« A Touch of Sin » de Jia Zhang-Ke

Honneur à la grande dame, la Sélection Officielle, composée de la Compétition et d'Un Certain Regard. En Compétition, on sera forcés de faire le tri parmi les 20 films. Comme toujours les grands abonnés sont là : on en déplore certains (le surfait Paolo Sorrentino qui, après plusieurs films tous plus mauvais les uns que les autres, a encore les faveurs des sélectionneurs), et l'on se réjouit d'avance pour d'autres. C'est notamment le cas avec la délégation asiatique. Si, concernant le retour de Takashi Miike avec « Shield of Straw », thriller au pitch pas très excitant, on demande à voir, les venues de Jia Zhang-Ke et de Hirokazu Kore-Eda sont en revanche bien plus réjouissantes. Jia Zhang-Ke poursuivra son exploration des grands changements sociétaux qui agitent la Chine avec « A Touch of Sin », et son collègue japonais viendra, avec « Tel père, tel fils », continuer son travail sur la famille à travers l'histoire de deux enfants échangés à la naissance.

« La vénus à la fourrure » de Roman Polanski

Les cinéastes français seront en nombre en Compétition (c'est d'ailleurs le cas dans la plupart des sélections). On parlait déjà ici même en janvier de la curiosité suscitée par le prochain film d'Arnaud Desplechin avec Benicio Del Toro (et Mathieu Amalric, bien évidemment), et c'est la même fébrilité qui nous gagne face à « Michael Kohlhaas » d'Arnaud Des Pallières, avec Mads Mikkelsen en marchand de chevaux dans les Cévennes au XVIème siècle. « La Vénus à la fourrure » de Roman Polanski verra un metteur en scène de théâtre (Mathieu Amalric, encore) se prendre de passion pour une femme délurée interprétée par Emmanuelle Seigner. Là aussi, la curiosité est de mise. En revanche, on accueillera avec plus de prudence « La Vie d'Adèle » d'Abdellatif Kechiche, dont le film précédent, « Vénus noire », représentait le pire du film d'auteur autoritaire et lénifiant. Même chose pour le film de l'iranien Asghar Farhadi – intitulé « Le Passé » – tourné en France avec des acteurs français, tant « Une Séparation » avait tout de l'œuvre suspecte et manipulatrice. Pour finir, il faut avouer qu'il n'y à, a priori, pas grand-chose à attendre de l'énième film de François Ozon, « Jeune et jolie », ou d'«Un château en Italie » de Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, qui font tous deux office d'outsider poids moyen.

« Only Lovers Left Alive » de Jim Jarmusch

Du côté des américains, la sélection de « The Immigrant » de James Gray ne constitue pas une surprise – beaucoup en font déjà un favori, peut-être à tort étant donné qu'il n'a jamais rien remporté sur la croisette – pas plus que celle des frères Coen. Le prochain Jim Jarmusch exhale quant à lui un joli parfum d'étrangeté, puisqu'on y parle apparemment de vampires et d'amours traversant les siècles, registre plutôt inattendu et bienvenu en Compétition, avec « Only Lovers Left Alive » (avec Tilda Swinton). Et puis l'on aura l'occasion de voir ce qui devrait être le dernier film de Steven Soderbergh – qui prend sa retraite – « Ma vie avec Liberace », où un Michael Douglas méconnaissable, pianiste virtuose et homosexuel entame une relation secrète avec Scott Thorson, interprété par Matt Damon, pour ce qui devrait encore être un drôle de voyage. En revanche, on devrait pouvoir faire l'impasse sur « Nebraska » par le gentillet Alexander Payne (« Sideways », « The Descendants »).

« Les salauds » de Claire Denis

Du côté d'Un Certain Regard, on relèvera que Claire Denis n'a pas eu droit aux faveurs de la Compétition alors qu'elle semblait y avoir toute sa place ; c'est donc ici qu'elle présentera « Les Salauds », film auquel on prêtera un regard attentif, avec Vincent Lindon et Chiara Mastroianni.  Le retour d'Alain Guiraudie est également à surveiller, puisque « L'inconnu du lac » mettra en scène la passion dangereuse entre deux hommes le temps d'un été, pour ce qui s'annonce comme une intrigante mutation du cinéaste aveyronnais. On attendra avec impatience la projection de « L'Image manquante » de Rithy Panh, qui poursuit son travail d'exhumation historique sur le régime des Khmers Rouges. À noter qu'en ouverture d'Un Certain Regard, on pourra découvrir le nouveau film de Sofia Coppola, « The Bling Ring », dont on peut avouer que la bande-annonce qui circule actuellement fait un peu peur à voir. On craint le pire.

« Le congrès » d' Ari Folman

À la Quinzaine des réalisateurs, on retrouvera un projet très attendu, le nouveau film d'Ari Folman (« Valse avec Bachir »), adapté du « Congrès de Futurologie » par l'auteur de science-fiction Stanislas Lem. Le film mélangera prises de vues réelles et animation, pour un récit qu'on imagine vertigineux. À noter également les grands retours de cinéastes octogénaires : Marcel Ophuls, que l'on avait perdu de vue depuis « Veillées d'armes » en 1994, et Alejandro Jodorowski, qui viendront tous deux présenter leurs nouveaux films. Le cinéaste franco-chilien arrive avec un étrange projet intitulé « La Danza de la realidad », un exercice d'autobiographie imaginaire, et Ophuls, avec « Un voyageur », nous livrera ses mémoires. On attend beaucoup de ses deux films aux auspices testamentaires.

Deux autres cinéastes français, plus jeunes, dont on attend également quelques réjouissances : Antonin Peretjatko et « La Fille du 14 Juillet », où comment élaborer un film revigorant aux accents « nonsense » sur fond de crise financière en France, ainsi que Serge Bozon et son « Tip Top », comédie policière, récit d'une enquête sur la mort d'un indic. Il ne faudra pas oublier non plus la Semaine de la critique, qui présente toujours des premières et secondes œuvres intéressantes, et constitue un bon terreau de découverte. D'autant plus qu'elle aura l'honneur de projeter cette année, en clôture, un film à sketches en 3D par Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway et Edgar Pêra.

« La Bataille de Solférino » de Justine Triet

Enfin, un petit mot sur la sélection de l'ACID (Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion), où l'on retrouvera le très réussi « The Strange Little Cat » du jeune cinéaste allemand Ramon Zürcher (vu cette année au Festival de Berlin en section Forum), et où l'on pourra découvrir le premier long-métrage de Justine Triet (réalisatrice d'un court assez remarqué : « Vilaine Fille, Mauvais Garçon »), dont la rumeur n'annonce que du bien. « La Bataille de Solférino » met en scène deux parents séparés, et prend place durant la journée du second tour de la dernière élection présidentielle française. Il fut tourné en partie ce même soir où les résultats tombent, aux abords d'un siège du Parti Socialiste en liesse. Quand la fiction rejoint la réalité, s'en accommode, se l'approprie. Maintenant c'est à vous les festivaliers.

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Food and music festivals have been with us for a long time, ever since the folks who organized Woodstock dropped the ball and forgot people would have to be fed and then got bailed out by Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm and their brown rice. The longest-running one, of course, has been the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which has been going on since 1970, and which provided many an out-of-towner with their first taste of crawfish, alligator (which doesn't taste like much) and pralines. As the percentage of New Orleans jazz and heritage dropped (Billy Joel and Fleetwood Mac were this year's news) the food remained an attraction.

Hog Farm "chicks" developing Hippie Sludge at Woodstock, 1969

It's also no secret that Today's Youth are caught up in the current food scene in a big way: go to any certified hipster center in the U.S. -- Austin, Portland, Brooklyn -- and you'll find some of the most interesting food in the country, often at very affordable prices because it's being served out of a food trailer. Last year, I saw it reliably reported, there were 1800 food trailers operating in Austin. I have no figures for this year, but I'm certain it's more than that -- and then there's Brooklyn and Portland, etcetera. On occasion, the proprietors of these places graduate to a full-fledged restaurant: the most expensive meal I have actively hated was at one of these places, Foreign and Domestic, which, thanks to Barnum's Law, is still going strong.

The Post article's claim that "cuisine is stealing music’s role in helping young people forge and declare an identity" is ridiculous, though. Youth culture has never been exclusively about music: when I discovered rock and roll in 1957, it was partially because the older brother of the friend who turned me on to it was involved with hot-rods and motorcycles, and punk was inseparable from the art and fashion that went along with it. The fact that the current generation of indie-rockers or whatever you want to call them is attracted to the preparation and serving of food, though, brings up some interesting questions, because cooking is definitely integral to the scene -- and not just because a lot of the musicians have put in time waiting tables, either.

The most interesting contrast to me is that a lot of the music being produced right now is pretty solipsistic, either in lyrics or in production. I'm not alone in thinking this, since it came up spontaneously in correspondence with a young musician in California, son of some old friends of mine, yesterday. "My output has definitely suffered the consequences of trying to do things by myself too much," he wrote.  "It's generally pretty hard to get people together to do anything like practice, even when there's money behind it." This was actually pretty shocking to read, even if I wasn't in the least surprised. He went on to lay part of the blame on "technologies that have come along to make it possible for more or less anyone to work alone.  Seems like many of the figures of the past who worked in isolation were solitary geniuses," he continued, "but that pattern definitely hasn't extended to the everyday laptop user."

I mentioned to him that I'd always used Booker T and the MGs as my paradigm for cooperative music making, four guys who produced simplicity via ESP: their recordings were made live in the studio, although there may have been some fixing in the mixing. The ability to check what someone else is doing as it's happening is, to me, essential to, errr, communicating the communication. It's why I haven't gotten what some jazz artists were doing until I saw them live, and, once seen, never puzzled over them again. And it's why a number of country artists' output (particularly duets like Porter Waggoner and Dolly Parton and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn) declined when multi-tracking arrived and before their producers knew how to use it.

But, if the unwanted press releases that seem to flood my in-box every day are anything to go by, a lot of band names today boil down to one person. Iron and Wine, for instance -- great name -- is one guy. And my friend is right: with the technology available today, anyone can make a record and make it at least sound good. It doesn't give you talent, and it sure doesn't give you the sense of urgency that playing well with others does, but it will help you release what you think the world needs to know about meeee, meeeee, meeeeeee.

Now compare this to a restaurant. A chef makes a decision and his crew works to make it a reality: the pork chops are on tonight, so everyone in the kitchen knows what they have to do to make them come out as specified on the menu, and when the order comes in, everybody does their thing and the chef's famous pork chops come out the other end. A good kitchen can make Booker T and the MGs look like the world's sloppiest jam band.

Emeril Lagasse, signing a cookbook, via Wiki Commons

And this brings me to the question of whether or not the rock star/chef axis has any validity. Any rock star will tell you that the band is essential, and the band's being able to work together is key, no matter if there is only one person who's the focus of the audience's attention. Few people see the chef (although some do on occasion pass through the dining room checking things out and fishing for compliments), and they never see him doing the thing that makes him famous, although some post-restaurant chefs, like Anthony Bourdain and Emerile Lagasse, have become television stars. Once chefs have risen to rock-star level, though, you're not going to eat any of their meals.

Because I have never believed that music must be of central importance to youth culture, but have always known that collective activity, be it rock festivals, political demonstrations, or cooperative gardening, brings young people (people of all ages, ideally) together working towards a common goal, often for the first time, I've observed a lot of this kind of activity going on among my friends' kids. It's still consumption-oriented -- it doesn't really matter, structurally, if you're watching a show or eating a meal -- but as the music world changes and this generation ages, that may change to some extent, especially as family life intrudes on the old party routine. That this previously unseen element has become part of this generation's youth bohemia could point to a change in a bunch of stuff, including attitudes towards consumption and cooperative behavior, not to mention agriculture and eating patterns.

As far as contemporary popular music, I was on a panel at SXSW a couple of years back called "I'm Not Old, Your Music Does Suck," which you can listen to here. The fact of one-person music-making, combined with audiences who'd seemingly rather record the show on their phones than actually pay attention to it while it's happening in front of them, not to mention the lack of any real critical voices in an era of unprecedented cultural overproduction, doesn't bode well for quality: that music really does suck, although the technology at least renders it competent. If this causes a Darwinian die-off of a lot of music, I won't be terribly upset.

I've only just started thinking about all of this, though, and may well have more to say on the topic in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, I invite your comments.

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Quelques semaines après la déferlante « Spring Breakers », la tentation serait grande de revenir sur le film, de le considérer avec la hauteur et le recul que le temps nous a conféré depuis sa première vision, et d'établir un verdict qui ressemblerait à quelque chose de définitif. Mais cela, nous ne le ferons pas – pas tout de suite en tout cas. D'une part parce que la parole critique a déjà été suffisamment abondante sur le sujet pour ne pas avoir envie d'en rajouter à la cacophonie, et surtout parce qu'il paraîtrait absurde de déjà vouloir tirer un trait sur un film qui déroute et pose bien des questions – questions qui restent encore ouvertes à l'heure qu'il est.

Mais « Spring Breakers » a au moins un mérite que l'on peut aborder dès maintenant : celui d'avoir remis dans la lumière un cinéaste que l'on pensait avoir perdu en cours de route. Harmony Korine est un personnage à part du cinéma américain. Considéré comme un jeune prodige – il écrit le scénario de « Kids » de Larry Clark à 25 ans et réalise son premier film durant la même période –  le cinéaste, originaire de Nashville, a connu depuis des fortunes diverses. Korine agite le monde de la cinéphilie : on parle de lui comme un petit génie, on le traite d'imposteur, de cinéaste pédant, manipulateur et surestimé. Maintenant que son dernier film a mis tout le monde d'accord (ou presque), la tentation la plus grande était donc celle de revenir sur les 4 longs-métrages qui composent sa filmographie avant « Spring Breakers », avec l'envie d'y jeter un œil nouveau, et de voir ce qu'elle révélerait du parcours chaotique qui amène aujourd'hui Korine sous les feux de la rampe, comme le truc hype et branché du moment.

Il y a, dans chacun de ses films, une sorte de désir kamikaze qui pousse le cinéaste à tenter de réconcilier l'irréconciliable, de réunir des extrêmes absurdes et de les faire se rencontrer. Le cas le plus probant, le plus lisible et peut-être le moins intéressant se cristallise dans le mal-aimé « Mister Lonely » (2007), qui met en scène une cohorte de sosies de stars vivant retirés dans un château en Écosse. Le récit appose à cette histoire de croyance profane (réussir à exister à travers l'identité de quelqu'un d'autre) celle d'un véritable miracle vécu par des bonnes sœurs dans une forêt tropicale. Korine ajoute à cette provocation celle d'une narration qui ne cherche pas le sacré, mais plutôt le déroulement d'un quotidien dénué de sens. Il s'y joue finalement le même type d'oppositions et de connexions que dans « Spring Breakers », où le profane, le sacré et l'absurdité d'un mode d'existence se côtoient comme les constituants d'une même entité. Mais Korine ne peut s'empêcher, dans « Mister Lonely », de tirer le récit du côté de la fable moraliste et naïve, ce que précisément il évite de faire dans « Spring Breakers ». Reste quelques beaux moments de montage où Korine réussit à synthétiser la matière de deux récits qui jamais ne se rencontrent, et pourtant coexistent au sein d'un même film avec une étonnante acuité.

Mais « Mister Lonely », avec son image léchée et son déroulement narratif plutôt classique, n'est pas très représentatif de ce que Korine avait entrepris jusque-là. Ses deux précédents films, « Gummo » (1997) et « Julien Donkey-Boy » (1999), sont eux travaillés par une esthétique un peu crade, avec une image très granuleuse, et proposent un grand écart plus prolifique et moins appuyé. « Gummo »est une plongée au sein d'une banlieue déshéritée, qui met en scène une multitude de personnages, ébauchant ainsi un portrait du quartier, d'une génération « white trash » livrée à elle-même. Korine travaille ici sur la base d'un réalisme documentaire qui oscille entre scènes du quotidien et instants fictionnels, entre moments d'attente et d'ennui et brusques entrées de la spectaculaire réalité des choses (drogues, difformité des êtres, euthanasie d'une vieille dame). Le tout pourrait être absolument insoutenable et complaisant si Korine ne jetait pas un regard d'égalité sur ses personnages (il joue même un petit rôle, le temps d'une scène), comme une peinture de sa propre jeunesse, de ses amis, de son quartier.

« Julien Donkey-Boy » a été élaboré selon les règles du Dogme 95, et suit le parcours erratique d'un jeune homme schizophrène, vivant au sein d'une famille disloquée. Le père (joué par Werner Herzog, qui interprétera également le rôle d'un prêtre dans « Mister Lonely ») est dépressif, le frère est obsédé par le sport et la sœur, jouée par Chloé Sévigny, s'avère être la seule personne réellement proche de Julien. Le film avance par à-coup, sans développer de sens particulier, si ce n'est celui de coller à la perception chaotique de la réalité de son personnage. Il en ressort un film touchant et cruel, porté par une énergie et une ferveur quasi religieuse, dont le procédé de tournage en apparence simple est contrebalancé par un montage très sophistiqué. Toujours partagé entre la volonté de provoquer le spectateur, de questionner sa façon de voir les films et son désir de porter à l'écran des personnages qu'il aime et admire, Korine trouve ici un point d'équilibre marquant.

Que dire enfin de « Trash Humpers » (2009), tant le film échappe à toutes les grilles de lecture classique ? Cela ressemble à une mauvaise blague. C'est une vidéo de found footage tournée en VHS, où 4 personnages, dont le cinéaste lui-même, portent des masques figurant des visages de vieilles personnes, et passent leurs journées et nuits à errer dans un quartier pourri de Nashville. Au passage, ils baisent avec des poubelles, tuent un homme, observent des gens par la fenêtre. Korine pousse le côté « white trash » à son paroxysme en figurant des dégénérés sans foi ni loi, abrutis et repoussants. Le film est une comédie du non-sens absolument grotesque et grossière, qui allie le rire et l'effroi. Un grand écart de plus, pour un cinéaste dont on se rend compte, finalement, qu'il serait bien prématuré de vouloir le classer dans une case ou une autre, tant son inspiration semble éparse et vouée à changer de cap régulièrement. Ce n'est visiblement pas « Spring Breakers » qui y changera quelque chose, et c'est tant mieux.

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I've had a bunch (although with luck nobody's adopted me for theirs), and some have been famous and some have just been people I've known who figured out a right way to do something that I've admired and tried to adapt to my own situation. And then there are the ones you didn't even know about because they were behind something very important to you and you weren't aware of it. This idea occurred to me this weekend, when I had an exchange of e-mails with a friend who told me that she'd gotten a copy of the Whole Earth Catalog as a teenager, and her reading in it reminded her of the way she cruises the Internet these days.

I don't know if it was this one or the one after it, but I had an article in the Whole Earth Catalog, about the Moog Synthesizer, the result of a visit to Beaver & Krause's studio on a trip to California before I moved there. It was probably an adaptation of the one I had in Rolling Stone, probably my second article there, and I remember the afternoon as a lot of fun as the two synthesizer pioneers gradually demonstrated the complex patchboard and explained why, currently, a polyphonic one (ie, one capable of playing more than one note at a time) was impossible. They also complained about how a similar demonstration given to George Harrison with the idea of selling him a Moog had been surreptitiously recorded by the ex-Beatle and released as Electronic Sound on the Zapple label. But, like my friend, I found the Whole Earth Catalog's utopianism and breadth of scope to be both bracing and useful. Hippies, it seemed to me, were real good on the utopian end of things, but not, maybe, at the useful. The "access to tools" bit was infectious: you want to do it? Here.

I guess our discussion was fuelled by an article that the Guardian had run this past Sunday on Stewart Brand, who had founded the WEC and then gone on with its successor, the Whole Earth Review, for a number of years. I found that the article, while basically a puff piece, elided over some things (like some of his more absurd environmental positions, some of which are detailed in the comments) while contextualizing him better than I'd seen before. It's hard not to write a puff piece on Brand: he's incredibly charismatic and charming in person, even when you're boring him, as I was in 2004 when I interviewed him for the New York Times at Ars Electronica in Linz, at its 25th anniversary, where he was one of the distinguished speakers. It would have been heretical to celebrate an event like that and not invite the man whose thinking influenced its founding, after all. But the glaze went over his eyes when I thanked him for his having co-founded the Well, the online community where I've spent a lot of time over the past dozen years, and which has, through its members and its many conversations, enriched my life immeasurably. He wasn't much interested in talking about that; he'd moved well beyond it, and his interests were elsewhere.

Brand in front of some of his interests. Source: Wikipedia Commons

One of the interests he had then and continues to have is the Long Now Foundation, which could well turn out to be as important as the Whole Earth Catalog was in its day -- although one of the primary tenets of Long Now is that none of us will live to see its promise completely fulfilled. After all, it's about long-term thinking and long-term planning, two things the human race has pretty obviously not done a whole lot of. And, sitting on its board, is another guy who bubbled up into my view this week. Here he is at a board meeting:

Brian Eno at Long Now Foundation meeting, 2006, via Wiki Commons

Brian Eno's another of those omnivorous thinkers who's been around for a few decades and had an enormous influence on things, only his arena has, until recently, been the rather small one of popular music. From his emergence as the most glammed-out member of Roxy Music (Brian Ferry's tuxedo-clad roué being his counterweight) to his years of Grammy® Awards for U2's albums, it's been an odd journey, at least for those of us who were watching and hoping he'd have some multidimensional breakthroughs that would have weight and substance to them. That, of course, is an unfair burden to put on someone who's always defined himself primarily as an artist: they're not supposed to fulfill your expectations, something all too many rock fans need to remember.

Eno as we know him, not necessarily as he is

And it was an article this past week, by the dependably excellent Simon Reynolds, distributed in a publication called The Daily Note as part of something called the Red Bull Music Academy New York 2013, that reminded me of Eno's promise, and how that had probably gotten us fanboys a bit too amped-up. His time in New York enabled him to be near the red-hot center of something much bigger than any one individual that exploded over the landscape at a time of cultural and technological innovation -- and it was happening right there and right then. His abrupt departure in 1984 didn't kill the energy at all, but it did signal a change in his own ideas about what he wanted to do. He'd arrived as a total amateur, a guy who liked gizmos but didn't really know how to use them, and he left as a master of the recording studio and inventor of musics nobody even knew were possible or even necessary: the whole field of ambient music, after all, has galloped away from the modest beginnings of Discreet Music, On Land and Music for Airports, but nobody has yet bested them.

Just as I'm not going to criticize Stewart Brand for his odd defense of nuclear power (and, I've heard, fracking), I'm not going to criticize Eno for using his gifts to provide financial stability for himself and his family, even if it's diminished the quality of some of his output. (I did, however, manage to ding him for a lazy column for the British magazine Spectator, in which he gushed about how the collapse of the record industry meant that artists were now in full command of their careers and could make their money on the road directly from their fans; the magazine printed what I thought was just a Web comment as a Letter to the Editor). His support for the Long Now not only gives it some excellent visibility, it also attracts some of the right kind of people to the ideas it's trying to propagate. It's certainly okay for intellectuals to spend part of their energy on being dillettantes, in my opinion, because it's really just stretching muscles they don't use as much as their other ones. It's when people accept conclusions of any kind uncritically that there's trouble. I mean, if Stewart Brand succeeds in his de-extinction project and passenger pigeons join their near relatives in crapping on the statues in our parks, just how angry can we get about that?

(P.S.: You Whole Earth fans who happen to be in Berlin this spring and summer might want to know about this exhibition being mounted at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt).

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En à peine trois films, Jeff Nichols a réussi à se faire une place au sein du cinéma d'auteur mondial, sans jamais forcer le trait, sans chercher non plus l'escalade dans le spectaculaire. Ses films sont faits de récits singuliers, qui prennent tous racine dans ce que le cinéma américain a de plus conventionnel : la famille. Dans « Shotgun Stories », trois frères affrontent la mort de leur père et entrent en conflit avec leurs demi-frères. Dans « Take Shelter », c'est un père de famille qui tente de faire face à des visions apocalyptiques qui l'assaillent et fragilisent son entourage. « Mud » franchit un pas supplémentaire dans cette démarche ; si la famille, toujours en crise, reste la base sur laquelle le récit se retranche régulièrement, c'est le désir d'aventure qui prend le dessus, comme une envie d'aller à la rencontre du monde pour s'enrichir et revenir régler les conflits familiaux.

Shotgun Stories avec Michael Shannon

La famille en lutte avec elle-même, tel est donc le cœur des films de Jeff Nichols. Rien de candide ou de moraliste là-dedans, car la structure familiale et ses récit conventionnels d'éclatement/reconstruction offrent l'occasion à Nichols d'aller sur le terrain du genre, que ce soit le thriller ou le fantastique. Et c'est en se frottant à cet « en dehors » du genre que le récit initiatique gagne une ampleur qui a valeur de conte ou de parabole. À ceci près que chez Nichols, cette dimension pourrait paraître tout à fait annexe, car jamais elle ne s'abaisse à se lester d'une morale du bon sens et des bons sentiments ; au contraire, elle est l'écrin qui permet d'accueillir les personnages et de leur donner l'impulsion qui va les aider à prendre leur envol.

C'est donc avec une certaine humilité de la narration que ce cinéma s'épanouit. Nichols s'en tient fermement à son histoire, en développe les moindres ramifications, explore toutes les possibilités, sans chercher à produire plus que ce qui est présent, en germe, dans le récit. On a pu voir récemment, avec par exemple « The Place Beyond the Pines » de Derek Cianfrance ou encore « Les Bêtes du sud sauvage » de Benh Zeitlin – deux cinéastes issus de la même génération que Nichols – que chercher à faire entrer dans la diégèse, presque par effraction, toutes sortes d'effets de manche ne pouvait qu'aboutir à réduire la portée du film. Car il y a ouvertement chez ces deux réalisateurs la volonté de réaliser un grand film – ce qui apporte boursouflures scénaristiques chez le premier, et une épuisante tendance à la surenchère des images chez le second – là où l'on sent que Nichols cherche, tout simplement, à mettre en place les moyens adéquats à la constitution d'un long-métrage qui soit cohérent.

Matthew McConaughey dans Mud

« Mud », c'est l'histoire d'Ellis et Neckbone, deux garçons vivant au bord du Mississippi – le premier avec des parents au bord du divorce, le second avec son oncle – et qui rencontrent un homme reclus sur une île. Le rapport de ces deux enfants à cet homme prénommé Mud vient nourrir la globalité du film : qui est-il ? D'où vient-il ? Que cherche-t-il ? Que fait-il là, sur cette île ? Que cache-t-il ? Avec la même simplicité désarmante que ces questions, Nichols fait avancer le récit et gravite autour du passé de Mud, de ce qui le pousse à attendre sur cette île au milieu du Mississippi, déflorant progressivement les différents aspects de son histoire, apportant d'autres perspectives, d'autres éléments. La puissance du film tient en la croyance du réalisateur au potentiel de son histoire, à ses déclinaisons, qu'il met en scène avec calme et assurance, laissant aux fantastiques paysages de l'Arkansas le soin d'apporter leur touche de fabuleux et de légendaire.

En adoptant le point de vue d'Ellis, Nichols choisit de se placer du côté des rêveurs, des idéalistes, de ceux qui se mentent pour façonner le monde à leur façon en espérant qu'un jour il le devienne. Sans trop dévoiler l'intrigue, on peut dire qu'il est beaucoup question de croyance et d'amour dans « Mud », avec l'espoir fou qu'ils suffiront à remettre les choses à leur bonne place. La bienveillance dont Nichols fait preuve à l'égard de tous ses personnages, ainsi que le refus total de céder à la moindre once de cynisme font de « Mud » un grand film d'amour. Et lorsqu'en plus l'amour se trouve des deux côtés de la caméra – il faut voir comment le réalisateur accompagne tous ses personnages, sans exception, jusqu'à la fin –, il n'y a rien de plus beau que la limpidité et la clairvoyance d'un récit, simplicité qui à la fois nous échappe et nous réjouit.

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There is a sub genre of documentary films where a filmmaker goes on a quest for a parent or important figure in his/her life only to be rebuffed, disappointed, or otherwise hit a dead end, turning the film into a portrait of the filmmaker rather than the attempted subject. We’ve seen it play out from “Roger And Me”, to “Looking For Fidel”, to the film I talked about last week, “Mother’s Day”. But the film, “Dragan Wende - West Berlin" or how the trabant invaded West Berlin and ruined my uncle’s kingdom”, provides a refreshing change, partly because Vuk Maksimoviĉ, the nominal “seeker” turns over the nominal “authorship” of the film to co-directors Dragan von Petrovic and Lena Müller and participates as the cameraman, but mostly because the subject of the film, Vuk’s uncle Dragan - who enjoys shaking off unwanted callers by claiming to be away on indefinite vacation in Barcelona - not only accepts him, he lets him move in, and immediately proceeds to suck him into his rather questionable lifestyle.

Dragan - who comes off as a kind of Harvey Keitel on a bad day, channeling Ratso Rizzo on a good day - was once a darling of Ku’damm night life working at all the hottest bars and discos of West Berlin. For Vuk, who grew up in Belgrade, Dragan was the hero of all his father’s stories of the glittering wild life of Berlin during the time of the Wall.

Vuk discovers him today, working the door of a whore house called Caligula, where the sign outside offers, “99 Euros - All you can eat and all you can f*ck”, and Dragon gets a cut for every customer he can rope in off the street.  But there’s no time for disillusionment, Vuk is too busy being the butt of his uncle’s jokes, jibes and crabby sense of affection. Dragan would like nothing better than to see Vuk following in his footsteps so as to keep a good job “in the family”.

And the family we are introduced to includes Dragan’s best friend Dule - who made and lost millions several times over, and if he now owes the German government 5 million Euros in fines for various forms of financial fraud, he also claims to be sitting on a secret bank account of 290 million, which he unfortunately can’t access because his partner died with the account number; his other friend known as Zlatko the Baker - a former West Berlin party boy and wheeler dealer who gave up hustling to raise a family, who is happy to gives us tips on various forms of theft now that the statute of limitations has past; and Dragan’s father, Mile, who as a Yugoslav guest worker helped build West Berlin after the war and who, though a committed Communist, grudgingly admits that he reaped the benefits of Capitalism. Happily retired back in native Yugoslavia - though stubbornly refusing to accept that it no longer exists - we meet Mile on his annual visit to Berlin to re-affirm his “residency” so he can continue claiming his pension. Dragan calls this “the worse 10 days of the year”.

But what begins as something like a Berlin version of “Grumpy Old Men”, actually develops into a rather unique perspective of Cold War Berlin. We get to see it through the eyes of this bunch of former boosters and petty crooks who, coming out of the former Yugoslavia with it’s own rather unique take on Communism, knew how to play the system(s) and reap the benefits of both East and West. As far as Dragan is concerned he’d rather have the Wall back, only 10 meters higher. “America was the left bum and Russia the right and we we’re the asshole inside. But we were living! I lived like Count Yorga, The Vampire - clothes, money, girls...and now?! Phooey!”

But for all his complaining, Dragan stubbornly holds on to the past, and somehow or other makes it work. Just not so well. Following him through it all feels like a Seinfeld comedy, basically about nothing, but peppered with odd characters and situations. And the film happily follows the Seinfeld formula of “no hugging, no learning.” For a semi-delusional, Dragan’s living the dream.

If Dragan would love to turn back time, the characters portrayed in Petra Tschörtner’s 1991 film “Berlin Prenzlauer Berg 1990” are looking to the future. They just don’t quite know what future they’re looking to. While nowhere as snarkily witty as in “Dragan Wende”, the view we get here of the end of Berlin as an island is arguably just as unusual and unexpected for those of us on the outside.

Presented in the festival as a retrospective look at Berlin, it is all the more poignant for being captured as it happened, and seen today as a frozen moment of time and place - the Prenzlauer Berg district of the former East Berlin in the summer 1990, beginning in May and climaxing in July with monetary union. Reunification was still to come. It was a time in between when the lid was lifted off East Germany and the load of hay had not yet fallen.

The film begins with a broadcast from a pirate radio station, Radio P that originated out of a communally occupied building on the corner of Wilhelm-Pieck-Str. (named for the former President of East Germany) and Schönhauser Allee. A pirate station because, as they say, “we can’t wait for whatever law or whatever country to be worked out”.

Their determination is contrasted by a scene in a clothing factory where the workers have to confront the fact that in the new no-longer-East Germany, no one wants their clothes anymore. The owner of a clothing store contemplates the necessity of an all new inventory.

Meanwhile in another part of town, a group of young people are opening a club - which later became the well known music venue, the Knaack Klub. Their aim is not to be a commercial venture but to provide a place where the local kids can come and feel at home and that everything can be like it always was - in a good sense. A tv set in the room is showing a report on the expected “good life” that is coming. They all burst out laughing.

East German queers let loose for a wild night in a drag club. A rollicking birthday party in a beer hall is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman dressed as a cowgirl, handing out free Marlboro cigarettes. An old woman walks down the street singing a song that goes, “and now we can laugh”. She and some friends meet in a neighborhood bar. Feeling loose and tipsy, one of them declares, “The wall can stay but the shit needs to go.”

We see another group of young people trying to put together a community center. Self described anarchists, they see Anarchy as work - work on yourself. They get attacked by a neo-fascist gang.

What to do in case of a Fascist attack

On June 30 at midnight a newscaster reports that the DM has now become the official currency of East Germany. Monetary union is celebrated in the Franz Club, where a rock band plays the East German national anthem and a girl in clown make-up throws money in the air like confetti.

In the early morning hours, workers in the kitchen of a curry wurst stand are talking about the new goods and the new prices. No one knows what will happen next, but they open for the day and make their first sale.

The film ends with a shot of a building being demolished, clearly indicating the end of an era. But one wonders how much change the filmmaker anticipated at that time. Seeing the film today it’s amazing to see how much is literally not there anymore. Not the drag club, not the Franz Club, and, as of a couple of years ago, not even the Knaack Klub. Also gone is the beer hall, the clothing factory, and community center. The pirate station, the building that housed it and the person who ran it are also no longer with us. The filmmaker, too, has gone to her reward.

But we’re left with a film that’s both revealing and relevant today as a simple and unassuming slice of life. As Walter Cronkite used to say, “and that’s the way it is.”
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Evböregi, which may have been involved. Via Wiki Commons

After that, we went to an actual Broadway play, the soundtrack for which we already had in the house, courtesy of the Columbia Record Club: Camelot. My sister and I were blown away, as was our mother, although she did grouse about Robert Goulet taking the night off in favor of an understudy, who was good, but not Robert Goulet.   The occasion was my father getting his first check for the book he'd spent months working on. It was a guaranteed best-seller, being the latest edition of the definitive textbook on industrial traffic management, his occupation, used in business schools across the nation. It was also, I learned a couple of years later, used at the University of California at Berkeley. A friend had worked in the stock room of their bookstore and asked me if I were related to the author whose books had almost broken his back. That would have been the next edition, though; they kept coming, although my father retired somewhere in there. He died in 1996, long after he'd stopped getting checks from the book, and, I think, after the job he'd done for most of his life stopped existing because the information was all on line and could be accessed by any idiot who could work a computer.   Other than the Armenian dinner and possibly part of my college education, I never saw the money he made from the book, though. And if its subject hadn't been changing as quickly as it did and, instead, he'd had a piece of one of those definitive textbooks for an unchanging subject taught in colleges, like basic mathematics or art history (both of which change, sure, but not like this), I still wouldn't have seen any money from it. This seems obvious, since I never did a minute of work on it and, in fact, had no interest in it. Had he made a great deal of money off of it, I might have inherited some of that money, but it's not like I was entitled to it.   Sorry to bang on at such great length about this, but I'm fresh off yet another confused screed about copyright and piracy and entitlement that's going to make me nuts if I think about it much longer. It came to me via Salon, which seems to have stopped being a magazine and become an aggregator a la the Huffington Post.  (Neither pays its contributors, so I don't know why I persist in getting Salon's digest in my e-mail). This, an excerpt from a book called Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the 20th Century, by one Alex Sayf Cummings, a history prof at Georgia State University, came with the headline "Forget Copyright! We've Always Stolen Music," which is both provocative and boneheaded.   I'm not sure what, exactly, Prof. Cummings is getting at here, except a publication necessary for him to keep his job, but the subhead, "The politics of copyright place the interests of big business over fans, the public -- and artists" isn't it. In fact, what he's saying has been far more snappily expressed, with far more practical and usable conclusions drawn from it in Chris Ruen's book Freeloading, which I sort of tentatively reviewed here last week. As Ruen points out, and Cummings, at least in this excerpt, does not, there's more to "the record business" than the same cast of greedy villains who get trotted out over and over in discussions like this and used as illustrations to demonize the industry as a whole. Nor does the illustration, a cassette with a label purporting that the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy, help matters any. Led Zeppelin was a huge band, but, at least at the time that album was issued, it was still on a label that had been started by fans, two of whom were still principals in the company.

This oldie-but-goodie graphic points out the futility involved in discussing this stuff rationally. At the time it was circulated home taping was not illegal -- not even in Britain, where this campaign and this graphic originated. Sellingpirated material, of course, was -- and still is. As it should be: it's part of the contract among the creators and distributors of the material that they should share in the profits from it, and nobody else. Now, nobody's going to deny that all the parties to this kind of agreement haven't always behaved with scrupulous decorum, and that some (the record companies) have violated it more egregiously than others (although there are tales of performers who've counterfeited their own records to sell at gigs so that the record company doesn't make a dime on them).   But the record business has cleaned up its act considerably from the days when it gave blues singers ten bucks and a bottle of whiskey for a session that could result in ten records they could release -- and keep the copyright on the songs, too. For one thing, it's back to being a multi-tiered entity, with the majors only really handling artists whose physical product exists in numbers that no indie could afford to distribute efficiently, and the indies, to some extent, serving as a league of farm teams for them. Of course, as physical product has taken something of a dive, it's become easier for these minor-leaguers to keep the distribution at home, and, with luck, distribute the profits more easily and, one hopes, fairly.   The situation with my dad's book was a bit different, of course. The publisher was giving him money based on their copyright of the material between the covers, sharing it out to give him and his co-author an incentive to keep producing work for them, most specifically the book that was the mainstay of their business and the cause of future chiropractic problems at the Berkeley bookstore. Royalties go hand-in-hand with copyright, and the right to earn royalties on your efforts is one reason that people write songs, books, and screenplays, and for copyright to protect them.

But not forever. These four guys -- or the two who are still alive -- have made plenty on their work, enough that it could be argued they really don't need to make any more. At least one of them has done a great job of making his money make more money for him (that'd be the guy in the upper right), and so when the copyright on this artifact expires next year in Europe (if, in fact, it does: it's been the poster child for those who want to extend copyright for years and years, and I'm not 100% sure how that's played out in the EU) it's not going to be the disaster it might seem, in my opinion.   So, to summarize, not all record companies are innately evil, not all the artists who've recorded for them in the past have been treated fairly, not all the people who copy music are hurting anyone, royalties for past work are a good thing but needn't last forever, and if someone tells you about a good Armenian restaurant in your neighborhood, you really should check it out. And take your kids, if you have any.

 
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Fast jeder Modenarr (und ich möchte behaupten auch einige Nicht-Modenarren) kennen Anna Wintour, die Chefredakteurin der amerikanischen Vogue. Sie wird oft als gnadenlose Frau dargestellt, die das Magazin und ihre Untergebenen regiert, wie eine Königin – und Einfluss auf die Modeindustrie hat, wie keine andere. Doch nur wenige kennen eine ihrer Vorgängerinnen und den eigentlichen Prototypen der exzentrischen Moderedakteurin: Diana Vreeland (1903 - 1989), die „Empress of Fashion“.

2011 erschien ein Film über ihr Leben. THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL  ist ein Modemärchen, erzählt von Diana Vreeland selbst. Von ihrer Kindheit als Diana Dalziel in Paris, in der sie ihre Liebe zur Anmut von Pferden entdeckte. Von ihrer Mutter erhielt sie wenig Zuneigung, hässlich habe sie sie genannt. Ein Auslöser dafür, dass Diana anders als alle anderen sein wollte. Nachdem sie mit ihren wohlhabenden Eltern Ende des 1. Weltkriegs in die USA zog, begann sie zu tanzen. Und lernte dabei auch ihren Mann, den Bankier Thomas Reed Vreeland kennen.

Ihr eigentliches Leben setzte erst mit ihrer Arbeit als Kolumnistin für die amerikanische Harper’s Bazaar 1937 ein. Ohne Ausbildung, aber mit Gefühl für Mode, begann sie, Artikel voller Fantasie und Dekadenz zu schreiben. Mit ihrer unkonventionellen Art, eine neue Perspektive in das Magazin zu bringen, erfand sie die Rolle der Moderedakteurin, wie wir sie heute kennen. Sie beeinflusste nicht nur das Modemagazin, sondern auch die Mode selbst. Der Blue Jeans widmete sie sieben Artikel und der Bikini war für sie „das Größte seit der Atombombe“. Es wurden sogar Hollywood-Filme gedreht, die auf ihrer Person basierten.

Doch dann machte ihr 1962 die amerikanische Vogue das Angebot, Chefredakteurin zu werden. Sie wechselte zur Konkurrenz und machte aus einem bis dato langweiligen Heft ein progressives Lifestyle-Magazin. Sie erkannte das Potenzial von bisher unbekannten Mädchen wie Twiggy oder Cher und machte sie zu Ikonen. Wer in Dianas Vogue war, machte Karriere. Dabei kam es nicht auf klassische Schönheit an, sondern auf das, was Diana sah: Barbra Streisands markante Nase lies sie im Profil fotografieren und Veruschka Gräfin von Lehndorff als Leopard. Sie hatte eine Vision. Und Mode stand dabei nicht immer an vorderster Position. Für sie ging es „nicht um das Kleid, das du trägst, sondern das Leben, dass du in dem Kleid führst.“

Als die Finanzetage von Vogue kein Verständnis mehr zeigte für die opulenten Fotoshootings der Empress, musste sie gehen. Sie ging sie ins Museum. Als fachliche Beraterin der Modeabteilung des Metropolitan Museum of Art entstaubte sie die Kostüme und stellte sie aus, machte aus jeder Ausstellung ein Event. Sogar lebenden Designern, wie Yves Saint Laurent widmete sie eine – ein Skandal für die Verantwortlichen des Museums, die es als Werbefläche missbraucht sahen.

Lisa Vreeland, Ehefrau von Dianas Enkel Alexander, war schon immer fasziniert von ihr – auch wenn sie nie die Gelegenheit hatte, sie kennenzulernen. Sie schuf mit „The Eye Has to Travel“ – übrigens ein Zitat, das die bunte, opulente Welt in Dianas Vogue erklärt – ein Kunstwerk, das die Puzzleteile von Diana Vreelands Leben zusammensetzt. Interviews mit der Empress selbst und zahlreichen WegbegleiterInnen zeigen ihre Welt von innen und außen. Sie führte ihre Mitarbeiter mit strenger Hand. Konferenzen gab es keine. Wozu? Diana gab die Anweisungen. So erkennt man auch schnell, dass nicht alles, was Vreeland sagt, mit der Realität übereinstimmt. In einem kurzen Moment scheint das Bild der Grande Dame zu bröckeln. Doch gleich darauf merkt man, das das zu ihrem Bild dazugehört. Ihre Geschichte ist „Faktion“, eine Mischung aus Fiktion und Fakten. Denn „die Idee ist größer als die Fakten“.

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par Julien MARSA

Le réalisateur italien Marco Bellocchio trace, depuis ses débuts dans les années 1960, un sillon bien particulier qui, à l'instar de son compatriote Nanni Moretti, se réapproprie sur un mode tantôt intime tantôt opératique les grands moments de l'histoire des luttes révolutionnaires du XXème siècle. Sans prétendre être exhaustif, on peut tout de même citer quelques titres qui aident à définir son champ d'action. Dans « La Contestation » (film collectif de 1969), Bellocchio participe à l'élaboration d'une œuvre qui témoigne, entre autres, des événements de mai 68 en s'inspirant des épisodes des évangiles. Dans « Le Diable au corps » (adaptation datant de 1986 d'un roman de Raymond Radiguet) ou « Buongiorno, notte » (2003), ce sont les Brigades rouges et les années de plomb revisitées sous le prisme de la condition féminine et de la lutte des classes. Et avec « Vincere » (sélectionné en 2009 en compétition officielle du festival de Cannes), Bellocchio revenait aux origines de l'engagement politique de Mussolini tout en déplaçant la perspective du côté d'Ida Dalser, son amour secret, qui deviendra illégitime dès l'accession du Duce au pouvoir.

Buongiorno, notte

On peut constater, tout au long de sa carrière, la propension du réalisateur italien à se tourner vers des personnages féminins pris dans le tumulte de l'Histoire, et amenés à lutter pour leur existence. C'est encore le cas avec son dernier film, « La Belle endormie » (sorti le 10 avril dernier sur les écrans français; avec Isabelle Huppert dans le rôle de la mère), qui prend place durant ces quelques jours de novembre 2008 où l'Italie se déchire autour du cas d'Eluana Englaro, une jeune femme plongée dans le coma depuis 17 ans, et dont le père a obtenu l'autorisation de cesser l'alimentation artificielle qui la maintenait en vie. Mais plutôt que de proposer un film-dossier à propos du débat sur l'euthanasie, Bellocchio s'intéresse à ce fait divers comme point aveugle qui aspire à lui toute la démocratie italienne.

La Belle endormie

Le temps paraît alors comme suspendu à la résolution de ce conflit opposant tout un peuple avec lui-même. Et c'est en ce sens que « La Belle endormie » prolonge la vacance du pouvoir mise en jeu dans « Habemus Papam » de Nanni Moretti. Car le temps de la décision politique (qui comprend tractations internes, dépôts de projets de loi et d'amendements) semble en inadéquation avec la réaction sensible et spontanée du peuple, qui trouve dans ce moment suspendu une zone de non-droit – comme on entre dans une zone de turbulences –, mais qui est aussi synonyme d'affrontement démocratique, de débat. Et si Bellocchio prend en charge une multiplicité de récits et de points de vue – on a pu lui reprocher ici et là de faire un film choral –, ce n'est pas pour étayer une démonstration et aboutir à une conclusion lénifiante, mais pour laisser chacun, tel une phrase qui s'achèverait sur des points de suspension, à son propre travail sensible de réflexion sur la nature du débat démocratique.

Carlotta Cimador et Isabelle Huppert dans La Belle endormie

Sur ce point, le film résonne de manière particulière avec ce que la France vient de traverser à propos du débat sur le mariage pour tous, même si le point de départ n'est pas un fait divers, mais un projet de loi, adopté depuis par l'assemblée. Un des segments de « La Belle endormie » constitue d'ailleurs un pied de nez a posteriori à la violence déployée par les opposants à ce projet de loi, en réunissant Maria, une militante catholique du Mouvement pour la vie et Roberto, un jeune homme animé d'idéaux anticléricaux. En France, les anti-mariage pour tous font appel à une fausse rhétorique de l'amour, basée sur l'attachement à la structure familiale, au lien de filiation, pour déverser discrètement un torrent d'intolérance se réclamant hypocritement d'un fondement non homophobe. Maria et Roberto prennent le chemin inverse : c'est l'acte d'agression (un verre d'eau jeté à la figure – sans rapport avec la brutalité des agressions homophobes en France ces dernières semaines) du frère du jeune homme qui provoque, le temps de quelques excuses, un coup de foudre, une manifestation spontanée d'amour entre les deux êtres. Sans verser dans la béatitude ou prendre un ton professoral, il y aurait quelques leçons à retenir de ce que Bellocchio, en observateur attentif des sociétés, chuchote avec inquiétude au creux de l'oreille de sa belle endormie.

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After Berlin’s overly extended winter, the first warm days of Spring coincided with this year’s Achtung Berlin Film Festival. For those who never been, it’s a festival devoted to the city of Berlin, either from subject matter, location, or by virtue of the fact that the director lives or works in the city. This leaves a lot of room for a wide net and while nominally following it’s rather specific mandate, the festival has no problem encompassing the rest of the world.

I’ve lived here in Berlin for over 20 years but I can’t remember ever having heard the name of Roland Klick. According to Sandra Prechtel’s documentary, “Roland Klick - The Heart Is A Hungry Hunter” he’d been a big name back in the days of the New German Cinema.

Ms Prechtel had apparently never heard of him either until discovering his films on video a few years ago. Though little remembered today, he was a four time winner of the German Film Prize (Germany’s Academy Award). The first was for his film “Deadlock” (1970) which was the official German entry to the Cannes Film Festival - until it was torpedoed by various German filmmakers who successfully lobbied to get the film booted from the program; the next for the film “Supermarkt” (1974) where the performances he extracted from actual street people inspired German producer Bernd Eichinger to hire him to direct the film “Christiane F.”, and then kick him out within a few weeks of production for attempting the same thing; another for “White Star” (1983), the film he did with Dennis Hopper, which became a major disaster due to Hopper’s acute coke habit (though described by one critic as the most beautiful flop he’d ever seen); as well as a documentary on horse racing in America, “Derby Fever USA” (1979), which, happily, seems to have come and gone without incident.

Klick says in the movie he was courted by Hollywood and turned them all down. In an interview with his former cameraman Jost Vancano - who, himself, went on to a Hollywood career shooting films like “Robo Cop” and “Starship Troopers” - Klick should have been the big international breakout from Germany. As we know from history (or the lack of it), he wasn’t.

In the movie we see him today as a teacher, telling his students that giving up on a project is a luxury you only have in film school - out in the real world filmmaking is a matter of life and death. It can also be poetry, fulfillment, and adventure.

While he no longer makes films, the documentary does present him as a man on an adventure, whether insisting on shooting “Deadlock” in the war zone of The West Bank, or dealing with uncomfortable topics like the child committing murder in “Bübchen”. In an interview with one of his actors, working with him was described as having a kind of urgency, that he was someone who was obsessed with what he was trying to do, but “he wasn’t a slave driver, he was looking for something and we were all there with him”.

Ironically, Klick talks about refusing the Hollywood offers because he was convinced he would be ruined by the commercial system, while at the same time relating the problems he had with the elitism of New German Cinema mafia who accused him of pandering to the audience.

We don’t know from the movie what ended his career so it’s hard to say if he was a glorious flame-out who stuck to his guns, like Welles or von Stroheim, or someone who just blew his chances out of hardheaded attachment to principle. But while things clearly did not go well for him, he doesn’t come off as a failure.

Stanley Kubrick once said that making a film was like going to war and if nothing else the story told in “Roland Klick” is one of struggle that’s engaging for it’s own sake. And that’s what connected with me, both as a viewer and as a filmmaker myself. To be honest, I am not sure from seeing the clips used in the documentary that I would necessarily like those films if I saw them today, but I will say that for 87 minutes I was a fan.

The adventure of filmmaking is also in evidence in RP Kahl’s film “Bedways”, which is nominally a film about love and desire that plays out in the story of a film being made where the love scenes are to be shot with actual on-screen sex. But since this is not the movie, rather the movie about the movie, or, more precisely, the rehearsals for the movie that they are about to make, the result is deliberately not as stylized, or arguably as titillating, as a “real” movie would be.

If you’ve ever seen Andy Warhol’s “Blue Movie”, you know that movie sex is quite different from actual sex. While there are, supposedly, great things going on inside for the couple, for us on the outside it’s not quite as interesting. What arguably separates us people in the real world from our movie counterparts is...well, let’s say, good choreography,  good lighting... and maybe also the luxury of multiple re-takes.  We in the real world have the advantage that we’re not acting (or not supposed to be).

For all the ruminations about how to portray said love and desire, “Bedways” is actually more about insecurity and power games. The director, Nina, is not exactly sure what she wants and insists on working without a script. She wants her two actors, Max and Marie, to find their way - as she says, “without playing themselves, but without being anyone else”. Neither seems at ease in the situation, but for reasons that they don’t seem to quite understand themselves, the two actors are bound to play out their parts no matter what, provoked by Nina into some kind of artificial relationship, which doesn’t appear to be a healthy one.

The interplay of the characters seem driven more by manipulation than attraction. One by one, each of the three ends up having sex with each of the others, but there’s too much going on in their respective heads for there to be any pleasure. In fact the sex reminded me of the lovers in Jean Cocteau’s “Testament of Orpheus” who, from a distance, seem to be locked in a passionate embrace, but when you get closer you see that each one is busily writing down their impressions on a pad behind the other one’s back.

While the movie takes place in Berlin, you wouldn’t necessarily know it. The whole story - if story is the right word here - plays out in very interior spaces, whether in an empty apartment, and alley way, a featureless music club or the abstracted space of a cubicle for voyeurs in a sex club. But mostly one could imagine it plays out in the interior spaces of the actors themselves as they try to grapple with their roles in the story - both as characters and as the actors playing those characters. And then there’s the director who wants to remain true to her vision, but is struggling to sort it all out. While each of the two women are busy analyzing their intentions, the guy is more worried about how much control he’s going to have of his hard-on. Sounds a bit crass... though given the weight of the loaded atmosphere, maybe just pragmatic.

Contrary to the Nina’s rambling construction for her film, the actual film was fully scripted with rehearsals and improvisations used to adapt the script to the actors playing the parts. And unlike his female surrogate, director RP Kahl seems to be very aware of where he is going and not afraid to get there. Despite Nina’s doubts, he manages to deliver us - and her - to the big finish, so to speak.

Kahl, who serves on the Festival jury this year, was also represented by the film, “Rehearsals”, which is a sort of remake of "Bedways”, taking it to the next level of self-reflexion with himself as the director, and the action played out “live” in front of a small audience in the film.

The very fact of making a verité documentary is already an adventure. While you may have a concept, you never really know how it will play out or where you’ll end up. And when you make it about a quest for your own personal discovery...well, lots of luck.

Bin Chuen Choi is a filmmaker from Hong Kong, living in Berlin, who decides he needs to reunite with his mother, who left him and his father when he was a small child. His only real memory is a brief visit from her when he was 10. She bought him a toy robot which his brother threw out the window of their apartment. That was the last he ever saw of her.

Now an adult with a little girl of his own, he decides to make a , called "Mother's Day", documenting his search for his mother and ultimately end with their meeting. He finds out on the internet that she had become a successful author of over 300 books, who now lives in Vancouver. Her biography mentions a daughter, but no son.

Going back to Hong Kong to do some research, his family is not very encouraging. His aunt blames the split up on his father who she calls a “disaster”. His step mother, who raised him, is even more blunt, telling him it’s silly to even ask why she left. “I don’t know why your parents had you,” she adds,  “abortion was legal by then”. Thanks mom...

He tries various contacts through family, friends and community, writes her a letter through her publisher, but nothing comes of any of it. Now against everyone’s advice, he decides to just go off to Vancouver and try his luck.

Like any good detective, he dutifully follows up all his leads and then accidently stumbles upon the information that brings him, unannounced, to her door. And like any good detective in a story, what he finds is more than he bargained for.

A family friend gives him a piece of advice - “before you knock on the door, you must have forgiven her.”

Easy to say...

And the fact that you’ve got a cameraman standing there recording it all doesn’t help the awkwardness of an already awkward situation.

So now it’s not enough he has to reconcile himself what happens, he also has to deliver a good movie. And somehow he manages to pull them both off. What could have been a dreary story is actually told in a light and ingenuous manner, partly through some playful animated sequences woven in and out of the movie, but mostly from his own sincerity. And in the end, if he didn’t really achieve what he wanted, he did somehow manage to get what he came for. But he also realizes that, like Dorothy and the ruby slippers, he already had what he needed the whole time.

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