Review: Kinoautomat

A company called Interfilm attempted to bring films like this to the cinema in the mid-90s, with audience members voting on a choice at selected intervals through a 3-button joystick device connected to their seat. Results were fed to a computer, and one of four laserdisc players projected the winning result (which often focused in minor details like how the hero should be tortured rather than the actual plot of the film). I remember watching the 20-minute Mr. Payback in 1995, which was written and directed by Back to the Future producer Bob Gale and and starred Christopher Lloyd, and was billed as “the world’s first interactive movie.”

You can forgive Interfilm for ignoring Kinoautomat, which they were clearly, ahem, ‘inspired´ by: after 1974, the film was all but forgotten, never released to home video and publicly unscreened for 30-plus years. But in 2006 the film resurfaced in London, and in 2008 a DVD was released in the Czech Republic. In 2009, the film is screening in Prague´s Kino Světozor (mostly in Czech – though dubbed prints in English and German exist), with English-language shows on June 20th and 25th moderated by Radúz Činčera´s daughter Alena. I caught the June 20th show.

“Stop!” our moderator yells and Činčerová walks onto the stage in front of the screen. The film freezes in place. Should Mr. Novak let her in? It´s up to the audience. I vote “yes”, and after a few seconds the results are displayed on the screen. The verdict is “no”. The film starts up again and Mr. Novak refuses to let the young woman inside, but she jumps in anyway, locking him out of his own apartment. Then the woman´s husband arrives, and then Mr. Novak´s wife. He´s got some explaining to do.

Radúz Činčera seems to have been mostly forgotten, along with his film. In 1990, he created another interactive film for the 1990 World Expo in Osaka; in Cinelabyrinth, viewers again chose the course of the movie – but this time, they physically got up and walked through a door to an adjacent theater to watch how their decision unfolded. Of course, everyone ended up in the same cinema for the finale. Before his death in 1999, Činčera staged a multimedia presentation in Prague´s St. Michael´s Church that drew heavy criticism for perceived misuse of the church.