When people go to see movies, they always root for the stripper with the heart of gold, right? That’s how I feel about Brice Outlet Mall.
Think Barry in Punch-Drunk Love. Think Quiz Kid Donnie Smith in Magnolia. Think Charlie Chaplin in, well, everything.
Lovable losers, all of them.
There’s something about characters in movies who are broken down, beat down, kicked around that makes us root for them. Maybe we identify with them; maybe it reminds us of someone else. Whatever the reason, I feel the same way about the old near-vacant outlet mall near my house.
When I was a kid, Brice Outlet Mall was known as Scarborough Mall, and it was a bustling place. I would run into people I knew all the time. The food court was hopping: there were retail stores, the Video Trader packed with Nintendo and Sega Genesis games, a Flanagan’s Pub, the British Papermill (where you went for all your comic book needs), and of course, the second-run theater. Naturally, the place felt a lot bigger was I was a kid, but it was never a large place, just the kind of mall they used to build.
Today, the place is a virtual ghost town.
When you walk into the place today, you’ll see the British Papermill, Video Trader (the “#1 Video Trader” as it’s now known), the second-run theater, and not much else. No one is ever there, and parts of the building are being consumed by a church. The bustling area of commerce it used to be is no more. The theater there is constantly calling my name, what with its $1.00 Tuesdays and its $.50(!) Thursdays. And I answer that call often, enjoying trips to this forgotten place.
I believe there are a couple of potential reasons why I like this place. One is that I feel connected in some way to my childhood when I see the places that used to excite me so much as a ten-year-old. Another is that, when Renee works nights, I get lonely and an empty mall feels like a good place to go and feel lonely. Or, another explanation is that there is something strangely comforting about inhabiting a mecca of consumerism that has gone the way of the dinosaur. In that case, I guess it helps me to remember that there are always victims sacrificed to the fickle gods of consumerism, but that everything, even the temples to these gods, will fall into ruin one day. Things do have a way of falling apart, you know.
Tonight, I paid the good man in the booth my $.50; scurried my narrow, late white butt over the tacky orange/red/blue/white/green-tiled floors that peeked fashion-wise, oh, I don’t know, fifteen years ago; blew past the arcade that once housed “Rampage!” and “Mortal Kombat” but now offers “House of the Dead II” and “Deer Huntin’”; stepped into the hallways lit like the tunnels through which Luke Skywalker fell in Empire Strikes Back, hoping I picked the right hallway since they’re not helpfully marked; and slipped into the right theater, where I partook in an inexpensive yet socially conscious cinematic experience of the blood-stained diamond trade during the Sierra Leone civil war of 1999. I don’t think I’ll be buying any diamonds anytime soon without first asking, “So how do you really know these are conflict-free?” It was a pretty good night.
What’s funny about this place is the ghostly comfort it provides. It compares not a bit to real human relationships, but in the category of lonely alternatives, it ranks pretty well. And mostly, I think it is the sense you get there that things change, and sometimes they decay. I could almost see the vines in my mind overtaking the place as did the vines to Dr. Tom More’s town in Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins. And something about seeing a film detailing the exploitation of an African nation here reminded me of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. But seeing this film in the midst of this ruin reminded me that, not matter what the fickle gods of consumerism decide, hope can be found in the midst of things. A good film can still be seen in a run-down, near-vacant mall.
And for half a dollar, at that.
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December 1, 2007 at 4:48 am
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