Adult Theaters In Colombo
Poster for The Key
Colombo is full of adult film theaters. We went to one on a lark. The Olympia is just under an overpass at the end of Darley Road. It’s a large theatre, mostly empty. They were showing “The Key”, advertised with three completely unrelated posters and a bit of boob. Normally only the names are postered around town, “I Love You Julie”, “Love Story 2010″, “The Nurse”, etc. I’ve always seen the ads but never went. So we went. It was just as funny as I thought it would be. We actually laughed so much that some patrons left after 15 minutes, though perhaps that’s normal.
The films are softcore porn, a lot of fake boob and innuendo but not porn per se. What’s the most funny is that the American film was dubbed into Indian english, so you get lines like “I have a surprise for you, but you have to promise not to escream.” The men sound like Indian johnnies (yar) and the women sound like Chennai schoolmarms. The sex sounds sound like they are filmed by scuba divers, it’s all heavy breathing to the point of asphyxiation.
The soundtrack is perhaps the best. The recurring motif (the emotional center of the film, really) was ‘What A Wonderful World’. At times this was supplemented with the theme songs from Cheers, Superman and, for the finale, Star Trek. Then there was, of course, the roving bass line.
I won’t get into the plot too much (housesitting gone orgiastic), but the editing was very post-modern. That is, seemingly random. Scenes appeared edited and then put together in the wrong order. For example, at one point the film actually ended. Everything was resolved and the camera panned out on a statue of a Chinese king. Then the reel jumped back about 15 minutes and showed a conflict scene that had already been resolved, then abruptly ended. The credits rolled (in Chinese and English) for Martial Arts Coordinator, Dance Choreographer and Art Directors. Aside from a brief striptease scene, the film had none of the above. Quite surreal. Modern art really.
Sometimes I wonder if this type of film colors roadside perceptions of women, white women in particular. In these films they’re always readily available and signal availability basically by the clothing. All they seem to require is a lecherous approach and then they melt. I don’t know if it’s the way they cut it, but the scenes go from flirting to sex (pantomimed) in about 2 seconds. However, we went to the show with three girls and encountered no problems or lechery, only hilarity. As a kitsch experience it’s priceless, though I wonder who goes to these films seriously. We certainly have enough theaters.
I resent the scuba diving analogy somewhat. We don’t really breath heavily.
For the full flavour of the place you need to go to the schoolboy shows at 10.30. Also a profile of the patrons would be quite interesting.
Ticket prices in relation to those for mainstream cinema would also be useful.
I think you need to visit a few more, The Central In Maradana, the Rio in Slave Island and the Ruby Maligawatte are the old theatres that specialise in this genre. There is a new one next door to the Lake House Bookshop (opposite the Cinnamon Lake) that you need to check. There is also another cinema in Dematagoda whose name escapes me that used to do a few shows.
hmm… JP seems to know a lot…
I guess tht answers Indi’s question.. hic hic.. :P
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Lol! I always wondered exactly what sorta things they showed in those dodgy theatres.
The problem with these theaters is that most of them who frequent these movies are from lower socio economic strata and they go home and expect their poor conventional wives to do the same things that they see on the screen and the mental anguish and humiliation that the women go through is really a big issue.
^^ How do you know what you say is true.
Is that the size of the screen? I always wondered what those theatres look like inside. If you go to any more do take some pics. Wonder how they even manage to keep themselves afloat. As those halls are quite old, I imagine they were once “grandiose” in SL terms, until bigger and better technology came along and these fell by the wayside.
I didn’t understand from your post- are the films real ones made in the west, or are they just cut and paste bits from random films?
I Think they are films made in the West but but perhaps messed up in the process or censoring here.
There are also pirate versions of films from China and HK which may be what is being shown here.
Progressive land I guess! Where are those priests who wiggle their ..ck at everything and make beer so expensive on poya days! Did they ever protest? I guess not.
Shhh don’t get them started, OK?
Long time ago, I remember watching “Strictly Ballroom” at this hall. that was a nice one. And Central used to play action films like MAD MAX and Horror (Friday 13th) . Guess now they have only soft porn.
DVD/VCD players are common enough in Sri Lanka, That said most of the population does not have access to watching a dvd/vcd in privacy of their own rooms. Thats why there is a clientele for this type of movies.
In my youth (70′s) the biggest patrons were schoolboys, specially for the movies at the Rio at 10:30 am during school time. That was before there was even a TV in the country.