....more from the movies
GAP-tastic cowl
by Jan Geigley on Ravelry knit in doubled Malabrigo Rios
For Siobhán
I was delighted and honoured when Siobhán.... (who, in addition to film festival box office duties is busy working on her doctorate, lecturing at third level as well as running charity events) (...!).... asked for another cowl from the movies – she wanted emerald green, but I'm hoping she won't mind that I strayed from exclusive emerald into pretty much the whole forty shades, and took in a few hues other than green en route. This is probably because the film festival and all its different hues of movie buff were uppermost in my mind when I started work on it.
About ten years ago I began to go a lot to the Dublin film festival. On arriving at screenings, I became aware of a weirdly recurring sense of déjà-vu as I headed for where I wanted to sit in the cinema (always broadly in the same area). Because in the gloom around me I could make out a remarkably similar pattern of faces in the same seats... every time, no matter which cinema... I concluded that either I was suffering some kind of cinematic over-exposure, or like alcoholics in a bar, there really were an awful lot of us sticking rigidly to our peculiar set of habits.... this gradual dawning through the very blurred lines of back-to-back movie going brought to mind of one of my all-time favourite scenes from the Muppets...
And even though in festival time reality can become a very moveable feast indeed, the faces were no projection and belonged to the true aficionados and life-long devotees of cinema who make the word 'knowledgeable" seem a bit small. They're welcoming too, and of the view that everyone should take what they want from the festival.
Besides knowing their movies, they have ancillary fields of expertise such as eating in situ, the fastest route to the next cinema on foot, bike or by car; or formulation of the most intricately omni-encompassing festival experience in terms of getting to everything… Waiting and queueing can be sociable, and bit by bit I got to know more than just faces - for instance one man began to recount a fascinating life story that often made me slightly sorry when he had to stop for the movie. Another discoursed about something I thought I'd seen on the corner of a cardboard box in the background from the previous night’s screening, while simultaneously calculating how many of last year’s movies had ended up in mainstream cinema…“Excuse me", he said mid-stream, and called "Thirty-eight!” to someone in the row behind..
A glamorous couple who'd look right at home at a Hollywood gala are also regulars, and there's little they haven't seen or can't talk about... she's also the person to ask for everything from cough lozenges to contact details for a good chiropractor to deal with the post festival wreckage of your back. Another lady of butter-wouldn't-melt demeanour loves nothing better than a blood curdling thriller, and even on premium nights, with festival volunteers moving everyone up to make space, she can hold seats without a blink until the rest get in from the screening in a far-flung venue that ran over time. When she's in town, the sophisticated parisienne will be there - she was the one with the rotten luck to have caught the festival cold this year, but galvanised herself in luxuriant black-and-white tweed and red suede gloves. Everyone paddles their own canoe in terms of taste and energy, but from time to time the niche eastern bloc and Chinese fans dovetail with more mainstream tastes; and that's when the man in the three-piece suit and trilby is sure to show up, and so will another whom I think of as the idealogue school teacher for no good reason beyond my own imagination.
Five movies per day is too many for me, but grist to the mill of the buffs, who take holiday time from work to completely hand themselves over to squeezing in every single possible screening. After a few days of two or three a day I know I have trouble telling fantasy from reality and it's a complete mystery to me how they continue to be sociable and walk upright after ten days of that pace and more. But they do, and deep from the undergrowth of various movie houses in Dublin, I've always not only enjoyed their company but learned that a reasonable turnout of their number in a queue is a heartening harbinger in terms of my own movie choice. They're not always there though, and they don't go to the surprise movie - they won't gamble festival time, particularly on the last day when it's screened. That's why I'd never met the people on either side of me there this year - we struck up conversation over my knitting (of this cowl for Siobhán) and they were expressing awe at the number of films I'd made it to....
"Oh, I'm not even at the races in terms of numbers", I told them and began explaining about the buffs, season tickets and the blurred reality the festival brings: "...and gradually I began to pick out all these same faces through the dark..", I was saying. "....like this scene from years ago on the Muppets where all these creatures begin to materialise from the undergrowth....", and around then the lights went down and to my absolute astonishment the surprise movie was The Muppets Most Wanted.... at one point even featuring some knitting..!
I mean, like,...spooky or what..?!
All of which also entertained my new neighbours either side no end!
And oh oh oh...by the way, the movie is fantastic - couldn't have been happier at the choice!
So I really hope that Siobhán will appreciate this slightly confused knitted end-of-festival hommage in green to all the hues of fandom!