As I waited to get inside Liberty cinema for a special screening of Interstellar with Nolan as my ticket said, I couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity of it all. As Nolan himself would tell us a few minutes later, this was the first ever 35 mm screening of his 2014 sci-fi epic in India. Classily designed posters around the theatre dubbed the event, ‘A rare phenomenon even at this point of space and time’. A simple pun that still made me chuckle. When my friend was called out by security to step into the ladies check, I realised the line ahead of us consisted entirely of men. Or more accurately, boys. Fanboys. I had to wait another 10 minutes.
I doubt Nolan would have expected the response he received before the screening. A round of applause rang out, a sea of arms lifted up with their cellphones recording. Cheers of “Nolan! Nolan! Nolan!” had to be shushed so the man could actually speak. The atmosphere was somewhere between a cricket match and a rock concert. After a short intro, the movie began.
The first point, the screening made me think of was the countless apps meant to mimic vintage film. Directors like Guy Maddin have built an entire genre of movies around recreating this look. The burn at the edge of the frame, the scratches, the specks of dust – all of which instantly triggered nostalgia. Except in this case they were genuine elements of wear and tear. The 35mm print had been flown to India specifically for this event, but it had also gone through a few projectors. The second thing I noticed was the texture. Digital mediums, for all their sharpness and clarity, can often feel flat. Here I could practically feel the dust clouds striking me. I could reach out and touch the spaceship surfaces, and Matthew McConaughey’s tanned skin was more leathery than ever. Everything felt more lived in.
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However, the best quality of 35mm is how it renders colors. The blacks are deeper and richer than anything I’ve ever seen. Digital always seems to give black a cold, blue-ish sheen. Here the darkness is truly dark. The red, greens and blues are warmer and more organic. The outer space sequences, especially the trips inside the worm hole and black hole, look more gorgeous than ever. I really appreciated the film’s unorthodox special effects this time, where space appears to be a dazzling play of light and shadow in an art installation. The interiors of the spaceship had a warm, tactile look reminiscent of Soviet-era sci-fi. Some of the scenes could be straight out of archival footage of space missions from the 60s.
Having said that, not everything about this projection was better. For some in the audience used to HD and Ultra HD resolutions, the look of film was jarring. Not everyone appreciates the eccentricities of film, and at least one person compared the experience to watching VHS tapes (a medium that definitely doesn’t need to come back).
It didn’t help that the screen and sound at Liberty cinema weren’t up to the mark. Sequences with CGI effects stuck out way more prominently. Digital has a way of masking these things.
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Before the film, Nolan shared that he was speaking to Indian filmmakers about the importance of shooting in film. I wondered how they would have felt had they sat through this screening. As much as I enjoyed every minute, I could easily imagine coming out convinced that film was dead. But relics have value too.