‘The Abyss’ of my life

There was an old theatre named ‘Prabhat’ in my small town. It was one of the oldest theatres in the town and was built in a Victorian structural style. It was the best theater of the town in 60’s and all language movies used to be played there. After some point of time, in the 80’s, its sound speakers got some problems and out of audience complaints, they stopped running regional language films and Hindi films because audience were not able to make out the dialogues coming from the old, damaged speakers. It shows some of the ill mindedness of old times – They could have changed the speakers and exist as one of the best in the town. Instead they chose this horrible option – [May be out of financial crisis, who knows]. They chose to show only English movies with a logic that most people neither can make out the dialogues nor care for the dialogues in English films.'All they wanted to see was action scenes!'

This theater was on the way to my school. Whenever I cross this building on my way to school, I used to look at it with an astonishment in my face as it seemed like the tomb of the past to me. As I like the old Victorian structures, as it inspires an aura of nostalgia in me, I always wanted to watch a movie in this theater. According to my memory, the first film I have seen in 'Prabhat' was Jackie Chan’s “police story 3” with my father and cousin brother in 1992. Entering into 'Prabhat'  was itself a great experience for me as it felt like getting into some old,weather worn British palace for some archeological adventures. The theater has got a very  wide screen and there were a lot of funny things in the movie – This is all what I remember about ‘police story 3’.

Second film I have watched at Prabhat'' is ‘The Abyss’, I believe. ‘Abyss’ can be my first ticket to the world of science fiction. The film starts by showing the quote of Frederik Nietzsche from his magnum opus book, ‘Thus spake Zarathustra’, behind a dark backdrop – “When you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you’.‘Abyss’ opened me the world of ocean trenches and these trenches remain as my greatest obsession in life til today. Showing the underground water visuals with ‘that’ elegant bass sound in one of my films is a dream for me. ‘Abyss’ is a 'feel good' alien film that can be watched by viewers of all age. It doesn’t have the violence and gore that alien films usually have. James Cameroon’s  previous films ‘Aliens’, ‘Terminator’ had it in epic size. The aliens in abyss is basically very human friendly, on the contrary to the popular belief about aliens. It is one of the friendly visions of aliens after “Close encounters of the third kind’ and ‘E.T’.

One of the newest of ideas the film had that was about a ‘breathing fluid’. It shows that men can go down in the abyss of the ocean if they have fluid in their glasses to ‘breathe’. James Cameroon, when he was seventeen attended a science lecture about a deep sea diving fellow who claimed to have breathed fluid through his lungs. Out of this inspiration, Jim wrote a story which later became the epic size ‘Abyss’.

Abyss is the first film that triggered my interest in science fiction – both reading and watching them. A science fiction is always there in the corner of my heart and I hope that would materialize once. Thanks to James Cameroon for making that movie, thanks to my father who took me for that movie and thanks to the ‘Prabhat’ guys to show it even after so many years since its original release date.Thanks to the bad speakers that made all these possible !

P.S : As a matter of fact, ‘Prabhath’, the theater which was situated near the army region near Kannur beach; the theater that showed ‘The Abyss’ is demolished in 2001, because it was running in loss,and was showing all the classic English movies to an audience who never wanted it. In the place of theater, a shopping complex is built and everything is cleaned up and done like there never existed a theater!  I used to take a look at the place when I go by that road, at times.