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Who knows the hierarchy of the great car chases in film history? I'm sure William Friedkin is in it twice. Not only with "The French Connection", but also with To Live And Die In L.A., his comeback from 1985, a film that is hardly in demand in our video store and I want to change that! The big chases always reflect their city and since Friedkin's film is set in L.A., the hunt MUST go over the freeway. The Secret Service has to catch a counterfeiter who's been tricking the law for years. On the side of the law is Richard Chance (William L. Petersen), the film's hero. Friedkins Plot revolves around friendship, loyalty, arrogance and anger - central emotions. Then it's time for the car chase. By the way, it is not one of those useless hunts that were supposed to breathe some life into unsuccessful films in the 80s. Hunting is part of the plot. An impressive ballet of timing, speed and imagination! In general, the large car chases are never simply a means to an end. They add something to the film; a strange vehicle, an unexpected challenge or an unusual situation. In To Live And Die In L.A. Friedkin is not satisfied that the hunt takes place on the freeway. It takes place against the traffic on the wrong side of the freeway! Today, in the digital age, as one can soon expect animated cars, Friedkin's choreography is all the more astonishing. How much fender bender would that cause? The best thing is the shots from the air, so we see hundreds of cars over four lanes! They're all heading for the escaping car! The key to everything is Friedkin's direction. He had made great but very disappointing films during the New Hollywood era and can be considered a pioneer of blockbusters. In the 80s, the veteran of action cinema could now also teach the next generation how to film action. Great also the actors, especially the young Willem Dafoe, who teaches us his craft of faking in a cool and professional way. I like films that have obviously researched their subject! To Live And die In L.A. knows as much about the counterfeiting trade as it does about the Secret Service. Friedkin's film is not simply about policemen and robbers. It is about two systems, how to do business and how one system always tries to defeat the other. That's interesting! So is the hunting. 

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I wanted to watch John Frankenheimer's The Birdman Of Alcatraz with my girlfriend (she refused, no Prison Break please) - but in the end, we both loved this unusual intimate play! Because The Birdman Of Alcatraz is really no Prison Break in the traditional sense! The film simply reverses the usual formula, bringing depth and humanity to this film adaptation of the life of Robert Stroud. After a true story. For 53 years the over 70 year old "Birdman" was in prison. Burt Lancaster vividly shows how this time leaves deep scars, how one forces something like privacy in prison. Highlight of the film: Birdman's clash with the vindictive prison warden. Robert Stroud, convicted of murder, continues his education behind bars, dedicates himself to bird breeding. In fact he discovered cures for bird diseases, which he eventually published. Like in the biggest and most important movies of Frankenheimer during the 60's, The Birdman Of Alcatraz is about the dignity of man. The redemption of the dignity of the individual in an inhuman system. Because true freedom, it always comes from within! By the way, the hateful prison warden finds out the opposite. One day he must realize that he has grown old with Birdman. Just like his inmates, he has spent most of his life behind bars. Both men, the Birdman and the prison warden, have to realize that they spent their lives on Prison Island of Alcatraz...

NAZA on CINEGEEK.DE 

A harrowing documentary by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who previously garnered attention with No Other Land. Naza is a film difficult to describe and even more difficult to watch. Based on revelations by The Guardian, corroborated by 24 Israeli intelligence officers, Naza is not told from a Palestinian perspective, yet it features Palestinian voices, recorded on their mobile phones. After October 7th, the intelligence apparatus of surveillance was running at full speed, and we witness how revenge turned into genocide. Many reject films shot from the perspective of the oppressor (see Claude Lanzmann). Although Naza features exclusively Israeli voices, it doesn't fit into this category, as it is an investigation into state violence. A journalistic piece in real time. We hear from those involved not years later, but while they are still carrying out the orders that led to genocide. We learn just how intensive the surveillance was. We learn that someone who inflicts such massive harm on the population of Gaza is indifferent to its destruction. Many deny their guilt, claiming they are merely following orders. Few confront their actions. Naza will anger and disappoint many. Israel has already questioned the authenticity of the images, and Palestinians will criticize the fact that only the oppressor is given a voice. NAZA refers to the unit of measurement used to count Palestinians killed as collateral damage. The film attempts to refute genocide deniers who (as was the case during the Nuremberg Trials) rely on subjective arguments. In an ideal world, a film that has to prove the existence of genocide wouldn't even be necessary. Why don't we simply believe those who have lived through hell in Gaza?

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*Sound Of Falling* spans a century and several generations of a family from the Altmark region. The film is set entirely on this family’s farm. We first see the farm around 1910. This might sound like a linear narrative, but that is precisely what director Mascha Schilinski avoids with her extensive material. She does not tell the story chronologically. Instead, she interweaves the generations and links them once again through the setting – the farm. Almost like an Impressionist painting. The timeline unravels, the past overlaps with the present. Almost like a ghost story featuring a haunted house and a ghost – that is the story. In every generation, there is a curious young girl surrounded by death on all sides. And every generation struggles with unspoken, forbidden longings. Our task is to find out who these people are and what era we are in. It always comes down to the ‘life lived in vain’ – an expression that crops up time and again. Floors creak, flies buzz, a deafening silence. What is it? The feelings we never admit to? Time in all its relentlessness? Time does its work, people are forgotten, and yet... something remains. Something around us.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Taxidermia + surrealistische Komödien 

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It's easy to forget; Peter Sellers, a British comedian who started his career in the 50s, had a furious start in Hollywood thanks to his in-house director Blake Edwards, but also lots of stupid comedies. The Party, 1968, is definitely not an off-the-shelf Peter Sellers comedy. In Blake Edwards The Party, Sellers develops a character and simply plays it through. For better or for worse. Whereby; in The Party there are almost exclusively terrible moments. Sellers embodies Hrundi V. Bakshi, an Indian actor who politely, even delicately sabotages an entire evening. Supported by an incredibly drunk butler. Scene: The villa of a Hollywood producer with many, many guests and an elephant. The party there begins inconspicuously with cocktail music in the background. You nod at each other discreetly - representing your own status. Like at a Neuköllner Hipster Party. The music is discreet, everyone wears strange clothes. Behind them, however, madness slowly escalates. At first, the events remain painfully close to life. Could that happen to us? The film says: It's possible!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE film list Berliner Schule 

The French found the term "Nouvelle Vague Allemande", the Germans say "Berliner Schule". But school is the wrong term for a loose group of directors who shoot mainly in Berlin and whose films are minimalist and oriented to everyday life. More and more often, however, one hears that these films of the Berlin School seem to be unworldly and hostile to the spectators. In 2001 the impossible happened, Christian Petzold's Arthaus Action film Die innere Sicherheit was awarded the German Film Prize. Petzold's fame was colored by Angela Schanelec (My Slow Life) and Thomas Arslan (The Beautiful Day). This was not the German mainstream with its bestselling films, but the revival of great role models such as Robert Bresson, Eric Rohmer or Kiarostami. When Christoph Hochhäusler's Milchwald ran at the Berlinale, he was given the label "Berlin School". Filmmakers grouped around the film magazine Revolver, Christoph Hochhäusler, Benjamin Heisenberg, Valeska Griesebach, Ulrich Köhler and Jessica Hausner, were now Berlin School. Formulating one's own subjectivity means alienating figures or places. The almost frozen-looking inner worlds of Milchwald, the apathetically observing sleeper of Heisenberg, the passengers of Petzold in ghosts. Just a moment ago friends or parents, disappeared in the next moment just like ghosts...