The cinema thread

[klangspiel]

Can we speak about a social realistic tendency in European film making? I suppose social realism could be the relevant artistic reaction to the political development of the European Union

i'm not sure if a "social realist" approach (be it in the sense of leigh / loach or the dardenne bros) has the best means to capture that particular and peculiar pathic condition europe has been entrenched in since the formation of the EU (and other related upheavals), particularly in horning onto the dislocating / alienating force and grit of europe's present socio-politico-cultural reality or realities (since europe is many and never one).

i think it's with fillmmakers who aren't normally or never associated with "social realism", or perhaps have an oblique / elliptical sense of realism, that have been the most effective in apprehending and experiencing the state of europe's climate of change. to name just a few - tarr, bartas (notably the corridor and few of us), fred kelemen, the current wave of romanian filmmakers like mungiu and porumboiu, guerin's en construcción / work in progress, costa's ossos and no quarto da vanda, denis's more recent features like the intruder and 35 shots of rum, teresa villaverde's transe (a must see - one of the bright lights of the decade), nanouk leopold's guernsey and wolfsbergen (god, i love this woman's work), present turkish auteurs like yesim ustaoglu and nuri ceylan, jl godard's notre musique and a bunch of video essays post-2000, etc. etc..

To me the only remaining hope is Arnaud Desplechin. We do have the angry Frenchmen: Gaspar Noé, Philippe Grandrieux, Mathieu Kassovitz.

sorry but i just don't get the hype surrounding desplechin's work. they're decent (i want to say boring) but do not really warrant the kind of over-celebration often thrown upon them. if there's any hope for french cinema, it'd most likely be in the form of dumont, assayas, denis, breillat (i love her recent work like bluebeard), carax (if he ever makes a film again), or grandrieux.

yes, grandrieux, which btw, i would not place in the same bracket as noe and kassovitz. he's simply traversing a completely different cinematic, pathic and aesthetic universe than those two. in fact, i'd say he's utterly unique in the broader landscape of cinema, challenged only by the likes of lisandro alonso and albert serra, amongst the current very small crop of singularly original filmmakers to have emerged within this decade. by comparison, noe and kassovitz are still too conventional in their filmmaking - everything from their choice of aesthetic and narrative. grandrieux, on the other hand, is already well on his way to developing a cinematic language that is in a visceral dialogue with the history of cinema. a film like un lac proposes its own complex answers to, or is indeed a "meta-meditation", on the very same questions asked about cinema by figures as disparate as bazin (qu'est-ce que le cinéma?), deleuze, godard (in scénario du film passion and histoire(s) du cinéma), tarkovsky, and brakhage (through his films, writings, and lectures). if that's not enough, audio-visually it's simply a stunning film. a feast for the jarring and the beautiful.

Due to the last page I watched Kharhozat, I assume nobody has finished Sátántangó? 7 hours of running time, it's inconceivable.

twice but 7 hours is nothing . the longest film screening i've attended was about 9 hours long - claude lanzmann's shoah. harrowing (in a good way) and exhausting, but necessary considering the subject matter. the other film screening of considerable length i've had a good fortune of attending is syberberg's hitler - ein film aus deutschland. a screening of the kind often becomes more akin to an event than a regular film screening. nothing quite like it on all levels of one's experiential self.

n. a pris les dés (alain robbe-grillet, 1971)

wonderful film. ubuweb's film section had it up for quite some time now. chock-full of other great stuff there as well.

[swami]

Just watched Sin Nombre, a very well done film.

Sin Nombre is bad ass !

Regarding MADMAX agreed , its probably because I was 12 or 13 when I first saw it but I still have a soft spot for the movieI

t is definitely not a timeless movie but it had all the right ingredients vengeance,violence,leather and burning rubber

[Fuuma]

So, I watched Mad Max. I have a question - were people in 1980 retarded? How could this become a cult hit?

The cold war wasn't over at the time so the collective unconscious was focused on apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic scenarios instead of the disaggregation/dislocation which we now respond more easily to.

[Fuuma]

i'm not sure if a "social realist" approach (be it in the sense of leigh / loach or the dardenne bros) has the best means to capture that particular and peculiar pathic condition europe has been entrenched in since the formation of the EU (and other related upheavals), particularly in horning onto the dislocating / alienating force and grit of europe's present socio-politico-cultural reality or realities (since europe is many and never one).

i think it's with fillmmakers who aren't normally or never associated with "social realism", or perhaps have an oblique / elliptical sense of realism, that have been the most effective in apprehending and experiencing the state of europe's climate of change. to name just a few - tarr, bartas (notably the corridor and few of us), fred kelemen, the current wave of romanian filmmakers like mungiu and porumboiu, guerin's en construcción / work in progress, costa's ossos and no quarto da vanda, denis's more recent features like the intruder and 35 shots of rum, teresa villaverde's transe (a must see - one of the bright lights of the decade), nanouk leopold's guernsey and wolfsbergen (god, i love this woman's work), present turkish auteurs like yesim ustaoglu and nuri ceylan, jl godard's notre musique and a bunch of video essays post-2000, etc. etc..



sorry but i just don't get the hype surrounding desplechin's work. they're decent (i want to say boring) but do not really warrant the kind of over-celebration often thrown upon them. if there's any hope for french cinema, it'd most likely be in the form of dumont, assayas, denis, breillat (i love her recent work like bluebeard), carax (if he ever makes a film again), or grandrieux.

yes, grandrieux, which btw, i would not place in the same bracket as noe and kassovitz. he's simply traversing a completely different cinematic, pathic and aesthetic universe than those two. in fact, i'd say he's utterly unique in the broader landscape of cinema, challenged only by the likes of lisandro alonso and albert serra, amongst the current very small crop of singularly original filmmakers to have emerged within this decade. by comparison, noe and kassovitz are still too conventional in their filmmaking - everything from their choice of aesthetic and narrative. grandrieux, on the other hand, is already well on his way to developing a cinematic language that is in a visceral dialogue with the history of cinema. a film like un lac proposes its own complex answers to, or is indeed a "meta-meditation", on the very same questions asked about cinema by figures as disparate as bazin (qu'est-ce que le cinéma?), deleuze, godard (in scénario du film passion and histoire(s) du cinéma), tarkovsky, and brakhage (through his films, writings, and lectures). if that's not enough, audio-visually it's simply a stunning film. a feast for the jarring and the beautiful.



twice but 7 hours is nothing . the longest film screening i've attended was about 9 hours long - claude lanzmann's shoah. harrowing (in a good way) and exhausting, but necessary considering the subject matter. the other film screening of considerable length i've had a good fortune of attending is syberberg's hitler - ein film aus deutschland. a screening of the kind often becomes more akin to an event than a regular film screening. nothing quite like it on all levels of one's experiential self.



wonderful film. ubuweb's film section had it up for quite some time now. chock-full of other great stuff there as well.

Good post, although I haven't watched some of the films mentioned/couldn't get into some of the filmmakers. I'm really surprised a discussion of filmaking vs Europe could go on without mentioning Haneke though, like him or not he's been tackling that very subject for yrs.

[KM80]

So, I watched Mad Max. I have a question - were people in 1980 retarded? How could this become a cult hit?

Some of us are still retarded, I love Mad Max.

Have you entered the Thunderdome yet?

[Servo2000]

I think he did a really fantastic job - there were clearly moments where the direction was "no, come on, more crazy" and I think it did a disservice to how well he handled the parts that were actually character revealing and much more powerful.

Oh, and Mel Brook's Silent Movie.

[swami]

Oh, and Mel Brook's Silent Movie.

Wow , Its been a real long time , Was a blast but nothing to beat History of the World. I waited for many years to see Hitler on Ice

[MASUGNEN]

Oh, Klangspiel, every time so much to consider... That's really stimulating.

For now, let me just comment on »social realism«. (I'm also sceptic about the genre notion.)

Primarily I didn't want to propose that the social reality of a current Europe is best captured by the social realists of European cinema. I'm sure simply the most talented and insightful artists best characterize the situation regardless of genre or interest. Probably this demasking is often not intended per se. E.g. did Ingmar Bergman only picture neurotic relationships, but didn't he at the same time, exactely in this binary, often even individual and isolated context, unveil something profoundly traumatic in the Swedish welfare state? Professor Erik Hedling has so suggested and now writes a book on the topic. (Obviously the same goes, at the same time, for Michelangelo Antonioni and, before and after, many aware symbolists, but their intentions in that direction are clear, as opposed to Bergman's. In fact, Bergman relentlessly refuted political undertones of his art. We have the whole intricate question of just interpretation...)

My suggestion was that the interest for, the hype of social realism in European cinema is a symptom of the state of the union. An artistic critique is always present and relevant, but not always understood or granted. Has the cinematic realism increased in later years, in volume and public, perhaps also political importance (allthough not necesarrily in artistic value)? I would say so.

The reception of Haneke's Das weiße Band is a favourite example. Why was this – for Haneke's personal record – mediocre rehash awarded and lauded? Why not the predecessor, the much more original and thought-provocing Caché?

I regard Das weiße Band as a somewhat social realist popularization of Caché, perhaps a vulgarization of the director's intricate intelligence. I even speculated in artistic dementia. Of course, Das weiße Band is a great movie – but not a good Haneke movie. Why hadn't he been granted triumphs with Caché, Funny Games, Benny's Video, Der siebente Kontinent, 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls? (La pianiste was in Sweden seen as an Elfriede Jelinek movie.) I guess Das weiße Band operates with a clearer, thus simpler problematization of society, socialization and individual guilt. And the time is right.

(The hype of) European social realism becomes interesting when compared to traditions otherwhere. Acclaimed Sin nombre should be social realism but really does not strike me as such. I have no intention or ability to »define« a genre, but I wouldn't think movies with such a distinct narratological direction (with »destiny«, plot, catastrophy, climax etc) should be classified as social realism. I prefer a social realism somewhat neutral, as life, observatory. (I can't point out the borders.) Thus I never regard Haneke as a social realist, he's far too overt and aggressive. Das weiße Band is however interpreted as social realism; the public and the critics there see social meaning they couldn't see in his previous work – because there, they themselves were struck.

Is the primary tradition of e.g. Latin American film making social realist? Perhaps, I lack overview, only have singular impressions. My prejudice is that a Latin American movie is set in a poor and lawless suburb; the protagonists are homicidal kids hunting down drug money. If true, this stereotype of course relates to the socioeconomic history of the area. If the arts corresponds to socioeconomy, I now, in the cinema, see interesting exemples of economic growth (or change) in Latin America. Several recent Latin American »success« movies have worked within mainly psychological or symbolic contexts, not seldom with a good portion of humour. Let me mention just a few: Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico 2001), Tan de repente (Diego Lerman, Argentina 2002), Párpados azules (Ernesto Contreras, Mexico 2007), Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico 2008). These are opposites to the stereotype mentioned above. Surely Mexican cinema is exposed to radical change. But I go too far in reducing the cinematic ecology of a whole continent to just one fathomable direction.

[Fade to Black]

yeah, that comment about social realism makes sense. these types of pieces should begin and end with an in the middle moment. Going back to my viewing experience, Sin Nombre was well crafted but the more I thought about it afterwards something about it seemed to be gnawing at me that didn't let me see it as a great film, and you just nailed it - it was too tidy.

[deius]

Dovzhenko's Earth (1930) - some of the images are brilliant, the pumpkin-fields in pouring rain, the sullen expression of the father who hears his son's obituary turned into Soviet Propaganda ... wheat stalks in the wind. Benefits greatly from the score by Ovchinnikov, Tarkovsky's composer.

The reception of Haneke's Das weiße Band is a favourite example. Why was this – for Haneke's personal record – mediocre rehash awarded and lauded? Why not the predecessor, the much more original and thought-provocing Caché?

I think I agree, I wouldn't call it a mediocre rehash but I also think that Caché was far more complex and more ambiguous in every possible way, the idea of inter-generational guilt, etc. IMO Caché was mainly reviewed and presented for O/S as an intelligent, minimalistic thriller, which is true but inadequate, wheras White Ribbon is not really presented as a Midsomer type "murder mystery" which is the framework it uses to deliver the exact same idea.. And yes, the setting of latent German extremism and nationalism is not, or cannot be presented as subtle or interesting as the legacy of the Algerian conflict.

[YoungM]

My suburban, 18-year old friends and I are going to watch Salo tonight, which ought to be an interesting experience.

As for the discussion above, though thought-provoking, I found Cache just a tad too slow for my tastes. I think I need to go back to it in a while, after I've had a bit more experience with more varied films.

[laughed]

Any great documentary film recommendations?
Just watched
Trinh T. Minh-ha's Reassemblage and it gave me the doc film bug again.
Couldn't find a clip on the net but something near....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb6fwtcdsHc

[Faust]

Watched Baraka on Blu-Ray. Incredible. If you've only seen it on DVD, I highly recommend rewatching it in BR. For a film like that it makes a world of difference.

[MASUGNEN]

Any great documentary film recommendations?

A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (Chris Waitt 2008).

[Faust]

Any great documentary film recommendations?

Hearts and Minds