Communist Neon

One night in Paris I wanted to go to see a French film. The French word for "film" is "film," and they don't really have a word for "movie." The French, of course, would say they didn't need a word for "movie". If it's in French, it's art, and if it's art, it's un film. Only Americans have movies.

I knew I wouldn't understand the movie, but I didn't mind. The fun part about watching a French film in Paris is not the film; it's the theater and the people in it. I didn't care which movie I saw, so I went to the MK2 (they pronounce it em kah deu) movie theater (they'd call it a cinéma), which is a chain in France, without looking at the listings beforehand.

The theater was in an area called Stalingrad. Later I learned that the area was named after the bloodiest battle in history: the battle of Stalingrad of 1942, in which 1,500,000 million people were killed or wounded. But at the time, it sounded strange and Communistic.

The metro there goes aboveground like the El, and the place feels like certain areas of Chicago, like parts of the Green line that are vaguely seedy and industrial, yet clearly antique. There's a lot of graffiti and general grime, which I admit was a nice change from the polished cobblestones of, say, the 1st arrondissemont in the center of town.

So I was a little surprised to see the Stalingrad MK2, two buildings on either side of one of the canals with still, impossibly still water, and a small ferry that crosses from one building to the other every ten minutes. The buildings have neon lights, red and blue, that reflect crystal clear in the stagnant water until the ferry cuts through and blurs and distorts the garrish light of a single, pure, distilled frequency.

It was the Las Vegas Strip meets the Washington DC Reflecting Pool meets Venetian Canals meets Behind the Iron Curtain, and yet it was also unmistakably and vividly French.

But then I got to the actual cinema and the only films they were showing were American except for one Canadian one with Kevin Bacon in it and a Spanish movie that started too late. I decided to go to the Canadian one - that'd be the most French, right? - and wondered how to kill an hour.

I didn't have time for a real French dinner, but there was a cafe in the theater, as usual, and I sat down and asked for a demi (a half pint of beer) and a croque monsieur (a ham sandwich with gruyere on top and then grilled). Since coming to Paris, my favorite beer was Stella Artois, which was actually Belgian, I think, but the name is French, and it's everywhere in Paris, or I thought it was everywhere, so it's my French beer.

But the MK2 in Stalingrad, the one that wasn't showing any French movies, it didn't have Stella. So I got a Heineken. And then I got some bread. But the bread was awful. Now, it's important to know that, in France, the bread is made from like four ingredients, like flour, salt, water, and yeast. There may be more, but they're all entirely pronounceable things, no preservatives. So it goes stale after a day or two and so they have to make it every day and it's so good and soft and white and crispycrusted goodness, and so in comparison, American bread, mostly, is awful. But the bread at the MK2 was awful not only be French standards, but by American standards as well, I mean it was dry and hard and the crust was mushy and it was simply disgusting. And I didn't know that was possible, I mean I didn't know it was even possible to get bad bread in France, like I thought that was the kind of thing the government would shut you down for, not for roaches in the kitchen or mice in the cupboards but stale bread and BAM some department locks the door, puts a big F in the window and you cry yourself to the appeals office.

On the other hand, the beer was, as always, excellent and intoxicating, even if it was Dutch (of course).