Send us your Movie Memories
Has there been a film in 2000-09 that made a significant impact on you? Something that has made you laugh, cry, or spurred you into action? Or was it the time and context, rather than the film, that was memorable: in a certain country, with (or without) a special someone, at a particular stage in your life?
This is a space for films that may not have helped redefine cinema – it is much more personal: it’s about films that have, in some small way, helped define you.
Profound or random, funny or serious, we want to know. Share your memory with us below and we’ll enter it into our monthly draw to win a clutch of special Decalogue prizes. Good luck!
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As impoverished students my flat mates and I prepared for the cinema by hiding cans of lager in our handbags. On the way some of us felt desperately hungry and bought fish and chips take-away. We ended up watching a film about fast food in a tiny cinema, filling the whole place with smells of beer, chips and fish. Ironic.
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A couple of years ago I managed to catch a screening of Reha Erdem’s incredibly understated film Times And Winds at the Little Theatre Cinema in Bath. The film follows a small Turkish community in the mountains who live off the land and follow traditional values that have been passed down from their ancestors. The film’s beauty lies in the contemplative moments shared with the lone characters who look out across a bucolic landscape, clearly feeling a heightened sense of their existence.
Together with a brooding score by Arvo Part, the film is utter escapism and I left the theatre in a daze, having to readjust my senses back to “real time”. After reading an article of praise in Sight and Sound long before it came out, I was curious as to why it was one of the only films of that month without the “Picturehouse recommends” logo hovering above it in the programme. Consequently, there was only about five of us in the audience (which probably contributed to the distinctive atmosphere and memorable experience). I remember one woman leaving with a friend and saying, “It was good but I hated the music!” I’ve been trying to get hold of the music ever since, but no luck. It’s probably for the best, as I wouldn’t want to ruin such a powerful memory.
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I remember seeing this film at my local cinema in Weymouth on a particularly dismal January evening in 2004(anyone who’s spent a winter in a seaside town will know what I mean!). It was only on for one showing as part of their mainly empty ‘Arthouse Wednesdays’ screenings. I distinctly remember feeling very grouchy that day and needed something besides the massive tub of ice cream I’d bought to make me feel better.
I’m so glad I went. This is such a warm, insightful and touching film about childhood and the difficult transition periods in life – in this case the children preparing to leave for secondary school, and M. Lopez getting ready to retire from teaching.
The changing seasons of the French countryside is beautifully shot and all the subjects are portrayed with gentle humour and genuine affection. The teacher in the tiny village school is wise, gentle and encouraging to his students, who range from the really young to those on the cusp of adolescence. Despite the wide range of ages, he still treats them all with equal respect and dignity.
It’s also a really frank piece of filmmaking, refusing to ‘cutesy-fy’ the subjects; by showing us their squabbles, tantrums and scraps, Philibert illustrates that these are people with real feelings,(and failings), hopes and fears, not just cute little nippers.
I came out of the cinema that evening feeling so much better about the world in general- and I don’t think it was the ice cream!
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I saw Gosford Park just when I moved to Bristol with a fabulously posh girl who’s father was a Knight of the Realm, so it was all totally appropriate to the theme of decadent aristocracy at play. It was in cinema 2 here at Watershed and I was screaming with laughter at points, which might have been off-putting in the boutique cinema, but still, there were so many bravura performances I couldn’t contain myself. It’s like a who’s who of great actors and seeing it again recently, I was impressed all over again by Emily Watson and Kelly MacDonald in particular, although Richard E Grant as a bitchy footman is exquisite too.
In a way, the theme of societal excess at the end of an existing period of order seems to have fitted mine and the world’s decade rather well. Chin chin!
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Shane Meadows is one of my film heroes – I remember watching one of his films (A Room for Romeo Brass) for the first time at university, my friends and I loved it. It was shot very near to where we lived in Nottingham and captured the strange subtleties of the area perfectly, it was both dark and hilarious but no one else I knew had ever heard of him. I saw This is England at Watershed – it was the first of his films I had seen on the big screen, it has a great soundtrack and Meadows’s trade mark qualities of being tender and terrifying in equal measures. This film will always remind me of beginning work at Watershed and discovering that there are many like minded Meadows fans in the world!