By Lynn Lee
a sad strip mall interior for happy experiences
Until yesterday, the last movie I saw in a theater was Emma – on March 7, 2020, just before the reality of COVID-19 descended on me and most people I knew. If you’d told me that the next time I’d be in a movie theater would be nearly 14 months later, in a tiny, crappy arthouse joint in a suburban Virginia strip mall, and that the movie would be an idiosyncratic black-and-white documentary about a brood sow, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. And yet that is exactly where I found myself Sunday afternoon.
It wasn’t the return to moviegoing I’d envisioned since my husband and I got our second Pfizer dose in early April...
Frankly, I’d been prepared to wait till the summer given the relative paucity of new theatrical releases not involving monsters or mindless violence, neither of which hold much appeal for me. I did think about seeing Nomadland as it should be seen, on a big screen at one of the nicer theaters in my area. But then the other day I noticed that Gunda, Viktor Kosakovskiy’s critically acclaimed documentary about a pig and her progeny, featuring guest appearances from some cattle and roosters, was playing in the Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax, VA, about 20-30 minutes from my home. My husband doesn’t like documentaries, so I drove out there alone and bought a ticket to the noon show.
The Cinema Arts Theatre, which I’d previously been to only a few times, would not be most people’s choice for a first trip back to the movies. Tucked away in one of the saddest-looking strip mall corners I’ve ever seen, it’s one of those old-school independent cinemas where the screens are pitched high due to the lack of stadium seating, the popcorn looks like it was made last year (this was true even in pre-pandemic days), and the main draw is that it’s the only theater within a 20-mile radius that’s playing films like…well, Gunda. It feels like a quaint relic in the era of modern, high-end multiplexes with plushy reclining seats, gourmet concessions, and state-of-the-art 4D technology.
I thought I would be the only one at my show, but there was one older couple a few rows ahead of me. I settled into my seat just as the previews began, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to watch previews for movies I’m never going to see, even if this particular assortment – an Angelina Jolie forest fire thriller(?), a Billy Crystal-Tiffany Hadish odd-couple comedy about Alzheimer’s (really, I did not make that up), and the latest Guy Ritchie/Jason Staham action collab, all with titles so generic I’ve already forgotten them – seemed an odd match for the feature they preceded. I was even happier to see the NEON logo fill the screen, then belatedly remembered I needed to mute my cell phone. No joke, it took me a minute to find the switch, and it stunned me a little to realize it had been over a goddamn year since I’d last had to put my phone in silent mode.
As for the feature attraction, I generally cosign Glenn’s characteristically astute review. Gunda both was and wasn’t what I expected. Expected: the stark beauty of the B&W cinematography and the astonishing intimacy of the ground-level view of the animals and the sounds of their grunts, squeals, moos, and crows; the hypnotically slow pacing; Kosakovskiy’s admirably resolute refusal to anthropomorphize his subjects. Not expected: just how alien they came across as a result. (The roosters, especially, are shot in a disquieting way that brings to mind their likely genetic connection to dinosaurs.) It puts a distance between the viewer and the animals, despite the closeness of the camera—that is, until the film’s ending, which I won’t spoil except to say that it somehow manages to pack a devastating wallop while remaining 100% violence-free. It’s what you don’t see, and the effect of that absence on Gunda herself, that makes it impossible not to anthropomorphize her by seeing her as a mother in high distress. Being in a silent, dark, almost empty theater only magnified the impact.
And that, I think, was why I chose Gunda for my welcome back to movie theaters—that immersive aspect. It takes different forms for different types of movies. For some, you need a crowd surrounding you to get the full effect. For others, it’s almost better if you’re alone. Gunda is one of the latter. Watching it took me back to the sticky-floored, creaky-seated theaters of my younger days, when I’d frequently go solo to a matinee show of the latest arty or indie film that no one else I knew wanted to see. Those were some of the purest experiences of cinema I’ve had, stripped of physical indulgence and unburdened by the presence or anticipated reaction of a companion. So it was with Gunda. (I did wonder, as the credits rolled, what the older couple sitting in front of me thought, though I didn’t ask them; I give them credit for staying through the whole thing and not - so far as I could tell - talking or falling asleep.)
Do I still want to see the gorgeous landscapes of Nomadland, the singing, dancing joie de vivre of In the Heights, and the action-packed sisterly rivalry of ScarJo and Florence Pugh in Black Widow on the biggest screen I can find? Yes, of course! But for a return to “the movies,” I wouldn’t have traded my quiet little trip to Gunda's farm for the glossiest, most thrilling blockbuster in the most luxurious theater in the city. It was perfect.