Movie time spiced with local Flavors

Hollywood honors its films Sunday night at the Oscars celebration. But moviegoing overseas has its unique twists - from tipping French ushers to watching exotic musicals in India. We asked Monitor writers around the world to grab a seat and describe their cinema experiences.

MEXICO CITY

By Howard LaFranchi

As a kid growing up in northern California back in the 1960s, I always found my town's old movie theater the perfect venue for passing on the tale of the girl who'd died at the show when a bat flew into her beehive hairdo and bit her.

I thought of that urban legend recently when I spied a rat scampering across the floor of the crumbling movie theater where I sat munching popcorn in Ayacucho, Peru. The rain puddles on the hulking theater's concrete floor told me the place had seen better days, but the rat left me in a quandary. Do I run out, and miss the end of the subtitled musical romance from India I'd paid a dollar to see? The warbling main couple had me hooked. So I propped my knees up on the wooden seat back in front of me and saw the movie to its end.

Lest I make it sound like moviegoing in Latin America is back in the Dark (or at least silent) Ages, let me correct the false impression immediately.

Aside from the occasional old theater like Ayacucho's - which by the way carried outside a sad "For Sale" sign on what had once been a proud marquee - most cinemas from Mexico to Chile are now modern multiplexes or older movie theaters converted to include several screens.

When I first moved with my family to Mexico six years ago, Mexico City still had few multiscreen theaters. We saw Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" in a cavernous theater. That place has since been torn down. Now we go mostly to American-style cineplexes boasting seats with the obligatory cup-holder armrest. Admission is still a bargain - about $4 - although you pay extra to reserve seats. Even obscure European "art" films sell out quickly when they are showing in small shoebox theaters.

Jerusalem

By Nicole Gaouette

These days, the Israeli moviegoing experience starts outside the theater. Before you enter, at least one machine-gun-toting security guard carefully checks your bags and asks if you are carrying a weapon.

The only way to ensure you sit with friends is to buy tickets with or for them. As far as I could tell, there's no science to the seating distribution: I ended up far back and over to one side, staring longingly at the empty seats front and center.

Once the lights dimmed on an American movie subtitled in Hebrew, there was an international irritant - the sporadic ringing of cellphones - and an Israeli surprise. Smack dab in the middle of a scene, the screen went black and the lights flickered on. While I sat there dumfounded, people around me got up to stretch, visited the washroom, or grabbed a snack. Israeli movies, I learned, have an intermission - whether you like it or not.

PARIS

By Peter Ford

In the home of "film noir" and the art movie, cinemagoing traditions have undergone some radical changes over the past 20 years. And not, say French purists, changes for the better.

American moviegoers wouldn't feel out of place in the majority of theaters here: They would recognize the smell of popcorn, they could find their way through the maze of narrow passageways from one cramped auditorium to another in the ubiquitous multiplex, and they would probably know the films as well.

Two-thirds of ticket revenues in France come from Hollywood movies, which is a constant source of anger and debate among French filmmakers and intellectuals.

Ticket prices are still under control in France, only rarely topping $6, but you can come across hidden extras. Some cinemas retain ouvreuses, women who used to show you to your seat in return for a tip. Now they do no more than tear your ticket as you go in, but they still expect the tip.

A few movie houses still employ ice-cream girls, selling their wares in the aisles from trays strapped around their necks. But most just sell popcorn and candies in the foyer. All of them ban fast food from nearby pizza parlors or shwarma joints.

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