Interview. Andrew Bujalski.

"I think I might actually be being filmed. Now. As I speak to you." If Hannah Eaves had to be interrupted during her talk with Andrew Bujalski about Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation, she couldn't have asked for a more appropriate disruption.

Reviews of Mutual Appreciation have been accumulating ever since the film's premiere at SXSW in 2005, but the last round is as lively as any of them.

"About the unlikeliest, most unassuming critical flashpoint imaginable, Andrew Bujalski somehow sparked an immediate and testy divide amongst the Reverse Shot critics when his rumpled first film, Funny Ha Ha, hit theaters last year after years with no distribution but a solid underground following." And Jeff Reichert opens another round at indieWIRE. It was Michael Koresky (pro) vs Nick Pinkerton (con) last time, and so it is again. As for Reichert, "Bujalski's a poor man's Rohmer to be sure, but this is, in my book, better than a host of Kevin Smiths or similarly untalented indie hacks." Meanwhile, Brian Brooks introduces iW's interview with Bujalski.

Updated through 9/2.

"Gently persistent in its ironies, Funny Ha Ha managed to be both charmingly lackadaisical and annoyingly smug; Mutual Appreciation, which Bujalski shot in grainy black-and-white in hipster Brooklyn (and is self-distributing), is even more so," writes J Hoberman in the Voice. "Variety's reviewer nailed the format: Bujalski turns a John Cassavetes camera on an Eric Rohmer talkfest, except that the camera is more relaxed and the actors less animated."

In Slant, Nick Schager calls it "a modest step up from its assured predecessor in both content and form, revealing discerning truths about, and wringing deadpan humor from, post-college anomie through a carefully arranged narrative structured around casual ellipses and sly symmetries."

An "A-" from Scott Tobias at the AV Club.

Update: Anthony Kaufman: Justin Rice's "jittery, electric music performance at Williamsburg club Northsix... is worth the price of admission alone."

Updates, 9/1: Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: "It's the sort of unassuming discovery that could get lost in a crowd or suffer from too much big love, and while it won't save or change your life, it may make your heart swell. Its aim is modest and true.... If Mutual Appreciation doesn't look like any film out on screens today, it does boldly look back at Jean Eustache's landmark of modern French cinema, The Mother and the Whore." This one, she adds, along with Half Nelson and Old Joy, are "hopeful signs of cinematic life from young American directors."

Bilge Ebiri at Nerve: "It deserves the highest praise one can give such a unique film: It's hard to imagine this story being told any other way."

Updates, 9/2: Daniel Kasman: "Mutual Appreciation often feels like a naturalistic Hong Sang-soo film. Because of that director’s highly structured way of directing his characters through rhythmic plot points, this unexpected comparison warrants a far closer look at the way Bujalski organizes his stories and his character portrayal than his aesthetic seems to ask from the audience."

At Twitch, Peter Martin writes that Funny Ha Ha "engaged me on a subatomic level.... The beauty is that the film holds up to repeated viewings. Each time I saw it, I peered deeper into it, trying to figure out how Bujalski and his collaborators made something so substantial appear so lightweight, until I gave up and gave in to its gentle rhythms." Along comes Mutual Appreciation and... "And nothing clicked."

The Reeler gets a microphone and a camera in front of both Joe Swanberg and Andrew Bujalski.

Online viewing tip. Karina Longworth latest edition of "Netscape at the Movies."

Posted by dwhudson at August 31, 2006 11:17 AM