extinción (d. salomé lamas)

Lamas’ curious film is posited around the unrecognised country, Transnistria, which was part of the old USSR and is now on the fringes of the EU, with borders with Russia, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. It’s a device which highlights the ignorance around this region. This writer, for one, was unsure whether the film was discussing a real or a fictional state. The film follows one man as he crosses and re-crosses various borders, coming and going from his home state. There are several sequences where the screen is left blank, with the recorded dialogue of the unsympathetic  border guards played as audio. The pace is languorous and there is the sense that the film, functioning on limited resources, is cobbling itself together, with one of two grand setpiece scenes adding a sense of scale. It’s a timely meditation on the European-Russian divide, (reminiscent of Sharunas Bartas’ Frost), taking the viewer towards the Donbass hinterland where a forgotten war rumbles on, like a distant forest fire which could head in any direction, depending on which way the wind blows.  

dersu uzala (w&d kurosawa, w. yuriy nagibin)

Dersu Uzala is, in narrative terms, a straightforward bromance. The Russian explorer, Arsenev meets Dersu, a Siberian hunter, in the taiga. The film recounts the series of adventures the two have over the course of nearly a decade. It’s based on a real-life account, written by the explorer himself. Arsenev and Dersu survive snowstorms, tigers and raging rivers. There’s shades of Herzog at times, (although apparently this is a project Kurosawa  first contemplated in the thirties). In many ways it’s a boys-own movie, there’s barely a woman in the film, until the explorer’s wife appears in the final ten minutes or so. (Tragic to learn that Aresnev’s wife was later executed in a Stalinesque purge.) Some of the imagery is astonishing, and it would appear that one aspect of Kurosawa’s drive to make this Dersu Uzala, á la Herzog, was to push the actual physical process of filmmaking to its limits. 

However the film transcends its macho context. There’s something remarkably touching about the relationship between Dersu and Arsenev. The narrative is also an exploration of the schism between an urban view of humanity and a more pantheistic one. Dersu calls all the animals in the taiga ‘humans’. In common with other native cultures, he appears to view the relationship between himself and nature as a symbiotic one, to be treated with respect and care. The way in which Arsenev comes to respect and love his friend, and vice versa, implies a subliminal message about the need for so-called ‘civilised’ society to embrace and engage with the so-called ‘primitive’ society. All of which is related in an understated and constantly engaging manner. Kurosawa constantly seduces, both with the breathless scale of the image and with the warmth of the characterisation. 

akahige (redbeard) (w&d kurosawa w. masato ide, hideo oguni, ryûzô kikushima)

One of the joys of cinema is the gradual process of discovering a filmmaker’s works. I saw Ran twice when it came out, the second time with Sedley, as we had promised him we’d watch it with him, so we never told him we’d already seen it, unable to resist, in that fine old cinema on St Martin’s Lane which was later turned into a gym. Watching Ran for me (not so much for my companion for obvious reasons) was a leap into an unknown world. The overarching vision of the filmmaker, pinning Shakespeare’s art to a culture which still seemed wildly remote, Martian. 

Since then I have signally failed to engage with Japanese cinema. A brief flirtation with Teshigahara, but no Ozu and little Kurosawa. Cinemateca might allow me to put that right. Perhaps for this reason, even though some critics suggest it is a minor work, Redbeard struck me as an astonishing piece of filmmaking. A director working on both a cinematic and philosophical scale which few can have matched. 

Cinematically, the use of light is a constant wonder. People who know always talk a lot about the use of light in cinema. I’m part-phiilstine, so rarely feel the impact. But in Redbeard, the chiaroscuro is frequently breathtaking. Eyes are perfectly framed in a tiny pool of light, surrounded by shade. The play of light and darkness speaks to the moral world the film explores. At times you feel like it would be possible to switch off the sound and subtitles and bathe in the film’s texture.

Philosophically, the complexity of Kurosawa’s vision is in stark contrast to the simplified moral world so much Anglo-Saxon cinema occupies. The film is in some ways a meditation on education; how rigid social codes close down the capacity of those who feel themselves outside those codes to develop a moral education. A thief becomes the most sympathetic character in the whole film; an angry girl is taught how to love by being shown love, rather than discipline. Through all this, the arrogant young doctor himself, Yasumoto, is educated through being exposed to the realities of the world beyond his immediate social circle. Kurosawa uses the broad stage of the charity hospital as a model of social existence. In the face of death or disease, we are all equal. This uber-democratic motto gives a philosophical force to the director’s humanist message, which resonates above and beyond the geographical context of his film.

wings of desire (w&d wenders, w peter handke, richard reitinger)

Various thoughts occur after watching Wenders’ film for the first time.

1. Berlin

Wings of Desire was released in 1987 - filmed in the closing era of the Berlin wall, which features prominently. There’s a remarkable sequence where an old man is accompanied by an angel as he stumbles through the wasteland which used to be Potsdamer Platz (and would soon become again). There’s also archive footage of Berlin destroyed during the war. (Which did indeed bring to my mind my grandmother and great-grandparents and what they lived through). I visited Berlin two or three times as a child. Hazy memories of deserted railway tracks, which lead nowhere and were a fine playground; crossing Checkpoint Charlie; the constant sense of a city which harboured a clear and present physical threat, articulated by the wall. All of which is incidental, but related to the fact that Berlin contained a peculiar energy. West Berlin was a bubble, a dreamspace, suspended in the aspic of communism. Wenders film represents that limbo with flair. The monuments which no longer carry their intended weight, and have become a resting place for angels. The wastelands, made for circuses and reflection. The faded glory of clubs which ooze post-punk decadence; punk being the noise that empires make when they are hollowed out, leaving an empty shell where people can scream with fury or delight. Wings of Desire is very much a companion piece to Żuławski’s Possession or Bowie’s Low. 

2 Nick Cave

Who should wander into this dreamscape but the youthful magi himself, Nick Cave. I played the song he and the Seeds sing in the film (From Her to Eternity) on the jukebox in Fenix the other day and my companions’ attitude was that this might be a great song but I really didn’t need to inflict it on them. Cave’s stringent rock adds the perfect touch to cut against the way Wenders’ allows his film to drift towards sentimentalism. The subsequent sequence where Ganz and Solveig Dommartin meet is perhaps the weakest in the movie, and reflects the way that it might be said that Wings of Desire loses its way, as it tries to winkle out a feelgood finale, abandoning the more ambiguous tone of the first black-and-white two thirds of the film. 

3 Camera work

The opening twenty minutes or so of Wings of Desire are astonishing. The angels eavesdrop on the thoughts of man and woman, with only the children in on the game. The film seeks to capture the inner monologue of an entire city. Like something out of Kierkegaard or Strindberg All of which is made possible by the magical camera work of Henri Alekan. His camera soars through the skies, before dropping into a flat or a library or a car to steal thoughts. Reminiscent of Gasper Noe’s camera (Benoît Debie) or that of Soy Cuba (Serguey Urusevsky), the camera itself is transformed into a technological angel, one who takes the arm of the poor human and accompanies that lesser creature along the bumpy road of life. 

From Wiki:   “During filming, Alekan used a very old and fragile silk stocking that had belonged to his grandmother as a filter for the monochromatic sequences.”

piazzolla, los años del tiburón (w&d daniel rosenfeld, w. fernando regueira, alejandro carrillo penovi)

Watching Rosenfeld’s biographical documentary, whose rhythms are not dissimilar from a Piazzolla tune, breathless editing, followed by moments of reflection, it crossed my mind that it was a pity Piazzolla and Miles Davis never played together. Both possessed an extravagant, delirious talent, which permitted them to redefine their chosen musical formats (jazz and tango). Both were iconoclasts, both did things resolutely their own way. Even though it never happened, the comparison helps to explain Piazzolla’s position in the cannon to those those unfamiliar with tango. His was a breathtaking assault on a musical form that had grown staid and was on the point of being superseded by the sounds of Presley, the Beatles etc. Piazzolla reacted by reimagining the possibilities of tango, using his trusty bandoneon, as only a genius could.

Which only part of the story. Because Piazzolla, as the film shows, was already the biggest star in a curious firmament. The world of tango has always been centred on the Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. However, Piazzolla’s roots were in New York, where he grew up, the son of an Argentine immigrant who worked for a mafia boss, distilling whisky in the prohibition era. There’s a fascinating anecdote in the film about Piazzolla as an adolescent appearing in a film with Gardel. His parents only moved back to Argentina when Piazzolla was in his late teens. Hence his restlessly energetic music contains some of the vibrancy of New York, a city which has so much in common with Buenos Aires. 

Like most biographical documentaries, Piazzolla, los Años del Tiburon, suffers from trying to squeeze so much information into such a concertinaed timeframe. There are loose ends aplenty, and the secondary story of his relationship to his two children feels like a fascinating element which remains underdeveloped. None the less, the film offers a great insight into both the man and his music and the complex, restless journey of a virtuoso constantly seeking out ways to reinvent himself. 

at eternity’s gate (w&d schnabel, w jean-claude carrière, louise kugelberg)

The film, one notes, has three credited writers. One being the distinguished Jean-Claude Carrière. However, this also might explain the tonal discrepancies in Schnabel’s scattergun movie. The film is at its strongest when the director’s eye is given priority. One can’t help thinking that this should have been an entire lyrical prose poem. Watching Van Gogh stumble through fields like a demented R2D2, slapping paint around like his life depended on it, all of this is great. What isn’t so great are the convoluted dialogues between VG and Gaugin, or the patchy scenes with his brother Theo, or even the haphazard attempts at narrative, much of which seems to be done for the benefit of having another name actor show up in a bit part role. The film smells of money compromise. Even down to the casting of Dafoe, who might look the part, but who feels, instinctively, too old for the part, a sixty year old in the body of a 37 year old. One can see the logic for casting Dafoe, he brings the necessary weight, but there’s something subtly geriatric about his Van Gogh, which doesn’t help. There are moments of lucidity from the director of photography, allied to a scaled back score, which lift the film way above the ordinary biopic, but it never reaches the heights of Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

lake success [gary shteyngart]

Gary Shteyngart’s novel feels very akin to the work of Moshfegh and Markovits. It’s a knowing, accomplished, referential representation of contemporary USA. The novel occurs against the backdrop of the last US presidential campaign. Trump’s ascension to power frames the book, giving the context for Shteyngart to construct a kind of balance sheet of America’s pros and contras. For every cold-blooded mercantile banker, there’s a sweet-hearted girl travelling the Greyhound who’s ready to be your guardian angel. A duality that doesn’t always convince, in part because of the slightly Slothropian protagonist, Barry Cohen, a hedge fund manager whose life is falling apart. The novel tries to have it both ways with Barry. He’s a dumb capitalist who’s also an idiot savant. A robber baron with a poet’s sensitivity. This is a character combination which is never going to be easy to pull off.  Having said that, Lake Success doesn’t do a bad job of realising its little-hidden aim to offer a contemporary take on On The Road. The author’s closing notes mention the journey he took which is documented by Barry in the novel. Riding the Greyhound buses from NY to the border. After Barry’s marriage falls dramatically to pieces, he goes on a runner, tootling across the country on Greyhound buses, a proletarian means of travel which he would never normally have considered, but one that allows him to get to know the underbelly of his country. The writer isn’t shy of referencing Kerouac (or Fitzgerald or Hemingway), and whilst these references might sometimes feels a bit laboured, there’s also a lyricism to the prose as it traces Barry’s journey. Trump’s America laid bare, from coast to coast.

a ciambra (w&d jonas carpignano)

‘Ciambra’ is the name of the estate where Pio, the film’s protagonist, lives. It’s an estate which is rubbish-strewn, which looks more third world than first. Located somewhere South of Naples, it’s where Pio’s gypsy family live, a hive of high density living and buzzing, low-level crime. Pio, the film makes clear, is another in a long line of bicycle thieves. 

In this sense A Ciambra functions in a very classical narrative fashion. The film is Pio’s coming-of-age tale, one that will feature loss of innocence and confrontation with moral complexity. All of this is done diligently by the narrative. However, the film’s strength is the way in which it captures Pio’s world. The camerawork is restless, handheld, a feverish reflection of the feverish life lived by the characters it depicts. 

Pio Amato, as Pio, an adolescent who wants to be a man, gives a performance of restless verisimilitude, for reasons which later become clear. It’s only when the credits roll that we realise the reason Pio’s family is so utterly convincing is because they are a family, the Amatos. The documentary feel is authentic. These aren’t actors, they’re the real thing. 

All of which makes for a film which succeeds in its mission to capture the realities of living on Europe’s front line. One lyrical sequence shows Pio softening, becoming more human, when he has to deliver a TV to a camp, peopled by African immigrants. The director captures this world which is the other side of the European coin (the Euro) with not only vast flair, but also unflinching humanity. 

vice (w&d adam mckay)

So, Dick Cheney, who the hell were you? What was that all about? As we enter another era, which makes the bogeymen of yesterday look like ‘maybe they weren’t so bad after all’, we’re left wondering. George W, who features heavily in a great performance by Sam Rockwell, (Vice is full of impressive performances, Bale’s being the icing on the cake), has been heavily rehabilitated in recent years. All of a sudden he isn’t the man who rushed headlong to war at the first opportunity, but a down-to-earth fellow who knows how to talk to his fellow americans and just happened to be president. Which is more or less how he’s played in McKay’s film, which makes it very clear that Cheney was the power behind the throne. Of course, this is the danger with revisionist history, something that has long afflicted Peter Morgan and is now occurring with James Graham in the UK: they turn men and women whose actions caused incalculable political and social damage into someone who might have walked out of a soap opera. We’re not much the wiser at the end of Vice as to what made Cheney tick. He doesn’t seem such a bad soul, and perhaps he wasn’t, but it’s the ‘perhaps he was’ that seems more important to me. The film tries to square its ends by putting titles at the conclusion giving figures for fatalities in the Iraq war, but this doesn’t really make up for the fact McKay soft soaps his role in Haliburton, and the personal gain he and his family levered as a result of the war. Because this is the heart of corruption, and it should be acknowledged that all political systems are always liable to corruption: who gains? It’s far easier to take ‘difficult epoch making decisions’ when you know they’re in your own personal interest. Vice lets Cheney off the hook here, in spite of the nice arty sequence of fish hooks at the end.

It’s the risk that McKay’s film-making takes. The jokey backhanders and the explicative, tongue-in-cheek subtitling. Personally, I rate him and respect him for getting movies made about big topics that need talking about. But having said that, Vice feels as though it bites off more than it can chew. It might have been far more effective if, rather than becoming a biopic, it had really given itself time to pick apart at the seams the reality of those days pre-and-post-911, pinning down the subject’s motives with greater clarity. Asking a few harder questions. And offering answers which were less easy to brush off.

+++

Regarding this last point, it’s perhaps worth addressing the Shakespeare correlative. Someone else who wrote political drama, and could obviously be used as a reference by the likes of Morgan, Graham and Mckay. There are two significant points to take on board here. One is that Shakespeare’s editorial line never fudges things. Richard 3, Richard 2, Henry 4, Henry 5: the virtues and faults of these characters are very clearly delineated, there’s no sitting on the fence (as opposed to the treatment of his tragic heroes, for example). And secondly it should be noted that Shakespeare never commented explicitly on contemporary politics. The closest he got was Henry 8. Perhaps because it was too dangerous or perhaps because he decided that it wasn’t the dramatist’s role to attempt to re-present the events of the day. In the relatively new fashion for re-presenting contemporary history, (docu-fiction), there’s always the suspicion that there’s a tendency to oversimplify, to paint with a brush that doesn’t allow for the subtlety of fine detail, detail which history will provide. There’s something which feels dangerously opportunistic and cosy about Graham’s depiction of Cummings, for example. Perhaps Brecht’s Arturo Ui is also relevant here. The “balance” demanded by docu-fiction is just as dangerous as the “balance” which contemporary broadcasters seem to believe necessary, without ever realising that the “balance” they provide is skewered by the fact that the theoretically neutral position adopted to arbitrate this balance is never actually neutral, is always the product of a system with its own interests. 

landscapes [john berger]

This collection of essays spans many years. (It might have helped if all the essays were dated, rather than just a few.) The book is divided into two parts: the first a more personal account of artists and writers whose influence he has relished; the second a more discursive set of essays ranging from anything from the role of the peasantry in society to a visit to Palestine. The first half is perhaps the more engaging: Berger’s passions for cubism, Benjamin, Barthes etc shine through. He writes with a generous enthusiasm. There are other essays, notably the one entitled White Bird, about the peasant tradition in Eastern Europe of carving a white bird for the home, where his analysis of the intersection between culture and society (and names) feels wonderfully lucid. 

It’s hard to know how to place Berger. On the one hand, he might be seen as a lost prophet of British culture. One, like Brook, who fled the country and whose local influence waned as a result. On the other, he might be seen as a kind of Ruskin in waiting, a writer whose work will continue to be read years after other contemporaries in the art world are forgotten. The reason for the latter is that Berger, at his best, goes towards the nub of the experience of ‘experiencing’ art, in all its multiple dimensions. He tries to get under the skin of the weird relationship between society and culture, and on occasion in this collection of essays it feels as though he nails it. Having said which, although this book namechecks Debord, among others, at other times his insistent Marxism feels dated. Which is not to say that Marxism is dated; rather than the relationship Berger writes about feels dated, as he struggles to come to terms with the dashed dreams of the post-war world.