Saturday at the cinema hall

The poster of the movie we saw... very dramatic.

Upon entering the cinema hall we were immediately ushered into a room that smell like sewage. Our assumption was that this room was for ladies to wait in, so that they would be unseen and undisturbed by men. Also in the room were a few ladies, one with this baby in a cute dress. She looked young, and I asked her how old she was. She said eighteen, and that she had been married at 16.

Best seats in the house - at the top of the house.

Sometimes all you need to do for some excitement is go to the movies. Attending movies in Bangladesh isn't really what the cool crowd is doing - it's mainly the poor and lower class and men who go.

After Cicely suggested this brilliant activity for our Saturday, I asked a rickshaw wallah what the movie showing times were. (All the rickshaw wallahs know when the movies are being shown in which theatres - in case you ever need this information when you are in Bangladesh.) Mymensingh has at least three theatres that I know of, maybe more.

When we got to the theatre, a crowd formed instantly. We weren't fazed at all and proceeded to walk around the theatre taking pictures of the colorful and loud posters and each other. When it was time for the movie to start, they told us tin talla, which means third floor. We walked up and up into the rafters. It was in the 90s, but we had a fan and electricity so it really wasn't that bad. Our tickets cost 50 taka each, and this was the best section. There were a few ladies and a few couples sitting with us.

The movie was typical Bengali style acting, and in Bangla. We didn't understand everything completely. Sometimes when watching movies or listening to things in another language I tend to zone out. It's not that I can't understand, it just takes a lot of work to concentrate on the words and the meanings of a long dialogue. As this movie was targeted to the lower classes, it was somewhat simple to follow without understanding. It was the typical bad guy mofia against the good guy with the nice family. Lots of fight scenes with funny zoom sound effects - like the Hindu serials. It also had the lovers dancing and singing at random intervals when you least expected it. Then men were dominant and proud and never showed weakness. The women were silly, helpless, and beautiful. Beautiful in a different sense than in the West. All the actors and actress were quite voluptuous...it isn't about being skinny in Bangla film.

My favorite scene was of a child's birthday party. They all had birthday hats, fed each other cake, and sang Happy Birthday to you in that funny way like they do in real life (give them a break, could you sing a Bangla birthday song in Bangla when you were five?). Mid feeding of the cake the birthday boy's family was immediately transported to an amusement park (that I went to for my birthday last year) and started singing and dancing like the perfect happy family.