why do we need cinema

what is a movie, really. a theatre, a big screen, the hero's entry, a friday release. three hours of forgetting our own life to watch someone else's. maybe that's all cinema is to most of us. entertainment. we laugh, we scream, we whistle. the hero walks in slow motion and we're out of our seats. the film ends, we walk out, and everyone becomes a director for five minutes. first half was good, second half dragged, that climax could've been better. we don't know how to make a film but somehow we all know exactly how one should feel.

that's the thing though. a film makes us laugh, scares us, makes us cry. sometimes it makes us forget every problem we're carrying for two or three hours straight. maybe that's it. entertainment, time pass. one movie ends, another comes. one friday goes, another arrives.

but a small doubt stays. is that really all it is. why do we watch movies at all. why do we need cinema.

the crying doesn't lie

a character we've never met cries on screen and somehow we cry too. we know it's not real. we know it's a set, there's a camera, lights, a hundred people standing just out of frame, and the second the director says cut, that character gets up and walks away. we know it's acting. and still, we cry.

maybe we're not crying for them. maybe we're crying for ourselves. that line the character says on screen is something we once wanted to tell someone and never did. that thing they did is something we wanted to do and couldn't. we don't even know why we couldn't. ego, maybe. shame. no time. or we told ourselves we'd do it tomorrow, and that tomorrow just quietly disappeared.

maybe that's what cinema is. someone saying the words we couldn't. a character carrying a weight we couldn't carry. someone crying in the place we weren't allowed to. and us, sitting in the dark for three hours, watching ourselves inside them. we've never been a gangster, a detective, a spy, a superhero. but for a few hours we've been all of them. we loved like they loved, got angry like they got angry, lost like they lost, got back up like they got back up.

they say a person gets one life. born once, grows up, studies, works, ages, and one day it's over. one life. but does the person watching a film really only get one. we've lived as a hundred different people. loved people we've never met. missed characters who never existed. grieved for people who never lived, years after the film ended. we know it was fake. but what we felt wasn't. the tears weren't fake. the fear wasn't fake. the hope wasn't fake. the character might not be real, but the feeling he put in us is.

real life doesn't come with a background score

maybe that's why we keep coming back to cinema. not just to escape reality, but to feel things real life won't let us feel. because real life is quiet. there's no background score when we're about to make a big decision. no orchestra swells when we lose. no rain falls exactly when we need it to. no slow motion when we win.

the important moments in life happen quietly, and worse, we don't even know they're important while they're happening. the last time all your school friends sat on the same bench, you didn't know it was the last time. the last summer all the cousins stayed up all night, nobody knew it was the last one. the last time your father told you to focus on your life, you didn't clock it as the last time. the last time your mother cooked your favourite dish, just like that, you didn't know either. we assume it's just a normal day. we don't even take a photo. because we assume there'll be a next time.

that's the real problem with life. we always think there's a next time. we'll meet again, we'll talk again, we'll watch a movie again, we'll take that photo next time. and somewhere in all that "next time," things just end. life doesn't warn you. it doesn't say pay attention, this is the last one. it just keeps moving, and takes you with it.

but a film freezes a few of those moments on purpose. one song, one line, one scene. that's it. years later, out of nowhere, a scene you watched once comes back to you, and suddenly you're not where you are anymore. you're back there. next to that person, just for a second. everything comes rushing back.

the film doesn't change, we do

we rewatch an old movie. same hero, same lines, same song, same climax. not a single frame has changed. but we have. as a kid, watching that film, all we saw was the hero. his fight scenes, his style, his swagger. years later we watch the same film and this time we notice the father standing next to the hero. a line that meant nothing before now lands straight in the chest. a scene that bored us as a kid quietly stops us in our tracks now. did the scene change. did the dialogue change. did the film change. no. we changed.

the film stays the same. we're the ones who move. that's why some films grow up with us. at ten, a film shows you a crush. at twenty, it shows you love. at thirty, it shows you responsibility. at some age, the same film starts showing you your own life. the movie hasn't moved. our lens has.

we grow up surrounded by our people, in our town, with the people we love. then a job pulls us to another city. we spend the day running around, and by the time we make it back to a rented room after the crowd, the rain, the traffic, there's no one there asking if you've eaten. the people who actually check on you exist only inside a phone. a missed call from home, did you eat, how was your day. we freshen up, talk to them for a bit, order something, and then, to forget the grind waiting for us tomorrow, we open our watchlist and hit play on something. a good film that night and somehow the whole harsh day gets a little easier to put down. right before sleep, we're already thinking about the next film we'll watch tomorrow after work. and somehow, that's enough to make getting up tomorrow feel possible.

the stories we didn't ask to keep

years pass. people come and go. friends we used to hang out with every day slowly fade into just contacts. people we used to talk to for hours become strangers. parents age. we get busy. life speeds up. and then, some random day, an old song we used to hear all the time plays somewhere. and everything stops. a face comes back. a place comes back. a theatre comes back. a version of us comes back.

some films, we don't remember when we watched them. we don't remember the date, maybe not even the year. but we remember exactly who we watched them with. one scene plays and their laugh comes back with it. one line plays and we remember exactly how they used to say it. without asking us, cinema quietly holds onto pieces of our life we've long forgotten. we forget. it doesn't. it keeps them tucked inside a song, a scene, a line. and years later, when we're finally ready, it hands them back to us.

maybe that's why we argue about films the way we do, defend them, celebrate them, the way we do. to someone on the outside, it's just a movie. to us, it might not be. it was there in our childhood. it was there for our first love. it was there on our worst days. it was there on the lonely nights, on the days we didn't know who to talk to. one day we won't be around. the stars we cheer for won't be around. the theatres we whistled in might not exist. our favourite directors will stop making films. our favourite actors will appear on screen for the last time, and we won't even know it's the last time. life shows the last moments to us dressed up as ordinary ones. but the stories keep going. somewhere, on some screen, someone will keep laughing, loving, losing, crying, getting back up. and somewhere in a dark room, someone tired, someone who's just lost, someone who thinks they can't do this anymore, will be watching. and on that screen, someone gets back up. that's it. maybe that's all it takes for him to feel like getting up too.

why do we need cinema

so, what is a movie. entertainment? yes. business? yes. art? yes. escape? yes. but why do we need it.

maybe because one life isn't enough. we need to go to places we can't go. meet people we can't meet. live, for a little while, as people we'll never get to be. hear someone say the things we could never say. watch someone put our own hidden pain on screen, so we can finally cry about it quietly in the dark. meet, for two hours, the people we've lost. go back, through one scene, to days we've lost too.

maybe we don't watch films because our life is boring. we watch them because our life is just the one. one childhood, one youth, one first love, one family. so little time with the people who matter most, and once it's gone, it's gone. but cinema gives us a few more lives. a few more loves. a few more friendships. a few more losses, a few more chances. and sometimes, it gives us back a whole day we thought we'd lost, for two hours at a time.

maybe that's why, when the lights go off, we all go quiet and look at the screen. not because the film is starting. maybe because something in our own life, something that ended a long time ago, is about to start again.

maybe that's why we need cinema.