How to behave in Beijing cinemas
"s" for serious
Before this year’s Beijing International Film Festival week, I thought watching a film in the theatre was as simple as sitting down and keeping your mouth shut for two hours. Most of the time you go with someone else leisurely, or passively, without a critical intent.
I had no idea it could be so intense—in a good way!
It was at a 300-seat IMAX cinema in central Beijing. Two-thirds through a Czech 4k restoration film “The Ear” (unexpected selection by the committee btw, which is about state surveillance), during a brief interlude between scenes, a guy to my left suddenly burst out in anger.
“(In a Beijing accent) YOU on the first row, you have been using your phone the entire time. AND don’t film.”
The whole space went into a few seconds of silence. He was obviously trying to be less annoying by having waited for some time before speaking up. The person on the first row immediately dropped their phone. I didn’t turn my head towards him. Nobody else seemed inclined to play detective either. No rage was heard. No rage was seen.
Well, people weren’t just there to hang out; they wanted to be completely absorbed.
Another observation was the unwavering punctuality of the attendees, even on weekday evenings. For one screening, I travelled from the eastern side to a northwestern corner (Beijing is enormous, as you may know) on a Wednesday after work. For the few latecomers in my session, they tiptoed in, avoided the dreaded glare of phone lights and navigated the rows with the precision of tightrope walkers, all in a valiant effort to preserve the sacred silence of the theatre.
It’s about being there on time for the films and making efforts to create the best atmospheres possible for other folks, I suppose.
This year, I snapped up five shows— “The Ear”, “The Outlaw (1943)”, the 2023 French sci-fi/romance “The Beast”, the experimental 1923 “Return to Reasons”, and an four-hour extra-long edited version of “Once Upon a Time in America”. The tickets to popular screenings were usually gone after a few seconds. The cinema was all filled and nobody seemed to fall asleep. You saw people talking about the film plots following each session while waiting for cars outside.
For much of April, one trend among Beijing’s young people was collecting ticket stubs from the screenings held during the film week. On the social media Xiaohongshu, under the hashtags of #beijingfilmfestival, some of the top-liked discussions were about cinema etiquette (and accidents), misogyny in certain classics (such as “Once Upon a Time in America”), and reviews of new releases. If you met friends during this time, you would likely start the conversation by asking, hey what did you watch this year?
Among all other things, I now find myself quite like watching films here.