☆ ☆ ☆ ½
The Story of Film: A New Generation (2021) – M. Cousins
Filmmaker and critic
Mark Cousins waited ten years to offer this four-hour sequel to his 15-hour mini-series,
The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011). Whereas the first series covered the
history of film up to that point, the new release aims to highlight trends and
new contributions in film in the 21st century specifically. As before, Cousins narrates in his
soft-spoken Northern Irish lilt (which some have called soporific in comments
on IMDb but which I quite enjoy), pointing out aspects of the various clips
that he’s chosen and making connections across films. The organisation here is
very loose and rambling and whatever trends and themes Cousins has found don’t always
become especially explicit. At times, he
seems to be grouping films by genre (horror, documentary) but in other places,
he seems to want to argue that advances in technology or the onset of the
pandemic are the contributing factors to new trends. But the overall feel of
the film is just a relatively random, stream of consciousness presentation of
cool movie clips accompanied by interesting insights. It pales in comparison to
the earlier opus but it’s still a fun watch and a place to find out about art-house
and experimental films you may have missed.
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