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| A painter at the port of Honfleur |
Screens: 1 Ticket price: 6€
Situated on the Seine estuary and just along from Le Havre (see above post), Honfleur is a gorgeous little town that you must drop into if you're ever in Normandy. Close to those über-swanky twins Deauville and Trouville and nowadays linked to Le Havre courtesy of the striking Pont de Normandie, Honfleur has long been a painter's delight, with a quality of light pretty much unlike anything I've ever seen.
Although it has a harbour, since its port -- and that of nearby Harfleur -- silted up, all the heavy stuff now comes in and out of Le Havre, and it's now just little boats & yachts that now drift in and out of Honfleur. Despite being fairly small, Honfleur is a busy place and is quite well off for amenities, and (as the existence of this post proves) has its own cinema -- presumably from the days before Le Havre was so accessible, as it's hard to imagine anyone bothering to set one up with Havre just over the bridge.
Cinema Henri Jeanson (named after the editor of satirical newspaper le Canard enchaîné/writer of Jean Gabin classic Pépé le Moko, who died just along the road) is a predictably small one-screener close to the town centre. There's really nothing too remarkable about it - you buy your ticket from a small hatch on the right just inside of the main entrance (the lobby's so small that a queue of just a few people will see a tail hanging out onto the street), and if you haven't smuggled in some chocolate-covered marshmallow bears/Haribo/ferry-purchased Toblerone there are a few sweets (i.e. tubes of Mentos) for purchase at the ticket counter. The auditorium itself is fine, and the light comedy with Daniel Auteuil and Valerie Lemercier (both always very watchable) was ideal Saturday night fodder and included a really great joke involving a fish.
The Henri Jeanson makes for a pretty cheap trip to the movies, and if I lived in Honfleur it would be handy for whenever I couldn't be bothered to drive over to Le Havre (which, come to think of it, would probably be fairly often) -- although those who want serious choice should really head over the bridge to the big smoke. But they seem to be quite inventive with their programming, as any successful one-screen joint needs to be.
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