Sight & Sound. October 08.

Ready for another symposium on the current state of film criticism? Just days after Cineaste's appeared online, we now have Sight & Sound's. Stop rolling your eyes: these actually make for a fine, complementary pair. Whereas Cineaste's is primarily concerned with the present moment and the immediate future, Sight & Sound's remarkable - and international - collection places ongoing debates in historical context. The magazine has "asked leading critics to choose the works of criticism which have had the greatest impact on them, inspiring them to become critics themselves, and which make a case for criticism as a minor art form in itself." One helluva weekend read.

Editor Nick James is upfront about his aims in his own contribution: "I'm going to restrict myself to considering the role of the critic in the UK. The twin advantages of this restriction are the fact that the UK suffers from a high degree of philistinism, so the issues stand out in greater relief, and that Britain was arguably the place where the modern idea of the critic was first formed."

Also online from the new issue:

Reviewing Ashes of Time Redux, Mark Sinker naturally first addresses the question, Why? "It may be that [Wong Kar-wai's] unspoken reason is that the structure of his first and more demanding edit was a tactical error if he was intending to capitalise on the unexpected cachet and momentum of the martial-arts film: if, that is, he wanted Ashes to reside in the same art-cult neighbourhood of House of Flying Daggers (2004) or Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983). Hence its new, more viewer-friendly and gorgeous form."

"The Handycam has produced its first masterpiece," announces Tim Lucas. "Shot entirely on a single Sony PD100 camera, held at different times by the director or one of its two principals, The Garden of Earthly Delights [site] is a kind of triptych, much like the 1503 Hieronymous Bosch painting (subtitled 'The Millennium') from which it takes its name." At his own site, Tim notes, "This is one of the most impassioned reviews I've written for my 'No Zone' column in S&S, but I feel very strongly about Lech Majewski's film."

It's Baltasar Kormákur's "skilled exploitation of the explosive possibilities of the Icelandic high-tech hall of secrets, alongside a sly, rather mordant assertion that historical isolation has bred an Icelandic national taste for taciturn stoicism (and sheep's head as fast-food) that makes one forgiving of Jar City's narrative shortcomings," writes Kate Stables.

"Brazilian boys just can't seem to hold on to their fathers," writes Paul Julian Smith. "Paolo Morelli's Rio-set City of Men featured a young dad who neglects his son while another youth searches for his missing father. Now Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, who share credits for direction of Linha de passe, tell a similar tale, but this time set in São Paolo, Brazil's less picturesque land-locked megalopolis. But if the plotline is familiar, the execution is arresting."

Posted by dwhudson at September 13, 2008 6:28 AM