FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Sergei Parajanov - The Colour of Pomegranates 

Pictures like they were never to be seen again in the history of the film! With Sayat Nova, the Armenian director Sergei Parajanov has created something like the holy grail of cinema! Sure, the masterpiece from 1969 is not missing in any highscore list - but this restored DVD version makes it possible to enjoy Sayat Nova with regenerated attention! Four years after Parajanov had finished his poem about the troubador of the same name like a puzzle, the Soviet authorities arrested him. The director was born in 1924 in Armenia/Georgia. He began as a musician, but studied in Moscow in the golden 20s film - at a time when anything seemed possible in revolutionary Soviet cinema. When he was "accused" of homosexuality he had to go to prison for the first time. Again and again he refused the accusation, he also got married later. Nevertheless this arrest can be regarded as the key for his movie. Finally his wife was murdered and it was suspected that her own brother was responsible. Parajanov experienced an enlightenment with Tarkovsky's acquaintance - the role model became his mentor. All this has a style-forming effect. Parajanov's films show the culture of Armenia apart from what the authorities wanted. World Cinema! He combined this with his role models from the 20s and created his own virtuoso world of images. Parajanov's increasing success was unpleasant for the Soviets. Here stood an imprisoned - but internationally acclaimed director - and Sayat Nova simply continued to spread via pirated copies! A work that functions on the one hand as Nova's poetic biography, but also as the director's encrypted self-confession. Anyone looking for homoerotic elements will find what they are looking for! This terrible cycle lasted until the early 80s, when Parajanov was repeatedly arrested as a homosexual. He was only able to finish two more films before he died in 1990. To grasp Sayat Nova as a film - a thing of impossibility! A picture rush that blocks itself from beginning to end. Or is it due to my western viewing habits? But one thing remains stuck in any case: Parajanov is Armenian!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Thomas Vinterberg - The Hunt 

Mads Mikkelsen's face radiates an icy coldness with his slitted eyes, weather-beaten skin and thin lips. He looks like a Westerner, and one of the bad guys at that. But in Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt, he gets to show off his versatility and go beyond the exterior. Here, Mikkelsen wears wire-rimmed glasses with his hair combed forward. the kindly employee of a daycare center who is falsely accused of exposing himself to a child. The Hunt is a portrait of a decent man confronted by a world that has decided to treat him indecently. Basically, he leads a contented (if not perfect) life in the small town. He is a trained teacher, but became unemployed when the local school closed (unbelievable!!!). Now he works at the daycare center, where he takes care of the kids during the day and goes out for a drink with the parents in the evening. He exudes a quiet, reserved warmth. His caring is genuine. Friends worry because he lives alone, in the house where his ex and child once lived. Then everything changes. One of his charges tells him in a fit of rage; he - Lucas - touched him! We know from the beginning that this is a lie. While Lucas goes about his work, the daycare center is busy investigating. A psychologist is called in. Damage control. Finally, he is called in. His boss explains what is going on behind his back. Lucas is ordered to take a few days off. His parents are called and informed about the incident... Everything develops like a snowball system. The parents are convinced that Lucas is guilty. If The Hunt wasn't so directly staged, it could be made into a wonderful satire about the so-called helicopter parents. But everything only gets worse and worse. The community believes a predatory pedophile is up to no good in the neighborhood. That's exactly the theme of The Hunt: False Guilt. Luca's innocence is irrelevant. He is treated like a criminal. He is forced to feel guilty for a crime he did not commit. After all, the world is full of evil, as is established towards the end. Comforting words that have a disturbing effect. Under the pretext of making evil disappear, the "community" itself commits evil. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Christian Petzold - Phoenix 

How do we deal with the most unimaginable betrayal? And how do we overcome it when events change our lives forever, even though we so desperately want the BEFORE back? These are two central questions in Christian Petzold's Phoenix. Petzold, who sometimes swings his bike up the Reichenberger Strasse quite comfortably, is one of the greatest directors of our time! Sometimes he quotes role models like "Vertigo" or "Carnival Of Souls" - but we don't even notice it! Petzold's unmistakable style simply absorbs the quotes! Petzold's visual language is completely unique! But he never loses sight of human history. In short, Phoenix is perfect all around and offers the guests of our video store hours of discussion. What more could you want? First you see a face in the dark. And blood. Then Lene (Nina Kunzendorf) is introduced and she drives back to Berlin. With her: Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss), a Jewish nightclub singer who hides Lene. In former times Nelly had a happy life. She was married to Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). But today it is 1944 and the SS picked Johnny up. He was questioned and afterwards Nelly was deported to a concentration camp. Did Johnny betray Nelly? It's obvious! But Nelly refuses to believe this fact. She simply wants her old life back. That means Nelly denies that Johnny is a selfish monster. On the drive back with Lene, Nelly's face is covered in blood. A surgeon explains to her that she could start all over again with a new face. Leave the past behind. But Nelly just wants her old face back To look exactly the same. Nelly just denies what happened to her Against Lene's advice, she goes back to Berlin to see Johnny A battered woman in a city full of ruins But her nightclub, Phoenix, is still there Almost like an oasis of intimacy. Nelly is looking for Johnny. It's almost hopeless in bombed-out Berlin Then someone grab her! Johnny! He doesn't believe he's really got Nelly in front of him. Johnny thinks it's a strange woman who looks exactly like Nelly. He wants to turn this supposedly strange woman into "his" Nelly, because this is the only way Johnny will get Nelly's inheritance. For there is no proof that Nelly is dead "Vertigo" Petzold presents all this in a visually stunning way. Despite the Vertigo bonds, Phoenix never seems artificial. It is a deep, harrowing story that is never exposed to stylistic gimmicks and must never be. When Johnny sees Nelly again, it seems impossible to him that it could be the "real" Nelly. He did far too much to her. Therefore it can't be her. It must be a ghost. A reminder of the terrible things he did and what the whole world lost in World War II 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Calire Denis - Nenette And Boni (engl. subt.) 

Feel invited to the time of the Nouvelle Vague when "Jules et Jim" were friends! They were characters, hard on the outside, emotional but weak. One of them is Boni (Grégoire Colin), who shoots the neighbor's cat with a pellet gun, but burns with unfulfilled longings. Nenette (Alice Houri), his sister, is a bit milder. Claire Denis now tells us her story, full of details. Some may seem unimportant, but that's life. Through Denis' insinuations we certainly don't know as much about Nenette and bonuses as a conventional movie would tell us. But we feel much more deeply connected to both of them! Apparently Nenette and Boni survived an ugly divorce. Nenette stayed with her father, Boni with her mother at first. But at some point Boni must have moved out. Then Nenette visits him, seven months pregnant. It is too late for an abortion and so Nenette accepts her motherhood full of fury. Boni is very different: He is thrilled by it! If you like, the two of them form a couple. Not an incestuous one, of course, but one that remains chained to each other out of common need. Boni gives Nenette hope. And Nenette's pregnancy finally gives Boni's life a meaning! If there is a love affair, it is reflected in the relationship between the baker's wife (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) and the baker (Vincent Gallo). Claire Denis has turned all this into a sensual film that never reveals too many details. Most of all, I worry about Nenette. There are allusions to the child's father that don't inspire much courage. What will her future look like? The film seems to know that, but doesn't want to tell us. Not only we, but Claire Denis too is attracted to Nenette and bonuses. And she certainly knows her characters much better than we suspect! This is the only way she can tell their story so indirectly. Not as a chronicle of events. More like a friendly conversation. And then what happens is what so often happens in Claire Denis' films: ...is that you get deep into the plot. Nenette and Boni become your friends.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De 20Th Century Women 

55-year-old chain-smoking Dorothea, who wears Birkenstock, has just come out of depression - as her 15-year-old son Jamie explains. Depression must be something of a parallel universe for him. She is the ruler of a muddle household open to every guest. She tries all her life to find out what is REALLY going on. She loves to have parties for her friends and tries to digest the cultural changes since her youth. Annette Bening gives Dorothea and there can only be one opinion about this role: It's the best in Benning's entire career! The same goes for Mike Mill's wonderful comedy (his third film). 20th Century Women plays in Santa Barbara in the late 70s. Jimmy Carter is president and there are two new movements: Punk and skateboarding. Dorothea had her son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) at 40 and raised him alone. Then there's Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a redheaded photographer who suffered from cancer, and William (Billy Crudup), who still talks in hippie slang (he uses words that are unfortunately reused today like "energy"). Jamie's girlfriend's name is Julie (Elle Fanning). She's a depressed and confused girl. She sleeps "platonically" with Jamie (who in turn is overwhelmed with his hormonal balance). In a kind of panic attack, Dorothea decides that a single mother may not be enough for Jamie. So she asks Abbie and Julie to share their lives. Nobody knows exactly how this is supposed to work, least of all Abbie and Julie. Nevertheless, they agree. So Abbie takes Jamie to punk clubs and gives him hard feminist literature to read. Jamie believes in it and at least fights with a schoolmate. Trigger: Stimulation of the clitoris. Poor Jamie, surrounded by eccentric, difficult women! Completely confused, he tells his mother that he would like to be there for all of them, a "good boy". The special thing about 20th Century Women is the fact that they are not quirky in a bizarre sense, but resemble real people. In fact, the film makes us feel like we know these women! It is a coherent portrait of a group of people at a certain point in time: how they talk, what music they hear, what they eat. Fortunately, there is no plot that dominates too much! The figures get air to breathe, can unfold. Just like real people: A little crazy, annoying, complex and beautiful!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De A Good Woman 

Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan is moved from late-Victorian London to 1930s Amalfi and is now simply titled A Good Woman - behind which lies a witty and surprising comedy. Mrs Erlynne (Helen Hunt) is a 40-something blackmailing adventuress, Windermere (Mark Umbers) now a Wall Street banker and his young wife Meg (Scarlett Johansson) a slacker. Most of the other characters retain their nationality. In A Good Woman, a lot of things seem a bit pared down and that's what makes it more fun than di many other contemporary Wilde adaptations! The costumes are beautiful, the actors great and the musical numbers from the 30s too! Especially interesting: the shift in the title. It is no longer the prop, the fan, that is in the foreground, but a moral ambiguity: Is the "good" woman now the experienced Mrs. Erlynne or the pure Meg Windermere? And what constitutes goodness anyway? When is a person good?

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Bloody Sunday 

Both sides agree on this: On 30 January 1972, a demonstration march in Derry, Northern Ireland, ended with 13 demonstrators being killed by British soldiers. None of the soldiers were killed. An official investigation found that the British soldiers returned fire from the demonstrators. Later, some of them were even decorated by the King's House. Beyond what both sides agree on, however, there is a deep and implacable disagreement. A deep, open wound in the long and contentious history of the British in Northern Ireland. Once my colleague David from Ireland explained to me: There are two islands. One is British, the other is Irish. What the hell are the British doing on part of the island of Ireland? A new enquiry into the events of 30.1.1972 was presented in 1998, then discussed and discussed and discussed. Into the next millennium. Possibly until today, as the Brexit brings shame to the "United" Kingdom. Paul Greengrass approaches the events in Bloody Sunday like a documentary. It all begins on Saturday evening and covers a 24-hour period. The main character is Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt), a civil-rights leader in Derry. Ironically, Ivan is a Protestant and leads 10,000 Catholic protesters. Many of them want the British to just get out of Northern Ireland. Some are showing solidarity with their co-religionists. Ivan is tireless and always optimistic. A thoroughly admirable man! He fearlessly walks the most dangerous streets, has a good word ready for everyone. Ivan knows that his march will be banned. But he is also sure that the demonstration should be peaceful. Meanwhile, the British army is determined to put a stop to the hooligans. After all, a number of British soldiers have been killed by the IRA. The British see this as "hooliganism". It is now a matter of cracking down. And this Sunday is the opportunity to do so! There are more and more ominous signs, for example when a man promises his mother that no harm will come to him. In the movies, that always means bad luck! The Derry police chief is worried about the soldiers' determination; wonders if it wouldn't be wiser to just allow the march to go ahead. Obviously it's going to happen anyway! Greengrass' film seems amazingly real! Everything looks like Cinema Verite (but unfortunately not the cinema poster and not even the failed DVD cover). If you read more about it, you learn that thousands of extras had volunteered, with some actually being there in 1972, in effect playing themselves. And again, an Irishman in our shop enlightens me that it was not filmed in Northern Ireland at all, but in Dublin. Then we see protesters start throwing stones. Soon rubber bullets are replaced by real bullets and... But Greengrass also shows how demonstrators try to hold back some of their armed men. But his film is of the clear conviction: The British shot first. That is why we also see a demonstrator executed with a shot in the back. We also see how the army tries to plant false evidence. After all, they want to justify the massacre somehow. The film follows the anti-British faction while the army is acquitted in nasty complacency. That's what makes Bloody Sunday so effective! And cinematically, it's a stunner: The unadorned immediate reality that permeates every scene. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Schlafes Bruder 

He doesn't seem like a genius at all, but like a wounded man. Also, his speeches seem more like ramblings, as if he picks up words at random and finds associations for them. he seems desperate. Like a troublemaker. Until he starts playing in the village church. Quite spontaneously he creates masterpieces on the church organ. His music seems to pour out of him like a cry of fear and hope. A child prodigy. His life story is like that of a man trying to heal himself. His name is Elias Johanes Alder (André Eisermann) and he is born around 1900 in a remote Alpine village. At the moment of his birth, his musical genius is burned into his soul. This power fills the villagers with both fear and fascination. Elias is different. He finds only one friend who understands him. His name is Peter. Together they play, secretly spending whole nights in the church. Then Peter's little sister Elsbeth (Dana Vávrová) is born and they move out to the lake. There, all the sounds of the universe crash down on Elias. It is a powerful, disturbing phenomenon and it seems to bind Elias irrevocably to Elsbeth. And the couple is just as bound to all the timbres and sounds around the world.... The beginning of a destructive passion. Just like the music, love becomes an act of madness for Elias.

Film List incl. FREE STREAMS on CINEGEEK.De Ireland 

 In Eat the peach the Japanese hastily close their high-tech factory and flee the green island. Ireland is a hopeless location for film productions as well, almost impossible without foreign money. Eat the peach cost 1.7 million Irish pounds and that was already too much. In Fish and chips, two "young entrepreneurs" try to clean their snack stall of old encrusted fat in order to lift it to a successful "startup". Irish comedies, which are never only funny, refuse to accept final solutions. Luck in the long run is boring, so the Frittenbude ends up in the sea at night and is dry again during the day. A dream set in the sand doesn't have to be permanently lost. The Irish film has even been described as "entertaining unemployment folklore" (taz of 17.10.96), which is a fitting description of the filmed Barrytown trilogy (The Commitments, Fish and chips, The snapper). Irony of fate that all three parts were not staged by Irish. John Huston's attempt to realize his last movie The dead as a purely Irish production had to be relocated to California. The debacle is typical and shows how dependent the Irish film is. The film industry of this country shaken by the civil war and recession has always been influenced from the outside, it never could assert itself between the USA and England. The political censorship of the British was followed by homemade Catholic self-censorship, only in the early 70s did it become more liberal. Jim Sheridan should have been showered with offers after his success My left foot, but he didn't get a job for three years. Only Neil Jordan managed to work continuously, but he was also able to finance Michael Collins only after his Hollywood success Interview with a vampire. Nevertheless, he, the Irish film, exists regardless of donors and directors: Hear my song, The snapper, Into the west, The playboys. Irish cinema is a cinema of authors, albeit in a completely different sense than that of the Nouvelle Vague. The poverty of production is countered by a wealth of good narrators. Irish cinema is a cinema of narrators, no other nation can match it.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ain't Them Bodies Saints 

 A "malickesker" western, located in Texas of the 70s, with impressionistic interiors, naturalism and warm sunlight. A nice compliment for David Lowery's melancholic drama! Although he reminds us of the great role model in many ways, David Lowery's film works in its own powerful way. He knows how to use the familiar, but still strike his own note! Ain't Them Bodies Saints (uuuh, what a title) is the fairy tale of a young, yet doomed love. Casey Afflek plays Bob Muldoon, a small star. Bob is a dreamer, but a dangerous one who believes he must do everything he can to make his dreams come true. Bob is also a great romantic who wants to build a house in the wilderness for his family. Probably all this would have been possible before he got into conflict with the law. But right at the beginning his pregnant wife (embodied by Rooney Mara) leaves him. She plays her character with all her inner conflicts. A sad couple who are finally handcuffed and torn apart. Bob is imprisoned for 25 years, while his wife Ruth raises their daughter alone. Her neighbour: Keith Carradine, who seems to have emerged directly from one of the 70s film classics that Lowery used as a role model! His Skerritt is typical of Lowery's reserved staging, which gives us more blanks than details. Do we really know who Skerritt is and what he is looking for? Or the deputy Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster), who approaches Ruth. Does he want to take her husband's place? Lowery takes his time, allows us long pauses between his action scenes. His pictures may seem nature-loving and robust on the one hand, but on the other hand they look like a dream. The only annoying thing is the crazy title, otherwise this is a western for those who don't like westerns at all.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Fatih Akin - Kurz und schmerzlos 

Fatih Akin's film loves the big pathos, the big bang! It is possible that nothing good will ever happen to his characters. No matter what decisions they make or what they can do for each other. There is this wedding scene in short and painless - but it has only the value of a manure party - because we are already in the mechanism of self-destruction. What is starting here is a downward spiral. The story is told by three friends from Hamburg-Altona. From the Turk Gabriel, the Serb Bobby and from Costa, the Greek. Gabriel (Mehmet Kurtulus) just got out of prison and meets his friends Bobby (Aleksandar Jovanovi) and Costa (Adam Bousdoukos) at a wedding. Costa wears the wrong clothes, but Gabriel can "vouch" for him. Finally Costa gets a real suit from Gabriel's sister Ceyda. Actually, Costa is her boyfriend, but at the loo she confesses to a friend that she already has a new one. While the wedding is in full swing, the three friends go to the harbour and treat Gabriel to a whore after his abstinence. A great start, which reminds much less of German than of American films! Fatih Akin knows the models of Italian-American cinema and now transfers them to his own. In interviews Akin always emphasizes that he sees himself as a Turkish director. His influences are the videos from Turkey, which he loved so much as a child. It's the details in his gangster film that remind us of that. We now see the three friends returning to the wedding. The bride is put banknotes on her dress and the boys sit down together at a table. Bobby's bragging about hiring in the Albanian mafia. He tries to persuade Gabriel, but he doesn't want to do anything illegal anymore. Before they go on the dance floor, there's a snapshot of the three. Akin relies on fast cuts and ever darker images. His camera is very close to the action, the dialogues are accompanied by hip hop. Of course, the three friends belong to an urban generation and films like Kurz und schmerzlos demonstrate how koonsequent they make their mistakes. What Akin's characters are doing wrong, he might want to save us from. Akin has found credible actors for it and is determined to drive his story to a logical and comprehensible finale - no compromise in which it could still somehow turn out well for each of them...

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Love Is Colder Than Death 

For a short while Fassbinder was the most famous non-American director in the USA - although the New German Cinema did not have the same status there as, say, the Nouvelle Vague. That was in the late 70s. In the 80s, no one was to take up this legacy; the veterans of the New German Cinema of the 70s are now only successful with their documentaries. And Fassbinder? He still influences American indie directors like Todd Haynes. And even Scorsese worked with Fassbinder's cameraman for a long time! And yet; in our video library, Godard and Antonioni are requested much more often than Fassbinder. And directors like Alexander Kluge or Werner Schroeter are requested once a year. At the most. For quite a while it was extremely difficult to complete Fassbinder's oeuvre on DVD. The Fassbinder boxes from England, which summarise his early work, were very helpful. In such a box you also find Love is Colder Than Death. In his early work, Fassbinder likes to try to look like American gangster films of the 40s. At least there are a lot of references. For Fassbinder, these references are helpful and probably intentional. Fassbinder came to film via an anti-theatre group. I think it was in Bremen (at some point I had to learn that for university...). Then he discovered Douglas Sirk and set out to make more accessible films. He wanted to film exactly the kind of melodramas Sirk did! In his films, true love and self-destruction always go hand in hand. A Fassbinder "love" relationship must be understood as a manipulative power struggle. Politically, Fassbinder saw himself as a radical leftist, but his films were conservative. Fassbinder's extreme pace of work was driven by cocaine abuse. And in his films he also found it difficult to look beyond his personal pathologies. Ultimately, he created a film world in which his own constraints became general conditions. That is why he may also be considered one of the very first for whom his own homosexuality was not a dirty secret. He openly declared that he was gay. And that in 1969! Finally, he also directed films with LGBT characters. But he was never a friend of positive images of any kind, which is why the gay and lesbian community did not exactly react positively to his work. In any case, Fassbinder treated his queer and homosexual relationships as darkly as he did everything else. His heterosexual relationships too, of course. Love Is Colder Than Death, his 1969 debut, attempts to subvert the classic Hollywood gangster films. The actors never disappear into their roles - they always PLAY. Everything seems superficial. For long stretches, the pimp Franz (Fassbinder), his friend Bruno (Ulli Lommel) and Franz's girlfriend Johanna (Hanna Schygulla) seem to hang out rather than act. They hang out in empty rooms. Like in a gallery. Franz and Bruno are urged to join the syndicate - and yet they spend more time shopping than committing crimes. Or they play pinball. Or they go for a walk. Fassbinder seems completely disinterested in the plot. The result is half an art film (even with shots by Jean-Marie Straub) and half a film noir. Quite boring, this mess. The misogynistic ambience doesn't help either. The last word is "whore". 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Jean-Luc Godard - King Lear 

Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear is a somewhat different interpretation of Shakespeare. The cast alone! Molly Ringwald, Burgess Meredith and the unnamed Woody Allen! So here is the Breakfast Club paired with Woody Allen. And the setting? Chernobyl. Godard's King Lear is set in the future. In a future where all culture has been lost. So a descendant of Shakespeare is now given the task of rewriting King Lear. Word for word. Godard turns the play into a kind of collage. Scenes can be rewound at will. One cut and we never see the characters again. Those who find meaning in it may continue to think. King Lear was produced by Cannon Films, of all people, the B-movie factory of the time. Two million was invested, although the finished work did not even bring in 20,000 again. American actors on Lake Geneva in Switzerland twist Shakespeare's dialogue under distorting cuts. That's how you can imagine it. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Emir Kustrurica - Do You Remember Dolly Bell 

The communist with the white hair and the ill-fitting suit addresses the audience with a grim face: "Comrades; the situation is very serious..." We are expecting a new five-year plan. During this committee meeting, however, the issue is that the young people in the youth club are to form a band. Commissioned by the spontaneous creativity committee. Now the camera pans to a festival area, somewhere outside Sarajevo in a poor Muslim neighbourhood. You can hear Italian pop hits. Then the credits: Do You Remember Dolly Bell. This is the beginning of Emir Kusturica's very first film from 1981, a coming-of-age story because it is about a boy's first tentative steps towards manhood. His name is Dino (Slavko Stimac) and he sings in a band. In keeping with the genre, Dino will now learn a lot about sexuality, love and family (because independence from parents is only possible in battle). Dino is a serious, sensitive boy growing up in Tito's Yugoslavia during the 60s. Along the way, we learn something about the post-Stalinist communist country of the 60s - and the 80s, because it is significant that Emir Kusturica's irreverent humour made it to the screen at all. Would such dialogue have been possible in the GDR? It may be doubted. The beauty of it is that Do You Remember Dolly Bell touches on universal themes, is moving and very charming! Even those who have never heard of Tito or the multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia can find their way around here and identify with Dino. And incidentally, Do You Remember Dolly Bell is also about the effects of communist ideology on Dino, because it is about the fading of an era and the memories of it. The melancholy of memory. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Loveless 

Andrey Zvyagintsev is Russia's most famous contemporary filmmaker and yet not invited to events such as the FIPRESCI Colloquium on contemporary Russian cinema in St. Petersburg. He is considered a "Western" filmmaker who makes Russia appear in too negative a light. Zvyagintsev himself has compared his film with Ingmar_Bergman, as he also shows the bitter divorce of a couple. Since Loveless takes a ruthless look at modern life and its bitter protagonists, I can think of even more comparisons to the author's cinema of the last 50 years. In contrast to comparable models from Europe, however, it seems impossible to me to imagine Zvyagintsev's works as a settlement with the flourishing West as a whole. His films are set in Russia and are about Russia only. So this isn't just a dysfunctional marriage. Loveless works like a metaphor for this very Russian society that produces such characters. And the marriage of Boris (Alexey Rozin) and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) is already in ruins when we meet them for the first time. They were aching, every sentence sounds contempt. Objectively it's simply about where the twelve-year-old Alyosha should stay after the separation. Neither of them want him. So there is only one boarding school left, because there he already learns discipline. Alyosha has to join the army later anyway! During the conversation Zhenya has to go to the toilet. The camera hangs behind the door where Alyosha stands in twilight. With a face distorted in desperation. Loveless shows us feelings that resemble an abyss of pain. Most of the time, however, the characters seem to be stunned. They are busy with themselves and their smartphones. During the first half, Loveless sheds light on the end of a marriage. Both have already started new relationships; they with a rich entrepreneur, he with a younger one. Bori's young wife is pregnant, his main concern is his work. Then suddenly Alyosha disappears. Not only from his environment, but completely from the film. The second half of Loveless is like a thriller and tells of the search for Alyosha. It is about the ignorance of the police and the growing despair of parents. Loveless plays in Russia, a country with trains of the apocalypse. It is a parable and yet always maintains the balance between metaphorics and realism. The title could hardly be more precise. The whole marriage was loveless from the beginning. Especially from Zhenya's point of view, who got pregnant unintentionally and was afraid of an abortion. Where does this willless submission to a loveless relationship come from? Zvyagintsev suggests the answer, since during the search for the boy we also get to know the religious mother of Zhenya. Boris only calls her "Stalin in a skirt". The search for Alyosha, in turn, makes us understand why people in need help each other. Isn't it just to make yourself feel a little better? But this is not the only social reprimand Loveless is making an effort to make. During the last minutes of the film we experience together with the protagonists a news program about the annexation of Ukraine. How little does this official version of the Russian media have in common with the artist Andrey Zvyagintsev's vision of his country? 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Sommer 04 

What did I actually just see? I'm not quite sure yet. It all begins with a family holiday on the North Sea. Miriam (Martina Gedeck), her fifteen-year-old son Nils (Lucas Kotaranin) and his precocious girlfriend Livia (Svea Lohde) try to spend their holidays together without a care in the world. But Livia meets the charming Bill (Robert Seeliger) and falls in love. Miriam believes that this is an unhealthy relationship, tries to prevent the bond, but in turn falls in love with the bon vivant herself. An affair begins. Bill, however, cannot forget Livia and leaves Miriam. Deeply hurt, the mother tries to talk to the girl when a serious accident occurs... Who wouldn't remember the claustrophobic relationship dramas of the 70s? From France? Summer '04 is about the ambivalent handling of (im)morality. The ingredients could make a thriller, but this is avoided at all costs. Everything seems undercooled, there is never anything like tension. On the contrary, in the moments when tension could be built up, the film revolves around details. Again and again, the incidental is focused on, like in a relationship drama. Summer '04 avoids clichés through this kind of staging, but also fails to clarify the motivation of the individual characters: Is Miriam really in love with Bill? And does Bill love Miriam? What guilt does Miriam bear? Are we allowed to feel sympathy? In keeping with the Berlin School, we never know more than the protagonists. Stefan Krohmer may have had a German film noir in mind, but above all he leaves everything in limbo. What have I actually seen? It remains unclear. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Leif In Concert 

The air to cut, posters and stickers everywhere, a dosshouse in the cellar vault: Welcome to the world of cellar bars! This is where Lene lives (embodied by the great Luise Heyer! My favourite movie with her: "Westwind" DVD5337). Lene is caught somewhere between uncertainty and callousness. Now she has to clean up the basement so that Leif can play there later. Leif is a musician whom Lene met in Copenhagen. And maybe Lene will even have a career, because her boss sees her as his successor! But above all it's about the feeling of life in the cellar. Presented in little anecdotes. These could be like the ones when Luise Heyer and her friend Daniela Schulz danced alone under the snow machine in our bar. What song was playing? Probably "When The Rain begins To Fall". Here it's grandma and grandchildren dancing in the cellar. There are also air guitar competitions, gay bouncers and the original Bela B. who tries to impress his girls with strange apps. So the Chameleon App. No one will ever steal your smartphone with this app! Leif In Concert Vol 2 is exactly the movie we are currently producing with Lea and Catrin in our bar. Of course we don't have Luise Heyer on board. Only our guests. A microcosm is presented in anecdotes. Completely in the tradition of "Smoke". That is also our role model! It was very important to me that our film of Lea and Catrin is not a stupid string of boasts and jokes. In the best case it should be a poetic trip into the night! Into the Berlin here & today, at least our little corner in the Reichenberger Strasse. Christian Klandt has done it! Hats off! Klandt has found his basement bar in Cologne, I think. But his claim is universal. You can find Keller Bars all over the world! How about if Volume I follows? Besides "Smoke" (DVD277), there was also "Blue In The Face" (DVD278 on the authors' shelf under Wayne-Wang). 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Birds Of Passage 

Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra's captivating gangster epic could just as well be considered an ethnographic documentary. We are in the late 60s, somewhere in the north of Colombia. That's where the Wayuu people live. A girl named Zaida (Natalia Reyes) has just finished the self-chosen ritual of isolation. Now her "emergence" can be celebrated. Zaida is ready for marriage. And the handsome young man from the neighbouring family, Rapayet (José Acosta), wants to marry her. Zaida's mother Ursula (Carmiña Martínez), however, reacts suspiciously towards him. She sets a dowry, of which she knows that Rapayet can awl. A multitude of cows and goats, in addition to a few necklaces. But it doesn't take long until Rapayet returns with the required goods and marries Zaida. The beginning of the thriller. Later, a woman from another Wayuu family will emphasize how they've always been pirates: The Spaniards or the English, finally various Colombian government envoys who wanted to control them. The Wayuu are tradition-conscious. They believe in ghosts and speak to the dead. Their greatest value is marriage. But the Wayuu's traditional way of life (irony of fate) was changed by a whole new enemy: The flourishing marijuana trade. A people who discovered the pleasure of wealth. Rapayet also earns his first money in the same way: he supplies the gringos in the mountains. They come in small planes to take over the cargo. As befits a gangster epic, Rapayet rises to the top of the merchant chain. His loads become bigger and bigger; they are no longer mules, but trucks transporting marijuana. The wealth goes to Rapayet's head - he reacts increasingly paranoid. His fiery partner Moises believes the gringos may have betrayed them. He kills two of them. These murders are an atrocity for the Wayúu, and Rapayets demands Moises executed. A family saga that drifts more and more into madness - but is structured by clear chapters. Each chapter lasts about half an hour and has an epilogue. Historically this time of the 60's to 80's is called "Bonanza Marimbera" because different tribes of Colombia were involved in the drug trade (more can be found on Wikipedia). Birds Of Passage deals with how much suffering and violence this caused. How many families and communities were destroyed! Fortunately not in Hollywood style, because violence often remains indirect. We see the dead bodies, but not the shooting. Gallego and Guerra attach much more importance to the nature of their characters and their culture. If you read more about the production, you will learn that the crew consists of "real" actors and lay actors of the Wayuu. Therefore even the details in this - as described - almost ethnographic documentary are correct. If you want to learn more about it, read Gabriel García Marquez, whose "Cien anos de soledad - Hundred Years of Loneliness" also shows influences of the Wayuu. Birds Of Passage could just as well be a classic tragedy. Or just a mafia epic like "The Godfather".

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Yasujiro Ozu - Late Spring 

It works like this: Ozu's movies run free on youtube with english subtitles every now and then. They may be deleted at short notice and reappear shortly afterwards. Like Late Spring. Shukichi, an aging professor and widower, lives alone with his daughter Noriko. She is already in her mid-twenties and still unmarried. In Japan in 1949 this age marks the end of her good life. The professor's sister warns him that Noriko will remain alone after his death. She has to get married. Shukichi resorts to a white lie and claims that he himself will step before the altar once more. It works, Noriko marries. That's all that superficially happens in Late Spring. But in the Tife: anger, passion and - a serious mistake. Father and daughter basically act against their will: They solve their togetherness and will probably be unhappy in the future. Only the aunt who compares Noriko's future husband with a Hollywood star feels satisfied. But we will never get to see him. It is typical for Ozu to withhold the man from us. Ozu is not interested in romance. He shows families whose status quo is changed by outsiders. Like in other Ozu movies Setsuko plays Hara Noriko. She is Japan's biggest film star and Ozu once declared that his films would simply not come about without her. Chishu Ryu, also a wonderful Ozu actor, gives the professor. Late Spring is the beginning of a cycle about families, where the season in the title shows the life section of each character. Did he shoot the same film over and over again? Not at all; his films build on each other and complement each other. The longer I think about it, the sadder Late Spring's story becomes: There is a tension between Noriko's smile and her feelings. The smile often serves as a mask. So Noriko laughs radiantly during an early film scene. Onodera, a friend of the family, tells Noriko that he had married a second time after the death of his wife. Such a marriage is dirty and lazy, Noriko replies. She smiles and feels disgusted. Onodera reminds Shukichi of his duty to marry Noriko and suggests Hattori, the professor's assistant. With him Noriko takes a bike tour to the beach and we can assume that both could fit together. When the father inquires, Noriko laughs and says that Hattori is already engaged. A second rendezvous doesn't take place because Noriko doesn't want to cause any trouble. Ozu leaves the conclusions to us by simply omitting many things. Maybe Noriko would be happy with Hattori? Would he have broken up his engagement? But the real reason is that Noriko doesn't want to leave her father. Noriko will later call this her victim. Now Masa, the aunt (Haruko Sugimura) appears with a new candidate: Satake, who supposedly looks like a Hollywood star. Noriko will correct that, because he looks more like the local electrician. Masa is the one who proposes to the professor the lie of claiming to marry even a younger widow. During a Noh performance, the situation becomes worse. Across the room, the professor nods to the younger widow and replies with a smile. At this moment Noriko loses all interest in the play. Noriko tells her father that she has to go somewhere and avoids staying at his side. Shukichi answers her question whether he will marry now only vaguely, even after three questions. He defends spasmodically arranged marriages by telling Noriko how his own mother often cried secretly in the kitchen - he also did not marry freely. While her aunt prepares everything, Noriko smiles, as always. She looks beautiful and very sad in her wedding dress (we don't see the ceremony itself). The professor admits to himself the greatest lie of his life. In one of the saddest Ozu scenes ever, we see him sitting alone in the kitchen. He peels an apple, but it falls to the ground. He bends his head down in grief. The professor's decision was often described as his victim. That doesn't meet the whole truth, because neither his nor her decision was of her own free will. On the contrary, Noriko confesses that she is happiest at his side while helping him. No marriage could replace that. They have also thought about the supposed incest of father and daughter. I think this is wrong. Noriko has a hidden aversion to sex. She wants to stay safe, forever with her father. Ozu's film is one of the greatest - one of the best two films of all time! Only Early Summer - by Yasujiro Ozu - can stand a comparison. Both films offer shots that seem to have been composed for the camera. The camera holds still, does not move. It films at eye level with the characters, thereby taking on its perspective. Ozu once noted that he always uses the 50mm lens that comes closest to the human eye. Ozu takes the time to show his father and daughter in the household. They come and go, they live together. During a later scene, in which Noriko is to be married, she will pick up some things from the floor and put them on the table. She compulsively captures her domestic happiness once more. So much takes place outside the movie. Implied, but not shown. Noriko smiles, but is unhappy. Shukichi accepts what happens even though he hates it. The aunt seems complacent and relentless. A universal agreement, a firm belief is that women must be married after a certain age. Late Spring shows two people who do not believe that. We see them desperate to make others right - to their own detriment. The credits run, I remain seated. I am still completely caught up in the film, I AM Noriko and the professor!