Alone At The Cinema

There are many things that I enjoy doing alone: going to museums, going to the theatre, reading, writing, listening to music, and playing music myself. Going to the cinema definitely takes up a big part of the things I like doing, whether alone or with other people.

I entitled this post Alone at the Cinema because I discovered cinema by myself and even now I mostly go alone because I like to go very sponteanously, which makes it hard for other people to join sometimes.

Last year, no matter what was going on in my life, I would go to the cinema at least once a week.

I was extremely lonely at the time, very detached from other people’s lives and living in a strange floating state somewhere between delusion and reality. The delusion, at least for me, was the feeling that time itself was not real. I didn’t really feel it passing. All the days felt like seconds of one very long day, or sometimes like entire years. Part of that feeling came from the fact that I didn’t really have responsibilities towards anyone anymore. Eventhough some people were invested in my life, like my parents, I had that feeling like no one really cared anyways. Sometimes I also felt like the opposite, like time was rushing and that no matter what I do it will be wasted, that I am not productive enough, that I am not going to end up where I want to end up in my future, because it’s already too late for my life to be meaningful anyways. I would be very scared of ending up not being somebody to anybody. Generally life felt very surreal and I often had the impression that I was floating between different realities and truths about life that all weren’t connected to the world I was living in.

One day, that floating state left me stranded at the Cinémathèque. I remember that earlier that day my dad was driving me to my flat in the city, where I was living by myself. We were listening to the radio when they started talking about the retrospective of Alain Delon that the Cinémathèque was showing after he died. In my mind this immediately felt exciting. Even now, every time I hear about a film I want to see or think about going to the cinema, I still feel this very same emotion. It’s the excitement of walking in, buying a ticket, maybe a nice snack, seeing the trailers, the room going dark and completely being absorbed in something for about two hours.

Right then and there I thought that maybe I should go and watch a film called La Piscine, eventhough I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I thought: why not? The entrance was only four euros, and the bus from my place would take about fifteen minutes.

When I entered the cinema, I checked the title of the film at least a million times, wanting to make sure it looked like I knew what I was doing there. The old man behind the glass was kind and even gave me a student discount. I showed him my expired student card and he didn’t seem to care, so the ticket ended up costing half of an already incredibly cheap ticket.

When the film started, the room became completely quiet. The screen was enormous and the shots bathed in sunlight. I remember that the seats had a stitched pattern in them and I would run my fingers over the texture again and again. It was comfortable, perfect even. I felt like I was in good hands. I started to feel warm inside, maybe because of the amount of sunlight in the movie, maybe because Jane Birkin was incredibly beautiful, or maybe it was the amount of vibraphone in the score. It was a pleasant surprise. I realised something very simple: film is an art form. Not in the way we usually think about cinema today, with big blockbusters and endless franchises, but in the sense that someone had made this carefully and thoughtfully, that it deserved to be watched with attention and that it was about time I discovered it the way it was supposed to, which is on the big screen.

I can say with confidence that the Cinémathèque is one of my favourite places. It is not a capitalistic place. Tickets are basically free, no food or drinks are sold, and the whole building feels authentic. Being there almost feels like travelling back in time. You can feel the love for cinema, for the old film tapes, and for the work of preserving and archiving this art form. It feels like physical proof that people still care about films, still want to see them, and want to keep them alive. That thought brings me a lot of comfort.

Later I also discovered the Ciné Utopia. It is more modern and, in a way, more capitalistic than the Cinémathèque, but it is still a wonderful place to watch films, because it is mostly showing less mainstream movies (eventhough I have to say that mainstream doesn’t necessarily mean bad also). The big plus point it has, is that you can watch movies in the afternoon instead of only in the evening, where I was often occupied with practicing or going to classes. On those afternoons I would sit in the theatre completely alone, the entire cinema just for myself. I would watch kids movies, animated movies, movies in so many different languages I cannot even start to list them.

At first it felt strange, but after a while I started to like it and now I completely love it. Being alone there didn’t feel like loneliness anymore. It felt safe. No one was watching me, no one was judging me, and for two hours I could simply exist and feel whatever the film made me feel. Those moments made me realise something important: my life was still real. Time was still passing, even if I sometimes felt detached from it. Or on the days that time felt like it was rushing, these moments at the cinema made me slow down. I realised that either way my life wasn’t such a bad thing. I had time, and I could decide how to fill it. Sitting there in the dark, I also realised that I deserved those quiet hours. I could go to the cinema alone, watch whatever I wanted, and let myself be absorbed by it. Nobody cared that I was there by myself, and in a strange way that was comforting. It meant that the time was truly mine. I could randomly decide when to go and I could go anytime. There were a lot of good choices and I could go very spontaneously.

Sometimes, I also managed to bring friends with me to the cinema. Often they were hesitant at first, unsure about watching a film they had never heard of, but almost every time they ended up enjoying it. They quickly realised that going to the cinema meant something completely else to me than to them. I sit through the credits and after the movie I want to talk about it in length.

In my opinion watching a film in a cinema is a bit like seeing a painting in real life instead of looking at a photo of it.

Of course you can still appreciate it on a small screen, but the work was not really made for that. Most films are created for the big screen. The images, the sound, the music, the silence, everything is designed to fill a room and surround you.

And sometimes the cinema can even change the mood of an entire day. There were days when I arrived feeling tired or discouraged, and the film somehow told me that everything was going to be fine. Films like Memoir of a Snail or A Real Pain stayed with me in that way. They didn’t necessarily solve anything, but they reminded me that life is complicated for everyone, and that there is still beauty and humour in it. Of course, not every film leaves you feeling better. Some films stay with you in a much heavier way and really affect you and make you think about who you are, what you have been through in your life or the opposite: remind you of your privilige. I remember watching No Other Land and leaving the cinema feeling almost hopeless. The world suddenly felt very complicated and difficult. But strangely, that was also fine. After the film ended, I went to the parc nearby and just sat there for a while with that feeling. I didn’t try to distract myself from it or immediately replace it with something else. I just looked at the sun.

Cinema allowed me to do something I hadn’t done in a long time. It allowed me to feel things again. To cry sometimes. To sit with emotions instead of avoiding them. Looking back I believe that those moments helped me reconnect with myself. Watching films alone in the dark and letting them affect me felt like slowly finding a way back to being human again.

There is something else that I really appreciate about the cinema. Films have a way of showing us things we might otherwise overlook.

I believe the movies I have watched have made me more aware of my environment.

The camera notices details: a certain light, a colour, the way two people stand in a room, the perspective of something very ordinary. A beautiful frame can make everyday life look almost magical. Sometimes life seems more plain than what we see in films until you realise that it really isn’t. Cinema trains your eye to notice these things. After watching many films, you begin to see them everywhere: the way light falls on a street in the evening, a reflection in a window, how colours match and much much more. The shots are there in real life too. They are everywhere, if you pay attention.

Cinema can be many things. It is not only the enormous screens, the laser HD, or the newest blockbuster everyone is talking about. Sometimes it is simply a room with great chairs, a large screen, and the decision to give a film your full attention. The conditions for it are perfect. The cinema takes your hand and all you have to do is sit down and let it happen to you.

In a time of streaming platforms, I sometimes feel afraid that this way of watching films might slowly disappear. Some of my friends watch movies while playing games on their phones or studying at the same time. We seem to live in a world of constant overstimulation where it is difficult to simply do one thing and let it sink in. Cinema asks for something different. It asks for patience and attention.

Maybe that is why it means so much to me.

Sitting in a dark room, surrounded by strangers you never speak to, you still share something with them. You hear the same silence, the same laughter, the same shifting in seats. You watch the same light flicker across a screen, feel the same tension build, the same release. For a moment, without knowing anything about each other, you are connected.

And even when you are alone, you are not entirely alone.

I used to think that cinema was just an escape. A way to pass time, or maybe to forget about it. But it became something else. It gave shape to my days when they felt endless, and slowed them down when they felt like they were slipping away. It allowed me to sit still, to notice, to feel.

Maybe it didn’t change me on its own. Maybe it just helped me find a kind of quiet inside myself. A place where things didn’t have to make immediate sense.

And maybe that is what art does.

Because in the end, films are made by people. The images, the music, the faces on the screen, they all come from someone else’s way of seeing the world. Sitting there, watching, you meet them for a moment. You see what they saw, or at least try to.

And after a while, you might start seeing it too.

In the way the light falls on a street in the evening. In the reflection of a window. In the colors of a room, or the way someone stands when they think no one is looking. The world becomes quieter, but also fuller.

So maybe it’s not really about cinema at all.

Maybe it’s about learning how to be present. About allowing things to affect you. About realizing that even in moments of solitude, you are still part of something shared.

And sometimes, that is more than enough.

So what I really want to say with this post is: go to the cinema and have a good time. It’s a simple thing, but maybe that is what you need or has been missing in your life.