Cinema Robert-Bourassa!

Anyone who’s visited Cinema du Parc recently knows that the place has lost all its character. The lush movie posters that once adorned its walls have been obliterated by white paint. No more collages of Lynch, Kurosawa and Fellini. In their place, drab black and white photos of Quebec movie figures are neatly arranged in rows, like the sexless schoolmasters in little Guido’s catholic school in 8 1/2.

There are other obvious changes. The employees, once very half-assed and loveable, seem more uptight now. They wear uniforms. And of course, there are no more old movies…

But it’s the facelift that really bothers me, and I’m trying to work out why. Here’s what I’ve come up with…

1. IT’S UGLY

Cinema du Parc was one of Montreal’s last standing theatres that wasn’t a monster or a sterile movie museum. It was homely, for sure, but it was home. The new look, especially with the black and white portraits, makes the place feel like a national institution, another Cinemateque Quebecoise. And nobody goes to that place.

Maybe the new owner doesn’t want customers hanging around before and after the screenings. It’s loiter-proof.

2. INFERIORITY COMPLEX

For me, the removal of colourful foreign film posters and the addition of bland national portraits brings home just how mediocre our films are compared with the outside world, in spite of all the noise at home (that a film as unremarkable as C.R.A.Z.Y can be called a “chef d’oeuvre” here is proof of our bias). Not one cinematic genius has emerged from Quebec in 100 years. That is, nobody here has brought anything new to the form, as opposed to the U.S., Japan, Iran, Russia, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, even England, where many have.

3. NOSTALGIA, SORT OF

I admit, I’m tainted by nostalgia. I have a tendency to frame the past like a pretty picture in my mind, and what was often seems better than what is. It’s a mental error. Rooted in fear, perhaps.

But this isn’t exactly the same. It’s not because I’m hankering for the good ol’ days that I scorn the WHITE PAINT. The white paint bothers me just like the Parc Ave. name-change bothers me. A part of the past is being obliterated. Needlessly. On a whim.

Cities are always in flux, and that’s what makes living in them exciting. But it’s depressing how disposable everything is.

It’s worth keeping the good things.