The Knife's Edge

After last night's no-show, Amy V and I were pleased to find that our foray back to the Grand Illusion tonight was not in vain; we arrived on time, as, in fact, did about eight others (a real crowd for the Grand Illusion). The show would go on!

The film was Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water, a tense drama with only three players, a married couple and the hitchhiker that the husband impetuously invites on their sailboat outing as a not-so-subtle way to prove himself to his disillusioned wife. And if you're going to show a knife in the first act, it better be used in the third... and although it was, it was not in the way I had expected. Is this good filmmaking - thwarting the expectations of the audience, yet keeping them in suspense? Or a willful disregard for Chekhov's gun principle?

But the film did remind me of a Chekhov play, full of symbolism representing the disintegration of a marriage, fighting to prove ourselves regardless of our age, and the psychological manipulation used by both sexes to test the waters around them. I can't say I enjoyed the film as one does when watching a movie merely for entertainment, but it did make me think, and sometimes that's a good thing (OK, that didn't come out quite right - thinking is always a good thing, but what I mean to say is it can be good to watch a film that forces you to mull it over, not just turn your brain off for a couple of hours).

And as a side note, the film really made me wish I was sailing! Just not with those three, of course.

A Grand Illusion Indeed

Named for a French film film of the 1930s, the Grand Illusion is a tiny jewel box of a theater that sits at the corner of University Way and 50th Street in Seattle's U District. Though attendance is sparse (and I don't think the theater hold more than 75, anyway), it's one of my favorite places to catch a movie in Seattle.

We were running late for tonight's showing of Knife in the Water, but Amy V, Michael, and I sprinted down the block in an effort to get there before the film rolled... only to find a locked door. Squeezing through the attached Starlife on the Oasis Cafe, I found two volunteers in the projection room, but the film wasn't running. It was late, no one had shown up on time, and they weren't going to show the movie for a grand total of three people who would only have had to pay ten bucks all together (with Tuesday being Member Mooch Night, Amy would've been free since Michael and I are members).

And really, I can't blame them. And I wonder how many times this has happened before, and I wonder again why so few people come here. Shouldn't the local college kids be lapping this stuff up? Art house flicks and bizarro late night shows on the weekends? The fact is, other than the annual It's a Wonderful Life Christmas party viewing (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is free for everyone), I don't think I've ever seen more than ten people in the audience, and even ten is a stretch.

So instead of spending an evening reading subtitles, we wound up drinking bubble tea at nearby Pochi while playing Yahtzee with a random assortment of dice. Not what we had had in mind, but hey, still a chance to get out. And Amy and I are considering trying the 9pm showing tomorrow... and this time we won't be late.