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Friday 10 am, Kempe-gowda road, a number of people rush to their favorite
theatres to watch their matinee idols on the 70 mm screens. It is the nervous
moment for the producer of the movie. He anxiously waits for the audience
response. Trade pundits and critics are ready to give their verdict. College
girls and guys are excited as ever. The black-market ticket vendors are
efficiently doing their duties. There are some people who are desperate for
tickets, they negotiate with the ticket vendors and then buy the tickets for 100
bucks. The police constables who are supposed to prevent illegal selling of
tickets seem to be least bothered.
10:25 its time to get into theatre. The surround speakers and the Dolby effects
are at their best as we hear songs from the forthcoming film.10:30 its time for
action, the movie starts as the frontbenchers start to scream and whistle. The
first half of the movie gets lukewarm response. Some people are so bored that
they walk away in despair. I decide to stay on but the movie makes me realize
why most of the movies released now a days are flops. Then I start observing the
condition of the theatre. I see that most of the seats are torn. There is no a/c
though they proudly boast of having them. 2 hours of the movie, and I decide
that I have had enough; I walk out of the theatre. Just a week later the movie
is declared a flop and is removed from the theatre. The theatre owner loses a
lot of money.
Well if you think that this is a story which
implies only to that particular flop film I watched , you are wrong. This
is happening every week in most of the theatres. Due to this, not only the
producer is losing money but even the distributors and the exhibitors or the
film theatre owners are. If you compare the number of theatres Bangalore had in
1990 and number of them existing in 2002 ,you realize they have decreased substantially. I
asked a theatre manager why is this happening. He told me that the increasing
entertainment tax made it impossible for many theatre owners to run their cinema
halls. He also told the negligence of the state government in this prospect is
the main reason. In states like Tamilnadu and Andhra the entertainment tax is
much lower than it is in Karnataka. hence theatre owners are compelled to either
sell their theatres or to demolish them. Most of the movie halls have been
converted into shopping complexes and office buildings. Bad seats, stinking toilets, rats
and cockroaches are the common features of a film theatre today.
The major competition for theatres showing Hindi
films come from theatres showing regional films. Bangalore is a huge market for
Telugu and Tamil cinema. This year alone, more than 98% of the Hindi films have
flopped. This effected the theatre owners showing Hindi films badly as they pay
a huge price for every film.
Some good theatres like Sangam in majestic, Geetanjali in Malleshwaram and
Sujata in Rajajinagar have stopped functioning since 3 months. There are many
other theatres which may follow suit. In the era of multiplexes and Imax
theatres Bangalore cannot boast of either one. Mumbai Delhi Chennai and even
Ahmedabad have multiplexes where watching films is a wonderful experience. Now
even a common man can afford to buy a VCD player; he can get the latest films
from a nearby VCD dealer and he can watch a new movie in the comforts of his
house. So given a choice of watching a movie in a theatre and home he prefers
the later.
As one of the owners of a film theatre points it out he is incurring heavy
losses since last 10 years. But he is helpless as he has no other alternative.
Unless and until the government takes some initiatives we will witness
more gates of the theatres being closed forever. In a city where films are
released in six different languages every week, a huge cross section of people
watch films, the condition of the the cinema halls is bad which surely will make
every film buff sad.
- Harish Mattur
Click
here if you would like to Contribute or send a feedback.
Click
here to go to the Cinema Main Page (English).
Click
here to go to the Cinema Main Page (Kannada).
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