Chacun son cinéma (To Each His Own Cinema)

33 films, each 3 minutes in length, about the magic of the theater experience.  Anthology films are not only a mixed bag, but can be a pain to review.  I’m just going to run down the list.

Depardon – Simplistic but nice.  7

Kitano – Charming, funny, I want to visit that eccentric little theater in that gorgeous location.  8

Angelopoulos – Strained tribute to Mastroianni and La Notte, waste of Jeanne Moreau.  5

Kontchalovsky – Funny piece where a theater worker (maybe the manager, it’s unclear) hogs the place to herself to watch 8 1/2 over and over again.  8

Moretti – Autobiographical anecdotes from the director about some of his memorable movie-going experiences.  He finds things to delight about in crap movies, an admirable character trait.  7

Hou – A soldier takes his family to see Mouchette.  Nicely expresses the simple pleasures of going to the movies with your loved ones.  Where have I seen that marquee before, with Umbrellas of Cherbourg and two Chinese films?  That’s going to drive me nuts.  8

Dardennes –  At a screening of Au hasard Balthazar, a young man sneaks through the theater seats to steal from a girl’s purse.  At a poignant moment, she reaches for a tissue… and finds his hand, which she raises to her damp cheek.  Loveliness.  Can the Dardennes do no wrong?  9

Coens – A cowboy (Josh Brolin) gets tries to decide whether to see Renoir or Ceylan.  Not on the DVD, but available on YouTube.  The Coens provided one of the most amusing pieces in Paris, je t’aime and repeat their success here.  Good stuff.  8

Inarritu – A woman is so distraught by Contempt that she has to leave the theater and exits into the sunlight to have a smoke.  Her young man comes out to comfort her.  Touching.  I’m resisting the urge to say Godard would make me want to leave the cinema, too.  Oh, I guess I just did.  8

Zhang – A small village prepares for movie night.  Lots of wonderful little moments packed into this.  I like how sometimes you can tell whose segment it is before the credits roll.  9

Gitai – Shows a Warsaw audience watching a film (The Dybbuk, I think) in 1936, then an Israeli audience watching the same film 70 years later.  Bad things happen.  The most heavy-handed of the lot.  3

Campion – Amusing little flight of fancy, but somehow feels longer than the others.  7

Egoyan – Cinemagoers sharing their experiences via cell phone, including Vivre sa vie and Passion of Joan of Arc.  A nice sentiment, but I’d want to punch someone actually texting during a movie.  7

Kaurismaki – Some foundry workers enjoy a silent movie after a long day.  So blatantly Kaurismaki you gotta love it.  I could tell just from the first few seconds of the men in the foundry.  9

Assayas – A busy couple finds a moment of intimacy in a dark theater, unaware of a stalker with a sinister intention.  Has an intriguing open-ended conclusion.  8

Chahine – The director reenacts his 1954 Cannes snub.  Although a reminder that I need to get off my ass and watch more Chahine, this is embarrassingly self-absorbed.  I mean… ugh.  2

Tsai – Reflections on the theater experience as a boy with his father (Kang-sheng Lee, naturally).  Of course, Tsai had already done his tribute to the cinema in Goodbye Dragon Inn, but this is a sweeter take on it, with a touching connection and his love of  Chinese musicals.  9

Von Trier – Lars deals with a loudmouth jerk during a screening of Manderlay.  You could say this is somewhat self-absorbed too, but it’s also a riot.  The man does have a fine sense of humor sometimes.  8

Ruiz – A blind man tells an anthropologist about bringing a projector to a South American tribe.  Some nice meta stuff going on here, hard to get a handle on but intriguing.  7

Lelouch – From his parents meeting thanks to Fred and Ginger, to seeing Grand Illusion as a child, to being inspired by The Cranes Are Flying (and the release of his own A Man and a Woman) a charming series of the influences movies have had on his life.  7

Van Sant – A young projectionist steps into the screen for his “first kiss”… kind of a reversal of Purple Rose of Cairo.  Cute, I suppose, but trite and poorly executed.  6

Polanski – During a screening of Emmanuelle, a man is causing a nuisance by masturbating… or is he?  Not a very surprising punchline to this one.  Oddly, this is the only segment to label the director at the beginning instead of the end.  Also, an unusually long credit list for a simple 3-minute short with five actors.  4

Cimino – Oops, I spoke too soon, this one also has a director credit at the start.  I guess Cimino would be pretty anxious to remind people he exists.  This one was pretty obnoxious and loud… possibly self-deprecating, I can’t tell.  4

Cronenberg – Boy, I feel like I’m hitting a bad patch here.  Unbelievably tedious satire about the last Jew in the world (played by Cronenberg) committing suicide in the last theater in the world.  If that sounds like it might be funny, trust me, it’s not.  2

Wong – A sensual and citrusy encounter during a showing of Alphaville (Godard’s getting a lot of action in this anthology).  Very beautifully done, sheer poetry, unmistakably WKW.  9

Kiarostami – The weepy faces of women reacting to Romeo & Juliet.  I haven’t seen Shirin yet, but I have to imagine it’s remarkably similar to this… in fact, I wonder if doing this short gave him the inspiration.  It’s wonderful for three minutes, not sure I could handle an entire feature of it.  8

August – Cute little anecdote about a first date at the movies… and creative license in the translation.  7

Suleiman – Awkward incidents during a screening and Q&A with the director.  Some funny stuff.  7

De Oliveira – A silent about Khrushchev meeting the pope.  I don’t think Manoel understood the assignment.  Also not that amusing.  I could cut him a break since he’s crazy old, but fuck it.  I didn’t like Abraham’s Valley either.  3

Salles – Two Brazilians improvise a song about Cannes outside a rundown theater showing The 400 Blows.  Clever and fun.  7

Wenders – Images from the most barebones “theater” you can imagine — a hut with a television — in an African village during their first year of peace after a century of oppression and bloodshed.  Their faces are as enraptured as any at your local multiplex.  8

Chen – Chinese villagers use their bicycles to power a projector and enjoy the antics of Chaplin.  Kind of in the same vein as Zhang’s but not as rich.  Still, it’s quite pleasant.  7

Loach – A man takes his boy to the movies, but they can’t decide what to see.  Sort of a sly dig at the state of the current cinema, but not without a bit of self-mockery too (“What about Curry and Chips, the British film?”  “No, that’d probably really boring, Dad”).  8

Lynch – Also not on the DVD, but can be found on YouTube.  The usual Lynchian nuttiness, surreal humor and a giant pair of scissors.  9

Usually with an omnibus film, the lows tend to drag everything down and even the highs often feel phoned in.  I won’t deny there are some lows here, but there’s quite a good number of highs, and really good highs at that.  With the possible exception of Fantasia, I think on the whole it’s the best portmanteau I’ve ever seen.  I’d even buy it… provided they release a complete version.  Rating: Very Good

IMDb