squirm

finally some good news

crumpets

and coffee saturday at a villa in berlin-dahlem. here i would meet my first actual anglicans - they seemed almost normal! of great interest was the vacant lot next door at number 24. a hillock of clay and a dozen small rosebushes huddled together providing the only evidence that the lot had once been the site of a luxurious villa, home to swedish chanson and film star zarah leander. the following day found us wandering through friedrichshagen, marvelling at the lakefront villas before venturing into the waterworks museum, which provided a look into the murky history of berlin's water systems. afterwards by tram and ferry to a late lunch in rahnsdorf where, at twilight, mosquitoes the size of small birds emerge from the pines.

i don't speak frog but

in an interview over at telerama director michael haneke criticizes the present state of american cinema stating that it makes

"violence a product for mass-consumption. ... [the] loss of standards gets a little worse everyday in the media orgy of brutal images: a real pornography of violence. with the development of communication in every direction, it's even more present today. and art has not been spared. for many filmmakers, exploiting the distracting qualities of violence has become the pinnacle of cool. ... violence has always profoundly revolted me ... how can we revel in the suffering of others, even on the screen? i don't understand. as long as this unhealthy fascination exists, i won't stop speaking out about it and opposing dominant cinema." (thank the goodly folk at euro|topics for the translation).

while i can appreciate his revulsion, it is a bit specious to argue that america's fascination with violence is novel. the nation was formed from and girded with violence from the very start and its ferocious proclivity has only accelerated as its capacity for violence has grown exponentially. it's as american as apple pie and carjacking!

the bees knees

dropped into the extraordinary popular delusions & madness of crowds that is the Berlinale last night to see sexed up snail Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno open for Guy Maddin's hometown remembrance My Winnipeg. Rossellini's sexy shorts, commissioned by a sundance project for the "small screen", recounted the erotic intrigues of flies, snails and spiders - while further episodes take on bees and dragonflies. As it wasn't actually the premiere (that was two days earlier) I was pleasantly surprised when both Rossellini and Maddin came out to introduce their films and later engage in a post coital Q & A. While i had no doubts that the directress would prove scintillating and seductive i was happily surprised by how charming and playful she turned out to be. Maddin was engaging and witty as well - reinforcing my opinion of him as one of the most creative and visually arresting filmmakers working today. His homage to Winnipeg, his hometown of sleepwalkers and snow, is one of the finest examples of a love letters written to a place that i've had the pleasure of watching. His trademark black and white, dimly focussed camerawork (and additional antique film stock) proved just the ticket to summon up memories of retreating childhood and youth, flickering across the silver screen and disappearing like fading family photos in the sun.

the long crawl

watching burt lancaster cut through the cold water of an unendurable reality as he makes his way upriver to his lost dreams i think i learned few pointers to improve my own strokes. in fred perry's 1968 film the swimmer, lancaster plays ned merrill, who has removed his white shoes and stripped off his brooks brothers suit as he swims from pool to pool across posh society suburbs on his way to retrieve himself from the deeps. while each of us that takes those long laps in the blue has ample opportunity, between the edges of the pool, to contemplate the why's and wherefore's of our damp compulsion, it seems that ned's belief in his swimming abilities has us all outclassed. as is often said - denial is not just a river in egypt, it seems to also flow through a series of connecticut backyards....

Pimpin'

last night's screening of The Last Pimp the story of Düsseldorf's larger than life fancy man Bert Wollersheim was well received by the audience which applauded throughout Ingo Hamacher's film as Bert described his life philosophies and insights into the business of sex. beginning as a hair stylist, his extravagant personal style and ability to cut the latest hair fashions brought him to the attention of the sexy underworld of seventies west germany and before long he had his own brothel which he grew into a world renowned sex emporium in the course of his long career in the skin trade. today he's a local pimp celebrity (prostitution being legal in Germany at present) and auto collector and the new documentary follows this rise to stardom.
   during the question and answer session after the screening Bert made it clear that he considers prostitution to be one of the most difficult professions and wouldn't recommend it to anyone if they have any other options. he also pointed out that the underworld in which he came of age no longer exists due to the globalisation of crime. the questions and answers soon narrowed to a discussion of the current state of prostitution in germany and its legalisation which, while originally hoped to improve the working conditions for prostitutes, has created a liberalisation of the labor market which has resulted in reduced prices and increased competition - a difficult situation when your capital resources are your own body and psyche....

Too Much Information

this weekend. to wit

- 19th century french paintings from the met
- jim jones and the peoples temple
- piranesi's views of rome
- uli richter's fashion from berlin
- georg cantor driven mad by contemplating infinity
- eine armee gretchen
- the love letter of a portuguese nun

i can only begin to imagine what devil's brew these are cooking up in my delicate psyche....

give a fella a hand wouldja pal?

Took a jaunt up to Wismar over the weekend in preparation for the longer trek through the Carpathians next month. Not on horseback this time, but with Deutsche Bahn, taking advantage of the very reasonably priced 'Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket'. Drag up to four of your friends out on a daytrip to a remote village for only thirty three euros! The Carpathian connection stems from the filming of Nosferatu (both Murnau's and Herzog's), which used the medieval harbor town as a backdrop for the Vampyre's nocturnal mischief. The day was spent between the town's renowned brick churches, medieval market square, and eating ice cream by the harbor while watching sailing ships (with real sails no less!) ply the narrow channel. The city museum also made for a bit of edutainment when, upon lifting the white cotton light protection covering one of the vitrines, we were confronted with this pair of severed hands! Once belonging to a sixteenth century murder victim, insult was added to injury when the hands were presented to the judge to establish a case against the accused murderer. Perhaps it was felt that if the accused were truly guilty he would be inspired to confess to his murderous deed when the mummified fingers pointed toward the dock!

going with the flow

this evening i had hoped to roll down to radial system v - whose name makes me a bit nervous, as well as the explanatory "space for the arts" moniker. but i figured i'd be safe since i was only planning to see a film "Die Spree - Sinfonie eines Flusses" (nod to Walther Ruttman), a documentary about Berlin's beloved stream which perishes here into the Havel. Little did i know that the film had become pick of the litter for several culture rags around town and when i called about tickets i was snappily informed that all tickets were ausverkauft. oh the slings and arrows. after a brief search through the listings my film going companion suggested Am Ende Kommen Touristen, based on the book of the same name. a young berliner is completing his civil service in poland, assisting an aging auschwitz survivor and performing tasks around the town's youth hostel. he befriends a young polish woman who works as a tour guide at the concentration camp and the film follows these characters as they struggle between the remembrances of cruelty and the sorrowful requirements of modern life. each reduced to an isolated particle by the terrible gravity of history they move through the film skirting the edge of an emotional event horizon. the actors played masterfully and the script left room for the emotions to resonate. recommended...

WWII - the way it really was

lost weekend

despite the sunny weather saturday found me in darkness. sitting in our tiny lichtlblick kino watching peter lorre's singular directorial effort der verlorene (the lost one). the film, made upon his return to germany in 1951, opens with Lorre as Dr. Neumeister, a physician in a displaced persons camp who is suddenly joined by one Nowak, an associate from his wartime past. as the two men reacquaint themselves in the canteen that evening, we learn the truth about the doctor, his associate and their shared dark past. the film is a meditation on murder, seeing, silence and the burial of truth beneath opportunism - themes which would also haunt it's release and subsequent disappearance (after a short ten day run) from german cinemas. the film's relentless confrontation of historical horror was unacceptable in the germany of 1951 which, on the verge of its miraculous postwar economic recovery, could not bear the sight of its recent crimes. lorre, silenced in his homeland, went back to hollywood where he would live until his death in 1964.

   the next day we left before noon to ride out the the grunewald. in preparation for a planned trek this autumn through the transylvanian countryside i am training to ride (horses, that is). the riding association of uncle tom's cabin (don't ask) has a riding school and so we went out to make the proper arrangements. afterwards, having noted it on the map of riding trails taped to the door of the barn, we decided to bicycle through the grunewald to the selbstmord friedhof (suicide's graveyard) - who could resist? though setting off in a general northwesterly direction, we soon became turned around and lost among the dense network of walking, riding and cycling trails running through the forest. and we weren't the only ones - as we stopped to ask directions from the other cyclists and wanderers we would often as not be asked the same questions - where had we come from? what was down the next fork or over the next ridge? the woods were full of the desperately lost and disoriented - i think i even spied a group of east prussian refugees still fleeing the advancing russians sixty years later. and one can also imagine the looks of horror we received inquiring for directions to the suicide's graveyard... luckily we soon ran into a orchestra conductor out for a constitutional with the faithful hound and young 'protege'. he closed his eyes and waved an invisible baton, directing us through the forest to the banks of the havel where he indicated we could find a map for the remainder of the journey.

   our conductor also remarked that the cemetery was no longer known as the selbstmord friedhof nor the alternate name of friedhof der namenlosen (graveyard of the nameless) but was now officially designated the friedhof grunewald-forst (graveyard of the grunewald forest). the old names reflect the history of the cemetery, which was founded by the local foresters as a burial ground for the bodies that they pulled from the river, whose currents had the habit of dropping the floaters from the big city here along the reeds. since suicide is a mortal sin, the local churches refused the dead entry into the their churchyards and the woodsmen provided this ground in the stillness of the forest as a final resting place for these tortured souls. as the years progressed it became a resting place not only for the suicides and unknown dead of faust's metropolis but also for those who preferred to rest in eternity untroubled by the petty badgerings of religious faith.

   as promised, after a bit more wandering through the forest we found ourselves on the banks of the havel. the warm sun had brought innumerable families to the water's edge where their children were busy harassing the local waterfowl and being repayed in kind. finding the promised map we soon determined that we were several kilometers southwest of the cemetery. given our propensity for misdirecting ourselves we thought it best to ride north along the havel - keep the river on your right (or in this case left) and all that. the next few kilometers found us dodging butterflies, toddlers, teens and ancients along the bike path until we reached schildhorn where we paused for refreshment before heading back up into the forest.

   leaving the waters edge and riding up into treeline, the lowering sun reddened the trunks of the pines. before long, a clue we were headed in the right direction. a wooden sign pointing down the trail and announcing in large letters 'zum friedhof'. heeding, we found ourselves a moment later at the gate of the graveyard. as we wandered between the plots, we spied a small stone with a pair of names, upon which rested a bottle of wine, a lantern and several pebbles. it was the grave of one margarete päffgen and her daughter christa - better known as NICO. singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, keyboard player and warhol superstar, NICO was buried here with her mother after her sudden death in ibiza in 1988. funny really, as we have been listening to NICO quite a bit lately after reading simon reynolds writing about her in the guardian. her two albums the marble index and desertshore are to be rereleased together this year as the frozen borderline. siren of the lost, NICO was our youthful companion of many a dark and delirious night and we've even a vague memory of seeing her once in concert. our recall of the evening a bit dim, the main thrust being that she was extraordinarily late to come on stage.

   leaving the chelsea girl and onward through the graveyard - past the final resting places of the nameless fished out of the river, the unknown soldiers, the russian war prisoners of wwi, lost beloved parents and the children who perished on christmas eve. all of them buried here in the middle of this pine expanse beneath the dome of the sky. as the hour was growing late and the woods were darkening we left to make our way back into the city, the low wall of the graveyard disappearing behind the pale screen of the pines reaching heavenwards from the sandy hills....

and this morning

snow. granted, i woke late after a silent morning interrupted only by the yawning of cats. seeing a glaze on the roof of a house on the corner i assumed at first that the night air had simply occasioned the frost, but spying a bit closer i spotted the tiny snow specks drifting down from our refrigerated sky. and now it has begun to lay a thin blanket upon the autos, the heaps of dirt piled up by workers and the abandoned bicycles in the street, the snow gods having decided that the solstice and christmas are safely past and the winter can begin in earnest. it eases my heart which had begun to doubt the possibility of snow in this greenhouse world into which we have shut ourselves - pulling fast the door and listening for that doomladen 'click' - like a lone child trapping himself in a dead refrigerator thoughtlessly abandoned on the street.
a few days ago i thrilled to see Unheimliche Geschichten (Tales of the Macabre) at the Babylon. Richard Oswald's 1919 film adaption of five strange tales (authored by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson among others) stars Conrad Veidt, Reinhold Schünzel and, most importantly, Anita Berber. I was especially excited to see the film since finishing Mel Gordon's biography of Berber and becoming better acquainted with this dark goddess of Berlin. Berber is presented as 'die Dirne' (the Harlot) in the film's introduction, her portrait hanging in an antiquariat between those of Veidt's 'der Tod' (Death) and Schünzel's 'der Teufel' (the Devil). At the stroke of midnight the portraits come alive, spring from out their frames and, after squirming about lasciviously, begin to read from the dusty volumes which are everywhere in the shop. The five stories which follow are tales of desire, madness and death. a man kills his wife, his crime only to be discovered by her lover, a mysterious lovely perishes of the plague, a man murders his friend for the attentions of a dancer, a mysterious club produces suicides in its members, and a baron is plagued by ghosts after importuning the delicate wife of a nobleman. Conrad Veidt is excellent as Death - his lank figure and skull like visage is bone chilling at first glance. Anita Berber is of course dreamy in this, her seventh film. She had already worked with Oswald several times and had played the lead in his film Prostitution. By 1919 she was the face of the erotic madness which was sweeping Berlin. Her naked dances were performed to acclaim (in the third tale of this film she is the dancer that drives men to murder, mad with desire, and we can witness her amazing talent), her scandalous personal habits were becoming legend, her life of drugs and drink had not yet taken its toll and her fame as an 'incarnation of the perverse' was growing night after night. Though in less than ten years she would be dead of tuberculosis, she was earning the lasting honors and fame which still attend to her memory and which still drive we humble imps of the perverse mad with dark desire...

the bleak December

a bit of entertainment this evening. Roger Corman's "The Raven" from 1963. Babylon's "Freunde des schrägen Films" has lined up a festival of Corman's work. A festival so big that is has to be shown in two locations - the normal spot wednesdays at the Babylon as well as sundays at the Z-inema on Bergstrasse. This evening's film, loosely based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe (very, very, very loosely), cast Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre in the roles of dueling magicians and starred a baby faced Jack Nicholson as Lorre's son and romantic pretty boy. Corman's work always brings me back to childhood, in which many an late evening was spent glued to the TV nursing an unwholesome obsession the fiends and monsters of a low budget horror universe. Despite their spare budgets, cliched sets and storylines as well as the sacrifices made for their rushed production these films were able to create an atmosphere of wonder, fantasy, magic and mystery which remains unrivalled today. Unfortunately I missed Ray Milland in "The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" last week, but will be glued to my seat for 'Death Race 2000' and 'The Wild Angels', where Corman explodes America's open road obsession....and those who live it....to death!

surfing the doom

   Friday morning passing through Invaliden Friedhof I remembered that it was the anniversary of Ernst Udet's suicide. Though it had slipped my mind I had entertained the idea of leaving flowers on the grave of the aerial joy boy gone bad and was touched to see that someone had placed a few white blossoms on his ivy covered resting place. A few minutes later, at the foot of the Putlitzbrucke (upon which the annual floral remembrances of Kristallnacht still adorn the Jewish Deportation Memorial), i was stopped by the cops who had set up a bicycle traffic stop. The kindly bearded man in green informed me that riding with headphones could get me a 15 euro fine and that i was riding on the bike path on the wrong side of the street. These Germans seem to have constructed a very complex and multidimensional set of bike path regulations, for the best of all concerned no doubt. After walking my bike to the other side of the street and riding out of sight i popped my headphones back in to listen final moments of BBC's The World Today.
   Saturday I made my way across town to purchase a new suitcase as i must fly down to Munich tomorrow. Finding the address of the Kofferhaus Witt on the Rimowa website i noted that they were founded in 1923. To be in business in Berlin, through three successive governments over the course of eighty three years they must be doing something right (or something terribly, terribly wrong...). After a friendly greeting, the opening and shutting of various suitcases and much goldilocking on my part, I finally left, my new Bolero Cabin Trolley by my side. Later that evening - Diamanda Galas at the Passionskirche - clad in black, her voice inhabited by the doomed souls of centuries, she presented her 'Songs of Exile' as the closing event of the international women musicians festival. While it has been years since i had last been exposed to her aural exorcisms and diabolic decibels she has lost none of her ability to raise hairs on the back of one's neck like a snake charmer and the darkened apse of the Passionskirche was the perfect setting for her mournful moans and satanic screeching.
   finally, yesterday i finally made it to see 'An Inconvenient Truth', Al Gore's cinematic presentation of his global warming slide show. While i am familiar with many of the factoids which made up the presentation, seeing them assembled in one place accompanied by the effective graphical representation of the statistical data proved to be quite disturbing. glad that my apartment is on the highest hill in Berlin and i know how to swim....that should allow for an extra couple of days before the final cataclysm....

the spy who went out with a cold

This morning I was surprised to hear that Markus Wolf died yesterday. The former head of the East German General Reconnaissance Administration (HVA) was responsible for running spies against the west and was once known as 'the man without a face' as western intelligence agencies were frustrated in their attempts to get a picture of the master spy. He was not invisible to me as i stood not three feet from him at the Berlinale in 2005!
But i do know what frustration is - i just found out about a Guy Maddin retrospective which has been running for the past week at Kino Arsenal and was frustrated to learn that i had missed a chance to see both 'Careful' and 'Tales from the Gimli Hospital'. not all is lost however, i still have the chance to enjoy 'Sissy Boy Slap Party'...

the eyes have it

a few movies from the last week - 1975's 'The Man in the Glass Booth' - Maximilian Schell stars in this oddly effective tale of a ostensibly jewish new york city real estate developer whose wartime past comes back to haunt him. abducted by israeli commandos, he is spirited to tel aviv to stand trial for being the commandant of a concentration camp. Lois Nettleton plays the prosecutor whose evidence and witnesses will show Schell as the despicable, remorseless SS murderer that he is....or is he? the film seems a strange blend of farce and horror - mel brooks meets hannah arendt....

   next up, the new Tom Tykwer film, an adaption of Patrick Süskind's Perfume. Süskind's novel is a historical fantasy concerning a serial killer who seeks to create the perfect perfume from the scents of his young female victims. Despite the fact that the novel was a runaway bestseller here and it had been thought impossible to film, something must have been lost in translation or i was not in the right frame of mind but i found the book unremarkable. the film however i found quite striking, its evocation of the lost world of medieval paris and its parfumeurs, the successful portrayal of the sensual aspects of smell (in a visual language - when challenged regarding this Tykwer pointed out 'the book doesn't smell either'), as well as Grenouille, born without a scent himself, his olfactory obsessions leading him step by step to a monstrous destiny and final destruction...

   a final guilty filmic pleasure was Aeon Flux - wherein Charlize Theron plays a rebel assassin four hundred year in the future, attempting the overthrow of 'perfect' society formed by the survivors of a catastrophic plague. i was interested to see the film since, because it was filmed here in berlin (my friend Ulf worked on the production), Theron is shown dispatching government soldiers atop the House of World Cultures and the film's governing cabinet is shown meeting in a building i recognized as a local crematorium. not to mention i have a soft spot for future dystopias consisting of sexy clones in fetishwear leaping and clattering over post industrial architecture... baby i surrender, take me to your leader!

mean streets

yesterday marked the end of part II of Babylon's Stummfilmkonzerte (silent film concerts). This last film was an exceptional pleasure as it dates from the exact time period in which Hans Poelzig constructed the Babylon Kino and its surrounding apartment houses. Our pianist von Bothmer accompanied Carl Froehlich's 1928 film 'Zuflucht' (Refuge), a 'homecoming film' in which our handsome hero Martin (Francis Lederer) returns to Berlin after spending nine years in the soviet union following the great war. Arriving at the edge of the city he meets Hanne (Henny Porten), who adopts him as a charity case, the two eventually falling in love. Their domestic bliss is cut short when Martin falls ill at his new job building the U-Bahn in Templehofer Feld. Frightened by Martin's worsening condition, Hanne locates his mother and has him moved from the charity hospital into the family's wealthy home where he soon passes away in her arms, never knowing that she is pregnant with his child. No happy endings here as Hanne rejects the mother's idea of an emergency wedding (to legitimize the pregnancy), as Martin would be alerted to his approaching end, and so as the curtain falls we are left with a dead hero, a sorrowful mother, a broken hearted angel and a fatherless child. 'Zuflucht' gained attention for Froehlich (producer of the sapphic classic 'Maedchen in Uniform') by its use of authentic urban locations - the garden plots, the markthalle and the U-Bahn construction sites. The Markthalle scenes are especially notable, depicting the daily life of the working class - the butchers, fishmongers and vegetable sellers who work, eat, drink, joke and sleep together in Berlin's streets and tenements. This provides the film a leftist/socialist movement - contrasting the lively and lifegiving activity of the workers with the stuffy and humorless confinement of the mother's bourgeious household. Politics would continue to be of interest to Froehlich and five years later he joined the NSDAP and turned his talents to the service of the nazi state, eventually becoming president of the Reichsfilmkammer. He made films throughout the war which ended with him in a prison camp. He would be 'denazified' in 1948 and, returning to his craft, made three films before his death in 1953.

out and about

this past friday night found me letting my freak flag fly at the freiluftkino on the museuminsel. beneath the stars we watched peter, dennis and jack discover the real america just in time to get whacked by it in the restored version of 'Easy Rider'. while parts of the film were naturally dated (37 years is a long time man!) - many of the characters are as modern as dick cheney's mechanical heart. the bitter rural denizens, naive hipsters and grasping longhairs would be just as at home in today's america as they were at the end of the sixties.... saturday marked the FuckParade2006 - an amusing march of the noisy damned through Berlin's new center... the that evening it was Lang's 'Metropolis' in the courtyard of the Schloss Charlottenburg. the silent allegory, pleasantly accompanied by a live pianist, wound out its tale of class war before the mini-versailles of Sophie Charlotte. The film's lesson, that some sort of mediator is needed to bring the head (the bosses) and the hands (the workers) together while prosaic, is also a bit unsettling given the near future of german history. ("Mediator" in german is "Mittler"....hmmm..."Mittler"...rhymes with.....)
   sunday we headed out to the grunewald, berlin's green western extremity, ostensibly to see Kirchner's 'Street Scene 1913' at the Bruecke Museum.

Scream for your Life!

A creature which lives inside each of us, feeding on our fear and can grow to have strength enough to crack a man's spine - this is 'The Tingler'! Documented in William Castle's 1959 ultracamp eponymous film "The Tingler" appears as a cross between a lobster and an earthworm and enjoys nothing more than strangling unsuspecting human beings. Fortunately for us - its inability to tolerate the human scream makes it a rather unsuccessful monster. Vincent Price plays Dr. Warren Chapin, a pathologist driven to the most extreme measures in his researches on the physiological effects of fear. From threatening his young wife with murder to taking the film world's first LSD trip (injecting 100 micromilligrams!) Dr. Chapin will stop at nothing in his search to find the beast that lurks within. Accompanying him we meet a pair of good/evil trust fund sisters, a convicted murderer send to the chair, his sister (a deaf mute movie theatre owner with a bad case of hemophobia) as well as her husband, (mild mannered but deadly). The film was shot in glorious B&W except for the climactic murder scene with switches to 'color' to show us a bathtub filled with blood. Later, Dr. Chapin placing the recaptured Tingler into a film reel box is a coda revealing film as precipitate of the primitive and unreleased fears of the modern populace. Seeing the film was for me a blast from the past - the last time i was knee high to a grasshopper, curled up in front of our small B&W set on some spooky childhood friday night. Last night, however, I watched it with friends and fellow enthusiasts at the weekly wednesday night Schraege Kino at the Babylon, which is in the middle of a month long William Castle filmfest. Next week - Joan Crawford's persona defining performance in Strait-Jacket!....

the birthday boy

today would have been Billy Wilder's 100th birthday had he not kicked the bucket four years ago (on the same day as Dudley Moore and Milton Berle!). Born in the Austro-Hungarian empire, Wilder came to Berlin in 1926 as a journalist (writing for Nachtausgabe, Tempo and BZ am Mittag), and before long found himself writing scripts for Berlin's growing film industry. Working alongside some of the best in the industry (Ernst Laemmle, Robert Siodmak, Ernst Lubitsch to name a few) Wilder soon became a fixture in the Berlin film world. In 1929 Wilder worked on Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday), one of the last silent films produced in Germany. The film was a cinema verité, showing the Berliner's entertaining themselves on a Sunday afternoon and is a visual documentation of a world which would soon disappear forever. Being jewish Wilder knew that he had no future in Germany once the nazi's came to power, in fact, when his last film of this period Was Frauen träumen (What Women Dream) premiered on Hitler's birthday in 1933, Wilder's name had been expunged from the credits and Wilder himself was already in Paris (his mother was not so lucky and was murdered at Auschwitz). This was beginning of journey that would end in Hollywood where he would become one fo the most important director's of the forties and fifties with such classics as Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend and Sunset Blvd. to his credit. While Wilder returned to Berlin in 1960 to film One, Two, Three (a comedy starring James Cagney as a hard charging Coca Cola executive and Horst Buchholz as a handsome young communist), he didn't re-establish a residence here but lived in Hollywood until his death.

"Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist." - Billy Wilder

What have they done to your daughters?

Last night at the Babylon i enjoyed Massimo Dallamano's "La Polizia chiede aiuto". Better known in the US as "What have they done to your daughters?" and playing here under the german title "Der Tod traegt schwarzes Leder" (Death wears Black Leather) this 1974 eurosleaze work by Dallamano (onetime cameraman for Sergio Leone) takes us through the seedy italian underworld of teenage prostitution, their high dollar clientele and the gritty policework following the death of one pregnant 15 year old who will no longer be corrupting public morals. Featuring the supersaturated reds and blues of beheadings, dismemberments, teenage suicides, and kinky schoolgirls this film rips the lid off today's teenage apocalypse. Beware, not only does death wear black leather, he also rides a motorcycle, never takes off his helmet and carries a big meat cleaver! Also featured - spelunking!

under a blood red sky

jack of all trades Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and the music (along with Warren Ellis) of John Hillcoat's "The Propostion". A western in spirit if not in geography (the film takes place in the late nineteenth century in australia's outback), i knew i was in for a treat when a friend described it to me as 'bleak'. i definitely do bleak! the film seethes with menace, the landscape, the authorities, the outlaws and the aboriginals - everyone in the film seems to be waiting for opportunity to slice a throat or fire a fatal bullet. the story surrounds three brothers wanted for a murderous attack upon a farm family. the two youngest are captured and the middle brother (Guy Pearce) is given an ultimatum - bring in the older brother within days or the youngest (and most innocent) brother will be executed on christmas day. Pearce sets out on his quest while tempers soon flare back in 'civilization'. True to Nick Cave's obsessions the film is laden with morbid christian symbolism - hangings on christmas, the sacrifice of the youngest, betrayal and Pearce's idolized jesus physique pierced by a spear among them, while the eldest brother is a wrathful god of vengeance to Pearce's jesus. While captain handey, the embodiment of civilization, is obsessed with bringing order to the bone dry chaos we soon see who has the upper hand!

bye bye betty

The Notorious Bettie Page was a pleasure to watch, not only for the titillating pin-up sequences, but also for the insight into mythic america. Mary Harron's beautifully shot work, alternating between a grainy black and white new york and a supersaturated brightness beneath the florida sunshine, tells the story of the Bettie's transmogrification from small town girl to fetish queen and ends with her rediscovery of her youthful christian faith without ever falling into amazing grace stereotypes. The film also makes reference to the state's obsession with pornography (and the female body) as a moral corrosive putting the souls of young impressionable boys in mortal danger. Actress Gretchen Mol was radiant as Bettie, blurring all lines between herself and the icon, while Lili Taylor and Chris Bauer were splendidly sleazy as Irving and Paula Klaw - shooting 'special sessions' for their preferred customers. The photos and films all seem so dreadfully innocent in these days of always on fleshpots but still exude a dark glamour which carries us into another, sexier world. As Bettie points out in the closing moments of the film - 'it wasn't until after they sinned that adam and eve put on clothes'

the curtains are falling

as once again the Berlinale comes to a close. the prizes have been announced and i can proudly assert that none of the films which i had the opportunity of seeing won anything. no golden bears, no silver bears - not even a special recognition in the bunch. Though i must admit that i wasn't really 'in the mix' this year and only saw four out of the hundreds of films on offer. It didn't help that the first film i bought tickets for was 'Container' - a borefest by Lukas Moodysson, a swede whose previous films i have enjoyed. I went to the theatre expecting some sort of torso murder picture (due to a mistaken description in the program - or perhaps just poor translation on my part) - and was crestfallen to discover a black and white, low budget, meandering meditation on transsexualism and schizophrenia with a monologue voiceover and the quality of a first year film student project, prompting a third of the audience to leave after the first ten minutes - not an auspicious start!
i recovered in time to attend the world premiere of good friend Luke's screen adaptation of his novel 'Candy'. This follows the tragic course of an australian junkie love affair. Starring the recently canonized Heath Ledger as the male half of this dysfunctional unit and abbie cornish as the lovely candy - junkie, artist, prostitute - the film had a slow start until the actors could fill out their characters and drag us along with them down their slippery slope. but by the end of the film my eyes were brimming and i was fully attuned to the tragedy of sexy people acting self destructively. though i have to wonder if the same level of understanding and empathy will be available to the majority of the moviegoing public who perhaps have less familiarity with the subject material than i. in addition Geoffrey Rush gives an excellent performance as Casper - an old chicken hawk chemistry professor who provides an elder's wisdom to the young lovers during their downward spiral. While I was happy to see the film I was also fascinated by the rituals attending the actual premiere - the actors, director and screenwriter (Luke) posing and gesticulating on the red carpet before the lenses of the cameras. the applauded entry into the theater and the onstage introductions and congratulations following the film. the cheap grandeur of it all made me think of how life must have been in hollywood beyond the mists of history... next time - murder in the outback!

speaking of being defrocked

today is the birthday of Federico Fellini. The italian born film maker once said "I make a film in the same manner in which I live a dream...". All we know is that watching his masterful Satyricon as a impressionable (and somewhat stoned) young boy changed our conception of ancient history forever...

speaking of murdered filmmakers

today is also the first anniversary of the murder of Theo van Gogh.  Shot and stabbed while riding his bicycle through Amsterdam by the 27 year old Mohammed Bouyeri, van Gogh earned the emnity of muslim fundamentalists with his cinematic criticism of the abuse of women in the islamic community. His film submission depicted verses from the koran superimposed on the body of a naked woman.  i was also outraged by this film - as marring the divine beauty of a woman with the cramped scrawl of a religion is a crime which should be punished severely.  perhaps twenty lashes with a wet noodle... but certainly not the ridiculous violence of a religionista...sigh...

abhorrence and fascination

I hear that 82 year old Knut Ahnlund has stepped down from the committee awarding Nobel Prize for Literature in protest over last year's recognition of Elfried Jelinek. "Denigration, humiliation, desecration and self-disgust, sadism and masochism are the main themes of Elfried Jelinek's work." hmmm...what's not to like? I am familiar with Jelinek's writing only from Handke's film adaptation "La Pianiste" of her novel of the same name. Of course Isabel Huppert was, as always, an excellent performer and the film was a truly disturbing look at isolation and desperation for connection... my only question - why did it take Ahnlund eleven months to step down???

salome

last night i had the opportunity again to watch the characters portrayed by Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde meet their doom in 1974's dark, brooding classic 'The Night Porter'.  Hailed by some as a breakthrough in the cinema of sexual psychopathology and derided by other's as pure nazi sexploitation sleaze, Liliana Cavani's work portraying the chance reunion of an SS Sturmbahnfuehrer Max (Bogarde) and his 'special prisoner' Lucia (Rampling) twelve years after the end of WWII explores the realms of sadomasochism, obsessive love and irredeemable guilt.  Max has been working in a Vienna hotel and participating in the activities of a group of former nazis dedicated to ridding themselves of their wartime guilt (primarily by 'filing away' the witnesses to their crimes).  Lucia has become the wife of a renowned composer whom she is accompanying on a series of performances in the european capitals.  As a result of this chance meeting both Max and Lucia are drawn back to the most powerful moments of their lives (imaged by Cavani through a series of flashbacks) as Max makes the young Lucia his consort in the hell of the concentration camp.  Later Max describes thier relationship as 'a biblical tale' - alluding to the story of Salome as Lucia is shown performing before a group of SS officers - singing Friedrich Hollaender's "Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte" (If I could wish something...).   Cavani also makes brilliant use of colour and darkness - the brooding story reinforced by the shadowed interiors of the hotel and Max's apartment (in Vienna's Karl-Marx-Hof designed by Karl Ehn and built in 1927 as housing for the working classes) while Max himself indicates that he prefers working at night as he is ashamed to be seen in the light of day.  As their obsessive love moves inexorably to its conclusion the pair retreat ever inward - into the dark night of desire, fleeing from the light of history and society.  The night porter...one who carries the darkness within....

the difference

between the kultural spirits of Köln and Berlin became all too apparent last night. While in Köln the Ratcatcher played pied piper to the fresh faced masses gathered in "Rome on the Rhein" for World Youth Day, here in Berlin the Alte Nationalgalerie (as part of the summertime Museuminsel Festival) served as the backdrop to an open air showing of Pasolini's classic of perverse, scatological decadence Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom. Banned around the world upon its 1976 release, the film is ostensibly a commentary on italian fascism through the texts of the Marquis de Sade. As an extravagant manifestation of 1970's arthouse eurosleaze Salo manages to shock and disgust audiences even today - as i witnessed last night when not a few of my fellow filmgoers rose out of their blue and white striped lawnchairs unable to tolerate the onslaught of kidnapping, murder, sadomasochistic sexual brutality, homosexuality, copraphagia, urolagnia and just downright mean spiritedness that is the body of the film. And for those like myself, who by their jaded and cynical natures have no obstructive aversion to the depiction of these outrages, the film still manages to aggravate - simply by the shaky camera work, uneven sound and similar poor production values. His last film, Pasolini shows a mastery of the material such that, like de Sade, he - is able to make the most disturbing and perverse situations become unutterably tedious and desensitizing - thus revealing the darkness in the souls of both the film's characters and audience. Last night's showing was tied in with the museum's current Goya exhibition - being the Lust selection for their cinematic illustration of the seven deadly sins (Solaris for Sloth, Heavenly Creatures for Anger etc.). and there was quite a bit of perverse pleasure in watching this condemnation of the metaphysics of fascism projected against the giant outdoor silver screen here in the center of Welthauptstadt Germania... I can still bring to mind the surreal picture - as the victims of the fascist libertines (naked except leashes) are herded up the stairway of their castle prison - they are as giants climbing the facade of the Alte Nationalgalerie... Faust's Metropolis indeed....

horrors!

the annual fantasy filmfest opened in berlin this week and i took the opportunity to get spooked.  Shutter, by thai directorial team Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, is an exquisite ghost story which, while derivative of other recent horror - most obviously Ringu , rises to its own heights (or perhaps sinks to its own depths).  With admirable pacing the story moves us from the accidental death of a young woman (hit by the car of our protagonists) into a story of failed relationships, haunted photos, vengeful spirits and human failings.  The characters,  complex and sadly believable, slowly come apart as the consequences of their poor decisions bear poisoned fruit.  the wandering spirit of the dead girl is possessed by equal parts rage and longing and as the film unfolds we find that the roots of her restlessness go deeper than we first suspect.   I give this film 9 out of 10 pale, waxy corpses!

long live the new flesh!

Kino Central is hosting a Debbie Harry film festival in celebration of the artist's 60th birthday, and thus last night i had the opportunity to attend a screening of Cronenberg's 'Videodrome'.  The film has aged well, its psychonauticism only enhanced by the antique quality of its costumes, characters and interiors.  Today Nikki Brand has morphed into Paris Hilton, and Barry Convex into Donald Rumsfeld - leaving the rest of us to wander the avenues of the telopolis, wounds gaping,  desperate for programming

it's so hot in here - what are they trying to hatch?

yesterday i arrived safely back upon the sandy soil of brandenburg.  each time i return to the city from an excursion the grey seems more like home.  riding back from the airport on the S-Bahn i was happy to see the bleak tenements of the eastern sektors rear up on the horizon - pulling themselves out of the muck like concrete monsters in a fifties japanese horror flick.  speaking of japanese cinema - i just finished watching Down the Drain, a clever little film which could be renamed 'a series of unfortunate japanese events' - in a story which would appeal to de Sade our schoolgirl protagonist finds herself on the receiving end of a variety of farfetched misfortunes despite her virtue and innocence.  along the way she meets a collection of colorful characters including a japanese greaser gang, an itinerant prostitute and an unhygeinic restauranteur.  while ostensibly unbelievable the story of our heroine's decline proves impossible to resist! particularly amusing is the fact that her decline also impacts her family and friends in an equally negative fashion which they then seek to revenge upon her.  her fate is rescued at the last minute through a surprise consequence of  the film's most distressing scene - a device which only accentuates the her personal tragedy!  i give this one 4 japanese schoolgirl uniforms out of a possible 5!  I also enjoyed the daring submarine drama We Dive at Dawn, made in Britain during the second world war and presenting an early working of all familiar submarine drama elements - courageous misunderstood sailors, a captain willing to go that extra furlong, undersea mines, a daring run through enemy waters, and close call by depth charge averted only by jettisoning detritus to fool the enemy.  also interesting are the characters of the captured nazi airmen, alternately evil and honorable they provide a complex counterpoint to our simple, well meaning submariners....  this film gets 3 silhouetted destroyers out of a possible 5!

withnail and adolph

watched bruce robinson's Withnail & I for the first time earlier this week.  a perfect late eighties send up of the late sixties in britain.  even got me to look up some of the hamlet references.  and richard griffiths as uncle monty deserves an entire film of his own.  also on the menu was claude chabrol's excellent documentary The Eye of Vichy which examines the collaborationist government in france through contemporaneous newsreels and film shorts.  raises interesting questions regarding patriotism in times of occupation - questions which populations around the globe are still forced to answer today...

Listening to  Track 1 by Unknown Artist

istanbul calling

this afternoon i had the pleasure of seeing Uzak - whose title is translated from the turkish as 'Distant' (which, i am happy to report, i watched in turkish with german subtitles!).  An meditative and dark work depicting the alienation of individuals and their inability to cross the gulf separating them to communicate in any meaningful way.  Following the arrival of his cousin Yusuf from his country village (as a result of factory layoffs) our urban protagonist Mahmut gives him a bedroom in his chic Istanbul apartment.  However, from the beginning the two men are unable to communicate directly with each other or anyone else.  They both find themselves trapped in themselves - full of desire for - but inability to create communication and intimacy, whether with each other or with the women in their lives.  As the movie progresses the space between the two men becomes more and more unbearable as we watch them each pace desparately back and forth in the psychic cages like animals at the zoo.  The film is quite beautifully shot, making use of excellent photography and lighting with the magic of istanbul as a backdrop, especially beautiful in the snow which blankets the city through much of the film,  lending an air of timelessness to their predicament.   I recognized many of the locations in the film from my journey to istanbul and it only confirmed my desire to go back to spend more time exploring the city's ancient beauty.  The director also gives a nod to Tarkovsky and shows a few minutes from Stalker - Mahmut watching the film before switching to porn once his cousin retires to bed!  Now i want to see Tarkovsky's masterpiece again as well!  I give this film 8 out of 10 cigarettes rolled from the finest turkish tobacco!

High Confessions

just finished watching Kurt Hoffman's adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Mann).  With Berlin's own Horst Buchholz in the title role (just turned 24 and having recently won Best Actor at Cannes for his part in Helmut Käutner's Himmel ohne Sterne), the film is a lighthearted romp through the Mann's novel.  Presenting the confidence man as an artist, Mann asks us to consider the question of the immorality of the artist (and by extension the author himself) as one who creates a reality which others wish to see.  This is the artist as magician and criminal (early in the film Felix is identified with Hermes in his role as god of thieves).  Hoffman's adaptation balances these elements with the simple story of a poor boy making his way in the world.  Leaving his childhood home to work as a pageboy in Parisian Hotel (having evaded military service by feigning epilepsy), Felix quickly finds that he can use his looks and charm to work his way into the arms of the wealthy and titled guests.  Not only the pet of several female guests, Felix is also the recipient of the affections of Lord Kilmarnock, an unmarried aristocrat from the Scottish highlands!   Further intrigues involve Felix impersonating a Marquis and seducing the wife and daughter of a distinguished professor before being imprisoned under suspicion of murder!  Has Felix come to the end of the game?  We give this classic four out of five tuxedos!

back in berlin

meanwhile back in berlin.  i returned on monday afternoon and have been catching up on everything i missed here in berlin.  last night i saw Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage, which won best director and best actress here in the Berlinale.  Concerning the arrest, interrogation and finally execution of a member of the White Rose resistance group during the third reich, the film was an exploration of (and some might say exploitation of) of the role of the resistance against the nazis as the conscience of the german people.  the film was laden with religious symbolism and went a long way towards presenting a possible rehabilitation of the german character.  For this reason this film (and others along the same lines) are very important here in germany, as they present an alternative self image for the german which stands against the images of the 'evil nazi' and the 'collaborating civilian'.  So despite any criticism (and many could be made regarding the role of religion in the third reich, the actual number and impact of resistance groups, etc.) the film is worth seeing as an exploration of these themes.  And of course the brilliant acting by so many of the cast.... 

Listening to  Mars Arizona (DFA Remix) by jsbx marsazdfa.mp3

South China Cesspool

the moral corruption inherent in the oriental character is given big play in Josef von Sternberg's  - The Shanghai Gesture.  The beautiful Gene Tierney plays Victoria, a naive heiress brought to her doom in Shanghai.  Victor Mature is brilliant as Doctor Omar - an arab gigolo and procurer, who carefully leads Victoria down the garden path.  The Shanghai of the film is shown as an interzone, where anything is possible if you are willing to pay the price and where ideas of justice, vice and virtue are turned upside down.  Walter Huston and Ona Munson both shine in their roles as the Respectable Father and the Sensual Chinese Madame - enemies who share a dark secret and are brought to tragedy when that secret is revealed during the infernal celebrations of the Chinese New Year.  One need look no farther for a incisive condemnation of the inscrutable and malevolent world of the asiatic tribes!

The Stranger

just finished watching Orson Welles 'The Stranger' in which he plays Franz Kindler - a nazi fugitive who has taken up residence in a small connecticut town under an assumed identity.  There he marries the daughter of a 'liberal' supreme court justice as the perfect cover.  Edward G. Robinson is the agent sent to smoke him out.  There are some great scenes - one conflating nazism and paganism, another where Robinson realizes Welles is the nazi he is looking for after Welles denies that Marx could be a German since he was a jew, and the final moments of the film where the townspeople entrap Welles in the churchtower - an obvious reference to Frankenstein and other horror films.  Also amusing were the numerous dialogues suggesting that the nazis were not quite human but were able to act human went it suited them.  It was a tale of modern monsters and the villages (and virgins) they despoil...

Listening to Live @ Tresor - Globus - 28-12byEllen Allien

make that 2 or 3 thousand things

well the Berlinale is going on here this week.  I have seen several interesting films, a japanes film (Riyuu) about multiple murders in a high rise, a bunch of short films - the best of which was Guy Maddin's film "Sissy Boy Slap Party" - a sort of gay version of fight club in high camp.  Last night though I saw the best film yet "The Goebbels Experiment"  - a narration of selections from Goebbels diaries - read in english by Kenneth Branagh.  the film is successful in tracing goebbels transformation from a petty self obsessed manic depressive clerk into a petty jew obsessed manic depressive Minister of Propaganda!  and the archival film footage is something to be marvelled at.  Responding to my query the director indicated that he did have a distributor in the US and then chuckled when I thanked him saying "Wir brauchen". 

But here is one of the great things about living here in Berlin. This film (as many in the festival) was playing at the multiplex at the Sony Center - due to the typical poor planning involved in these things - Udo and I were crowded with a hundred or so others waiting to get into the theater - the movies are scheduled so close together that you often find yourself waiting for the previous film's viewers to leave the theater.  As the audience left they had to pass through our crowd to get out - and who should walk by with a small cohort but Markus Wolf - ex-Chief of the DDR's foreign intelligence agency!  there were definitely some murmurs in the crowd ("how can he show himself"... etc.) but he and his pals passed on in their greatcoats looking very much the part of bureaucrats, ministers, movie bosses or any other of that type of scumbag.  Most amusing however was the title of the film that he had just come from "2 or 3 things I know about him"!  I bet!

Listening to  Strugglin' by Tricky

Anger is an Energy

MoMA is playing host to an Evening with Kenneth Anger, where the famed outsider will present his three newest films - The Man We Want to Hang, Anger Sees Red, and Elliott's Suicide. If i rent a car now perhaps i can make it up to NYC in time!

ZombAid

just returned from seeing Edgar Wright's "Shaun of the Dead", an amusing film that makes light of the trance state that modern life seems to require.   The gore is well done as well with the usual flesh eating zombies disemboweling their luckless victims.  I give it three out of five infected bites!

Listening to  All Stood Still by Ultravox

Feelin' Eel

this short film by Dominic Hailstone is everything we love in dark, disturbing eel cinema!

Herr Baron

i just finished watching Josef von Báky's 1943 spectacular Münchhausen.


Commissioned by Goebbels to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the UFA studios and made with a budget of 6.5 million dm the film is a beautiful fairy tale intended to provide diversion from the increasing costs of  the war as well as illustrate the strength and vibrancy of german cinema (and by extension german society).  with lavish sets and costumes and a plot which ranges from moscow to the moon, Münchhausen takes its audience on a fantastic journey through a mythical history in a larger than life world.  Hans Albers' Baron sleeps with Catherine the Great, outwits an Ottoman Sultan (stealing a princess from his harem and running off to Venice) and trades banter with Cagliostro and Casanova.  The Venice footage was filmed on location in the city and is particularly evocative of the lost age of courts, counts and masked balls.  In Russia Baron Münchhausen warns Cagliostro about a plot against him, and in return the Count grants our protagonist his wish for a halt to the aging process -  beginning a subtext comparing the advantages and disadvantages of mortality and aging.   this is particularly ironic given the film's genesis in the thousand year reich, with its pretentions to timelessness, as well as the recent developments on the eastern front.  A popular and critical success Goebbels phantastic diversion would prove quite temporary - the film premiered 5 March 1943 at Berlin's UFA Palast am Zoo - which would be destroyed only a few weeks later by the allied bombing campaign.

listening to Royksopp's - "40 Years Back Come"

movie time

in my spare time between studying german, looking for work and loafing around the internet i have seen the following films in the past week:
Der Frosche mit der Maske


a delightfully dark story centered around a master criminal known as 'the frog', whose specialties include bank heists and luring naive young men to their doom in the 'lolita bar' - with a delightful twist involving the death penalty near the conclusion.  i give this one 7 nooses out of 10!

sky captain and the world of tomorrow



this film looks great but the acting is completely flat - which i at first wanted to believe was intended but now i am not so sure.  but the sets are worth seeing - especially all the malevolent machinery.  i will give it 6 robots out 10 for style!

Es geschah am hellichten Tag



another excellent krimi about a serial child murderer .  with Heinz Rühmann as the police detective who just won't give up, this one gets 8 puppets out of 10 for general creepiness!
and finally
the incredibles



while this film is wonderfully animated and a joy to watch - the reactionary story line full of references to "remembering who you are" somewhat spoiled the fun a bit.  the state of the art animation is worth checking out though.  i give this one 7 out of 10 mad scientists just for that!

listening to Ellen Allien's - "Live @ Tresor - Globus - 28-12"