Even though Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008) was a pretty bland film, its final moments struck a chord with me, reminiscent of the final message of The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1984)- that in spite of everything, the cinema really can make everything okay for people.
It makes things okay because even though in The Purple Rose of Cairo, Cecilia (Mia Farrow, actually in both films – I hope only because of the similar message!) is betrayed by a man who says he will care for her, leaves her husband and is left with absolutely nothing during the American Depression. But she enters a movie house, watches the image of Fred and Ginger on the screen, and we can see her forget her life. There’s a reason why Edgar Morin called the cinema a ‘marvel’ (The Cinema, or the Imaginary Man). It becomes of us that when viewing a film we can recognise a changed reality, as within the film ‘anything might happen’, so in our reality, too, anything in our dreams could happen (Wendy Everett, Screen 1998). That’s why, after crying in this film, I could finish it feeling slightly uplifted.
