Senses of Cinema. 33.

Here in Australia, this month has seen Prime Minister John Howard and his conservative government re-elected with an increased majority, despite widely expressed dismay over our involvement with the disaster of Iraq. With the US election just around the corner as I write, it's not the easiest moment to stay focused on cinema.

Amen. But the Senses of Cinema team has forged ahead and put together another remarkable issue anyway, and it's an abundant one, too. So much so that, even though any one of the essays, book reviews, festival reports and so on would make for a more vital read than much of what I otherwise point to around here, the usual mirror of the table of contents would, well, clog the blog.

That said, there's no way Matthew Clayfield's first contribution to SoC can go unmentioned. We've followed his productions, course work, even computer crashes at Esoteric Rabbit Films and valued his contributions to discussions and comments to entries at this and other blogs, so, hell, it feels like we know the guy. And if his first SoC article is anything to go by, we'll likely see many more in years to come, there and elsewhere.

Matt addresses the state of Australian cinema, which is certainly significant enough, but one thing I notice reading the piece is that you could substitute the names of several countries for "Australia" ("Germany," for example), and many of his points would still slam the nail on the head. Briefly, Australia keeps looking to this or that breakthrough film that'll put its cinema back on the map - and it keeps getting disappointed. Matt, too. Why can't the Australian system, he wonders, produce a film that means as much to him as - and these are his top two - Jafar Panahi's Crimson Gold and Kim Ki-duk's Samaritan Girl? Both, after all, are deeply rooted in their local cultures - Iran and South Korea - and yet both resonate universally. The problem, as I would paraphrase Matt's point, is that the Australians are trying too hard, that is, they're so concentrated on their project - make Australian film Australian - that those efforts derail the real project at hand which, to put it bluntly, is to make a good film.

Matt does hold out hope, though, namely in the form of The Ister, which is also the subject/inspiration/dialogue partner of Carloss James Chamberlin's daunting essay which kicks off the issue. ("Daunting," by the way, is shorthand for: "I'm going to catch up with this one on the weekend.")

Besides the baker's dozen of features, there are special sections in this issue on comedy, narrative and "The State of Denmark," so: If you're not too busy working the phones or otherwise getting out the vote this weekend, or if you are too busy tracking polls or tracking poll trackers (and may I recommend Slate's "Election Scorecard"?) and need distraction, or perhaps best of all, if you're bookmarking for a future "moment to stay focused on cinema," here.

Posted by dwhudson at October 28, 2004 2:23 PM