Chris Marker, 9/2.

"The Case of the Grinning Cat shows [Chris] Marker as light on his feet as you'll ever find him, segueing from the important (émigrés and descendants of émigrés rallying against Le Pen's anti-immigrant platform) to the trivial (a cat stuck in a tree)," writes Michael Fox at SF60: "It's a deceptively free-flowing style, but it's anything but random.... At a brisk 42 minutes, Remembrance of Things to Come is a perfect length to simply start from the beginning after you've watched it once. If you don't see 10 or 20 things you missed the first time, I'll be amazed. You may have already concluded that DVD is a perfect medium for Chris Marker, since his cunning, calculated work requires and repays multiple viewings.... Marker's great talent as a filmmaker is giving us the impression that any digression is welcome, any accident is providence and anything can happen, even as he is firmly in control. We don't feel steered or manipulated, nor adrift and meandering. A philosopher of passionate ideals, Marker makes films that are, at their essence, generous invitations to join him in an inquiry into the mysteries of human society."

At Twitch, Rodney Perkins introduces his reviews of a batch of recent DVD releases: The Case of the Grinning Cat, The Sixth Side of the Pentagon and The Embassy, Remembrance of Things to Come and Happiness and The Last Bolshevik.

Posted by dwhudson at September 2, 2008 3:41 PM