Well,no. In the end there wasn’t enough room in the modern world for this humble DVD store to co-exist with the juggernauts of Netflix,Stan,Amazon and Disney. The momentum of modernity was simply too great.
Ben Kenny at Film Club Darlinghurst in 2019.Steven Siewert
People were sometimes astonished to hear there was still such a place. The technology evangelists in particular liked to scoff – who would rent a DVD when we have the wonders of streaming?
Quite a few of us,it transpired. Film Club,which shut its Darlinghurst doors at the weekend,had tens of thousands of members on its books and owner Ben Kenny says hundreds – perhaps up to 1000 – were active. About 100 were regular enough for him to know their names and faces.
As far as Kenny knows,Film Club was Sydney’s last remaining video rental store – certainly,he’s not aware of any others nearby. There used to be an association that kept track of these things,but it folded in 2016.
Kenny bought the store in 2011,when the writing was already on the wall,hoping to squeeze out another three or five years. He lasted 11. “Someone had to be the last one surviving,” he says. “It felt like a calling,really. It felt like no one else was there to grab it while it was falling.”
What Film Club really had going for it was its collection. Whether it was foreign,arthouse,queer,cult or horror,it was stuff you weren’t going to find on Netflix;movies you had never heard of but turned out to adore. Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”.
As Kenny puts it:“It was all about the serendipity of discovery and finding something you didn’t know you were looking for.”
A community sprang up around this love of film;one which Kenny now hopes to transform into a new project,though he’s not exactly sure what it will look like. He has “the real core Sydney film fans” on his books – people who came from all over the city searching for a title or a surprise.
On Saturday,Kenny gave away almost all of his remaining stock for free. This correspondent made away with the first three seasons ofLost(I’m not really sure why),a few B-grade thrillers and anything I could find starring Julianne Moore.
Some people made farewell donations;one man walking out with his stash of DVDs thanked Kenny for the years of entertainment,“particularly through lockdown”.
COVID-19 wasn’t as big a boon for video rental as one might have thought,Kenny says. He traded throughout,vending machine-style when necessary,and the store was doing OK - but eventually,it made sense to let it go.
“More than anything it just felt like the time was right,” he says. “I never wanted the store to rely on empty nostalgia or people coming just out of obligation. I always wanted it to be a living,breathing,functioning business. I wanted to get out before it became a bit sad and desperate.”
Kenny has emptied the shop,stripped the shelves and painted the walls;it’s like he was never there,he says. He has no idea what will open in his place,but “if Darlinghurst is any indication,probably another hairdresser”.
He has no regrets and no real sadness. “I think we served our purpose in the community,” he says. “We made a difference and exposed people to films they wouldn’t have otherwise seen. Film Club may have ended,but films will live on.”
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