Timo Novotny: Trains of Thoughts

After the original, masterly done ”Life in Loops”, the remix of Michael Glawogger’s ”Megacities”, accompanied by music by the Sofa Surfers, Austrian Timo Novotny has gone underground to investigate the magic of the subways and metros of – again – megacities like New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hongkong and Moscow with Vienna as the starting point and a place the director returns to. Again he has brought the Sofa Surfers with him and again he delivers an extravagant visual journey, a reflection on a space that millions of people daily occupy to be transported, for some an escape from the upper world, for others a space full of stories connected to its travellers. Novotny is an aesthete and his fascination of lines and forms is brilliantly conveyed through the montage of images, words and the music of the Sofa Surfers. Music that flows the whole way through and is synergetic with the image in pulse and rythm, contrary to the mainstream use of music in documentaries today, where the music is poured on like sugar to hide lack of energy in the sequences.

He starts his journey in the New York Subway, a place we know from many other films, homeless people are here, a micro-world it is, that shows – as one of the people we do not see but hear, say – that New York belongs to noone = everyone. You lose the feeling of time and space, you get overwhelmed by ”how many stories that are going on here”, ”I found a boyfriend in the subway”, you go by subway ”to be for yourself”. In this first chapter that also

includes a brief hip hop performance in a train, there are many words outside the image, too many for my taste, some are a bit naïve and banal. On the other hand one of the peaks of the film comes when the black, bearded poet recites one of his poems, accompanied by the music and a magnificent montage that ressembles the opening sequences of ”Life in Loops”.

In the next chapter, in Los Angeles, close to Hollywood, the metro looks like a film set. Breaking all rules of normal documentary storytelling, Novotny here places a man on the platform and to him comes people to talk a bit, small stories, faces, and a rap performance that the director takes as an invitation to ”go bananas” with the editing… In between the chapters a man with a camera (the director´s alter ego?) takes photos where he is not allowed to be, walking along the rails.

Tokyo, where the train is always on time and where staff on the platform pushes the last one into the train carriage, for women often to be sexually harrassed, says one of the people, we do not see but hear. The solution for telling the story is in this case to follow one person, whose thoughts circle around death and suicide. Again Novotny takes stylistical elements from all shelves – slow motion, stop motion animation, whatever suits the sequence. Everything in the editing is controlled but within the controlled space, small music videos, you could call it, emerge and stand out.

From Hongkong to Moscow, where the audience is invited to follow a group of Italian tourists in the metropole’s beautiful underground, a strong contrast to the anonymous ”efficient” transporter in Hongkong, a metro with a soul, spiritual as it is, stressed by the Sofa Surfers introduction of the sound of bells in their musical score. 

There is a flow in this film, a very intense one with stops on the way, with faces within the lines and the forms of the tracks and the movements, with light and shadow, and with sometimes incredibly beautiful sequences. With a,  in a positive sense, aggressive approach to its subject.

Thank you Novotny, for not having chosen the Parisian metro, where it is not an experience, but a torture to walk and walk from one station to the other (did you try that with Les Halles?) but next time in Copenhagen I will pick you up in the airport and bring you to sit with me at the front of the driver loose wagon. It is fascinating like it is to watch your new work.

The film premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival beginning of July, went to Sarajeo Intl. Film Festival and is to have its live premiere in Venice at the opening of the Austrian Pavilion of the Architecture Biennale late August.

Austria, 85 mins., 2012

http://www.trainsofthoughts.com/

Jacob Jørgensen og Henrik Lundø: Min dal

Denne dejlige egnsskildring genudsendes på onsdag om aftenen ganske passende (sommer, turvejr og ferie) og så berettiget, for den er en vigtig og så ubemærket selvfølgelig smuk tv-dokumentar. Hans Edvard Nørregaard-Nielsen krediteres for den af DR K. Vel som medvirkende og forfatter, den blev jo produceret i forbindelse med udgivelsen sidste år af hans to binds værk om Limfjordens topografi og kulturhistorie, hvor den i dvd kopi følger med i en lomme på bindets inderside. Nørregaard-Nielsen har skrevet en vidunderlig tekst på en sikkert på flere måder livslang forundersøgelse. Men det skal nævnes, at Kirsten Klein har medvirket til bogen i betydeligt omfang, og at de sammen er kloge og følsomme medvirkende i Jørgensens og Lundøs film, for det er da bestemt de sidstnævnte, som har lavet filmen, den er deres arbejde, og de stiller det generøst beskedne til rådighed for Nørregaard-Nielsen og Klein, som er dem, vi ser og hører. Jeg skrev glad om dem her på siden, da filmen blev sendt første gang: “Det er en uafbrudt tilfredsstillelse at følge de tos kloge, indsigtsfulde, originale og på hver sin måde, i det danske sprog og i det danske fotografi, virtuose skildring af Limfjordens topografi, historie og poesi.” Jeg glæder mig til at gøre det igen.

Jacob Jørgensen og Henrik Lundø: Min dal, 2011, 50 min. Medvirkende: Kirsten Klein og Hans Edvard Nørregaard-Nielsen, produktion: JJ Film. Sendes onsdag 25. juli 20:00 på DR K. Filmen findes på filmstriben.dk  Jørgensen og Lundø har tidligere samarbejdet med Nørregaard-Nielsen om et lignende projekt, Jeg så det land, 2005, 61 min. Også den kan ses på filmstriben.dk

Patricio Guzman: The Power of Memory

The BFI (British Film Institute) has been running a retrospective (ends July 26) with films by Patricio Guzman, having ”Nostalgia for the Light” as the recent highlight of the Chilean master director. In an article to be read on the website of the BFI, critic Geoff Andrew writes:

A couple of years ago, at the Cannes Film Festival, I fell in love. The object of my affections was a film – Nostalgia for the Light (Nostalgia de la luz), by Patricio Guzmán, the exiled Chilean documentarist famous for the three-part 1970s epic The Battle of Chile (La batalla de Chile) – and my desire was to programme it in an extended run at BFI Southbank. It took a while, but my dream came true, thanks to the UK distributor New Wave Films; not only that, but we’re accompanying the run with a retrospective of Guzmán’s earlier work and welcoming the director on-stage for an interview with the season’s curator, Michael Chanan. What, you may ask, were the characteristics that gave rise to this love at first sight? My first response, admittedly somewhat predictably, would be ‘beauty’; visually, Nostalgia for the Light is quite wonderful to behold. But rest assured that its beauty is more than skin-deep; it is notable for its quiet, deeply compassionate humanity. Still, many films are beautiful, and I don’t fall in love with each and every one of them. The real reason for my ardour, I suspect, was the fact that the film stood out from the crowd, from its mysterious opening scene to its profoundly moving ending; in short, it immediately struck me as unique. That’s extremely rare in an artform as genre-oriented as the cinema. And what more could one possibly ask of a love-object?…

Guzman is often considered as a political filmmaker but in connection with the release of ”Nostalgia for the Light”, he writes: “I’m not a sociologist. Neither am I a politician. I make films that are metaphorical and poetic; I interpret reality through my own personal way of looking.”

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/falling-nostalgia-light

Jake Auerbach: Lucian Freud Portraits

The film is made together with Freud’s biographer Willam Feaver, who voice-off introduces the method of the film up-front: We will go to the people he has portrayed to get an idea of who this genius artist is – the film was made in 2004, Freud died in 2011. And what you get as a viewer is a wonderful range of talking faces, who remember how it was to sit for Freud. And to sit for Freud was ”a hell of a commitment” as one of the models say, for hours and over a period of months or a year. ”You were never allowed to see the progress”, says another, but you were treated well by the painter while in his studio.

The models (aristocrats, publicly known characters, women, many women, his daughters (some of them…), grandchildren) talk about him and about the experience to be painted, they are given time, and you are invited to watch the paintings, also there you are given time. The paintings, the interpretations that Freud made of faces, nude bodies on a couch, or new versions of known paintings by Watteau or Cézanne. It is entertaining and you get a sense of an artist who is giving all of himself in his self-portraits. A charismatic man, dishy, as one model says, and a man who in his old age started to care about his family. A tremendous gambler, a man who could catch the ”subtle differences” in a face, as says colleague David Hockney, who sat for him as well.

Watched it on the SVT art documentary slot K-Special. Available through Amazon or hire it for 7 days via the producer, see below. An article by Feaver in Guardian is also linked.

UK, 52 mins., 2004

http://www.jakeauerbachfilms.com/lucian-freud-portraits

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/02/lucian-freud-artist

Eugene Jarecki: Reagan

DR2 sender i morgen aften og tirsdag aften meget passende efter Clinton den britiske, som de skriver, tv-dokumentar i to afsnit Reagan. Der findes i hvert fald én produktion mere om Ronald Reagan, men jeg gætter på, at den vi får er den New York baserede amerikanske instruktør Eugene Jareckis film fra 2011. Den har været sendt på BBC Storyville og er måske delvist finansieret derfra, men det bliver den nok ikke britisk af. Vi får se. Interessant bliver det af vigtigere grunde, for Jarecki har tidligere lavet film om Henry Kissinger, det var i 2002, og han fandt under det arbejde ud af, at den amerikanske udenrigspolitik er resultat af en del mere end en enkelt personligheds indsats, derfor gik han videre med en meget bredere analyser, Why We Fight i 2005 om det militære-industrielle kompleks. I The House I Live In fra i år undersøger han “krigen mod narkotika”. Begge værker blev belønnet med Grand Jury Prize på Sundance de pågældende to år.

Tue Steen Müller har tidligere her på siden skrevet om Jareckis Reagan-films placering i den amerikanske tradition af præsidentfilm. Den sendes på DR2 mandag 23. juli 22:50 og tirsdag 24. juli 22:50.

DocMontevideo/ 1

It started yesterday and runs until July 27. It is the fourth edition of DocMontevideo in the Uruguayan capital. And it has a very professional approach to why and how to reach a goal that is both regional and international. The subtitle to the event says ”TV Meeting/Pitching, Workshops, Networking” and in that way it draws parallels to the festivals and markets in Europe that aims at uniting industry and art.

Below you will find the organiser’s both visionary and practical text from the clear and appealing website of DocMontevideo. Here is to mention the international participation of the ITVS in the US and the National Film Board of Canada, as well as a masterclass with Lithuanian Audrius Stonys (photo), whose work is very familiar to readers of filmkommentaren. Bravo for this Eastern European target, last year Marcel Lozinski visited Montevideo.

Otherwise the Documentary Week of DocMontevideo includes the showing and debate with the directors of ”The Lifeguard” (Maite Alberdi, Chile), ”Birth” (Jorge Caballero, Colombia), ”Aqui se Construye” (Ignacio Aguero, Chile), ”My Family’s Flowers” (Juan Ignacio Fernández Hoppe, Uruguay) and ”CTRL-V” (Leonardo Brant, Brazil).

http://www.docmontevideo.com/

DocMontevideo/ 2

In the four years it has been in existence DocMontevideo has established a space in the continent for contacts and reflection using the information and communications media. Our mission is to contribute to constructing a market in Latin America that will foster the circulation of top quality audiovisual material.

From the start, the work we do at DocMontevideo as a team and as an organization has spread and evoked ever-wider responses. Our objective is to get a commitment from and encourage various actors in the region involved in transforming and developing the audiovisual sector so as to improve our training, production, artistic creation and commercial capabilities. With this aim we have sought synergies and contacts with other experiences in Latin America and in the world that are developing along the same lines.

The international links we have established over these four years are getting stronger. In 2012 we have consolidated agreements with new markets and festivals. We shall select projects for DocsBarcelona (Spain), DocMeeting Argentina, Visions du Réel (Switzerland) and The Edinburgh Pitching (Scotland). We have set up a new space for cooperation with ITVS (USA) that involves distance tutoring, and we have developed new training and distribution areas jointly with TAL (Televisión América Latina). We have also opened a new cross-media workshop with support from the National Film Board of Canada and ITVS, and we have coordinated for Al Jazeera their first

open convocation for Latin American documentary makers.

DocMontevideo 2012 stands on three main pillars: training, networking and commercialization. We offer an intense range of activities including documentary workshops, pitching for Latin American documentary projects, pitching for series, and meetings to commercialize contents. Furthermore, we will host the fourth meeting of associates of the TAL network of television channels and we shall coordinate the forum of Latin American TV channels involved in producing audiovisual content for education. The workshop-competition entitled “One minute on earth” will be held, and in the evenings we will offer a cycle of documentaries called Documentary Week, which the respective directors and producers will attend.

In addition to all this there is also a collection of parallel DocMontevideo activities that express our aim to generate wider points of contact and maintain practical dialogues with a large part of the audiovisual sector productive chain. This involves, for example, a distribution workshop for SMEs in the MERCOSUR, an initiative of the program Mercosur Audiovisual (PMA) with financing from the European Union and the Mercosur, and we will organize the meeting of Film Commissions of Latin America.

http://www.docmontevideo.com/

http://www.unminutoenlatierra.com/

Chris Hegedus og D.A. Pennebaker: Kings of Pastry

Jacquy Pfeiffer til venstre vil gerne være MOF, have ret til tricoloren i kraven ligesom vennen og kollegaen Sebastien Canonne til højre. For at få den skal han deltage i Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, en konditorprøve, som afholdes hvert fjerde år. Det fik han lyst til, da han fire år tidligere hjalp Sebastien til godkendelse, og nu er det omvendt. Jacquy har forberedt sig alle årene, og nu pudser han sammen med Sebastien formen af og lige netop det viser sig skæbnesvangert, da afgørelsen falder efter tre forrygende og voldsomt krævende prøvedage. Der er 16 kandidater til titlen og kraven, men kun omkring en tredjedel består denne gang.

Man skal selvfølgelig være dybt fascineret af avanceret konditorkunst for fuldstændigt at forstå og værdsætte denne film. Der mangler jeg en del, men jeg kan forstå og jeg kan lide Hegedus’ og Pennebakers filmkunst. De lader filmen som konstruktion vokse langsomt fra bunden, udvikle sig fuldstændigt som Jacquys bryllupskageskulptur i et langt, langt crescendo med velanbragte og meningsfulde (velsmagende) afstikkere og detaljer, små sejre og tidskrævende nederlag undervejs, herunder et frygteligt uheld som under selve prøven rammer en sympatisk medkandidat, jeg undervejs også har lært at kende. Uheldet overvindes og prøvens sidste dag slutter i højeste tempo og i højeste spænding. På toppen af filmkonstruktionen er som på kagen naturligvis selve brylluppet.

Chris Hegedus og D. A. Pennebaker: Kings of Pastry, USA 2010. Fotografi, lyd, klip og produktion: Chris Hegedus og D. A. Pennebaker. DR2 Dokumania i aftes. Tilgængelig for danskere online i denne uge på Dokumanias hjemmeside   

En anden film af amerikanske (og ikke engelske som Dokumania skriver) Pennebaker: Monterey Pop