FREE ON YOUTUBE Ingmar Bergman Vargtimmen

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Vargtimmen, a very personal film by Ingmar Bergman, who still has to find his own audience today. I'm afraid that the normal moviegoer will reject the work in 2016 just as he did in 1968. Vargtimmen is difficult and not very successful. Bergman is giving us a creative act to use our own imagination. His film - we distrust him. When I last showed him at the film club, only a few were willing to do so. Most of them whispered to each other, didn't get into the work. Bergman makes use of Gothic legends. It is the story of an artist (Max von Sydow) who lives isolated from the world on an island with his wife (Liv Ullmann). On the other side of the island is the castle of the Baron and his circle of perverse friends. The artist is plagued by paranoid nightmares and insomnia at night. Vargtimmen plays mainly at dusk, the hour of the wolf. The darkest time of our soul when most people die and our most terrible dreams come true. Demons and spirits grow enormous powers during this hour. Obviously the artist is slowly going mad. Night after night he stays awake, telling of his dreams (or are they memories?). Reality, for him only a tightrope act. Where does it begin and where does it end? His dreams come true creepingly... There is this scene in which the artist fishes with a boy (is it his son?). It seems as if the child pushes him into the water. As if the child has a distorted face. The artist freaks out, kills the boy. Really? Bergman doesn't give us the answer. Finally the woman is afraid of her husband. The inhabitants of the castle crowd into the couple's lives, try to break them apart. Evil condenses during one of the baron's dinners. Something happened in the life of the artist. Some dark secret in the past. The inhabitants of the castle seem to know this and prepare a cruel joke at his expense - which Bergman presents in surrealistic pictures. The limits of logic are left behind. Bergman penetrates into the depths of consciousness. Vargtimmen could unfold into a great melodrama. But I don't want to anticipate. The best thing is to try to see the film in Bergman's sense.

FREE ON YOUTUBE The Cave Of The Yellow Dog

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Of course, you also look for wisdom in the cinema every now and then. But how far does one like this help us: "If a camel rejects its calf, send for a violinist! That was the message from "The Story of the Weeping Camel" by Byambasuren Davaa. A wisdom from Mongolia, as strange as it is enchanting, isn't it? Once I visited an entrepreneur fair in Beijing with my cinegeek partner. A German truck entrepreneur, based in Mongolia, described the country this way: "This is a men's country. If you open the door of your truck and the wind is 90 Km/h..." Of course the story is not true! The nomad family Batchuluun from Mongolia has three daughters. They are diligent, their rhythm depends on the seasons. Nansal (herself) is six and can already ride like an adult. It is she who brings the yellow dog home with her. The father protests. A dog inevitably attracts wolves and they eat its sheep! But Nansal loves her dog! Under no circumstances will she take him back to the wild! And what else happens? The family makes cheese, the children play with dried manure (they love that!) and we remember what life is all about: the simple things! There are also discussions about God and religion. One day one of the daughters is tinkering with a religious icon. But you can't play with God! A film in which it's all about a dog is so captivating!

FREE ON YOUTUBE Hans Weingartner - 303

Werner vom Nomadenkino wanted to know from me whether 303 would fit on the big cinema stage. Of course 303 feels and thinks! 303 feels and thinks like most of us do. And Hans Weingartner's Road Movie is also romantic! But for me the trip from 303 leads back to my own past... When I was still studying, I was always proud to hand in all my written work for the semester break on the last day. Then I went on vacation! Quickly studied = more free time. Also Jule (Mala Emde) and Jan (Anton Spieker) go south after finishing their semester. However, I doubt whether both enjoy this departure as much as I do. After all, Jule took a biology exam and missed Jan a scholarship. Rejected. Nevertheless it's off to the south. 303 by Hans Weingartner also offers beautiful memories for all of us who once enjoyed months of semester breaks. Weingartner himself maintained an arbour during the founding of our Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo in which his pothead buddies (who in turn helped with the renovation of our video store) met. Semester break forever! Anyway, he understands Jule and Jan, who prefer to philosophize about God and the world. He stays very close to the students. Jule sets off for Portugal to visit her boyfriend, because she is pregnant and intends to clear it up. Jan wants to visit his father, whom he never met, in Spain. Then he is transferred by his ride (of course) and decides to hitchhike. What happens? Jule picks him up and they argue about the moral responsibility of suicides. Jan believes in the egoism of people, while Jule insists that everyone is empathetic at its core. Without further ado Jule throws the passenger out, but of course they will meet again... Love probably at second glance. Jule and Jan actually only wanted to travel to Cologne together, but their conversations become deeper and more personal: trust, closeness or is everything regulated by perfumes? When Jule, disgusted, buys a piece of meat in a supermarket because Jan likes to barbecue, we also understand what it means to accept each other. They cross France together and reach Spain. It's getting harder and harder for the two of them not to fall in love... P.S. Of course one can understand the whole construction of the film of the ride to Spain as an anachronism. But Weingartner loves such outsiders who still drive a car in the time of cheap flights. The result is 145 magic minutes!

FREE ON YOUTUBE John Waters - Multiple Maniacs

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) John Waters probably deeply believes that all good American movies were made in the 50s. The dirty little movies with the bad endings. He himself looks like one of the greasy B-movie producers of the 50s, with a distinctive moustache. So about ten years later in his hometown Baltimore he started to realize similar trash movies for very little money. Such as Multiple Maniacs from 1967. Even when he got the means to produce "real" Hollywood movies during the 80s, he settled these candy musicals in the 50s. With a lot of gel and hairspray! In the 80's my father took me to the cinema to watch Waters "Cry-Baby". I liked the film but didn't know any of the actors: The very young Johnny Depp, Patricia Hearst, Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Joe Dallesandro, Joey Heatherton, Willem Dafoe, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords(...) But my father raved that he had just seen the best cast of all time! John Waters would have agreed. Except for Dame-Elizabeth Taylor, I'm sure every wish-list candidate from former times has worked with him. Nevertheless, Waters expanded the cinema in 1981 when he laid out so-called Scratch-n-Sniff cards in the hall. Normally such cards smell like the ones you get for Christmas. Waters' cards, however, stank miserably. In any case, John Waters emulated the models of the 50s. Especially the high school rebel movies. But of course not the established classics, but the lousy little cheap films. Like every good "Auteur", Waters liked to cast the same actors. Preferably Divine, who grew up with him. Divine had outrageously thick eyebrows and outrageously tight dresses. In Waters work he even made the leap out of the midnight movies and played a faithful suffering mother. With lots of hairspray and concrete hairstyle. Years later I read an interview about the remake of his musical. Waters was very proud that his outsiders had finally arrived in the middle of society. Then the divine Divine died and Waters mourned that he would never try to replace Divine. By the way, as his successor he chose a certain Johnny-Depp... In Multiple Maniacs nobody knew Divine yet. Nobody could have imagined that she could become a movie star. In Multiple Maniacs Divine is raped by a giant lobster. I would call Multiple Maniacs a Catholic horror movie. With the atmosphere of a pompous Hollywood melodrama of the 50s. Or something like that. Not only does he NOT stand in the spirit of the hippie movement of his time, but he clearly stands against Peace & Love. Instead we experience the typical John Waters characters: armpit treats, human ash buckets, vomit eaters, junkies. And Divine, gnawing at the guts of her dead lover as the giant lobster approaches from behind. The song "America The Beautiful" is played. I think John Waters must have been very happy with his movie.

FREE ON YOUTUBE The Blue Kite

FREE ON YOUTUBE  I used to often go to East Berlin to visit our friends. My parents told me I shouldn't talk about politics. At least not openly. That would be dangerous in the GDR. It could be heard by the wrong people. The Blue Kite played about 30 years earlier in China. In a small room, it must be somewhere in one of the traditional districts of Beijing, a wedding is celebrated and a child is born. Everyone in the courtyard of the Hutong (a traditional Chinese house with a courtyard) knows each other. Together they rejoice, prepare the food. Everyone brings something. They are normal people. Then one hears a voice from the loudspeakers that transmit the public radio. "Stalin is dead". Who is this Stalin? In the following years, a wave of political hysteria will destroy everything they dreamed of and planned for the long term. This is what The Blue Kite is about: How does it live in times of ideological madness? The boy's name is Tietou. If you translate that, it would mean as much as "iron head". With him we experience family celebrations and the uncanny uncle who sometimes comes. The uncle will join the army. With his girlfriend. Tietou remembers most vividly his blue dragon, which got caught in a tree. The father promised him to buy a new one. In the background of life in China. The country was still in a capitalist system. Slowly, however, there are signs of change. Once the Neighbourhood Committee meets. Who owns the courtyard anyway? The state, they are soothed. The landlady would have just lowered the rent. The good people understand that they have to change something after the revolution in the new China. They are doing their best! But there is one thing they cannot understand: A rational plan is missing. The so-called political turn serves only the purpose to frighten and frighten the citizens. In this way the whole country can be controlled. Then Tietou's father Shalong (Pu Quanxin) disappears. He is a librarian. Once a committee on "right-wing" tendencies meets in his library. The father has to go to the toilet. When he comes back, all eyes are on him. He must have left the room at the wrong moment. At this point we learn what it means not to have reached a quota. Tietou and his mother Shujuan (Lu Liping) are told that their father is far, far away. We experience: He was deported to a labour camp. There he died. Then the "big leap forward" takes place in China. The "Cultural Revolution". It causes poverty and famine. Two more marriages will lead the mother in the hope of ending this misery somehow... Director Tian Zhuangzhuang belongs to the legendary "fifth generation" of directors in China. They brought Chinese films back to the festivals of the world in the late 80s. That a work like The Blue Kite exists at all is probably a miracle! A film that draws its strength from simply showing normal life. We don't see bad guys. Not the great party leader. Sometimes mobs roam the streets and shout slogans. But when you take a closer look they are just neighbours trying to do the right thing. Once the teacher's hair is cut. Fröhlich tells his mother that they have fought the teacher and cut her hair. She is a bad person. Anyone can spit on her. Tietou learns this and believes it. And the husbands of the mother? The first is a friend of the family. But one night he dies. His liver has failed. Malnourished. The second man is a small party official. But one day he proposes a divorce. It would be better if the mother would no longer be seen with him. He would have been denounced during work. The saddest scene is the one when he looks at Tietou. He would have always loved the boy - but the boy would not. But children are like that. Then he is carried out of the house by the mob. Is there anything like "right" or "wrong" at all? No. Only something like immunity against the mob. Not to be discovered. In The Blue Kite we only experience life in the neighbourhood of the Hutongs. The metropolis must be somewhere out there. The capital. Inside you ride your bike and share everything. Everything seems graceful. The faces of these people are beautiful. They are simple. Is that supposed to be the "reactionary bourgeois" life? Just to get the family through? They are universal hopes that people share in The Blue Kite. They want to work well. They want to do the right thing. An old woman explains that she has nothing to do with politics; she is too old for that. But The Blue Kite is a thoroughly political film! It's not primarily about China. It is about the nature of man.

First Reformed + Transzendenz im Kino

Paul Schrader's First Reformed, in which Ethan Hawke mimes a drinking Protestant priest in a psychological crisis, is an enchanting, breathtaking film! Definitely the crowning work of this always underestimated important director of American cinema! Schrader is no longer trying to reach a large audience. First Reformed is aimed at a limited audience. A clear demarcation from the mainstream in every respect. Our colleague Sulgi, a truly ardent Schrader follower, worked in our first address at the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo! He gave me the former film critic's standard book on the transcendence of cinema. Schrader wrote about Ozu-Dreyer-Bresson at the age of 24! Most hip customers around twenty definitely don't borrow one of the three! As a director, Schrader has always uncompromisingly revealed his influences. There is no "stealing ideas" for him, but there is "intelligent, strategic stealing". Schrader, who grew up in a Christian Reformed church with a strict Calvinist concession, has always understood his work as a bow to his role models. Those who read something about him learn that he grew up without films. It is clear that the forbidden developed a special attraction! It is also understandable that Schrader, unlike the Neukölln hipsters, did not turn his attention to fancy popcorn goods, but to strict films. Those who first want to be cracked by us. Schrader, one reads, experienced as a teenager the bridge of his spiritual education and quite "profane" films. The crux for him: The convergence of film and church would not be expressed in the message, but in the style. Schrader, the great stylist! Who, if not him, rang in the stylized 80s with "American Gigolo"? And First Reformed? Slowly the camera advances, showing the white facade of a church in the state of New York. We see the colonial architecture before the grey sky. Images and music convey a severity that no longer exists in cinema. Schrader is now very close to his beloved role models. The angular priest in ankle-high trousers named Ernst Toller (Hawke) also seems strict. Sparse. But he is a very restless man. His church has very few members. At night Toller drinks, writes down all his misery in his diary (who doesn't think of Bresson's example of the country priest?). What is behind Toller's torments? He used to be happily married. A military pastor who encouraged his son to move to Iraq. We suspect what follows. The son fell, Toller's marriage broke up. Now he is practicing both buses and denial in his small tourist church. Then the pregnant Mary (Amanda Seyfried) turns to him, who believes her husband would demand an abortion from her. His name is Michael (Philip Ettinger), he works as an environmental activist, suffers from depression and believes in no future. We are allowed to transfer this to the whole world. Toller, on the other hand, believes that there is still hope for our planet. In the following both men seem to influence each other. For better or for worse. Finally, Mary confides to Toller that she has discovered suicide tools in her husband... Schrader's film closes. Is he aiming at an audience that wants a psychological drama? No. Or a dogmatic representation of spiritual themes? No. Schrader is concerned with spiritual consciousness. The new edition, transcendent cinemas. The creation of an alternative, transcendent film reality. First Reformed thus addresses an audience that knows and loves Schrader's role models. Once my father told me that in the 60s it was not a pure pleasure to go to the cinema. You MUST swallow the new "Bergman" or the new "Tarkovsky" - understand it, work it out. Schrader made a film of silence, of blanks. His visual language almost seems like a liturgy. A reflection of faith and its opponents. Schrader has achieved this for the first time. First Reformed no longer needs to make use of common narrative patterns. Schrader leaves all that behind. We can take a deep breath and be amazed.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Peter Weir - Picnic At Hanging Rock

FREE ON YOUTUBE  On a sleepy Valentine's Day around 1900, a class of schoolgirls from a strict Australian boarding school set off on a trip to Hanging Rock. Three of the girls and a teacher will disappear during the trip. As if they disappear into thin air. One of them is found a week later. She can't remember anything. The rest will never appear again. On this basis Peter Weir filmed his greatest film. A work about dark secrets and hidden sexual hysteria. It is also a film about the gap between the European settlers of Australia and their new home. And a film about the devil himself? When I founded the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo, Picnic At Hanging Rock came out uncut on DVD after it had not been available for a long time. Yes, disappeared, like the girls. Unusual: Weir's "Director's Cut" takes out material instead of adding some! A work free of plot and explanation. It's the same for us as for the participants of the trip. The girls just disappear. Point. The story is based on facts. Or is it not? Did the girls disappear from our time line? Or did they just fall into a column? And the girl you picked up a week later? She had lost her shoes - but her feet were intact. There are several theories, but of course we are talking about the fact that there is NO explanation. Hanging Rock swallows its visitors. And watch Weir film the trip: Isn't it as if the group of outsiders were being watched? Are there no faces recognizable in the rock? There were such stories before in film history. The woman who simply disappears during a trip to a Mediterranean island. Or the corpse, which can be seen enlarged on photos - but was never found in the place. Theoretically analysed for the first time: There are things in the Victorian age, disturbing secrets that the spirit of modern life cannot translate or process. This is the message of Picnic At Hanging Rock. It all starts at Am Appleyard College in Woodend, Victoria. There, discipline and ladylike behavior replace real learning. The teacher Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) herself seems to have unfulfilled needs and punishes a rebellious girl with exclusion from the hike. The other students set off in the carriage for Hanging Rock. Their parasols shine in front of the dark rock. We hear girls laughing - in contrast to the inhospitable landscape. The sun breeds. Insects kill and eat themselves. Underlaid with disturbing music. Everything seems like a hallucination. Does the repressed sexuality have anything to do with the disappearance of the girls? Somehow their most secret desires seem to intertwine with the dark rock. A girl, Edith, runs screaming back to the group. The others would have disappeared! Later she remembers seeing the missing teacher in her underwear. Remnants of lace underwear are found. We remember Mrs. Appleyard's unspoken sexual feelings... The director Peter Weir, in any case, should then stage films more often about outsiders who are in places to which they do not belong. It seems as if Weir is afraid of these places. Wouldn't it be better to stay at home? You'll be fine at home, but in strange places like Hanging Rock you might just disappear. Worse still, that you will be haunted...