Last Saturday night I caught a showing of Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Three Monkeys at the Cinema Village. As many have noted, it’s beautifully shot but slowly (some would say glacially) paced. I adore this Antonioni-esque quality but a 20something couple who sat in front of me started to get bored somewhere around the three-quarters mark and began to yappity-yap. Not whispering, which would have been bad enough, but actually talking.

I cut them a break at first, thinking they’d stop of their own accord — but they didn’t. So I signalled my irritation by coughing twice, which they ignored. Then I knocked on the back of the seat with my knuckles like I was knocking on a door — that shut them up for maybe two or three minutes, then they started in again. So I knocked on the back of the seat again. They finally stopped but it was touch and go for a good ten to twelve minutes.

If you’re bored with a film, the thing to do is leave. Nobody will fault you for that. But who sits there and chit-chats away and alienates anyone and everyone sitting nearby? In situations of this sort shouldn’t it be allowable to pour a soft drink over the head of a talker? Or…you know, down the back of their neck? You pretend that it’s an accident, of course, and offer to get them some paper towels.