Orokmozgo

Visiting Orokmozgo is rarely a polished cinema-going experience. During a showing of Midnight Cowboy, I watched Dustin Hoffman get sliced in half as he started to cross the street. The film ran for a full five minutes before the print was repositioned, and Dustin’s upper body and legs were happily reunited. It isn’t the only time that the projector has spluttered its way through a screening. Last month, Buster Keaton’s The General ground to a halt four times before the film finally began to run smoothly. Occasionally, there are other hiccups. Perhaps most disappointingly of all, as I tried to buy my ticket for Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, I was told that it would be shown only in French and Hungarian. Not English, as advertised.

In spite of all this, it is very easy to forgive Orokmozgo’s flaws. It is run by small group of people – the staff who work in the ticket office also man the projection booth. The reason that the prints are unpredictable is because of their age. In many cases, they are original copies, taken from the National Archive but because of the access to this, the program is extremely eclectic. It’s certainly hard to turn your nose up at a cinema which gives visitors the opportunity to see films such as MASH, Young Frankenstein, A Bout de Souffle and Escape to Victory on the big screen.