FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Il Postino

When we first see Mario (Massimo Troisi), we have to assume that he is disabled. He talks to his father, who seems to be debil too. Or just weird. In the next scene we realize that Mario is of normal intelligence, but grew up in an area where there isn't much to tell. But that's going to change... Mario lives on an island in the south of Italy where new things arrive very late, if at all. But one day Mario is hired as a temporary postman. He has only one customer, a stranger. It's the famous poet Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret) who fled Chile and went into exile on the island. Mario is fascinated by Neurda, who receives countless letters, especially from women. He discusses with his boss, the postmaster, about Neruda: The expelled communist rebukes Mario: Neruda is a political writer! Neither the one nor the other understands Neruda, but Mario decides on the job to visit Neruda daily - and maybe there are girls too! Slowly a relationship develops between the two. Peruda lives quietly and withdrawn with a woman, maybe his wife. Anyway, Mario notices that both love each other deeply. Mario takes every opportunity to talk to Neruda (which is very cute) and has him sign a book. Mario reads the book and says, "How can this book attract so many women? But in the end he goes through a development. He's no longer the naive postman, in the end we think we've discovered the soul of a poet in him (only that he didn't grow up in this environment). But Neruda also learns from the people on the island, whom he describes as the simplest in the world. Mario smiles knowingly - so he can't be that simple anymore. The driving force behind this quiet dreamy masterpiece is Massimo Troisi. He also co-wrote the script and took on the title role himself. Just one day after the film was finished, he died. Troisi plays Mario without ever wanting to create an effect. He doesn't seem to be making any effort, as if he's already merged with his role. Philippe Noiret is exactly the right cast for Neruda. He has this mischievous smile that made him a kind of folk actor in France. The moment others react in surprise, this smile seems to express: I knew it, I knew it! Together they turn this little big film into a meditation on fate, decency and poetry. One could almost imagine Mario being the poet and Neurda the postman. After all, Mario ultimately proves how poetry affects women by making his dream woman Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) curious. The film is based on a novel by Antonio Skarmeta. But I don't really want to know whether it is based on real facts.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Debra Granik - Winter's Bone

Since the 1990s we have learned that the state has become increasingly slim and helpless. During the Corona period, however, we were surprised to discover that the state can close down the whole country. Now, in the following social upheavals (60% of the wage, but 100% of the rent etc) it will claim that it cannot influence everything. Such thoughts come to me in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone.

The screen heroes who touch me the most are not extroverted. They don't strut up and down vainly in front of us, they don't make great speeches, they don't lead armies. They don't have superpowers. They are ordinary people who have to face a certain situation. Ree Dolly is such a hero. She must be 17 and acts as a kind of maid for her younger sister and her little brother. You're like a mother. We are in the hinterland of the Ozarks. Her mother is mentally blacked out and just sitting around all day. Father cooked chrystal meth and got arrested for it. Anyway, he disappeared without a trace. Now Ree takes care of her siblings, raises them and feeds them - always dependent on the neighbours, on support. The two children - like all children who are not beaten - are friendly and full of energy. They love to play! They have not yet realised that they grow up disadvantaged. This world in which Debra Granik's film takes place is presented in a desolate sobriety. We get to know a society that's lost. One that will never fit into a Hollywood movie! The question of how Ree could grow up and become so strong in this world remains unanswered. How did she become so independent, so proud? She can't have inherited it from her parents. The reason we immediately accept Ree as such is Jennifer Lawrence. Like all over the world, we experience an unprecedented Lawrence boom at the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo. The then 19-year-old acts as passionately and steadfastly as in her later expensive films. Lawrence, the quiet heroine, doesn't boast, doesn't dodge problems and seems to believe unshakably that people will do the right thing. Winter's Bone is also a film in which a star sees the light of day! "Don't ask for what ought to be offered"; teaches Ree to her little brother. Is that how she raised herself? Everyone around knows her father made amphetamines and sold them. Obviously, he couldn't even make money on meth! Now he is gone and Ree is looking for him, otherwise the house would be seized. She stays for a week... I think the model for Granik's film is the Odyssey. The endpoint is Ree's father, dead or alive. Ree struggles through a landscape as inhospitable as if we were in the middle of the apocalypse. A post disaster. Sometimes you think that the TV sets or cars don't even fit into the picture and are probably relics from earlier times. It is the houses of people who have reached the bottom. For them, there is no chance. Incidentally, Granik's film is not about these people, but plays UNDER them: Ree doesn't consider any of them inferior - after all, she herself belongs to them! I think for a girl like you, this life is normal. Heartlessness and disappointments are commonplace for Ree. In their father's world, everyone is a criminal, has contacts with a criminal or is subject to one. Everyone suspects everyone. In older "Badlands" films, these people would distrust such films from the outside. In Winter's Bone you don't trust your friends, even your own family. Every encounter with Rees brings us closer to one of these people and every time we realize how damaged his humanity is. Is it so that they see a girl in need of help in Ree? No, they perceive them as a danger to take something away from them, since they themselves are in need of help. A story like that, full of hate and amorality, could easily become unbearable. But real courage and hope can compensate for this. We are born optimistic and in every horrible situation, there are few people who will help (at least that's how Ree would judge it).

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ingmar Bergman - The Seventh Seal

A knight returns from the Crusades. He finds a church that is still open, even though the plague is raging all around him. He confesses. He speaks to a man with a frock about his indifference, which excludes him everywhere. He lives in a world full of spirits as a prisoner. He wants God to stretch out his hand and speak to him. He screams into the darkness, but there is no one there. The man in the frock turns around. It is death. Can anyone tell me a modern film that presents such pictures? Nobody. Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal has much more in common with a silent film than with modern cinema. A rugged, uncompromising film (some of you may find it ridiculous or outdated). Hardly anyone asks about the DVD in our video store. Bergman has gone out of fashion. The subject, the absence of God, interests no one. But I am addicted to Bergman. I watched all his films one after the other. And The Seventh Seal is not primarily about the absence of God. It's about our gossip. Our restlessness. Bergman, on the other hand, poses existential questions. In contrast to his films from the 60s he still asks these questions directly in the 50s and therefore I prefer The Seventh Seal. A straightforward Bergman movie like he wasn't supposed to do later. In most of his movies Bergman settles accounts with God. Who doesn't know the famous picture of the knight playing chess with death? The work ends with an equally famous picture: The macabre dance of death before the horizon. Once the knight (embodied by Max von Sydow) asks a girl about the devil, who must know whether God exists. "Look me in the eye"; the girl answers. She refers to the priest who could see him. She tells of it almost proudly. But the knight's squire discovers nothing but emptiness in the girl's eyes. There is nothing. So is there only death and God doesn't matter? Bergman's films deal with this spiritual search. They desperately seek answers to the big questions of life. With regrettable answers. But there is one thing in Bergman's work: love. It exists. Like a consolation.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Bal

I grew up with Turkish friends and have a Turkish girlfriend and tried to learn Turkish in Istanbul (and forgot everything again). In short, I am a typical West Berliner, because after all we are one of the biggest Turkish cities. This is especially noticeable here in Reichenberger Str. and in our video store. So if you want to get a bit more involved with Turkish films - after all, we live in a Turkish city - my friend Nazli has brought a whole bag of DVDs for you. Everything with English subtitles. Remember Bal, the Berlinale winner ten years ago? Bal is part of the childhood trilogy by Semih Kaplanoglu. This trilogy is told backwards. It begins with a bookseller, around forty, who hears about his mother's death in Istanbul. Her last request that he return home, complete one last task. Yusuf, that's his name. That's how "Yumurta" begins, which translates as egg. It is followed by Sut, translating milk, and finally Bal, meaning honey. In Bal, the third part, Yusuf is a child. Yusuf grows up on the coast to the Black Sea, a wooded landscape in the north. His father Yakup (Erdal Besikçioglu) lives from hand to mouth. He climbs trees and harvests the wild honey. One day Yakup simply disappears. For his wife Zehra (Tülin Özen) and little Yusuf (Bora Altas) this means endless torture. Through their perspective we experience this tragedy. We are Yusuf. Yusuf is a lonely child. He stutters. So much he longs for a reward badge! The strict teacher gives it out in class when children read aloud well. But there's something else in Yusuf's life. The abundance of nature, the happiness of experiencing it outdoors. That is what wild honey stands for. We're in the middle of the forest, on a hillside. There, the moon is reflected on the surface of a forest lake... If you look at all three parts of the childhood trilogy, you will be confronted again and again with eggs, milk and honey. They appear again and again in the respective parts. Nazli explained to me that Kaplanoglu uses images from the Koran. We know this from filmmakers like Krzysztof-Kieslowski, who likes to take his metaphors from the Bible. But I've never seen a film that tries to do that with the Koran. Yusuf is Joseph. He experiences things that also happened to Yusuf from the Koran. We can understand Bal as an allegory. Because Yusuf's world is the shady forest. The paradise of his childhood. Then, step by step, Yusuf goes out into the world. It's hard for him, he stutters, has trouble speaking. Yusuf leaves HIS world while walking into the world. His devotion to nature. The paradise of his childhood. But we have already seen in "Yumurta" At forty, Yusuf will return to the shady Northern Woods

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE What's Eating Gilbert Grape

CINEGEEK.DE is our idea to create a every day free TV channel for you. Just like the guys who always want to choose the movie on video night.

The world of Gilbert Grape in Iowa is small but full of excitement. His brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio) always finds a way to climb the water tower without coming down again. Gilbert's obese mother spends every day on her sofa. His boss, who runs a small grocery store, suffers from competition from a supermarket. All these emergencies put together, this is Gilbert's life. In a big city, the Grape family would probably not work, but in a small town, where everyone knows everyone, it does. It is Gilbert's greatest help that he lives where he fits best: In the small town. What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a film about outsiders. Not the kind of outsiders who see themselves as such, but real ones. The secret is not to look at them with tragic seriousness. Sure, it's a problem when you have a handicapped brother like Gilbert. It is also difficult to have a mother who never leaves home because she weighs 500 pounds. Gilbert even helps the neighbor's children to take a look at her! For Lasse Hallström such dysfunctional families probably have a special attraction. That's why the movie's peculiarity isn't the fact that it's quite strange, but how warm-heartedly everything is viewed! Johnny Depp as Gilbert Grape gives the event a friendliness, even a grace! He was already used to playing eccentrics at this early stage of his career, and that's why they don't seem to be anything out of the ordinary for Gilbert. Johnny Depp as Gilbert seems convincing and easy to like. Finally a young woman, Becky (Juliette Lewis), appears in her grandmother's RV. She is on her way through and remains just long enough for a romance to develop between her and Gilbert. This love acts as a catalyst for the Grape family and breaks open patterns that probably would have lasted a lifetime. The best moments are when the film looks at the handicapped brother and the fat mother with sympathy, not pity. Becky looks at both of them in the same way, and that seems natural to her. At the same time DiCaprio seems difficult, almost annoying, but also priceless. Darlene Cates as mother is extraordinarily present, we see in her all the disappointments of life, but also the ability for a new start. Basically, Gilbert Grape simply shows the daily life. A film that observes closely, so that we slowly get to know the characters. So precise that we can even find out something about ourselves! Hallström's direction combines all these aspects with moments of comedy, romance, but also melodrama. If you're still wondering what Gilbert Grape is actually about - that's it!

Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo Crowdfunding

In the picture you see Lea, who is producing a film about our bar. A total "auteur" the French would say, because Lea with her friend Katrin is responsible for: Direction/Screenwriting/Production (in every sense)/Casting/Camera/Sound/Editing etc. In front of the camera are us and all the guests who couldn't escape fast enough. Lea's film will be a kind of Berlin version of Smoke - if you remember. But right now it's Corona time and the whole creative economy is on ice. Self-proclaimed economists like to explain to me that you have to be flexible and adapt to the times. We do that. Our bar is a late one now. Still, economic arguments seem a bit cheap to me for people who came to our city to live their dream. How about this instead: If you are lucky enough to work in a home office for the same salary, you are welcome to support people like Lea, whose account shows -37 cents Until the creative industry picks up exactly where it left off. And with living a utopia too! Here is our cowdfunding, which goes exclusively to our colleagues:

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Cloud Atlas

You watch Cloud Atlas once, you try again. Then you look at him a third time: A mystery wrapped in a mystery surrounded by a secret. Meaning: Even after three passes you have not understood anything. You may not even succeed in getting from one moment to the next. And already you are in the middle of one of the most ambitious projects ever shot! Impossible to explain something that is beyond logic! We learned this in school: you look for the explanation IN the work of art itself, but it's best to look outside the work of art. When you start conjuring up parables for the works of world literature, I would always answer: "And why can it not be a narrative in itself? So Cloud Atlas provides six stories set between 1849 and 2346. The same actors appear in different roles, embodying different race/gender/age. Sometimes you wonder; is it really Tom Hanks, Halle Berry or Jim Broadbent? But that doesn't really matter. Each segment serves as a transformation of the previous story. The same birthmark appears in each segment. Or the same? All lives are connected by the longing for freedom. I think this is the recurring motif. The one story consciously refers to the inside of the other. How's it going? I'm sure I'm not. It wouldn't help either to list the different characters (of the same actor). Following the motto, here Halle Berry plays an investigative journalist during the 70s, there Tom Hanks plays an old man. Such a kind of timetable would still confuse you. The best thing to do is to follow the direction of Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer and Andy Wachowski - and afterwards try to discuss what you've seen with other geeks. This is exactly what I experience in our video store and it never ends successfully. Some will refer to Freud, others desperately hope to solve the mystery. As if Cloud Atlas is just a mystery. For my part, I for one simply gave up trying to force the events into a logical pattern by the third run at the latest. Clouds do not follow a logical principle. But you will hardly find another film that conjures up the magical qualities of cinema as fascinatingly as Cloud Atlas! Finally a movie that breaks the shackles of continuity and allows its actors to shoot completely free! If you yourself accept this degree of freedom of NOT being able to explain everything, then you will understand that the wisdom of the old man staring into the flames of fire does make sense. Please combine with science fiction puzzles like "2001", "The Fountain" and "The Tree Of Life" - your video store advises you.