Niewiera/Rosolowski: The Prince and the Dybbuk/ 2

I had high expectations to the new film by Elvira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski. I liked their ”Domino Effect”, link to the review below, and I have followed ”The Prince and the Dybbuk” through a read of the treatment and I  attended a clip presentation at the Krakow Film Festival. The expectations became even higher, when it was picked for the festival in Venice and won a big award. Had the couple succeeded to fulfill their ambitions to make a big, archive-based adventurous Film? YES they had! For me “The Prince and the Dybbuk” is a strong candidate to be the Documentary of the Year. I will tell you why in this review, but first an intro to the story. Here comes a synopsis borrowed from the catalogue of the festival in Venice:

The Story

Who was Moshe Waks really? A golden boy of cinema, cunning fraud or a man who constantly confused the illusion of film with reality? The son of a poor Jewish blacksmith from Ukraine, died in Italy as Prince Michaeł Waszyński, Hollywood producer and exiled Polish aristocrat. He made more than 50 films including cinema hits with Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale. However only one film was his true obsession—Der Dibuk (The Dybbuk)—based on an old Jewish legend, the most important and mystical Yiddish film ever made, directed by Waszyński shortly before the the outbreak of the World War II. To the american magazine “Variety” Waszyński once claimed to be fascinated with the downfall of great nations. The related imagery of pogroms and migration are the sights and images that Waszyński had so often witnessed in his life. It seems he had achieved almost everything he could possibly have wished, but something seemed to be stalking him, leaving him permanently restless. Waszyński kept searching for the lost print of his film Der Dibuk (The Dybbuk), which held his early memories of the jewish shtetl and his first love. What secrets did he keep hidden in this old masterpiece of Yiddish cinema?

An Elegant Man

Take a look at the photo above. Prince Waszyński smoking a cigarette, In his palazzo. An elegant man. Like a character in a film by Luchino Visconti – I wonder if the two met each other in Rome? I want to ask the directors, when I meet them. ”A very kind and gentle man” is another comment that comes from the widow of American director Joseph Mankiewicz, with whom he worked. Waszyński produced ”The Fall of the Roman Empire” (directed by Anthony Mann) with Sophia Loren and a scene in the film takes the viewer to the location, where it was shot and where the colossal scenery was set up. In most scenes like that, the film lets one, who was involved on that occasion, take us back in time to describe what Waszyński did. That is the information side of the film.

His popularity at the end of his life, in Rome, is proved at the start of the film through archive footage from his funeral: cut to a man who takes us to the grave and from there to relatives of the family Dickmann, to whom he was very close. He is buried at the family’s burial place…

The Mysterious Dybbuk

that the man is looking for. And already here up front the film delivers some small blinks of b/w material to appear at the cemetery. Cinema, the film surprises me. This is the interpretation side of the film. The director’s cinematic note of intention through material that refers to his upbringing as a Jewish kid in Kovel in Ukraine. There is wonderful archive material from Jewish life – they looked into the camera at that early film time – and there are clips from the film ”Dybbuk”, that Waszyński made in 1937. The film continuosly comes back to the Dybbuk legend and the filmmakers go to Kovel to hear if there are old people, who remember him – his dates are1904-1965. There are. And they also go to Tel Aviv to meet with people with connection to the Ukrainian village. All in all, let me put that in here, it is a film, that is researched in details. Impressive work is done.

His Diaries

are in themselves brilliant pieces of literature, as they are quoted and read in Jiddish. You get the sense of a man, who wanted to forget his past, who fled from Kovel, converted to being Catholic, made films in Warsaw, became a celebrity that was often in the Polish chronicles, when a new film came out, who fled the German occupation, was in Siberia, followed the Polish soldiers, who joined the Allies in Italy, filmed the Battle of Monte Cassino and made a film called ”The Unknown Man from Monte Cassino”. A long sequence from this film shows the protagonist being unable to remember, who he is and where he comes from. A clear reference to Waszyński, and his rich but tormented life. Director’s cinematic interpretation.

Towards the End

… of the film and the story of the life of the elegant man, the word ”mythomania” is mentioned. Was he a mythomaniac, or a liar, did he know how to play his cards in life. For the latter maybe. It is indicated – he married a countess, who died very quickly after their marriage and he inherited the fortune and the palazzo. In one of the most beautiful scenes in the film, again with a brilliant editing, you see his god-daughter Michaela walking around in an empty flat, she remembers him, talks so nicely about him, there are clips from how it appeared when he lived there – the mentioned cigarette scene – he was a true aristocrat, a Prince. Who was able to set his own life en scène. The film at no point goes in the tabloid direction, it mentions that he was probably gay, and there is an interview with one of his lovers but it is kept in a tone that keeps up the dignity of the man, who kept a lot for himself. It is actually an elegant film, with superb editing and a narrative structure, where the viewer gently is taken back to the Jiddish roots of Michal Waszyński. Back to the cemetery from the beginning of the film.

The film has a fine FB page.

Will be shown at the upcoming IDFA in the Best of Fests Category.

Poland, 2017, 81 mins.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2758/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3942/

http://polishdocs.pl/en/news/3628/the_prince_and_the_dybbuk

(… at the Venice International Film Festival)

Chris Marker: Level 5

French computer programmer Laura tackles a challenging video game. She researches World War lI’s bloody Battle of Okinawa, the last pre-nuclear face-off between the US and Japan, interviews with Japanese experts and witnesses, including filmmaker Nagisha Oshima, cause Laura to reflect deeply on her own life and human kind. Will she be able to go beyond Level 5? A fascinating humanistic reflection on war, memory and history. (DOCAlliance synopsis)

This documentary uses fiction to address shared memory of the Battle of Okinawa. Laura tries to get to the most difficult stage, level 5, of the computer program left behind by her late husband. In this are revealed statements by Rev. Kinjo Shigeaki, who witnessed the mass suicide at Tokashiki Island; documentary footage of people jumping to their deaths from cliffs on Saipan Island; and the image of a soldier who lost his memory due to the Battle of Okinawa, portrayed in John Houston’s film Let There Be Light, which was banned from public viewing for thirty years. (Chris Markers synopsis)

Chris Markers film, både denne og de andre i den retrospektive serie, bliver tilsyneladende stående tilgængelige på DOCAlliances streaming. Det giver mig mod til at fortsætte mit forsøg på at se og skrive om så mange af hans film som muligt. Jeg vil gøre det på den måde, at jeg lader uregelmæssigheden i dette letsindige foretagende skinne igennem i mine blogindlæg, som jeg pludseligt afslutter på steder, jeg i skrivende øjeblik bliver nødt til, fordi kræfter og tanker svinder…

Men jeg sætter alle nye tekster ind i blogindlægget Chris Marker Collected posts & notes on his works som så lidt efter lidt vokser og bliver ved med at leve op til sin titel, mening og bestemmelse, ligesom Filmkommentaren.dk som blog (= ”weblog”, altså journal på nettet) forsøger lever op til sin genre, altså at notere Tue Steen Müllers, vore skrivende gæsters og mine kommentarer til filmene vi ser. Nu til Markers Level 5 fra 1997.

Det første billede er en hånd, hendes og-eller hans, med en computermus som bevæger sige søgende på sit underlag og på skærmen, som også er del af og snart bliver til filmens titelsekvens, som er en kaotisk collage af natlige bybilleder set højt oppe fra, skærmbilleder opløst i punkter og streger, klip med flag der blafrer i vinden, klip med et tv-interview med William Gibson og så kvindestemmen, med det samme uforglemmelig smuk, med denne tekst (på fransk) som er én lang replik, en af den slags scener i film jeg elskede lang tid før Markers, jeg tænker på Godards film, nogle af Bergmans film: ”What can these be, the playthings of a mad God who made us to build them for him? Imagine Neanderthal man glimpsing a flash of city at night, all motion and light. He can not tell what it means. He have had a poetic vision, all motion and light. A sea of lights. He can not unravel the the images that lands in his mind like birds swift, unreachable birds. Thoughts, memoires, visions are the same to him, a scary hallusination. Such was William Gibson’s vision when he wrote Neuromances and invented Cyperspace. He saw the Sargasso Sea full of binary algae…”

Det her er så et nødvendigt, men også godt sted for mig at standse for nu og tænke sig om, se efter igen (det er jo det streamingen giver mig mulighed for) og om lidt skrive videre. Jeg ved der nu kommer en kærlighedshistorie…

Frankrig 1997, 105 min. På DOCAlliance i den smukt restaurerede franske version med engelsksprogede tekster:

https://dafilms.com/film/10159-level-five (Streaming af hele filmen)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3946/ (Chris Marker Collected posts & notes on his works) 

Award at the Aegean Docs festival to

… ”The Beast is Still Alive” by Bulgarian Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova as the best International Documentary of the 5th Aegean Docs in Greece, that was held October 1-6, in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos.

It is a film that I have reviewed on this site as an interview with myself (hmmm!), here is a quote, link for the whole thing below:

”The period of communism is not dealt with in the school books in current Bulgaria. You understand why, when you in the film, person by person, is told what this and this parliament member did during the years of communism and when you see and hear about the concentration camp Belene, where thousands of opposition people ended their lives. This is the strong side of the film, the focus on Bulgaria – present and past…”

The film that has created a lot of debate in Bulgaria (and anger from politicians) has been long on the festival circuit, which proves that the festival life of a film can be longer than the normally mentioned one year.

Go also to the first link to discover more about the fine small Greek festival. 

http://www.aegeandocs.gr/en/?cat=25

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3672/

http://beast-film.com/beast-film_home/index.html

Finland in Focus – in Belgrade

The M7 in Belgrade stands for the Magnificent7 Festival – 7 feature duration European documentaries. The festival has launched 13 editions, number 14 is coming up January 31st till February 6th 2018.

But before that the tireless director couple of the festival, Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, has decided to put Finland in Focus this month, very soon: October 13 & 14th. As an extra M7 activity.

To be shown are what you could call Finnish neo-classics, and gosh they have made good films in that country. Opening film will be ”Screaming Men” (2003) about the famous screaming men choir. It is the hope of the organisers that the Mika Ronkainen, who will be present, will scream the National anthem of Finland!

The next day ”Living Room of the Nation” will come to the screen, the film by Jukka Kärkkäinen from 2010, followed by Ronkainen’s ”Finnish Blood, Swedish Heart” (2013) and ”Soundbreaker” (2012) by Kimmo Koskela with the fantastic mucisian Kimmo Pohjonen.

Ronkainen will have a busy stay in Belgrade as there will also be a masterclass with the director, whose presence has been supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, Marja Pallassalo.

All films have been shown at…

http://www.magnificent7festival.org/en/index.php

Arunas Matelis: Wonderful Losers

… with the subtitle ”A Different World”, a film that many of us, who think Lithuanian Arunas Matelis is a great artistic documentary film director, have been waiting for – will have its premiere at the Warsaw International Film Festival that takes place October 13-22, a festival for fiction, shorts and documentaries. Arunas and his wife Alge, from their Studio Nominum in Vilnius, have produced a film of high quality (I have seen it just before final cut) that deserves to travel the world because of its cinematic qualities and its invitation to us viewers to look into – as the subtitle says- a different world. It’s (also) a film on professional cycling that touches upon existential questions. Here is the synopsis from the site of the film, link below:

”For spectators, cyclists in the back of the race are simply the losers. They are called water carriers, domestics, gregarios, and Sancho Panzas of professional cycling. Moreover, they have no right to personal victories – these sportsmen sacrifice their careers to help their teammates. We follow the magnificent world of the race from the point of view of the doctors’ team situated in a claustrophobically small medical car surrounded with wounded cyclists. The life of the medical team in race reminds one on the frontline of war. Cyclists crash, rise and race again. And amongst this fight, many magnificent things happen. This film-odyssey reveals the untold world of the wonderful losers, true warriors, knights and monks of professional cycling.”

From a production point of view the credits show an amazing list of co-producers (with 10 cinematographers!) – let me mention them from the credits: Stefilm Italy, Dok Mobile Switzerland, Associate Directors Belgium, VFS Films Latvia, Dearcan Media N.Ireland/UK, Planet Korda Ireland, SUICA Films Spain, Arturas Jevdokimovas for Kino Kontora.

Normally you say that too many cooks spoil the meal – having know Arunas Matelis and his work for more than 25 years I can assure you that this is a film that has his signature.

Wish you luck wth the premiere!

http://www.wonderfullosers.com

https://wff.pl/en/festival-2017/programme

En klassiker om ugen!

Cinemateket i Aarhus viser meget snart klassiske film hver tirsdag, for Cinemateket i København åbner 9. januar 2018 en filial i biografen Øst for Paradis i Aarhus. Og biografens direktør, Ditte Daugbjerg er glad, hun siger til Aarhus Stiftstdende:

” – Vi har måske også det publikum, som interesserer sig mest for film og som netop er målgruppen for at skulle se nogle af de film som er erklærede klassikere, som er 50 år eller ældre, men også nogle af de nyere klassikere, som David Lynchs “Blue Velvet”, som vi viste for nylig, som ikke er vildt gammel, men som man ikke længere kan se i biografen. ”

Nemlig, vi her i Østjylland har altid kigget misundelige til københavnernes cinemateks overdådigt og fantasifuldt kompetent redigerede program med mange, mange visninger af klassiske værker fra filmmuseets berømte samling. Nu sker det med en beskeden, men lovende begyndelse, som Tue Steen Müller og jeg og FILMKOMMENTAREN kun kan hilse velkommen og efter bedste evne støtte.

Cinemateket i København skriver i går i sin pressemeddelese, at ”fra årsskiftet etableres en filial af Cinemateket i Aarhus-biografen Øst for Paradis, som hver tirsdag vil stille en sal til rådighed for cinemateksvisninger. Filialens program vil udgøre en miniudgave af Cinematekets program i København – ikke mindst i form af særarrangementer, hvor film sættes i perspektiv via eksempelvis introduktioner, foredrag, debatter, musik eller mad og drikke.

Øst for Paradis er en oplagt ramme for den nye filial i Aarhus. Med en stærk profil inden for arthousefilm, er der et godt match mellem biografens kernepublikum og Cinematekets program.” 

‘Cinematekets program består af film af ældre dato, sjældne og smalle film, og film i forskellig event-indpakning af både formidling og oplevelse. Dét tiltaler vores publikum i Øst for Paradis. Vi ser rigtig spændende perspektiver i dette samarbejde med Cinemateket, og glæder os helt vildt’, udtaler biografdirektør i Øst for Paradis, Ditte Daugbjerg Christensen.

Det Danske Filminstitut begyndte 2016 ordningen ”Cinemateket præsenterer” for at give filmpublikum i hele landet mulighed for at se filmarven. Det er offentligt-privat samarbejde mellem Cinemateket og kommercielle danske biografer og foreningsbiografer rundt omkring i landet om visning af ti film årligt fra Cinematekets program. Øst for Paradis i Aarhus er én af de 15 biografer, der er tilmeldt samarbejdet i år.

‘Erfaringerne med “Cinemateket præsenterer” i Øst for Paradis tyder på, at der er stor efterspørgsel på et tilbud som Cinematekets i Aarhus. Derfor udvider vi nu forsøgsvis samarbejdet med en decideret filial, der – hvis den viser sig succesfuld – kan blive til flere’ siger vicedirektøren i Det Danske Filminstitut, Jakob Buhl Vestergaard.”

Jeg tror bestemt ikke Buhl Vestergaard behøver at være så forsigtig, vi vil strømme til hver tirsdag…

Filialen åbner altså med filmvisning tirsdag den 9. januar. Mere information om den og om programmet fra Cinemateket i Aarhus vil følge, og vi her på bloggen vil følge op.

3 Documentaries from Netflix

I have no real overview of what Netflix offers, when it comes to documentaries. Below you find a link to an article that recommends the best documentaries on Netflix and there are many fine names. And titles which you can also find, when you go to Netflix itself and click on the documentary section. You find names like Werner Herzog, AiWeiWei, Banksy, Errol Morris, Marina Abramovic, Nick Broomfield, Albert Maysles and titles like ”O.J. Simpson”, ”Long Shot”, ”Making a Murderer”, ”Amanda Knox”, ”The Promise”, ”Strong Island” – all crime documentaries, not to forget the films on Janis Joplin and Nina Simone… But you have to search carefully as they are listed among a lot of tabloid stuff.

Nevertheless – as we are Netflix subscribers in our household – I assure you that the grandchildren already from age 3 know the name Netflix – I watched three documentaries recently, two of them were at Nordisk Panorama competition in Malmø and the third one I picked up because it was the subject of a double page article in a Danish newspaper.

I am referring to Bryan Fogel’s two hour long investigative work, ”Icarus” on the Russian state organised doping of athletes to take part in the Olympics. The film’s main character is the man who was leading the laboratory that manipulated the urin tests until he blew the whistle, Grigory Rodchenkov, who left Russia and is now hiding somewhere in the US. He is an amazing character for a film.

Swedish Kasper Collin’s ”I Called him Morgan” (PHOTO) is a film that is based on a sound interview with the trumpeter Lee Morgan’s widow Helen, who shot him one snowy night in a jazz club. AND based on great archive material AND wonderful music from Blue Note and other famous jazz sources. It’s a love story, it has a fine tone, it has interviews with people, who knew the two. One snowy night – there are beautiful images ”from” 18.2.1972, when it happened.

Both films are well crafted, professional and I watched them with pleasure because of their interesting stories. In these cases you can say that ”Content is King”, even if I got irritated of the wall-to-wall  mix of sound and music that serves to tell the spectator what to feel right now, in this scene, in this sequence. Mostly obvious in that respect is ”Icarus” but there is also a lot of ”noise” in the third film, the English/Icelandic ”Out of Thin Air”, a crime story, described like this on the webpage of the English producer Mosaic Film: ”Set within the stark Icelandic landscape the filmexamines the 1976 police investigation into the disappearance  of two men in the early 1970s. Iceland in the 1970s  was a idyll; a farming community, pretty much cut off from the much of the rest of the world. Crime was rare, murder rarer still. Then two men disappear under suspicious circumstances and foul play is suspected. The country demands a resolution. Police launch the biggest criminal investigation Iceland has ever seen. Finally, six people confess to two violent murders and are sent to prison. It seems the nightmare is over. But in many ways the nightmare has just begun….”.

This is the weakest of the three films to be found on Netflix that I watched. Simply because it jumps from one suspect to the other, mixes it with archive and an interview with one suspect, a woman. There is no clear red thread in narrative.

Is Netflix good or bad? Well from a viewer’s point of view it can only be good that documentaries are made available on a vod for a price that is not overwhelming but are they documentaries that could have ended up on public service channels anyway? And the industry side… that I dont know enough about: Netflix takes all rights world-wide, when they buy a film (I am not talking about those films that they finance/produce themselves) and if they come in at the end of a film’s life in festivals and on public tv, then what is the problem. But do they? Tell me.

”I called him Morgan” by Kasper Collin (2016, Sweden/USA, 92 mins.)

”Out of Thin Air” by Dylan Howitt (Iceland, 2017, USA, 86 mins.)

”Icarus” by Bryan Fogel (USA, 2017, 120 mins.)

http://www.icarus.film/

http://nordiskpanorama.com/en/festival/competition-programme/

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/the-best-documentaries-on-netflix/

 

International support to Catalonia

… after the violation of its democratic and individual rights. This is how the DOCSBarcelona team addresses colleagues around the world. Here is the mail I received:

Dear colleagues

I contact you on behalf of DocsBarcelona director Joan Gonzàlez, who is in Chile at the moment, and the whole team of the project in Barcelona.

At DocsBarcelona we have been very respectful and neutral in the last years with the political situation in our territory, but the events that are taking place these days in Catalonia deeply disturb us. 

Democracy in our country is at serious risk at the moment. We are suffering from direct repression, with the combined use of security forces, legal action, and attacks on our institutions and our political representatives, through direct economic intervention and the absorption of competences of our legal public institutions.

A group of representatives of the cultural sector and European citizens living in Catalonia have launched a call under the umbrella of the Fundació Catalunya Europa www.catalunyaeuropa.net to raise awareness and mobilize creators, programmers, professionals, politicians and people in charge of the media from all over the world. 

We want to share our concern with you and ask for your support. We would like to alert the international community about the situation we are living in and ask them to help us defend the right for freedom of speech: it is our democracy that is being attacked by all means.

The group’s  first call is towards our close European fellow citizens. But at DocsBarcelona we feel we need to extend it to our whole international professional community, in the US, LATAM and Asia. A community that works some way or another with documentary, a film genre that stands for reality, freedom of speech, respect and personal points of view with no exception.

Therefore, we ask you to:

 Adhere to the call by signing in the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/gzK3tgYziSoHQ9t13

 Address to your international contacts and especially Europeans, encouraging them to do the same. (Attached you’ll find our request in different languages)

 Address your parliaments and governments and request the adoption of measures, especially by European institutions, aimed at stopping the inadmissible and repressive actions of the Spanish State and to protect our rights, that are also yours.

Without a clear international positioning, the Spanish State will continue its useless and painful strategy, trying to turn a political conflict into an issue of public order with a very uncertain ending.

Today, Catalonia needs the international community. We need the support of all of you.

Adhere to this Call and do it as extensive as you can.

Best regards and many thanks,

The DocsBarcelona Team 

DOK Leipzig – Loznitsa & Rosenblatt

One more quote from a DOK Leipzig press release:

Two DOK Masterclasses will cover the topic of archival footage given by world-renowned directors. Sergei Loznitsa will introduce his personal way of working with found footage, talk about the power of montage to shape a film, and discuss how he deals with the boundary between documentary film and fiction. This event is taking place in cooperation with ARTE. Experimental short filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt, to whom the festival dedicates its homage this year, will explain how he assembles his collage and essay films. For his sometimes highly personal films he uses, for example, excerpts from educational, amateur and corporate films.

Various discussion formats address current trends and pressing issues of the documentary film industry. The Industry Talk “North American Distribution Expanded” will explore the distribution opportunities and strategies that the North American market has to offer. Panelists include Orly Ravid (The Film Collaborative, Los Angeles) and Robin Smith (Kinosmith, Toronto). The risks to filmmakers, protagonists and funders when shooting documentary films will be addressed in the talk “Protecting Yourself, Protecting your Protagonists” with Mike Lerner (Nutopia Films; work includes “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer”), Zeynep Güzel (Yeni Film Fund, Istanbul) and Yulia Serdyukova (producer of “All Things Ablaze” (PHOTO) among others). 

As part of the rough cut presentations “DOK Preview Germany” and “DOK Preview Training” (in cooperation with seven European training initiatives) 13 film projects are set to be presented, all of which are ready for international distribution. Around 80 decision-makers from 30 countries will be present…

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/

Eva Mulvad: A Modern Man

Moderne har jo både at gøre med modernus (ny, nyere) og med modus (måde), og denne dobbelthed får den præcise titel til pege på et menneske med nye måder at være på, måske være til i virkeligheden på, leve sit liv på, sortere sine valg på. Jeg opfatter det sådan, at Eva Mulvad vil undersøge det nye moderne. Måske vil hun også som filmskaber i naturlig forlængelse lægge en ny slags film til fænomenerne, hun skildrer i A Modern Man, en ny moderne filmisk stil, hvor det karakteristiske er, at filmen løsnet af den litterære episke fremadskriden, løsnet af journalistikkens opklaringsdrama fungerer på gamle cinematografiske betingelser som at stille scene ved scene. Og der er er i Mulvads film sandelig lange og tydelige og selvbevidste scener bygget af lange rolige optagelser af enkeltafsnit i Charlie Siems liv.

Charlie Siem er violinist og fotomodel, og det på verdensplan, en mondæn mand, som medvirker som en populær stjerne i samtaleshows i tv i samtaler om offentligheden, omsværmelsen og i dette ensomheden. Facebook og Instagram er medierne, men forbilledet er Robert De Niro.

Første afsnit, filmens åbning, er mangetydig. Den skildrer købet af en ny, rød Porsche. Reklamefilm eller dokumentarfilm? Køber han eller er han model? Pointen er, at han spørger sælgeren: Hvordan er dens lyd? Prøver motorlyden af som en musiker et instrument, og så vil han i en æstetisk ideosynkrasi have et underlødigt designet typenavn mærke fjernet fra bagklappen. Detaljen er vigtig.

Så følger en scene fra en koncert. Siem er alene foran orkesteret, spiller kadancen, som er vanskelig, kun violinen høres, en nåls fald kunne høres. Den virtuose kadance afbrydes, det her handler ikke om fordybelse, så der klippes til et voldsomt hovedspring fra højt oppe ned i havet, derfra til et stille svømmebassin uden person, en smuk ensom arkitektur, derfra til en scene med Siem i et soveværelse, han pakker vitaminpiller ud. Den moderne mand passer sin krop. Og sin skrædder.

Han er model for Hugo Boss og for Martell cognac: en scene fra en reception for vel et nyt mærke. Og så en scene fra fotomodellens helt private almindelige 30 års fødselsdag. Det er spændvidden.

Han køber et flygel, eller gør han? Eller er han model i en film for fabrikanten? Eva Mulvads billede kan bruges til begge formål, hendes fascination og interesse har begge disse filmiske blik på hændelsen. Flyglet bakses op af robuste flyttemænd med beskyttelseshandsker, oppe på plads i hjørneværelset stilles instrumentet med et støn, og det åbnes efter at være udsat for strabadserne, en af mændene slår sine behandskede fingre i tangenterne. Det virker! Siger han med et charmerende smil. Pointen er der brug for, både i reklamefilmen og i dokumentarfilmen. I Adam Nielsens klip. En lille fryd.

Scenerne stiller Adam Nielsen i en rolig, tydelig række, så de belyser hinanden, bliver til denne gamle fortælling af billeder: animeret natklubscene i sort/hvid, stilfærdig scene med søsteren, de øver sammen i en varm og hyggelig hytte, hun viser med sin karakter noget, der ellers er fremmed i filmen, en intellektuel, følsom natur. Restaurantscenen er også ægte og éntydig, Siem er sammen med en uundværlig, meget livligt talende kvinde med en dyb stemme og sin pianist Itamar Golan, som også er meget til stede. Det er film, det her! Tænker jeg, hun er god, pianisten er fin. Scenen med massage hos fysioterapeuten er spændt til grænsen af det udholdelige, til lige før, tæer krummes. Massørens kommentarer er vidtløftige, en slags følelsesanalyse, en tolkning af hovedpersonen, modellen og violinisten med den glatte kontrollerede kølige noget fattige udstråling. Og med den store monolog lige efter vokser filmen, noterer jeg det sted i story-line, ja, filmen vokser og vokser hele vejen mod et helstøbt og beslutsomt værk. Og idet jeg indser det, kommer min belønning, violinistens og pianistens morgenbad i havet, violinisten sportstrænet, frisk, pianisten tøvende, frysende, ængstelig. Det er herligt, det er jo Don Juan og Leporello, det er Don Quichotte og Sancho Panza. En vild koncert for violin og orkester afslutter filmen, og omsider fortsætter musikken til den er slut og dør med de sidste credits.

Eva Mulvad skildrer en fascination, det er værkets kerne og styrke. En fascination af de materielle tings skønhed som hos Tom Ford i hans meget beslægtede film A Single Man, 2009 med dens fejlfrie setdesign. I Fords film er det en anden tid, og fascinationen gælder en fejlfri scenografi som ramme om tragedien at miste sin elskede, men det i en tid, i begyndelsen af 1960’erne, hvor at leve alene var det nye moderne. Filmens anden styrke er pianisten, Itamar Golan, som er den nødvendige Leporello / Sancho Panza / den kloge klovn. Han har den filmkarakterens totale udstråling, som Charlie Siem mangler. En hviskende samtale mellem de to er et fint skildret højdepunkt.

Svagheden er, at der faktisk ingenting er om musikken, om Siems særegne tolkning, og hans spil kommer så også til at danne en overflade af virtuose detaljer, som er teknik, men som det skildres uden egentlig forståelse. Fokus er, som hos Jørgen Leth et studium af overflade, Det perfekte menneske falder selvfølgelig i tanken. Er der her som der flere lag, har Eva Mulvad også flere lag? Scenen med søsteren i hytten måske? En smerte i et ansigtstræk måske? En tvivl midt i dette perfekte?

Det nye moderne filmklip er langsomhed og fravær af angst for pause og tomhed, den nye moderne cinematografi er optagethed af øjeblikket, er ønsket om at vide det ud. Hvor det lige før var afviklingen af øjeblikket, opløsningen af nuet i en hurtig strøm af meget korte klip, som dominerede det moderne. Den røde Porsche er en hurtig bil, den kører hurtigt i potente gearskift med helten, eller er det fotomodellen? ved rattet. Hurtigt i det stort tegnede dramatiske landskab. Men i optagelsen oppefra er scenen langsom og lang og fascinationen gælder den lille smukke bil i landskabet, gælder det hurtige i det langsomme, altså detaljen som for eksempel hos Tom Ford, mere end overfladen som for eksempel hos Jørgen Leth. Kunst laves ikke på virkeligheden, sagde Per Højholt, kunst laves på kunst. Sådan måske også filmkunst, dokument ved dokument. Eva Mulvad har skrevet et tidens dokument om det nye moderne.

Danmark 2017. Havde visninger på CPH:DOX 2017 fra 17. marts – 23. marts. Får nu egentlig biografpremiere 4. oktober 2017 i DOXBIO:

http://www.doxbio.dk/movie-archive/a-modern-man/

Anmeldelsen er oprindelig skrevet som blogindlæg i forbindelse med visningen på CPH:DOX 2017.

SYNOPSIS

Charlie Siem has everything: a career as a classical violinist with sold-out concerts around the world and golden offers from the leading fashion houses, using him as a model in their international campaigns. On the surface it looks like the perfect life. But behind his photogenic looks, we meet a man who is trying to navigate his many options. What is the definition of a good career? How do you become the best version of yourself? And how do you create a life that meets both the outside world’s as well as your own high conceptions of happiness and success? For Charlie, this is not easy. The demands are high when every detail counts and only the perfect is good enough.

The film is a portrait of a typical 21st century man. An existential journey into a world of expectations and choices. A story about us – the free and wealthy – who seem to have it all but are always on the hunt for more. (Freddy Neumann)

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/98383.aspx?id=98383