More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
9 January
At the time of the Festival, I established that the book from which this book was made, with the participation of its author, into a film was available only in the original Dutch and in a German translation (which, at a pinch, I could have read, but at great cost).
I now see that there is a French translation, which would not put me at any greater advantage, but none in English that I can find, and I wonder what the fate of the film is - if it is not going to get distributed here or in the States, the possibility of an English translation probably depends on it.
Well, I still think that it is a tremendous film, and maybe I shall look for evidence of reviews...*
I have found this, with which I would take issue (and will, given a chance):
http://jasperaalbers.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/the-best-and-the-worst-of-dutch-cinema-%E2%80%93-the-tirza-review/
But, maybe, I'd prefer you to look at (or what preceded it):
http://unofficialcambridgefilmfestival.blogspot.com/2011/10/attempting-to-address-tirza.html
* Contains spoilers *
In the meantime, my knowledge of German allowed me, belatedly and when it had to be returned to the library, to look at the Dutch original, and it may not surprise to know that the ending in the novel appears to differ:
If I didn't miss something, and it isn't a dream, Jörgen does not try to leave, but ends up going back to, Kaisa's dwelling, but makes it to the airport, and, despite her cries of Want company, sir?, boards a flight and labours his way home.
As I say, I was reading the text as someone who speaks German, so I could work out much of what was being said, but I may have missed something in the preceding pages that could indicate that it is Jörgen's fantasy that he makes this journey...
Since then (at the end of February, in fact), Penny, a friend who speaks Dutch, took a look at the closing pages, and found nothing to suggest that there is the intervention of a dream between getting back from Big Mama and leaving Namibia.
End-notes
* Well, I see that it has no reviews at all on the so-called Rotten Tomatoes web-site, and the first one that I found was from one of the Festival's own Take One crew - I obviously didn't submit something myself, or, as others didn't, it didn't appear.
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Showing posts with label Kaisa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kaisa. Show all posts
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Attempting to address Tirza
More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
9 October
* Contains spoilers *
Since I saw Tirza (my second viewing being on 21 September), I have thought about it on many days – unlike some, I would not choose to describe it as having haunted me, even though the visitations would be benign ones, but say that I have pictured scenes in it and their emotional force, or the latter through the former.
On a first viewing, I was less sure, because I am interested in the depiction of issues relating to mental health, and I wanted to be sure that I was still persuaded, despite knowing the end from the beginning: I am now convinced that I should read the novel, to see which is the more powerful work. In the meantime – in the face of a list of reading priorities - the essential triangle of Jörgen, looking for Tirza with Kaisa, remains highly evocative.
The pressures that have been on Jörgen become clear early on: staged redundancy, domestic abuse verging on a humiliating kind of violence, unforeseen loss of financial stability, and, amidst it all, overcompensating by trying too hard to be a good father. The list is not meant to be reductionist or exhaustive, and it is not one whose force Jörgen recognizes or understands (in its totality), but they are facts (from some of which he knows that he tries to escape through alcohol, which he calls a medicine for shame) - and all of us would react differently to any one of them.
If I had to say what the film is, I would end up with a phrase such as ‘meditative tragedy’. However, that term in no way gives expression to the ambivalent relationship between Jörgen and Tirza, his daughter; which, itself, is one that Kaisa, in another country (although she should be able to follow Jörgen, whether he speaks in Dutch or English), only knows about directly through him (and, probably also, because of what he does not say).
Tirza, although the film as named after her, is the absence at the heart of the film to - and through - which Kaisa and Jörgen relate, and around whom they navigate Namibia (whose scenery is beautifully portrayed, when we leave the confined atmosphere of Windhoek, and, even more so, the area where Kaisa lives). This is all very sensitively and thoughtfully done, with tremendous, and very inner, performances from Keitumetse Matlabo (as Kaisa) and Gijs Scholten van Aschat (Jörgen).
Early on, Jörgen says that he likes Kaisa, because he can talk to her – we may (as I did) not be sure how much she understands, but the scene in Big Mama shows perfectly that she has followed what has gone on, with, if it does not sound patronizing, wisdom and depth beyond her years. (It does not matter that she does not have much to say, because she does far more than speak lines.)
For she is no mere excuse for us to hear what is on Jörgen’s heart, hear his confession, as she would be in a lesser work that failed to think out the dynamics. Kaisa is the catalyst for much, if not all, that happens in this land to which Jörgen is foreign (and where, perhaps aware of the colonial past, feels his awkwardness and embarrassment): she senses his need, his literal need, when she says ‘Need company, sir?’, and she helps and guides him to find what he has buried in and from himself.
We are left thinking about her, left wondering what could have been, left remembering how it all unfolded – when that happens, and when it is still happening weeks later, a real piece of cinema has been made and witnessed. Thank you, Rudolf van den Berg, for bringing Tirza to the big screen!
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
9 October
* Contains spoilers *
Since I saw Tirza (my second viewing being on 21 September), I have thought about it on many days – unlike some, I would not choose to describe it as having haunted me, even though the visitations would be benign ones, but say that I have pictured scenes in it and their emotional force, or the latter through the former.
On a first viewing, I was less sure, because I am interested in the depiction of issues relating to mental health, and I wanted to be sure that I was still persuaded, despite knowing the end from the beginning: I am now convinced that I should read the novel, to see which is the more powerful work. In the meantime – in the face of a list of reading priorities - the essential triangle of Jörgen, looking for Tirza with Kaisa, remains highly evocative.
The pressures that have been on Jörgen become clear early on: staged redundancy, domestic abuse verging on a humiliating kind of violence, unforeseen loss of financial stability, and, amidst it all, overcompensating by trying too hard to be a good father. The list is not meant to be reductionist or exhaustive, and it is not one whose force Jörgen recognizes or understands (in its totality), but they are facts (from some of which he knows that he tries to escape through alcohol, which he calls a medicine for shame) - and all of us would react differently to any one of them.
If I had to say what the film is, I would end up with a phrase such as ‘meditative tragedy’. However, that term in no way gives expression to the ambivalent relationship between Jörgen and Tirza, his daughter; which, itself, is one that Kaisa, in another country (although she should be able to follow Jörgen, whether he speaks in Dutch or English), only knows about directly through him (and, probably also, because of what he does not say).
Tirza, although the film as named after her, is the absence at the heart of the film to - and through - which Kaisa and Jörgen relate, and around whom they navigate Namibia (whose scenery is beautifully portrayed, when we leave the confined atmosphere of Windhoek, and, even more so, the area where Kaisa lives). This is all very sensitively and thoughtfully done, with tremendous, and very inner, performances from Keitumetse Matlabo (as Kaisa) and Gijs Scholten van Aschat (Jörgen).
Early on, Jörgen says that he likes Kaisa, because he can talk to her – we may (as I did) not be sure how much she understands, but the scene in Big Mama shows perfectly that she has followed what has gone on, with, if it does not sound patronizing, wisdom and depth beyond her years. (It does not matter that she does not have much to say, because she does far more than speak lines.)
For she is no mere excuse for us to hear what is on Jörgen’s heart, hear his confession, as she would be in a lesser work that failed to think out the dynamics. Kaisa is the catalyst for much, if not all, that happens in this land to which Jörgen is foreign (and where, perhaps aware of the colonial past, feels his awkwardness and embarrassment): she senses his need, his literal need, when she says ‘Need company, sir?’, and she helps and guides him to find what he has buried in and from himself.
We are left thinking about her, left wondering what could have been, left remembering how it all unfolded – when that happens, and when it is still happening weeks later, a real piece of cinema has been made and witnessed. Thank you, Rudolf van den Berg, for bringing Tirza to the big screen!
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
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