It’s been a whirlwind of activity, starting with the second annual Art House Convergence – topped off with a closing speech by Michael Moore – then promptly followed by, of course, a slew of films, meetings, shmoozers, and late nights fueled by donut-holes and beer (my poison of choice, anyway). Park City also saw the sudden apparition of graffiti along its moneyed corridors that was attributed to Banksy – which would make sense since he was premiering his feature debut, Exit Through the Gift Shop, at the festival. Still being in the thick of it, I shall limit my observations on today’s post to three things.

There are over 5,000 theaters in the U.S., and only about 1% of those screens can be considered as being dedicated to the arthouse realm of either quality international and/or domestic-independent cinema that might also include quality local programming and repertory screenings. On January 19 – 21 a collection of 100+ representatives of the arthouse realm gathered to share notes about the shape and health of their business at the Homestead Resort in Midway, Utah. Michael Moore was in attendance as both an interested exhibitor (for the Traverse City State Theatre) and as a guest speaker. His closing speech was a rousing call to arms, complete with a manifesto that shall be elaborated upon at a later date. For more information on the Art House Convergence, see the link below, which was brought to my attention by Michael Falter and Susan Tive (both of the Pickford Cinema in Washington):

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014191.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Enter the Void

The bare bones for the story behind this 156-minute behemoth can be summed up as this: A drug dealer in Tokyo dies and his spirit, refusing to abandon the world of the living, hovers around as “past, present and future merge in a hallucinatory maelstrom.”

The misanthropic genius of Gaspar Noe has always had its equal share of proponents and detractors, and his latest film continues the trend of providing bravura filmmaking that is as riveting as it can be repellent. Enter the Void is a tour-de-force of visual craziness that explodes with energy in every frame and both enthralls and assaults its viewer. It is, in a word, exhausting. But while the visual bombardment pummeled me into submission I was thoroughly mesmerized throughout.

To describe the aesthetic of Enter the Void I would suggest you take the birds-eye-view at the end of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver that drifts overhead as it shows us the wake of carnage from the protagonist’s shoot-out, and now – thanks to some drug-induced Tibetan Book of the Dead mythos that’s tossed in for good measure – merge that with the cosmic light show from the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Suffused throughout this is Noe’s gift for fearlessly inhabiting the lurid underworld at the belly of any big city, which pulsates with rage, drugs, sex, and all manner of depravities.

For TCM viewers here’s the relevant part: the essential framing device Noe uses, which places viewers in the protagonists point-of-view for the bulk of the running time, was inspired by Robert Montgomery’s Lady in the Lake (1947). Noe admits to having seen the film while in his early twenties while on mushrooms. Which, frankly, explains a lot. Word on the street is that IFC has picked up Enter the Void and that Noe is considering cutting 45 minutes from the running time to make it more palatable with viewers.

New Frontiers

A shout-out to anyone attending Sundance: don’t miss the New Frontier 2010 exhibits. It has all kinds of remarkable video installations and mixed media sculptures, along with many other programs. It’s quite a trip, and after watching Enter the Void, I dare you not to walk through Tracey Snellings Bordertown multimedia installation and not have your very own out-of-body flashback. Her detailed miniature sets allow you to hover over seedy hotels and brothels, peek in any room and prepare to be astonished. For more info:

http://festival.sundance.org/2010/film_events/new_frontier/

Oh, and here’s a typical peak at some Sundance absurdity that proves that money can’t buy you brains: a stretch Hummer trying to navigate already impossible-to-navigate streets in a crowded Park City: