[CLOSED] Le Coquelin

The Coquelin opened in 1959 and was situated in Boulogne's rue Victor Hugo, just along from the Kursaal.  During the following decades, Boulogne's cinemas would proceed to cut each other's throats, and the Coquelin was one of several theatres snidely purchased (and subsequently closed) by the owners of the Stars cinema in the early 1980s.  However, the opportunists who hoovered up Boulogne's silver screens would get theirs, after a fashion, when the Gaumont Coquelles opened just over a decade later; as a wise Jedi once said, there's always a bigger fish.  The legendary Johnny Hallyday, having previously played concerts in Boulogne in 1961 and 1963, performed at the Coquelin in 1966, and he enjoyed quite a love affair with the city, returning for further shows in 1977 and 1990.  

The Coquelin outlived the Kursaal by a few years, and at one point the cinema was owned by the Arcades chain that would go on to acquire Calais' Alhambra.  However, the Coquelin closed its doors for good in 1986 and, as with its near neighbour, demolition followed before the site was redeveloped into a residential block with a ground floor retail space (as seen in the above photo).  There's a rather nice legacy in that, following the cinema's closure, the Coquelin's projectors were sent down to Cannes, where they were used in the world-famous festival for many years.

[CLOSED] Le Kursaal

One of the first dedicated cinemas in Boulogne, the Kursaal opened in 1911 and was sited immediately next to the Crédit Lyonnais bank in rue Victor Hugo.  During the following decades, Boulogne's cinemas -- at one time, the city had five on the go at once, the others being the Coquelin, the Lumière, the Coliseum and the magnificently-named Vog -- would proceed to cut each other's throats, and the Kursaal was one of several cinemas snidely purchased (and subsequently closed) by the owners of the Stars cinema in the early 1980s.  However, these opportunists would get theirs, after a fashion, when the Gaumont Coquelles opened just over a decade later; as a wise Jedi once said, there's always a bigger fish.  

The legendary Johnny Hallyday played a show at the Kursaal in 1961, and he went on to enjoy quite a love affair with Boulogne, returning to the city for further shows in 1963, 1966, 1977 and 1990.  The Kursaal closed in 1982 and was knocked down in 1985, with its replacement taking the form of a mainly residential block which also contains a ground floor retail space (currently home to a Zara, as seen in the above photo).  While the cinema may be long gone, the bank next door is still in operation, and it's housed in a most impressive building.

[CLOSED] Le Casino

The expansive Nausicaá aquarium (pictured above) now stands on the site which once hosted Boulogne's first postwar casino, which in turn housed a cinema for a few short years.  Prior to WW2, Boulogne was the home of one of the most beautiful casinos in France but it, like virtually everything in and around the port, was destroyed in the bombardment of the war.  Once the conflict ended, the mass rebuilding of Boulogne commenced and the replacement casino, which was situated not far from where its more ornate predecessor had once stood, was completed in the late 1950s.  

The new casino had been in operation for just a few years when it was used, fairly prominently, as one of the locations in Alain Resnais' Muriel, or The Time of Return, which was released in 1963; in the same year, Johnny Hallyday played a concert at the venue.  Nearly a decade on from Resnais' masterpiece, a cinema was established inside the casino, but the venture was short-lived; back then, there was plenty of competition in Boulogne -- much of it located in the more accessible town centre -- and this was reflected in the beachfront cinema's sparse attendances.  The casino itself operated for a good many years following the closure of the cinema, before the entire building was razed in the late 1980s so that work could begin on Europe's largest aquarium, which opened in 1991.

Les Stars

Films: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Le renard et l'enfant (2007), Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008), Disco (2008), Arthur et la vengeance de Maltazard (2009), Avatar (2009), Le concert (2009), De rouille et d'os (2012), Möbius (2013), Les beaux jours (2013)

Screens: 7  Ticket price: 8€

Although it's a French cinema I've visited the most often, the Stars definitely isn't my favourite.  Essentially, it's not a bad cinema which, for some unfathomable reason, names its auditoriums after signs of the zodiac (ah! it's the "stars" link, yes?) and always has a nice range of films showing (often including a film that's not in French, so points for that).  I've had some really great experiences there, but also some average ones and a solitary wretched, miserable visit.

Assuming you're the half-empty type, let's start with that: Arthur 2 had just been released (a full three years after the first entry), so we decided it would be a good film to catch before Christmas -- albeit in somewhere a bit less palatial than the Grand Rex.  So, we're about 20 mins or so into Luc Besson's latest eye-popping adventure when a fifty-something couple come in with what is presumably their grandkids.  The kids are alright (or all right -- depending on whether you favour the Who song or the Julianne Moore film) but, in an uncanny parallel with the Oscar-nominated movie, it's the adults who are messed up; they continue to talk loudly for the rest of the film and Granddad gets up every 10 minutes to nip out for a smoke, letting the fire door bang loudly.

So, the experience was completely killed as far as I was concerned, and any illusions I had about France being the last bastion of the serious (or at least civilised) cinemagoer were shattered.  I wouldn't have blamed any right-thinking person in the cinema if they'd gone home and downloaded a snide copy of the film from the interweb -- they'd bought their ticket, after all, helping the film's box office totals, and were thus entitled to view and enjoy the film.  It's pretty hard to sell a cinema "experience" like this (which are pretty commonplace in the UK) -- they actually serve as fantastic adverts for piracy.  For the record, like a good soldier I bought Arthur 2 on BD and enjoyed the 80% of it I'd previously missed, but the Stars debacle remains vividly in memory as one of those sour experiences where you're going to be royally screwed whatever you do -- put up with it (as I did) and the film's ruined; get into an argument over it and the film's still ruined; even if you go out to get a member of staff (who really won't want to deal with it), you'll miss some of the film -- which, paradoxically, you're unable to enjoy anyway.

And from the ridiculous to the sublime: Dany Boon's phenomenonally successful Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (the most successful French film ever at the domestic box office) is one of our favourite films of recent years.  Like Chris Nolan's Inception, it's that rare beast: a blockbuster that genuinely deserves its success.  Watching it in the Stars has to go down as one of my favourite cinema experiences ever.  Although Boulogne isn't at the heart of Ch'ti country it is nonetheless in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and close enough to the parts where people ceaselessly bark hein!  Stories about the film's runaway success were common in the local media, and I recall the region's paper La Voix du Nord running some pretty excitable articles about it.  Besides the film being a ton of fun, what made the screening so special was the simple act of seeing the film in the region in which it was set; there was a constant ripple of excitement/recognition in the auditorium -- nothing too intrusive, but you could see people smile and nudge their neighbour when they spotted that street where their brother-in-law used to work, or the roundabout where they lost their hubcap.  There was something very inclusive about it all -- it didn't matter that we weren't from there, all that seemed to matter was that we were there.  Good times.

There have been other notable trips to the Stars, such as watching a 9pm (and therefore very quiet) screening of Luc Jacquet's excellent Le renard et l'enfant -- for my money better than his much-lauded penguin film, although the foxy tale does contain some pretty upsetting scenes for adults -- and kids.  Plus, the original cut includes a closing scene that was lopped off of the Kate Winslet-narrated version that eventually opened in the Anglophone world, so the completist in me enjoyed that aspect.  The Le Havre-set Disco was also another fine film we caught there, although I would have dearly loved to have seen it in Havre to see if something similar to the Ch'ti effect was in place.  Disco was very unlucky in some ways, as although it was a sizeable hit its release date meant it was somewhat eclipsed by the Ch'ti film, although I'm guessing it did a nice sideline in picking up those who couldn't get in to see Dany Boon's comedy.

I was also present on the inaugural day of the cinema's 3D system, which appropriately enough was for James Cameron's word-of-mouth, minor arthouse success Avatar.  The proud manager (I think) even came out to chat to the bespectacled masses before the film began.  Not sure whatever happened to that film -- maybe someone could start a petition to get it released on DVD?

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Update: For quite some time the cinema has been under new ownership, having been bought by the Megarama chain.  Megarama are currently constructing a 14-screener in Boulogne, so I imagine the Stars will close once this new cinema is completed.  The new Megarama was due to open in time for Christmas 2019, but an Easter 2020 opening now looks much more likely.  So you should still have a few months (from 11/19) if you'd like to get along to the current cinema...