I generally agree that the results reached by these forty directors are of wildly uneven quality.
It also appears to be a consensus that the strongest entry is David Lynch's bizarre sci-fi collage, but I'd say closely followed by:
*) Zhang Yimou's nice reversal of the "old-fashioned" setting initially presented... and one of the few pieces with any sense of humor...
*) Helma Sanders' beautiful four-dimensional 'painting with light' which makes a virtue of the film stock's limited range of contrast...
*) Claude Lelouch's vertiginous kiss as camera technology evolves in the background.
I also found some of the simpler ones quite charming, including: *) Jaco van Dormael's portrait of a kiss by a pair of special lovers, *) Peter Greenaway's floating numbers of time *) Wim Wenders' quiet and simple re-visitation of his angels *) Jerry Schatzberg's snapshot of urban scavenging and *) Bigas Luna's portrait of a nude woman nursing in a field.
However, the vast majority of the pieces are dull, redundant (couldn't those guiding the project have communicated with each filmmaker about their intentions to avoid such frequent duplication?), pretentious, and worst of all humorless.
The worst offenders are the most self-conscious pieces-- which coincidentally tend to have the most annoying soundtracks-- including Spike Lee (leading candidate for most self-obsessed father of the year), Liv Ullman (hers is the least inspired of the dozen or so camera-filming-camera pieces), and Kiju Yoshida (who pompously announces he will demonstrate the impossibility of capturing an image on film).
In short, 'Lumiere' is well worth a look, with some brilliant moments, especially for students of film and film history... but keep a grain of salt and your fast-forward button handy.
It also appears to be a consensus that the strongest entry is David Lynch's bizarre sci-fi collage, but I'd say closely followed by:
*) Zhang Yimou's nice reversal of the "old-fashioned" setting initially presented... and one of the few pieces with any sense of humor...
*) Helma Sanders' beautiful four-dimensional 'painting with light' which makes a virtue of the film stock's limited range of contrast...
*) Claude Lelouch's vertiginous kiss as camera technology evolves in the background.
I also found some of the simpler ones quite charming, including: *) Jaco van Dormael's portrait of a kiss by a pair of special lovers, *) Peter Greenaway's floating numbers of time *) Wim Wenders' quiet and simple re-visitation of his angels *) Jerry Schatzberg's snapshot of urban scavenging and *) Bigas Luna's portrait of a nude woman nursing in a field.
However, the vast majority of the pieces are dull, redundant (couldn't those guiding the project have communicated with each filmmaker about their intentions to avoid such frequent duplication?), pretentious, and worst of all humorless.
The worst offenders are the most self-conscious pieces-- which coincidentally tend to have the most annoying soundtracks-- including Spike Lee (leading candidate for most self-obsessed father of the year), Liv Ullman (hers is the least inspired of the dozen or so camera-filming-camera pieces), and Kiju Yoshida (who pompously announces he will demonstrate the impossibility of capturing an image on film).
In short, 'Lumiere' is well worth a look, with some brilliant moments, especially for students of film and film history... but keep a grain of salt and your fast-forward button handy.