FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Christian Petzold - Undine 

Christian Petzold's films often looked out of this world - but Undine is his first excursion into the fantasy genre. Undine begins with a separation. The camera lingers on the face of Paula Beer. Thus we experience the separation just as she did. It is not a normal goodbye. Undine is also not a normal woman as the name suggests. This is not about a jilted lover. Undine, by definition, comes from the realm of mythological creatures. "If you leave me, I'll have to kill you"; she promises her lover Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), whom she has invited to a café near the Berlin Historical Museum. Undine works there as a historian. For us she looks as human and attractive as Paula Beer, but... Basically she belongs to the species of watermen and women. Her human form - we conclude from this - she received through the love of John. If John leaves her, he must die. Infidelity is death. Christian Petzold omits the romantic moments that we know from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. He concentrates on the question of fate: Does Undine really have to kill Johannes to fulfill her destiny? Or is there a way out? Anyone who has seen a few Christian Petzold films knows that his heroines always strive for a life of freedom, independence and self-determination. Just as little does Undine want to return to the lake from which she once came. Like a fish, she no longer seems to be standing in the middle of life. Undine has a respectable job, lives in a Berlin apartment that we would all like to have and is exploring the city. Then she is betrayed by Johannes. Exactly in this moment - a real turning point - Undine meets Christoph (Franz Rogowski). Very different from Johannes, Christoph is sweet and affectionate. The ideal partner for Undine! Christoph works as a diver near Wuppertal, where he catches a huge catfish in the lake. A good sign, how open-minded he seems to be to aquatic life! Somewhere on an ancient document he discovered Undine's name. One of the most important rules for Undine: The moment she has contact with the water again after her marriage, she has to return there. A rule she has already broken. But maybe Christoph serves as a loophole? Normally, Petzold never defines his heroines by their relationship to men. They are always strong and full of ingenuity. And Christoph adores Undine's intelligence! Johannes, on the other hand, is an unfaithful scoundrel and at some point he will of course reappear. Undine has to stand up against the whole burden of mythology. I strongly advise to read this mythology before the movie! because Christian Petzold's movie misses that. So you need an introduction: A) The fairy tale or B) Neil Jordan's Ondine (DVD1970). 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Claire Denis - Trouble Every Day  

Yesterday the editorial staff of the "Fireflies" joined us in the video store to present their new edition. A magazine about Claire Denis. I brought up all our DVDs and I noticed Trouble Every Day. A film that was terribly missed in Cannes in 2002. A real scandal that nobody liked! Let's watch Trouble Every Day a second time! Trouble Every Day starts with the arrival of the young couple Shane and June Brown (Vincent Gallo and Tricia Vessey) in Paris. Shane, a young American doctor, is haunted by morbid, bloody sex fantasies, which he can only suppress by medication. At the same time, we experience the fate of a scientist (Alex Descas) who locks up his wife Core (Béatrice Dalle), who suffers from the same uncanny disease, at home. While Shane lives sexually abstinent, Core repeatedly breaks out to kill men by biting them while orgasm. Soon it becomes clear that Shane and Core have a common past... It's hard to summarize the content, because everything is told in a fragmentary way, none of the characters is more detailed and the dialogues remain sparse. Some horror elements, underlaid with the music of the Tindersticks, make Trouble Every Day seem like a cruel love story. A modern vampire fairy tale, whose roots lie in Guinea. Denis was born in French West-Africa and may have worked something like a private culture clash into it. When Core bites a truck driver to pieces, she looks like a creature from the jungle. Shane, with his rigid gaze, looks like a doctor who could frighten an entire neighborhood. But that's not enough for Denis to try an exploitation film. She believes she can explore the deep secrets of cinema: Desire and moving fear. Her film gets out of hand and seems like an unfinished mix of pretentious sex philosophy and necrophiliac romanticism. Without intellectual harshness or exciting eroticism.

Watch it for free on our CINEGEEK.DE Jean-Luc Godard - Masculin Feminin 

"We are the children of Marx and Coca-Cola"; from this famous line comes the German rental title. In Godard's film all characters are fascinated by America. They are young French people who are so fascinated by America. And in return, the young American audience was fascinated by Godard. But what exactly did they like about Godard? The world of chic cafes? Paul from Masculin Feminin (of course Jean-Pierre Leaud) moves casually in it. Or the bedrooms of young beautiful girls? Probably 70% of all young people in 1966 wanted to be Jean-Pierre Leauds Paul. Or at least Jean-Pierre Leaud. Or at least live in Paris. All the rest, demos, radical political ideas, endless conversations about sex, etc., can be considered accessories. Performance Art. By participating in all these activities, Paul meets the sexy singer Madeleine (Chantal Goya) and her equally sexy roommate. Of course we are aware that these are all girls and boys, like the Fridays For Future movement today. By the way, Godard played long before later movements with natural light, real time and original locations. The plot behind it is this: Paul is all about getting into bed with beautiful girls. He claims to be a communist and "worker", paints slogans on the walls and supports the student streets barricades. Above all, he tries to smoke like Jean-Paul-Belmondo. And he never succeeds. Paul is just one of the guys who go to the cinema and try to copy their role models. That's exactly how Masculin Feminin works.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Jean Luc Godard - Le Mepris 

Le Mepris is in a way an experiment: Jean-Luc Godard's first Big Budget production with a big star: Brigitte Bardot. It was a unique, more or less satisfying trip. After all, all of Godard's subsequent films can also be seen as a reaction to Le Mepris. Not that the film is without tension. It is not only between the dialogue lines that we feel the author's struggle against his producers. A failed dramaturge (Michel Piccoli) works for a corrupt American producer (Jack Palance) to write the script for a project to be directed by a veteran director (Fritz Lang). The dramaturgy has a beautiful wife (Brigitte Bardot) and both love each other deeply. However, the producer also has an eye on her. The film is supposed to bring the odyssey back to the screen. Palance has an infusion of the Hercules sandal films in his head, Fritz Lang an auteur film. Again and again they have tried to find the story of the Odyssey in Le Mepris: Piccoli as Odysseus, Bardot as Penelope and Palance as Poseidon. The dramaturg could just as well be an embodiment of Godard himself and Bardot his then wife Anna Karina. Ironically, the producers Joseph E. Levine and Carlo Ponti were similar to his hero in their approach to Godard and even had Bardot naked. Once Palance Lang yells at him while he sees a shot of the Odyssey (which looks like a postcard view of Greece): "Betrayal! In the opening scene, Bardot lies naked in bed. Her body, every single part of her body, is praised by Piccoli. She asks him how he likes her knees, her breasts, her arms. Everything is perfect! It should remain the only love scene in Le Mepris. We can imagine the producer shouting at Godard: "Deception"! Then the nude scene was born. Strange the fact that we see naked skin, but it's quite unerotic. After the disastrous first performance Palance storms out of the room, invites the participants into his villa. Especially Bardot, who reacts disturbed after Piccoli makes no effort to protect her from the producer. Palance and Bardot roar away in the convertible, Piccoli pants afterwards. Does he hand over his wife to the producer? We are in the transition to the second act. Bardot and Piccoli argue. The scene: The unfinished new apartment that Piccoli deserves with his screenplay. The couple's conversations, they are held in the tone of real life. Bardot compares her husband to the donkey Martin. The conversation is rather illogical, because basically both sides demand completely uncritical acceptance and forgiveness. The third act takes place in the breathtaking Mediterranean villa of Palance - based on a Greek temple. Many moments are based on the battles Godard fought with the establishment of the film industry. For the character Fritz Lang, some points from Fritz Lang's biography served as inspiration. When Lang notices that Cinemascope (the format in which Godard shot Le Mepris) is only for snakes, we think we hear Godard. Is that still the raw power of the Nouvelle Vague? Or even "quality cinema"? Palance seems somewhat out of place as a cliché of the American "Money Man". Bardot, on the other hand, is quite natural. The true Eva! Piccoli (in his first role!) embodies a man of little talent and greatest uncertainty. Almost the opposite of the roles Piccoli would play later! As always, Godard remains quite distant. Like almost all of his works Le Mepris is about filmmaking itself and he tells us about it - breaking through the "fourth wall". Le Mepris almost seems like a satire about communication itself! Obviously Godard (despite his side blows) is also fascinated by Cinemascope and the beauty of his own shots. Sure: Le Mepris, with the wonderful music of Georges Delerue is a feast for the eyes! Like his movie-in-film, Godard struggles to exaggerate and vulgarize his characters. After Le Mepris he decided that such films were not for him and simply takes himself out - from his own film.

FREE ON OUR CINEGEEK.DE Jean Luc Godard - Ten Minutes Older 

Godard himself has always catalogued everything cinematically and therefore his own career can also be catalogued excellently. He was 30 years old when he launched his career in 1960 with 15 films that broke the rules (+ six short films). This began with Breathless and ended with the hellish Weekend. During the 70s, political collective films followed. In the 80s he made his comeback in the cinema. First Name: Carmen was the most successful in Berlin. Godard's greatest work is probably the series Histoire(s) Du Cinema (1989-1999). Godard, the philosopher of cinema! He always worked fast. And always somewhere between deadly serious and funny. Above all, his films of the Nouvelle Vague still radiate the greatest seductive power and that very specific glamour that makes Godard the most popular director in our video library. In other words, there's no one else you'll rent more often! But you leave his later works alone. They lack the visual pop of the 60s. You can imagine Godard as a prisoner. Trapped in a sea of references and quotations. He loved to quote from films! Later he tried his hand at being a politician of cinema, but it failed. Maybe his head was too stuffed with intellectual bells and whistles. Vivre Sa Vie is about a woman who would like to be in Dreyer's Joan of Arc but cannot. Irony of fate, because Godard's actress Anna Karina is in a film herself! And in a top-class Godard film at that - but she doesn't seem to realise that. But Godard knows. Godard and Karina were colleagues in the 60s and also lovers. Their films together are always about loving her (and how it fails). Perhaps this is due to a lack of feeling that also characterises both films? There may be a romantic in Godard, but this romanticism seems to be foreign to him even in his old age. His films are always about films. Many of them are carried by lush music - but isn't that merely an artistic element of the film? As he says, it was above all a matter of classifying and ordering. He calls Made In USA a Disney film with a Bogart. Excuse me? That's why it's also a political film, according to Godard. I would sum it up like this: Godard's Nouvelle Vague films live above all from their images and their music. And some of our customers think that all Nouvelle Vague films are always about love. Then, during his political period, Godard turned away from man. Instead, he tried to stand up for humanity. His following films of the 80s seem distant (and visually beautiful). But the biggest question during this period is: how did he manage to get money for such eccentric works? And at this point he still had decades of creative work ahead of him! His late films are ugly and unhappy. They make hair-raising political claims; the beauty of the images of his depressive 80s films has disappeared. At some point he had outlived all his colleagues of the Nouvelle Vague and stood all alone. As always, one might add. He remained a lifelong provocateur and always obnoxious. His films from the 60s seem forever youthful and will be borrowed from you forever. And there's plenty of time for the rest. We have time. And we offer all Godard films in our video library, even the strangest ones.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Wong Kar Wai - In The Mood For Love 

Two people who are in the mood for love. But it is neither the right place nor the right time. Looks full of longing, but everyone has to go home alone. His wife, just like her husband, cheated on her. They sullied the marriages with side leaps. The couple agree that this should not happen to them. But do they really agree? No. They do NOT agree. He wants to sleep with her and she with him. They are prevented only by their moral conviction. At least each of them thinks the other would take this moral attitude. A confusion. Neither throws the first stone. Of course there is room for speculation, because Wong Kar-Wai's classic leaves so many gaps. A lavishly filmed story about unrequited love. Unrequited mutual love. It must feel the same as the songs of Nat King Cole in the movie or the cello motif that permeates "In The Mood For Love". His name is Chow (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and she is Su (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk). Both live in Hong Kong in 1962, at a time when Chinese must have loved Latin hits like Nat King Cole's! Their apartments are next to each other. The city is overcrowded. There is no room for secrets. Again and again their paths cross. Important things are said at the wrong time. Mostly they don't speak at all. Feelings have to be transported differently, for example by means of their clothes. Our task as spectators: We cannot identify with this couple. But we should put ourselves in their shoes. This is much more difficult than in "normal" love films! "In The Mood For Love" lives from its rich colors and deep shadows. The camera slides back and forth between the two apartments, emphasizing that there are two, not one. In imaginary dialogues they ask: "Do you have a lover? That means her husband, not Chow. But the two cheating spouses never appear on the screen. Adultery is boring - Wong Kar-Wai wants to show us something else. He demonstrates how Chow and Su in their restraint create something like perfect love. They spend their days alone. It often rains. When they meet by chance, they never speak openly. But for lovers no conversation is boring and an empty room fills with the most intimate desires!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Der Ölprinz 

Now we are in the middle of a phase of living literary criticism and, of course, living film criticism. Karl May, born in 1842, was a child of the colonial age and wrote in the common stereotypes of his time. He was - as far as I know - never in the so-called Wild West, nor anywhere else. Anyone who takes Karl May to task today will not be able to avoid taking a critical look at this view. The same goes for those who look at Karl May films from the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s. For it is astonishing how they follow the model! When dealing with ethnic stereotypes of the 19th century by the writer Karl May, you will quickly notice that they never changed until the 60s of the 20th century. Today it is different. We have moved on and may now take a critical look at the poet's work and cinematic adaptations. Many may shy away from this because it also concerns their own childhood memories. And these are personal. But those who actually manage this process of development may call themselves adults in the best sense of the word. "But Winnetou paid no attention to the pain. That's what all great wars did". So it is written. Modern parents would probably laugh when they read this to their children. That's how they are, the Indians! Today, this is called criticism of racism and ideology in Karl May, if you don't just let such sentences stand. Karl May can certainly be accused of racism, but not of malicious racism. Winnetou is the good guy and the cowboys are the bad guys. P.S By the way, Der Ölprinz was filmed in Artur Brauner's CCC Studios in Spandau, Berlin, where German blockbusters such as the Winnetou and Edgar Wallace films were made until the 1970s.