Cinema Scope. 29.

Shelly Kraicer, who's just updated the Chinese Cinema Site, celebrates Jia Zhangke's Venetian Golden Lion for Still Life in the new issue of Cinema Scope: "His works advance the art of cinema in ways that are dazzlingly innovative, while also being precisely attuned to the radical new demands of 21st century society. Each of Jia's films articulates an abstract structure of time and space, and a more sensual structure of feeling, through which we can see and feel our way to coming to grips with a new, changing world."

In his editor's note, Mark Peranson remembers Danièle Huillet: "Her death must be considered the most significant film event of 2006." Olaf Möller on Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub's Quei loro incontri: "its lucidity, serenity, and talk of man's mortality - and the folly of it all - make it feel like a testament, a quintessential last film."

"At times, [Abderrahmane] Sissako's films seem to simply appear, processing the problematics of return without ever establishing a home base they are traveling from," writes Michael Sicinski. "In Sissako's work the traveller tends to emerge on the scene in media res, and not without a degree of befuddled alienation; in this regard the characters' experiences mirror the logic of the commodity form."

As always, Jonathan Rosenbaum reminds us of the vast and varied treasures to be found outside of Region 1. Is this his longest "Global Discoveries on DVD" column yet? Regardless, it's busting out all over.

And again, as always, Cinema Scope features interviews you won't find anywhere else: Kevin B Lee talks with Hong Sang-soo about Woman on the Beach and Adam Nayman talks with Larry Fessenden about The Last Winter.

Jay Kuehner: "If Cristi Puiu's quotidian epic The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005) merits the declaration of a Romanian new wave, then Corneliu Porumboiu's modest debut, the Cannes Camera d'Or-winning 12:08 East of Bucharest, stakes out the studiedly minimalist end of the scale; it's no less of an achievement, just a different species of the same genus."

In the indieWIRE Critics' Poll, we saw a preview of Christoph Huber and Mark Peranson's furious defense of Déjà Vu, in which they argue that Tony Scott's "themes and structures cry out for old-school auteurist appreciation."

"Just as the structure of Mulholland Drive (2001) - with its decisive fault line and eureka epiphanies - reflects its evolution from open-ended TV pilot to stand-alone feature, Inland Empire is also shaped by the conditions of its creation," writes Dennis Lim. "What's 'beautiful' here is the relative absence of barriers between the director's unconscious and what he puts onscreen."

"Scorsese has become less a going concern than a public trust, his secular sainthood guaranteed even further by his laudable contributions to film preservation and restoration," notes Andrew Tracy. "The crucial defect of The Departed is that it is about nothing - which, in other hands, needn't be a weakness." But that's just for starters: "[W]herefore anoint Scorsese virtuoso in the absence of virtuosity?"

Posted by dwhudson at December 26, 2006 7:57 AM