DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD AT A CINEMA NEAR LONDON’S HOLBORN
THE GARDEN CINEMA is in Parker Street, which is near both Holborn Underground station and Covent Garden. This gem of a place opened in 2022. Housed in the building which formerly contained the offices of businessman Michael Chambers, who founded Chambers and Partners in 1989, a research company for law firms around the world, it was the realization of Mr Chambers’s dream to create a cinema for film enthusiasts such as he is.
The ticket office is on the ground floor. Stairs and lifts lead to the basement, where the bar, various small seating areas – some quite discrete, and the two auditoriums are located. The premises are designed and decorated with many Art Deco features and a good selection of sculptures and prints. The darkly coloured wallpaper (with nods to the William Morris style) and subdued lighting give the place a cosy, intimate night club atmosphere. The bar is reasonably priced. The staff are friendly and helpful. This is a cinema complex quite unlike any other I have visited in London – it is both stylish and intimate.
We watched a Romanian film made in 2023: “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World”. Before I discuss this excellent movie, let me tell you one more unusual thing about The Garden Cinema. There were no advertisements (commercials) prior to showing the main film – only several trailers of forthcoming shows in the cinema. This is quite different from other ‘independent’ cinemas, in which the feature film is always preceded by ads including one for the car company (currently Kia), which supports independent cinemas.
The Romanian film, which runs for almost three hours, is a ‘whacky’ and gritty black comedy with serious comments about life in post-Communist Romania. The brilliantly acted film blends skilfully ‘doctored’ flashbacks to life in Ceausescu’s Romania with scenes in Romania since the war in Ukraine commenced. One of the many things that this highly entertaining film emphasises is how the difficult, regimented, but relatively simple life under the dictatorship contrasts with the hectic, corrupt, and very hard life in capitalist Romania. Nothing was easy during Ceausescu’s ‘reign’, but after it ended, nothing has made life any easier. The film made me think that the tyranny of the dictator has been replaced by the tyranny of corruption and exploitation of cheap labour by countries outside Romania. Another thing that I felt was that the film showed how when the shackles of a highly oppressive regime were released following the death of the dictator, Romanian society seems to have gone crazy. Whether this is an exaggeration by the film makers or truly reflects contemporary life in Romania, I do not know. All I can say is that the 163 minutes of the film sped past remarkably quickly because I found it so highly enjoyable and engaging.
Even if I had not enjoyed the film so much, I would have thought highly of the Garden Cinema – a place I hope to visit many more times in the future.
