On November 2 2019 the
Austrian filmmaker Gustav Deutsch died. I saw his ‘Welt Spiegel Kino’ at the
International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2005. Welt Spiegel Kino is an episode film about the
first days of cinema history, built up from the collections of filmarchives.
Welt
Spiegel Kino has three pans - taken between 1912 and 1930 – all contain a
cinema, in Vienna, Surabaya, and Porto- and in
the montage, the passers-by become chance protagonists in a series of
micro-tales, which report on both cinematic and world history.
“ The
gaze of a Viennese passer-by in 1912 leads the film as though with a time
machine to the battle of Isonzo, Vienna's Prater, and to the punishing of
suburban ruffians. In Salazar's Portugal, a general awards honours to weeping
veterans, a group of girls stares steadfastly into the camera of an anonymous
film chronicler while their mothers dream from inside a sardine factory of
overcoming their situation. For Gustav Deutsch, the cinema (and pars pro toto
every similarly „insignificant” artefact) is a mirror to the world. And
conversely, the cinema belongs to these „infamous people”, the secondary
characters of history. Their being-in-the-world creates its photochemical
process, the twentieth century person is reflected (and discovered) in the eye
of the camera. “ Michael Loebenstein
In an
interview with the Dutch paper NRC, Deutsch said about his film : “Welt Spiegel Kino is a journey in time and
space, which can open different doors. The stories behind the images work as
hyperlinks or loops. The goal is to get a better look. Not only in the cinema,
but also outside. The film has to go on after the screening, so that you meet
the people on the street with the same interest and imagination as the people
in the film''.
Here are
the best films I saw, distributed in the Netherlands in 2019.
1. Sunset,
original title Napszállta, directed by
László Nemes
“Sunset
is really about our perception of the world,” shrugs Nemes. “It’s a labyrinth.
The audience has to accept confusion as part of the process – and people don’t
like that! I have come to understand that it creates major anxiety. But that is
the challenge and the promise: to experience the world through the eyes of
someone who is not a god. Then you’re not just a popcorn-eating machine, you’re
someone for whom this experience can become personal and subjective and
meaningful.”
Sunset
is more than a historical study. It is a warning that sophisticated societies
can combust. Actually, it’s a prophecy; Nemes thinks it inevitable that we will
follow suit. Not because of the political tinderbox, but because we can’t stop
fiddling with the matches. “I really have the feeling that a self-assured
civilisation such as ours is preparing our own destruction,” he says. “Even
Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, this incredible whirlwind of
creativity and positivity, was already longing for its own demise.”
2.
Lazzaro Felice, directed by Alice Rohrwacher
The part
of the story that’s explained in the newspaper clipping was a real event that
happened in the 80s. Can you talk about what drew you to this story
specifically?
Yes.
It’s true that the very first inspiration was an article, a very small article
clip that I read while I was still in high school. It’s a small event in
Italian history which we discuss but in a grander sense. It’s similar to any
small event that you read about and forget the next day, about people who are
in a privileged position and take advantage of that position to exploit other
people. The Marchesa de Luna is actually a very common character, in that
people often use their power to exploit other people. It’s a universal issue.
So the starting point was to make a political story, but then Lazzaro arrived
and the film changed, taking on this non-religious/religious dimension to it.
When you
say that Lazzaro arrived, where did he arrive from?
He
arrived in the sense that, considering the universality of the story, we felt
the need to lighten it up a bit. We thought about a character who’s so innocent
it’s almost ridiculous. He’s pure to the extent of being revolutionary and
upsetting in his purity; he’s sheer goodness. He’s not the usual character who
has an arc we normally see in films. He doesn’t change, he doesn’t become good,
he’s good from the beginning to the end. Even in a world that’s changing he
cannot change, that’s the way he is since the beginning of time and forever.
3. Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu, directed
by Céline Sciamma
This
movie crushed me. I walked around for days, so sad. Did you anticipate that
reaction?
You
can’t anticipate the reaction. But it’s part of the project to think about the
audience as a group. We’re trying to create a very active viewer, and to put you
in a different position. We have a project for you, you know? It’s not that you
anticipate that there’s going to be a strong response, but I am thinking about
the response when crafting the film.
What
specifically were you thinking about?
The
emotional journey. Creating a new pace, a new rhythm. A new experience for the
viewer, with this slow burn. We have this very radical language in the film,
and my dream is always that the viewer loves the language and starts to speak
the language of the film. Part of the pleasure, part of the excitement, is
being part of the brain of the film. Getting it, and having this joy, speaking
its language. It becomes this new tongue.
Vulture
4. Midsommar,
directed by Ari Aster
“For me,
the film is incidentally a folk horror film. If anything, this is my attempt at
making a big operatic breakup movie that feels the way a breakup feels,” said
Aster. “That sort of makes literal those feelings, where a breakup can feel
apocalyptic, like the world is ending. And so there’s a pleasure in taking a
movie to that extreme.
“Anybody
watching the trailer for ‘Midsommar,’ you probably know where it’s going,
right? These people are going to be sacrificed,” he said. “And so that made it
the least interesting thing for me. It was about getting to that inevitable
ending in a way that feels emotionally surprising. And my way in was by kind of
working through my breakup.”
However,
Aster is conscientious to point out, “Nobody in the movie is a surrogate for my
ex-girlfriend. It’s not like this is what I want to do to my ex, but there is a
feeling of you want to set fire to that part of yourself and that part of your
life and move on clean”.
Los Angeles Times
5. Dragged Across Concrete, directed by S. Craig Zahler
I saw
your film last week and it’s my favorite of your three.
Thank
you. Very, very nice to hear. It’s my favorite of the three, but, you know,
opinions vary, so nice to hear, thanks.
Can I
ask you why it’s your personal favorite?
It’s the
richest world. So, the name of my heavy metal band is Realmbuilder, and I write
novels. I’m currently drawing my first graphic novel, and with Dragged Across
Concrete, I just think it’s the richest of the worlds, and also the most
complicated, in terms of character and character relationships. So I just think
that there’s a lot there to inhabit.
One of
my all-time favorite movies is Prince of the City, Sidney Lumet movie, and that
was a movie I watched probably 20-something times as a kid. And this was a
little bit me trying to get into that space of you’re really living with these
people and sensing the relationships prior to the movie beginning, and those
who survive, what might happen to them afterwards, and really just getting a
sense of how all these different people, you know, husband and wife, boyfriend
and girlfriend, close friends since childhood, working cop partners,
inter-relate.
So there
are a lot of different relationships that show a lot of different facets of
these human beings. And that’s something I was able to explore more deeply here
than in Bone Tomahawk, and Brawl is pretty much a singular journey of a guy
going through spaces, and there’s the relationship with his wife that’s
complex, but other than that, because of the nature of that story, it has less
in terms of those kinds of relationships. So, I am quite proud of that movie,
it’s just a different goal.
/Film
6. Continuer, directed by Joachim Lafosse
Ce qui m’a
beaucoup plu, c’est de mettre en scène une femme et une mère, et qui ne cède
pas sur son désir. Elle a un garçon avec elle, pour qui c’est assez compliqué
de faire le lien entre la femme et la mère, ou "la maman et la
putain" si on veut le dire d’une certaine manière. Ce lien à la mère est
complexe et mystérieux. Je trouve ça intéressant et important de le raconter
aujourd’hui. C’est quoi, pour un fils, un garçon aujourd’hui tout d’un coup de
découvrir les rêves de sa mère ? Et est-ce qu’on doit connaitre les rêves de sa
mère. Cette question, chacun s’en empare comme il veut. Sybil me fait pas mal
penser à ma mère. C’est vraiment un personnage de mère qui ne cède pas sur son
désir. Je pense que ma mère n’a jamais cédé sur son désir.
S’ils sont en
difficulté, je pense, d’une certaine manière que c’est parce qu’ils n’arrivent
pas à se raconter. S’ils n’arrivent pas à se raconter, il n’y a pas tellement
de raison qu’ils se racontent aux spectateurs. Autant je peux être très au fait
de l’existence de l’inconscient, de l’importance du langage, mais je crois
aussi que en ce qui concerne le lien entre les fils et leur mère, il y a
quelque chose qui est au-delà du langage. C’est de là qu’on vient. La mère est
celle qui porte l’enfant, qui le porte par sa voix, par son langage, mais pas
que. Aussi par ses gestes, ses sourires… C’est ça que je voulais filmer.
7. Shadow, original title Ying, directed by Zhang Yimou
Told in
elegant visuals featuring a desaturated palette that draws on traditional
Chinese ink brush painting and the yin-and-yang symbol, Zhang's film alternates
exquisitely composed and designed interior scenes with spectacular battle
sequences in perennially rain-drenched exteriors -- in which umbrellas are
turned into weapons.
"The
use of the umbrellas was my personal creation, but they are based on the yin
and yang concept in Chinese aesthetics," the acclaimed director said.
"When
you have a strong, tough power you must counteract it with soft power, so yin
energy overcomes yang energy," he explained. "The umbrella becomes
very shiny and slippery in the rain, so the concept is: discharging the force
of the enemy."
As far
as the drained colour palette of the film, Zhang explained that he eschewed
computer-generated effects in favour of set design, building complex structures
in specifically coloured materials, and using rain-making machines.
"These
days you can do a lot on the computer, for example, change a colour film into a
black and white one," he said.
"Instead,
I decided to use real objects to achieve the desaturated effect: everything on
the set, every prop, costume and weapon, had to be black, white or a combination
of the two."
"Of
course there were not enough rainy days, so we set up a special team in charge
of making rain," said the director, who worked on the screenplay for three
and a half years and shot the movie in three and a half months, using a crew of
"500-600 people" that included 15 stuntmen.
"We
had machines with different-sized spouts to obtain the kind of rain we wanted
for each scene -- big drops, small drops, drizzling drops," he said.
"We
shot under this water constantly, so the actors were always drenched."
The
interplay between masculine and feminine, yin and yang, is a strong theme in
his movie, and Zhang said that the younger female character played by
21-year-old supporting actress Guan Xiaotong "represents contemporary
young Chinese women who live in the big cities -- a kind of headstrong and
non-conformist girl who doesn't want to accept adults' standards."
"I
like this character because she is different from the others, who are all
struggling for power and survival," Zhang said.
"She
is not struggling for power, but for respect -- that's why she decides to
engage in battle. She represents young people's desire for independence and
freedom."
8. Ad
Astra, directed by James Gray
"I
kind of believe that true terra incognita is the human soul," Gray says,
citing author Kurt Vonnegut. "When you talk about the soul, you're really
talking about the conscious, the unconscious, the subconscious... it's almost
like a series of layers. You keep peeling the layers, but you can never get to
the center.
"That
was what we were trying to delve into in the movie," he says, "(to)
get to a place of tremendous intimacy where we would use a lot of extreme close
ups, where you would hear (Roy's) inner monologue -- which sometimes would be
different from how he's acting outwardly. That we would have access into who
this guy was and who he wanted to be, and how he was lying to the rest of the
world. We found that interesting; much more than spaceships."
"Telemachus
looking for Odysseus was our through-line," he adds. "That enabled
all the exposition, expatiation -- whatever word you want to us -- about this
near-future world. It gave it room to breathe."
One
question that's been around since the time of Ancient Greece is whether we're
alone in the universe. "Ad Astra" wrestles with it too (although it
would be egregious to spoil the film's answer). Gray is clear in his own
beliefs.
"I
don't think there's anything out there," he says. "If there is it's
far; so far we'll never get there, or we can't communicate with it. Now if we
are by ourselves, is that a bad thing? Some people think it is. My own view is
it's not so bad."
9. The Wild Pear Tree, original title Ahlat Agaci,
directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
I loved
the ending of The Wild Pear Tree very much. Was is always going to end like
this? Do you know how a film ends before you start it?
No. I’m
never sure. This was one of the options, but I shot several more endings.
Eventually, I settled with this one. There were more pessimistic ones. There
were very different ones. But as I said before, editing is the only place you
can be sure, because in the writing, in the shooting, you don’t have time to be
sure, or you cannot understand, because when the shots come together and they
hit, when they connect to each other, things change.
Are you
more definitive when it comes to beginnings?
No, the
beginning was different as well. There was a prologue scene in which we see the
father when he was young with his pupils, students, in the garden of the
school. He was telling them about the wild pear tree, and we see Sinan as a
child. We see the authority the father has over Sinan in the early days. He was
more of an ideologist, a different person. It was a prologue set in the winter,
a snowy scene.
How come
you like winter so much?
I don’t
know. I actually don’t like winter, but I like snow. It takes me back to my
childhood somehow. In those days, it was always very snowy. When I see snowflakes,
I feel like a child again myself. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. It keeps
me young and that’s important.
10. In
Fabric, directed by Peter Strickland
I love
what you said about clothing having a history, and wondering what others have
done in those shoes, literally speaking. I found the scenes of the shop workers
incredibly eerie, especially with the mannequins, because it makes you wonder
who these are the people are that are handling the clothes and what are they
doing after hours. What was the thought process behind those scenes?
Peter Strickland: It’s a mixture of things.
You wonder about those mannequins. Were they human once? Are they becoming
human, since they menstruate? Fatma’s character looks like a mannequin when she
takes her wig off, so there's that crossover feel between the staff and the
mannequins.
Obviously, there’s this sex magic ritual
going on. Bodily fluids are inherently part of clothing, though it’s very much
a taboo subject. There’s one vital section of that scene, which is missing from
the film because we didn't have time to shoot it. I really feel the film misses
out on this, but when the boss ejaculates, the sperm lands on the dress which
is for sale. The next morning, it’s formed this kind of silvery design that a
customer thinks looks really stylish, so she buys it. It’s really an extension
from the bodily fluids which are always on clothes anyway, but what if they
actually become the main design?
“I hope
that, watching the film, the audience feels they would do the same as Sheila.
All that frustration at work, that frustration at home with her son’s
girlfriend and her husband leaving her - of course you would want to escape and
buy something nice. I think that’s quite a valid emotion, the power we give
clothing to transform ourselves and escape our problems. I wanted to explore
both the euphoric side of making the purchase and the darker side, such as with
Babs, who has body dysmorphia. She’s a prisoner to how she perceives her body. Really,
In Fabric is just exploring very haunted, visceral reactions to clothing. Reg
has his hosiery fetish from his childhood, which he can't really articulate to
his fiancée. She has body dysmorphia, which he can’t really understand.
Sheila’s dreams of her dead mother, and how she can’t throw her clothing away
because she’s so attached to it”.
Screenrant
Other
notable films : Us (Jordan Peele),
Instinct (Halina Reijn), Ash is the Purest White, original title Jiang hu er nü
(Jia Zhangke) , If Beale street could
talk (Barry Jenkins), Queen of Hearts, original title Dronningen (May el-Thouky),
Dolor Y Gloria (Pedro Almodóvar), Double Vies (Olivier Assayas), Un Amour
Impossible( Catherine Corsini), The Forest of Love, original title Ai-naki mori
de sakebe (Sion Sono), Tarda Para Morir
Joven (Dominga Sotomayor Castillo)
Best films of 2019
According to Bande à Part
According to Film Comment
According to Filmkrant
According to Hyperallergic
According to Indiewire
According to The New York Times
According to The New Yorker
According to The Playlist
According to Sight & Sound
According to Slant Magazine
According to Thrillist
According to Vulture
According to John Waters
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