Message to moviegoers: loose lips spoil flicks Final Edition

• Published in: Standard (St. Catherines)
• Main Author: Cox, Terrance
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: St. Catharines, Ont Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited 18.10.2002
• ISSN: 0837-3434

Would that this noise were only heard in shopping mall cineplexes on cheap Tuesdays and weekend date-nights. I regret to report that Brock University Film Society's recent screening of the spell- binding film Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) was -- through no fault of BUFS -- sorely afflicted by fits of loose lips, by insidious speaking in tongues. Nonplussed, I was, turning around at the film buffs' showing of Atanarjuat to discover that the interruptive chit-chat from the row behind came from a trio of aged matrons. Hardly did I expect such impropriety from anyone at a Sunday night's presentation of a three- hour film entirely in Inuktitut, never mind from women my mother's age. No way could I ask old ladies to shut up. Within the world of Atanarjuat is evidence of how culturally determined (and therefore changeable) are notions of public and private. In its narrative, an act of adultery is committed -- and immediately discovered -- inside an igloo, under the furs where everyone huddles together, cheek by jowl, as it were. The transgression seems one of utterly forgetting where one is -- like talking at the movies.