More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
21 September (Revisited, 5 August 2015)
In the introduction, we were told that this feature, Pieces of Me (Des Morceaux de Moi) (2012) said a lot in ninety minutes, but I found myself ending up quite bored with it – not that I did not have sympathy with one sibling being treated worse than another, but I found the central character Erell (Adèle Exarchopoulos), even given her age (one guesses fourteen ?), irritating with her incessant videoing, and could not credit that more than one of her friends would not have told her to stop doing it long before. (Maybe it was meant to be set a few years back, but no youngster would use one of those monsters with a flip-down screen now.)
The video footage itself I found inconsistent, because some of it obviously was of a quality that matched the hardly new camera that Erell was using, and others seemed to have been shot with a decent lens and then, as if to pretend that she had taken it, degraded afterwards. If she really had not been filming her friends for long, it was remarkable how much she was allowed to put them on the spot, challenging the notion of what one would do if he did not, as he expected, die young, or another (who did actually tell her where to get off) as to why he would not kill a man, if asked to do so, given that he was willing to kill a chicken on request.
I had not been very impressed by the opening shot to self-camera, where she had envisaged her request being carried out to be cremated and then her ashes mixed well into a large bottle of vodka and drunk. A toxic drink that, perhaps, her family choked on with regularity, as she seemed to have nothing but accusations for them, and to be the tomboy – when not behind the camera – for her friends. As such a portrayal, it was classic, but the piece itself did not have many filmic credentials, apart from a few choice shots of flora and fauna.
I say nothing about a daughter’s feelings towards a mother with MS. Only that the former is supposed to be partly confused why the latter needs care (and, more importantly, whether she is not shamming), whereas regular trips to the hospital are not – with what one understands to be a typical course for the condition – cohesive with such early stages : the admission that we see seems to necessitate walking with a stick, when all that had been complained of before was fatigue. There was nothing, say, to suggest problems with motor control or balance. These things are queried from knowing what one has witnessed in others, but being open to hearing that The MS Society compliments this depiction. (Compare it with that of Martina Gedeck in Atomised (2006), who also has a degenerative condition ?)
The film is competent, but, other than much recrimination about why Sarah has been favoured over Erell, and left without any contact (such that her father had to be called to see whether he could identify a body as hers), and the associated rebelliousness of youth, it has relatively little to say : this is one of the rare occasions where watching a film on a t.v. screen would not have depreciated it at all.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Showing posts with label Martina Gedeck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martina Gedeck. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 September 2013
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Barbara - in two Tweets, and a bit of bloggin'
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
20 November
* Contains spoilers *
To my mind, if you've seen Others (2006)*, viewing Barbara is inextricably linked with that experience, although I would, in no way, want to underplay the fact that Nina Hoss plays the title role brilliantly, and that this fact alone serves to distinguish Barbara from the earlier film** (together with the skill and genuineness that Ronald Zehrfeld brings to playing the co-starring part of André).
To keep, for a moment, on this bungling Stasi idea, a few observations (in no particular order) :
* Barbara disappears off on the train and thence to a lakeside restaurant to get cash left for her by her lover in West Germany*** (somehow she knows that it is there, which is never - fair enough - explained)
* She does all this (and stashes the money where, I think, he has suggested) without any more than her hours-long absence being detected
* However, the Stasi seem powerless / unwilling to punish her for her more or less obvious disobedience / suspicious behaviour (even at this stage : Barbara never presents, from the first shot, as someone who will tow the line), except by the humiliation of trashing her flat when looking it over
* Despite these disruptive looks-around her accommodation, they later fail to find the cash at the time when it is hanging from a thread down the flue of her stove
* They humiliate her, at the same time, by intimate strip-searches, but to no avail, as - whatever they think that they are looking for (i.e. they do not question her in any meaningful way, let alone interrogate her) - they never find anything (if I kept looking, and not discovering, when Barbara behaves as she does, I cannot imagine saying Ho hum!)
* She sneaks away and, seemingly undetected, spends (part of) the night with her lover - I recall no visit, no sanctions
Do I need to go on, to suggest that these Stasi agents are not the brightest matches in the box? Fine for a talented and compassionate, as well as highly intelligent, doctor to outwit them, but I got the impression that Minnie Mouse could have, too...
Barbara is no Minnie at all - she is hard to get to know, easier to like, and that is the joy of the film, and of seeing André interested in (and trying to soften) her supiciousness (which is her protective cloak) and her.
That part of the film is perfectly fine, but it is the business with the rude mechanicals that doesn't convince me, and makes the film overall the weaker.
Apologies for a bit of a rushed account of this, which (unless it is something that merits no polishing) may get it later...
Actually, what it's going to get is this Twitter exchange :
End-notes
* IMDb suggests that there is a The Lives of Others (2013).
** Which is not to criticize Ulrich Mühe, but rather the limitations of his part, or Martina Gedeck, for whom, from Atomized (2000) I have a soft spot / a lot of time for her acting.
*** BRD = Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which we called FRG = Federal Republic of Germany.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
20 November
* Contains spoilers *
@picturehouses Dunno about Barbara - it's recommended if you liked The Lives of Others, but it - Barbara herself apart - doesn't go beyond.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 20, 2012
Barbara - does the film portray the same ruthless, but largely inept, Stasi that The Lives of Others did, basically benign because bungling?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 20, 2012
To my mind, if you've seen Others (2006)*, viewing Barbara is inextricably linked with that experience, although I would, in no way, want to underplay the fact that Nina Hoss plays the title role brilliantly, and that this fact alone serves to distinguish Barbara from the earlier film** (together with the skill and genuineness that Ronald Zehrfeld brings to playing the co-starring part of André).
To keep, for a moment, on this bungling Stasi idea, a few observations (in no particular order) :
* Barbara disappears off on the train and thence to a lakeside restaurant to get cash left for her by her lover in West Germany*** (somehow she knows that it is there, which is never - fair enough - explained)
* She does all this (and stashes the money where, I think, he has suggested) without any more than her hours-long absence being detected
* However, the Stasi seem powerless / unwilling to punish her for her more or less obvious disobedience / suspicious behaviour (even at this stage : Barbara never presents, from the first shot, as someone who will tow the line), except by the humiliation of trashing her flat when looking it over
* Despite these disruptive looks-around her accommodation, they later fail to find the cash at the time when it is hanging from a thread down the flue of her stove
* They humiliate her, at the same time, by intimate strip-searches, but to no avail, as - whatever they think that they are looking for (i.e. they do not question her in any meaningful way, let alone interrogate her) - they never find anything (if I kept looking, and not discovering, when Barbara behaves as she does, I cannot imagine saying Ho hum!)
* She sneaks away and, seemingly undetected, spends (part of) the night with her lover - I recall no visit, no sanctions
Do I need to go on, to suggest that these Stasi agents are not the brightest matches in the box? Fine for a talented and compassionate, as well as highly intelligent, doctor to outwit them, but I got the impression that Minnie Mouse could have, too...
Barbara is no Minnie at all - she is hard to get to know, easier to like, and that is the joy of the film, and of seeing André interested in (and trying to soften) her supiciousness (which is her protective cloak) and her.
That part of the film is perfectly fine, but it is the business with the rude mechanicals that doesn't convince me, and makes the film overall the weaker.
Apologies for a bit of a rushed account of this, which (unless it is something that merits no polishing) may get it later...
Actually, what it's going to get is this Twitter exchange :
'Barbara' a muted mystery timepiece swept international film festival circuit, praised for its take on East German life dw.de/p/179bm
— German Culture (@GermanKultur) December 27, 2012
@germankultur Fine, but a documentary, with re-enactments, could do that, and that isn't what makes a feature film, I believe.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2012
@theagentapsley Have seen it and must admit, having experience of the country at the time, thought it summed up the emotional conflict.
— German Culture (@GermanKultur) December 27, 2012
@germankultur It's not an inherent criticism that a film depends on one character, but I felt that this one did too much (and inept Stasi).
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2012
End-notes
* IMDb suggests that there is a The Lives of Others (2013).
** Which is not to criticize Ulrich Mühe, but rather the limitations of his part, or Martina Gedeck, for whom, from Atomized (2000) I have a soft spot / a lot of time for her acting.
*** BRD = Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which we called FRG = Federal Republic of Germany.
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