Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. When I met A almost a year ago at a literal event each of us took a piece of paper and wrote down some recommendations concerning film, music and poetry for the other one. This film was on the top of A´s list. Maybe some of you remember the billboards in Antonioni´s Zabriskie Point. Hypocritical advertising in Los Angeles suggest your dreams come true as a consumer. In Three Billboards a woman as a mother rents three billboards by the access road to town for a year for political reasons. This movie is about taking revenge with an impressive ending. Chief of police is played by Woody Harrelson (True Detective I) who, again, is a family father.
M – eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, von Fritz Lang. I became aware of this film through a book about lighting in movies, which I want to come back to later. In this film, which deals with the search for a child murderer, lightning plays a decisive role as a stylistic device. I wouldn´t have recognized it without the reference from the book. Already the first scene, children playing in a backyard in Berlin, is nightmarish and concerning the light you just don´t know what time it is. Keep an eye on the shadows throughout the movie, there is a change in the lightning concept at one point. The film was shot in 1931. Goebbels offered Lang the position as head of the film industry. Lang said he would think about it and emigrated in the US.
Auf der Suche nach der Seele der Landschaft. Die Natur vor uns. Ein Film von Niels Bolbrinker in Zusammenarbeit mit Christiane Stahl. 5 Filme von Alfred Ehrhardt. Avant-garde landscape films from the time of the 30s to 60s, of which I was most impressed by the shots on the North German Wadden Sea and even more in Iceland. Alfred Ehrhardt was a photographer of the new objectivity. Inspiring ideas for photographers. Hans-Dieter, our Manafonistas Iceland expert, to whom I recommended the film some time ago, was enthusiastic about the Iceland part.
Hiroshima mon amour, directed by Alain Resnais. Film en noir et blanc de 1959 sur un traumatisme politique et privé. En fait, il y a plusieurs traumatismes politiques et plusieurs traumatismes privés. Mais le film montre aussi comment le traumatisme peut être surmonté.
Tequila Sunrise, directed by Robert Towne. I decided to buy this film because of a film setting I had seen in the portrait film about Michael Althen “Was heißt hier Ende?”: Two men sitting by the sea as silhouettes with an impressive coloured sunset. Well, this was a quick shot. I enjoyed the beginning, some mysterious appointment, a scene in a hotel room, the tense between four men and you could smell vaguely some forthcoming solid argument or crime. But in the end it was a superficial mainstream end 80s thriller with ingredients like cocaine, a fight for a beautiful woman and some surprises which cannot rescue it all. But if you like the end 80s, the Californian landscape, men wearing sunglasses and being really cool, you might have a good time.
Iwans Kindheit, von Andrej Tarkowskij. Der Film wurde mir vor vielen Jahren von jemandem empfohlen, der einfach nur sagte, der Film sei sehr gut. Mehr wollte er nicht sagen. Der Titel landete dann auf einer to-watch Liste, letztlich kaufte ich vor ein paar Monaten eine Auswahl von Tarkowskij-Filmen, von denen mich Iwans Kindheit besonders berührt hat, den Stalker hatte ich schon. Es ist die Geschichte eines 12-jährigen Jungen, der während des Zweiten Weltkriegs für die Rote Armee als Späher tätig ist, allein unterwegs durch von kleinen Gewässern geprägte, weite sowjetische Landschaften. Es gibt Rückblenden aus der früheren Kindheit, einmal war sein Gesicht glücklich gewesen. Dark stuff.