German-financed video documentary, focussed on five New York cinephiles, four men and one woman, all of them single and unattached, acquaintances if not necessarily friends. "Film," one of them submits, "is a substitute for life." (Clearly, it was a word-choice of Flaubertian care and consideration not to call the film Cinephilia.) No one in his right mind would wish to change places with one of these, but all together, or even separately, they hold up a yardstick against which to measure your own level of commitment, however thankful or relieved you may be to come up short. And no matter how soon you drop out of competition with them, no matter how hastily you disavow membership in the club of cinephiliacs, you are nevertheless apt to find that if you are any sort of film buff at all, you will have a lot of common ground with this group -- a concern with things like print quality, projection standards, the ungodly distraction of popcorn and cell phones. In one way or another, it's good know they're out there. Good to know how high the bar has been set. Good to have a rough idea of the ceiling on sanity. The documentary itself, composed of surface-skimming interviews and small-talk duologues ("What's your favorite Esther Williams?"), is not sufficiently cinematic to be worthy of its maniacal subjects. And no one would know this better than they. As one of them sizes it up after a look at the rushes: "It's on video, to begin with, and that's a problem." Directed by Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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