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

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.

Metacinema is cinema in the cinema. This is the connection between many directors. Their passion to the cinema expressed with the metacinema, a dimension that dates back to the metatheater( theather in theater) of Greeks, the Shakespeare' s Hamlet and this meta- concept often becomes a presence in the cinema.

(This review concerns the DVD version, which omits the contributions by the Coens and Lynch.) Omnibus films are always a mixed bag, but one thing can be said about this one: No other omnibus contains as many films from so many talented directors. So, as omnibuses go, this is pure joy. All these three-minute-pieces deal with being in a movie theater or watching movies. Some goodies and some baddies: Only a few directors manage to compress intensity and emotion into even the briefest, most unassuming forms. One of them is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – his single-shot entry about a blind movie goer (one of three in this collection) is mysteriously touching and formally exquisite.

Another director of that ilk is Wong Kar-Wai – his film manages to evoke intense feelings of desire and memory with a few almost abstract shots of people in a dark theater, like glowing orange and red strokes on a black canvas, a few intertitles, and dialogue from Godard's "Alphaville": wonderful. Except Wong, all the other Chinese(-speaking) directors show rather wistful visions of the past, including Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Taiwan's Tsai Ming-Liang is the most original among them: In characteristically perfect compositions and hypnotic pace, he imagines his childhood family having a picnic in a movie theater – as if the cinema is a repository of a home long lost. "It's a dream", and not without irony.

Talking about wistful – I like much of Theo Angelopoulos' work, but not that certain underlying pompousness, that "Look at me – I'm a poet!" attitude. Here he has an aged, dignified Jeanne Moreau recite her text from the final scene of Antonioni's "La notte", then addressed to Marcello Mastroianni, to – an actor playing Mastroianni's ghost. Aw, no, Theo! There's just one Marcello, remember? Put his picture on a wall, show him in a scene, but don't replace him with someone else! This is a dedication that backfires. But it is on the foil of such serious arty attempts that other contributions shine, like Lars Von Trier. I had expected something conceptually more intriguing from him, but maybe it is conceptually intriguing to, in the company of illustrious artists, deliver something that is just gross. Trier addresses one of the most serious issues of watching movies: the idiots you're watching them with. He offers an ultimate example of that character, and the ultimate solution. My laugh-out-loud moment. A similar moment of resistance to good taste is Cronenberg's "The suicide of the last jew in the last cinema of the world" – there's not much more to it than the title indicates, but it's fun for one reason. I think the very first film the director ever showed in Cannes was one of his early experimental features, and it just tanked. These early works consisted of dialogue-free scenes with bizarre voice-overs, and Cronenberg uses this form again here. That is irony. And Raoul Ruiz is the man. At his best, he combines Godard's literacy with a reluctant love for storytelling and rich, surprising visuals. Here, he has read Marcel Mauss' "Essai sur le don". A blind man tells how a missionary, a man of God, gave a radio and a movie projector to some Indians. They ritually transform these gifts into ceremonial exchange items and sacrifices. When they give them back to the westerners, they turn them into blind atheists, thus taking away from them both God and the images. And that's just one level of what is happening in these mind-boggling three minutes. Roman Polanski's recurring themes are sex, random cruelty, misleading conclusions and awkward situations – and they are all present here, in this little joke about an elderly couple watching an erotic film. It's quite literal – you could tell it to your friends at a party – but nicely executed. (And why does everyone, except the groaning man, wear glasses?) Abbas Kiarostami's entry is a sketch for "Shirin", his follow-up feature, using the same concept: You do not see the movie, but the reaction of the Iranian women watching it. The film being Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet", the paradigmatic tale of forbidden love, their emotional reactions are powerful and evocative. It makes me long to see "Shirin". And as for the rest, see for yourself.

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.

Its difficult to assess and review this film because it comprises of so many different directors and direction styles that grading this movie would be quite unfair to them all. Certain segments are simply brilliant whereas certain leave us with a 'wtf was that all about?' emotion. The film as a whole feels like skimming through the personal diaries of various directors wherein we may sometimes come across gems whereas certain sections only make sense to the film makers themselves.

Nevertheless, it is an essential watch for people who love experimental cinema because as an experimental film, it works brilliantly. It will probably make you feel how all movies make you feel. Take it as a taster of all the various genres of movies presented in bite sized pieces. The movie consists of humour, thrills, horror, autobiographies, biographies, drama, romance, erotica, documentaries, surrealism viz every single genre that exists...alas...no animation.

It is a very personal selection and everyone is guaranteed to find something that he/she likes. Overall this is a great collection of shorts and a must see. The star grading reflects how I perceived the movie as a whole - recommended.