Side by Side, Keanu Reeves' bookish account of digital heresy and good fortune, favours the meat and potatoes of now. The latter applies sufficient baity remarks to his hook: can digital replace traditional, photochemical filmmaking?

We get plenty of shuffling in the yay and nay of it all, yet there's no firm editorial commander holding a rigid instruction booklet. Avatar's James Cameron weaves chameleon-like through the confusion, finding culturally astute things to pin to his notice board. Meanwhile, cinematographer Wally Pfister puts down digital, pumps up film like an arm wrestler and languishes in pro-digital contradictions.

Any hunt for the truth gets swamped by numerous interpretations. Blue Velvet's David Lynch jumps right in with a point about film being like the latest finding of an extinct dinosaur. In other words, he may be saying goodbye to 35mm celluloid. My own quibbles with old-fashioned still photography range from the lack of immediacy to prolonged development times. The same disadvantages strangle film as a competitor to the new CCD chip's "immediatelies." Adding to which, the grandfather format cannot capture the ultra-violet delights, like those spread over Collateral. 

What harm can digital bring? No argument against the format stands up, even from those totally inured to its charms. These seem like petty prejudices. If we are witnessing a film versus digital equivalent of the civil rights struggle, leave it to the individual thinking mind to determine what best suits him or her.

I yearn for close-cavity filmmaking, the kind that dances on the edge of opportunity and expressive gear-turning. Digital has arrived with fresh legs.

(Released by Tribeca Film; not rated by MPAA.)