FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored 

Once Upon a Time . . . When We Were Colored revives the world of the rural south of the United States during the postwar years and into the early 1960s of the black community - the years before the harsh segregation was defeated by the civil rights movement. The film recalls the close ties of a black family, their friends and the church while outside American apartheid was law. The key word is community, and rarely has this been shown to us in such a moving way as in this milestone. People who work, live and pray together gain strength and self-esteem through community. From this Tim Reid creates one of the great epics of his time, which spans four generations. Often this moves me deeply, for example when a frightened boy stammers his first words: "White" and "Colored". At some point we got to know and love all the people there. We understand them. And we understand why such communities could produce so many good citizens. This ambitious project with countless speaker roles is not commercial at all! All in Once Upon A Time... looks authentic, yes, we think South Carolina can breathe! This film is not about a few main characters, a few lives. It's about life itself and it shows that more directly than almost any other work of art! The events (which cannot possibly be summarized) are portrayed from the perspective of the boy Cliff, who is played by three actors as he grows up. Once Cliff goes to the city with his great-grandfather and makes the mistake of using the white washroom. His great-grandfather has yet to teach him the meaning of the letters "W" and "C". While they happily eat an ice cream, they watch a parade of the Ku Klux clan marching by threateningly. Such scenes will be remembered forever! Cliff hardly moves his face, but if you watch closely, you will notice the pain in his eyes. So this is how racism feels, let's start to understand. But there are also happy moments in Cliff's life, like when he sees the young stripper at the carnival. How glamorous she seems to him! Through the hard racial segregation, the black community developed its own craftsmen, teachers and even ministers who served as role models for the boys. It is a world of one-room schools and churches with fiery gospel music. A world where the old were respected and asked for advice. The greatest thing about this work is that it does not protest loudly against racial segregation, but celebrates the human qualities that overcame and survived this system. It is not primarily about African-Americans, but about the human spirit itself. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Sidney Lumet - The Pawnbroker 

He is not only one of the best craftsmen in cinema; he is also a great humanist. And whoever experiences him live like I did at the Berlinale, knows that Sidney Lumet must be a loveable person! Lumet was always productive. He started in the 50's and surprised us all with his last film - that was 2007. Lumet makes films that grab us and never let go! Lumet is a New York filmmaker and almost all of his films take place there. He obviously prefers a milieu that he knows and understands from the inside out. Lumet always brought the best together and served as a thoughtful director, probably even more of a consultant. You can read his book Making Movies, which sounds almost humble. It's all about the work; there's no gibberish at all. Like in Lumet's films. They are completely free of gibberish. He reduces everything to the essentials, staging it invisibly. Lumet's parents were immigrants from Poland and played at the Jewish theater, as you can read in the book. That's why Sidney Lumet started acting as a child. During the 50s he was attracted by a new medium: Television. He was one of the representatives of live TV, like so many New Hollywood directors. This simply means that live filming is done, not unlike the theater. The Pawnbroker was founded in 1964 and works on the basis of ethical questions, which are not obviously formulated. We feel them. Rod Steiger plays The Pawnbroker, a man who survived the hell of a concentration camp. Today he runs a pawnbroker's shop in Harlem and still has to fight prejudices. He has lost his faith in God, the arts and science. It cannot be said that he discriminates against individual people, rather he regards the whole of humanity as scum. In truth, his pawn shop serves as a façade for a man who does business with prostitution. The Pawnbroker is a character study that gets by with a minimum of action. Episodically staged, the film stands and falls with Rod Steiger's portrayal. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Zhang Yimou - Raise The Red Lantern (engl. subt.) 

Zhang Yimous Raise The Red Lantern is about sexual slavery. The main character enters a self-contained system from which there is no escape. It is a 19-year-old student who, after the death of her father, has to work as the fourth "lover" of a rich gentleman, as the mother refuses to support her. She is delivered to his house, which she is not allowed to leave. There are traditional rules. How realistic is that? Hard to say! Zhang Yimou settled his film in China of the 20s. Concubines were no rarity at that time, but the conditions in this house are probably unique. As in all early Yimou movies, the leading role is played by Gong Li. It's beautiful and that's also what the film is about! All four concubines live in their own house, the fifth and biggest one is inhabited by the master. Together they form a complex, the centre of which is a courtyard. Inside the houses of the lovers are illuminated red, red, the colour of passion. Many scenes take place on the roofs, which in turn look like a labyrinth of stairs and staircases. The complex is only apparently clear! Gong Lis figure is called Songlian and often she comes into conflict with the servant of the master named Yan'er (Kong Lin). Yan'er for her part has strong ambitions to become a "lover" herself. The first "lover" is already older and will probably be replaced soon. The second one seems to be kind with a face that isn't at all unlike that of Buddha. The third, an opera singer, is young, beautiful and jealous. Everything is organized by traditional rules that will never change. Of course the servants follow these rules much more obediently than the master himself. The servant, for example, follows the "laws" with such absolution that even then she still seems to be present because she is absent. We never see the Master himself, at least not frontally. His patriarchal rule is so perfect that he does not need his own "character". The Master is not an individual, we do not know his face. He operates through his servant, who assures him of his total dominance. Before Songlian arrives, the three lovers do not live in balance with each other. Songlian becomes their valve for everything that is unbalanced. She learns that the master hangs out a red lantern at night, which determines his favorite for the night. The lucky winner gets a foot massage and can choose the menu for the following day. This competition leads to intrigue and Songlian can never be sure that those who call themselves friends are. It's strange how much these women sacrifice themselves for the master and the family and see each other as enemies! There may be a feminist message in Yimou's drama, but it never becomes explicit. Equally important are the gorgeous colours and beauty of the women (especially Gong Lis!). Of course all these women were raped, but we never see sex on canvas. Yimou's film understands the nature of these rapes as social added value. He shows the conditions of it, not the sex. Maybe the master doesn't even visit his "lovers" for pleasure, but to remind them of their duties. Above all, he assigns them their places. Raise The Red Lantern is divided into a prologue and five chapters. At the end Songlian appears in a close-up, because this is their story. It is their fight against this system - a system controlled by monetary constraints. Zhang Yimou belongs to the fifth generation of Chinese directors after the Cultural Revolution. A generation which worked much more openly than it would have been possible in Mao's time, but which still lived the frustration until the opening of China. Raise The Red Lantern is of such bewitching beauty and clarity, of such uncompromising directness, that one might think that the Chinese film industry would have made masterpieces like this possible, without being able to deal with them now.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Margarethe von Trotta - Hannah Arendt 

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) Margarethe von Trotta möchte keine "feministische" Filmemacherin sein. Doch sie ist es. Ihre besten Filme wirken genauso unmittelbar wie die grossen Werke des Feminismus der 60er. Im Fall von Hannah Arendt ist das noch beeindruckender, da die Philosophin alles andere als eine Feministin war. Man erinnert sich vor allem an ihre Formulierung der "Banalität des Bösen" über den Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann seinerseits argumentierte vor den Nürnberger Prozessen, er hätte nur Befehle befolgt. Man könnte ihn deshalb unmöglich wegen Kriegsverbrechen anklagen. Arendt, die nach Amerika floh, wusste, dass die Nazis keine wahnsinnigen Soziopathen waren. Sie sahen aus und wirkten wie ein Haufen Bürokraten, die einfach nur ihre Karriere voran treiben wollten. Man durfte davon ausgehen, dass sie sich nicht in erster Linie einem fanatischen Führer-Kult unterwarfen. So betrachtet, nehmen die Gräueltaten der Deutsch eine ganz andere Dimension ein! Hannah Arendt war eine der grossen Denkerinnen des vergangenen Jahrhunderts. Eine, die sich den Ursprüngen des Totalitarismus annahm. Von Trottas Film aber kümmert sich weniger um Ahrendts Schriften als vielmehr ihre Person einer jüdischen Überlebenden. Ganz zu Beginn wird Eichmann in Argentinien fest genommen. Diese Nachricht dringt auch nach New York vor, dort wo Arendt mit ihrem Mann Heinrich Blücher (Axel Milberg) lebt. Arendt bietet an, über Eichmanns Prozess zu berichten. Wie sieht sie aus, die Natur des Bösen? Wie ein Niemand. So wie Eichmann. Eichmann hatte sich schlicht mit dem Führer-Prinzip eine moralische Leerstelle geschaffen. Kann man diesen Gedanken filmisch auf den Grund gehen? Eher nicht. Schliesslich bringen Arendts Erkenntnisse das Furchtbarste in uns allen zum Vorschein. Denken, so Arendt im Widerstreit mit dem Nationalsozialisten Heidegger (Klaus Pohl) ist ein einsames Geschäft! So stellt von Trottas Film eine Reihe wichtiger Fragen, ohne sie zu beantworten. - FREE ON YOUTUBE Margarethe von Trotta does not want to be a "feminist" filmmaker. But she is. Her best films have just as immediate an effect as the great works of feminism of the 60s. In the case of Hannah Arendt this is even more impressive, since the philosopher was anything but a feminist. One remembers above all her formulation of the "banality of evil" about the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, for his part, argued before the Nuremberg Trials that he had only obeyed orders. It would therefore be impossible to charge him with war crimes. Arendt, who fled to America, knew that the Nazis were not mad sociopaths. They looked and acted like a bunch of bureaucrats who just wanted to advance their careers. It was safe to assume that they did not primarily submit to a fanatical cult of leaders. Seen in this light, the atrocities committed by the Germans took on a completely different dimension! Hannah Arendt was one of the great thinkers of the last century. One who took on the origins of totalitarianism. Von Trotta's film, however, is less concerned with Ahrendts writings than her person of a Jewish survivor. Eichmann is arrested in Argentina at the very beginning. This news also reaches New York, where Arendt lives with her husband Heinrich Blücher (Axel Milberg). Arendt offers to report on Eichmann's trial. What does it look like, the nature of evil? Like a nobody. Just like Eichmann. Eichmann had simply created a moral void with the Führer Principle. Is it possible to get to the bottom of this thought in film? Probably not. After all, Arendt's findings bring out the most terrible in all of us. Thinking, so Arendt in conflict with the National Socialist Heidegger (Klaus Pohl) is a lonely business! Thus von Trotta's film asks a number of important questions without answering them. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Wim Wenders - Paris, Texas

A man coming out of the desert. All alone, with no future and no past. Shortly before dying of thirst, he comes across a barrack in which a German exile takes care of him. The German takes the stranger's wallet to find out his identity and calls his brother. When I saw these first minutes of Paris Texas for the first time, I could not imagine how the film would continue. Anyone who sees many films knows this feeling: no matter whether a work is great or not, one usually knows quite quickly what will happen next. Paris Texas is different and that alone makes Wenders Film so fascinating. It seems as if we're looking at a picture that moves, but doesn't underline dialogue with pictures. Wenders has created a completely individual work about loss and loneliness. The characters originate from the fantasy of the author Sam Shepard. They fit into the work of Wenders, who prefers to make road movies in which men search for meaning in the vastness of the landscape. He has never hit this vastness better than in Paris Texas. Harry Dean Stanton plays the lost man and which actor seems both more abandoned and more angry? We don't find out the reasons why he walks alone through the desert, but we do learn how great and painful his loss was. In former times he was married and father of a little boy. After his disappearance his son grew up with his brother (Dean Stockwell). The mother (Nastassja Kinski) also disappeared. Hunter Carson plays the boy and he goes to my heart as I never experienced it again with a child actor! Now the lost one (called Travis) has the crazy idea to bring his family together again. Very slowly he approaches his son, although he does not yet know exactly how to deal with a child at all. All he knows about his wife is that she withdraws money from a certain bank once a month. When he meets her, she cuts one of these discs behind which prostitutes talk to their clients by telephone. The john sees the whore, but she doesn't see him. This is the starting point of the most moving scene in the film. Paris Texas expresses feelings, exposes them and this is more important to the film than telling a story. It's less about missing persons than about lost feelings. At the very beginning, Wenders captures them with a Super 8 film that shows Travi's past. Wenders' pictures are always looking for people who lose themselves in the distance. In front of us the stony landscape of Texas, where the Kaffs have strange names like "Paris" or "Manchester" (who wants to play ml Google Map). Nevertheless, it hasn't become an American movie at all: In the denial of "storytelling", which has to give way to the revelation of inwardness, Wenders has made a very German film. He is fascinated by American culture: the film is accompanied by the play of a single slide guitar playing Ry Cooder! American music and mythology are what make Paris Texas so special, with the astonished look of the foreigner. Paris Texas is Wenders best film, certainly also because he has adapted "real" American dialogues to his pictures. Sam Shephard allows his characters to get to know each other without many words. Their deepest thoughts and fears don't have to be explained in dialogues. With his passion to experiment Paris Texas seemed to fit hardly into the popcorn cinema of the 80s. The film is a latecomer, not only the New German Cinema, but also the kind that could be produced in Hollywood in the late 60s. Paris Texas is true, profound and brilliant! For me, it's one of those films that I can see again and again and am happy afterwards.

 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Lars von Trier - Dancer In The Dark 

There will be those who will hate Lars from Tiers Dancer In The Dark and those who love the film. Ideally we will find a solution in which Dancer In The Dark offers something for both factions. The star of the film is Björk from Iceland, who plays a Czech migrant in America. She works as a dancer and slowly begins to go blind. Selma is saving for an operation to spare her son this fate as well. It is worth noting that the film is set in the 1960s and it is likely that it was already possible to pay for such an operation at that time. But now we are not in reality, but in a musical. Lars von Trier conceived Dancer In The Dark as a soap opera (criticizing the plot for its plausibility therefore leads nowhere). Selma (Bjork) and her son live in a trailer behind the house of Bill (David Morse), a policeman who loves her (but is basically too stupid for that). He betrays her trust and that's why a deadly confrontation between them occurs. This may seem stupid, but von Trier has done the same. Selma is followed everywhere by Jeff (Peter Stormare), who wants to be her boyfriend. It is important to note that both Selma and Jeff are simple-minded characters who would be considered disabled today. Selma and Jeff in von Trier's film, however, must be seen as characters in a classic Hollywood melodrama. Selma has a good friend, Kathy (Catherine Deneuve!!!), who recognizes how Selma is going blind and wants to help her. But Selma is extremely stubborn... The movie starts with a rehearsal of Selma for the local musical production "The Sound Of Music". While the film looks like a digital video, the colors of the music numbers appear as bright as in the big Hollywood productions. We have to remember Dancer In The Dark during its creation: Lars von Trier had previously signed the Dogma Manifesto, which contains unconditional naturalism. His musical, however, follows the fashion of modernity, with the plot featuring classic characters from Hollywood's inventory: The heroine, the villain - his own sacrifice and insidious deception. Hollywood fundamentalism. Von Trier underlays this with slippery modernism. Dancer In The Dark is different from "normal" movies: Not particularly "well done", "plausible" or of "good taste". Dancer In The Dark is also not particularly "entertaining". He tears down the walls of habit that carry so much film. Lars von Tirer goes back to the origins of cinema. A bold, ruthless gesture! After all, Björk decided never to make a film again after the shoot.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Me And You And Everyone We Know 

Miranda Julys Me And You And Everyone We Know creates a rare fragile magic. It's about falling in love with someone who speaks and understands your very language of love. Unfortunately, there is hardly anyone like that, the film suggests... Or is it? Maybe me and you and everyone we know? That seems crazy as a description of the film. Imagine two characters as an explanation: Christine (Miranda July) and Richard (John Hawkes) walking down a street in their neighbourhood. She suggests that this road is like her life. Half of the road they have already gone and thus half of their life - and soon they are at the end... Almost impossible to describe the poetry of this scene. I don't think any other film scene I've ever seen was like that! Richard and Christine are the protagonists of the film. Through Richard's son Robby we also meet other characters. We see eleven-year-old Robby visiting an online dating site, a sex chat, although he can't know anything about sex. But about computers and sounding like someone else. He asks open questions and uses the phrases of adults. To what turns him on, he answers with "poop", because Robby thinks it has something to do with sex. Robby's fourteen-year-old brother Peter is pursued by two classmates who show an interest in oral sex (although they cannot yet distinguish theory from practice). All these scenes seem so innocent and full of tact - just as the embarrassing curiosity for sex is at that age. Tracy Wright plays an interesting character as curator of art who is afraid she might break the rules she may not know. She projects her longings into a world without understanding - another scene that made me laugh with admiration! Mirandy July is a performance artist and Me And You And Everyone We Know her debut. The art of performance expresses our little peculiarities that make our lives wonderful and worth living. That's exactly how the movie works. Julys film crosses borders, risks a lot, but lives on her fresh charm and disarming directness. Me And You And Everyone We Know accepts everything human, observes our species in life. (transl. deepl.com)