In the nineteen fifties and early sixties, I went to the pictures (yeah, that’s what we called it in those far off days) three times a week. You see, new films (not movies) ran Monday to Wednesday, Thursday to Saturday and a complete new, one-off, showing on Sunday. There was an A picture and a B picture with the Pathe news and lots of adverts. You could stay through all the showings for the one price. We got a lot of screentime for our money. When we viewed a film in 3d we held cardboard glasses with coloured cellophane eye patches, one in red and one in green.

There used to be an interval when you could buy a Kia Ora or a Mivvi from a woman in a pink gingham skirt and blouse with a tray slung over her shoulders. I was saturated with films until all the picture houses closed and were turned into Bingo halls.

Much later than that, I saw Jaws and it is only recently I have felt able to walk through puddles instead of going around them. It was the last film I saw at a cinema until the weekend just gone that is, when, not to be outdone by friends who booked to see Harry Potter while I was in Bangkok, I went to the Imax cinema at the Paragon Centre.

On my way into the auditorium I was presented with glasses, looking like ski shades, to use on the 3d effects in the film. This was the start of my education. They were made from a rigid plastic with unmoveable arms and collected for re-use. It was impossible to poke a finger through the lens, so they didn’t fall to pieces and they stayed on.

Then I went into the auditorium. Have you seen the size of that screen? It was the height and width of the cinema. When the ads began as a prelude to the film (some things don’t change) I wore the glasses and ducked when a lifesize, or so it seemed at the time, Pterodactyl zoomed at me from the screen. I felt as though I could stroke it’s head. I looked over my shoulder, feet preparing for a quick escape, to see what kind of animal was making the roaring noise behind me. Ah! Superior surround sound, I was told.

When Harry and his friends were running down the mountain towards Hagrid’s abode I felt the scale of the mountains, the distance and wallowed in the space around me. I found I was looking at the screen as though it was a stage, having to turn my head to look to the left or the right instead of it fitting in to the one stare-ahead view.

I had the same sensation at Hogwarts; in the dining room, on the stairs and when looking over the ramparts with the rest of the students or in the Quad watching Dolores Jane Umbridge’s saccharine smile. I could look around. The fghts were furious and breathtaking - technology and story merging to stunning effect.

So what did I think of my first experience of Imax? Wow!

The film was okay too. Now I want to see it again but this time in normal view. What does that say about me?

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Expats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.