Open-Air Cinema

This article was written on July 18, 2013

Author: Lü Jianfeng

Open-Air Cinema

My friends and I were stunned—

About open-air cinema

My memory starts from age 5. My home is in Datang Township, Chongren, Jiangxi. From a young age, I had a bad impression on people; I probably belonged to the kind with particularly slow intellectual development. Our village gave me a nickname that is still used today: 'Aodou Chunzi'. What does it mean? 'Chunzi' is easy to understand; 'Aodou' means very ugly, so it means both stupid and ugly. Of course, I am much more handsome now. I digress; back to the topic, let me start from when I was 5.

In the summer of 1981, the village across the river was showing a movie, an open-air cinema. Going to watch a movie was a big event in my childhood. That day, several kids from our village and I waded across the river early to secure good spots. If you've seen open-air movies, you know you need to bring your own stool and arrange them neatly. There were about 500 to 1500 people, with someone maintaining order. They said the movie couldn't start until it was announced, and sometimes people gave speeches, similar to today's variety shows. That day's movie must have been very exciting, but I can't remember which one. On the way back, in the middle of the river, I noticed one person was missing. I was being led by an older kid about 8 years old. After returning to the village, we found the missing child's parents and told them. They mobilized dozens of people to search everywhere, asking door to door and along the river. Soon they found him. My friends and I were stunned—he had drowned. Heart-wrenching cries lasted all night. I will never forget that painful and desperate crying. The next day, while my parents whipped me with a cattle-driving whip, I was still thinking: how could water not even reaching my neck drown a 7-year-old boy who was a head taller than me?

In 1982, still an open-air cinema, this time in our village, on an open space outside an ancestral hall. There were several big trees around the open space. We kids climbed up the trees early to wait for the movie to start. Do you remember CCTV's 'Same Song' had an episode where they went to a place I can't recall, and Zhang Xing, during a pause in his singing, waved to the audience in the trees and shouted, 'Hello, friends in the trees!' That's how it felt climbing trees to watch—it was particularly good. The movie was not short, and we had to reserve spots an hour early. When we needed to pee, we would pee in directions with no people, but it often splashed on others. That night, about halfway through the movie, someone suddenly shouted, 'Fight!' A tragedy happened. My friends and I were stunned. The crowd rushed out desperately, some carrying stools. Those who ran slowly were knocked down and trampled. The commotion stopped after a while; it turned out two thugs were arguing but hadn't even started fighting. The movie continued to the end. The next day, I heard several people had broken arms or legs, but fortunately no one died.

Open-air movies were usually shown during the slack farming season, supported by the policy of sending movies to the countryside. The worst thing was rain; if it rained, the screening would be temporarily canceled and postponed to the next day when the rain stopped. I remember several times we were soaked through, our teeth chattering from cold. Fights often broke out during open-air movies, and there were cases of deaths from beatings or trampling. Later, they gradually banned them. Our village only got electricity in 1995. Throughout my childhood, the multimedia memory was just the village broadcast. Now thinking back, open-air movies really had a big impact on us kids.