This week, the Charlatan reviewed the film Parasite, a South Korean dark comedy. The film played at the single screen Bytowne Cinema in Ottawa and received no distribution on top of this.
To its credit, Ottawa’s Mayfair Theatre played the film First Love this weekend. These art-house cinemas benefit from the distribution of foreign films. Switching up the programming allows for a much-needed proliferation of foreign films, and benefits the community.
Major chains control the majority of cinema revenues with the majority of the fare being blockbusters that are mass-saturated releases based on previous IPs.
The top five highest-grossing films this year have come from one distribution company, Disney, and eat up the majority of screen time in North America.
All these factors result in the cinematic experience being in decline. Americans and Canadians went to the movie theatres at 50-year low numbers in 2018.
Legendary directors Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola have recently spoken out about the existential crisis posed to the cinema today. Even directors of their calibre have struggled to find funding for their films.
Scorcese turned to online streaming service Netflix to finance his latest movie The Irishman, which will not receive any kind of theatre release outside of the festival circuit. This is a sign of dire times for cinema.
The missing piece in solving the distribution puzzle are foreign films. Giving foreign films recognition and distribution can re-emphasize the artistic importance of the cinematic experience.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this editorial said Parasite is a Hong Kong dark comedy. The film is actually South Korean.
File photo.
