Kinoautomat

Kinoautomat is the world's first interactive film. The film was created in what was then known as Czechoslovakia by Radúz Činčera in 1967. The idea behind the film is that during the communist era in Eastern Europe, there were no choices. Decisions were made for people by the government on where to work, where to live, what to do, and where to go-- there was no freedom. Činčera (pronounced chin-chera, with a rolled rrrrrr) created this film with more of a sense of humor against the regime, and less with the mind set of starting a revolution.
I went two weeks ago to see it at the Avalon theater in DC. When you enter the theater, you are given remote controls with a green button and a red button. The narrator, who strangely resembled Walt Disney, walks up in front of the screen to explain how the movie works (with silly puns and corny jokes). He explains that WE are taking the place of the main character. That whenever he is faced with a decision to make, we will vote on which way the story should go based on which decision we decide for him to make. The narrator will stop the story at certain points in the film so that we can vote on the decision- majority rules.





The story begins with an apartment building on fire, the voice-over introducing the characters (his neighbors) one by one. After a while we see that the voice we hear is the voice of Petr Novák, who enters the frame saying, "This is all my fault." Our narrator then stops the film and explains that we must figure out if this fire is truly Petr Novák's fault by backtracking through the story and making the decisions for him. So we are taken 5 hours back when Petr Novák finds himself caught in a sticky situation when his bodacious babe of a neighbor locks herself out of her apartment in a towel and asks him to let her come in to phone her husband. Meanwhile, it's his wife's birthday whom he had bought a bouquet of flowers for, and had intended to devote the day to her. At this point, the films stops and our narrator asks us to decide if we should a.)tell her to go away, or b.) let her in. The audience votes and decides to let her in. For me, this decision was hard to make because I wasn't sure if I should vote with my morals or my need for dramatic tension (i chose the latter). So, the story continues. The wife comes home to discover her husband and this hussy in a towel in her apartment. She gets very upset and storms out, as does the blonde who is very upset about the whole situation. The next decision needs to be made, should Petr go after his wife or should he console his neighbor....?
On and on the story goes as we stop about every 10 minutes or so to figure out our next move. The story is silly and entertaining, though obviously made in the 1960's as the humor is very slapstick and corny. In terms of the production quality of the film, it had a few weird cuts that were a bit jolting; such as a jump cut that takes you from a wide shot to a close up in one transition, which can work if used properly, but this seemed unnecessary and out of place. Otherwise, the editing was nicely done, especially in the opening credits (which are always very important in my opinion). Bright colors in black outlined and overlapping boxes and bubble font for each person's credit captured the 1960's feel. Since the actors were Czech, they had to have English speakers to dub the lines, which was a good decision because subtitles would have been too distracting in this already interactive film, plus it made the film funnier to watch because the lines were so exaggerated.
Overall, it was an incredibly entertaining film to watch and I highly recommend it. In fact, they are making a rental dvd version of it with your own built in narrator who will appear at the bottom of your screen and have you vote on Petr Novák's conundrums.
Fun for the whole family!