**/****
directed by Nejib Belkadhi
by Alex Jackson There may very well be a Pauline Kael review for every occasion. For VHS – Kahloucha, it's her dismissal of Francois Truffaut's Day for Night: "[It's] a movie for the movie-struck, the essentially naïve–those who would rather see a movie, any movie (a bad one, a stupid one, or an evanescent, sweet-but-dry little wafer of a movie like this one), than do anything else." Ayup, that about covers it. This documentary portrait of amateur Tunisian filmmaker Moncef Kahloucha never makes the mistake of condescending to its subject, but it never quite elucidates why Kahloucha's films are worthy of study, either. I can't evaluate the man's work as I haven't seen it and the excerpts herein are not substantial enough to facilitate a reasonably accurate assessment, but the film seems to celebrate art for art's sake. Director Nejib Belkadhi doesn't appear to have any critical capacity whatsoever; if you make moving pictures, he sees you as a filmmaker worthy of celebration. VHS – Kahloucha does do some good in showing that Tunisians aren't idiots–they know that their country does not have a national or truly commercial cinema and they see Kahloucha's films for exactly what they are: gonzo Z-movies shot in their home country by a cinematic outlaw. One viewer ecstatically points out a scene filmed on a judge's back lawn, exhilarated both by the fact that he recognized it and by the fact that Kahloucha had the balls to shoot there. But it's all rather dramatically inert, the kind of evanescent, sweet-but-dry little wafer of a movie Kael described. Part of the problem is clearly that Kahloucha is a local celebrity in Tunisia and among Tunisian immigrants. His films are very popular, lots of people enjoy them, and so they have value on some level; VHS – Kahloucha doesn't survive comparison with Chris Smith's American Movie, where amateur filmmakers are pretty hopeless indeed but press on because they know that without a dream they wouldn't have much of anything. That's poignant and heartbreaking. With VHS – Kahloucha, it's hard to disguise our apathy.
