“We come to life, we die… It's a perpetual renewal. How boring.”

– Mibu

Aah France… Land of old wine, old cheese, old art, and Internet access in the early 80s. Prestige project of Président Giscard, France was determined to take a technological leap. Any French man, woman and child could borrow a Minitel – a PC-like videotex device – from the national telecommunications services. For those who didn't have landline there were numerous public terminals throughout the land. The machine gave the people access to a phonebook (convenient!), the news (smart!), same-day delivery shopping(!) and sexting (ooh la la!). All these services were accessible via a code starting with 3615 followed by a string of letters. Dial 3615 ULLA to text with a sexy lady – some telecom employee pretending to be one – and 3615 PERE NOEL for Santa Claus. The real one, of course.

 

9 year old whizkid Thomas (Alain Lalanne aka Alain Musy) is dead set on proving that Santa is real and not some weirdo looking for a gullible kid to play with. A trap is set, and the boy waits.

“You know Mum, I don't have to write to Santa anymore. There's an easier way, through Minitel.”

– Thomas

3615 code Père Noël is definitely not your cutesy little Christmas romp. The violence is not cartoonish, the bandit is more Manson than moist. The boy's disillusionment in the adults around him is a perfect mirror of “Santa's” lonely attempts to communicate and be accepted. However, Thomas' mom didn't lie about one thing; that seeing Santa on Christmas Eve turns you into an ogre. Or an adult, as the grownups call it.

16 year old Benno (Christof Wackernagel) lives in a reformatory until the Lohmanns, a rich middle-aged #WestBerlin business couple decides to adopt him. A new world opens up, one of adulthood and responsibility. For the teenager, this neatly regulated new bourgeois life feels all wrong.

Two boys skip class to catch a movie – Alexander Mackendrick's thematically similar A High Wind in Jamaica (1965) – and end up as members of a violent gang instead. While Matinée has elements of a typical 70s #ComingOfAge movie, the more fascinating element is the role reversal of the two children and the robbers. As the kids are forced to grow up, fast, the criminals live out their childhood fantasy of never having to listen to anyone ever again. And bicker over comics.

 

Robert Rodriguez stated that the fearsome criminals in his El Mariachi (1992) never outgrew their childhood nicknames. I start to suspect that once upon a time, a little boy named Robertiño skipped class and went to the matinee.

Bandiera and Rabbino, two young bumpkins, find that Rosina, their beloved ewe, has been butchered by their father. Years later, the two share their lives with a beautiful blonde who they found believing to be dead.

One day, in a quiet village, a traveling movie theatre appears. The proprietor has no words for the miracle he brings in on the reels. When it's finally time, and the whole town is crammed into the crumbling impromptu playhouse, and the lights are dimmed, a word of warning. This is the story of Dr. #Frankenstein, it starts.

“Just close your eyes and call him… It's me, Ana… It's me Ana…”

– Teresa

The old folk in the audience remember their first brush with cinema, and life, and death. For sisters Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Tellería) it may be their first, and it may as well be real. The creature, Isabel assures her younger sister, is not dead. He's a spirit and you can call for him.

 

When you're little, everything is a miracle. Milagros is the name the maid answers too. And so does the landscape, the mushrooms, the heart, and the magic of cinema.

It's August 30, #Frankenstein​day.

“If you're not sure a mushroom's good, don't pick it. Because if it's bad, and you eat it, it's your last mushroom and your last everything too.”