Best of Britain

The Danish Film House in Copenhagen and its excellent Cinemateket puts a focus on British documentary through 8 programmes in the month of May. There is a selection of the classics from the 30’es (Night Mail, Listen to Britain, O Dreamland etc.) and there are films by Molly Dineen (Home from the Hill) and Kim Longinotto  (her latest Rough Aunties). The Must-See, however, if you have time for only one of the screenings, is Terence Davies new masterpiece from Liverpool, Of Time and the City. The site of Cinemateket gives little info on the films, so if you want more on Of Time and the City (photo) you just search the title on this page.

PS. And please programmers of Cinemateket, get hold of the newest film of Molly Dineen, The Lie of the Land, the most important film about the decline of civilisation I have seen for years.

www.dfi.dk

30 Years Older

Lars  Gehrmann, film student at Zelig in Bolzano, has, on his blog, made the following reference from a new short film “Immersion”, produced by the New York Times, to a documentary classic:

1978 Latvian film maker Herz Frank did a short documentary about children in a cinema. “Ten minutes older” is simple, beautiful and for sure one of the must-sees in (documentary) film history. If you don’t know it; YouTube is your friend: 10 minutes older

30 years later NYT Photographer Robbie Cooper did his remake of the Herz Frank film. Time has passed and for todays kids gaming is more important than going to the movies or watching TV. This may be the reason why his four minute film shows kids playing video games.
But this is the only thing that changed in 30 years. Like the “original” he limits his camerawork to showing only the mimic and expressions on the kids faces. And like 30 years ago it’s simply fun to watch:

http://interfilm.de/blog/

www.LarsGehrmann.eu

Jacques Tati does not smoke any longer

Look at that photo. Something is wrong. Yes, it is our beloved Jacques Tati on his Solex, as we remember him as M. Hulot. But he has something strange in his mouth. Not the usual pipe but one of those plastic windmills that are meant for kids to play with. Tati gone ecological after his death? Why?

Well, here we go again: No Smoking. In this case the French company Métrobus that takes care of the public advertisements on busses and trains, has decided that Tati with a pipe is publicity for smoking. So what to do for the organisers of the Tati exhibition (at la Cinématheque Francaise until August 2) as all posters were already printed. They did what you see, added a windmill, which of course is a fine move that will make many more interested in… pipe-smoking, no, Tati, yes.

”le monde” is where I read about this yesterday, and French reading site visitors can read (links below) how this absurdity has provoked a lot of humour, and anger. ”It is a crime against the spirit of Tati, who always had this pipe as part of his character … and could you imagine Humphrey Bogart without a cigarette in mouth or Georges Simenon without pipe?”

http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2009/04/22/jacques-tati-et-coco-chanel-interdits-de-fumer-dans-le-metro-et-sur-les-bus_1183937_3246.html#xtor=RSS-3208

http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/04/13/tati-nom-dune-pipe/

Nicolas Philibert: La ville Louvre

Produced 20 years ago, this masterpiece of Nicolas Philibert is as fresh as on the day of release. It is a fascinating look at what happens behind the scene at the magnificent museum in Paris. At the end of the film Philibert summarises what was his intention, by showing a long sequence of faces of some of the people, the viewer meets in the film. Yes, he is after people and what people do in an adventurous and sometimes mysterious place like Louvre where he (also) takes us underground to all the art works that wait to be exhibited or never reaches the exhibition area. It is transport, cleaning, restoring and conserving, and guarding, and playing boule on Rue de Rivoli next to the museum, measuring, planning the placement of the paintings in a room before the opening. And so on and so forth, several magical moments, lots of humour, all born by a fascination from the side of the film team. And you sense the director’s écriture right away, as you know it from La Moindre des Choses, Le pays des sourds, Etre et Avoir…

Philibert wast originally only hired to film one of the complicated transports, but stayed in the museum for another 3 weeks filming without any permission before getting this, and a producer and financing… I wanted to avoid bureaucracy, Philibert says in the bonus interview on the dvd (Éditions Montparnasse). Nobody actually had problems with us hanging around, as they already knew us. The film is a beauty because of the constant thinking in images, and the total concentration, as he also says is needed, to be ready to catch important moments, and film small stories that in the final film is cut in the way that you leave a theme and some people to come back to them later.

The film will be shown saturday April 25 on ARTE in connection with the Theme Day dedicated to the 20 years of the Louvre pyramid.

France, 1989, 82 mins.

www.arte.tv

http://recherche.fnac.com/ia69720/Nicolas-Philibert

Frédérique Pollet Rouyer: 18 Years

Morgane turns 18. She lives with her father and brother. Her mother lives somewhere else. Morgane still keeps her teddy bears lined up at her bed, but she is also the young girl on her way to adulthood caring about her looks and studies. Morgane tries to get in contact with her mother, who left the home due to alcohol abuse – and left Morgane with mental scars and a constant unsuccesful attempt to get in contact with her.   

It’s a very well made situational documentary that the director/cameraperson/editor, all in same person, has done. It has the tone and the freshness of the young girl, who has allowed the camera to get very close to her mixed feelings of anger and pain. It is moving and conveys an atmosphere of authenticity around the protagonist… and it reminds us of the qualities of the short film genre, far too often forgotten in these one-hour-duration-television-documentary-times.

Belgium/France, 22 mins.

To be shown at
http://www.visionsdureel.ch/
 
http://balibari.com/

Orjonikidze & Arsenishvili: Altzaney

The camera work is brilliant. It is a constant caress of the protagonist of this short documentary from Georgia. Her name is Altzaney and she is the one who is trusted to solve problems in the local community in the Pankisi gorge. In the first 50 seconds of the film you see hands, white linen being cut by scissors and the face of an old woman. At the end of the film you see that the white linen is used to wrap a corpse for burial. All taken care of by Altzenay.

And at the end you have the feeling of having met a charismatic, lovely old woman with quite extraordinary skills to fulfill the position she has been given as negociator, as the one all troubles are taken to, as the one who cleans the small mosque and takes the lead in the women’s singing, dancing and praying at the modest holy place. She is picked up by cars as a diplomat, she is followed to a wedding, to a family to solve problems, she is called ”granny”, and the camera performs beautiful moves to get close to her face and give us the environment. In short intercuts Altzenay talks directly to the camera about this her mission in life.

Another excellent inside to a place in Georgia, as was the film ”Their Helicopter” by Salome Jashi written about on filmkommentaren.dk.

Georgian documentary talent. Support it! Buy for broadcast. Screen their films at festivals.

Nino Orjonikidze & Vano Arsenishvili: Altzaney, 2009, 31 mins.

http://www.artefact.ge/

Jorge Léon: 10 min.

Still photos from a prostitution environment, without any persons pictured,   accompany the words from a witness statement to the police. It is a alarming declaration read by a male voice, straight forward and neutral without any attempt to touch the viewer emotionally. The right choice as the text is so strong in content that it touches to hear another trafficking victim come up with her detailed story about her being promised a fine job as a nurse for an old woman in Belgium, just to find out that the job that was waiting for her was prostitution. She flees her window place, and goes back to Bulgaria where the trafficking mafia finds her and makes her object to countless sexual assaults. She goes back to Belgium and reports.

Trafficking testimonies like this are well known in beforehand from newspapers, tv, other documentaries… this is (also) the new Europe, and we should be reminded. The film does its information well.

Belgium, 2009, 19 mins. Shown at Cinéma du Réel 2009:

http://www.cinereel.org/

jorgeleon@skyney.be

Anja Schwyzer: Nebenlauf (Tributary)

A minimalistic film school diploma work, full of tension and importance, with a terrifying story told through staged interviews with the director’s parents, a sister and a boyfriend. Intertwined to these fragments of words that carry the narrative – about what happened to the director when she was abroad, driving a car and accepting a hiker to step in – some grainy unfocused dreamerish, not abstract but sort of unreal, super-8 mm images stress an atmosphere of something that had to be told for the sake of all those involved, who experienced the consequences of what happened to the director. They tell her how she was, when she came back to them. Therapy for both parties, the one, who suffered, the director, and the relatives around her? Maybe, but one of those films that cross the border from private to personal and thus becomes interesting for all of us. Because it has such a stringent form, all necessary ”fat” is cut away, nothing is sentimental and yet the film is very moving.  

Switzerland, 2008, 14 mins.

The film was in the Generation DOK Leipzig 2008:

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/v2/cms/en/home/index.html

ARTE celebrates the Louvre Pyramid

20 years have gone since the architect I.M. Pei could show his Louvre pyramid to the public. Heavily discussed back then, but now in general considered as an architectural masterpiece of our time, one of the many monuments decided by Francois Mitterrand.

On this occasion the European cultural channel ARTE dedicates a whole day, next saturday April 25, to the Pyramid through the broadcast of no less than 6 documentaries.

Two of them are new productions: Frédéric Compain tells about the strong opposition and discussions before the building of the pyramid was decided, and Stan Neumann has got unique access to some of the best art conservators, restorers and historians, who are filmed discussing some of the jewels of the Louvre collection. Talking about jewels… the last film in so-called Theme-Day is of course the 20 years old masterpiece of Nicolas Philibert, ”La ville Louvre”.

www.arte.tv

Leaf & Scheinfeld: The U.S. vs. John Lennon

The film was released in December 2006 but I did not get to see it before this saturday afternoon, thanks to SVT, Swedish Television: The story about John Lennon being harrassed by the American authorities during the Nixon administration. He was considered an enemy of the state with his constant Peace manifestations in and out of bed with Yoko Ono at his side. Ending with a deportation notice that was never put into action due to a strong lawyer who was able to prolong the court case again and again, until Nixon was re-elected in 1972 and the White House forgot about this rebel from Liverpool.

It is a highly entertaining documentary, a déjà vu, all in the film is known, it is a repetition but a lovely one for one who grew up with Lennon. Who was at the Beatles concert in Copenhagen in 1964 as a young fan, and who was walking the streets of London on December 9 1980 on holiday with wife and mother, facing the breaking news: John Lennon Shot Dead.

Totally formatted and an overwhelming praise to Lennon documentary: interviews (first and foremost Yoko Ono but also George McGovern and Bobby Seale and Angela Davis), archives from concerts and interviews with Lennon and the bed-in´s in Amsterdam and Montréal, and music all over. All we are Saying is Give Peace a Chance… Retro nostalgia, yes, history, yes, the film about Lennon, no.  

2006, 99 mins.

http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/