Menschen am Sonntag (1930)

Jag sitter hemma en lördag innan en söndag som innehåller ett fruktat tyskt val. Med huvudet fullt av olycksbådande funderingar slår jag mig ner med en stumfilm från 1930 som jag känt till men inte sett. En drös filmskapare bekanta från Hollywood men ursprungligen verksamma i Weimartyskland fick i fogen mellan 20- och 30-talet till stånd den glimrande och lekfulla Menschen am Sonntag som utspelar sig bland fem ungdomar (spelas av amatörer) som firar helg i Berlin. Det är en drömskt dröjande beskrivning av ovardagen, att lämna arbetets slit och leda bakom sig och kasta sig in i nöjen och bekymmerslöshet. Att vara ledig. Kameran dröjer än vid den urbana rytmen (tänk: Ruttman/Vertov), än vid idyllisk natur i Wannsee. Framför allt fastnar jag för hur kameran i närbild söker sig till spelet av sol och skuggor på unga människors ansikten. Solkatter darrar, skuggor glider, ett ihärdigt solsken lyser upp stad och människa.

Filmen handlar själv om det flyktiga & förgängliga, om ett avbrott, en andningspaus. Utgångspunkten är alltså upprepning och veckoslutets förlustelser som en avvikning och -brott men också en upprepning. Vid sidan av smärre besvikelser och gnabb är detta en ljus film, romantisk rentutav. Och naturligtvis skär det i hjärtat att se detta här nu och tänka på vad som skedde tre år efter att filmen blev klar. 

Curt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnemann och Billie Wilder levde senare alla i exil och gjorde karriärer inom film (och litteratur) i USA. I Mennschen am Samstag arbetar de tillsammans med Eugen Schüfftan (som skötte fotoarbetet och som emigrerade till Frankrike sen) på en film som knappt har handling men däremot ett stort mått av atmosfär och känsla. 

Två uppsättningar kompisar firar söndag. Det är flört, musik (från portabel grammafon), bad och sol. Ett femte hjul rullar inte alls utan ligger nerbäddad i sin säng, för hon orkade inte stiga upp efter en gårdag där hon surt sett sin kille spela kort med sin kompis. Det är den joviala taxichauffören och playboyen som jobbar med lite allt möjligt; ett kassabiträde i en skivbutik och sen en modell och en tjej som varit filmstatist. Busiga killar och chica flickor med coola frisyrer. Alla kollar in alla och det erotiska är lite överallt (dock ganska hetero). Det som sker (bråk, besvikelser, sex) beskrivs som flyktiga händelser i liv som ännu håller på att formas i en oförutsägbar framtid. Vilket ju får en tyngd bortom själva filmen.

Fotot uttrycker en ivrig förundran för hur allt kan vara som det är. Från reklam och byggnader som tornar upp sig till trampbåtar och badande människor. I en bländande och kontemplativ scen ser vi en gatufotograf ta bilder av folk på stranden. Jag antar att de som filmas här är vanligt folk som råkat vara just där. Från en äldre människas ambivalenta åtbörd till ungdomars spefulla grimaser och en baby som krälar fram. När deras ansikten fryser i bild börjar åtminstone jag undra över hur de här människornas liv såg ut tre år senare och om det alls fanns liv tio år senare, efter bl.a. ett annat Wannsee än det vi ser här. 

Det är längtansfullt och infallen är många, både i "storyn" och i filmens grepp. Såklart har den här klassikern placerats sida vid sida med sextiotalets nya vågor. Den här lågbudgetsfilmen manar i varje fall på ett egenartat sätt fram söndagskänslan och det frihetsbegrepp som är förankrat i en urban klass som har det ganska bra, kan spendera söndagspengar och tillbringa söndagstid. Helgen, ledigheten, semestern är ett outtömligt motiv på film. Själva vårt begrepp om fritiden kan ju egentligen sägas ha vuxit fram jämsides med filmens födelse – arbetarna lämnar fabriken. Därför är det intressant att se hur fritid skildras i den tidiga filmen, och hur det kommer att förändras, hur betoningarna förskjuts, hur idealen delvis är de samma. 

Inte minst tänker jag på hjältinnorna hos Rohmer vars ängsliga grubblerier kring den lediga tiden öppnar raviner av liv. Några raviner är det inte frågan om hos Siodmak et al (snarare ungdomliga upptåg) men jag förstår varför Menschen am Sonntag har blivit en klassiker. Inte minst på grund av upphovsmakarnas känsla för samtida masskultur, underhållning och urbanitet utan att för den skull vara genomskådande kapitalism- och borgerlighetskritik. "Although the film was made at an especially fragile moment in history, between the recent stock market collapse and the rise of National Socialism, its lyricism evokes a strange sense of calm, purity, and innocence." Så skriver Noah Isenberg i en essä.

Det som också är fräscht (fortfarande) med Menschen am Sonntag är dess hybridform. Det dokumentära blandas med fiktionens konstruktioner. Allt i en takt som rymmer det makliga och det snabba och vertovskt ettriga. Med andra ord: en dynamisk och rörlig film. Hipster- och dudebro-stämningar från sin era som nu av tiden och historien laddats med mening. 

Müll im Garten Eden (2012)

Çamburnu, ett samhälle i Turkiet vid Svarta havet. Myndigheterna har tillåtit en nedgrävd soptipp (deponi) att inrättas här, på platsen där en koppargruva en gång funnits. Regissören Fatih Akin (Auf der anderen Seite, Gegen die Wand) har själv (några av) sina rötter på den här orten, och i Müll im Garten Eden dokumenterar han den absurda process som drar igång när invånarna gör allt för att förhindra en miljökatastrof och ett tickande (eller snarare rinnande och luktande) hälsoproblem. Deras möda, de olika rättsprocesser som initieras, tycks mest gagnlösa och här får tittaren en liten inblick i ett land som har skrotat rättssamhället. Filmen består av intervjuer med borgmästaren och med olika representanter för både soptipps-företaget och myndigheter. Men framför allt vill Fatih Akin ge en inblick i Çamburnu, i den vantrivsel som tilltar när stanken från tippen blir bara värre och när man oroar sig för om det är en vettig idé att odla något eller att fiska i havet. För tippen var ju inte det kontrollerade ingenjörsmästerverk som myndigheterna utlovat. Lakvattnet far iväg åt alla håll. Det stinker, det svämmar över, ekosystemen förskjuts, en tank för dräneringsvatten exploderar. Företagets representanter kläcker ur sig saker som "jamen det är ju bara så att det har regnat lite och därför svämmat över", "det löser sig nog av sig självt". Ansvar, det vill ingen ta. Akin har intervjuat flera ungdomar som säger att de inte längre vill bo kvar, de äldre är bittert medvetna om avfolkningen. I en scen ser vi några gubbar strida om politik. Det här är Erdoğans fel, utbrister en, och får mothugg och blir kallad "terrorist". Filmen kom ut 2012, då var Erdoğan statsminister och hade varit det sedan länge. Müll im Garten Eden är ingen fulländad film (den slits liksom åt olika håll och blir inte helhjärtad), men den är ett intressant tidsdokument och en viktig plädering för möjligheten att kunna påverka sin egen närmiljö. Och så ger den just en vink om allt som är åt helvete med rättssystemet i Turkiet. Fast filmen är inte ute efter att förklara något (det fanns för mig som är okunnig om Turkiet många förvirrande frågor), utan mer visa hur olika situationer fortskrider. I några scener får det absurda komma in, som när parfymflaskorna åker fram för att ta bort lukten.

Müll im Garten Eden, 2012
Regi: Fatih Akin.

Ludwig (1972)

Finnish state television made a bold move by broadcasting a rather unconventional movie on Christmas Eve - Visconti's Ludwig is not your standard chrimstmassy Capra fare but rather a zany, bombastic (in a good way) movie about Ludgwig II, king of Bavaria, who became king in 1864 . The film has not always gained positive reviews. Ebert calls it "lethargic". But for me, it was the wonderfully gloomy lethargy that drove this film to its conclusion, and doing it in unfaltering style. One may complain about Visconti's strange obsession with decadence (as in others of his movies from this period) - there are some scenes in which you are not sure whether you are watching this movie or The Damned. But here what he does conjures up a culture, what that culture creates.

Ludwig the king is a melancholy fellow who is friends with Wagner. This friendship is rendered in an odd way - we see the two huddle in Wagner's rooms, accompanied by the composer's big and fluffy dog. Wagner is acted with a sort of understatement - he is a workaholic and a supremely self-centered man. The film follows Ludwig's progression, or digression/depression) from shy young man to the king who built crazy castles and tried to rule the world from his bed. But we know very little about the world outside Ludwig's bedroom. We get the sense that Ludwig has very little insight into the world around him. His being king is a heavy burden he cannot handle.

Instead of relying on the traditional biography movie pattern - creating historical panoramas, as it were - Visconti opts for a much more enigmatic and, well, personal path. Which makes Ludwig much more interesting than most films about historical figures. Idiosyncratic, yes, hard to follow at times, yes, tedious moments, yes. But all in all - the weirdness and the brooding, heavy atmosphere (not to mention the sets) saves this movie. The shadows loom depressingly over rotten civilization while the hollow-eyed characters sleep-walk through ridiculously ornamental hallways. Ludwig may be a shallow film that doesn't teach you a lot about Germany in the 19th century, but what it loses in seriousness it wins in decadent splendor.

Barbara (2012)

What was it like to live in the DDR? Christian Petzold's Barbara successfully brings home the existential dread among the citizens. Barbara (a very restrained Nina Hoss) has been incarcerated and now she tries to create a new life for herself. She is a doctor and works in a provincial town. Nobody knows her. Most of the colleagues find her repulsively aloof. She distrusts everybody. She knows perfectly well that she is being watched. Andre, a friendly type, is also working in the hospital. He also works for Stasi, but his true allegiance lies elsewhere. At her job, Barbara treats a girl with whom she develops a warm friendship. With this girl. we see her otherwise chilly appearance fall off. Barbara's lover lives in West Germany and sometimes she gets to meet her in secret places. We quickly learn that Barbara has other plans than to settle for a quiet rural life. The film skillfully examines the world of surveillance: most of all, it shows what bearing it has on people's ordinary social life. Petzold shows how a sense of distrust distorts almost everything. Barbara, with her steely face, is not a very likeable character (which is not a bad thing): she is distant, she has learnt how to hide all emotions - she has learnt self-control. Barbara is not a thriller, even though it has such an element. Its story about escape is told quietly, elegantly - the emphasis lies on a harrowing form of suspense that is felt also in the everyday scenes. In the more intense moments, every small detail has a terrible weight: the crunch of gravel, a wrong turn with the bicycle. In other words: this is a film where suspense is built into the social world itself, as a constant fear of imminent or more vaguely felt threats, rather than being a cheap cinematic effect. A merit of the film is that the dealings of the secret police are seen in their being embedded in a world in which people go about doing their everyday business: this makes the film truly frightening. I also admire the sudden moments of quiet beauty. In one scene, Barbary is biking on a craggy gravel road. The only thing we hear is the howling wind. The leaves are rustling and the birds are screaming.

Germany Year Zero (1948)

Unflinching is the word that best describes Rossellini's Germany Year Zero. It might have taken me two screenings to realize how great this film really is, but when I think back on it now I am impressed not only by its famous depiction of a war-stricken city, but also by the deadpan acting by the very young protagonist, whose presence on screen betrays no hint of sentimentality. For me, this film is very different from Rome, Open City which had a much more conventional emotional and narrative structure.

The protagonist's family struggles with poverty. Dad is sick and the sister may be a prostitute. Edmund hustles goods and tries to look for a job, but he is too young. He drifts through the traumatized city, trying to make a buck. We get the immediate sense that his fate is shared by many, many others. The camera pans on the streets on Berlin. Rubble and starving people. Bombed buildings and desperation.

Germany Year Zero has no character development, no story to talk about. It follows Edmund's wanderings through the city and registers his encounters with young criminals, children his own age and a former teacher who has a dubious interest in kids. The only consolation the film offers is the purity of its testimony. It might seem strange to talk about testimony given that this is a fictional narrative, but the approach of the film elicits that concept - testimony. The concept of testimony shows the moral urgency at hand. To talk about testimony is also perhaps to say that these images are connected with a specific responsibility with regard to how something is said, or revealed. I am not sure what status one should lend to the fact that Rossellini used non-professional actors who have lived in the same kind of environment. What matters the most is, I think, the emotional rawness of the film, the way it takes one to the end of the world, so the speak, a world in which there is no hope, no future, no possibilities. I think I have seen no other film in which grief resonates so ravagingly. I wouldn't judge this film from the perspective of technicalities ('innovations' of the neo-realist traditions and how they have fared today) but rather in what way the perspective still rings true.

Soul Kitchen (2007)

Fatih Akin's Gegen die Wand and Auf der anderen Seite were overwhelming viewing experiences for me. They are films that have stayed with me through the years. Soul Kitchen plays in another league, the lighthearted comedy league. Zinos owns a dingy restaurant/bar and his girlfriend has moved to China. Life is hard for Zinos: he misses his girlfriend, he's having back problems and he's employed a new chef who likes to do things his own way. The true love of his life, his bar, is invaded by tax officials, health inspectors and real estate scumbags who are making the daily grind even more painful. The reason why I can't complain about the movie is all the affection that it contains. The characters are milling about the industrial parts of Hamburg and I really start to care for them, even though the film itself offers rather conventional humor and a meat&poptato storyline.

Lili Marleen (1981)

Lili Marleen is far from Fassbinder's best work. It's a decent film, but also a rather unfocused and perhaps a bit uninspired one. The story is about a singer, Willie (fabulous overwrought Hannah Schygulla), whose career is linked to Nazi era sentiments. She is enamored with a Swiss guy involved in the resistance movement. Willie scores a big hit, a favorite among the German troops and among the nazi party elite. The cheesy song is played countless times in the movie and through his hyperbolic sense of melodrama, Fassbinder lets Willie stand for a hapless naivety. 'I only sing'. She's the diva who is known to the German people mostly as the 'woman who sings Lili Marleen. She considers herself to be against the Nazis, but her acting shows nothing of it. Her lover saves Jews and tries to reveal the truth about the nazis. He marries another woman and becomes a celebrated conductor. German soldiers ar heard roaring along to Lili Marleen and Willie perform the song in glossy evening dresses. These are colorful big budget images and I suppose the aim is to present a dreadful image of entertainment as a distortion, a lie or as a manifestation of the kind of skewed self-undertanding that Willie nurses about herself. However, Lili Marleen is not a film that digs out the contrast between surface and brutal reality. That contrast is not at all present here. Glamor, gloss and people's desperation and love-sick disappointment are rendered in the same bizarre and kitschy style. That Fassbinder focuses on a bombastic love story rather than the brutality of war is of course part of the irony of the film. If you will remember something from this film, it is probably Lili Marleen, the song we hear a thousand times in this movie, accompanied by crashing bombs. Even though the effect is striking, this remains a minor film.

Home from Home - Chronicle of a Vision (2013)

It might have been a silly idea to sit through a 4-hour movie without having seen the TV-series on which it is based. Because no, I haven't seen Heimat, of which Home from home: Chronicle of a vision (dir. Edgar Reitz) is a prequel. The story is set in the early 19th century village of Schabbach and the themes that reside at the core of the film are the longing to emigrate (to Brazil!) and the bonds of family. Gustav and Jacob are two brothers. Gustav is the perfect son, the perfect laborer, the one who makes the right choices. Jacob is the dreamer: he learns indian languages and dreams of faraway lands. As it happens, they fall for the same girl, the mute Jettchen. The tensions developed in the film concerns the struggle between realism and dreams. The voice of the film is almost entirely Jacob's. The problem with this is that Jacob's pretentiousness risks becoming the film's pretentiousness. Reitz works with neat B&W images that are sometimes interrupted by a speck of color. Home from Home clearly grapples with big issues: what is a home? What is a nation? What is realism? But somehow, these issues never really get gritty. I don't know whether the main disappointment is the script or the aesthetic choices Reitz has made. Societal upheavals lurk in the corners, and for me, this remains the most interesting dimension of the movie - Reitz skillfully works with hints, rather than full-blown analyses of social and political change. By all means: if you have 4 hours to spare and take an interest in a detailed exploration of rural life in 19th century Germany, Home from Home provides an engrossing viewing experience. For my taste, this film contained a bit too much of romanticism. // Werner Herzog appears in a cameo - that is maybe the funniest moment of the film, which does not otherwise excel in the department of jokes.

Hannah Arendt (2012)

Margaretha von Trotta's Hannah Arendt is a very successful attempt at what would from a specific angle appear to be hopelessly quixotic: to make a film about thinking. How many films about thinking have you seen? Not that many, perhaps. von Trotta is true to her restrained style. No excesses, no flirtation with the sensational. On the downside, Hannah Arendt starts on a wobbly - and too familiar note that seems to have a very unclear bearing on the material: Arendt is shown in her middle-class circles, talking about men. And there the trouble continues, for some (sadly, due to the sexism that philosophy and everything else is still steeped in), Hannah Arendt is most known for her romantic relationship with a certain Heidegger. As soon as Heidegger, with his bumbling demeanor and pompous speech, appears on the screen, the film becomes a farce. But Hannah Arendt is not a farce, its a film about philosophy in a hard time, what it means not to let thinking be caught up in "controversies". And controversies are what Arendt faced when she reported from the Jerusalem trail against Eichman which resulted in her book The Banality of Evil. The trial and the reception of the book is the heart of the film and here von Trotta's treatment of Arendt as a character shines. Bravery is a word I usually find problematic, perhaps associating it with a language of warfare and machismo. But I would say that von Trotta's rendition of Arendt highlights what it can mean to be brave. Arendt knew her description and interpretation of the Eichman case wouldn't sit well. People were hurt and angry. Arendt is shown as a person who listens to others but without letting her thoughts be compromised by fear of controversies.

In her essays and books, Arendt writes about the silent dialogue that takes place in our conscience, and what happens when we are split into two in a problematic way, where a unity of conscience is lost. von Trotta transports this point into an image of Arendt. We see Arendt smoking, thinking, smoking. (Barbara Sukowa does a GREAT job!) Even though these scenes capture silent contemplation they are not at all decorum. Actually, I would go as far as saying that these scenes occupy an extremely central position in the film, where we get a glimpse of Arendt as a philosopher, as a human being. As Arendt would say: to be alone and think, to question oneself, is an equally important aspect of life as appearing in front of others and testing one's judgment in the midst of an endless multiplicity of voices. Rarely have I seen such a tangible depiction of being alone on film. Not only is Arendt alone in the sense that only she can deal with the situation at hand (the controversy) but being alone in the film is also a form of sacred space, a space for reflection, a place where one prepares oneself for returning to the world and to plurality.

To sum up: you might expect a film about a philosopher to be packed with arguments. After all, this is the stereotypical image of philosophy: a pile of arguments. And yes, the dialogue in Hannah Arendt reflects the intellectual surrounding Arendt lived in (and well sometimes the lines are a bit clumsily transported from book to movie). But the philosophical talk has a variety of roles in the film (from chit-chat to lethal confrontation) and as I said, the dialogue of the film is surrounded by expressive silent scenes in which an immensely important side of the philosophical activity is revealed. Arendt is sometimes accused of being an arrogant intellectualist. In an extremely elegant and nuanced way, von Trotta explicitly deals with this accusation (after the Eichman book Arendt was derided as a callous person who shows no respect for feelings) but at the same time she shows why this might be a severe misunderstanding of what Arendt was talking about when she talked about thinking.

Waterloo (1929)

A silent film about Waterloo (Karl Grune) and political intrigues? That sounds rather dull, but when I watched this politically extremely fishy (pro-German agenda) film at the film archives in Brussels with live piano music, the experience turned to be quite interesting. It's a busy film, despite the fact that some of the time the action takes place around the negotiation table. It's also a long film and it is also a film that hammers home its message without worrries about subtlety: the battle scenes are stylized and from the get-go, good guys are good guys (= German). In the end, Waterloo is also a not very successful attempt to combine historical drama, war movie and romance - it all falls together, even though some scenes are saved by the director's attention to pace, some fun segments where split scenes are used along with some dreamy, humane scenes.

Marianne and Juliane (1981)

While eagerly looking forward to watching Margarethe von Trotta's film about Hannah Arendt, I notice that I have recorded another film of hers, Marianne and Juliane, from TV. The film has von Trotta's trademark descreet, subdued look. No overly melodramatic scenes, no exaggeration. But the content itself is far from descreet. Two sisters, two visions of political change. The film's Marianne is based on Gudrun Ensslin of the RAF. To what extent Juliane resembles Ensslin's real life sister I don't know. von Trotta shifts from images of the girls' adolescent years to their grown-up lives. There is a constant tension between the sisters. Both sisters are politically active. Juliane is a feminist journalist. Marianne works for a leftist group - she becomes known as a terrorist. They accuse each other of haven gotten it all wrong. In this, the film depicts a deep split within the political left, between reformism and radicalism. When Marianne has gone underground, Juliane is entrusted with her child. Juliane decides she cannot take care of the child and he is sent to a foster family. Juliane wants to keep her distance from Marianne, who is caught by the police. Juliane's immediate reaction is to visit her in jail. von Trotta focuses on the type of relationship in which hostility is just a layer, where there is also understanding and the necessity of communication. The best part of the film shows the massive security procedures and paranoia within the prison. Juliane cannot stop caring about Marianne, even when she's dead; she makes up her mind to prove that Marianne did not commit suicide.

A problem with the film is its oscillation between psychological portrait and an investigation of a particular historical period and its political rifts (one of the themes von Trotta hints at is the way the Nazi regime keeps having an impact, keeps hauting, keeps injuring). This oscillation is never resolved and in my opinion, this is something that makes the film less acute than it could have been. For example, Marianne's death is not presented as a political question about the possibility of her having been murdered, but, rather, the mystery surrounding Marianne's death is mostly seen through Juliane's personal agony. Or is that my sloppy interpretation? On the other hand, the film shows how Juliane's quest for truth has a political dimension and that it is symptomatic that a journalist rejects Juliane's pleads to make the case visible by snarling 'that stuff is not interesting anymore, now we focus on the energy crisis instead'. I have mixed feelings about Marianne and Juliane. I would not say that von Trotta's approach is detached, but somehow I was mystified as to what the major mission of the film is supposed to be - why was a great part of the film about Juliane's early rebelliousness, and Marianne's "good girl"-behavior? Was this based on the real Ensslin sisters or was it von Trotta's own attempt to make a specific point about the relation between two political/existential attitudes? It is noteworthy that Juliane is presented much more vividly throughout the film, while some of the scenes with Marianne remains stereotypes and more than one of her lines, especially during the beginning of the film, seem almost cartoonish. Perhaps the problem is that too many problems and themes are brought into the film (sisterhood, the nature of political violence, feminism and autonomy, the legacy of Nazism, etc. - truly big topics), so that none of them are really explored at depth?

Nosferatu (1979)

One could say lots of things about Werner Herzog's take on Nosferatu. One could, for example, say that it is more sexist than almost any other movie (the vampire can only be killed by a woman with a pure heart, or how it was: oh look at the true self-sacrifice of a beautiful woman!). The second thing to be said is that it is a brilliant film, one of Herzog's best, a stylistically marvellous show-off that needs no particular technical devices. Bruno Ganz, who is always good, plays Jonathan, the decent bourgeois man with a beutiful wife. He is sent on a business trip to the strange land of werewolves and old tales, in which Dracula resides. Kinski plays Dracula, and of course he adds both drama and strangeness to the role. You know the rest of the story. The only thing Herzog has added is his usual tirade about science and how we are misled by scientific thinking. The film features countless striking scenes (even small ones, as a little girl coughing in a harbor filled with rats, people and a boat). The film is shamelessly pessimistic and the message is: evil will - pervade! The film is a mix of funny and sad. We see a doomed world, and even the Dracula figure itself lacks all marks of 'evil', he is more a tragic figure. On the other hand, Herzog's coy humor is expressed in many places, for example in the character of van Helsing, a scholarly doctor-cum-vampire hunter. Nosferatu, thankfully, has very little of the proneness for blood&guts of traditional horror movies; it opts for aesthetics and atmosphere more than sensation.

Shadow of angels (1976)

Fassbinder acts in a prominent role in Shadow of angels (dir. Daniel Schmid) and it wouldn't have surprised me, had he directed the film, ripe with typical fassbinderian elements: references to Marx, doom & gloom, stagey presentation. This is the uplifting story about a pimp and a prostitute. Their lives are miserable and gradually they become even more miserable, as more people are drawn into their circle. The 'rich Jew' (as he is called in the film) for example, who 'seduces' the prostitute. Love and capitalism - intertwined. Or shall we say: 'love'. Plenty of contempt, contempt for oneself and for others. What makes the film work is its structure. At first we have a fairly realistic setting, but by and by, the film becomes more theatrical. We are dragged deeper into the hell-hole that the story comprises. The actors are veritable zombies, muttering sinister words, never communicating. One may say that the entire thing is intentionally flat. No nothing in terms of feelings or change, or loopholes. Instead, we are fed with existential poison and political commentary: fascism lurks around the corner, be it in the shape of a cabaret artist & father dressed up in a sleazy gown. - - Prepare yourself for a heartwarming experience!

The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973)

I know extremely little about films produced in DDR. The Legend of Paul and Paula (dir. Heiner Carow) was apparently a popular movie in its day. I am surprised by this, as I found the film quite bizarre, almost on a par with Fassbinder's Satan's brew! It is more the style than the story that made this film quite a universe of its own. The camera is often hand held and scenes tend to wind up in a way you least expect. A strange technique is used to cut strange elements into a familiar setting. Paul and Paula are in love but they can't be together. Or are they really in love? Well, maybe they are, in their own, eccentric way. Class differences - check, funny images of work - check. The film follows the path of romantic tragedy, a couple who do not end up in each other's arms, but the way the film carries out this little plot is way out of step with conventional norms of romantic stories. The legend of Paul and Paula is hysteric, grotesque at times - erratically playful with style. Oh - and if you decide to watch this film, don't forget to check out the settings: very un-glossy urban scenery. And also: the ending, the ending! If the romantic comedies of the present Hollywood type would end this way, I wouldn't hesitate to watch one or two. Even though this was by no means a masterpiece, it was a funny, strangle little film that made me curious about the cinema of the GDR.

The Niklashausen Journey (1970)

Despite having seen The Niklashausen Journey one time before, watching it again was a good thing, since I only remembered a couple of scenes from my first viewing experience. This is, in my view, a quite messy film. Fassbinder explores the relation between religion and politics, but of course he chooses a tableau-style instead of a systematic approach. There is nothing wrong with this, but sometimes I do fall off the wagon, especially considering most (all?) of the lines being quotes from authors which in some cases are unfamiliar to me. It's a film with a specific audience in mind: marxists who know their history of theology. The story mixes time layers, so we get a hodgepodge of historical situations. Of course there is more thought behind this than mere entertainment value (this is not A Knight's Tale). It is evident that Fassbinder's critique is aimed at contemporary revolution-mongers (along with their opponents of all stripes). But Fassbinder is Fassbinder and there are plenty of striking scenes here. At the core of the film we have a religious group (it did apparently exist, in the 15th century) that rails against the decadence of the Catholic church. They are revolutionaries, and Fassbinder makes a point of making them quote Marx and Engels and sing leninist songs. It would be strange to have a Fassbinder film that delivers an upbeat story about social change - this is no exception. The strive for change and justice morphs into violence. It's hard to pinpoint the film. I wouldn't call it cynical exactly, even though Fassbinder delivers a bleak picture of propaganda and violence. -- Don't miss the scenes on the garbage heap: visually stunning stuff there.

Pioners in Ingolstadt (1971)

As usual with RW Fassbinder: don't expect a sweet tale about romance even though the story revolves around precisely 'romance'. If a Fassbinder character is looking for love - well you know there will be hell and more hell (and self-deception abounds). Pioners in Ingolstadt gives as bleak a picture of love (and human relations) as any of his other films. The characters speak in intentionally heavy-handed clichés and one reviewer describes the acting as bordering on 'somnambulistic'. I doubt this was considered a mishap by Fassbinder. On top of this, the film has a very stage-y feel. They are puppets - but this is only to show in what way we make puppets of ourselves. This film might not be a masterpiece, but it has some witty scenes. Army recruits are sent to a small town to build a bridge. They build a bridge and look for girls, while girls look for them. There is rivalry and scheming everywhere. One woman is disappointed in the men who do not love her romantically. Another woman takes a more calculating approach to her adventures with the soldiers. The men find the women too needy; they know what they want them for. This could have been a better film, had Fassbinder shown more consideration for the details. Still - there are some drastic scenes that stand out, especially towards the end. Now the whole thing gets a bit half-done, sketchy. -- Do not miss the bear glasses. I want one!

Vampyr (1932)

Carl Th. Dreyer's films are always interesting (sometimes brilliant) and this is the case also with regard to Vampyr. Although formally a sound film, it has the aesthetics of a silent movie. Lines are rare, and they are never really important for the plot (if you want to learn basic German skills from this film, you can pick up useful phrases such as "ich bin verdammt!"). I was extremely tired while watching the film. My mind drifted in and out, as I awoke & fell asleep to the churning rhythm of the film. Vampyr is clearly not Dreyer's best film. It is, however, pretty entertaining to watch an early vampire film with plenty of doom & gloom. The film boasts some unnerving visual effects, including the gaze of a corpse and a strange facial transformation (signalling: this is the Cursed). In a lengthy scene, the camera creates a very claustrophobic image of a mill's machinery. We don't really get to know much about the nature of vampires, except that they are somehow connected with a larger web of evil forces (or at least there are hints of this). -- The plot of Vampyr is pretty ramshackle; nothing much to write home about. The visuals and the dreamy (or nightmarish) atmosphere, however, make the film worth watching. Shadows and weird lighting prove to be far more evocative than gorey monsters.

My Joy (2010)

Cinema Village is a tiny arthouse cinema theater in East Village. One thing that amazes me about cinema culture in NYC is that it is actually - somehow - possible to show a film for an audience of seven people. I knew nothing about My Joy. Afterwards, I am happy that I didn't read reviews beforehand, because this is really one of those open-.ended films that you have to try to understand on your own before you hear somebody else's opinion about the film as a whole. I think I know what the main gist of the film is aimed at, but trying to connect the different scenes on a more detailed level is challenging, as this is a far from linear affair. The storytelling in My Joy breaks with many conventions in cinema (for example the way we expect a film to follow a certain set of characters in a "logical" way). A few times, I saw something of Claire Denis' associative, image-focused style here. But where Denis' films keep my thought and my imagination in a firm grip, I sometimes feel that My joy tries too hard, and that it thereby, interestingly, become too simple. Many scenes/segments are powerful, but few of them manage to deepen the main subject. What is the main subject? Well - borders and corruption seems to be the theme running through many of the scenes, and also providing the film with a sense of political anger and outrage. Still - the problem I had with the film, especially after having had some time to mull it over, is that it makes its viewer take on a very general form of pessimistic thinking. "The world ... humanity ... the state - rotten, all of it, all of it!" Thereby, some of the urgency of the scenes get lost in this general atmosphere of fuck-it-all. From a cinematic point of view, the film has many qualities, not only in terms of editing technique but also its cinematography, executed by the guy who shot The Death of Lazarescu. The harshness of the pictures augments the very cruel nature of the content. The film has potential. I look forward to keeping up with what Sergei Loznitsa will do next.

The white ribbon (2009)

Among Michael Haneke's films, The White Ribbon might not be the most interesting ones, but it is not a bad film either. The film, in stylish monochromes, tell the story of a village plagued by a series of eerie and repulsive events. Somebody places a ribbon on the doctor's gate so that he trips with his horse. A child is tortured. There is a mysterious fire. The voice-over of the films, an old man, tells about his youth. He does this in a very neutral, detached way. The voice belongs to one of the characters, a teacher. We follow the villagers for a few years from 1913 onwards. The families in the village are connected in many ways. The pastor, the teacher, the worker, the doctor all have clearly defined societal positions. It is a patriarchal society in which men rule over women. It is also a society in which adults seem to live in one world, and children another. The children are not yet assigned with these societal roles, but they are still very much their families' children. The relation between children and adults in the film is often antagonistic and anguished. Adults abuse, give orders, uphold order, make excuses, institute prohibitions - and do their best to uphold the appearance of "innocent children" - tightly connected with the appearance of "responsible grown-ups". A group of children roams around the village. We usually see them together in the group, or at home, with their family. Rarely alone in a non-family setting.

The film seems to ask the same question as the villagers themselves do: who are responsible for these crimes? Haneke's film resists a straightforward reply. By and by, I start questioning the question. Is it that one which is the most important issue? Or rather: isn't it rather that Haneke makes us look at flight from responsibility, collectivity and false innocence? To a great film, this is a film about guilt and what it means to attempt to find a guilty party.

The White Ribbon plods through a massive sea of information. Scenes change quickly and I often found myself wondering about some fact or other.  

Satan's brew (1976)

If you think that RW Fassbinder was a serios guy who made bleak films about human alienation, think again. Satan's brew is wacky, in the spirit of outlandish, ebulient dystopia. In some sense, it also aspires to be a film that treats serious topics (self-delusion, masochism, contempt, anarchy/fascism). If you have a slightly obscene sense of humor, it is also a funny movie. (As a matter of fact, I might have enjoyed this a little bit more than I should.) But hey, Fassbinder also wants to say something about the origins of totalitarianism, so I might be excused.

The leading role is played by Kurt Raab, one of my favorite Fassbinder actors. It's just that in this movie, Raab's role is a little bit .... different. His acting style is, to say the least, outrageous. He's the anarchist poet, Kranz, who needs GELD. Geld! He lives with his wife, whom he hates, and his brother, whose major interest is flies. Kanz wanders from mistress to mistress, copulating & trying to secure some money. A mousey admirer follows him around. Kanz starts to realize that he IS the romantic German poet Stefan George. But wait, then he must be gay!

If you can stomach a John Waters' film, you might appreciate this. And if that subtle analysis of totalitarianism passes you by, and if the Nietzschean one-liners leave you cold ("That is the finest humiliation: to expose oneself to an inferior.") what you can learn from this tutorial film are many useful German invectives.

But how the HELL did Fassbinder raise money for this film? The idea for the film must have appeared quite bizarre.