Cinemagoing has been experiencing a decline for years, with the pandemic making things even worse for cinemas around the world. And if the multiplexes found ways to survive and their attendance is gradually picking up, the same does not apply to smaller venues, whose already precarious existence has become even worse. Cris Bringas focuses his documentary on such a theater, a second-run venue called TIMES theater in Quiapo, in order to make a comment about cinema in general.
“A Remembering of Disremembering” is screening at Busan International Short Film Festival
There are two narrators in the film, Naido Abasola an old projectionist, and Bridge Martin, a late blooming actress, both of which talk about their life in connection with the particular venue and cinema in general. Through their words, Cris Bringas creates a movie that is dominated by juxtapositions. In Abasola's “arc”, the sounds of the city are juxtaposed with the sound of the projector in TIMES. His words are juxtaposed with images of the venues and footage from movies of the past. The past of the cinema is juxtaposed with its current situation, with the same applying to the area of Quiapo. In Cris's arc, her narration regarding her past, including footage of her movies, watching films with her family and particularly the role “The Sound of Music” played in it, and her marriage, is juxtaposed with her present, particularly her life with her husband inside their apartment, and eventually inside TIMES.
The antithesis of the two individuals works rather well for the movie, as Abasola is serious and somewhat bitter while Bridge is a true star, narrating cheerfully and even singing on occasion, with Delano Vinci's editing, particularly in the way the two parts repeatedly take each other's stead, emerging as one of the best aspects of the movie. One could also say that this difference also has a more general hypostasis, regarding the antithesis between the people who stay behind the camera and the people who stand in front of it.
Despite their differences, however, the sense of nostalgia that is emitted from both narrations is palpable, while their comments, essentially common. In that fashion, the way the downfall of cinemas begun with the rise of home entertainment and particularly the DVD, how cinemagoing switched from neighborhoods like Quiapo to the venues in malls, and how the era the two experienced in their youth will probably end when they pass, are communicated rather eloquently through both their narrations, as much as the images of TIMES DP Mel Cobrador has captured. Also of note is a remark Martin makes, about the difference of being known and being famous.
Lastly, a sequence in fast forward that is also stripped of colors, a very brief stopping of the movie and a finale that emits a phantasmagoric essence through the music heard, add an element of art-film in the short, adding even more to the entertainment it offers.
“A Remembering of Disremembering” is a very pleasant and easy to watch 18-minutes short, which makes its comments regarding the past, present and future of cinema eloquently, while emitting a very entertaining sense of nostalgia that will appeal particularly to people who experienced the before-home entertainment era.
