Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, Chacun Son Cinema is a joyous, inventive and occasionally very funny celebration of cinema: a visual treat for buffs and occasional moviegoers.
Festival president Gilles Jacob invited 35 directors, including two sets of brothers, to each make a three-minute film which expressed their 'state of mind of the moment as inspired by the motion picture theatre.\"
The result is a fascinating collection of vignettes which vary in tone from high comedy to powerful drama, plus several inspired music-based films. A recurring motif is the reactions of people around the world, from the war-torn Congo to kids in rural China, as they’re transfixed by the magic on screen.
Among the most poignant contributions are David Cronenberg’s At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World, in which the director holds a pistol to his head, broadcast live on webcam while two unseen broadcasters provide a matter-of-fact commentary. Amos Gitai\'s devastating film contrasts the fate of Israelis today with those of the Jews in Warsaw in 1936.
The humorous interludes include Jane Campion’s The Lady Bug, who gets squished in a cinema; Nanni Moretti’s dissertation on movies he’s watched with his young son; and Roman Polanski’s Cinema Erotique, which cleverly looks at one moviegoer as he apparently gets off on Emmanuelle. And there’s black comedy in Lars von Trier’s film about a patron who finds a highly effective way to deal with the annoying guy next to him.
Another stand-out is Walter Salles’ 5,557 Miles from Cannes, which features two Brazilian singers, standing in front of a rundown rural theatre showing Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, as they riff about the festival.
The compilation ends on a supremely ironic note with a Ken Loach segment that suggests there\'s nothing worth watching in multiplexes these days. Curiously, the Coen brothers’ contribution, which has Josh Brolin trying to decide which movie to see at a Santa Monica repertory cinema, is missing from the Australian DVD.
