Los Angeles Plays Itself

The documentary feature film "Los Angeles Plays Itself" is long, it was so long that while I sat sprawled on our vaguely Egyptian patterned couch, from I would argue 1996 judging on the shape and general condition of the fabric, (admittedly it has not been the same since Mads brought these indigo jeans that have greyed the fabric in places and I don't know whether you can dry clean a couch, but it sort of seems like it needs it. I have been thinking of reupholstering it, but seems like an unnecessary expense, but again going out and buying a new couch is a challenge that I am not up to at this point in my life) Mads went and left the room to have a snooze and came back an hour and a half later refreshed and embued with a spirit of renewal and optimism and I was still sprawled on the couch watching "Los Angeles Plays Itself".

If you have the patience to endure a film that will digress and spend ten minutes coursing through the filmic representations of one site in Los Angeles since about 1913, then this is the film for you. There are many interesting facts that you can use in dinner parties or just in general conversation. And then they are gone; lost like Los Angeles architectural heritage, but preserved, as we are continually reminded in the film, by the documentary record of establishing shots, tracking shots and those crane pulls that serve to accentuate how small a character is and what a huge mess they are in.

It did get me thinking, as I watched the film, as a three hour film in this period of instant gratification and tabs that you can flick through and smartphones ringing with notifications from of one of five social media platforms that you have established a "presence" on, about the place of longer cinema forms currently. How difficult films like "Meek's Cutoff" or "Inherent Vice" are, the former for its glacial pace which I struggled to enjoy sitting next to Sophie at the Film Festival in Wellington and felt the entire time that I had definitely picked the wrong film to introduce Sophie to art house films (admittedly it was quite enjoyable as well, knowing that every time I looked at her she was scowling in deep agony and was trapped in) or the latter, which despite being majestic and wonderful etc., had this byzantine plot that required a focus that is not required in "Los Angeles Plays Itself" or in any film currently in the cinema. I remember being trapped at a film about Ballet, some Ballet company in New York, one of probably fifteen people in the cinema, but being between two people of which the one was an elderly lady and the other was this obese man who slept through the entire film, and how escape was basically the only thing on my mind.

I have digressed, "Los Angeles Plays Itself" is referred to on the internet as the best documentary about Los Angeles, it probably is. Once you have finished watching it, you will never want to watch another documentary about Los Angeles.