Cinema Scope. 23.

The 23rd is the post-Cannes issue of Cinema Scope and it finds editor Mark Peranson in a funk. Mostly. On the one hand, blasting away, film by film, at his fellow critics' herd mentality in his own Cannes roundup is more than just an exercise in letting off steam; it is, for him, it seems, also a confirmation of his own sanity. Surveying the instant opinions of those who needed to get copy to their editors within hours, "I found myself agreeing with absolutely nobody across the board... I take this as a positive sign for my own mental health." On the other hand, such persistent iconoclasm is exhausting. By the time he gets to his Editor's Note, Peranson sighs, "Maybe I'm burnt out."

The biggest bone Peranson has to pick with the herd (and really, was there actually such widespread agreement those two weeks in May?) is the still-reigning auteurist sensibility tainting the first looks at works from so many Cannes veterans. Example. A History of Violence. "If anyone other than Cronenberg had directed the film, would critics be talking about the virus of violence that infects the family? About the mind-body problem?" But why should anyone walk into a screening of Violence determined to ignore the full context of its origin? I doubt Peranson is calling for a return to the mid-20th century age of New Criticism, so isn't it possible to view the film with more than one eye? Read the text as text, if you like, but also as a chapter in the meta-narrative of the whole of a filmmaker's work and as an instant within a particular historical moment and so on and so forth. We can handle it; we're a multitasking bunch, after all.

But good on Peranson for egging on so many debates within a single piece - judgement is passed on about a dozen films in there - and for pulling together yet another strong issue, worth seeking out in print for the full Cannes spotlight section alone but also for the features and interviews not online. As for those that are, first Cannes:

• The problem with Where the Truth Lies, finds Liam Lacey, lies in Atom Egoyan's attempt to get commercial - and he just doesn't have it in him.

• After a few behind-the-scenes moments from Un Certain Regard jury member Quintín, a few words on a winner, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu: "Although I was impressed by [Cristi] Puiu's debut, I was not prepared for this second feature, an explosion and an exercise in grandeur."

• Jason Anderson on Wang Xiaoshuai's Shanghai Dreams, "remarkable not only for its precision and slow-building emotional power, but the way it extends its teenaged characters' feelings of confusion and hopelessness to the community around them."

• Pedro Butcher on Carlos Reygadas's latest: "While the more abstract Japón strived for universality, Battle in Heaven is very much Mexican and Latin American, reflecting some of its most complex issues with a very straightforward approach."

Bilge Ebiri surveys recent Turkish cinema which, like the country itself, is a fascinating vortex of opposites and syntheses.

"Fear is the last redoubt of the lack of vision. And I don't think politics can go on without any substance to it. I'm optimistic, but I also might be wrong. A cynical journalist said to me, 'I think you might be right, but all the terrorists need is a bomb every 18 months.'" Each conversation with Adam Curtis about The Power of Nightmares seems to bring out new insight, and Robert Koehler's is no different.

Jay Kuehner talks with Raymond Depardon about his wide-ranging, "under-recognized career."

Columns and reviews:

• France, French and the French are the predominant topics of Jonathan Rosenbaum's latest "Global Discoveries on DVD."

• Olaf Möller's explorations have turned up a variety of books on avant-garde cinema.

• Adam Nayman on Sin City, "a film that's rigorous but also rigor mortised."

• Andrew Tracy on Vincenzo Marra's "marvellously accomplished second feature," Vento di terra.

• Eric Hynes: "[F]or all of its clichés and blatant derivations, Timur Bekmambetov's Russian blockbuster Night Watch... might be the most nationally specific film ever to receive international distribution.... You're meant to associate Night Watch - the first of a planned trilogy - with its forebears The Matrix, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, et al, but beneath the genre trappings and timeless trenchcoats is an uncanny distillation of life in Moscow circa 2004."

Posted by dwhudson at June 17, 2005 7:41 AM