Going to the movies in Sri Lanka is a bit like going bargain-hunting. You never know what you’ll find — maybe a pair of Diesel jeans, maybe a dowdy coat from last season — but you know it will be cheap. And like bargain-hunting you never know how young or old the merchandise will turn out to be. Sometimes Sri Lankan cinemas screen new films only a week or two after they’ve premiered in the US; sometimes you have to wait months. By the time Up In The Air landed in Sri Lanka, it had already come out on DVD in most of the world.
Some movies bypass the island entirely — we missed Invictus, Sherlock Holmes, and five of the ten nominees for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Avatar was a big hit here, even though no theaters were equipped to show it in 3D. Bollywood films arrive more promptly, with mega-hits like Three Idiots and My Name Is Khan recently storming the box office.
Of course, there are other differences in going to a movie in Sri Lanka. The biggest and most welcome of these is the open sale of beer at most concession stands. Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to carry the beer into the actual theater, so you have to chug it, Animal House-style in the lobby. Perhaps for this reason, every film shown in Sri Lanka is split into two parts, with a five-minute intermission — just enough time to shotgun a Heineken.
One thing you can’t get in a Sri Lankan theater, strangely enough, is popcorn, which you have to smuggle in from outside. When you’re finally inside the theater’s air-conditioned comfort, with your empty beer can and your contraband popcorn, suddenly the Sri Lankan flag appears on the screen and everyone in the audience stands up. It’s time for the National Anthem, which is played before every movie, play, and concert. Patience will come in hand here, since the Sri Lankan anthem is approximately thrice the length of the Star-Spangled Banner.
While you’re waiting for the song to end, you can console yourself that your ticket and refreshments together cost less than the nachos at an American theater. Of course, cheap is relative. To an American accustomed to paying $10 and up for movie tickets, the typical Sri Lankan rate of Rs. 200 to 300 ($1.50 to $ 2.50) seems like a steal. But in a country where the average person earns $12 a day, a ticket to see Avatar or Alice In Wonderland is a rare luxury. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been to a screening that was more than a quarter full. Judging from my own movie-going experience, the principal demographics in these theaters consist of (1) young couples looking for a place to make out, (2) old men trying to escape the tropical heat for a few hours, and (3) students playing hooky from school.
Fortunately, the benevolent government of Sri Lanka ensures that those school children never have to see an exposed breast or the slightest intimation of sexual activity. Since the Public Performances Act of 1912, when Sri Lanka was still a British colony, a censorship board has reviewed every film to comply with “national security, law and order, religious beliefs, sex and vices, and unsavoury subjects.” Although film censorship is lighter than the censorship of television programs — in which cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, and even prolonged kissing are blurred out — sexual content is strictly verboten. (On the other hand, violence, even of the gonzo Inglourious Basterds variety, is perfectly acceptable. This is somewhat strange in a country that just emerged from 25 years of bloody civil war.)
But like many laws and most government departments in Sri Lanka, the Public Performances Act is more symbolic than real. Nudity may be banned from the mainstream theaters, but hidden behind these cinemas, often literally, is a parallel, quasi-legal network of “adults only” theaters. These theaters don’t show true pornographic films, but rather the kind of soft-core porn that HBO sometimes shows after midnight. When I went with a group of friends to investigate one of these theaters (I was researching a forthcoming article for The Boston Globe), the movie currently playing was called The Key and starred someone named “Maxico Dave.” The theater was an old art-deco movie palace, complete with balcony, but it was empty that day except for a few single men scattered about.
As soon as The Key started, we realised that we were in for a surreal experience. The movie looked like it was shot in the late 1990s, and the film stock was so scratched and dirty that it was often difficult to tell what we were watching. The film’s entire soundtrack had been redubbed: the blonde American actors now spoke with thick South Indian accents, and the score was a medley of themes from Star Trek, Superman, and James Bond films. Every time there was a sex scene the score would abruptly switch to an instrumental version of What A Wonderful World, which was soon drowned out by the heavy-breathing sound effects, making the characters sound like they were scuba-diving. As if the scratches and dubbed dialogue didn’t make it difficult enough to follow the plot, the projectionist seemed to have spliced together the movie reels at random. The end credits were in Chinese characters, and appeared to belong to another movie altogether.
After I got home, I searched the internet for information on The Key or “Maxico Dave,” and turned up nothing. It didn’t even show up on IMDB.com, which has an entry for almost every movie ever made. So the mystery continues: What is The Key, and where did it come from? Just another day in the bargain-hunter’s paradise of Sri Lankan cinema.
