Gangleri – filmreviews

After a nice opening scene on a German nude beach follows a very violence report of an outrageous knockdown of a student protest against the visit of the Shah of Iran to Germany in 1967. This smack in the face seems to make clear how some of these students radicalised into the extreme left terrorist group Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction, RAF). The next thing you know is that young men and women are prepared to go very far for their “revolution” against capitalism, the American war in Vietnam, the occupation of Palestine by Israel (helped by the Americans), etc. The group gets bigger and bigger and more and more insane and megalomanic, especially when the main people (including Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin) land in jail. In the beginning of the film, the group is linked to the French and Chinese student protests of 1968, Che Guevara, etc., lateron members of the group align with Palestine militants and a connection is even made with the 1972 Munich Olympics where the Israelian Olympic team was massacred. Edel portays the bombings, shootouts, abductions, etc. in all their violence and here and there you will see how the people from the RAF thought about certain things. You do not get to see how Edel stands in the discussion, since his film seems to go back and forth between ‘pro’ and ‘con’.
Uli Edel manages to loosen emotions, from disgust and anger for the police actions in the opening scene to disgust and anger for the vastly out of every proportion actions of the RAF. The film is harsch and heavy, the only points of light come in scarce funny scenes and some female nudity. Like “Waltz With Bashir“, this is a good film, but not a nice watch. An apparently objective view on a forgotten recent phase in history. Perhaps this film can even put the fear for Muslim terrorism in some perspective. Just one generation ago, people from our own ranks were just as mad (the idea of using a plane was already present in RAF circles). The RAF perhaps did not want to kill civilians while some parties nowadays do, but the number of actions was much larger. And are the reasons for these ideas and actions then and now not for quite the same reasons? Shouldn’t that finally make us think? “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex” shows one character who suggests to not only fight the result, but also think about the cause. Maybe this grim lesson in history could prove to be very actual.
By the way, “Die Bleierne Zeit” which I recently reviewed puts a fictionalised magnifying glass on a small part of the story.

In a nice ‘digipack’ two of the very early films of David Cronenberg: Stereo and Crimes of the Future. Both films are about an hour and both play in a remote concrete institute inhabeted by weird characters. “Stereo” is about a group of people who are artificially made telepathic and who are isolated for the sake of experiments. “Crimes Of The Future” is about a student of a “mad dermatologist” who has discovered a strange illness. “Stereo” is completely silent, save for the voiceovers, almost the same goes for “CotF”, but that film has ‘enlarged’ (by lack of a better discription) sounds here and there. Both films can be described as experimental art-films with a liking for scholarly language and strange futuristic visions. I quite like “Stereo”. It is extemely slow and minimalistic, but I kept wondering what was to come. “CotF” is less interesting in my opinion. It is an interesting watch, but a bit too little happens in it to remain interesting. However the films are presented as “two early films by the master of body horror”, you should not expect horror, however the films might give you an idea of how Cronenberg developed towards his masterpieces “Videodrome” (1983) and “Naked Lunch” (2001), there is a lot of material in between that I have not seen though.
So, I guess this box is for people who like experimental art films and for people who are interested in Cronenberg as a director and since this box is quite well available, I suppose there are enough people for that.

From the director of “Nueve Reinas” comes another nice film. “The Aura” is about a man dreaming of the perfect crime. By means of his superb memory he thinks it should be easy to become rich. He has two problems though.
“El Aura” plays in Argentinia (I think) and is a very moody, slow and minimalistic film in which the sound is often replaced by music. Esteban is a not too exciting character, but his slow pace takes the viewer into his world. The setting are vast woods, the atmosphere is quite dreamy even more so because of Esteban’s illness.
“El Aura” surely is not a must-see, but whenever you get the change to see it on TV or so, I suggest you take it.

My girlfriends colleagues pulled this DVD out of some arthouse section of a local DVD shop for her birthday, most likely having no idea what the film is about. Funnily enough it is about the Rote Armee Fraktion, just like “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex” that recentenly premiered. That is to say: according to the box of “Time Of Lead”, it is about Gudrun Ensslin “one of the key figures of the Baader Meinhof group”, but when I would not have read the box, but only watched the film, I would not have known that. “Die Bleierne Zeit” “fictionalized” the events and follows Juliane, an idealistic woman and journalist who appears to have feminist and far leftish ideas. Her apparently quiet life is every now and then interupted by a woman called Marianne (her character is based on Gudrun Ensslin), a woman that proves to be radical, selfish woman without taking much notion of Juliane having different ideas than herself. Juliane and Marianne turn out to be sisters and the film shows a lot of scenes that are flashbacks, but this is not always clear. Marianne is radical enough to land in jail for having had something to do with bombs. However the film shows how both Juliane and Marianne were in their early days pushed to the far left of the political spectrum, the film does not show what their ideas exactly are, what the revolution stands for that Marianne fights in, not even what it is exactly that she did that put her in jail. The film had its premiere only four years after a tragic event that is also in this film and which might or might not have spelled the end of the Baader Meinhof group. This leads me to the idea that when the film was made and shown, it was for the audience that knew all about the Rote Armee Fraktion, its actions and its ideology and that the film shows the story behind some of the RAF’s members without having to give information about the RAF itself. As for an unknowing viewer 27 years later, I see a film which tells a story, but leaves out all the essential information. I cannot place the film in any perspective and therefor it is just a drama about two women with a strong bond and similar ideas but very opposital in the implementation of them. “Die Bleierne Zeit” is not a boring watch, but people from outside Germany and/or not having read the newspapers of the time will need something to place the story in. Perhaps the film “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex” is such a film and when you saw that one, “Die Bleierne Zeit” will work better.

“Dobermann” is quite like “Taxi” in several regards. Both films are French, both are action-comedies, both are about bank robberies and in both the police are portrayed as idiots. “Dobermann” seems to want to be a bit more serious, harder, more “nouvelle violence”, more “Killing Zoe” than the “Taxi” trilogy but fails in the attempt. Whereas “Taxi” is amusing for its sillyness (especially the first one) and “Killing Zoe” has a fair combination between ‘comedy’ and violence, “Dobermann” is not silly enough to be really funny, but too silly to be serious. This time both the robbers and the police are not too bright and during the film when the more violent parts come, the silly elements are not far away enough. Nope, this is not one of the better “nouvelle violence” films.

Last summer we planned to go to the Fantasy Film Fest in Dortmund and the day we had in mind had “Waltz With Bashir”. I watched the trailer and decided that this was one of the films that I wanted to see. In the end, we did not go to Dortmund so I had to wait until another possibility to see the film. After a couple of months of silence, this title is suddenly all over the media. It played on one of the larger Dutch film festivals (Vlissingen if I am correct) and opened the animation festival last week. By now, it also plays in cinemas and for some reason the local arthouse has it listed for as much as five times a day! At least I have been able to see it on the big screen!
As you probably heard “Waltz With Bashir” is a documentary made by an Israelian soldier who fought in the Lebanon war when he was still young. Trying to fill in the blanks in his memory, he tries to find fellow soldiers of the period. Instead of making a dry documentary, Folman has made a great-looking animation. The high-contrast drawings in black and white/yellow and ‘woody’ characters make a slightly surreal atmosphere. The film goes from current events to flashbacks and what is very well done (especially caused by the animations) is that these flashbacks are rather distant, just as the people in the film see the events. While Ron’s memories are reconstructed, the flashbacks become more realistic. Storywise, I think this film is more meant for Israelis than for us Westerners (there are plenty of similar stories that we could make a film of), but the way the film is made is magnificent. The director and his team really managed to set the right atmosphere with the animations and the great soundtrack and the psychological/therapeuthic pursuit of the main character tells us a lot about or own constitution. “Waltz with Bashir” is surely not a pleasent watch, but a good watch and a great film nonetheless.

An Egyptian police fanfare goes to Israel for a performance, but things to not quite go as planned. The band gets stuck in a tiny village and are forced to spend the night with different good people. “The Band’s Visit” is a very slow and minimalistic film which appears to show the differences between two cultures. I guess that when you are either Egyptian or Israeli the film will be more amusing, but the subtle humour and real-life story make this quite a nice watch.