17. August 2023
Director Greta Gerwig (l) with her actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling during the shooting of “Barbie”. © Warner Bros./Dale Robinette
The film contradicts “the values of faith and morality”. With this justification, the Lebanese Minister of Culture banned the film “Barbie” by Greta Gerwig from the cinemas. He was also kicked out in Kuwait, as well as in Algeria and Qatar.
The European cinemas, on the other hand, are happy about the squeaky and clever strip, which has been on the screens in Austria since July 21st. “Sold out” was the answer for spontaneous cinema goers at many screenings. At “Barbie” it’s like at brunch on Saturdays: if you don’t reserve, you look through your fingers.
As reported, “Barbie” director Gerwig was the first woman and solo director to break the billion mark with a film. And in Austria, too, the puppet on the screen paired with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” about the father of the atomic bomb provided a cinema summer of superlatives. Despite the (frequent) heat, lakes with bathing temperatures and new types of ice cream — the Austrians love to go to the cinema this summer, from August 4th to 10th there was a real sensation, as the Economic Chamber (WKÖ) reports: 543,758 people visited Austrian cinemas, 100,029 of them saw “Oppenheimer”, 155,238 “Barbie”.
According to the WKÖ, this was by far the most successful cinema week since 2011 and thus since the WKÖ Association of Cinema, Culture and Entertainment Companies began recording. “I’ve only rarely seen visitors queue up to the street,” says Christian Dörfler happily. However, the cinema industry spokesman in the WKÖ also points out the difficult economic challenges that domestic cinema companies are struggling with.
“Cinema is back!” — also for the boys
“I’ve never experienced such a summer-film tandem,” emphasizes Stefan Meßner from the Moviemento cinema in Linz. Since the start, 4500 people have seen “Barbie” and 2700 “Oppenheimer” in the Moviemento. That is about half of all visitors in July and August, according to Meßner. “It’s nice that such a phenomenon arrives in the middle of society, that people in the coffee house talk about the films.”
It’s also interesting how the films — especially on the internet — have pushed each other. The artistic director of the Moviemento emphasizes that these figures cannot compensate for the losses during the pandemic period, but since the beginning of the year he has seen increased interest, also in domestic productions such as “Der Fuchs”, “Greece” and most recently “Alma & Oskar “. “Cinema is back!” says Messner. An increase can also be reported at the summer cinema in Linz — this year with 3,500 visitors. With “Oppenheimer” and above all “Barbie” a “completely different audience” came along, “with ‘Barbie’ also a very young one.” It would be desirable if they found lasting pleasure in the communal experience of cinema, says Messner.
The opening weekend of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” alone brought more than 260,000 visitors to the Cineplexx cinema operations, a number of additional screenings were necessary, including popular double screenings, often called “Barbenheimer”.
So they banish some of them, and they give the others flights of fancy. Just the stereotypical Barbie teaches us that the world is not black and white and a pink summer is always possible.
Von Mariella Moshammer
2023-08-17 18:36:10
#cinema #pink
