Zurich - Open Air Cinema (Salt Cinema)

Salt Cinema with Live Orchestra - photo (c) Hye-Youn Lee

Let me clarify something when I say that I love the open-air cinema. You have to bear in mind that it’s Switzerland and, although the weather here is, surprisingly, much better than it is in the UK, it’s still Switzerland and not Egypt. Consequently, there is always a risk of rain.

In previous years I have sat watching a film in the pouring rain thinking I will just sit it out, then the water trickles down the back of my neck (because I haven’t put my waterproof – that they supply – on properly) and gradually more and more people leave as everyone sits there getting wetter and wetter. This isn’t the scenario I’m talking about when I say it’s one of my very most favourite things! Although I guess the sense of anticipation of whether the weather will stay good does add something of a frisson to going to the event (I'm a risk taker at heart).

As I said in my FilmFluss blog, Salt Cinema is a grander occasion than FilmFluss. First of all, you usually need to book in advance to have a hope of getting a ticket (hence why you can end up sitting in the rain – for FilmFluss you can just turn up on the night if the forecast is good and usually be pretty sure of getting in). Unless you’ve managed to get a limited, special ticket, you have to turn up early, as soon as the doors open, and, after queuing, run to reserve yourself a good seat. The seats are on a purpose-built stepped wooden tribune overlooking the lake and they are on a first-come, first-served basis.

There’s a choice of places to eat where you get good food and you sit down at tables (even if the tables are usually packed!). Of course, there’s a bar as well, and you have to pay a deposit on your plates and glasses and return them to the collection stations. It’s all very well organised. They have signs for you to use to reserve your chairs once you’ve found a free one, and they provide the waterproof ponchos if it rains. There’s no undercover section, so the weather has to be good.

For me, the high point of the evening is when the screen goes up. If you’ve never been before, you don’t necessarily realise that the white thing hanging horizontally across the lake is the screen. I originally thought it was just a piece of the necessary equipment. The music starts, and then the solid white thing rises up – out of the water it seems – and becomes vertical on metal legs, and you realise that it’s transformed into a screen that’s framed by the backdrop of the lake. I find it magical. In the background you can see the boats chugging up and down the lake, the moon shining on the water, hear the water lapping...

This year, I think for the first time, the final film was accompanied by a live orchestra to play the film track. The film was Perfume – I’d read the book but not seen the film (indeed, it had completely passed me by that it had been made into a film; I read the book many years ago).

I had been wondering how they would organise this, since if it rained, it would presumably have to be called off (yet they’d sold all those tickets!). However, it turned out that they had constructed a special covered section for the orchestra, so the musicians were always going to be dry (and, more importantly, so were their instruments). The orchestra was seated just under the screen, so for this performance, I missed out on the magic of the screen rising up as it was obviously not technically feasible to do this once the orchestra was located where it was. Consequently, we arrived to the screen already in place.

As is typical, Perfume showed on one of the very few nights where rain was forecast; however, although a few drops of rain landed on our heads, it didn’t last long at all, and the evening turned out to be cool but not wet. Most of the audience wore their waterproof ponchos throughout just in case, but fortunately the waterproofs served only as an extra layer of warmth.

In addition to the orchestra, there was also a choir located to the left, also under cover (I almost wrote undercover! They weren’t undercover; indeed, they stood up each time they sang).

Since I hadn’t seen the film before, I didn’t have a comparison of with and without live orchestra, but although at times I forgot the orchestra because I was so engrossed in the film, at some points I was very aware of the music (actually, I may go and get the soundtrack, I thought the music was beautiful). They had cut the original soundtrack from the film, so the live orchestra provided the whole rendition.

Because the open-air cinemas always end late due to having to start fairly late as they need to wait for it to get dark, people usually rush off as soon as the credits come up. However, this time, because the orchestra was there and playing right until the end (indeed, it was probably their longest piece!), most people stayed. And, of course, there was hearty applause at the end, and very well-deserved too! I felt privileged to have been able to experience this and we were so lucky that the weather held, making it a brilliant experience.