More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
22 April
The composers on the bill at Cambridge’s Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx) on Sunday 27 April are usually (nay, invariably) referred to as members of the school of Minimalism.
Dennis Russell Davies, interviewed on Tuesday afternoon’s edition of Radio 3’s (@BBCRadio3’s) ‘In Tune’ (@BBCInTune) (available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04153wl for seven days from transmission), pointed out that the composers in the series of three approaching concerts at London’s Cadogan Hall, from which the programme in Cambridge has been derived, all know each other – with Arvo Pärt having looked to Michael Nyman as an example before the disssolution of the Soviet Union led to The Baltic States becoming free (Pärt is Estonian).
Nevertheless, although Nyman took the term from art history*, and, it seems, first used the words ‘minimal music’ in a review in The Spectator in 1968**, it seems to have lost its connection both with other movements in the arts, and with evidently fitting the music to which it refers : does a work by Frank Stella, for example, bear any significant resemblance to the way in which a composition by John Adams works ?
If there is any common element in the work of composers that is described as minimalist, it is never as distinct as John Cage’s unavoidable 4’33” or unconventional in the way that his ‘prepared piano’ is. Instead, it tends to treat a theme as an ostinato or a ground bass might be used, for its rhythmic possibility, and the same is as true for Steve Reich, with the fringe effects caused by two or more players (who gradually become more and more out of synch and cause interference), as when a repeated motif in a work by Philip Glass modulates in relation to the parts of the other instrumentalists.
More here (the long version - easy-read one to follow soonish) as a review of Sunday’s concert…
End-notes
* Whereas it had initially been applied to Black Square (1915), a famous painting (of the infamous kind) by Kazimir Malevich.
** In relation to various compositions that had been performed at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA – @ICALondon).
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 April 2014
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Visions of the Baltic
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
2 October
The more that I think about the first in the sequence of Estonian short films, Maggot Feeder (2012), the more that I believe that I have seen it before somewhere, somehow… (Probably on the screen in the bar at Festival Central, which had been showing a loop of clips.)
Not that it matters, because it said things to me with the stark beauty of its story-line, the Doctor-Who-like horribleness and ferocity of the maggots*, the faces of the man and the woman, motile behind the forms that contained them, and (again from science fiction) the stacked pairs of eyes of the spiders – inevitably, given the subject-matter, the frozen setting, I was reminded of the exquisite brutality of Far North (2007), but this film ended with blossoming, fecundity, to replace the sterility of the man’s reign (over the woman and the creatures whom he bloodily kills).
A perfect fable of stagnation, destruction and renewal, inventively brought about in animation and foley where every squelch of blood and slurp of lightly stewed flesh was telling. A good way into another transgressive world, that of My Condolences (2013) :
Without giving away the big twist, the delight of a crooked family, running a covert business, and how they respond to an outsider in their guilty midst. What better plan to hit on, worthy of Fawlty Towers in its bonkersness, than devoting a page in the illicit journal of their activity to the wording of a tribute to a fictionally deceased neighbour ?
The stranger joins in with their desire to express their regrets, and is asked to assume the position of scribe and author, resulting in excruciatingly amusing awkwardness, because the family members continue to fear detection…
Olga (2013) has already, vaguely, been accounted for, as well as the errantly provided Happy Birthday played with the conceit that Marilyn might sing to Mr Jesus on Christmas Eve, and that Mr Jesus is a robot with a rival : it did not have much to say, from what I saw of it.
In Triangle Affair (2012), cats, people with arms for heads (who, amongst other things, clean windows and cycle as a trio along high-wires), and trams converged spectacularly, overshadowed and overseen by chalk-wielding birds (crows ? Krähen in German / chalk, la craie in French ??), who are perhaps also the architects of this elaborate, futuristic city.
Maybe, though, they have bored of its having a function, and wish to subjugate that function to their desire to have fun (or to destroy) : crows and Kafka (which means ‘crow’ in Czech) and Prague…
Finally, Villa Antropoff (2013) uses animated full-frontal cleavage, sexual acts and drug use to parody the interests and attitudes of New Rich Russians, a freedom to be expressive since Estonia is no longer a satellite state, in the Baltic, of the Soviet regime.
Not unlike Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, one can prove to have outlived one’s popularity, if one’s actions are taken to excess, and it is then on to the next party ! (Oh, and a black man, whose home coast has nothing but debris on it, manages to crash the party, maybe in search of the same, but is not kindly received, but surely no denigrating stereotype here.)
End-notes
* Though, of course, maggots turn into flies, outside fairy-tales.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
2 October
The more that I think about the first in the sequence of Estonian short films, Maggot Feeder (2012), the more that I believe that I have seen it before somewhere, somehow… (Probably on the screen in the bar at Festival Central, which had been showing a loop of clips.)
Not that it matters, because it said things to me with the stark beauty of its story-line, the Doctor-Who-like horribleness and ferocity of the maggots*, the faces of the man and the woman, motile behind the forms that contained them, and (again from science fiction) the stacked pairs of eyes of the spiders – inevitably, given the subject-matter, the frozen setting, I was reminded of the exquisite brutality of Far North (2007), but this film ended with blossoming, fecundity, to replace the sterility of the man’s reign (over the woman and the creatures whom he bloodily kills).
A perfect fable of stagnation, destruction and renewal, inventively brought about in animation and foley where every squelch of blood and slurp of lightly stewed flesh was telling. A good way into another transgressive world, that of My Condolences (2013) :
Without giving away the big twist, the delight of a crooked family, running a covert business, and how they respond to an outsider in their guilty midst. What better plan to hit on, worthy of Fawlty Towers in its bonkersness, than devoting a page in the illicit journal of their activity to the wording of a tribute to a fictionally deceased neighbour ?
The stranger joins in with their desire to express their regrets, and is asked to assume the position of scribe and author, resulting in excruciatingly amusing awkwardness, because the family members continue to fear detection…
Olga (2013) has already, vaguely, been accounted for, as well as the errantly provided Happy Birthday played with the conceit that Marilyn might sing to Mr Jesus on Christmas Eve, and that Mr Jesus is a robot with a rival : it did not have much to say, from what I saw of it.
In Triangle Affair (2012), cats, people with arms for heads (who, amongst other things, clean windows and cycle as a trio along high-wires), and trams converged spectacularly, overshadowed and overseen by chalk-wielding birds (crows ? Krähen in German / chalk, la craie in French ??), who are perhaps also the architects of this elaborate, futuristic city.
Maybe, though, they have bored of its having a function, and wish to subjugate that function to their desire to have fun (or to destroy) : crows and Kafka (which means ‘crow’ in Czech) and Prague…
Finally, Villa Antropoff (2013) uses animated full-frontal cleavage, sexual acts and drug use to parody the interests and attitudes of New Rich Russians, a freedom to be expressive since Estonia is no longer a satellite state, in the Baltic, of the Soviet regime.
Not unlike Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, one can prove to have outlived one’s popularity, if one’s actions are taken to excess, and it is then on to the next party ! (Oh, and a black man, whose home coast has nothing but debris on it, manages to crash the party, maybe in search of the same, but is not kindly received, but surely no denigrating stereotype here.)
End-notes
* Though, of course, maggots turn into flies, outside fairy-tales.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Saturday, 27 October 2012
A Tweet review II
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
27 October
* Contains spoilers *
Welcome to this posting, about the Estonian film of The Idiot (Idioot) (2011), in which I shall seek to fill out my Pratter review
It will be clear early on, when we meet Prince Myshkin* during a journey, that pews in the aisle of what turns out to be a very large church are representing a railway-carriage. However, arrival at the destination and coming face to face with a neon-fuelled icon is enough to show that we are not going to be playing with physical spaces (as in Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003), but transforming them).
Moreover, they are discreet, identifiably different spaces, and, without leaving the building at any point, we will see a flower-garden and the sea. Yet, as Dostoyevsky's novel runs to at least 700 pages, and we have a little over two hours, we must necessarily concentrate on what most centrally concerns Myshkin. Played by Risto Kübar, we learn early on of his medical history, about which - this is his complete and utter nature - he is unnecessarily open, and its manifests itself, as the role is played, as a helplessly shimmering passivity.
All the more contrast, which is at the heart of the book, not just with his distant relative's husband and family, but with the vibrancy, to everyone's cost, of Nastasja Filippovna, which it would have been tempting for Katariina Unt to overdo. The adaptation and direction by Rainer Sarnet have taken risks, but confined them, leaving the abiding feeling that the claustrophic nature of the setting, with all its overtones of the influence of the church on convention and conduct, has strengthened the telling of the central part of Myshkin's story.
My only regret is being so tired during this screening, which, through my fault, detracted from the compelling nature of the production.
End-notes
* His title means next to nothing at this stage, in practical terms, for he is penniless.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
27 October
* Contains spoilers *
Welcome to this posting, about the Estonian film of The Idiot (Idioot) (2011), in which I shall seek to fill out my Pratter review
It will be clear early on, when we meet Prince Myshkin* during a journey, that pews in the aisle of what turns out to be a very large church are representing a railway-carriage. However, arrival at the destination and coming face to face with a neon-fuelled icon is enough to show that we are not going to be playing with physical spaces (as in Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003), but transforming them).
Moreover, they are discreet, identifiably different spaces, and, without leaving the building at any point, we will see a flower-garden and the sea. Yet, as Dostoyevsky's novel runs to at least 700 pages, and we have a little over two hours, we must necessarily concentrate on what most centrally concerns Myshkin. Played by Risto Kübar, we learn early on of his medical history, about which - this is his complete and utter nature - he is unnecessarily open, and its manifests itself, as the role is played, as a helplessly shimmering passivity.
All the more contrast, which is at the heart of the book, not just with his distant relative's husband and family, but with the vibrancy, to everyone's cost, of Nastasja Filippovna, which it would have been tempting for Katariina Unt to overdo. The adaptation and direction by Rainer Sarnet have taken risks, but confined them, leaving the abiding feeling that the claustrophic nature of the setting, with all its overtones of the influence of the church on convention and conduct, has strengthened the telling of the central part of Myshkin's story.
My only regret is being so tired during this screening, which, through my fault, detracted from the compelling nature of the production.
End-notes
* His title means next to nothing at this stage, in practical terms, for he is penniless.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
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