Peter Laugesen: Lars Norén lyver ikke

MENS DE SKRIVES

1

”… Ligesom Beckett, eller Strindberg, er Lars Norén absolut realistisk. Hvad hans personer og digte siger, er det, der sker i dem nu og her, mens de skrives, mens nogen læser dem eller ser på dem eller lytter til dem. Det er dét, og ikke noget andet. Lars Norén lyver ikke.”

Peter Laugesen skriver i Information den 14. juli et aldeles tankevækkende stykke, en af sine kunsthistorier, tror jeg det må være, fra i vinter, nu bearbejdet og redigeret ind i en serie om svensk film og litteratur med videre, skriver en præsentation af Lars Norén med et godt biografisk resumé og en ligeså overraskende beskrivelse af digterens nye teaterstykke Støv. Jeg standser ved den vidunderlige formulering og læser igen: ”Hvad hans personer og digte siger, er det, der sker i dem nu og her, mens de skrives, mens nogen læser dem eller ser på dem eller lytter til dem. Det er dét, og ikke noget andet.”

Mens de skrives… Jeg gentager den forunderlige formulering og føler mig med den med ét styrket i min måde at opleve på, sådan at min læsning af Torben Skjødt Jensens dokumentarfilm over opførelser af teaterstykker bygger på, at jeg ser dem skrive og skildre alle disse øjeblikke, hvor teatret bliver til i skuespillernes kunst i hvert eneste øjeblik af opførelsen. Og i min genlæsning af Bergmans film, opdagede jeg for nylig, at Bergmans samtlige spillefilm sådan på denne bestemte måde kan ses som en lang række dokumentariske film eller blot én eneste lang og stor dokumentarfilm om en gruppe skuespillere, som arbejder med i filmromanform (filmdrama, spillefilm) at undersøge Bergmans liv og tænkning og erkendelser og dæmoner. Og min læsning af Werner Herzogs film har længe været, at hver eneste scene er en tydeliggørelse på film af hvad, han tænker og skriver netop de sekunder, han optager scenen, og de sekunder, jeg senere ser den i biografen.

2

Peter Laugesen skriver videre om rollerne, om de medvirkende, om personerne i og om forfatteren til Støv:

”… Måske tier de, måske siger de ingenting, måske har de aldrig sagt noget, måske er der ikke dem, der taler, men nogle andre, måske er det bare en sindssyg forfatter, der finder på det hele, og den sindsyge forfatter kommer klaprende på sin maskine baglæns ud af tiden som en Benjamin’sk historiens engel i en mere og mere støvet genopførelse af af Samuel Becketts Glade Dage.”

Jeg ser det sådan, at som englen hos Norén er Paul Klee’s i maleriet, som Walter Benjamin læser det, er Torben Skjødt Jensens engel skuespilleren og hendes indsigt i sig selv og tilbageskuende i sit eget liv, er Bergmans engel Johan Sebastian Bach, som kommer med sin musik fra mødet med Gud og Guds nære virkelighed. Herzogs budbringer-engel er hans lidenskabelige empati om og lige på sin anden side hans blide kærlighed til den virkelighed, han rammer ind 2:3 lige der på sin al tid vigtige location. Altså disse fire: 1) historiens forfærdede engel 2) himlens skønheds engel 3) menneskelivets erfarne engel og 4) kulturhistoriens moralske engel.

3

Her tilføjer jeg en lille allonge om Klee’s billede. I Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987 kommer Bruno Ganz og Otto Sander som disse frakkeklædte engle usynlige ind til de mange læsende (Rilkes scene fra Malte Laurids Brigges Optegnelser) på Staatsbibliothek. De kan, da de er engle, ikke kun høre tanker, men også, hvad der læses, og blandt de mange mumlende stemmer med sætninger om livet i regnskoven, om sommeren, som lakker mod enden, om merværdiafgift, om sammenfatning af ligninger, om kærligheden, om vemod ved soldaterne ved fronten og et bygkorn i øjet (i et Alban Berg brev), om DNA molekylet… skelner jeg:

“Walter Benjamin købte 1921 Paul Klees akvarel ANGELUS NOVUS. Indtil sin flugt fra Paris i juni 1940 hang det i hans vekslende arbejdsværelser. I sit sidste skrift Über den Begriff der Geschichte, 1940, fortolkede han billedet som allegori over tilbageblikket på historien…” Så tager andre stemmer over, men jeg husker Benjamins tekst:

“… Det viser en engel, som ser ud til at bevæge sig væk fra noget, han stirrer på. Hans øjne er vidtåbne, hans mund er åben, hans vinger er foldet ud. Det er sådan historiens engel må se ud. Hans ansigt er vendt mod fortiden. Mens en kæde af begivenheder er hvad vi oplever, ser han én enkelt katastrofe, som stabler tilintetgørelse på tilintetgørelse og slynger dem for hans fødder. Englen ville gerne blive, levende eller død, og gøre helt igen, hvad der er blevet knust. Men en storm blæser fra Paradis, og den har fået fat i hans vinger. Den er så stærk, at englen ikke kan folde dem sammen. Den storm driver ham uimodståelig ind i fremtiden, som han vender ryggen til, mens stablen af murbrokker foran ham vokser mod himlen. Denne storm er hvad vi kalder fremskridt…”

Som Lars Norén i sit kammerspil skildrer Wenders i sin film det, Klees og Benjamins forfærdede engel ser…

LINK

https://www.information.dk/moti/2018/07/antipsykedeliske-lars-noren (for Informations abonnenter)

LITTERATUR

Peter Laugesen: Kunsthistorier, 1991

Walter Benjamin: Über den Begriff der Geschichte, 1940

FOTOS

Lars Nóren instruerer sit stykke Poussière på Comédie-Française, februar 2018, fotografi. 

Torben Skjødt Jensen: Dokumentarfilm over Mikkel Flyvholms opsætning af Eksil, 2013, still.

Ingmar Bergman: Sarabande, 2003, still.

Werner Herzog: Lo and Behold, 2016, still.

Paul Klee: Angelus Novus / Historiens Engel, den akvarel, som Walter Benjamin skriver om.

Dokufest Kosovo 2018

Three important film festivals in August in the Balkan region. I have visited them all, in Sarajevo, Skopje (Makedox) and Dokufest. Will present them all on this site, with pleasure, the one in Sarajevo on location.

But first Dokufest in Kosovo, that starts August 3 and runs until August 11 with a variety of great offers to those, who come to the cosy Prizren. And – take a look at the program and its sections – a festival that can inspire

others, when it comes to originality. What about 21 films in “Birth of a Nation: Focus on Taiwan” or “Materials, Structures, Forms: Experimental Films, made by Women” or “Between My Flesh and the World’s Fingers”, a series of 8 films curated by critic and programmer Pamela Cohn?

The festival screens film outside at night, followed by concerts, there are panel discussions, talks and masterclasses, photo exhibitions, films for children, VR, a lab…

… and of course (6) competition sections. also for short films. “Balkan Dox”, “Green” Dox”, “Human Rights” etc. In the “International Dox” you find “Sleep has Her House” (PHOTO) by Scott Barley, a film that I still carry in my mind after I saw it in Belgrade in June, masterpiece!

http://dokufest.com/program/categories/

Docs at Venice International FF

Docs at Venice International FF. The festival (29/8-08/9) announced its program yesterday and I went to search documentaries in the “Out of Competition” section, where they are placed.

Ten titles – as the festival puts it – by established directors: Amos Gitai, Victor Kosakovsky, Emir Kusturica, Sergei Loznitsa, Ron Mann, Francesca Mannocchi & Alessio Romenzi, Errol Morris, Giorgio Treves, Tsai Ming-Liang and Frederick Wiseman.

From the latter, the 88 year old American master of observational documentary, comes “Monrovia, Indiana”, 2 hours and 23 minutes, I stole this description from the internet:

“Located in mid-America, MONROVIA, INDIANA, (population 1400), founded in 1812, is primarily a farming community. The film is about the day-to-day experiences living and working in Monrovia, with emphasis on community organizations and institutions, religion and daily life in this farming community.”

Errol Morris goes to Venice with “American Dharma” – no description but the fact that Steve Bannon (!!!) is the character. Very actual, indeed.

Sergei Loznitsa is there with his third film from this year, “Process”, referring to the Stalinist processes in the 1930’es. I met Loznitsa in Krakow this year, where he told me about this film, with great enthusiasm, having found footage never shown before, “that will change history”, he said!

And… the cherry on the cake, after years of waiting for a new film by wonderful Victor Kossakovsky, “Aquarela” (PHOTO) is ready, 89 minutes, a film that contrary to the other I have mentioned, have been extensively written about, mostly on social media – I have taken the description from British Council:

Aquarela’ takes audiences on a deeply cinematic journey through the transformative beauty and raw power of water. Filmed at a rare 96 frames-per-second, the film is a visceral wake-up call that humans are no match for the sheer force and capricious will of Earth’s most precious element. From the precarious frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal to Miami in the throes of Hurricane Irma to Venezuela’s mighty Angels Falls, water is ‘Aquarela’s’ main character, with director Victor Kossakovsky capturing her many personalities in startling visual detail.

http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2018/lineup/out-competition

DOKLeipzig Opens with Gorbachev, Herzog and Singer

It’s a scoop for the DOK Leipzig festival, edition 61 (!) to have “Meeting Gorbachev” as the opening film on the 29th of October.

And to have Werner Herzog present to talk about the film and attend screenings of 

other works, that carry his signature.

In the proud press release it is written about the film:

“With “Meeting Gorbachev”, Werner Herzog and André Singer have painted a human portrait of one of the most important politicians of the past century. Who is the man that brought the Cold War to an end? Through Mikhail Gorbachev, the world changed significantly and yet he remains a great enigma as a human being. From his humble beginnings as the son of a farmer, Gorbachev worked his way up to the post of President of the Soviet Union and shook the nation to its foundations in a time where there appeared to be no resolution to the conflict between East and West. In the film, Herzog and Gorbachev sit together in the former’s Moscow office, engaging in intense conversations about the past and the winding path of history. Time and again their attention returns to the reunification of Germany. The two men treat the difficulties and successes that the former President of the USSR was met with during his tenure. Gorbachev also speaks very openly about the mistakes that he made at the time, about decisions that he might approach differently from today’s perspective. However, the film also deals with the present and future as well, treating questions like: Why is the political situation in both the USA and Russia so difficult at the moment? “Meeting Gorbachev” aims to provide answers for the generations that witnessed and experienced Gorbachev’s policies and their effects first-hand, but also for young individuals who now find themselves living in another reality and are only familiar with the Cold War from history books and stories…”

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

Odesa International FF

… ended last night and two documentaries reviewed on this site were awarded:

“Delta” (PHOTO) by Ukrainian Oleksandr Techynski got main award in the category “National Competition. Features”. I saw it at DOK Leipzig last year, where it was in the “Next Masters Competition”. A quote from the review: “… It is multilayered, it has a clear aesthetic choice with a skilled camerawork that suits the theme or rather the location, it’s a Film: the delta of the Danube, a kind of Klondyke, where people live under harsh chaotic conditions and where men with worn faces struggle their way through the reed that they harvest to sheaf, to bring in to be sold…”

And Alisa Kovalenko’s “Home Games” got first prize in the “European Documentary Competition”. A quote from the review: “… The film lives from its ability to create a feeling of presence in the situations with Alina and the kids. Here there are fine, often poetic moments in the claustrophobia of the small flat. On the football pitch, it is not poetry that reigns, when the coach states to the girls that they have “to die on the pitch”, a sentence which will probably be used many times the next month in a neighbouring country (world championship in Russia).

And another quote from the press release from the festival: “… Janina Sokolova and Oleh Paniuta reminded everyone that the hunger strike of Oleg Sentsov has been lasting for 69 days already as for 21st of July. ”The OIFF and all of us wish him to stay strong and to come back to his artistic occupation to the native land.”, – Janina Sokolova said. And as well as at every screening and the Opening ceremony there was a special seat reserved for the Ukrainian director/political prisoner at the Closing Ceremony.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4258/

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4073/

https://oiff.com.ua/en/festival/news/urochista-tseremonija-zakrittja-9-go-omkf.html

IDFA 2018

IDFA – November 14-25 2018 – has sent out a Newsletter “for Industry” revealing that “this year (we) will present an inspiring, diverse program featuring many impressive screenings… led by our new artistic director Orwa Nyrabia”.

With a click I went to discover what were the “new program sections and other changes to the festival”. Here are some of them with my comments and questions:

FEWER films in total with only 12 films in each competition category… to be

“even more selective… raising the profile of each film premiering at the festival… GOOD, will hopefully also make many of us viewers less confused and frustrated.

ONLY FIRST films in “First Appearance”… OF COURSE with a more clear focus on new talent, “to be assessed by a jury of renowned professionals”. OK, but I thought that was always the case! Maybe not?

STATEMENT: “Issues of gender and geography lie at the heart of the plan presented: both younger and more experienced advisors and selectors from around the world are being added to IDFA’s proven programming team. The Artistic Director pledged that IDFA will publish an annual diversity report and will ensure that its efforts – or shortcomings – in terms of inclusivity are transparent, accountable and useful to the global documentary film community…” HMM, smells a bit of political correctness, Orwa!

STAR GUEST: Czech master Helena Treštikova; could be seen as a conservative choice but from here, YES, so right to put her in focus!

A SCOOP: “Renowned Russian film scholar Nikolai Izvolov worked for years on unearthing the fragments of Dziga Vertov’s very first film, The Anniversary of the Revolution. Vertov made this film in 1918. Parts of the film were shot during the October Revolution in 1917 and a year later during the celebrations of October 1918. This is not only the first feature-length film Vertov made, but perhaps even the first creative documentary film ever made. In this film, we see the early signs of Vertov’s cinematic language as we know these from films such as Man With a Movie Camera: exploring aesthetic details, the individual versus the crowd, rhythm as well as the camera and the man with the camera as subjects. 

Until recently, only twelve minutes of material had been recovered from this film, but during IDFA the entire film will premiere as part of IDFA on Stage.” WOW!

FOCUS PROGRAMS: “Me”, “The Memory of Space”, “Humanoid Cookbook”, the two first are easy to understand, the last one “will take the dining table as a metaphor and timeless stage for experimentation with new art forms and human behavior”. All right, are we viewers expected to sit and watch people eating on the stage…

FRONTLIGHT: … Up to twenty films – “IDFA’s view of the world through the eyes of filmmakers as opposed to the eyes of global media…” EXCITING WHAT COMES OUT OF THAT!

ART AND CINEMA… Maybe most important are these lines that could be interpreted as a (soft) criticism to IDFA’s previous emphasis on social, well-meaning documentaries: … the selection will be more rigorous with an even tighter selection that does not prioritize subject matter over artistic value and cinematic ambition… Yes, go ahead Orwa, and don’t forget to look to Eastern Europe, here there are many more auteurs to be found than Mansky and Loznitsa and Kossakovski.

https://www.idfa.nl/en/

Nicolas Wagnières: Hotel Jugoslavia

Since the beginning of this century I have visited Belgrade once per year – as readers of this site will know because of reports from the Magnificent7 documentary festival. Every year one of our tours for lunch goes to wonderful Zemun at the the Danube, and to go there we have passed the Hotel Jugoslavija. What is the story of the hotel, I have asked local hosts. Ahh, it used to be important in Tito’s time but after his death and after Yugoslavia stopped being Yugoslavia, it stopped being important. Were the short answers you get in a car passing by the huge building.

Now I know much more thanks to the film of Nicolas Wagnières, his first long documentary. His mother was born and lived in the country until the sixties, bringing him to visit, he became fascinated, fell in love with the ideas that were once behind the non-aligned country – unity, brotherhood, collectiveness and self-management.

In stylized images, with constant camera movements through the empty hotel, beautiful as it was, then totally in ruins and built up again, but not totally, once a superb hotel built on the order of Tito, in 1969, a hotel where top politicians and celebrities checked in, placed beautifully in New Belgrade, then later in the 1990’es home for criminals, bombed by NATO in 1999, as Arkan and his gang was supposed to operate from there… he set up a casino, and there is still a casino there, I was there a couple of years ago, super posh with no soul.

Wagnières makes the hotel a symbol for a country falling apart, he has interviews with his mother, with people working at the hotel, he goes from images from inside the hotel to interviews, to propaganda films, to archive footage showing the mourning that followed Tito’s death in 1980, but he also includes clips from fiction films, one of them a recent action film, where the hotel is blown up. And there is Milosevic with his nationalism.

Wagnières says that he during a decade has come back to the city and the hotel and that he has filmed “pour garder and pour regarder”. He conveys his point of view very much through his personal voice off – one of the best sequences is the interview with the mother, who remembers how people stood together after the ww2, eager to build a new society of unity and brotherhood, values that are no longer part of the Serbian society. Wonderful propaganda footage.

The film is not deep, it is not an analysis of the history of a country, there is too much “it was much better before”, but the director is an outsider, his style and approach is to be respected, and as I have seen and experienced Belgrade during the years of visiting, I can only share the director’s and Belgrade friends worry for what is happening with the city and its development, when you see the glass skyscrapers popping up at the water front. Which he captures well at the end of the film.

Switzerland/France, 2017, 78 mins.

https://hotel-jugoslavija-film.com/en/home-an/

Peter Kerekes: Occupation 1968

A Russian comes to the passport control in a Western European country. Occupation asks the passport official? No No, answers the Russian, just visiting…

A classic joke that I dare put as the beginning of this review of the omnibus film, with Peter Kerekes as the main producer. 5 films, 5 directors from the 5 Warsaw Pact countries that occupied Czechoslovakia in August 1968. 5 films seen from the point of view of those, who took part in the occupation. Excellent idea and excellently performed even if, as with all omnibus films I am afraid, the difference in style and quality is sometimes disturbing.

From me as a visitor to Prague during the Prague Spring in 1968 months before the invasion, with several visits to the city during the communist times and with tears in my eyes when the velvet revolution took place in 1989 and I saw Dubcek and Havel saluting and being saluted by the population from the balcony in Prague… Thanks for dealing with the past.  

I put Kerekes at the top of this text and included the joke as it is obvious that

the producer/director has been strongly shaping the visual approach of the film – in many of the episodes I was thinking of his masterpiece “Cooking History” = searching for the absurdity AND the humanity in an important world historical event:

We viewers are invited to be with old men in uniforms with medals and with old men without uniforms remembering their participation in the Soviet-led invasion. Of course some films are more interesting than others, storytelling is different going from staged fictionalized to classical documentary, always with some b/w archive material from the streets of Prague, tanks, demonstrations, corpses, politicians talking about what they saw as a counter-revolution.

A few observations on each of the five films:

“The Last Mission of General Ermakov” by Evdokia Moskvina – has a fine touch of the absurdity mentioned above starting with a grandiose dinner on the beach in Odessa, where Ermakov invites his fellow comrades from the invasion to toast for the good old days being in telephone contact with the man in Moscow, who was in charge of the air attack on Prague. The scoop in this film episode is that the director takes the general and a nurse who was with him in 1968 on a tour that includes Kiev, Minsk, Moscow to end up in Prague, where they (now also having a third companion from Belarus, introducing himself as Jewish) meet a 90 year old captain from the Czechoslovakian army, who takes them to the control tower at the airport where the occupants landed in August 1968. The jolly good fellow atmosphere goes away instantly when the captain declares that “I can not forgive you”. A brilliant original start on “Occupation 1968” is Moskvina’s film with General Ermakov as a proud soldier, who is now telling his grandchild what is was to be at war, at “Operation Danube” and teaches him to hold a pistol in the right way…

“Red Rose” by Linda Dombrovszky – starts weaker with soldiers dressing up as then, gets stronger when memories are conveyed through letters and archive material and has a fine personal story about a soldier, who met his former wife to be, when he and the other Hungarian soldiers entered the part of Czechoslovakia that had a Hungarian population. This episode did not really catch my attention as did

“I’m Writing to You My Love” by Magdalena Szymkow – that is Polish hybrid documentary at its best, different from the other episodes putting the focus on the strong reactions IN Poland on the invasion, set up “inside” a love story between a woman, who sits with love letters from her colonel, who went to invasion and got a three-day leave pass to go home to get married. The film is tense in an editing that communicates the atmosphere of the time – surveillance by the Secret Service – the protests connected to a music festival in Sopot where singers left – the dramatic footage of a man burning himself to death in a stadium, an event that after 1989 became the subject of a film by Maciej Drygas. In other words: a very competent visual interpretation of the 1968 invasion from a Polish point of view. Cinema!

“Voices in the Forest” by Marie Elisa Scheidt – is a minimalistic report from Walter Ulbricht’s GDR, that was totally pro all decisions made in the Soviet Union, including this act of war. The title refers to conversations between two men, who decided to NOT obey what they were told to and paid a prize for their anti-socialistic action. The film is like a chamber play, important in words, a fine dialogue where they go back to what they remember “from this madness”. And the episode ends with a fine concert in the forest!

The film – with a small epilogue that I will not reveal – ends with a straight forward touching documentary by experienced director Stephan Komandarev, title “An Unnecessary Hero”, about a Bulgarian soldier who died in Czechoslovakia in September 1968, told primarily by his brother, a hero or not a hero, is the discussion in the film in the small village where a bust is placed in his honour. He died for what…? Fine choice to have this episode at the end, simple storytelling, emotional contrary to the hybrid elements in many of the other episodes.    

Directed by: Evdokia Moskvina, Linda Dombrovszky, Magdalena Szymkow, Marie Elisa Scheidt, Stefan Komandarev

Coproducers: Martichka Bozhilova, Filip Remunda…

Slovakia, Russia, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, 2018, 130 mins.

https://www.facebook.com/Occupation1968/?hc_ref=ARSI9JnqUsYro4xDtq-uAXOl3P9UrMfmEJcMRhbsohnQiVjovVXIf2VQldh6VL-HcXI

There is a fine trailer here:

https://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/en/film/6483/OCCUPATION%201968

Ingmar Bergman 100 år /8

Jeg sidder ved skrivebordet, der står midt i værelset. En rødbrun soldatertæge kravler tøvende op over bordkanten. Der står helt afgørende nogen bag min ryg, selv om døren hverken er blevet åbnet eller lukket. Der står altså nogen bag min ryg…

 

SKRIVEBORD

Det handler om manden i huset ved havet, og sådan begynder Bergmans manuskript til filmen om lige netop den mand:

”Første akt nr. 1. Mit navn er Andreas Winkelman. Jeg er otteogfyrre år. Jeg husker at det var en trykkende oktoberdag. Jeg sad på taget af mit medtagne hus og reparerede på bedste beskub. Efter den sidste omgang regn var det begyndt at lække for alvor. Da jeg så op fra mit arbejde stod der tre sole over havet. Ikke en vind rørte sig, alt var fuldkommen lydløst. Jeg tændte min pibe, sad længe og betragtede fænomenet. Så trak en mørk sky op vestfra og gik for solene. Det begyndte endelig at blæse. Eftermiddagen skumrede. En hund gøede. Fårene bevægede sig gravitetisk over heden. Nede på vejen kørte Daniel med et læs halm, hans gamle hest gik i luntetrav. Jeg steg ned fra mit ophøjede stade og gik ind i køkkenet for at lave kaffe. Radioavisen fortalte om forskellige mislykkede foretagender. Derimod nævnede den ikke noget om mine tre sole. Omtrent en time senere så jeg dem for første gang. De fulgte vejen langs havet. En mand og to kvinder…” (En Passion, 1968)

Teksten fastholder og gentager med fuld billeddannelse og lydetablering denne erfaring om den resignerende mand, som forsvarer sin ensomhed der på fåreøen og venter på kærligheden. De få linjer i dette anslag har siden, jeg læste dem første gang – det var før jeg så filmen – været aldeles centrale for mig, min opfattelse af at være mand og af mandens ambition: ensomheden, kysten, havet, stilheden, enkelheden – jeg stiger ned og går ind i køkkenet for at lave kaffe – og så mødet… Senere da jeg så filmen, var manuskriptets tekst og scenen naturligvis fuldstændig kongruente. Filmen var for så vidt færdig i dens manuskripts formulering. Og teksten fastholder filmens erfaring, og den har næsten mere end filmen haft enorm betydning for mig, når jeg har skullet leve mit eget liv opmærksomt.

Hos Ingmar Bergman er det muligt for mig at forfølge disse temaer, som jeg bilder mig ind er mine, finde scenerne frem, som jeg også bilder mig ind, jeg er alene med. For eksempel – jeg bladrer i hans bøger – skrivebordet i huset ved havet. Her samles alt. Det bord er hans mindste scene. Lidt større scener er dukketeateret i Fanny og Alexander, havehuset i Som i et Spejl, stuen, hjemmet… De medvirkende er børnene og forældrene og slægtningene. Manden og kvinden. Elskeren og elskerinden. De elskende… Ind imellem er der flere personer i huset ved havet:

”Huset står ensomt på den lange sandodde og er tydeligt mærket af den udsatte beliggenhed. Det er i to etager og mørkegrønt de steder, hvor sol og blæst ikke har slidt malingen af og fået en lysere silketone til at træde frem i træet. Bagsiden vender ud mod en stor tilgroet have, som delvis ligger skjult bag et højt plankeværk. Huset er beboet. Vasketøj flagrer fra en tørresnor, og vinduerne står åbne under halvt sønderblæste markiser. Råb og latter stiger op fra det brusende, aftenmørke hav. Pludselig vipper fire hoveder på bølgerne, og snart begynder fire mennesker at vade ind over den lange, flade forstrand. De er forpustede som efter en hård svømmetur og ler udmattet; de går ved siden af hinanden og tegner sig som fire sorte figurer mod solnedgangen og vandspejlingernes urolige flammer. To mænd, en dreng og en kvinde.” (Som i et spejl, 1960)

Det er faderen, Gunnar Björnstrand, datteren Harriet Andersson, sønnen Lars Passgård og svigersønnen Max von Sydov. Faderen er forfatter, datteren er skizofren, sønnen beundrer sin far, men føler sig afvist og er sin søster hengiven, svigersønnen er læge. Skrivebordets scene, det er sent på sommernatten, faderen er alene. Det lyder sådan i manuskriptet:

”David (læser): Hun kom imod ham dirrende af forventning, blussende rød af den skarpe blæst… (sukker): Herregud, herregud.

Han skubber brillerne op i panden og skjuler sit grå ansigt i hænderne. Lidt efter går han atter i gang med arbejdet.

David (læser): Hun kom imod ham dirrende af forventning…

Så streger han resten af sætningen over med en tynd streg, betragter sit værk. Så streger han det hele ud.

David: Hun kom løbende imod ham med ansigtet blussende af den skarpe blæst…

Han ryster på hovedet og bøjer sig over papiret, prenter følgende med rødt blæk: Hun kom løbende imod ham. Så sukker han og ryster på hovedet, streger det ud med en tyk streg og skriver resolut: De mødtes på stranden.” (Som i et spejl, 1960)

Det handler om ham og hende, resten ved vi godt, når handlingen er et møde og stedet er stranden.

Bergman skriver: ”I dag forstår jeg, at jeg i Persona – og senere i Hvisken og råb – er kommet så langt, som jeg kan komme. Så langt, at jeg i frihed berører ordløse hemmeligheder, som alene cinematografien kan løfte frem til os…” (Billeder, 1990)

To kvinder, sygeplejersken Bibi Andersson og skuespillerinden Liv Ullmann bor for en tid i huset ved havet. Det nordiske sommerhus, som bliver til huset på Fårø.

”Det ligger afsides med en langstrakt kyststrimmel ud mod det åbne hav mod nord og en bugt med stejle klipper mod vest. Bag huset strækker en lynghede og et skovområde sig. Fru Vogler (Ullmann) har godt af opholdet ved havet. Den apati, der har lammet hende, mens hun lå på hospitalet, begynder at vige for lange spadsereture og fisketure, madlavning, brevskrivning og…”(Persona, 1966)

Brevet, ja det afgørende brev bliver til ved bordet foran vinduet, det er Liv Ullmann, som skriver. Ude i regnen ved Volvoen ser vi Bibi Andersson. Hun skal om lidt læse det brev, som ikke er til hende, men handler om hende. Som Harriet Andersson i Som i et spejl læser faderens tilsvarende notat i dagbogen. Som handler om hende, men jo ikke er beregnet for hende. På handlingsplanet. Havet og kysten, ja, det sted er eksistensgenererende, det erotiske højdepunkt er ved havet. Men det eksiterer alene i Bibi Anderssons fortælling som foregår i huset, i Bergmans manuskript. Men jeg ser stranden. De store opgør mellem de to er en lang travelling langs kysten. Brevet og dagbogen, forfatterens værktøj, afdækker krisen og tabet, kunstens utroværdighed. Sygeplejerskens uskyld. Fortrolighedens forræderi.

Det må så blive manden selv, som alene i huset ved havet ved skrivebordet i arbejdsværelsen tager et sidste opgør med sig selv. Det er i Troløs, som Liv Ullmann instruerer på Bergmans manuskript. Bordet står midt på gulvet. Bag det reoler med bøger og plader, tekster og musik og den indbyggede bænk i nichen med det store vindue med havet lige udenfor. Igen bordet midt på gulvet, hvor manuskript efter manuskript er blevet afsluttet med ”Fårö…” og så datoen. Som gør, at jeg fornemmer vejret den dag, han var færdig. Jeg så ivrigt efter i Marie Nyreröds dokumentarserie, som SVT sendte for et par år siden. Som nu disse måneder genudsendes. Jo, det var og er intakt, det rum. Det er en fast kulisse. Filmenes billeder står alvorlige og rolige omkring teksterne herfra. Vi ser huset og havet. Personerne kommer ind på scenen. I begyndelsen er bænken ved vinduet tom. Bergman begynder manuskriptet sådan:

”En mild forsommerdag. Vinduet står åbent. Havet og fyrretræerne bruser. Jeg sidder ved skrivebordet, der står midt i værelset. En rødbrun soldatertæge kravler tøvende op over bordkanten. Der står helt afgørende nogen bag min ryg, selv om døren hverken er blevet åbnet eller lukket. Der står altså nogen bag min ryg, men det er ikke Døden…” (Troløs, 2000)

Det er kvinden, skuespillerinden, som endnu en gang dukker op der i erindringsarbejdet, i selvangivelsen før døden. Han havde tilsagt hende, men glemt det. Lena Endre er kvinden, Erland Josephson er manden ved skrivebordet. Hun sætter sig på bænken i vinduesnichen. De taler om manden og kvinden. Udenfor er havet. Kort efter sætter han sig på bænken, så han sidder over for hende. Her får vi så fortællingen om, at de dengang tog til Thielska Galleriet, og de sad der i en krog og talte, især han, og så kom tavsheden og dette tomme sekund og det første kys mellem de elskende troløse…

Ingmar Bergman 100 år /6

… Frid (Åke Fridell) fortæller Petra (Harriet Andersson) om sommernattens tre smil. De hjælper Henrik og Anne med at flygte. (Bertil Wredlund i sin filmografi til Bergmans bog Bilder, 1990)

 

FILMVÆRKER

Cinemateket i København har udsendt en smuk invitation: LØRDAG 14. JULI, er Sommarnattens leende / Sommernattens smil så dejligt på programmet. Det kan jeg godt lide! Jesper Andersen og Lone N. Sardemann skriver i deres indbydelse: ”Vi markerer Ingmar Bergmans 100-årsdag den 14. juli ved at vise komedien ’Sommernattens smil’ og byde på et glas vin i Asta Bar efter filmen.” Videre præsenterer de veloplagt og inspirerende en stor tilbageskuende serie af Bergmans filmværker, mange af dem i nye, restaurerede og digitaliserede versioner. Her er det meste af deres tekst med beskrivelse af hele programmet:

RETROSPEKTIV

Af Jesper Andersen og Lone N. Sardemann

Vi markerer den svenske instruktør Ingmars Bergmans 100-årsdag med en stor retrospektiv fra juli-december med en lang række af hans bedste film – flere af dem i spritnye digitale kopier. I første del præsenterer vi bl.a. hovedværkerne ’Sommernattens smil’, ’Det syvende sejl’ og ’Hvisken og råb’.

Bergmans film præsenteres ikke kronoligisk, og serien er ikke komplet. Den tidligste film i juni-august-programmet er ’Sommerleg’ (1951), som var en af de film, Bergman selv holdt mest af, uden tvivl fordi den er baseret på en selvoplevet sommerflirt, da familien ferierede på Ornö. Jean-Luc Godard skrev i Cahiers du Cinéma, at ’Sommerleg’ var ”verdens smukkeste film”. Den sorgløse komedie ’Sommernattens smil’ (1955) – om advokat-familien Engmans ægteskabelige og udenomsægteskabelige affærer – blev Bergmans internationale gennembrud.

Hans berømmelse blev cementeret med ’Ved vejs ende’ (1957) og ’Det syvende segl’ (1957), der repræsenterer instruktørens mest kreative periode, hvor også hans vigtigste stilistiske bidrag til filmhistorien – den kompromisløse brug af nærbilledet – blev etableret. ’Det syvende segl’ er et opgør med Bergmans egen dødsangst og er en hyldest til livet. Scenen hvor ridderen spiller skak med døden er instruktørens – og måske filmhistoriens – mest citerede og parodiserede.

”Jomfrukilden’ (1960) er et intenst drama om det gode og den onde, uskyld og skyld. Filmen gav Bergman en Oscar for bedste fremmedsprogede film samt kritikerprisen i Cannes. I sit banebrydende kameraarbejde lod Sven Nykvist sig inspirere af Akira Kurosawas ’Rashomon’.

Den smertelige og hjerteskærende ’Hvisken og råb’ (1972) bliver af mange – sammen med ’Persona’ – regnet for en af Bergmans vigtigste film. ”Alle mine film kan tænkes i sort/hvid, undtagen ’Hvisken og råb”, sagde Bergman. Der findes meget få film, hvor værkets dybere indhold er intimt forbundet med anvendelsen af farver.

https://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/biograf/filmserier/serie/ingmar-bergman-100-ar (Program og billetbestilling)