An interior view of the National Museum of Cinema in Turin. Photograph: AFP.
The voices mourning London's Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) are still many. Why such a popular and educational resource was allowed to flounder is a question for the much-maligned British Film Institute, its convoluted finances and impenetrable ways. I, for one, miss its attractions and feel that the coming revamp of the National Film Theatre as BFI South Bank, with mediatheque, video and art installations and dubious bells and whistles, will be no replacement.
However, there is an alternative. With budget airlines offering silly prices for most European destinations (plus tax), the keen filmgoer could do worse than fly to Turin and visit the Museo Nazionale Del Cinema (National Film Museum).
The museum is a splendid permanent exhibition sited in the incomparable Mole Antonelliana, a 167m high architectural splendour at the heart of the city. It was mooted as a synagogue in 1862, but was bought out by the city to create a monument of national unity. Completed in 1889, the "Mole" is a building both classical and futuristic, with no metal structures or visible supporting systems. Its vault is a mass of crisscrossing tendons covered with thin fabric and based on slender fulcrums. Even museum-less, it would be a sight to behold, and has undergone regular restoration since its construction.
A chronological route over the five floors of the museum begins with a fantastic collection of early attempts at capturing the moving image from Chinese shadow theatre, kinetoscopes, basic animation, camera obscura, use of anamorphosis, dioptric paradoxes, stereoscopy, etc. It is all lovingly detailed and explained, unveiling, in a clear way, how the archaeology of cinema began.
This journey through history continues with a series of cleverly designed sections on all aspects of film, from comedy and musical to horror and noir, and then moving on to producers, directors, stars, screenwriters, editing and set design amongst other topics, with incomparable posters, artefacts and literally hundreds of famous film clips on an unending loop.
See David O Selznick's actual desk (three telephones only), Marilyn's bra, the shooting scripts for Citizen Kane and Psycho, the life size Creature of the Black Lagoon, a hat worn by Charlie Chaplin and given to Gloria Swanson, and naturally a veritable surfeit of Italian cinema history, with Fellini well represented. In all, there are 9,000 artefacts in the permanent part of the exhibition and that is before you descend to the cavernous Temple Hall where you can recline in red seats and watch more classic sequences (or even check out David Lynch's Eraserhead while sitting on a toilet), step over Dracula's coffin and journey through further thematic galleries from a typical western bar to the cockpit of a Star Wars space fighter. This is a fun way to learn about the history of the movies and appreciate its invaluable heritage. And on the Tuesday morning I visited, hordes of local school parties certainly enjoyed their outing too.
At just over €5 (£3.30) entrance fee, you could cost-effectively spend hours in this living museum and still not drink it all in. And before the flight back there is always time for a good Italian meal in any of the labyrinthine local streets.
So what are you waiting for? This is what MOMI wanted to be but somehow wasn't allowed to grow into: a measured non-didactic and playful view of cinema's history that captures the imagination and every film fan's sense of wonder. And if your Italian is not up to scratch, despair not: English is used throughout.
