Our Greek friend (formerly of Co Durham) loved it.
I lived in Durham City for five years in the early Eighties, but every day commuted across Co Durham to Teesside via the bleak, devastated mining villages. Two very, very different worlds that only met one day a year on the day of the Big Meet (the Miners’ Gala). Will have to see the film.
Thanks
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Last night was L’enlèvement (kidnapped) an Italian film in all senses of the word! The friends we were with loved it but I was a touch more lukewarm as ended up feeling a bit battered around the head by its brilliance. It was a bit like a spoilt child saying “look at me”, “look at me”, “aren’t I just wonderful”.
Having said that the film was fascinating. Set in 1850’s - 1870’s and revolves around a true story of a young jewish child being removed from his family by decree of Pope Pious IX. A seriously nasty piece of work. This real event was a major scandal the time, and the film brings in the political aspects so the unification of Italy and the downfall of the papal states is intertwined with this story of tyranny and anti- semitism. Which makes for a full-on film packed with real historical detail and very gripping.
The cinematography was also remarkable. A bit like being plunged into Caravaggio’s world as each scene was so perfectly put together with interplay of light and shade. I think you could take any still from the film and hang it on a wall. One remarkable scene was when the Italian army broke into the Papal Palace, and black clad soldiers with dramatic helmets were chasing the young priests in their black soutanes hither and thither in a back-lit palace corridor. It could have been a Matthew Borne ballet!
And the casting! Even though edged towards caricature at times there were some stunning faces. You would not willingly be alone in a room with the Papal inquisitor Father Felleti, who just exuded evil.
I’m sure it will win things and, to me, is one of the best of Marco Bellocchio’s films.
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Our latest was Wim Wenders’ new film Perfect Days. We loved it, although some critics were a bit lukewarm.
A film to settle back in your comfy seat, let your blood pressure drop, and become absorbed in the daily life of a Tokyo toilet cleaner for a couple of hours. Beautifully detailed, carefully filmed, and the fact that the music was late 70’s/early 80’s worked for us! The cinema was quite full, but was totally silent as everyone seemed captivated so not a crunch of popcorn to be annoyed about.
Nothing much happened, but at the same time one was so absorbed into his slow paced and quite small world that lots happened! In fact possibly too much drama, as I didn’t really need the final twist.
The actor playing the toilet cleaner was great, and the final very long take focused on his face and subtle changes of emotion was impressive. You get his whole philosophy over the course of the film, but for those who want a spolier it’s komorebi…. Love it!
It’s in Japanese with French subtitles but since you could probably fit the script onto one page A4 this should be accessible to all.
(Apparently Wim Wenders was invited to Japan with the aim of getting him to make some shorts about some new toilets. He decided to do a feature length film. For which I am pleased.)
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He’s one of my favourite directors, but the one I want to see is Anselm. I’ve seen all the previous Kiefer films and TV progs. We have artist friends whom we visit every other year that live about 20kms from Barjac. Unfortunately the tour of the site lasts several hours and our host isn’t physically up to that. Also they don’t allow dogs and my wife doesn’t feel confident about leaving her precious Gigi in our friends’ care for a few hours.
Other friends in Eindhoven saw the movie in 3D last night and thought it was wonderful (if that’s the right word for a vision that’s fairly bleak)…
I have a 1990s/80s video tape of Kiefer sowing teeth in the Iraqi desert; the scene closes with possibly the longest pull-back I’ve ever seen and of course viewed retrospectively is a harbinger of what was to come.
Today Kiefer’s Barjac ‘ruins’ appear harbingers of what we see every day on TV, in Kviv, Gaza and too many other places around the world
Anselm is on our list. We missed it in local cinema but hope it will return nearby in new year. Since ours are small art house cinemas there is often only one showing.
I want to see Past Lives and l’Arbre aux Cocons d’Or.
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La Zone d’interêt is just out. Jonathan Glazer’s take on Martin Amis’s book.
It centres on the Höss (the commandant of Auschwitz) family and their day to day life in their house which is on the other side of the wall round the camp. It is chilling in its normality. You never see anything of the camp itself, but the sound is ever present. And this disjunct between the sounds of gunshots, screams, dogs barking, and the blond Ayran children playing in a beautiful garden 20metres away which their hausfrau mother describes to her family as a paradise is deeply disturbing.
One scene which got to me is Höss’s wife twirling in front of a mirror with evident pleasure about wearing a new fur coat, just like any ordinary woman. The coat, just like one my Nana wore, is of course stolen from aJewish woman who has been gassed. As she maintains the pretence that nothing odd is happening, even as she turns away from the smoke billowing from crematorium chimneys. But reflecting on this scene there is the intimation that she did know, as she felt the hem of the coat, and later commented it needed repair (clothes taken from the victims were checked for hidden gold and jewellery).
Everything in the film is understated, unsaid. Which makes it quite a powerful commentary on how evil can spread through routine and banality. And by avoiding all the images of the horror makes you think in a different way about how these people managed to do what they did.
Disturbing, but absorbing.
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Some further background for anyone interested
The actor playing Hedwig was very good and, despite knowing full well the characterisation was fictional, I really did want her to come to a nasty end like her husband. But the kids were all far too young to have any culpability so must have been difficult for them
German film festival at our cinema so went to see Anselm today, even tho’ 2 films in a week is a bit greedy.
Very much a Wim Wenders’ film. So a very creative take on a great artist, with lovely mix of material and historic clips. They didn’t show it in 3D, but despite that I found it visually very strong. In fact it might have made me a bit queasy to see it in 3D. But essential to see on a big screen as anything smaller wouldn’t capture his work well at all. The images of the Venice Biennale were wonderful, I feel sad I never saw it.
Packed a massive amount into the film, spanning a lot of his work, his influences and career. But not a plodding chronological exposé by any means! And charmingly Anselm’s son played him as a young man, and Wim Wender’s son played him as a boy.
Having seen a film on Nazi Germany yesterday I found the contrast with Anselm Kiefer’s approach to myth, memory, German culture, and the aftermath of World War II quite thought provoking, Even if not convinced I agree with him that the taboo of nazi’ism should be confronted,
Worth seeing!
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My daughter went to see ISS. Psychological thriller set on the space station who witness nuclear destruction down on earth and each side are instructed to take over the station leading to some thought provoking problems. She said it was very good and chilling too.
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In the Kiefer film I mentioned earlier in this thread, Melvyn Bragg asked him, if he was a Nazi or and anti-Nazi (after US critics like Crimp had slated his early paintings). Kiefer replied that he was neither because to call himself an ‘anti-Nazi’ would be an insult to those who had bravely opposed Nazism at the time. He then courageously added that he had no idea what he would have been if he’d been born twenty years earlier (and of course his mentor, Beuys had been a Luftwaffe pilot).
I found this non-judgemental way of thinking very helpful when I moved to S Africa just after the end of Apartheid and had some staff in my department who had served in the SA Defence Force and others who had emigrated to avoid conscription. You can’t choose your parents, nor where, or when you are born .
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Forgot to add this link to a very good English video about Kiefer that was made a few years ago
Oh yes and I’m jealous of all the people I know around Europe who’ve already seen the new Kiefer movie - and I’m worried it won’t come our way out in the sticks…
You can’t get much more out in the sticks than we are! I think Figeac is “your” town? Which has a level of culture we can only aspire too!
But do not be tempted to stream it on a tv size screen, it would be a mistake.
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Yesterday in Figeac our French teacher described the town as ‘trop bobo’ but despite thinking of myself as living in ‘la France profonde’ (15 kms away) I’m probably still a tad bobo, OTOH I also tend to see Figeac as full of hippy beggars with unfortunate dogs.
Kiefer always needs ‘big’!
Just back from seeing Poor Things - English soundtrack French sub-titles (a combo that tends to split my senses in two, but I’m getting better at synthesising it).
Anyhow it’s a clever steampunk reworking of the Frankenstein genre, with a dash of Candide and a lot of humour, also a lot of very densely inventive CGI in most scenes’ visually saturated settings that doesn’t try to fool the eye, but instead does the reverse.
Very enjoyable, but one could also get profound about it, which I won’t, except to suggest does it fall within real C19th debates about nature and nurture - Caspar Hauser and the ‘Wild Boy of Aveyron.’ https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels/three/4.html#:~:text=%22Victor%2C%20the%20Wild%20Boy%20of,the%20care%20of%20his%20housekeeper.
Should have mentioned it earlier, and you may well know this already, but if not there’s an excellent, massively informative section in Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory on Kiefer, Friedrich, the Romantic German landscape and the origins of German identity.
Completely forgot that, thanks. Will re-read despite fact Simin Schama drives me slightly scratchy.
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I’ve found that book really useful in so many ways, not least including its parallels (though far less horrendous) with the revival of Scottish nationalism in the second half of the C19th. The Wallace Memorial and its Hall of Scottish Heroes is straight out of Kiefer, but fortunately without the naked flame in a wooden building (presumably Scottish H&S regs are more rigorous)
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