Last week was spent in sunny Turin, Italy. But despite the impeccable weather, I couldn’t resist a visit to something cultural, and a team decision was made to visit Museo Nazionale del Cinema (that’s the National Museum of Cinema for those who hadn’t guessed).
Mirrors created optical illusions
The first section of the museum takes the viewer through the history of cinema, covering the rise of shadow theatre and discussing the physics behind light and optical illusions and other such things. Much of this information was in Italian (and physics has never particularly appealed to me) but this section was very interactive and surprisingly fun to explore.
However the real fun started when we arrived in the main room situated under the impressive dome of Mole Antonelliana.
Inside the main room
Our entrance to the space was further enhanced as we arrived just as one of the regular projection shows of iconic films began around the room. Epic music played out and beautiful projections lit up the space as we entered what we by the end of the day had termed our favourite museum ever.
The 3D room
Museo Nazionale del Cinema is comprised of a series of themed rooms each showing clips of films relating to that genre. These rooms are fantastically executed and add a refreshing, childlike element to visiting a museum.
The Western room
The door of the Loony Tunes room
The romantic room even required visitors to cosy up and lie down on a big bed together to watch the film clips.
Mi amore…
The themed rooms formed a horseshoe shape around the outside of the main space in which two large screens showed a series of short films. Visitors could watch these in extreme comfort and without disturbance on one of the red chaise longues with inbuilt speakers.
The main room
We were also delighted to discover that our visit coincided with a large Martin Scorsese exhibition that circled the walls of the main room on a spiral platform.
The exhibition was comprised of film clips, letters to and from the director, photographs taken on film sets, costume designs, props and other items spanning Scorsese’s whole career. The collection was so extensive that we were thoroughly exhausted as we got to the end.
We met up with this fella earlier in the day
As has already been mentioned, this may now be my favourite museum ever. And I’ve barely scratched the surface of its content in this post! It is so interactive and the Scorsese exhibition was so informative that my head felt ready to burst as we left. It is definitely worth a visit if you happen to find yourself in Turin!
You can find out more information about the Museo Nazionale del Cinema here.
Lemon... 