four lions at state

Two weekends ago, the HAH had friends visiting from Singapore. The Sydney Film Festival was on at that time and catching one of the featured films at the majestic State Theatre was included in the visitors' itinerary.

It was my first time to the State Theatre and I was sufficiently impressed by the deco that I risked getting stared and tsked at by the other film goers to take some quick snaps before the film started.


View of the stage and screen from where I was seated - last row at the extreme left corner of the dress circle section. This is the price you pay for arriving late.


There were chandeliers everywhere you looked and the whole theatre was jam packed with people who were all dressed up in their Sunday best suits, frocks and expensive looking winter coats. I thought I was a bit under-dressed but who cares.


The main chandelier. Apparently it is the second largest on earth, weighing over four tonnes - not too sure how true that is.

We were there to catch Four Lions written and directed by Christopher Morris who has gathered a cult following for his television comedy work. This is an in-your-face comedy about four young male British jihadists who decide to become suicide bombers.

"The titular lions Omar (Riz Ahmed), Waj (Kayvan Novak), Barry (Nigel Lindsay) and Fessal (Adeel Akhtar) share a desire to take action against the mistreatment of Muslims but their rampant ideologies do not exactly cohere. Jostling conflicting ideas and egos, the four manage to break almost everything they touch. Featuring rib-cracking dialogue (two of Morris’s co-writers also shared credits on In the Loop, SFF 2009) and recklessly paying tribute to the Three Stooges, this is a film in which terrorists are people and people are ridiculous. The topic of terrorism makes everyone nervous; but Morris understands that taboo subjects, when mined for blackly comic effect, also reveal the most uncomfortable and important truths."

I was completely lost in the first 20min of the show as I couldn't quite catch the weird british+middle eastern accent but once used to it, I got absorbed into the storyline very quickly. Though hilarious throughout, I find it really depressing to watch; it's not something I would choose as a preferred film to catch for lightening up a bad day. It does on the other hand offer an interesting perspective on terrorism and human nature and triggers much thought.

As swept away as I was by the magnificence of the State Theatre's palatial interior, I found my virgin film-viewing experience there to be a rather unpleasant one. Yes blame it on us for arriving late such that we were shoved all the way to the last row which only allowed us a tiny slit of a view of the screen. There were just too many people sardine-packed into the theatre; I absolutely hate crowds. I was surprised to see patrons swaggling into the theatre with beer bottles and talking too loudly after the movie has started. Then there were the hostile-looking toilets that were dark and cold; I swear I could feel the winter wind draughts on my back in the toilet cubicles.

Having said that, I think it will be nice to catch a musical, play or opera there; maybe I was just unsettled because the whole terrorism theme didn't quite gel with the eclectic elements of Gothic, Italian and Art deco design architecture of the State.