The screen is lying to you
By the fifth film of the day, your brain has stopped processing cinema and started processing wallpaper. You are present. You are pointed at the screen. You are not watching.
Festival fatigue has a specific perceptual texture: characters' names stop sticking, compositional choices stop registering, and roughly twenty minutes in you realise you cannot account for the last ten. The film is still happening; you have simply stopped receiving it. This is not tiredness in the ordinary sense — it is a form of attentional bankruptcy that builds across screenings and hits without warning, usually halfway through something you genuinely wanted to see.
The honest rules, then.
If you cannot name what just happened in the scene you watched, leave. Not at the end of the reel — now. A partial viewing of a film you were actually present for is worth more than a complete viewing you will remember as a smear. Walking out when the film has defeated you is a different calculation; walking out when you have defeated yourself is straightforward self-preservation.
The honest rules (callout)
If you cannot name what just happened in the last scene, leave now
If you are watching the clock, the day is already done
Three clear screenings outperform five attended in name only
If you are watching the clock, the day is done. No fifth film, no matter how short, recovers an afternoon that has already overrun. Take the gap. Eat something substantial. Sit somewhere that is not dark.
The failure mode is not cutting a day short. It is spending ninety minutes in a seat believing you are doing the work while your attention has been dark for an hour. You get nothing, and the film gets nothing from you either.
Three good screenings remembered clearly outperform five attended in name only. This is not a consolation; it is the whole point of being here.
