The River (1997)

Tsai Ming-Liang makes movies about loneliness, about people occupying the same space without interacting. These films reveal the pain of loneliness as much through an investigation of lived space as the characters' trembling attempts at human closeness. The River opens with a bunch of seemingly disconnected scenes of three different people. Gradually, we learn that they are son, father, mother. The son is afflicted by a mysterious pain in his neck. The father tries to solicit partners at a bathing house. The mother is taking home leftovers and meets a lover in an anonymous room. We see them inhabit spaces of their own. Even when it dawns on us that they are related to each other, their isolation stands out even more. The routines and slow events of ordinary life is the core of this, and other films by Tsai Ming Liang. In a number of scenes, the father tries to collect the dripping water from a hole in the roof. The variations of this minimalist theme have the effect of a melancholy chord. As The River progresses, the young man's neck pain takes on an almost metaphorical meaning. It's a pain that has no clear explanation and no cure seems to help. The son is taken to various doctors and healers and even participates in a ritual, but nothing helps.

The cinematography creates a woozy, yet austere atmosphere. Bright colors and spare locations with next to no human action. What are we to look at? The River is a difficult film as it directs its attention to a puzzling symptom. The viewer is offered several elements and the task is not to piece these together in a neat assemblage. The challenge is to understand the kind of isolation Tsai Ming Liang depicts. What is it that afflicts these people? How is the silence of the film to be understood? An example: two guys ogle each other in a neon-lit arcade from which we see a McDonald's restaurant. Nothing happens in the scene, except this silent watching, their restless presence. The camera observes them, framing them from a distance, swallowed up by the neon-lit commercial environment but without losing the focus on the strange, silent communication.

Two Days, One Night (2014)

The Dardenne brothers make movies that register a moral urgency. Their films tell stories that are a matter of life and death and this existential depth is rendered in a style that manages to be cinematic and 'realistic', realism never being degraded into a flawed or programmatic ideas about what social reality is like. Their film attend to what is real in a moral sense. The moral always has a primary position in their films. What characterizes their work and what Two Days, One Night really substantiates is a care for the characters expressed in the Dardennes' singular prowess of hinting at the complexity of a lived life.

The film starts with a dilemma. Sandra, who works in a solar cell plant, learns that her colleagues have voted about whether they are to give up the yearly bonus of € 1000, or whether they are to accept the bonus which would mean that Sandra is to be made redundant. The colleagues voted in favor of the bonus. Sandra's colleague urges their boss to re-arrange the voting next Monday, as the employees were given some information that biased their votes. The colleague encourages Sandra to contact the others who are to vote, and ask them not to vote in favor of the bonus. A journey of hope and humiliation ensues, as Sandra is visiting her colleagues, trying to convince them that she really needs to keep her job, even though she of course understands that they would like to keep the bonus. The Dardennes skillfully capture the variety of responses Sandra gets. The camera sticks close to Sandra, whose bodily presence is made painfully vivid. We see her nervousness, her tics and her oscillation between hope and despair. We learn that she has suffered from depression for some time, and now her husband is trying to stand by her side and to go through with visiting the colleagues.

The strain of the situation for everybody involved is perhaps what I found most engaging in this movie. The structural aspects of having a job and making a living is presented through the myriad of life situations people inhabit, with all it may implicate: having a loan to pay off, having a family to support, saving money for the kids' college education. But the structural is interspersed with the existential. Sandra encounters greed and people who are so ashamed of their clining to the bonus that they are not willing to talk to her. Sheepishly or rudely, they recoil. She also meets people who understand her and who make sacrifices so that Sandra can keep her position at the plant.

The cinematic brilliance of all this is that the viewer never knows beforehand what kind of response she will get. We follow her from door to door and every encounter reveals one human possibility, and the next one reveals another one. The emotional tensions within Sandra are coupled with the tensions of the encounter, and as we reach the end, one could say that the film celebrates the openness of such encounters. The structural tensions are not resolved, but they are actively dealt with and questioned by people who care about each other.

Certified Copy (2010)

Many films benefit from allowing a level of ambiguity, allowing inexplicable lacunae or resisting trying to add things up into a neat interpretation. Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy is an example. For me, it's impossible to fit this film into a neat narrative - 'this is what was going on' - and if one would venture into such an attempt at explanation, I think one would impoverish what was good in Certified copy, a movie which is as a matter of fact not only attests to the difficulty of digging out a firm level of understanding but also thematizes that very impossibility. On a grumpier day I would perhaps have grumbled about the overworked themes of the film: the relation between the original and the copy. Perhaps, one could say, the film is too engaged in a certain theoretical puzzle. However, when I saw it, I was not only engaged by this puzzle, but was also dazzled by the way this puzzle was presented by a strange progression of events, and in the middle of it all, a sort of rapture that shook me out of many things I thought I knew about the people in the film.

Certified copy begins on a seemingly rather ordinary, realistic note. An art historian gives a lecture on the concept of the original: why is the original considered finer and more authentic than the reproduction in art? Afterwards, he hooks up with a woman in the audience. It turns out she owns an antique store. The story is set in Tuscany, Italy. The two head out on a drive, and the film contains some of Kiarostami's signature car motif: people sitting in a car, next to each other - interpersonal drama in a limited space. The art historian is snotty, and we see tension building up between the two. They talk about art and forgery, they flirt and they have their disagreements. When they enter into a cafe to have something to eat the owner assumes they are a married couple. Suddenly, something shifts. The two starts to act as if they were married. Or are they only pretending? Is it something we have assumed that we shouldn't have? I tried to maintain the openness of the scenes. The couple could be said to act 'as if', but perhaps, given another framework, they could be said to engage in the tired roles, the scathing nagging, a married life can contain, the 'certified copies' of what married life is? Kiarostami clearly sets out to tantalize the viewer with a lack of resolution. In other words, the relation between original/reproduction/copy is worked through on several different levels and ends up in a labyrinth of unresolved questions about art, human relations and the nature of the events of the film. (I suppose there is also a dose of self-reflection in the movie: what is it to make a film, a film with a 'story' that is supposed to 'engage' the viewer? What kind of response do we think movies elicit?)

The force this shift had on me would not have worked were it not for the excellent acting and the convincing ordinariness of the first part of the film. I was lulled into a scene and suddenly the way I had been viewing things was questioned. For me, this not only had the function of a fashionable philosophical little game: the effect was an emotional one, a sort of dizziness one can also experience in real life. The questions it raises about the difference between authenticity and 'the copy' are so well integrated in the flow of the movie that it didn't end up an academic teaser.

Hamlet Goes Business (1987)

Even though I consider myself a fan of Aki Kaurismäki's movies, I must admit Hamlet Goes Business cannot be counted among his better work. Our Hamlet this time around is a yuppie with money and murder on his mind. Daddy was the director of a company and Hamlet wants to do some real business now daddy's gone. Kaurismäki seizes the opportunity and throws in a few scenes about the new regime of business: factories are to be closed and big bucks are to be made - his uncles plans on selling the assets and investing in .... rubberducks that are to flood the worldwide markets. Hamlet acts like a first-class asshole: he does whatever it takes to get what he wants. So don't expect too much heady stuff. Kaurismäki crafts a work of pulp: b&w sleazy cinematography along with wonderfully wooden acting. Pirkka-Pekka Petelius & Kati Outinen are very good. Beyond that - not much to write home about.

Summer Hours (2008)

I must confess I have had a rather prejudiced (non-)relation to the films of Olivier Assayas. Bourgeois prattling about love in a setting of some idyllic French countryside estate. Even though Summer Hours may correspond to that image to some extent (yes, it takes place in a gorgeous French summerhouse and yes the people in the film are all unabashedly upper-middle class), I was also a bit enchanted by it, regardless of my previous preconceptions. At best, the film resembles the best work of Rohmer, films in which every human encounter may have something unexpected in store and where human relations are seen both under the aspect of the history they carry with them and the way people constantly related to their pasts by relating to the present. Summer hours opens with a party. Helene turns 75 and her children and grandchildren have come to her house in the countryside to celebrate. She wants to settle the business of the estate and how it is to be managed when she is dead. The house contains numberless things and one of the finest aspect of the film is how it delves into diverse attitudes to possessions. The house once belonged to a fairly famous painter. We learn that there are things there that are valuable because they have a market value. Other things, knick-knacks, vases and such, have a personal history, and the family members are attached to these belongings. The mother dies, and now the grown children, some of which live abroad, have to sort out how all of these things, including the house, are to be disposed of.

The film ends beautifully with a sudden shift of attention. The grandchildren are having a party one last time in the house. We now see the house and the things that the different generations have collected, valued or neglected, from a fresh point of view. Surprisingly, this new entry into the history of the house does not take away the feeling of nostalgia, that was not always there before in this languidly told story that most of all carried an atmosphere of matter-of-factness, but rather brings it to the fore but showing that also these young folks have an attachment of their own, different from their parents', to the house and its stories.  

The Circus (1928)

The Circus involves several things Charlie Chaplin is most famous for. He plays the hapless Tramp who ends up in a situation he can't control but where he excels with a wide range of acrobatic tricks. The Tramp has arrived at a circus as a penniless property man. He wreaks havoc with this job but it turns out he does it in a way that entertains the circus audience, and he's hired as a member of the crew. He falls in love with the ringmaster's daughter, and he is sure they are to be lovers. - - - I'm not a fan of physical humor but what held my attention in the film is the meta-comments it delivers on humor. What is it to be funny? The tramp is funny without being aware of being so. When he tries to be funny, he no longer is. The hired clowns are dreadful and the rehearsed stunts are perceived to be boring. It's mishaps and the muddles that entertain the audience, but of course the movie itself is a tightly scripted and acted. Still, the moments that I react to as funny are moments where I feel that there is moments of spontaneity, something beyond skillful acrobatics. The Circus could be read as a critique of the contemporary circus industry, but I'm not totally convinced whether that's a plausible reading. On the other hand, this is a film that trades in acrobatics and sentimentality. Perhaps it makes more sense to understand the film as a homage to the era of silent movies that was coming to an end?

Even though the Tramp does not get the girl at the end, there was too little that surprised or moved me in this movie. But I have to admit that I simply could not resist being amused by some of Chaplin's stunts. 

Sofia's Last Ambulance (2012)

Rember Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mister Lazarescu? A brutal film about the erosion of society and the lack of basic forms of institutional support needed to protect and people in need. Ilian Metev covers similar territory with the documentary Sofia's Last Ambulance. It is a very strong film that keeps close to the protagonists, a team of ambulance workers. We are quickly thrown into their daily job routines and we immediately learn that their situation is an impossible one. There are very few ambulances in the city and the underpaid crews must work extremely hard to access as many people as possible. The viewer does not doubt that there are many tragedies that are merely hinted at in the movie. What makes the film so engaging, and so sad, is that the desperation and the strain implied by the working conditions are directly seen, heard and felt. The camera is planted in the ambulance and we see the weary faces of the crew members and we hear their daily banter and their survival techniques. This is shattering material, because the pressure is rendered so nakedly: a doctor smokes incessantly, there are bursts of anger and lots of frustration. Almost every image in the film is limited to the faces of the crew members. Thus, we see very little of the patients or the streets of Sofia. This is, I think, a strength of the film. It really puts trust in its way of capturing these people's jobs. This is not E.R.

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.

Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)

A kid is playing a small piano in an alleyway. This is one example of a scene that makes Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7 so great: even a small detail of urban life, like this one, is full of life in this movie, that is set in Paris during two hours packed with emotional scales. Cléo is a singer worrying about the diagnosis of a cancer tumor. The film follows her - from 5 to 7, and it goes through the tumult of her emotional life with a lightness and liveliness that makes the story all but a lugubrious brooding on mortality. The complexity, but also sometimes strangely fleeting quality, of Cléos emotions is beautifully captured. Thus, the film contains both seriousness and a sense of playfulness. Even when the film seems to burst with urban life and detailed settings we never lose track of Cléo and the things she goes through. She is used to being admired, looked at, desired. In the film, we see her differing attitude towards this attention. In one moment, we see her flirting and singing with a bunch of guys playing at a piano. In another scene, Cléo is walking on the street, pondering her impending diagnosis. The scenes is filmed from a subjective point of view, so that what Cléo experiences as the intruding gazes of the passers-by are highly present. She worries about being sick, losing her good looks, and thus the gazes remind her of the ambivalence of the kind of attention she is constantly the object of. These scenes remind the viewer of hir own perception and hir own conclusions: how do I view Cléo? What do I take her to be? What happens when I start to deride what she says as superstition? What do I perceive as masks, and what do I see as the 'real' Cléo? The dynamic and playful cinematic techniques employed in Cléo from 5 to 7 keep those questions at the heart of the film. One of those questions are, of course: what do I think happens in the last 30 minutes of 'Cléo from 5 to 7' that are not captured in the film, that runs at 1 hour, 30 minutes?

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.