Stigmata and sacrifice

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 September


* Contains spoilers *

RewatchingStations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) (2014), tears again - but earlier, knowing each scene's context in the whole... #CamFF
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2014

Can one put one’s finger on what is so affecting about this film ? A young girl, Maria, just at confirmation age, who idolizes Bernadette, the au pair, and who is being pushed in certain directions by her family and the church :

We see Maria objecting to the rather tame music that the sympathetic PE teacher is playing – seemingly not for the first time – to accompany her class’ exercise on the hoof on the basis that it contains ‘satanic rhythms’. Just before, we have seen her urged in confession, and with similar descriptions of music characterized by Fr. Weber, to denounce it. Whose life is she leading that she should want to sacrifice the landscape, or her own life to heal her younger brother Johannes ?

The chill is in the zeal with which Maria’s mother, at the undertaker’s, talks of seeking canonization for her daughter – almost as if she sees past her daughter to a saint, although we have seen her treat Maria abusively for her selfish ill-will on at least three occasions. Kein Wunder that her husband leaves the table and goes aside to stand in quiet thought – and the mother finally breaks down in proper tears…

Is the mapping of Maria’s last days on the elements of The Stations of The Cross something that is partly imposed, from the mother’s eye view, after the event ? – although, theologically, one knows the injunction to Take up one’s cross daily, and that identification with Jesus is the stuff of The Imitation of Christ.

But does she, in the tears, finally realize that the contented smile that she had in the car, after she has humiliated her daughter and, by stopping in traffic with a provocative ultimatum, secured her compliance by sheer power-play is just another aspect of the domination of Maria's life and memory that she craves now ? Perhaps.

Yet, although one wonders that, at the third hour (by the hospital clock) and as Maria’s heart fails, Johannes finally speaks, at the age of four, to call her name and to ask Wo ist Maria ?, we are emotionally with Bernadette in the preceding scene, not wanting her to refuse food and make ready to sacrifice her life. The horrible liturgical humbug is, though, that Maria’s mother says that the sacrament of communion is received when the wafer touches the lips (although Maria chokes on it, and it has to be unceremoniously whipped out of her mouth by a nurse) :

Unnoticed by us, we connect with the first scene, and Fr. Weber’s dogmatic assertion that life begins not, as suggested by one of the confirmation class, at birth, but at conception. Here, we are at the other end of life, and, in urging this hypocritical beatification of her daughter, Whatever one may think of the pro-life position (and choosing an age in weeks up to which a pregnancy can be lawfully terminated does seem somewhat arbitrary), Maria’s mother is invoking similar clear-cut definitions of life and death, right and wrong, holy and impure.

The key thing to notice (third stumble) is that Bernadette, not Maria’s mother, is her sponsor for confirmation, and how, even so feverish and ill, what is on Maria’s mind to pour out to Bernadette is how she believes that he mother does not love her, and to feel responsible for what she sees as a lack of love.

The film is a masterpiece. It is so powerful, second time around and as one tries to link each station of the cross to the tableau in hand, that it deserves a much greater audience than it had at either screening at Festival Central : this time, no laughter at the hard-liners in church and family, no treating of this as some sort of risible entertainment at the expense of real people who do have such faith and dogma.

And a profound emotion for Maria, believing that she is doing as she should for her mute brother’s sake…


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Marks along the way

This is a review of Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) (2014)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

3 September

This is a review of Stations of the Cross

(Kreuzweg, which means ‘way of the cross’) (2014)

Forget the cinematographic limitation that actually gives one nearly fourteen single takes in tableau style (only eleven where the camera simply does not move) : after the first, where one has one’s doubts*, it is more liberating to the inventiveness of writers Dietrich and Anna Brüggemann (he directs) than one could imagine – not least as the structure mirrors the fact that when the way of the cross is set out, in or around a church, an image to capture the frozen moment in time usually accompanies each step along it, for purposes of contemplation.

That restriction of a static camera-position, broken only incidentally in those few places, does really concentrate the mind and the emotions wonderfully on the amazingly telescoped ambit of the film’s story, starting with a final lesson with the priest to prepare for confirmation. *As that is the first scene, maybe it is not important that at least one (maybe two) of the candidates does not seem to contribute to answering the questions posed by Father Weber – certainly the girl at the far right-hand end of the table does not, and does nothing other than look more or less straight ahead, occasionally moving her hands, and she seems (as, to an extent, does the boy to her right) like a makeweight. (She does not appear again until they are in a pew together for the confirmation address.)

A small hesitation (even if it did make one doubt that the Oulipo-type richness-in-restriction was going to be effective), because the rest of the film is a compelling account of a very short period in Maria’s life, who is one of the candidates, and whose family is part of a fundamentalist Roman Catholic church that names itself after St Paul and rejects changes such as those brought in by The Second Vatican Council (so they still use Latin forms of absolution, etc.). Some in the audience were, rather inappropriately, laughing, as if this were a broad comedy, seemingly unaware that such beliefs (and the systems that keep them operative) are part of life in continental Europe**.

The film cries out to be watched. There is a second chance to do so at Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest) / #CamFF 2014 on Thursday 4 September at 2.30


Why should it be seen ? Here are some observations :

* Lea van Acken (Maria), Florian Stetter (Fr. Weber), Franziska Weisz (Maria’s mother) and Lucie Aron (Bernadette) are exceptionally strong – with the only hesitation about cast being as already mentioned

* The clarity of the script and of its delivery mean that one senses all the nuances of Maria’s family and its belief-system, not least her relationship with the dominant mother, and her attempt to fit in with the high demands of living the good life within their church

* Key scenes are at the doctor’s and, afterwards, when Maria is with Bernadette, the au pair

* Before them, the conflict (external) of a group photograph during a walk, and (internal) of Maria’s confession prior to confirmation – the energies, the dynamics, are often laid bare as much by how things are spoken, as well as by what is not spoken

* The power of this film grows and grows – if it does not have tears rolling down one’s cheeks in the closing tableaux, perhaps the film never can achieve that, but it certainly can

To-day at @camfilmfest, the slightly pessimistic view : watching Stations of the Cross and Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy again while possible
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2014

For a spoilery Postscript, following that second viewing, click here

One's baffled by your review from @BathFilm, Henry Heffer: https://t.co/NT8bM10nW1 Some clever juxtaposing of your 'two opposing forces' ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2014

It says much to be shocked by one of Maryann O'Connor's reviews for @NewEmpress, but hers of Stations of the Cross (2014) is way off !

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 28, 2014

End-notes

* Please see below (where asterisked).

** One doubt here : whether they would have sung the sort of chorale that we hear in the service, and seemingly have approved of Bach’s Chorales, although he was a Lutheran. (Some opposition to Vatican II has also rejected music in worship as a whole.)


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Eyes full of tears

This is a Festival review of Eyes on the Sky (Mirant al Cel) (2008)

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

7 October

This is a Festival review of Eyes on the Sky (Mirant al Cel) (2008)

Eyes on the Sky (Mirant al Cel) (2008) is not an overtly flashy film, but – deservedly – it does make big claims on our attention, and on our hearts. As can be seen, it is being shown not because it was made in the last year, but it is a UK premiere, part of the Catalan strand, again curated by Ramon Lamarca after a successful first appearance at the Festival last year, which made many friends.

I have written elsewhere about another Catalan film at the Festival (also a UK premiere), The Redemption of the Fish, which I watched twice, and I would – if possible – gladly have done the same with this film, but it is quality that the films have in common, not their subject-matter.

This one concerns the Spanish Civil War and the power of memory – what is best forgotten about when Italian air forces bombed Barcelona, and what should never be forgotten. One review that I have read (maybe this one) challenges how the film is put together, and its story and pace, but, for me, these are what most attracted me to it, for it uses acted scenes, documentary, and faux-documentary, e.g. to introduce the men who were in the anti-aircraft batteries that ringed the city on a number of eminences.

We see men and women, down in the shelters and tunnels that also served to wait out air-raids, interviewed by the same woman who challenges a visiting professor, apparently a Dante scholar and visiting for a conference, and pesters to get to speak to him – what some mistake for the monotonous course of this film is actually provoking us to ask ourselves (if we have not just read up all about it beforehand*) what is real, what is not, and what remembered, what feigned forgetfulness.

In this, we are as much in a confused state as the main characters (Maria (Gabriela Flores) and Mario (Paolo Ferrari), played with great conviction), who think that they know what is right, and not preconception, until life throws them up in each other’s way. After all that we have seen and heard, the closing scenes, and the beautiful reading that the professor gives from the opening of the Inferno, are painfully touching, speaking for all who have been lost.

For the second time this Festival, I was moved to tears just by that simplicity.


End-notes

* My approach to a film is that it should, for good or ill, stand for itself : if I need to have read the book or play on which it is based, it has failed in its own terms, and, if it cannot speak for itself, it is just images.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Report from Cheltenham Jazz Festival – The Aristocats

A response to seeing The Aristocats (1970) - a few years on...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
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4 May

A response to seeing The Aristocats (1970) - a few years on...

It must have been in around 1968* that I was taken by my parents, almost certainly with my sister, to see The Aristocats. I have just watched it again, with no acquaintance in between, in the Cinema Tent at Cheltenham Jazz Festival – and, yes, I had forgotten that jam-session, when the alley-cat musicians, led by Scat Cat, have let themselves into Thomas O’Malley’s pad, and so, despite the jazzy tone to some of the earlier musical numbers, I had begun not to figure why this was being shown at a jazz festival.

As it is, it is a great little film, and, although animation techniques are considerably different now for much of what is produced (so there would not necessarily have been the need to make scenes such as that jam-session at the expense of the budget for such clear and focused images throughout the film), it does not feel dated – and, yes, it was Walt Disney. No doubt it has been restored, but, as this is not a film festival, I am unsure whether I need to look in the festival handout that I picked up for more details.

What was probably lost on me as a boy is that the cats need not be cats and that this is not really a film about cats (or cats and humans) at all…


23 May - Now continued, with some thoughts penned in a station waiting-room earlier

The cats are, of course, cats in the swinging, jazz sense, and there is the fable of the much-loved and attractive Duchess (Eva Gabor's voice) being Lady to Thomas’ Tramp** (Phil Harris' voice), by putting aside her wisdom and prejudice about ‘alley-cats’ after they have played and bantered together, and he has – after his fanciful promises – assumed care for her and her kittens.

Duchess' home-life, the epitome of the idea of self-improvement through music and the other arts, resembles that of a grande dame, wanting her children to acquire taste and poise, and not hiss and scratch, as Berlioz wishes to do with his sister. Of course, it is, on another level, charming fantasy that a kitten can play the piano by bounding back and forth on the keys, but it is there for the contrast between the sedate family sing-song and the raucously lively – and beautifully put-together – jam-session.

Duchess, being the best kind of Duchess, appreciates the musicianship and sees all that is good in Thomas and his friends Scat Cat and the others (and, maybe, we wonder what her past was, and who was father to her kittens for her to suppose so badly of the alley-cats) : this is, after all, not plumbing the depths of Shakespearean characterization, but good fun, but with a bit of a message about not taking Edgar - or any of the others - at face-value.

(In fact, the only ones who can be taken in those terms are Abigail and Amelia, the waddling, unflappable British geese, and, once they have served their purpose of route-marching the party to Paris to rescue their sozzled uncle, they are given no further part.)

The Old Lady is given a portrayal consistent with her remaining in the background, worrying about what has happened, and generally being benign, along with her amiable lawyer-friend (who seems to have the geniality of the goose-uncle to a T). As already mentioned, the care and attention to high-quality imagery is in the jazz scene, whereas she is sketchily drawn, roaming the mansion, so that we are distanced from her grief, and can rest it instead in Roquefort, the mouse, whose quivering voice is so brilliantly done by Sterling Holloway.

The tussle at the end is about Edgar fighting for what he wants, and the animals showing that, by working together, they can overpower and defeat him. A wholesome account of the nature of good and evil, which leaves little room, except at a comic level, to understand Edgar’s desire not to have his life dominated after his mistress’ death by her menagerie – again, this is not Corneille, and, beyond understanding his motivation, we are not invited to enter into such things.

At heart, setting aside the misery and self-destructiveness in the genius of many a twentieth-century jazz musician, the wish to be ‘in’ and play a horn so that people want to listen :


Ev'rybody wants to be a cat,
Because a cat is where it’s at



End-notes

* Actual date 1970.

** Another Disney, from 1955.


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