This is why visiting a place to see something related to movies represents one of the greatest pleasures, for me. If, on top of that, some friends are involved, then it is just perfect.
Last week-end I went to Amsterdam to see the city’s new cinema museum, EYE (a particularly appropriate name, since I’m still struggling with my own!).
Linda and Gaetano, my lovely friends living there, talked to me about this place a while ago and I was very eager to see it. Located on the Northern part of the city, the museum can be reached by boat from Amsterdam Central Station (t is a ride of just three minutes and it doesn’t cost a penny). Made by Viennese firm of architects Delugan Meissl Associated, the building is quite amazing: it looks like a big white whale lying down on IJ River. We went there towards the end of the afternoon, and it was quite fascinating to see the city lights from there and to pass from the cold and dark outside to the warm and bright inside (the belly of the whale).
The four floors contain different facilities: in the basement there is an exhibition space and a cinema (67 seats, Art Deco Style, mainly used for screening classics and silent films), at the entrance floor, the biggest one, there is the box office, a shop, two cinemas (both having 130 seats, but one is called the Black Box, because everything is so black that nothing distracts the viewer from the screen, while the other can be transformed into a large empty space for installations and events) and a bar-restaurant with a terrace, at the first floor there are more exhibition and workshop spaces and on the top floor there is the biggest cinema (315 seats, having a built-in cinema organ to provide live musical accompaniment to silent films!).
EYE doesn’t have a permanent exhibition, it organizes four major exhibitions per year and it has a collection of more than 40.000 titles, from avant-garde movies to Hollywood classics until the contemporary indie works: in the basement there are lovely small cabins where people can watch movies choosing from this wide selection.
I really wanted to see a film there or in one of the cinemas, but I had already seen all the movies they were showing at the moment (the side effects of being a cinema freak) and I didn’t have enough time (the basement closes at 6 pm) to enjoy an old movie in those little yellow nests.
I enjoyed browsing through the exhibition, though, and of course I stopped by at the shop, where I managed to ruin myself buying cinema post-cards, a book about Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock and a couple of issues of Sight & Sound magazine.
I really wanted to see a film there or in one of the cinemas, but I had already seen all the movies they were showing at the moment (the side effects of being a cinema freak) and I didn’t have enough time (the basement closes at 6 pm) to enjoy an old movie in those little yellow nests.
I enjoyed browsing through the exhibition, though, and of course I stopped by at the shop, where I managed to ruin myself buying cinema post-cards, a book about Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock and a couple of issues of Sight & Sound magazine.
I have to say I was very impressed by the space of the bar-restaurant.
It is huge, and usually big places are cold and gloomy, but here it is exactly the opposite and it is even cosy. Since it was apéro time, my friends and I asked for a table. To my surprise, the woman at the counter told us that we could wait for one or that we can have our drinks at the bar and seat down on the wooden stairs leading to the cinema 1. In fact, we decided for this second option and it was a great idea. From where we were seated, we had a lovely view of the restaurant, the terrace and the city of Amsterdam in the distance. More and more people were doing like us, and in no time the stairs were very crowded. When the movie of cinema 1 was over, everybody came down the stairs and stopped for drinks. There was such a lovely atmosphere, I could have stayed there for ever.
It is huge, and usually big places are cold and gloomy, but here it is exactly the opposite and it is even cosy. Since it was apéro time, my friends and I asked for a table. To my surprise, the woman at the counter told us that we could wait for one or that we can have our drinks at the bar and seat down on the wooden stairs leading to the cinema 1. In fact, we decided for this second option and it was a great idea. From where we were seated, we had a lovely view of the restaurant, the terrace and the city of Amsterdam in the distance. More and more people were doing like us, and in no time the stairs were very crowded. When the movie of cinema 1 was over, everybody came down the stairs and stopped for drinks. There was such a lovely atmosphere, I could have stayed there for ever.
In fact, as usual, it doesn’t matter if it is Paris, Amsterdam or Hong Kong: home is where a cinema is… but if you happen to be in Amsterdam, don’t forget to see its EYE!
Thank you Zazie :) now I know what to do this weekend!
RispondiEliminaYou're welcome, dear! (la prossima volta ci dobbiamo conoscere, omonima!)
RispondiElimina