South America 10s

A customer of our video store from Colombia recently said that basically all films from South America are about the effects of European colonialism on the Amazon. This conflict is often presented in poetic images. Life, a mystery. So every bend in the Amazon river becomes a metaphor. Films that are guided by chance, by fate. They love the melodramatic, the violent, even the sensational. And yet they seem much more modern than the Hollywood films of our time! Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Northern European Movies 10s

When farce and tragedy are so close together, how do I react? When a short stifled laugh is immediately stifled again, because you realize that this scene isn't funny after all? That's about how you could look at the best films from Northern Europe.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Tom Tykwer - Babylon Berlin Season 1 

FREE ON YOUTUBE  But watch out; the second episode is missing and is summarized here at the end. - A train races through the night and is stopped by a burning tree, which crashes crosswise onto the tracks. Armed men, followers of Trotsky, storm out of the undergrowth. They take the uniforms of the decoy leaders and couple another freight car. The contents? Definitely subversive. The train crew is shot down in the head and the train moves towards Berlin. And don't all roads lead to Berlin during the 1920s? During the Weimar Republic, definitely! I think our Berlin today could not exist without the longing for this Berlin of the 20s. The most depraved and glamorous city in the world! Politically, sexually, socially one may use the image of the scissors. Berlin was the city of extremes. Hyperinflation, war invalids, poverty in the streets. The populist right is gaining power. Babylon Berlin almost seems like a contemporary series, right? Next to it there is the parallel world of nightclubs. The age of jazz. "Sexing" is what they call it - everybody with everybody. Berlin seems like a ticking bomb and we all know when it should explode. In the middle of it all we meet Inspector Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch). Rath came to Berlin from Cologne. He is also a war veteran. Obviously he suffers from a post-traumatic stress disorder, which he tries to bear with small vials of morphine. There's not much we know about Rath yet. He works for Vice, delving deeper and deeper into the city's darkest secrets. Then we meet Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), who catalogues murders in the police department during the day and descends halfway around the world at night. And the scenes in the night clubs are the greatest thing about Babylon Berlin (none other than Bryan Ferry excels as a songwriter and performer!) To revive the Berlin of the 20's they obviously made a lot of money! Quite incidentally, they invested in a whole range of German stereotypes - probably also in order to make the reference to the here & now clear again and again. The really big feelings I expect in such an epic are not given enough attention. But who knows; maybe I'm just not really hooked yet? Like Gereon Rath. - The first episode of the first season runs in good quality free on YouTube, only the second episode is missing! That's why I want to summarize it briefly: Gereon Rath interrogates the arrested porn producer. He collapses in the presidium in rehab. Charlotte Ritter rescues him by chance. In the evening Charlotte climbs into "Moka Efti". There Nikoros appears as a singer. But he doesn't appear to be who he says he is...

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FREE ON YOUTUBE Wayne Wang - Chan Is Missing

FREE ON YOUTUBE A small, bizarre insider tip, which I would like to buy for our video store for some time now! Until then I was unsuccessful, but at least this indie pearl runs free on YouTube. In good (at least adequate) quality with English subtitles. If you watch Chan Is Missing, first of all you notice how little he knows about Chinatown. This is a warm, reserved look at the so-called ABCs - the American Born Chinese. The plot is simple. The heroes of the film are two taxi drivers who are looking for Chan. He has disappeared. But why did he disappear without paying? The two are familiar with the customs in Chinatown, knock on different doors and almost imperceptibly, we are already in the everyday life of the people there. So in Chinatown, San Francisco. Chan Is Missing lives from his casual, loving humor. The film is both cheerful and cynical. There are appearances: A philosophical cook or a political activist. And we learn a lot about linguistics, since Chan recently said "no" to a policeman and meant "yes". Did Chan answer A) referring to the truth of his action? Or B) to the meaning of the question? Sounds complicated and therefore even more funny! If you read a little bit about the making of the movie, you will immediately get the desire to shoot something, too. Director Wayne Wang (also co-writer, producer, editor) shoots with borrowed money from friends. Less than 30.000 Dollars! The plot reminds of film noir classics. A man disappears and his life is much more complex than we knew. But it's not a thriller. More like a trip to Chinatown, a road movie to seedy bars and the offices of social workers. New Wave style. And the end of the Odyssey? Well, there may not be a Chan, at least he's untraceable. But everyone has a different idea of Chan. And that in turn says a lot about one's own consciousness. And this is how WE see the American Born Chinese: as if through a filter. We have a certain idea. Just like the idea of Turks or Arabs here in Berlin. But actually we don't know them at all! Chan Is Missing does. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

FREE ON YOUTUBE Frozen Land

Frozen Land begins with a dismissal and ends with a shooting. In between we experience a fateful chain of coincidences. A chain reaction of mishaps. The protagonists are: Alcoholics, losers and depressives whose paths cross in Helsinki. It's strange, but we feel with them and laugh at their misfortune at the same time. And they are all doomed! That is how it works: We think; these poor pigs! We want to embrace them. But then our sympathy begins to dwindle. And in the end I think that they can only be as good as they can be. I find it fascinating that I must never be sure whether I should cry or laugh with these guys. Life in Helsinki is bleak, grim and sad. These figures are not tragic, but very stupid, unsuspecting, even mentally ill. Of course, they look into the world just as motionlessly as passively. After all, Frozen Land is a Finnish film! And in Finnish movies little people are usually crushed by an inexorable system. They never smile, smoke a lot and always expect the worst. Like the drug-addicted hustler who starts the chain reaction with a 500 Euro bill. Or the vacuum cleaner salesman who struggles with alcohol problems. Or the criminal computer nerd. The paradox of human existence.

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Auerhaus + German 80s Retro Movies

Neele Leana Vollmars Auerhaus is about a life in winter. A life somewhere in the Swabian province during the 80s: pedestrian zone, ice cream parlour, pizzeria and the grammar school on the outskirts of the city. Höppner and his WG grow up there. They live together, one of them is suicidal. They talk about death and listen to New Wave. At some point they will claim that it was the best time of their lives.

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FREE ON YOUTUBE Fatih Akin - Crossing The Bridge

FREE ON YOUTUBE The bridge from west to east is Istanbul itself. The linchpin from west to east. THE place for the meeting of cultures! and Istanbul is constantly developing; this shows Fatih Akin's documentary from 2005. Akin was born in Germany. He grew up in Hamburg. His view of Istanbul is that of a stranger. The perspective of the discoverer! Tour guide Alex Hacke from Einstürzende Neubauten from Berlin is allowed to play. Another stranger. (Why only Alex Hacke remains Fatih Akin's secret, the West Berliner doesn't offer so much insight). It becomes more interesting after about 20 minutes, when Akin penetrates deeper into the city: Jams in Roma bars, Turkish film stars or the virtuoso Orhan Gencebay - and then the highlight: The great Sezen Aksu. She is and remains THE Turkish star par excellence! In any case, Akin loves Istanbul and idealizes his place of longing.

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The Lighthouse + Modern Surreal Comedies

Do you love movies beyond your imagination? Movies that don't play in every multiplex? Rather in such locations for obscure films as the cinema of my old partner Skulli in Gärtner Str. am Boxhagener Platz (B-Ware). Where a bottle of beer costs 2.50 and everything seems a bit cranky. With lots of decoration elements and old couches. And of course you can smoke during the show. In addition films of Guy Maddin, Delepine & Kerchern or Wenzel Storch? Or The Lighthouse, the new film by Robert Eggers.

Filmlist Invisible Life + Arthouse Brasil

Who remembers Four Days In September or Central Station? These were the two films that heralded a kind of renaissance of Brazilian cinema during the 90s. And it's worth noting: These were real audience films in Brazil and also with us! Brazilian customers brought me a stack of import DVDs in the early 00s, some of which became real Kiez blockbusters in the video store. The themes of these films are explicitly Brazilian. And they look great and are filled with real (Brazilian) stars! Since the Cinema Nuvo of the 60s there exists something like a deep longing for "Brasilidade" - the deeply Brazilian one. We know this from Cinema Nuvo, which tried to depict and explain reality. The new cinema does not explain. It observes. We see individual stories like Invisible Life, the great new colorful melodrama by Karim Aïnouz. If you love deep emotions and epic stories, you can run straight to the cinema! It tells the story of two sisters who live in the same city but never meet. Prevented by the mother. You can imagine that there are moments when they meet FAST. Monstrously captivating! Just like the other films from the short list that collects Brazilian Arthaus titles.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Kim Ki-duk - 3 Iron

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Only in Korean original version, but not in Bin-Jip. If you are familiar with the movies of Kim Ki-duk, you know that. Bin-Jip even takes an exceptional position in Kim Ki-duk's work, because speechlessness is not only a stylistic device, but the heart of the story. Kim Ki-duk was always the favorite director of my old partner Skulli. He even bought the rights to the first two Kim Ki-duk films in order to distribute them on DVD for the German market. With little success. His distribution told him that even Bin-Jip was sold only about 1000 times. 1000 DVDs in Germany! And this is a successful Korean film! Kim Ki-duk can be regarded as Enfant Terrible. He shows dogs being beaten and fishhooks drilling into human genitals. Lust inevitably leads to murder in his work. At the center of Bin-Jip is Tae-suk (Jae Hee), who breaks into villas. He lives there for a few days and thanks in his own way by doing the household. He washes and cleans. One night, while sleeping in a strange bed again, he is surprised by the beautiful Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-yeon). A woman abused by her rich husband, who lives almost invisibly in her own house. Without changing a word, Tae-suk and Sun-hwa fall in love. They will never break this vow of silence until the end of the movie. From now on we can't even be sure if Tae-suk is still real or shapeless... Bin-Jip is a ghost story about love in this and the next world. A film about the transcendence of love! And not only Skulli has recommended the film more than 1000 times since our video store was founded.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Wim Wenders - Until The End Of The World

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Who is interested in production notes? For over a year, Wim Wenders filmed in 15 cities, eight countries and four continents. The story takes place in 1999 - in the future. The world of the future looks like ours - only less shabby, less violent and a little more modern or technologically advanced. This world is threatened by the fact that an atomic satellite has freed itself from its orbit and is speeding towards Earth. In this situation, in which people basically stopped living, a beautiful woman (Solveig Dommartin) meets a stranger (William Hurt). Outside on the street. It seems a bit like a movie noir, but the actual plot is still to begin. Wim Wenders movies often start with mysterious characters. And often they are road movies. Typical Wenders characters just appear out of nowhere. Then they get entangled in a series of coincidences and at the end there is insight. While the atom satellite moves towards the earth, the mysterious stranger continues his very own mission. It leads from Venice to Paris, then to San Francisco and finally to Asia. It is to end in Australia, where Wenders finds a kind of metaphysical Mecca. The beautiful woman follows him. She wants to find out what drives him. Those who now expect a classic plot will be disappointed. I would call it a visionary fantasy. The stranger's parents (Max von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau) live in an underground laboratory in the Australian outback. Did the stranger look for materials for his father? But that's the wrong question. Wenders' film seems as if he had improvised at the various locations. His long-time cameraman Robby Muller visually holds together what was perhaps born out of necessity. But that makes this mammoth project all the more interesting! At the time, when the film was shown in the cinema, it was agreed that Wenders had failed. Until The End Of The World most people just found it boring. Then something strange happened. Years later the work came out in a 3 DVD box. We put it in our video store and everybody loved the movie! They found that he had been far ahead of his time! Like Kubrick's "2001"! Even longer, supplemented by further scenes, it became obvious what Wenders wanted to achieve: not to tell a story, but to collect impressions. At the end there is a moral. This morality can be found in the Australian outback, in a place where the Aborigines have been telling each other their stories for centuries. Is that the future? After all, computers that visualize human dreams have already been introduced in the film. But what use is all this technology if it's going to be grilled by the atomic satellite anyway? We'd better concentrate on the traditional way of telling stories. Why should technology tell us how to dream?

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FREE ON YOUTUBE Alfred Hitchcock - The Man Who Knew Too Much

Critics call Hitchcock the "Master Of Suspense". So is he! But what I remember most about his films is what Hitchcock's films do to us emotionally! Especially bad; the maternal trauma of Doris Days Josephine Conway McKenna in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Who knows, maybe Hitchcock can shock us so much because he knows TO MUCH about us? Because his films use our greatest possible horror. A horror we can't escape. But why do we enjoy being tortured so much? There is so much to read about. Only recently our colleague Lea explained to me that she was basically only introduced to film science at university with Hitchcock. Hitchcock was certainly lucky that his neuroses are universal. He shows us how fragile our world is. And behind it lurks an unknown world. A world that confirms every one of us who secretly wants the worst. The Man Who Knew Too Much is a remake of the British film of the same name that Hitchcock shot about 20 years ago. Who doesn't know the climax in the Royal Albert Hall with the famous cymbal crash during which an assassin shoots? It is often quoted to prove what a great craftsman Hitchcock is. But the moments in which the McKenna couple return to London are the most memorable for him. To the south of London, with dusty streets and the equally dusty Brixton Chapel. The streets are always empty. When someone follows you, you hear every step he takes. A child is trapped in this chapel. Later, during an ambassador's reception, Josephine Que Sere Sera sings to find out exactly in which room the child is being held. Hoping that the child, her son, to whom she recited the song so often, would react. Will Josephine's son hear her? Will he whistle? A wave of hope, but also of despair. And Josephine? She smiles to entertain her audience. And suddenly we realize: Doris Days Josephine doesn't belong to Hitchcock's typical ice blondes. She is a passionate woman! Maybe she was even the only passionate blonde in Hitchcock's repertoire? You notice; it's fun to see Hitchcock movies again, because you always come across something new! Or in my case: On thoughts that I had never thought of before. That's why Hitchcock remains the "Master Of Suspense", but so much more!

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FREE ON YOUTUBE Roman Polanski - Repulsion

Roman Polanski's psychological thriller is not only deeply disturbing and horrible, but also shows one of the rarest things possible in cinema: A woman commits all the murders! Catherine Deneuve's staring, her fearful gaze dominates the film. This look, we saw him shortly before in a certain shower scene and Polanski has not only copied a lot from this role model. Carol (Deneuve) is a shy, beautiful girl in London. She lives in a somewhat shabby apartment together with her worldly sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) in South Kensington. Carol feels disgusted by the disgusting (and married) boyfriend of her sister (Ian Hendry). He comes by for loud sex in the bedroom, right next to Carol and of course leaves his razor in her toothbrush cup. Carol is horrified by the desire of other men, even in front of her discreet admirer Colin (John Fraser), whose sincere love might be just right for her. Her fear of sex increases into a neurotic fascination for dust and dirt of every kind. The state escalates into claustrophobia and paranoia. The nightmare that Carol is preparing for himself is one of the most disturbing experiences I have ever had in cinema. How individual scenes dissolve into bizarre hallucinations that shake you up with fear... Who still remembers the "Assault" scene? The ticking enlarged clock? The cracks in the wall that Carol imagines when she turns on the light? When I saw Repulsion for the first time, it was the borderline experiences of fear that thoroughly unsettled me! I watched very few films that show a completely distorted world through a single point of view. In front of us a world of terror and compassion is revealed - Carol's world. This development is all the more tragic as Carol's beauty pretends to be "normal" and satisfied (after all, all men in the film demand their sexual attention). The first and last shots are close-ups of Carols right eye. A picture from her childhood proves that the rigid gaze, the madness, is already applied to her as a child. Is there an explanation for this? In 1968, Joseph Gelmis asked whether the children's photograph should suggest that Carol was a victim of sexual abuse? Polanski denied that. He only wanted to show that something was already wrong with the girl back then.

In Cinemas: Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

What a very elegant and mysterious costume drama! And one with a feminist perspective about the rapprochement of two women! The so-called Bechtel test is passed easily, because the painter and her model in Céline Sciamma's work of art meet in a secluded castle. Completely without men. Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) is the beautiful daughter of a noble family and she is recovering from the death of her sister. Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is the name of the artist who has been commissioned to secretly portray Heloise. For her future husband from Milan. The promised husband of the dead sister... I had last seen The Death Of Louis XIV, an almost eccentric costume drama from France. And who doesn't remember the enormously bloody La Reine Margot with Isabelle Adjani? Or Gerard Depardieu as Cyrano de Bergerac? Or Le Roi Dance with its excessive baroque pictures? Reason enough for a list!

In Cinemas: Lara

In Jan-Ole Gerster's second film Victor (Tom Schilling) gives his mother Lara (Corinna Harfouch) a food basket. This is how humour works. Like an oath of revelation. Everything concentrates on one day (as in Gerster's debut "Oh Boy"). Lara turns sixty that day and Victor gives the most important piano concert of his career. Sounds like a day of joy - but on this day Lara tries to throw herself out of the window. All her life she worked in the administration of the city and all her life she despised this official job. That's why police officers of all people ring the doorbell while she tries to get everything over with. Lara's passion was always for music, but she gave up because of a single saying by her professor. Then everything went wrong. Her whole life is poisoned. Shortly before, Victor broke off contact with her. Before her sixtieth birthday, Lara is faced with the shards of her existence. Within the short time frame we learn more about Lara. Not that she is a person who reveals much of herself. But we notice: Lara is a control freak, manipulative and malicious. And yet she touches us! Because Lara is also full of haggard passion and intelligence! Then she makes the decision to buy all the remaining tickets for her son's concert. In her evening gown she sets off for the Berlin night. She gives the tickets to her old professor, her neighbour, her former colleague. She has no friends. Of course not. She has devastating words for everyone. Then she meets Victor before his concert, makes him so insecure with a single statement that we have to fear for him... And how did Lara become what she is? "When I think of the day of her first public appearance, I already regret her parents for the embarrassment. A sentence of her professor, whom he just said. As he tells her that evening. Lara had great talent.

Filmlist: Garden State 

In Hollywood movies, people used to go out on adventures. To the big city. Since the 90's, but since the heyday of indie cinema, you return to the small town where you were born. In former times one sought victory, today one escapes defeat. But your hometown is the centre of your depression. Here you will meet all the crazy people of the past again - and your parents. That's risky! And these films dramatize the decay of every optimism. You can't make it in your small town and you can't make it anywhere. Sounds pathetic? But no! Garden State, Lonesome Jim, Elizabethtown or Beautiful Girls are beautiful movies, which are also constantly rented by you in our video library. Especially Garden State! The focus is always on sad guys. I wouldn't call them men, rather big boys. Not grown up. But always helpful women appear in these movies. Liv Tyler in Lonesome Jim and Jersey Girl or Nathalie Portman in Garden State. They approach the heroes cautiously. After all, the point is to make the need stronger than fear. Often the sad guys are afraid of women. The question is: Can they accept the love of Liv Tyler or Nathalie Portman? Can they even be happy? Although the small towns to which they return are often staged like filthy holes? (Think of Indiana in Lonesome Jim - awful! Or Knights Ridge, Massachusetts in Beautiful Girls - always snowy!) Well, I think it's up to them. These small towns don't look any different than the Berlin suburb where I grew up. Of course you can be happy there! I know people who are.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Duncan Jones - Moon 

FREE ON YOUTUBE Probably I belong to the science fiction traditionalists and consider the 70s to be the last good decade of this genre. And of course I am wrong, like all traditionalists. Duncan Jones' Moon proves that. This is one of those science fiction pearls that doesn't want to offer a battle of equipment, it's an idea! With a budget of five million, the film seems quite modest and its title seems like a bow to the time when the moon was still a noble goal of American space travel. For Jones, space is a metaphor for the loneliness of its only protagonist. Perhaps his inner emptiness is as great as his outer emptiness? Sam Bell is the name of the astronaut and is played by Sam Rockwell. For three years he has been working on the moon and supervising mine work for a large corporation. On the moon's surface the element helium is extracted, which supplies mankind with clean energy. Sam's only companion is an intelligent calculating machine that even helps him to cut his hair: her name is Gerty and she even has a dozen different emotional states. Actually, Sam's pad on the moon looks like a geek's flat share: Somewhat decayed, with note messages and a table tennis table. The photos show that Sam also has a family. In former times the surfaces of the moon station were white, like the ones from the SciFi movies of the 70s, now they are yellowed. Too much does not happen. We witness Sam's everyday life. Once he has an accident with one of the harvesting machines, which mine helium, but is supplied by Gerty. Knowingly violating the base's layout, Sam returns to the scene of the accident and pulls a second injured Sam out of the cockpit. Now he's dealing with a doppelganger, but who could take the resulting problems more lightly than Sam? However, the classic philosophical questions of the genre about the origin of existence or the will of artificial intelligence are to be enjoyed with caution in Moon: they remain postmodern references to the classics of the genre without significance for the plot. Almost everything in Jones' film points to something; if you wanted to collect quotes, you'd have to go through Moon a few more times. Finally there is the showdown: the clones recognize the senselessness of their being and ally themselves with Gerty against their creator. Moon develops into a Western in the finale and we realize why Sam acts so casually...

In Cinemas: Rambo: Last Blood

Sylvester Stallone is the last great star of the silent movie era. That's because he doesn't open his mouth when he speaks. You don't understand anything. Stallone is a physical actor, one who always threw himself fearlessly into the action sequences. Has he ever seriously hurt himself? Now he tries a second time to revive his Rambo (the second time after 2008). Can he offer his character a real environment this time or just a comic-like scenario again? Rambo lives the simple life. Quietly on a ranch, somewhere in Arizona. He is fully attuned to his adoptive family, loves his adoptive granddaughter and reflects on his life on the terrace in the rocking chair. What might such a Rambo think of? Maybe about how he fought the Russians with the Taliban in the third part, i.e. how he is a founding member of the Taliban? He confesses to his adopted granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal), who is college-aged, that he is still struggling with his inner anger. That's why he dug a sophisticated tunnel system under the porch. As a child, I always appreciated Rambo's skills the most: his effective traps in the forest from pointed branches. Gabrielle, for her part, tells Rambo that she found her long lost father in Mexico. She wants to go to him and ask why he just left her years ago? Only nine minutes after crossing the border, she is caught by traffickers. From the infamous Martinez gang. Rambo attacks and is almost beaten to death. Fortunately, Carmen (Paz Vega) discovers him in a side street. Will Rambo save Gabrielle? And will he still use his great tunnels? Will he use sawed-off shotguns and knives? And even the sound of The Doors? Will he once again undermine the Geneva Conventions? In short; Rambo: Last Blood is a pretty bad movie. Just like all the Rambo decals from the 80s, produced by Cannon with various musclemen. Basically, there is no plot or dialogue at all that could be from the 80s: "I want them to know that death is coming" And: Rambo: Last Blood is exaggeratedly bloody. As bloody as a good old B-movie. Maybe it's still time for Rambo to get movies as good as Stallone's "Rocky" character in "Creed"? Even though this Rambo is a respectable B-movie, he pays too little respect to the character who made Stallone Hollywood's biggest star. One more please! Or else simply a "Cobra II" or an "Over The Top II".

FREE ON DAILYMOTION B-Movie Lust And Sound In West Berlin

FREE ON DAILYMOTION A warm promise from the past! A film that forges cohesion, among those who have experienced it, but also unites those who would like to experience it! Mark Reeder came from Manchester to West Berlin in 1979 on a route that did not seem easy: through the German democratic republic. In the island city, the military fetishist and label boss finds his way into the New Wave/Punk scene. He meets Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld or Gudrun Gut and plays in a Jörg Buttgereit film. Reeder opens his video archive and we experience never seen material: Nena as a street singer or Nick Cave, who shows us his German Gothic collection as well as his Colt. Deadly Doris plays at Potsdamer Platz (which was still Potsdamer Wiese at the time), The True Heino is sued by the "real", Ideal collect money for squatters and Blixa Bargeld explains why he never went to East Berlin. Not all the material is new, but thanks to the charming way shipowners introduce us to West Berlin, we suddenly feel right at home! The documentary becomes a biopic! When shipowners moved to West Berlin on the tracks of German Krautrock, I was six years old. Nevertheless, names like Gudrun Gut still shine in the 90s, so that many things still seem familiar to me. For those who couldn't experience the 90s, B-Movie is also a great service, because the documentary brings to life the myth of an island of the pure avant-garde! Mark Reeder, however, does not act as a braggart who transfigures the past, but rather as an outside insider who seems more like an astonished child. Despite the subtitle Lust & Sound in West Berlin 1979-89, B-Movie doesn't end pessimistically either, but with a view of techno-loving Berlin. But Mark Reeder has to return to Manchester with a Berlin collapse...

FREE ON YOUTUBE Richard Linklater - Surburbia

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Do you remember your teen time? The deepest and most passionate feelings of your life? That's exactly what Richard Linklater's early films are about. That's why I watched "Before Sunrise" and "Dazed And Confused" 30 times! Directly after "Dazed And Confused" Surburbia came into the cinemas. I had seen Surburbia in the cinema and then tried for years to get a good DVD copy for our video store. Unsuccessfully. Today was one of those days again. I entered on YouTube: Surburbia 1996 film and landed a hit! Despite Warner rental Surburbia runs free and in good quality! Still! So it's best to stream right away! We know the scenario. A few "Slackers" in the Mini Mart. "Don't tell us about private property--this is America!''; one of them yells at the couple from Pakistan who run the shop. Maybe they find it business damaging when the same "slackers" hang out with them every day and drink half a dozen beers? Because the life of the "slackers" stands still. There is no idea for the future. That's why they sit in the Mini Mart. Waiting becomes the principle of life. Richard Linklater gave this generation a name with his debut "Slacker". He hit the right note in "Dazed And Confused" (although it plays in the 70s). In Surburbia he now expresses the desperation of this waiting for Godot. Surburbia is a dark and disturbing movie (that's why it's so hard to get, I think). Everything takes place during one night in the parking lot. One of the group of losers made it. That night he will "return". His name is Pony (Jayce Bartok). The last time they saw each other he was still the geek who played folk songs. Now suddenly he is surprisingly a rock star and has promised to stop by after the concert with his old friends. Friends? The leader of the "Slackers" is Jeff (Giovanni Ribisi). A sardonic, intelligent guy. He lives in his parents' garage. Jeff left with Sooze (Amie Carey), but that should be over soon. Sooze will move to New York and attend an art school. The fact that she has plans is considered a crime in Jeff's world. Sooze's friends will stay in the parking lot. Tim (Nicky Katt), an alcoholic. Bee-Bee (Dana Spybey), who just got out of rehab. And Buff (Steve tooth), the loser. They sit on a bar and sometimes have word fights with the Pakistani, who in turn represent classic American values. In the parking lot there is nothing to do. Except speeches. With a dramatic flair. Their suburb is called Burnfield, which fits quite well. Then comes Pony. Contrary to our assumption he is a nice guy who is now successful. A decent guy who just wants to hang out with his old friends. But his chances to be one of them are immediately spoiled by Pony's limousine. This challenges Jeff with his inferiority complex. "It's just airport, hotel, show, airport, hotel..." The poor rock stars. Whether he still lives with his parents, asks Jeff of all people. Like Linklater's first three films, the plot takes place over a period of about 24 hours. The plot? The non-action, because the characters are in a kind of waiting loop. Linklater examines the waiting. Life without a goal. And waiting can make you pretty mean. P.S. a nice 90s soundtrack underlines the sense of time: Sonic Youth, Stephen Malkmus & Elastica, Girls Against Boys, Beck, U.N.K.L.E., Boss Hog, Skinny Puppy, Superchunk...

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Film List British Movies 10s

For a long time, British cinema profited from the hype of "Cool Britannia". Yet we have long since found ourselves in times of "chaotic Britannia". Are there any films at all that examine social issues? Or ask questions about national identity? How was it possible that a flabby blonde prime minister could lead the British back to a civil war against the neighbouring island?

FREE ON YOUTUBE I Shot Andy Warhol

FREE ON YOUTUBE When Andy Warhol pondered that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, he certainly didn't think that Valerie Solanas would gain fame for 15 minutes by shooting at him. It was June 3, 1968. Solanas went armed in Warhol's factory and fired on the most famous American artist. One of Warhol's assistants asks if she had met anyone. Not just "someone"! Later, the police ask Solanas why she did it. She had her reasons, Solanas replies. Director Mary Harron and actress Lili Taylor now deliver the portrait of a possibly schizophrenic woman. From her bad childhood to the moment of justification before the police. So her plot seems to be a logical consequence of what happened before. Solanas was abused as a child and worked as a prostitute to finance her college. Nevertheless, she develops a kind of weird humor. She writes a column about women reproducing without men. And plays. She is gifted. Then she takes her boyfriend, the transsexual Candy Darling (Stephen Dorff), to Warhol's Factory. She likes Warhol (Jared Harris) and plays in his films. She even writes a play for Warhol, but it's behind a couch in the Factory. Solanas reacts offended and angry. Turning point. Solanas dives into her own world. Girlfriends like Stevie (Martha Plimpton) try to help her - but in vain. The paradox: Solanas doesn't seem unappealing, sometimes even moving! Warhol, on the other hand, is a passive man. A factotum. Art and sexuality - he produces all this through images, without human contact. Quite differently Solanas, who engages her very own life LEBT! But everywhere feminists seem to steal their ideas! When she is "excommunicated" in Warhol's factory, she returns armed. The great Lili Taylor plays Solanas. Crazy, but not irrational. Taylor is the swarm of our colleague Marie from the video store. Marie is obsessed with Taylor. She knows all the movies! And rightly so! Lili Taylor is the indie icon of the 90s! Her role selection proves how intelligent and stylish Taylor is. and versatile! Probably some of you won't like I Shot Andy Warhol. True to the motto; the story of a hysterical lunatic. I would see the movie that way: Even the most absurd behavior ultimately serves only one strategy: to find love and recognition. This is exactly what Solanas is looking for.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Tarkovsky - The Sacrifice

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) 1986 Tarkovsky moved to Sweden, filmed on the island where Ingmar-Bergman lived and worked. The camera was held by Sven Nykvist - Ingmar-Bergman's cameraman. That's why "The Sacrifice" actually looks "bergmanesk" and that's the way it should be! Just like his older role model, Tarkovsky deals with the general moral questions of being human. A Soviet filmmaker who dares to film spiritually (the opposite of the deliberate realism of the USSR). If you read more about it, you will find out that Tarkovsky was already terminally ill when he made "The Sacrifice". For his last film he didn't choose a small theme, but the story of a man who watches and dreams that the bombers are on their way to starting the Third World War. He offers his own life as a victim; let only his family be spared. Tarkovsky has radically abandoned any attempt to entertain us. He only says what he wants. In the style he wants. In long shots and with a great distance between the camera and the objects. We step back from what happened, have time to process it. To let it work on us. There is space between the events. And suddenly we begin to ask ourselves whether we would act in the same way as the man? On his birthday he plants a tree. When he is no longer, the tree will still be. Friends and family come for his birthday. And the postman who is something like the mystic on the island. He brings the news of the inner reality. And then the news arrives that the war has broken out... I think only those who have a lot of imagination will borrow "The Sacrifice" from us on DVD, watch it and maybe like it. The others don't. Everything depends on the question whether you can feel into this man. Are you even ready for it? But a sacrifice is always willingly offered, isn't it?

FREE ON YOUTUBE Kenji Mizoguchi - Sansho Dayu

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Sansho the Bailiff is a movie named after the villain. Not after one of the characters we like and identify with. Sansho is completely heartless. Not a human being, a creature! The story, set in the feudal Middle Ages (and strongly reminiscent of the terrible deeds of the Japanese during the Second World War), introduces Tamaki, the wife of the friendly district administrator. With their son they had to flee from Sansho. At night they take a rest, build a shelter under the huge treetops and ignite a celebration. In the distance wolves howl. It may be a moment of brief fleeting happiness. Then she finds the old priestess, offers them shelter in her house. She suggests that they go by boat. In the morning they leave - but a dark figure flies after them. A trap. They are caught by human traffickers. The women are to be sold as prostitutes, the children as slaves for Sansho... Mizoguchi is a true director of women for me. Throughout his career he was obsessed with women's rights. He is one of the greatest Japanese directors from the classical phase. His camera looks as if it is flying gently. Sometimes we watch the action, sometimes we are forced to look away. Just when the camera "looks away". For example, if something is too painful or too personal, then the camera simply decides to look away. Sansho is a story that has gripped me with full force! We are given time to fully recognize Sanshos atrocities while a loving family is destroyed for no good reason. There are people who are born without mercy and do evil with great joy. Sansho is such a person who feels joy in his sadistic deeds. Sansho is a film that really destroyed me. And one of the best I've ever seen! Have I ever seen anything better? Nevertheless, I didn't dare to see Sansho again. I just didn't want to take that ordeal upon myself again.

fREE ON YOUTUBE Carl Theodor Dreyer - Day Of Wrath

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Martyrdom and suffering are the themes of Carl Theodor Dreyer. Thus he created some of the most poetic and terrible horror films of all time. Day Of Wrath is about the witch hunt in the 17th century. Anne (Lisbeth Movin), the priest's wife, is accused of hiding a witch. And was Anne's mother already a witch? And what connection does that have with her own marriage? Anne falls in love with her stepson and confesses it to the priest. He suffers a shock and dies. Now Anne herself is accused of witchcraft... Any time that takes the work of God as justification for murder is a terrible time. In the name of God, women are tortured and burned. Not by hysterics. By people who are sure to serve the righteousness of God. They are Protestant people with callous faces. But behind them lies infinite suffering. Day Of Wrath does not need to argue for or against witchcraft. Instead he leads us into the great darkness of the human soul.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Dziga Vertov - Man With A Movie Camera

It is easy to imagine how much the audience must have been overwhelmed in 1929, the year Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera entered the cinema. During the silent era, audiences were used to shots lasting ten seconds or longer. Here it was two seconds - a speed that modern blockbusters expect us to achieve. This is precisely the great influence that Vertov exerted! Dziga Vertov felt confined by the tradition of theatre. For him, cinema until then was only a continuation of the stage, which could not satisfy him. It was time for a new style! A film that progressed as fast as our brain in its associations! No dialogue, no subtitles, no scenario! A series of images in rapid succession, that's The Man With A Movie Camera! Vertov specifically followed his plan: he wanted to show 24 hours of the life of a Russian city. Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, three cities, filmed in four days - combined into one. A record-breaking sum of individual shots was produced, to be edited by his brother, Mikhail Kaufman (who allegedly refused to work with Vertov again). Vertov, who began his career during the Russian Revolution when the joy of experimenting in Russian cinema reached its peak, described himself as a radical artist. Surrealism and avant-garde were "State Of The Art" - Vertov's puzzle still looks as fresh today as it did in the 1920s! And when was such an attempt ever made again? Machines, workers, streets, beaches, individual faces (...) Everyone is allowed to interpret into Vertov's film what he likes most. But what is the work really about? About how a film is made. There is only one character who leads through the film (but doesn't represent a "character"): The Man With The Movie Camera. The camera on his shoulders, he marches through a coal mine or is on a moving truck. Later, a train chases us towards - drives "into the camera". All this was cut with the "Intercut" method. Sometimes the action stops, the "action" is frozen. If there is no continuity, then there is speed. Almost as if the film had cut itself. A style exercise in terms of tempo! In Hollywood the rule of invisible editing still prevails today. Vertov destroys this idea! The film is above all about itself. Big-city documentaries, for example about Berlin, already existed before. Vertov, however, does not show ONE city. He doesn't give a name either. Thus his focus is much wider. An experiment that is unthinkable without music. The best known is the US version by Michael Nyman, which underlines the restlessness of Vertov's film (we offer this version on DVD at the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo - nicely restored). Much of what you think you can attribute to later cinema in terms of experiments - much, much can be discovered in The Man With The Movie Camera - and enjoyed!

FREE ON YOUTUBE Jean-Luc Godard - Weeke End

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) In order to stream Week End freely on YouTube, enter the year 1967 behind the title. Then it goes. First Jean-Luc Godard had shifted the rules of cinema forever, then in 1967 he concentrated on their core with Weekend. Weekend is pure cinema! One of his best and most imaginative films! Even today, Weekend is likely to repel and alienate its audience - but that's the way it is with truly revolutionary films. Weekend is about violence and hatred, about the end of any ideology and the beginning of disaster. Weekend is hell! Civilization has failed, it is being destroyed. Normally sick films, which deal with the end of all this, because their subject is too broad. But Godard has staged Weekend very effectively! He simply avoids showing us "real" war. Instead, he shows us the attitude of suffering and destruction. Everything begins with "motorized" people (doesn't that symbolize the animal in us?). A motorized couple sets off for the weekend and their trip is supposed to find a miserable end to the "consumer society" (Godard would have put it that way). Everything stands still in an eternally long traffic jam. The "motorized" leave their car and begin an odyssey. They experience the end. Godard's bitter gaze does not allow us any liberal solutions. Bizarre things happen, so the political speech. Should this nonsense be taken seriously? Or: Why is the politician so serious when everything is just a joke? Is that not the essence of politics? And isn't that the essence of "hip" radicalism? The end, an allegory. Everyone eats everyone. At the latest here we may feel lost in Godard's universe. Everything makes sense, but nothing fits together anymore. Do the protagonists talk to each other or do they talk to us? What is going on at all? Anyway, it is just as crappy as life.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Ingmar Bergman - Winter Light

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Ingmar Bergman died when the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo was still in Revaler Strasse. Until then only few asked for his movies - that changed abruptly until today. If I think of his death, I always associate him with Nattvardsgästerna from his "Silence Of god" trilogy. Why? Nattvardsgästerna is about a priest who is not able to take away the fear of the nuclear holocaust from a parishioner. He rejects a woman who could comfort him. I can still see the pictures today. How Bergman and his cameraman Sven Nykvest capture the sunlight in a village church on its way through the room. Nattvardsgästerna - a film about light. I have now seen the work again and was overwhelmed by its power, its desolation! So much more complex than I remembered! This is not only about the silence of God, but of one man: Pastor Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Bjornstrand). He speaks to us, but is unable to give himself or others courage. He appears next to us: Jonas (Max Von Sydow), obsessed with evil in the world and Marta (Ingrid Thulin), a teacher who sincerely loves the pastor. The only thanks she receives is cold. Two people who hurt each other deeply. It is also a film about trust. Algot (Allan Edwall, disfigured by an accident, seems to be the only one who can actually win something for his life from the Word of God. This is presented visually with rigorous simplicity. Nykvest does not use a pan of the camera to achieve an effect. He remains the observer. He shows. Pastor Tomas never smiles. He seems ill, even more so: cold and unable to empathize. Jona's fears that the world would end as a result of the nuclear final blow are met by Tomas in empty phrases: We must trust in God. As he says this, we notice how his hands tremble. But there is much more than just the silence of God. Tomas is silent to Marta. Those who hope for help receive only rejection and silence. I wondered how much Bergman is in the figure of the pastor? Bergman, who himself was married several times, but found no happiness. Is this the outcry of an artist whose life seemed just as cold? Who couldn't give? We will probably never find out how autobiographical Nattvardsgästerna really is. In the heart it is a film about a man who thinks he is God and fails.

FREE ON YOUTUBE The Thief

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Early in the film it becomes clear who "The Thief" is: Stalin. Fortunately, this symbolism never gets in the way of the heartbreaking story! We quickly become aware of the film's point of view. It is about the betrayal of the post-war years. From hopelessness. We experience all this from the perspective of Sanya, who was born on the street as the child of a homeless mother after the Second World War. When Sanya is six years old, his mother is approached by a man in uniform. His name is Tolyan and he may have been an officer once. Maybe not. Nothing about Tolyan is trustworthy, which the mother will learn in several bitter lessons. "Uncle" Tolyan is charming. He is tall and wears a mustache. Just like Stalin. While most Russians are sick and miserable, he seems robust and healthy. You need money to be healthy in Russia. Tolyan is a thief. He steals not only the possessions of others, but also the hearts. His mother Katia (Ekaterina Rednikova) falls in love right away. Of course there are also material reasons for this, as she is not able to feed herself and her child. And Sanya (Misha Philipchuk)? It's all much more complicated for him. He often has visions of his biological father speaking to him. He died before Sanya was born. In the boy's dreams, the father promises to return soon. Sanya's relationship with Tolyan (Vladimir Maskhkov) is difficult. It is a mixture of fear and love. Once Tolyan asks the boy to look after his revolver. The child's eyes widen like saucers. Tolyan is a charmer who accommodates his "family" in different guesthouses. In truth, his uniform and irregular residences serve as protection from person checks. Tolyan loves vodka. He loves toasting Stalin. Little by little we learn more about his criminal activities. In case of burglaries Sanya even helps him to penetrate through narrow windows. Around them we experience the daily reality of Stalin's Russia. Fear and a strange form of love. Do the Russians think about Stalin like Sanya thinks about Tolyan? Probably. Stalin was just as big a cheater as Sanya who played the role of protector. A charming thief and liar. But in the end Tolyan is forced to tell the truth. His whole "fake" is reduced to this pathetic truth. And Stalin? It will probably take a few more generations before the Russians admit his betrayal,

FREE ON YOUTUBE John Cassavetes - A Woman Under The Influence

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) John Cassavetes is, of course, on our author's shelf. Take the test: Watch a Cassavetes movie for just a few seconds - and you know immediately: This is a Cassavetes movie! You recognize Cassavetes characters, Cassavetes dialogues and so on. Above all, Cassavetes films are very, very much talked about. Cassavetes movies are really afraid of silence. His characters are desperately looking for love. But they can neither give nor accept love. Cassavetes movies aren't interested in the well-known formulas of Hollywood studio productions, but in the spontaneity of life. Everything feels spontaneous, although of course Cassavetes didn't make a "Mumblecore". But he only worked with his family and friends, who probably knew his dialogues as well as he did. Cassavetes avoids something like a story arc. He is the opposite of a "storyteller". He never invented his characters. He let them arise through life itself. Cassavetes wife Gena Rowlands plays Mable, his friend Peter Falk Nick Longhetti, the man of Mabel. They live so close together with their family that there is no privacy whatsoever. The bathroom even has a "private" sign to suggest something like that. Mabel behaves strangely and drinks too much. In the end it becomes clear that Nick is just as crazy as Mabel. Seen this way, they fit perfectly. Mabel doesn't have any privacy. Her house belongs to the family at all times. Or annoying, unexpected visitors. Only in the hallway can she be a bit alone. Smoking, drinking, trying to think. There is always noise and chaos in the house. Mabel, under the influence of pills and alcohol, tries to create something like happiness in the midst of chaos. Especially the children are constantly asked to sing, to pretend, to be happy. This family is dysfunctional in the sense that it works according to its own broken rules. Cassavetes does not offer a solution. That wouldn't be a Cassavetes film! The turmoil will go on and on, even long after the credits are over. That's all we can say for sure. None of the characters will succeed in giving or accepting love. Alcohol and drugs prevent that. And sex and self-doubt. And, as with real auteur films, the view of the artist, the "auteur", is of particular interest. In this case it's quite simple. John Cassavetes alter ego is always the figure of his wife Gena Rowlands.

FREE ON YOUTUBE The Scent Of Green Papaya

FREE ON YOUTUBE  Such a sweet and quiet movie! "The Scent of Green Papaya" is set in Vietnam between the 40s and 60s. More precise between the late 40s and the early 60s. We look at time through the eyes of a poor young woman. She works as a servant in the household of a merchant family. She observes everything around her very closely. Every last detail! Slowly she matures and develops into a very beautiful woman. She is of simple kindness, which in turn impresses her cynical employers (who are always in a hurry). Her name is Mui and she is an orphan. As a child she starts with the Kaufmanns family, learns fast and well. She does her work inconspicuously. Sometimes she almost looks like a ghost. Looking at the world through her eyes means seeing beauty everywhere. A drop of water that pearls on a leaf. The sunlight that falls through the leaves. Or the scent of green papaya. We learn how the household in which she works works from Mui's perspective. We notice with how much love Mother Mui encounters. She is like a daughter. Mui grows up and the family's fortune dwindles. Then the father dies and everything gets disordered. Mui is supposed to work as the servant of a friend of the family. She has known him all her life. Today he plays the piano and speaks French. Mui loves him. We only recognize this through extremely indirect clues. Details that are hardly visible to humans... The Scent of Green Papaya seems more like a poem than a film. However, one of great visual beauty! If you take a closer look, you will notice that the whole story takes place in one set. Inside. This isn't unusual for Asian movies. Maybe the Vietnam of the early 90s, the time the movie was made, doesn't look colonialistic enough? Tran Anh Hung achieves the highest visual perfection. The film doesn't look like life. It looks like an ideal of life. Like Mui's world. This world gets along almost without a plot. All the time we ask ourselves: When will the pianist finally see the beautiful woman who lives under his roof? When will he finally realize that the love he has sought everywhere is right in front of him? But this film is not guided by the plot. He is guided by the growth of the young woman. When you have seen The Scent Of Green Papaya - like me - for the second time, you will enjoy it all the more.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Gus Van Sant - Last Days

FREE ON YOUTUBE Young men on the (voluntary) path to death. This is one of the themes of Gus van Sant. In this case a famous man dies - we notice that it is Kurt Cobain. Since in our society no celebrity may die without his death being analyzed to death by "experts", Gus van Sant must be praised: Here, the hero is simply allowed to leave life in silence. In the final phase of his drug addiction. A death without meaning. Without false heroism. A young person who has lived without appreciating life. And wasn't grunge the music that staged the self as a disposable article? The singer from Last Days is called Blake. In his first scenes he pukes. When friends call him, he listens without comment. They start to worry about Blake. And he? He worries about being a walking Rock'n Roll cliché. He seems to have long since died inwardly. All the lights out. You can recognize him in public, but he is already isolated inside. Like a ghost, he lives separated from all others. So addicts die. Not with a loud BANG. Quietly. Like a whimper.

FREE ON YOUTUBE Ozu - Late Spring

FREE ON YOUTUBE  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. (...)