The Secret Cinema

The plot of "The Secret Cinema" is a clever one, sort of in the vein of "The Truman Show" but with major stylistic and tonal differences. It is a small scale indie horror comedy that plays with genre and self awareness to a mind boggling and extremely entertaining extent. There are moments of hilarity and moments of genuine horror (particularly the ending), and the entire film encompasses a bizarre, Gothic atmosphere. It is shot beautifully no matter how low quality the print you watch it on is; the lighting is often dark and shadowy and it has a charmingly amateurish feeling about it. The story's increase in intensity never terminates its comedy, and vice versa; the two coexist in a manner accomplished by few other films of its genre.

In its own, unconventional and fresh way, "The Secret Cinema" tells a fun, "Twilight Zone"-type story and taking full advantage of it. Its as if Rod Serling decided it was time to broadcast an episode that functioned as an avant garde art-house black comedy mystery horror movie...and, simply put, it's really, really great!

I only saw this short subject once and never forgot it. Three whole decades before THE TRUMAN SHOW, there was this early work by Paul Bartel about a woman who slowly comes to realize that her life is being secretly filmed and shown for the entertainment of her close "friends" and "family" as well as the general masses. I thought that this short conveyed the pain and paranoia of invaded privacy much better than TRUMAN and in a much shorter time as well. "Secret Cinema" was remade by Bartel as an episode of Steven Spielberg's AMAZING STORIES, but didn't have anywhere near the impact that the original had. Not only that, but it was given a sickeningly sweet happy ending that ruined the theme of the original story. Now I feel vindicated because whenever I described this film to friends, most of them looked as if I was making it up or dreamed it. Now, here is the proof. Look for this film, it will be well worth the hunt.

Death Race 2000 director Paul Bartel's debut feature is this short film. Its about a young woman whose life is disastrous - crap job, annoying mother, useless boyfriend, etc. To make matters worse wherever she goes, she gets the feeling she's being watched. Well, it turns out she's right! As her every move is being surreptitiously filmed and then edited together and shown weekly at the Secret Cinema where the audience can laugh at her expense. This is a pretty effective bit of strangeness and is definitely worth 30mins of your time.

Okay, you've chanced to see something that sticks in your craw after gawd only knows how many decades - much like "Eclipse of the Sun Virgin" and a few other rarities from the day of true "underground" film. So you decide to check it out on IMDb just to see if anyone else has had the same grace and seen this movie. And you find out that it has already been filtered and reduced to some pablum for the masses already, and for TV, no less. Leave this gem alone, Mr Spielberg. The black and white ORIGINAL is so powerful and fun and dark that doing anything with the content or.... needless to say, Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas, or original ideas, or any means to make a buck without investing a whole lot of energy (as I see it). This wonderful movie should be on any serious film buff's list of must sees. Are you paranoid? This movie gives credence to anyone and all of us who have felt that there ain't an inch of life left to ourselves and that your meager little life is an open book for other's amusement - and our personal horror. Love love love this film.

5 out of 10

An interesting idea that would have been better had it been played out more and at a feature length instead of just thirty minutes. A young women, who has a very hard luck existence, slowly finds that her whole life is secretly being filmed. The film is then shown at secret locations throughout the city all to the amusement of others including her own friends and family.

With the advent of shows like "Big Brother" and other reality series this idea doesn't seem to have the novel edge that it once did. First time director/writer Bartel only touches the surface here and his 'twist' ending is very derivative and flat. Take away the offbeat context and everything else is handled in a very routine fashion. There is no humor or jokes and despite being only thirty minutes there are several segments that are long and drawn out.

Bartel did this feature on weekends with friends of his. Yet despite it's very miniscule budget it really isn't bad especially on the technical side. In particular are the dubbed voices. Bartel did not have the means to film it with sound so he had to use the Italian technique of filming without sound and then dubbing in the voices later. In the Italian films this always seems very obvious and annoying yet here it is not so obvious and actually rather well done.

This film is good on a certain symbolic level. It seems to be as a kind of breaking in to a deeper, darker type of underground filmmaking. A sort of correlation to what the nation was going through at the time. This film embodies that same type of transition. It was filmed in black and white and has very much the look and feel of a old fashioned conventional comedy. Yet it very quietly works in these strange and offbeat qualities that become more pronounced as it goes on. Sort of like a warning to the dawn of change.

In 1986 director Bartel remade this feature for the old "Amazing Stories" TV show. This updated version was in color and had more of a edge. It starred Penny Peyser and Eve Arden as her mother.