Rules in the repeat loop at a slower speed – Cinema Moralia, Diary of a Moviegoer, 259th episode
From Rüdiger Suchsland
“I am not free, I can only choose /
Which thieves steal from me, which murderers order me
No power for nobody / No power for nobody “
– clay stones shards
Actually, these two films should be discussed together. Because they have a lot in common. The directors are both 83 years old and show little signs of exhaustion. Rather, they seem to confirm the claim that 80 is the new 60.
House of Gucci by Ridley Scott and Benedetta by Paul Verhoeven also celebrate two essences of cinema that are all too often forgotten in our present day: the desire to show and voyeurism. Because cinema is more than the plot of the films; Cinema is more than just stories; Cinema is more than characters that interest us and psychologies that we understand.
The principle that cinema is a demonstration art, not a storytelling art, is disregarded because films still have to work on the smallest screens and because you have to be able to “watch” them without looking: when you go to the kitchen, ironing, on the sofa, but not looking at the television, but at the new telly, the smartphone.
Just as our society is currently forgetting how to write, assisted by the many new language assistants and conversion programs, it is also forgetting how to see.
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“This time it’s shitty football to blame,” a Berlin rental company tells me, and I know what he means. The cinemas will have to close again, thanks to the lateral thinkers, science enemies and vaccination refusals. Not really close, perhaps, because perhaps you are still “allowed” to occupy at least 25 percent of the seats, perhaps with a minimum distance of an absurd 1.5 meters.
Half of the cinemas cannot or do not want to afford it and will rather close. The rental companies postpone their launches until March or later. So the program is missing. Festivals and congresses do not take place at all or only to a very limited extent and are “hybrid”. So there is no media environment.
The cinema is once again compulsorily embedded from the outside, against all arguments and against all common sense, simply “because you can do it” and the cinema, like other “leisure activities”, is a grateful activity area to demonstrate that activity that you cannot do elsewhere Day sets.
Regardless of whether you call it lockdown or come up with some nicer words, it is a culture lockdown.
Again, on the back of culture, the failure of local and regional bureaucracies, the hysteria of society and, above all, the cowardice and fear of politicians are carried out. It is the cowardice and fear of “the people”, “the voters”, which lead to a minority of narrow-minded citizens being able to publicly expound their absurd theses without being opposed by anyone. Because for a long time they did not want to be expected to be vaccinated, nor did they want to be informed about the content before both of course now come after all.
The cinema suffers as a result. It also suffers from the fact that it currently has no political representation. That the incumbent Minister of State for Culture exercises her office in a similar way to Jens Spahn, and that the new one has not yet been installed.
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We must and will write separately about Claudia Roth’s appointment. There is no time today. One can at least state that the GREEN-friendly cultural scene is gradually getting scared. Was that really what they wanted? And the ones they wanted?
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And what does that have to do with football? It’s the power of images. The pictures “from Cologne”. The fact that FC defeated VfL Borussia 4-1 in the Rhenish derby in front of 50,000 spectators in the open air under 2G conditions gave all possible talk show politicians from all parties “the wrong signal”. This is nonsense. Everyone knows that it is nonsense, but this knowledge has no consequence.
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Lionel Messi, who else is footballer of the year! As is well known, Argentina is not only one of the great footballing countries in the world, but also one of the cinema’s eternally longed for. As every year, Berlin has its own small but fine cinema festival for Argentinian films: »Invasion Berlin«.
Since everything cannot take place in the cinemas due to the pandemic, because the financial risk would have been too great surfing the crest of the fourth wave, “Invasion” wanders once more into the pampas of the virtual. On the website www.invasionberlin.com from December 3rd to December 12th you can Buy tickets and watch films from Argentina online that have not yet made it into German cinemas. All seven are available for only 15 euros.
This includes Submerged Family by Maria Alche, who already ran in Locarno. Maria Alche is a very interesting, still young artist, who one or the other probably knows as an actress: for example in films by Lucrezia Martel, arguably the best contemporary Argentinian filmmaker.
Just ran The Glare the latest film by Martin Farina, at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival. A strange, dreamlike mix of impressions, an essayistic alien of film between documentary and feature film, meat and body, the carnival of a faun, for which Farina also composed the music – it was no coincidence that the audience in Mannheim reminded the audience of Stravinsky, and the beginning of the next Year in German cinemas.
With expectations awakened like this, I’m looking forward to Martin Farina’s previous film: Children of God, which is also shown in the “Invasion”.
More about everything next week.
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Speaking of football: if you absolutely have to, you can now watch The Hand of God watch the latest Sorrentino film, which is usually unsuccessful. As the title suggests, it is not only about Naples and the director’s ego, but also about the summer of 1986 and Diego Maradona’s time at SSC Naples.
Even as a football lover, you don’t get anything from the film.
The far better decision is to adapt to the lockdown in your posture, and in the 3sat media library the really great documentary by Diego Maradona Asif Kapadia to watch.
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A collage of a Brecht staging (“Heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe”), a portrait of foreign workers in Germany and the environment of an industrial slaughterhouse – that’s rules on the line, at high speed by the HFF Munich Absovent Yulia Lokshna. Language and images are productively separated from each other in the film. The director skilfully bypasses the images that she did not receive.
The discussion at a demonstration on the outskirts of Hohenschönhausen in Berlin then revolves around the few remaining resistance potentials: “Being a communist – has failed. Everyone learned that. Violence – failed. Everyone has learned that too. Breaking a bad law is the next thing that may still be possible. “
That won’t do the culture any good either. The power of the pictures against the pictures is stronger.
(to be continued)
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