finding more creative ways to polish up the silver screen. Speakeasy Cinema and Underground Cinema aim to give people a reason to get excited again by a night at the flicks.
Speakeasy founder Ghita Loebenstein says she wanted to narrow the gap between seeing a film and hitting the town with friends.
“It always seems to be a disjointed social experience where you want to hang out with whoever you’ve gone to the movies with,” Loebenstein says.
“I just wanted to create a space that people wanted to be in both before and after the movie, and also a space or an experience that was a little more relaxed than traditional cinema-going.”
A veteran of many film festivals, Loebenstein also knew there was a wealth of top-range titles denied exposure in mainstream theatres. Inspired by a Texan chain that was part-restaurant, part-cinema, she set out to create an environment that was as comfortable as a living room, as vibrant as any bar and, overall, a great place to see movies that were showing nowhere else.
“I guess I’m modelling it on the relationship people have with music. You can listen to an album at home on your stereo or you can go to a live gig. It might be the same songs but it’s completely different because the gig’s a communal experience.”
This sense of the communal is also crucial to the success of Underground Cinema, according to instigator Tamasein Holyman. Cinemagoers are lured to monthly screenings by a series of cryptic clues, such as carefully placed posters, pictures left on café tables or snippets of songs sent to mailing lists. Although no one knows which film they’ll be seeing, by the time the screening comes around, the eagle-eyed will have its flavour and be ready to dress for the occasion.
“People come with such a good spirit and sense of joy and they’re really open,” Holyman says. “Even lining up, they’re all talking to each other, even though they’ve never met.“
Holyman says Underground Cinema aims to create an immersive experience, where punters feel completely enveloped by the world of the film. For a showing of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, the screening took place in a church, dressed by a talented team of set designers – most of whom have jobs in the film industry. For music documentary Dig, the North Melbourne Meat Market was decked out in rock’n’roll chic, with empty bourbon bottles and fake lines of cocaine carefully scattered about the venue.
“We take artistic elements from the film and we re-create them in every communiqué and in the space,” Holyman says. “It draws you into the film at a deeper level than just sitting in a multiplex and switching off.”
She describes the regular multiplex experience as “fast food” that offers nothing in the way of nourishment. The secretive nature of Underground and its approach to promotion helps get the grey matter working and transform the act of watching a film into a far less passive experience.
“I think there’s a feeling we’re just spoon-fed information nowadays and pushed towards events. People really love the fact that we trust them to use their own imagination and intelligence to engage with us. We’re not trying to control them, we’re just trying to be the white rabbit and lead them down the hole.”
Melburnians are more than willing to chase that rabbit, if sales figures are any guide. A year ago, Underground had 300 viewers on its mailing list, now it has more than 5000, with screenings selling out weeks in advance. There have even been emailed demands from culture-hungry Sydneysiders that the Harbour City be let in on the action.
Speakeasy has found similar success after a mere six screenings, but Loebenstein stresses there’s nothing new about what she’s doing. Cinemas have been offering additional treats, such as Q&A sessions, or bells and whistles such as 3D for some time now, she says.
But really, the approaches taken by herself and Holyman owe as much to the past as any bright future. Much of the appeal of outfits such as theirs lies in the nostalgia embraced by St Kilda’s Astor Theatre, where weekend matinees and faded art deco splendour remind of the lost thrill of an evening at the theatre.
“The Astor was a big inspiration because it does have that sense of occasion,” Holyman says. “When you go there, you’re engaging in the experience of going to a movie, you’re not just a zombie walking into that space.”
Like the Astor before them, Underground and Speakeasy have managed to resurrect a night at the movies as an unmissable event, with all the buzz and glamour no plasma telly can convey. Time, it seems, for the zombies among us to put down the remote and pick up the car keys.
www.undergroundcinema.com.au
www.speakeasycinema.com.au