FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Louis Malle - Au Revoir Les Enfants (engl. subt.) 

This is the story of a suspicious friendship at a Catholic boys' school. It is the story of Julien (Gaspard Manesse) and Jean (Raphael Fejto). It is also a story about how carefree children are when they run down the stairs of the school or secretly read under the blanket with the flashlight at night. Thus Louis Malle evokes the everyday life of a French boarding school in 1944. While the lives of these children are rushing forward full of energy, we unfortunately know: some of them have to die. Julien Quentin and Jean Bonnet are both twelve years old. The teachers and priests in the school really respect the boys. Julien believes that the children are happy in the boarding school. One day after Christmas a new boy comes to school. It is Jean. Julien and Jean do what kids of that age do. They scuffle and laugh and make friends. They both love to read. After a whole series of omens so subtle that no one else notices them, Julien learns that Jean is keeping a secret. Isn't it surprising how Jean does NOT answer all the questions about his family? Besides, he never prays with the other boys and does not join the choir. Then Julien finds a book called Kippelstein (you can hardly decipher it). It belongs to Jean. Probably Julien has never met a Jew. He knows nothing about them. "Why do we actually hate the Jews"; he asks his older brother. He gives a simple answer: "They are smarter than us and they killed Jesus". Strange, Julien thinks. Didn't the Romans kill Jesus? During a piano lesson with the beautiful Davenne (Irene Jacob), Julien understands what his brother means. He himself fails. Then it's Jean's turn, who plays beautifully. We'll look at Julien's face in close-up afterwards. He's thinking. He thinks it all over again. And he decides to keep Jean's secret. And on the outside? Marshal Petain's collaborating French government has lost popularity. An American invasion is imminent. By the way, the Nazis are not necessarily drawn as monsters by Louis Malle - he doesn't make it that easy for us. In one restaurant scene they even treat an old man very decently. And in an eerie forest scene, in which Julien and Jean search for a treasure until the sun goes down, they are even picked up by the Germans. The Nazis wrap the boys in warm blankets and notice that they are Bavarians and also Catholics. The two never talk about Julien keeping Jean's secret. Once Julien asks his friend if he is afraid? Yes, Julien asks his friend. All the time. Anyone who reads a bit more about the film will learn that it is based on war memories of Louis Malle. Malle himself went to a boarding school like the one in the film. Like so many other French institutions, Louis Malle's boarding school took in Jewish children under false names. Once the Germans raided this school and arrested three children and the director. We experience this scene in the film. It is the priest who turns to the children who are being taken away: "Au revoir les enfants" Louis Malle is not only a pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague, he even started earlier than his comrades-in-arms. Strictly scientifically speaking, there is no need to include him in the inner circle of the Nouvelle Vague. Be that as it may. He revolutionized film technology by riding through Paris on a bicycle with a camera mounted on it. I stole exactly this technique from him last week by riding my bike through Berlin and filming with my mobile phone. For our bar film that is currently being made - directed by Lea and Katrin. If my shaky mobile phone film is taken, I can claim that I stole the idea from Louis Malle. And what role might Malle himself have played in the film? Is he the model for Julien? In the film Julien makes a terrible mistake. Unintentionally. It's one of those mistakes you'll never forgive yourself for. Never! Julien burns with shame and remorse. But Jean calms him down. "The Germans would have caught me anyway." We see Julien in a long close-up. Inevitably, one must think of the end of "The 400 Blows". Then we hear the original voice of Louis Malle himself: More than 40 years have passed; explains Malle. But he will always remember that January morning until the day he dies.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Life According To Agfa 

 A pub in the middle of Tel Aviv where everyone meets: Jews, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, people from the city and the country. Whether soldier, Zionist or Intifada supporter, you drink together. It's a place where the togetherness seems to work, where most of the characters in the film are drawn repulsively and greasily. Why should we be interested in their problems at all, which could be the result of a soap opera? The scenery looks a bit like theatre, which is also due to the fact that amateur actors were engaged. With a little good will, however, you get an overview of the slowly boiling emotions, held together by the basic idea that the owner Lenora captures the action with snapshots (on Agfa, which gives the film its title). Finally, a group of Israeli soldiers enters the bar and the situation escalates. They harass a waitress and provoke the guests. Obviously they rate the pub as "left". They are thrown out, but the spiral of violence is unstoppable. At the end of the night there is the apocalypse. Director Assi Dayan is the son of the former Israeli defense minister and despite all his weaknesses, he probably made the most important Israeli film ever. Basically we experience the whole Middle East conflict in the microcosm of the bar. Is there hope? Hardly. 

Film List Hollywood 50s Pt. II incl. FREE STREAMS 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Hirokazu Koreeda - Mabrorosi 

 Maborosi is a film of astonishing beauty - and very, very sad! It is the story of a woman whose happiness is destroyed in a single moment. Seemingly for no reason. Time passes, she tries to mend the broken pieces. Sometimes she can even distract herself a little. But at the centre of her life is emptiness and a question that is still unanswered. The woman's name is Yumiko (Makiko Esumi). She is tall and slender and serious. And she brings a great silence to the screen. Yumiko hardly speaks. She often sits there, absorbed in herself, lost in thought. Her clothes are long and always dark. When we meet her, she must be in her early twenties. Yumiko is married to Ikuo (Tadanobu Asano). They both have a little boy. Then it happens; an inexplicable event and Yumiko is a widow. Maborosi was Hirokazu Koreeda's first film. We ordered the DVD when the video store was founded in Switzerland by the great label Trigon Film. Trigon is an association that releases films mainly from Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. And fortunately also from Japan! I think you can immediately tell who Koreeda's role model is: old master of Japanese cinema Ozu. Koreeda also likes to place his camera at the protagonists' eye level. His figures often kneel. His shots like to begin and end in empty spaces. The characters speak while sitting next to each other, without looking at each other. Koreeda works with many long shots and few close-ups. His camera does not move. It observes. The clearest bow to Ozu, however, are the small interruptions, such as when Koreeda interrupts the action to simply look at something else for a moment. A street or a shop, for example. Once you even see a tea kettle (a clear reminiscence, because Ozu loved to insert a beautifully shaped tea kettle). Of course, these details are only incidental and yet so carefully done that they must be mentioned. They hint at tradition. In the whole film there is not one shot that is NOT graceful and very pleasing. One often imagines life full of significant, painful questions. Maborosi is one of those rare and very valuable films where you can actively put yourself in the mind of the characters. We feel great understanding and sympathy for them! We want to understand Koreeda's characters and we do. He often asks very immediate questions - but behind them are the big questions of life. Yumiko complains that everything is spinning in her head. She remarries and her second husband offers a kind of answer to her pressing question. It is based on an experience fishermen have at sea when they see a light, a mirage. It is called Maborosi and lures them further out to sea. But what is the reason for this light? 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Andrzej Zulawski - Cosmos 

Whoever wants to find the true Zulawski behind the surface of his effects, pays attention to the moving tragedy that lies behind his sarcasm. Doesn't Cosmos seem like a dark fairytale world we're immersed in? Witold (a student, but without a degree) and Fuchs (a former fashion journalist) hate the forest. Witold throws himself on his knees in front of a strangled bird. Then there's a storm coming. They stop by Madame Woytis' pension, which sometimes freezes with rage. The maid Catherette, whose lip is torn open, works in the hostel. The flesh has vaulted outwards. Madame Woyti's daughter Lena, on the other hand, is of fascinating beauty. Witold desires Lena and both get closer in ellipses. At some point, everyone notices that what is happening repeats itself. Finally there are doubles, because we are in a Zulawski movie... Andrzej Zulawski has not worked for 15 years (possibly because his last films were unsuccessful). Cosmos is constantly on the move, we experience the unleashed camera that makes Zulawski's films so captivating. Breathlessly we follow the characters' endless conversations - but Comos is anything but a heady dialogue film! Zulawski basically tries to illustrate the sheer nonsense of education in his own dialogues. It is based on a novel by Witold Gombrowicz, who took it upon himself to describe existential questions quite frivolously. The failed Witold will never be able to win Lena over. Fuchs is as far away from being a cultural gourmet as Zulawski. Behind it reveals the true Zulawski: An infinitely sad filmmaker who asks for forgiveness. He never leaves his protagonists alone, he feels their tortures - and here we certainly experience his own suffering through the filter of the surreal. His whole work serves only the purpose of exposing what lives destructively within us. We need to see Zulawski as a great romantic in seeking only one thing: Mercy.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Jean-Luc Godard - Vivre Sa Vie (engl. subt.) 

Sometimes I would have loved to grow up in the 60s! I would have waited in the rain in front of an arthouse cinema for 30 pfennigs and waited for the next screening of Vivre Sa Vie. Maybe I could have seen the original Godard at a film festival! The way he says things like that: "The cinema, this is not the station. It's the train..." Or was it the other way around? It doesn't matter. I'd have just listened and nodded like the others. Everyone loved his films! The way we all discussed "Tarantino" in the '90s, we would have talked about Godard. How he turns the camera around 360 degrees, stops at once and drives everything back! Just to prove to us that he can! Today we scratch his monument. Was he overrated? After all, art films are "out" - or not? Well, I can give you the rental numbers from our video store: Godard, Godard and Godard again! Especially his early work is rented and rented again! Vivre Sa Vie takes the first place. Today is the day for me again. Vivre Sa Vie has to go into my DVD player. After five minutes it's all over for me. I do not move. I stare at the monitur. Until it's over. I mean, even after the credits have ended, to really breathe again! It's a great film. It's one of the greatest movies ever. The story is told by Nana (Anna Karina). Anna Karina was Godard's wife at that time. She looks almost transparent with her porcelain face, her cautious looking eyes, her black hair that fits around her head like a helmet and her chic clothes. We know that the Nouvelle Vague needs beautiful women and cool guys who smoke non-stop! Anna Karina also smokes all the time. She embodies a young Parisian woman. The opening credits show her face first sideways, then frontally. From beginning to end the film will watch her, try to read her face. Let's not miss anything! Not a single movement! Add to this the music by Michel Legrand, which suddenly stops and then continues with the next motif. As if the music wanted to explain Anna Karina. But it fails and starts all over again. In the next picture we see her, Nana, from behind. She is talking to Paul. We learn that Paul is her husband. She has left him and their child. Now she has a vague idea of what comes next. Maybe she's going to the movies. Godard's favorite cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, will be showing Nana first, then Paul. She zooms back and forth, is directed at the back of Nana's head, then their faces shine in the mirror. Vivre Sa Vie is divided into thirteen such images, which correspond to old-fashioned novels. Nana tries to steal the key to her apartment from the concierge's office, but is caught and taken out into the street. She has no home and no money. Is this her fault or her fate? Why did she leave Paul? Does she have no feelings for her child? Nana goes to the movies, where Dreyer's "The Passion Of Joan Of Arc" is playing. Of course she does. Dreyer's film is also about a woman who is judged by men. She meets a guy in a bar who wants to take pictures of her. There's a fight over a 1000 franc note. The police are coming. Then Nana hits the whore route and gets bought by a john. But he's not allowed to kiss her. The camera is always on her heels. In a record shop, Nana argues with a customer. The camera suddenly turns away and looks out the window. Then Nana meets Raoul, her pimp. He wants a smile from her. The camera pauses first on her, then on him. Nana refuses to smile; the camera turns away from Raoul and stops at Nana again. This is more than just "style". The camera shows us how people look at other people. It makes us aware of it. Then the most famous picture: Nana smokes while a customer hugs her. She looks over his shoulder. Her eyes are completely empty. Later she is kissed by Raoul. She breathes out the smoke of her last cigarette. What can you do in this Paris? You hang around in bars, wishing you had more money. Prostitution is called "La Vie" in France by the way, which gives the title its meaning. Finally Vivre Sa Vie ends up in a thriller - just like we know it from Godard's first big movie. But what does the camera do? It points to the floor. It simply looks away. It ignores the end of its own film. Who remembers Nana's conversation with the philosopher in the café? He tells her the story of a man who runs away from danger. He runs and runs until he gets scared and stops. That's what kills him. The man thinks for the first time and dies. And Nana? Will she die the first time she stops? Curious, she follows the old man's explanations. We experience her curious, big eyes, which until then rejected any feeling! Before, Paul told the story of the chicken. If you take the outer shell of the chicken, you keep the inner part. Nana is nothing but an outer shell. Vivre Sa Vie hardly knows any gradations. The film stares at its protagonist. Somehow it discourages us in our attempt to interpret Nana's life melodramatically. Godard follows a strict logic that must be French. Of course it happens that way. Nana sits, waits, drinks and smokes. She makes some money. She meets her first pimp and relinquishes all control over her life. Only once we see her dancing and laughing in front of a jukebox. Only this one time we can make the little girl realize she once was. In this moment we catch a glimpse into her soul! Otherwise, she is nothing but surface. If you read a little more about Vivre Sa Vie, you will learn that Godard used first takes almost exclusively. We can see that! The camera looks curious! She sees everything for the first time and is amazed! Vivre Sa Vie is clear, snappy and completely unsentimental. Then the film ends abruptly.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Wild Style 

For all those of an older age who grew up in New York, the Times Square Show will probably be remembered. It took place in 1980 as a comprehensive event and offered artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring a stage. If you want to delve deeper into history, the show took place in a massage parlour on 41st Street. We know such converted shops from the 00s in Neukölln or today in Lichtenberg or Schöneweide. Something like this must be raw and urban, like the former drinks warehouse of our old supplier, where artists have now set up their studios. At least it's right on the Spree and nice and cheap. This is exactly the kind of thing that no-wave filmmaker Charlie Ahearn filmed with his Super 8 camera on the Lower Eastside. The beginning of a dream that was to be called Wild Style - the blending of video art, fashion, music, performance, and so on. Wild Style was supposed to be a love song to all the graffiti artists of the early 80s. And of course they wanted to capture the hip hop that was being done outside on the streets, which is why Wild Style was shot right in the Bronx. In other words, where hip hop was born around 1974. Starring: Graffiti artists, breakdancers, rappers and they just play themselves. Of course, a production like this is always no budget. No filming permit, but a lot of milieu. In DIY, a world shines in which anything is possible! Next to buildings that look as bombed out as Kreuzberg in the 80s, murals shine. Wild Style puts forward a thesis that is surprising today and counts hip hop among other New York sub-cultures such as punk or new wave. An art movement can only be complete if it combines dance, music and visuals. That's why we jump from a basketball match to the breakdancers of the Rock Steady Crew, then to one by the old-school rap legend Busy Bee and end up with Grandmaster Flash. A documentary or a fictional drama? Cut out 20 minutes and you're left with a doc (very interesting for our director Lea, who wants to feed a doc about our bar with extra scenes). The story seems like a series of attempts, but you don't necessarily follow them (and neither does Wild Style). For example, the graffiti artist who pines for his ex-girlfriend Rose (Sandra "Lady Pink" Fabara). At one point, two graffiti artists are even taken to an upscale cocktail party on the Upper East Side, and Wild Style proves to be a successful social satire. None of the subplots turn out to be drama; everything somehow goes on without a hitch. Narrative tension or moral messages? Fortunately not! Here, ordinary people simply go on living their lives, helping to shape the Bronx a little. No one rises above this urban shambles. No one is looking for a way out, everyone just wants to express themselves. At one point, a group of kids are asked if they know any graffiti artists. "We're all graffiti artists"; they say happily. Everyone raps, dances and writes. Not from a stage, but in the middle of the crowd. That's why there are no camera tricks or other cinematic antics. Wild Style was created precisely in this world; it is never above what it shows. Today, Wild Style is considered the very first hip hop film - but it doesn't introduce hip hop at all. That had long been done by word of mouth. Shortly after, the first commercial films like Beat Street and Breakin' were made - yet for quite a while Wild Style was the highest-grossing film in New York City. Or the second highest, if you want to check, you should visit imdb. Wild Style became a huge success especially here in Berlin. On both sides of the Berlin Wall! We in the West could use the Wall for graffiti. A few school friends even wanted to create the longest graffiti in West Berlin. Whole sections of the Wall were now Wild Style! But not only in Berlin, everywhere Wild Style developed into a cult film, distributed on VHS. Our DVD is from 2007 - a nice nostalgia trip. Because Wild Style rejects common dramaturgy, it remains all the fresher. Welcome back to 1982!