Movie Night

Eric and I went to our local cinema the other night - Das Film Cafe. It is a small, funky cafe just around the corner from us that has muted lighting and comfy vintage furniture. It sells organic coffee, tea, cake and breakfasts (all with film-related titles like 'The Director's Cut' breakfast and 'Leading lady' breakfast). They have a range of film magazines to look at and dvds to borrow. AND, they also show films every night of the week in their basement cinema. Luckily for us, on Monday and Wednesday nights, they also show the film of the week in English or the original version. So this week we decided to toddle along to see what it was like.

I have to say the whole experience encapsulated Berlin for me. We arrived at about 8 o'clock (film to start at 8.20pm). It was 4 euros in, or 6 euros with a drink (Eric got a Beck's and I got an organic lemonade). At about 8.15pm the guy behind the counter said 'Okay, let's go down!' and the seven of us that had gathered by then followed him downstairs in an orderly line (hiliarious!).

We had never seen the cinema before so we had no idea what it was going to be like. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a scabby little room with a blank wall and some plastic chairs. Luckily I was wrong. It turns out that it's a plush little proper cinema, with comfy tiered cinema seats (seating about 20). Yay for us! So we happily settled in to watch the film -
In the Valley of Elah.

I just wanted to write a brief note on this film because I really thought it was excellent. It is from the guy who wrote and directed Crash and Letters from Iwo Jima. It won't be spoiling it to say that is about young soldiers coming back from Iraq. I thought it was a brilliant study of the impact of war on people and it's knock-on effect in society. It was both tender and stark, and just very human. Tommy Lee Jones was also excellent. Go see this film if you can!

So that was it! Our first experience at Das Film Cafe. No adverts, not a peep from any of the other people (no talking on mobiles or eating offensive-smelling liquid cheese), digital film, and great sound quality. In two words - film bliss!