Tickets, cinema, action!

Yesterday evening we went to the cinema here in Crete. The film ‘Mrs Harris goes to Paris’ was light-hearted and enjoyable and hit the spot for an evening’s entertainment. The added thrill (for me at least) was being at the cinema in a different country. Before the film started, I noticed that I felt a certain sense of childish excitement and anticipation. It was at that point that I inwardly acknowledged and self-diagnosed that I have a fondness, appreciation and affinity for going to the cinema when abroad.

I have never intentionally sought out the big screen overseas but rather it has come about by chance. Since ditching full-time employment for intermittent travelling to various European countries, both near and further, we have realised that there are only so many dinners out that a human body can ingest and so an ad-hoc cinema trip has offered an alternative evening’s entertainment. As an English speaker, there is an obvious language advantage as so many films are made in English/American and since visiting a few different European cinemas over the last couple of years, I have happily realised that films are not always dubbed into the local language.

Last night’s film, however, did offer a little problematic amusement in some scenes. As the film title indicates, Paris is the setting for much of the film and therefore it would have been amiss not to include some French. I am guessing that in the UK there would be subtitles for the French, but here in Crete there were already Greek subtitles for the Greek market. Therefore, at odd points during the film, I found myself blunderingly trying to listen to the rapid French, whilst at the same time, read the Greek subtitles to identify key words to help my understanding. The idea was to then patch the French and Greek together to make it fit with the story…all this in split seconds before the scene moved on. Lost in translation springs to mind but I think I got the gist.

A particularly delightful aspect about a cinema trip in a different country is that it gives an added insight into the local culture and, believe me, the innocent buzz of seeing the decor, using the cinema toilet or comparing popcorn habits can be enlightening! Last night, as we were unsure if we were allowed to take in our own metal water canisters, we had left these at home and so had to buy water at the cinema. I smiled as I paid and took my two bottles of ice cold water, pondering on how refreshing the total price of 1€ was compared to the pounds one can knock up in a UK cinema just by glancing at the pick and mix.

Here in Crete, even buying the tickets gave me a thrill. I approached the street-side window of the tiny booth which housed one elderly man and his till. I loved his till! There are two prices for this cinema: 5€ (Mon-Wed) and 7€ (Thurs-Sun). This somewhat old-fashioned till had not just one, but five buttons in a row each labelled with 7€ and another five buttons in a row each labelled with 5€. I’m still pondering on why you would need five different buttons that do the same thing?

In my best Greek, I asked for two tickets for ‘Η κυρία Χάρις πάει στο Παρίσι’ and after an agonisingly slow finger scroll down a piece of paper mounted on a board in front of him, the ticket man finally established which screen we were in. ‘Πέντε’, he said holding up five fingers. As his finger then hovered over the till, it was tantalising to watch, wait and see which of the five buttons labelled 7€ he was going to press. I could hardly contain myself!

After securing the tickets, we had to walk two short paces to the door and give them to another man (also many years into retirement) who tore them to confirm purchase. Then we were inside and it was time to investigate the retro delights of the Greek cinema decor…