Kino

Kino is the German word for movie. There is a main theatre street downtown that has many movie theatres as well as theatrical production venues, orchestra halls, and an opera house. The local paper has listing of all the movies which are shown in their original language and have subtitles (English movies have French and German subtitles, French movies have German subtitles, if the movie is in German there are no subtitles). Unfortunately, this particular movie had very important scenes that were spoken in Spanish - I'm sure in the US theaters there were subtitles to translate the dialog into English, but that was not the case here, so we missed the most important part of the movie. The movies are a few months behind from the original US release date. For instance we had the choice of seeing: King Kong, The Family Stone, Narnia, Fun w/Dick & Jane, Harry Potter, Jarhead, several others, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. We decided on The Three Burials… When we arrived at the theatre at 16:30 we were introduced to the price – 17 CHF per ticket (that’s $26 for two tickets for those of you keeping track) and we think that’s the matinee price. We walked up 2 flights of stairs and entered the theatre that had about 100 seats and a small-ish screen. There was definitely no Dolby surround sound, music, or pre-movie trivia or advertising. In Switzerland there are assigned seats at the movies and when you need to pass someone in your row, you are expected to face them, not have your back to them. There were movie previews: Diary of a Geisha, Munich, etc. just like at home. Apparently, Monday is kinotag (movie day) and you can get in for 12 CHF - perhaps we’ll start going to the movies on Monday.