Counting

What surprises (a little) and fascinates (a lot) are the town-to-town commonalities Counting invites you to appraise.

This is the kind of contemplative cinematheque piece that washes pleasurably over you, inviting the viewer to tune in or out, to free-associate or locate the subtle connections and recurring themes as Cohen trains his restless, inquisitive gaze on faces and features that represent a wide spectrum of life.

His film is vivid and yet elusive. He shoots first so that we might ask questions later.

A wistful meditation on the world, its beauties, mysteries and injustices.

The result is a challenging work that can be both exhilarating and grueling in its deliberate pace. Cohen is an undeniably gifted filmmaker, even if the sum total of this piece isn’t quite as interesting as its parts.

There's a kind of helpless humility to the presentation of these urban impressions, almost a kind of democracy, that allows you to engage as much or as little as you like with them.

The poetic pretenses are compounded by a sledgehammer insistence on elusive and irreducible moments as inherently beautiful.