Cinema Scope. 37.

"As one of the direst and most depressing seasons of tedious holiday Hollywood product comes to a limp head, we present another issue of Cinema Scope that tries best to ignore most of that, and instead reflect on the films that mattered on the festival circuit (and, some, beyond) these past few months," writes editor Mark Peranson.

Most North Americans will be unfamiliar with the work of Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann, notes Robert Koehler: "Without the benefit of retrospect, there would be no way to fathom that with Revanche Spielmann has achieved a major artistic breakthrough; but even without having his past work in one's back pocket, it's clear that Revanche also marks something crucial to European film at this time."

Argentina, Brazil, Mexico. "And now it appears that the next big thing is coming from Chile." Quintín on Tony Manero: "It's not the scenes by themselves that bother me, nor the ugly handheld camera work, with an excessive amount of close-ups that make things look uglier. The problem with the film is the lack of purpose behind all the efforts from the filmmaker, the crew, and the cast. This resembles all too well the efforts made by the film's characters to be part of a Hollywood fantasy."

"Even by experimental/avant-garde standards, [Jennifer Reeves's] When It Was Blue is a rush," writes Michael Sicinski. "And so, while watching the film for the first time, I felt an acute, though indefinable, anxiety both about and from the piece, and only now do I think that I'm at least beginning to grapple with some of the formal parameters that stoke this feeling."

"Organically constructed and impressively humble, Our Beloved Month of August shows the fantastic, mythic elements present in everyday life, and the mundane realities present in filmmaking, presenting the two as links in a neverending chain of dominoes - and goddamned if, against all odds, it doesn't all come together." Mark Peranson interviews Miguel Gomes.

Adam Nayman talks with Sergey Dvortsevoy: "In its best moments, Tulpan seems like a particularly poetic piece of vérité, and this isn't any surprise for those who have followed the observational documentaries made by the Moscow-schooled filmmaker - Paradise (1996), Bread Day (1998), and Highway (1999), and In the Dark (2004)."

"On the periphery of the peripheries are alternative cinemas, one case in point being Chinese independent cinema," writes Shelly Kraicer. "Emily Tang's second feature, Perfect Life, is the most accomplished of this current crop of Chinese films."

Andréa Picard explains how "my first and as of yet only mock interview - a staggering 45 minutes of tremulousness, disbelief and unease amidst a rapid-fire exchange of ideas, memories, provocations, denunciations, poetry recitations, confessions, self-recrimination, and perhaps a healthy dose of fiction to temper the booze and smoke" - with the late Guillaume Depardieu, no less - came about.

It should be fairly clear by this point that Jonathan Rosenbaum has not actually retired. He's as busy as ever, only he's doing what more of what he actually wants to be doing. And recently, that's entailed bopping all over the world, making "Global Discoveries on DVD."

"'With this film I seem to have been successful,' says a visibly satisfied José Mojica Marins a few days after the midnight premiere of his magnificent comeback film Encarnação do Demônio at the 2008 Venice film festival." Christoph Huber (along with Vera Brozzoni, Markus Keuschnigg and Olaf Möller) meets a legend.

Andrew Tracy on Synecdoche, New York: "Where Bergman's introspection pushes outward, [Charlie] Kaufman's attempt at grand statement falls flat on its own diminutive premises. If any charge of disingenuousness need be levelled at Kaufman, let us at least grant that it's of an inadvertent variety."

"As much as it's a gay manifesto, Milk is a screed in favor of city governments that honour neighbourhood interests over corporate ones," writes Johnny Ray Huston. "Amid a new presidency, the US could stand to look at SF. Especially since California's recent Prop 8 battles are an echo of Milk's Prop 6 story, and Barack Obama's liturgy of change is influenced if not inspired by Milk's idea of hope.... For all his achievement and charisma, Harvey Milk is also a way for the regionally focused [Gus] Van Sant to snuggle up to his unrequited love, Hitchcock."

Posted by dwhudson at December 28, 2008 2:59 AM