Chacun son cinéma ou Ce petit coup au coeur quand la lumière s'éteint et que le film commence

This film is impossible to really describe accurately other than to say it 34 short (3 to 4 minutes) films about the movies and movie going. Covering a variety of topics from comedy and tragedy to documentary this is the a look at how many famous directors see the cinema.

I saw this on a Chinese DVD, which has 33 of the 34 movie done by various directors (only the Cohen Brothers contribution is missing). Most of the films are good, a couple are not bad rather they illicit a "what was that about" reaction and a few are glorious, explaining why the cinema is something so magical. I'm not sure this really is a film for all film goers since the films can be rather oblique, not to mention the ride is bumpy with a poor film sandwiched between a couple winners (or vice versa). I would love to critique each film, but that is dangerous since the films are so short it may reveal too much. I think the best way to see this film (as suggested by another poster) is to simply watch each film and wait to see what happens. In most cases the director isn't named until the end so you can simply watch each film without any sort of expectation. Granted some films are obvious as to who made them since the directors appear, but many of the others are not so clear.(I was right about half the time and wrong about half) Definitely worth a look. This is a must see for anyone deeply passionate about the movies and going to them.

TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA is a 2007 collection of 3-minute shorts by some 36 directors around the world on the theme of what cinema means to them. So many auteurs already make films about films inasmuch as they allude to classics, but here most of the shorts are actually set in cinemas, with audiences in rows of seating. You'll need to have a decent familiarity with the art-house canon before watching this, though. It's fascinating how so many of the directors, regardless of what continent they hailed from, choose to have French New Wave films playing in the background as their stories are told.

It opens with Raymond Depardon's "Open-Air Cinema", where a crowd of Egyptians watched an outdoor projection in Alexandria, and in spite of the unusual writing and the women's veils, they seem to be just like us. Zhang Yimou later does much the same in a Chinese village.

One of the remarkable aspects of this collection are the similar ideas. Two stories deal with thieves stealing purses in dark cinemas. Three deal with the blind and how they perceive cinema. Many look back to childhood/earlier eras. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's short recreates 1950s Taiwan on an elaborate set to show the typical visit to a cinema of his youth. Amos Gitai's film juxtaposes 1930s viewers of Yiddish cinema, a vibrant tradition destroyed by the Holocaust, with a modern Israeli audience in wartime. Youssef Chahine's looks back at his first visit to Cannes 47 years before.

Some of the films deal with serious political themes: Amos Gitai on the Israeli-Arab relations, David Croneberg on anti-semitism ,and Bille August with Danish-immigrant relations. However, there are also a number of overtly funny shorts, like Takeshi Kitano's, where a working man's chance to unwind by watching a film keeps getting interrupted by problems with the projector. In Lars Van Trier's contribution, Jacques Franz plays an annoying businessman who can't stop bragging about his success, though the extreme gore and violence that follows makes for very black humour. Elia Suleiman's is Buster Keatonish physical comedy in the modern world.

Some shorts are notable for continuing an aesthetic that the director had already established in an earlier film. Kaurismäki's short is his usual style of an ostensibly contemporary setting, but with 1950s rock music and working class people who speak utterly deadpan. (Unusually, however, it uses none of his typical troupe of actors.) Abbas Kiarostami's "Where is My Romeo?" is a sort of follow-up to his experimental film SHIRIN, which showed only the faces of numerous women as they watched a classic Iranian tale of love; here these women are watching "Romeo and Juliet" instead.

All in all, this proved a continuously engaging film, whose 2-hour running time just flew by for me. Nearly all the shorts were entertaining, the sole exceptions for me being Jane Campion's oddball short, where an adult woman plays an insect that vexes a projectionist, and Gus Van Sant's film with a randy teenager entering into the film being projected. Nothing here seems a must-see classic, but if you like a few of the directors here, you're sure to enjoy this set.

I am familiar with the Studio Canal (Region 2) release of the film. There are English subtitles, but the dialogue is rarely important: you can understand entirely what is happening from the movements of the actors. Only that small handful of shorts with narration really need subtitles. It should be noted that the Studio Canal release is missing the contributions by the Coen brothers and David Lynch. I'm not sure what is missing from other international releases.

It's hard to review an anthology movie like this, as it's essentially 33 short films that all go for three minutes or less, and each is done by a different director. There are some recognizable names here (like David Cronenberg, Lars Von Trier, Takashi Kitano, and Jane Campion), and then a few I didn't recognize. Some of the shorts from filmmakers I know I really liked, and some really didn't do it for me at all. I feel like the cast members are generally a little less famous, but there are still a few big names in there from the world cinema scene.

Each short film has to revolve around a cinema in some way, and even with the uneven quality, I guess it is interesting to see how many different approaches all the filmmakers have to tackling such a broad concept. Some shorts are incredibly abstract, at least one was super self-indulgent and just terrible, and others are charming in their simplicity and bluntness (I think Lars Von Trier might have had the best of the lot for this reason - it was one of the only ones that got a real reaction out of me... also, Cronenberg's was a highlight).

It's hard to recommend something like this. It's creative and interesting, but also tedious in parts, and I'd say one-third of these shorts feel pretty disposable. Like, Gus Van Saint's is so weird, and I usually like his stuff. Same for Campion - not sure what was she thinking or trying to say there?

I think it would be fun to watch and react to with a friend who's also a huge, possibly slightly pretentious film buff. It's quite fascinating, but I don't really know many people who I could watch and discuss something like this with, but thank you for reading my ramblings; it's the next best thing I guess!

To Each His Own Cinema (2007) is an anthology movie written and directed by a lot of filmmakers and it stars a lot of people. This movie was a first time watch for me and it was very average.

Positives for To Each His Own Cinema (2007): I really enjoyed watching this collection of short films by various directors. I like the different styles from these filmmakers and it was cool to see what they like to do with their movies. My favorite short film is the one from the Coen Brothers. And finally, I can see this anthology movie getting movie fans interested in watching other movies made by these different filmmakers.

Negatives for To Each His Own Cinema (2007): There are too many short films for me to watch and it felt overstuffed. This is one of those anthology movies where you can feel the tone shift the most. And finally, I had an extremely hard time trying to find these short films on YouTube as I had to do a lot of searching and it was a pain in the ass for me.

Overall, To Each His Own Cinema (2007) is an okay enough anthology movie that I can appreciate as a film fan, but I wouldn't be in a rush to rewatching these short films anytime soon.

Quite the little trove of treasures this one, and some duds too. Chacun son cinéma is a collection of short works by various directors which was released in 2007 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. Many different topics and genres are explored. It's a bit of a mixed bag but there is something here for everyone.