SEQUELS can be a tricky business in film: only rarely is a follow-up as good or – even rarer – better than the original which spawned it.
The Godfather Part II, Mad Max 2, Aliens and The Raid II are all exceptions to the law of diminishing cinematic returns (both creatively and at the box office) proved by a landfill of ill-advised/conceived/executed drek like Exorcist II, RoboCop 2, Speed 2 and Mean Girls 2.
Happily, Co Antrim-raised film-maker Mark Cousins can now add his name to the short list of directors who have successfully followed up their own work with something worthwhile.
The Story of Film: A New Generation is Cousins' sequel to his acclaimed 15-hour series on the birth and evolution of cinema, The Story of Film: An Odyssey, from 2011.
Clocking in at a comparatively succinct sub-three-hour running time, the new doc finds the writer/director traversing an eclectic selection of films from various genres and sourced from right across the globe; Hollywood horror, Thai psychedelic drama, African satirical comedy and hard-hitting Indian documentary to give but four examples of its wide scope.
Along the way, Cousins examines how the 'language' of cinema has evolved over the past decade, the impact of new technology on film-making and the increased diversity of representation on screen and behind the camera.
Due for a general cinema release early next year, The Story of Film: A New Generation was a big hit last month at the Cannes Film Festival last month, where it played as the opening night film selection having been described by festival director Thierry Frémaux as "a masterpiece".
Not bad, considering this was a sequel Edinburgh-based film-maker/lover Cousins never thought he would make.
"After I made The Story of Film: An Odyssey 10 years ago, I was exhausted," he tells me of the new documentary, an exclusive 30 minute preview of which will be shown at QFT Belfast tomorrow night to kick off the latest Docs Ireland festival.
"I wanted to move on to other types of film-making. But a decade later, so much has happened – not only in cinema but in society and technology. So, for all those reasons, I thought, 'Yeah, there's enough material there to go back to'. And then, of course, lockdown happened."
Indeed, with cinemas everywhere suddenly shuttered indefinitely due to the global pandemic, Cousins was given fresh impetus to create a new celebration and exploration of great films.
He says: "It was a time to make something like this under lockdown and it was made entirely so."
The starting point for the film was "a sense of change".
"I feel as if the kind of 'cinema river' has become a delta," explains Cousins.
"It has widened and there are far more tributaries and there are far more people making films and far more types of people making films, which is all for the good.
"I just wanted to tell a story of cinema which cast its net even wider than you might expect. A lot of people have done things on the 'best films of the last 10 years', and I have included a lot of the ones that were on those lists – but I did also really want to look into Arab cinema and Indian cinema and make sure there were surprises in there."
Cousins is our 'present tense' guide throughout the doc, his enthusiastic, conversational narration quickly explaining why each film has been chosen and pointing out any relevant comparisons/contrasts/parallels with other works of note – sometimes unexpectedly.
For example, a clip from Todd Phillips' controversial psychological thriller Joker is presented alongside a scene from Disney's musical kiddie-pleaser Frozen, with Cousins outlining how both Oscar-winning blockbusters share common narrative ground despite being polar opposites in terms of content, tone and intended audience.
"I love to try and find those kind of unexpected connections – I feel like an entertainer in that regard," he tells me.
"When you actually dig down into Joker and Frozen, they are both focused on a resentful person who is angry at the world in some way."
The documentary has an almost dreamlike quality that's simpatico with Cousins' stated belief that we lose ourselves "in the black box where light matters", an experience akin to actually falling asleep: well-chosen scenes and shots from Apichatpong Weerasethakul's hallucinatory 2015 drama Cemetery of Splendour are deployed to help set this twilight mood.
And, although he was restricted by the pandemic in terms of being able to shoot his own original footage for the project, Cousins was able to turn to his 'audience' for help.
"I asked people on social media to send me images of them 'falling asleep', as it were," he explains.
"I got hundreds and hundreds of them from all around the world.
"I felt there was something dreamlike about [the pandemic], so that has affected the type of film I've made: it has a kind of dreamlike quality to reflect that we as species of movie lovers were all experiencing the same feelings – the same kind of yearning for cinema.
"I know that can sound a bit naive, but there is something in that, the kind of global quality of cinema that I always love to touch upon."
The Story of Film: A New Generation remains optimistic that we will continue to gather together in 'black boxes' to enjoy the movie theatre experience for some time to come, despite the economic impact on cinemas of the pandemic and indeed home streaming platforms.
"I think human beings will always want to have these experiences in dark rooms, which are a bit transgressive or about losing ourselves in the cinema," he says.
Indeed, the end of lockdown has proved a boon for those cinemas which managed to survive 18 months without regular patrons, as movie lovers rushed back to the big screens for a much needed fix of movie magic – including Cousins himself.
"People were worried that we might forget the pleasures of cinema, but the box office in countries that are Covid-clear is really healthy at the moment," he tells me.
"I went to the cinema on the very first day [they re-opened]. After the first lockdown I saw Tenet and after the second lockdown I saw In The Heights. I will probably remember them for quite a long time because they were like the first drinks of water after having been in a desert for a long time.
"I've been going as often as possible ever since – just like normal."
:: Mark Cousins will present a 30 minute preview of The Story of Film: A New Generation followed by a post-screening Q&A session at 6.30pm tomorrow at QFT Belfast as part of the Docs Ireland festival. See belfastfilmfestival.org for tickets and full festival programme
