Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Secret Cinema...

At last we can talk about it! Last month Stu and I went to the Secret Cinema to see a film that had been kept secret (duh!) but with loads of cryptic web sites, fake telegrams, emails and photographs as clues. The eagle-eyed amongst us had discovered what the film was in advance but for the rest of us it was baffling and great fun at the same time. The idea was we went along dressed as if we were living within the film. It was to be an immersive experience.

We had to be in a certain place (Barbican tube) at a certain time, dressed in a certain way (late 1940s attire) and were to follow a certain person (a woman with balloons) which in themselves were all clues as to the film we were to see. We were lead through Smithfields past a dramatic funeral to a series of buildings which were each dressed as post-war Vienna. British, French and Russia sectors, a police station, bars, a night spot, a cafe, a hotel, a post office, a consulate, a laboratory and all manner scenes had been recreated from the film we were to watch later.

It was impossible to tell who was part of the cast and who was a punter. An amazing feat which got everyone acting at their part.

We had to buy money at the bureau de change which we could use to buy drinks and food. Under the buildings were a series of interconnected caverns like sewers with running water and men in white overalls chasing us about.

We watched little scenes being played out in every part of the venue - sometimes micro-performances for just we two such as outside the consulate and sometimes big dramatic affairs on a stage. Everything was a scene, or an extension to a scene, from the film.

And it turned out everyone was either mourning or looking for... Harry Lime. Because, yes, you guessed it, the film was The Third Man.

The film itself was shown in a large shed towards the end of night. And as we watched it Stu and I were nudging each other as again and again we recognised what we had taken part in earlier was now being shown to us on the big screen. Great fun. Deffo going to the next one.

2 comments:

  1. It was good fun, no? I too kept smiling during the film, when I saw something on the screen they'd recreated earlier leaving me with that familiar WTF feeling. Great night out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, great night out. And they have another one planned for spring I think.

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