This isn't an ad for Movie-Towne, no matter how much it sounds like it. When MovieTowne opened a few years ago, I saw it as a playground for the decadent bourgeoisie. People I preferred to avoid. I go stay with my people in Globe, I thought. But this was more bad-mind than loyalty. "My people" were loud, crude, and ignorant. They didn't get the idea of "quiet enjoyment," the plot of Syriana, missed the non-stop, queasy humour of Sex and the City II and, from their running commentary, sympathised with the accused in (the Jodie Foster flick) The Accused. I eventually drifted into Movie-Towne, for very elementary reasons: they had more movies, did not stop their movies midway ("intermission") and start them back at the wrong place, and I take movies pretty seriously, so, you know, the math. But once at MovieTowne, I tuned out the undesirables, and guiltily enjoyed the comfortable seats, the flashy, tasteless décor, the polite staff, and not having a class struggle every time I wanted to get some popcorn. I also enjoyed movies without the helpful scatological commentary, or ad libbing, when the Gunta critics' circle felt the movie, as written and performed, was inadequate.
But I still felt a little snarky about the bourgeoisie thing, and when the story broke about the couple being attacked at Movie-Towne some weeks ago, I felt a little vindicated. Dey taking people money and ent want to provide security. Unfortunately, the TV news story, and some very convincing closed-circuit camera footage, said otherwise, and MovieTowne came out looking really good. And I finally admitted it: MovieTowne, uhm, ain't that bad. Apparently, many people agree, since it's impossible to get a park there (PoS or Chaguanas) most weekends. And it's pretty clear why: the atmosphere. What is attractive about the place is as much about atmosphere as the facilities. Atmosphere is sometimes oversimplified to mean "customer service"-you know it: the hostile aggression you meet in taxis, shops, your average government office. And it's no secret why: everybody vex, underpaid, frustrated, and want to make sure you know it until they can escape, usually to the US. If immigration patterns are a guide, what they want to escape to is in the US and Canada, and, a generation ago, in the UK-but it was never here. And it's not about money, since many Trinidadians live happily as illegal immigrants in relative poverty in the US. What's the attraction? Atmosphere: some social intangible thing that they have and we don't.
This is what the authors of a 2006 World Bank report, Where is the Wealth of Nations? called "intangible capital"-a crucial part of a nation's wealth. In successful societies, intangible capital accounts for the vast majority of national wealth as compared to resources, factories, and so on. The US's share of intangible capital is 82 per cent of total wealth-produced wealth is 16 per cent. Trinidad's intangible wealth is 21 per cent. (Barbados's intangible wealth is 83 per cent.) The intangible capital/wealth is that wealth the whole society can share. It is manifested in public spaces, libraries, museums, efficient public healthcare, working police and judicial institutions. Intangible qualities inculcate an emotional attachment between citizens and state, and a reciprocal commitment of the State to its citizens, via its institutions. This is distinct from loud, ignorant declamations of "patriotism," punctuated by public urination and dumping garbage in the rivers. It is the difference between a life that's "hard but sweet" (as the Guyanese Makushi put it) and the nightmare we live every day in Trinidad.
The nightmare is materialised physically and psychologically. From the time the majority of the population leave their homes in the morning to get a taxi, they are assaulted at all levels: physical discomfort, ugly, dirty environments, and hostile interaction. This is sustained till they get back behind their doors. The rich can insulate but they can't escape. A contributor to such an environment is the State's institutions and their representatives (police, nurses, doctors) violating the State's contract of reciprocity with its citizens. This betrayal breeds social pathologies. With no rule enforcement, taxi drivers cheat and abuse their passengers. Some passengers rob and kill their drivers. The same pattern is repeated in businesses, government offices, schools, and everywhere else you can imagine, with increasing impunity. This leaves a society with no public "safe spaces," "green" spaces, and no places of quiet and beauty (museums, art galleries for the public)-all of which human beings need to function. Instead, the State provides Carnival: noise, violence, physical trauma, and no place to rest. When a token attempt is made to provide a traditional public space, it is usually met with contempt, manifested in defacement and neglect by the very authorities who provide it. (Churches are, I understand, defaced and robbed these days.)
What does all this have to do with MovieTowne? The reality is that it is a secular public "safe space": there is an (albeit tacky Miami-inspired) aesthetic; physical comfort, anodyne human contact, and rules are observed. In brief, you can go to MovieTowne to escape Trinidad for a few hours. It is no compliment to Derek Chin to tell him the Government, NGOs, businesses, and every public institution could learn something from him. These people could double their wisdom from watching monkeys mate. What is remarkable is that Chin could have skimped, cut corners, and produced some sloppy second-rate show house. But he didn't. He thought of the people whose money he was taking-their comfort, and yes, their security. This alone makes him and his enterprise something to talk about.