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Did San Antonio’s shuttered arthouse theater the Bijou do enough to keep the lights on and movies running?

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

The Bijou, located in the Wonderland of the Americas mall, shut its doors early this month, ending the 35-year stretch during which it served as San Antonio’s primary arthouse cinema.

Theater owner Santikos didn’t respond to the Current’s request for comment, but Andrew Brooks, executive director of sales and marketing for the Alamo City-based chain, told KSAT News a “changing dynamic of art fi lms and our lease coming up for renewal” prompted the closure.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic reached U.S. shores in early 2020, it was evident that the way audiences were watching movies had changed amid the boom in streaming platforms. But understanding the nature of that change doesn’t make the Bijou’s closure any easier for local cinema buff s.

The fi rst fi lm I ever saw at the Bijou was the Academy Award-nominated 2001 Mexican fi lm Y tu mamá también by director and co-writer Alfonso Cuarón. At that time, going to the Bijou was the only option for a young cinephile to see the critically acclaimed, coming-of-age drama before it ended up on VHS months later. Today, you can catch the fi lm with a subscription to Amazon Prime. The industry was still a couple of decades away from watching a studio and a platform such as HBO Max or Disney+ cut a deal to release a movie on a streaming service the same day as its theatrical release.

When the spread of COVID-19 forced theaters to temporarily shut down two years ago, the movie-watching landscape was reshaped forever. While a global pandemic became the impetus for studios adjusting the way they released projects, the health crisis didn’t create the shift, merely accelerated it.

‘Sooner or later’

The writing had been on the wall for years suggesting movie theaters could be left behind as technology advanced.

As theaters slowly began to reopen when COVID numbers declined, it was evident that arthouse venues like the Bijou were in trouble. Not only was there low a endance at the Bijou, Santikos began booking tentpole movies alongside the few independent fi lms that had the prospect of pulling bigger audiences.

“The Bijou closing was something that I had expected was going to happen sooner or later,” said Nathan Cone, vice president of cultural and community engagement at Texas Public Radio and the curator of the Cinema Tuesdays series, which screened at the Bijou pre-pandemic. “Traffi c at the Bijou had always been lighter than other [local] theaters, but it was defi nitely sparser than before when it reopened.”

While fi lms such as The Power of the Dog and The Lost Daughter might have drawn fans to the Bijou if they weren’t also accessible on Netfl ix, the idea that audiences won’t go to an arthouse theater to see a movie already on streaming platforms is, at best, misguided.

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Numbers game

Whether they’re exclusive to a streamer, high-profi le indie fi lms like CODA and Nomadland will always fi nd an audience — especially when they start winning awards. But these aren’t the only fi lms that arthouse theaters such as the Bijou can book.

Given release schedules, the Bijou could have easily booked a new indie fi lm on each of its six screens monthly. According to research from statista.com, an annual average of 724 movies were released in the United States from 2011 to 2019. That number goes down to 661 when you average in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

Santikos may argue that audiences aren’t likely to visit the Bijou to see recent critically acclaimed indie, international and documentary fi lms such as Language Lessons, Mass, Son of Monarchs, Shiva Baby or Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. But they can’t argue that there aren’t enough to go around. Indie fi lms streaming exclusively on platforms are only a small fraction of the content out there that the Bijou could have supported.

Not expanding the base

Over the past 35 years, it felt as if Santikos was championing those independent and international fi lms by devoting an entire theater, the Bijou, to audiences looking for something beyond the latest Marvel fare. The chain pledged to support independent fi lmmakers by booking art fi lms through a “Bijou Series” at some of its other theaters — Aline and Mothering Sunday are currently screening at Santikos Embassy, for example — but is that enough?

Doesn’t a city the size of San Antonio deserve at least one arthouse cinema devoted to new releases? Who be er to manage it than a locally owned theater chain that already prides itself in supporting the community through its charitable giving?

As much as I have loved going to the Bijou since seeing Y tu mamá también there 20 years ago, I always had one beef with the theater. And that’s how li le it engaged the audience. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve talked to San Antonio residents who either had no idea that the Bijou still existed or that an independent fi lm they were interested in seeing had already been pulled from the marquee the week prior. Why didn’t Santikos cross-promote the Bijou at its other theaters? Why did company offi cials think giving a screen to Spider-man: No Way Home was going to keep the Bijou alive?

The Bijou never had a problem booking the indies that appealed to a certain segment of SA’s fi lmgoing public, but Santikos never seemed interested in expanding its core base. Now, unfortunately, those loyal moviegoers are left without an exclusive theater to cater to their specialized cinematic tastes. If arthouse cinemas really are a thing of the past, let’s hope art fi lm afi cionados don’t stop seeking out those hidden gems.

It will certainly be more diffi cult now without the Bijou around to make that connection.

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