It’s impossible for anyone seated in a movie theater to see “Concessions” not to take a rooting interest in what happens to the Royal Alamo, the fictional movie palace at the center of Mas Bouzidi’s endearing paean to such communal hubs. As celluloid is laced up by a projectionist (and “Concessions” itself was shot on 35mm, where all the warm and fuzzies it brings up can be seen on screen as much as felt) and titles of the movies showing are placed on the marquee one letter at a time, Bouzidi clearly knows the comforts that these places have and what will be lost when the theater, like so many others, is on the eve of shutting its doors. That nostalgia ends up being a double-edged sword for both its characters and its writer/director when the movies can offer dreams to get lost in and sometimes fantasies that can’t be escaped as real life needs to be contended with, though as escapist fare, Bouzidi can be credited with keeping the doors open to places like the Royal Alamo forever with such a rich evocation of the experience that can be enjoyed whether the physical place remains or not.
With the film wearing many of its inspirations on its sleeve, it’s no accident that there’s a poster of Eagle Pennell’s “Last Night at the Alamo” in the projection booth, a reference to the filmmaker that’s been said to inspire Robert Redford to start the Sundance Film Festival and considered the fate of the patrons that would be forced to scatter when their local bar shut down. If the festival hadn’t started, perhaps Bouzidi would’ve never seen “Clerks” either, from where the film borrows much of its structure and tone. With the lead characters of Hunter (Rob Riordan) and Lorenzo (Jonathan Price) introduced debating whether “Star Wars” was a racist text, the film does good enough impression of Kevin Smith’s mix of the profane with moments peppered with profound philosophy not to be bothered by the clear inspiration, though the limitations of having imagination beyond that can be seen in Hunter in more ways than one as he’s a virtual clone of the Smith creation Dante, who would protect himself and justify not getting further ahead with a massive intellect that simultaneously showed how he was squandering his potential. Lorenzo, however, is no Randal, set to have a bright future after leaving the Alamo with a football scholarship, but more conflicted about leaving than any of his fellow employees when he’s smart enough to see what’s going away.
Ironically, it is difficult to say even as characters and their interactions with one another are largely inspired by other movies rather than lived experience that “Concessions” isn’t coming from an authentic place. The ennui is palpable as the story sprawls across a theater which seems to hold interesting bits of history in every corner and the characters may not be given much background themselves, but their place in the ecosystem is dead on with Luke (Steven Ogg), the theater owner who can lament being unable to keep his late father’s business running for another 30 years, yet won’t miss the wear and tear of floating around break-even margins or shooing away the annoying troubadours outside or Deana (Lana Rockwell), the unsentimental employee at the ticket booth who likely enjoys having a space to read mostly unbothered.
One of the most touching elements, even if it weren’t so bittersweet so soon after his passing, is the presence of Michael Madsen as one of the last customers hopeful he can get a discount to a screening of a movie that he’s in, perhaps not given the full movie star treatment by the apathetic Deana upon his arrival, but lavished such attention by Bouzidi, who knows the actor’s longtime appeal when having him wake up in a messy truck and giving that flinty look as he adjusts to the sun that he knows something that most in the world do not about the right way to live. That kind of wisdom is only earned over time, and while it may take a little longer for the writer/director to find a voice that’s entirely his own, “Concessions” generates quite a bit of goodwill from the fact that Bouzidi obviously knows of what he speaks when it comes to cinema.
“Concessions” does not yet have U.S. distribution.