I was pretty sure the film sucked. Then something happened to prove me right

“Going to the cinema is like returning to the womb,” director Federico Fellini said. “You sit there, still and meditative in the darkness, waiting for life to appear on the screen.” I couldn’t agree less. I don’t remember my womb era, but I know it was a solitary season. A cinema screening is a communal experience – or, at least, it’s supposed to be – and because I often go to the movies alone, I’m very sensitive to the moods of other cinemagoers. If this year has taught me anything, it’s that the quality of the crowd can have a big effect on your experience.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see a Chinese film, Kung Fu Soccer. It’s the sequel to Shaolin Soccer, the 2001 action-comedy classic directed by Hong Kong cinema icon Stephen Chow. Shaolin Soccer is a kooky film, starring Chow himself, about a former Shaolin monk who reunites with five old friends to bring supernatural martial-arts powers to the soccer pitch. It’s a celebrated example of mou lei tau, a cinematic style synonymous with Chow – absurdist physical comedy full of rapid-fire Cantonese dialogue.

But a lot has changed in terms of special-effects, movie marketing and relations between Hong Kong and mainland China since Chow made Shaolin Soccer. I’d been following some of the online commentary about the big-budget star-studded sequel (the box-office loves it; long-term Chow fans do not) and I was curious to see it for myself.

Naturally, I chose a session at Doncaster Shopping Centre on a Thursday at 10am. I was the only person there, apart from one man sitting a few rows in front of me. The opening scenes of the film were funny, but the movie quickly devolved into shouting matches, immeasurable stakes and AI effects that looked glossy and cheap. I was bored.

The other person was bored, too. He turned on his phone around the 20-minute mark and didn’t turn it off again. Who was this man, not watching Kung Fu Soccer on a Thursday? Soon I was projecting all sorts of things onto him, based on translated reviews I’d read of Kung Fu Soccer on the Chinese Douban review site. I kept thinking about one anonymous Douban poster, a lifelong Chow fan, who had given the film a one-star review, with the doleful title, “Goodbye Stephen Chow, goodbye youth”. This reviewer had complained – aptly, I began to think – that the humour in Kung Fu Soccer was like someone “forcibly tickling your armpit”. The reviewer had also compared the experience to attending a miserable high school reunion.

The man in row G, I began to imagine, was scrolling through his phone to stave off existential despair. I began to shrink from the movie further myself, based on his example, even though I knew it was a “popcorn movie” that you’re supposed to see with friends. In the end, my Kung Fu Soccer experience was a strange episode of boredom, vicarious nostalgia and confirmation bias.

There have been some other interesting moments at the cinema this year. A special shout-out to the woman who got up suddenly during a tense point in the horror movie Obsession, causing everyone around her to shriek. And to the bloke who brought drama to the dreariness of Father Mother Sister Brother by snapping, “Will you two shut the hell up?” at two whispering Salomon-footed heterosexuals sitting behind him at Cinema Nova. (I think this gentleman might have provided the young lovers with a shared enemy at a critical stage in their relationship. I wish all three well.)

But the best cinema crowd I’ve encountered this year was at the Sovereign Shorts premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August. This was a screening of four short documentaries by Victorian First Nations filmmakers. It was a premiere, so there was an element of glamour to the night. There were speeches and a red carpet, plus lots of industry types as well as cast, crew and filmmakers’ family and friends – all adding to the electric atmosphere.

Though the films broached painful subjects, there was an overarching theme of resilience, and many moments of humour, joy and beauty. There were cheers from the crowd, at times, when familiar faces appeared on screen, and gasps during certain lingering shots. Protest on the Dancefloor, about young First Nations people in Melbourne’s electronic music scene, featured some incisive commentary around questions of bodily sovereignty as well as scenes of liberation and transcendence. Pride permeated the whole cinema. It was infectious. Nothing still or meditative about that night in the cinema at all.

Sovereign Shorts screen at ACMI on October 10.

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