What I'm Doing (And Not Doing)
The last post was my review of the entertaining Viva Riva!, so this is probably a good place to pause and discuss my reviews and my style.
I am not writing DVD reviews. These are not discussions about whether or not you should buy the film. Some of them will be hard to buy anyway, many of them already deleted. I’m not here for that. I’m giving my opinion on the film as it stands, and how well it fits into my idea of collecting global cinema. One per country. Are they completely different? Are they similar? Do styles differ from continent to continent, or are stories universal? Is cinema universal? I’ll probably never be able to answer those questions. But I’m going to give it a bloody good try.
Ideally, I’d be collecting 213 films in one particular genre, because that would make this easier (certainly for global comparison purposes). Horror would be my preference, but not every country in the world has made a horror film. In fact, no genre has been used by every country, so obviously that approach isn’t possible. What I can do is aim for the one I think will be the most universal (horror) and then move down a list of aims (thriller/gay/drama/comedy/documentary) in the hope that I will at least find one such film from every country, and the range of genres will make the task engaging. Variety is needed because 213 films detailing the universal struggle of the poor to survive in a capitalist world would be quite monotonous. I think. I might be wrong. I’m open to that too, because this is a journey of exploration.
In terms of what I’m looking for, then, what can you expect? I think my Viva Riva! review was quite typical of my style, which is reasonably conversational while still making valid points. (I hope. That’s the aim.)
I like to think I'm objective in my criticism because I am confident in my tastes. I know what I like, and I know that because I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking about this. I am comfortable in myself. And, crucially, I know I am right. You may disagree – and that’s fine. Because you’re right too. There is no single objective truth here. I am not ashamed to like things, even if I know they're rubbish. I can happily defend the film Warlords of Atlantis for hours, even though I know it's not a masterpiece. North Sea Hijack is one of my favourite films and it's terrible. But I know that, and I still love it. A lot of people are scared to like or dislike something in case they're "wrong". In matters of taste there is no right or wrong. I can see that Fellini's 8½ is a masterpiece. I don't like it - but that's fine. That doesn't make me stupid or the film bad - it just means I don't like it. It's not to my taste. I don't like Lord of the Rings. Not because the films are monumentally overlong and silly, but because I'm not drawn to high fantasy. Some people are. We're both right.
Because I’m confident in my taste, I rarely feel the need to justify why I think something is wrong. I’ll willingly explain what led me to the opinion, but I don’t need to justify it, so I’m never going to become defensive. I don’t need to compare something I think is good to something I think is bad (“this must be bad because Hitchcock did something different” is something I will never write). I will use comparisons, but only ever to provide context.
I’ll make allowances for budget and ambition, certainly for technical capability (not every country has the resources of Hollywood), but my barometer is internal consistency, honesty, and basic storytelling. Get that right and I’ll forgive any number of flawed effects. My aim is criticism at its purest. Each film viewed on its own merits, in its own right, and placed into a collection of global cinema that makes my shelves even heavier and Big DVD even richer.