Thom Andersen's amazing compilation film is a tour (de force) of Los Angeles in the movies, with a detour to the Los Angeles Andersen calls his city. The meticulously organized, analytical, yet entertaining stream of movie clips and location images is set to a film noir–style voiceover; Andersen (or should we say, his narrator) has a chip on his shoulder the size of Hollywood. This hardboiled passion fuels a monumental project of sifting through movies shot in Los Angeles that offer us “a history of our icons,” to find those that actually are interested in what makes Los Angeles a city-movies in which Los Angeles “plays itself.” The City of Angels evolves from background, to character, to subject before our eyes. Andersen's take is at once informed and idiosyncratic-he may be the first to delineate the denigration of Modernist architecture (and the meaning of Spanish colonial) in the movies; he's found a sad little park named for Bette Davis, and myriad mysterious signs (“Crimes”) denoting location shoots; his nostalgia for Bunker Hill is politically astute, as is his compassion for the denizens of downtown who just won't go away; and movie buffs will be charmed by his asides, such as when he, almost under his breath, compares Dragnet's spare style to Bresson.

Winner, best documentary, Vancouver Film Festival.

Los Angeles Plays Itself is repeated on Sunday, June 13. It also screens at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday, June 4. Information, (415) 978-ARTS.