|
Cinemania is probably the scariest film I’ve seen
in ages, although I probably wouldn’t have been so unnerved
had I not seen three movies a day every day for the previous
four days. This is contrary to my usual viewing habits. Three
to four movies a week is my norm, which is more than your
average American but, I think, a reasonable and not debilitating
amount. And there’s more to it than just blank viewing. I
watch, think, and write about what I see (to you, my ever-loving
readers’ benefit... right?). If I sound defensive, it’s because
I’m afraid you might confuse me with the subjects of this
documentary. Cinemania scours the dregs of the New
York film scene to show my antitheses, five devoted freaks
who regularly watch three to five movies a day, every day,
subsisting either on an inheritance or disability payments.
Their disability? The “neurosis,” as one of them turns it,
which is a compulsive need to see film. After watching the
film, you’d probably agree with that psychiatric evaluation.
They live in filthy, cramped apartments, and have no qualms
about their anti-social ways. Says one, “Film is a substitute
for life. It is not pathological—to not have had sex for many
years, but to have seen all these experiences instead.”
What’s truly unnerving, then, is that that’s all they have:
experiences. Thoughts? Critical evaluations? Nothing of the
sort. They exchange two-sentence judgments on obscure 40s
starlets. Their memories are nostalgic, not acute or critically
pointed, and they bring nothing to the movies they see other
than other movies. The fundamental error one of them makes
is in assuming that “these films are being made for us.” Dead
wrong: Films (especially those of Godard, whom one
of them confesses to trying to emulate, unsuccessfully, in
a Paris cafe) are made for active, vital humans with a variety
of interests and messy lives, not sterile overweight losers.
“Film buffs do not socialize”? Shut the hell up and stop ruining
my reputation. Cinemania is basically a comedy, which
a German TV team has edited down to all its funniest bits,
and it’s wildly amusing (it also features a bouncy and apt
score by Stereo Total), but anybody who loves film
may find themselves unnerved and praying that they bear absolutely
no resemblance to anyone on-screen.
—Vadim Rizov
|
While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video... 
