Photo Mario Martens The former WUR Aula has been transformed into a cinema, which opened a month ago. Student editor and film aficionado Mario Martens viewed Mad Max: Fury Road in Visum Mundi, which is what the new cinema is called. The movie was screened for the CineScience Movie Talks.
Text Mario Martens
The new design of Visum Mundi exudes luxury and elegance, with a large art-deco-style bar and tasteful lighting. Attention has been paid to the details, such as the movie theatre’s logo (a circle with a square inside, akin to a camera’s aperture) in the carpeting, glass doors and the opening through which the projector operates. A large lit sign, reminiscent of the ones seen above the entrance of cinemas in the past, hangs over the bar. The movie theatre is upstairs and adorned with large chandeliers, which some may recognise as the same eye-catching chandeliers that were suspended from the ceiling in the Aula.
There are regular seats and two-person sofas in the theatre, with suede upholstering and an extra throw pillow. Very comfortable, compared to a regular cinema. The exceptionally wide aisles allow for plenty of legroom.
CineScience
This evening’s programme features CineScience Movie talks, a monthly event organised by the Heerenstraat Theater, where a scientist provides an introduction to a movie. The movie is Mad Max: Fury Road, introduced by Martijn Witjes, a Geo-information science PhD student. He links his research to the Mad Max film, which is situated in a postapocalyptic desert where survivors battle for water and food (with plenty of explosions and huge trucks).
Witjes’ research focuses on designing detailed topographical maps with many different types of land. He discusses the climate crises, such as extreme weather, droughts and silting, that affect the earth with increasing frequency. Desertification is shown in an extreme form in the film. The water shortage and geopolitical relations depicted in the movie are similar to the ones we see in our world. Big tech companies, for example, have significant power as a result of their monopoly in making digital maps, comparable to the bad guys in the film, who use their monopoly over water to reinforce their power.
Witjes initially had trouble deciding what movie he could link to his geographical research. Witjes: ‘I saw an entomologist in a previous edition link insect research to the film Starship Troopers, which inspired me to choose this Mad Max film.’
A new edition of CineScience has not yet been planned at this time. The Visum Mundi website will provide updates on the programme as they become available.
