The Revenant at the Filmhouse
Flash Fiction
At the Filmhouse one comes across a number of like-minded fans. Thus it was that I struck an acquaintanceship with John.
He always sat in the front row whilst I preferred the third or fourth. We’d meet after the show and would walk some distance together. At Tollcross he would cross branch off whilst I kept going.
Over the months that I knew John, I discovered that his all-time favourite film was Ugetsu Monogatari. I checked it on-line. It was a film set in Japan a few centuries ago, consisting of nine supernatural tales, including one in which a character having left his village to seek his fortune in the city returns home a few years later, to be royally treated by the wife he had left behind, who had laid down a feast for him. It was in fact her ghost, as the poor woman had died after he left. John often talked about that film and once said, “I am not going home before I see it one last time.” That was the first time he mentioned about leaving.
John made it clear that he ha no wish to socialise, and rarely answered questions about himself. He woul only talk films. After the Leonardo di Caprio’s film The Revenant he seemed really disappointed. A revenant, he said, was someone who came back from real death.
I mentioned the French TV series Les Revenants about a village in a snowbound French village seeing the return of their children who were long thought to have died in an accident. John’s face lit up. Yes, that’s the film he wished to see. As I knew that he did not have a TV, I offered to get the disc so we could watch it at my place. He just shook his head.
I realised over the next few months that his favourite films were of a theme: Blithe Spirit, The Ghost Goes West, Dead of Night, Kwaidan, Field of Dreams, Woman in Black. The pattern was obvious.
He was absolutely thrilled one day when he greeted me outside the ticket counter and showed me the Filmhouse brochure; a Mizoguchi Retrospective was coming to the Filmhouse next month. I wondered if we might sit together this time.
When I arrived at the cinema, he was already inside. I was absorbed by the film and readily agreed with him that it was a masterpiece of the cinema. We met at the exit and he nodded happily. Now I can go home, he said happily. As we walked towards the front door, and was passing the toilets, he made a sign that he was going to ease himself. Naturally I waited for him outside.
He did not come out after five minutes but I waited some more. He never came out. I was surprised because as far as I knew there was only one entrance. So I went home on my own. I’ll see John next time, I thought.
But I never saw him again.
