Antti Alanen: Film Diary

The Jussi Awards for the best Finnish movies of 2011

2012-01-30T05:40:00.003+02:00

BEST FILM: Le Havre / producer Aki Kaurismäki
BEST DIRECTOR: Le Havre / Aki Kaurismäki
BEST MALE PERFORMANCE IN A LEADING ROLE: Joonas Saartamo / Hiljaisuus
BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN A LEADING ROLE: Elina Knihtilä / Hyvä poika
BEST MALE PERFORMANCE IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Ilkka Heiskanen / Hiljaisuus
BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Elina Salo / Le Havre
BEST SCREENPLAY: Aki Kaurismäki / Le Havre
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Timo Salminen / Le Havre
BEST MUSIC: Timo Hietala / Hiljaisuus
BEST SOUND DESIGN: Olli Huhtanen ja Pietari Koskinen / Hiljaisuus
BEST EDITING: Timo Linnasalo / Le Havre
BEST ART DIRECTION: Kari Kankaanpää / Hella W
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Anu Pirilä / Hella W
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM: Ikuisesti sinun / Mia Halme

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Elina Salo

PEOPLE'S CHOICE: Varasto

BEST SHORT FILM (KETTU AWARD): Ö / Kari Juusonen / short animation / 12 min

The Jussi Awards were first given on 16 November 1944. They are reportedly the oldest national film awards in Europe.

Gustav Leonhardt (1928-2012), the J.S. Bach of Straub and Huillet

2012-01-28T17:47:00.003+02:00

Gustav Leonhardt, the great man of Renaissance, Baroque and Classical music, is dead. He is film-relevant because of his central role in Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), the labour of love of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. The movie is a spiritual biography of Johann Sebastian Bach based on material aesthetics, the materials being the music, the instruments, the documents, the places and the buildings in the life of the J.S. Bach family. The bewigged Gustav Leonhardt "plays" Bach without any representational psychological approach. But he does really play the instruments in this remarkable movie which has practically "musique non stop" on the soundtrack, and his interpretations are the ones that we hear. They are one man's interpretations among many, but they are compelling ones.

Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach belongs to the highest plateau of cinematic biographies of artists. It belongs to the company of Alain Resnais's Van Gogh where we stay exclusively within the frames of his paintings and follow his spiritual journey via them only.

From the English Wikipedia: "Gustav Leonhardt (30 May 1928, 's-Graveland – 16 January 2012, Amsterdam) was a highly renowned Dutch keyboard player, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. Leonhardt was a leading figure in the movement to perform music on period instruments. He played professionally the harpsichord, pipe organ, claviorganum (a combination of harpsichord and organ), clavichord and fortepiano, and conducted orchestras and choruses."

"Leonhardt performed and conducted a variety of solo, chamber, orchestral, operatic, and choral music from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods. Among the dozens of composers whose music he recorded as a harpsichordist, organist, clavichordist, fortepianist, chamber musician or conductor were Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Heinrich Biber, John Blow, Georg Böhm, William Byrd, André Campra, Francois Couperin, Louis Couperin, John Dowland, Jacques Duphly, Antoine Forqueray, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johann Jakob Froberger, Orlando Gibbons, André Grétry, George Frideric Handel, Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Georg Muffat, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Christian Ritter, Johann Rosenmuller, Domenico Scarlatti, Agostino Steffani, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Georg Philipp Telemann, Manuel Valls, Antonio Vivaldi, and Matthias Weckmann."

"Central to Leonhardt's career was Johann Sebastian Bach. Leonhardt first recorded music of the composer in the early 1950s, with recordings in 1953 of the Goldberg Variations and Art of Fugue. The latter embodies the thesis he had published the previous year arguing that the work was intended for the keyboard, a conclusion now widely accepted. The recordings helped establish his reputation as a distinguished harpsichordist and Bach interpreter. In 1954 he led the Leonhardt Baroque Ensemble with the English counter-tenor Alfred Deller in a pioneering recording of two Bach cantatas."

"In 1971, Leonhardt and Harnoncourt undertook the project of recording the first complete cycle of Bach's cantatas on period instruments; the two conductors divided up the cantatas and recorded their assigned cantatas with their own ensembles. The undertaking took almost twenty years, from 1971 to 1990. Leonhardt also recorded Bach's St Matthew Passion, Mass in B minor, Magnificat, and complete secular cantatas, as well as the harpsichord concertos and Brandenburg Concertos, and most of his chamber and keyboard music; he recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations (three times), Partitas (twice), The Art of Fugue twice, The Well-Tempered Clavier, French Suites, English Suites (twice), Inventions and Sinfonias, and many individual works for harpsichord, clavichord, and organ. Further, Leonhardt appeared bewigged in the role of J. S. Bach in The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, the 1968 film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet."

"Leonhardt had a significant influence on the technique and style of many harpsichordists of the second half of the 20th century, through his recordings, editions, and teaching."

I noticed the news about Gustav Leonhardt's passing in The Economist (28 Jan - 3 Feb, 2012) whose remarkable obituary is unsigned.

Punaisen Metsän Hotelli / Red Forest Hotel

2012-01-28T13:35:00.089+02:00

Punaisen Metsän Hotelli [the title in the Swedish-speaking Hufvudstadsbladet] [the title is the name of an actual hotel, therefore the capital letters]. FI/CN © 2011 Luxian Productions. Year of Finnish release: 2012. P: Mika Koskinen, Risto Rumpunen. D+SC: Mika Koskinen. DP: Mika Koskinen, Mika Mattila - 2K DCP mastered at Toast Post Production. M: traditional Pumi and Hami folk music. S: Janne Laine. ED: Kauko Lindfors. 87 min. With commentary in Finnish and dialogue spoken in Chinese including in the Guangxi dialect. Distributed in Finland by Pirkanmaan Elokuvakeskus with Finnish subtitles only by Katja Paanala (Broadcast Text). 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 4, Helsinki, 28 Jan 2012.

From the production information: "The attempt of a Finnish cinematographer to make a movie about the tree planting projects in the newly green oriented China turns into a nightmare when the officials defending the reputation of a pulp and paper manufacturer set themselves against it."

"The Finnish news cinematographer who has worked for 15 years in Beijing starts to make a movie about China's massive tree planting campaigns. Facing the climate change the giant state invests also into recycling and renewable energy. The cinematographer is intrigued to observe whether authoritarian China might grow into a model of green politics for the whole world."

"There is a surprise turn in the film-making project when local authorities stop the cinematographer on his way to the tree plantations in the Guangxi province in Southern China."

"The Finnish-owned pulp and paper manufacturer is planting immense eucalyptus plantations for raw materials for a planned paper mill. The atmosphere turns Kafkaesque. The helpful officials praise the project but try with every means to prevent interviews in their district. The film-maker is isolated in his hotel, and his local contacts are caught." (My translation.)

The backstory I was not familiar with: in modern green China a lot is invested into wind energy and solar energy. There is a plan of a green Great Wall - an immense zone of trees. Planting trees is a civil duty. China plants two and a half times more trees than the rest of the world together. China is the biggest importer of trees.

Another backstory is China's ancient ecological tradition, not strange for a Finn: the beliefs of the old Pumi and Hami peoples about the protecting powers of old trees, some of them over a thousand years old.

But something is going wrong with Stora Enso. The film-makers speak about "totalitarian ecology": the exploitation of nature in the service of the destructively "efficient" eucalyptus cultivation. Eucalyptus trees drain the water from the sources and their cultivation makes life hell for the people living there. Famous springs and wells dry up. The establishment of eucalyptus plantations is achieved with violent enforcement.

In the final credits we learn that the sober lawyer Yang Zaixin who accompanies the filmmaker Mika Koskinen has been sentenced into prison on 13 June 2011.

"Even the word Finland scares us" state the villagers (Stora Enso is a Finnish company). I have heard the same claim during my visits in Brazil and Argentine because of Finnish companies' ruthless ways and gross neglect of the local people's interests.

The visual quality is understandably that of a basic video record. The grandeur of the nature is not visually evident, but the focus of the film is in the serious and balanced exposé of industrial corruption. What price success?

End credits beyond the jump break:
LOPPUTEKSTIT
Käsikirjoitus, ohjaus ja tuotanto
Mika Koskinen

Kuvaus
Mika Koskinen
Mika Mattila

B-kamera
Tuomas Hakala
Antti Seppänen

Leikkaus
Kauko Lindfors

Käsikirjoitus- ja rakennekonsultti
Kimmo Kohtamäki

Trailerileikkaus
Donagh Coleman
Tuomas Hakala
Mika Koskinen

Äänisuunnittelu
Janne Laine

Miksaus
Janne Laine
Olli Pärnänen
Meguru Film Sound
AquaSonic
Abdissa Assefa

Kertoja
Mika Koskinen

Musiikki
Audio Networks
Pumi- ja Hami-kansojen perinnemusiikki

Kuvan jälkikäsittely
Toast Post Production

Online
Tommi Rehn
Kari Mankinen

Scratch-värimäärittely
Veikko Ruuskanen

Kuvatehosteet
Vesa Vinni

DCP-masterointi
Jari Vuoristo

Graafikot
Hanna-Leena Kartano
Petja Salmio

Tuotanto
2. Tuottaja
Risto Rumpunen

Tiedotus- markkinointi- ja käännöstuottaja
Soile Koskinen

Tuotantopäällikkö
Lihong Zheng

Kuvausjärjestelyt Guangxissa
Dean Peng
Gu Tieliu

Litterointi Kiinassa
Jessica Wang

Kääntäjät Kiinassa
Jessie Lu
Zhu Qinzhe
Lucia Yang Liuxi

Guangxin-murteen käännökset
Cai Kunru
Li Fengying

Lisäkäännökset
Wang Chunqing
Kwok Wong

Tekstityksen viimeistely
Katja Paanala/Broadcast text

Nettisivut
Kettukallio

Arkistomateriaali
Hannu Hyvönen
YLE Beijing

Kiitokset
Yang Zaixin
Yang Jinghui
Flood B.Cheng
Cai Kunru
Su Tianjin
Larry Lohmann

Chen Zhenhua, Liu Guohui, Ou Fahua, Song Zhihong, Yin Zhenjun, Zhao Jing Yun, Zhang Jianshe

Tree planting station Beijing/Qiu Yang

CTC Zhong Jin Car Rental/Gao Yin

Ma Yongshun Tree Planting Base/Ma Chunhua, Zhang Hua

Wuzuolou State Forest Farm of Mi Yun Forestry Bureau

Lenovo Group Beijing/Liu Limei

China Green Times/Alice Wang Shengnan

China Mobile Youth Group/Song Xuesi

Solana Lifestyle Shopping Park/Nancy Miao

Beijing Forest Bureau Propaganda Department Municipal Government Bureau of Forestry/Tong Haiming

China National Tobacco Corp. Idealistic & Political Dept./Liu Xu

Stora Enso/Cindy Zhang, Lauri Peltola

Tufeng project:
Chen Zhe - Beijing
Hu Xinyu - Beijing
Guo Weixi - Hexi
Xong Qing - Lanping
Yang Hongkai - Lanping
Global Times - Zhang Yuchen

EU-China Biodiversity Program:
John MacKinnon
Lin Gu

Maan ystävät - Noora Ojala
Greenpeace China - Liu Bing
Greenpeace Finland - Matti Liimatainen

Anki Nikula, Jukka Åkerman, Jari Turunen, Sohini Sengupta, Craig Protzel, Jesse Lai, Wang Li, Zhang Lan, Iikka Vehkalahti, Katri Makkonen, Petteri Tuohinen, Sami Sillanpää, Leena Koskinen, Marita, Taina & Olli Ruokolainen, Veli Sertti, Hannu Hyvönen, Ben Partridge, Wei Xiaoshi

Ja kaikki muut tässä elokuvassa esiintyneet ja sen valmistumista auttaneet tahot Guangxissa, Yunnanissa, Nanxunissa, Pekingissä ja Helsingissä.

Tämän elokuvatuotannon hiilijalanjälki on pyritty minimoimaan matkustamalla lentokoneen sijasta junalla sekä Kiinan ja Suomen välillä että Euroopan ja Kiinan sisäisillä matkoilla.

Yhteistyössä
Suomen elokuvasäätiö - Miia Haavisto, Elina Kivihalme

AVEK - Audiovisuaalisen kulttuurin edistämiskeskus -
Pia Andell, Timo Korhonen

YLE - Iikka Vehkalahti, Erkki Astala

SVT Ruotsi - Axel Arnö

NRK Norja - Tore Tomter

Myynti: www.autlookfilms.com

© Luxian productions 2011
www.redforesthotelthemovie.com

Canned Dreams

2012-01-28T11:30:00.064+02:00

[Only the English-language title was visible on screen] / Säilöttyjä unelmia / Säilöttyjä unelmia [the title used in the Swedish-speaking Hufvudstadsbladet]. IE/NO/PT/FR/FI © 2011 Oktober. Year of Finnish release: 2012. P: Joonas Berghäll, Petri Rossi. D: Katja Gauriloff. SC: Katja Gauriloff, Joonas Berghäll, Jarkko T. Laine. DP: Heikki Färm, Tuomo Hutri - shot on Super 16 (Kodak) - Kodak Cinelabs Romania - 2K digital intermediate: Generator Post. M: Karsten Fundal. S: Peter Albrechtsen. Loc: Brazil, Portugal, France, Italy, Ukraine, Romania, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Finland. 75 min. Spoken in Portuguese, Danish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian. The captions on the viewing copy are in English. Released in Finland by FS Film with Finnish subtitles only (n.c.). 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 8, Helsinki, 28 Jan 2012.

From the production information: "Canned Dreams is a Finnish documentary film about how industrially processed foodstuff ends up on the shelf of a Finnish grocery store. The movie follows the incredible journey of 35.000 kilometers of one can of food starting from the ore quarries of Brazil and making the rounds of many different countries of production until the cannery in France."

"Above all the movie tells about the life and the dreams of the people participating in the production in different countries. Behind every finished product one can find countless working hands, and the can of food grows into a metaphor of multicultural Europe." (End of quote, translation mine.)

Based on the advance buzz I was expecting a muckraking exposé, but Canned Dreams is a sober account on industrial food production. I have respected Katja Gauriloff as the director of Huuto tuuleen (A Shout into the Wind), an important statement on behalf of the Sami people, and Canned Dreams confirms her status as a top documentary film director.

Katja Gauriloff's movie is an amazing reminder on the global aspect of food production. The account of industrialized agricultural processes are in the best tradition of documentary observation. The special distinction of the movie is in its focus on the personal stories and dreams of working people in various countries. Human labour is behind everything.

Two patrons left the cinema during the pig slaughter sequence. Canned Dreams belongs to the tradition of Frederick Wiseman's Meat of which it is a well known claim that people who see it stop eating meat. Canned Dreams also belongs to the cinema's cross-section (Querschnitt) tradition. It also belongs to the even older tradition of documenting how products are made, starting from the very beginning. I seem to remember having seen non-fiction accounts about the production of canned fish that are over a hundred years old. But Canned Dreams is a fully original update of all such traditions.

The visual quality is high and the editing rhythm intensive. Shot on Super 16, even the 2K DCP of the movie conveys the value of Heikki Färm's top drawer cinematography.

Jonathan Rosenbaum's global dvd discoveries

2012-01-28T08:17:00.002+02:00

My favourite cyberspace reading this morning: Jonathan Rosenbaum's column in Cinema Scope 49 on "Global Discoveries on Dvd: about 40 More Items (or Thereabouts)". Whets my appetite to see many of the releases discussed even when I know the films well. Jonathan Rosenbaum has a good grip on his rambling web column format. There is no lack of space, and thanks to the limitlessness there is a relaxed approach and no need to omit the exciting detail. Artists and releases discussed include James Benning, Miklós Jancsó, Manoel de Oliveira, Jackie Raynal, Treasures 5: The West, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Fanny and Alexander the full version, Chantal Akerman, Peter Thompson, Françoise Romand, Lucy Massie Phenix, Ernie Kovacs, Claude Chabrol, Prima della rivoluzione, Cœur fidèle, Criterion's The Complete Jean Vigo, Elizabeth Marton's Swedish movie in German: Ich hiess Sabina Spielrein / My Name Was Sabina Spielrein, Landmarks of Early Soviet Film, Eclipse's Leningrad Cowboys collection, Víctor Erice's La Morte Rouge, rare Hollywood movies on Spanish labels, Jerzy Skolimowski, André Delvaux, Matt Porterfield, Warner Bros.'s Citizen Kane the 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition blu-ray release, Straub & Huillet, The Savage Eye, and Un condamné à mort s'est échappé. Incredible.

I copy here Rosenbaum's remarks on Víctor Erice's masterpiece La Morte Rouge, which was screened in the Kiarostami Erice Correspondances exhibition only, and is now available for the first time for the general audience on dvd.

Jonathan Rosenbaum on La Morte Rouge: "Soon after I arrived in San Sebastian to serve on the New Directors jury, I picked up Víctor Erice’s La Morte Rouge (2006) on the Rosebud label at FNAC, and watched this 33-minute masterpiece with English subtitles soon afterwards, for the first time, in my hotel room. It’s my wholly unexpected good luck that the principal location of this autobiographical essay about the first movie Erice ever saw, Roy William Neill’s The Scarlet Claw (a creepy 1946 Sherlock Holmes opus dubbed into Spanish), is the Kursaal, visible from my room—a one-time casino (until gambling was outlawed) that also housed an ornate cinema. (The French title refers to the imaginary French Canadian town where The Scarlet Claw is set.)"

"There are many other things about this film that kept me spellbound: not just the sumptuous beauty and mystery of the (mainly black-and-white) images and the entrancing rhythm of their succession, but the uncanny closeness of Erice’s childhood experience to my own first book, Moving Places: A Life at the Movies, whereby the mix of newsreel and fantasy conjures up an indelible sense of contemporary actuality (in Erice’s case, postwar Franco Spain). I was also fascinated by the recurring Spanish theme of perceiving the Franco period through the metaphor and vehicle of horror films that’s also evident in Pere Portabella’s Cuadecuc-Vampir, Umbracle (both 1970), and the beginning of his Informe general (1977), not to mention Erice’s own The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)."

"On the same disc, among a rich profusion of extras, is Erice’s 11-minute Alumbramiento/Lifeline (2002), also in black and white, his fictional contribution to the sketch feature Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet—in some ways even more ambitious and jam-packed, albeit much less immediately accessible, at least to me. (Linda Ehrlich’s detailed essay about it, “The Promise of Time”—another extra, also included in the second edition of her invaluable collection, An Open Window: The Cinema of Víctor Erice—offers a lot of useful contextual information.) There’s also a 53-minute conversation between Erice and Manuel Asin included, and everything comes with optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles." (End of the Jonathan Rosenbaum quote).

Good reading at my coffee-table

2012-01-27T21:23:00.011+02:00

Eight weeks have passed since my traffic accident. Last week I started working at the office again, but in the afternoons I'm so exhausted that I don't really have the energy to even to go the cinema yet. It's difficult to concentrate for two hours, but with reading it's easier to have breaks.

1. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow: The Grand Design. London etc.: Bantam Press, 2010. Quantum theory for laymen. I predict innovations based on it will change a lot of things, for example digital information circumstances, during our lifetime.

2. Caroline Frick: Saving Cinema: The Politics of Preservation. New York etc.: Oxford University Press, 2011. A good general introduction into film preservation during the biggest change in our profession.

3. Sauli Miettinen: Marlene Dietrich: nainen ja tähti [Marlene Dietrich: A Woman and a Star]. Helsinki: Otava, 2011. An amazing 639-page original study on Marlene Dietrich based on first-hand sources in Dietrich's own archives. The focus is on Dietrich's career as a singer: she herself saw it as the most important area of her professional activity.

4. Panu Rajala: Naisten mies ja aatteiden: Juhani Ahon elämäntaide [A Man of Women and Ideas: Juhani Aho's Life Art]. Helsinki: WSOY, 2011. Antti Aho's biography on his father, the writer Juhani Aho, is a favourite book of mine. Panu Rajala starts his new biography in an easy reading mode, but towards the end, in his account of Juhani Aho and our terrible civil war in 1918, and on the final years he actually picks up gravity and emphasizes the family drama which in the 1950s was still too sensitive for Antti to discuss: that his brother Heikki fought with the reds and that also his mother, Ms. Aho, Venny Soldan, was a red sympathizer. Juhani Aho abhorred the terror of both the reds and the whites which he witnessed first hand. During the 1950s modernism Aho fell out of fashion, but for me has a timeless appeal.

5. Arto Salminen: Varasto [The Storeroom]. Helsinki: WSOY, 1998. Inspired by Taru Mäkelä's movie I read this novel for the first time. Arto Salminen is a master of dialogue and the Finnish language and a satirist of the desolate condition of society. The movie is quite faithful to the novel which is grimmer, however. Rousku's betrayal of Raninen is uglier in the novel, and there are no redeeming later encounters between them. A feature not in the novel but in the movie is Rousku's attempt to poison Karita's yoghurt and the store manager's effeminization after eating it. In my school and student days I have worked in jobs like this, and I recognized some of that reality in the novel. But I feel the novel is biased because of its exaggerated account of the spiritual emptiness in the storeroom. I have had some of the most interesting and passionate discussions in jobs like that (about music, movies, tv, news, society, women, etc.). My guess would be that the world hasn't changed that much.

6. Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen: Valoa valoa valoa [Light Light Light]. Hämeenlinna: Karisto, 2011. A novel, a love story between two 14-year-old girls. The poet Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen has written a fresh and original novel set in the spring and summer of 1986, the year of Chernobyl. The title "light light light" has a double meaning. There is a joy of language in the book which it will be a pleasure to read again.

7. Eeva-Kaarina Aronen: Kallorumpu [Skull Drum]. Helsinki: Teos, 2011. A memory novel. One day in 1935 in Mannerheim's house in Helsinki viewed through a cinematic project devised by an old man who was a little boy at the time. Easy reading around Mannerheim, not a historical novel.

8. The New York Review of Books, Jan 12 - Feb 8, 2012. - Russell Baker on Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar (he finds a "curious lack of menace" in it). - Colin Thubron on Simon Sebag Montefiore's Jerusalem: The Biography. - Sue Halpern on Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography. - Orlando Figes on Bulgakov and Stalin (John Hodge's Collaborators). - Lee Siegel on The Two Walkabouts: the novel and Nicolas Roeg's movie. - Jeremy Waldron on Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (the critic remains skeptical about Pinker's view).

9. TIFF Bell Lightbox Programme Guide, January-April 2012. Toronto's TIFF Cinematheque's programme texts are among the best. James Quandt writes about Yilmaz Güney, Nicholas Ray, and Robert Bresson. Other inspired themes include "Design for Living: Gary Hustwit's Design Trilogy" (Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized), a tribute to 50 years of la Semaine de la Critique at Cannes film festival, Attack the Bloc: Cold War Science Fiction from Behind the Iron Curtain, black filmmakers in Canada, the US, the Caribbean and Africa, John Greyson impatient, Human Rights Watch 2012, and Spirited Away: the films of Studio Ghibli.

10. Arsenal, Februar 2012, Berlin. In February Arsenal is a venue for the 42. Forum and the 7. Forum Expanded of the Berlin Film Festival. Other themes include Sandrine Bonnaire, Magical History Tour, Yuzo Kawashima, Shirley Clarke, Ulrike Ottinger, and James Benning.

11. La Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg, Février 2012. Carl Davis conducts a Charles Chaplin and a Harold Lloyd concert. - The Tous les genres du cinéma en 10 leçons proceeds into the Western. - There is a Laterna Magica performance by the Ensemble Illuminago and a Filmreakter Double Feature. - The François Truffaut 80th anniversary tribute is the Antoine Doinel cycle. - The Martin Scorsese retrospective continues, as does the Road Movie, Europe series.

12. Det Danske Filminstitut: Cinemateket Februar 2012, Copenhagen: Orson Welles II: Europæisk eksil. - John Le Carré. - Europæisk film: nationale favoritter. - Errol Morris: bag den amerikanske drøm. - Månedens film: Bellflower. - Fashion in Film: Stumfilmens modedivaer. - Dickens 200 år: Store forventninger / Great Expectations (A.W. Sandberg) [which I believe David Lean may have seen].

13. Filmoteca Española (Cine Doré in Madrid): diciembre 2011, enero 2012: - Recuerdo de Raúl Ruiz. - Recuerdo de Blake Edwards. - Jan Švankmajer. - Edgar Neville. - II Muestra de cine palestino: Michel Khleifi. - Premios Goya. - Gastrofestival: Cine y gastronomia.

The Iron Lady

2012-01-27T13:05:00.065+02:00

Rautarouva / Järnladyn. GB/FR © 2011 Pathé / Channel Four / BFI. P: Damian Jones. D: Phyllida Lloyd. SC: Abi Morgan. DP: Elliot Davis - negative: 35 mm (Kodak Vision3 500T 5219) - digital intermediate: DeLuxe 142 - 2,35:1 - release formats: 35 mm and DCP. PD: Simon Elliott. AD: Bill Crutcher. Set dec: Annie Gilhooly. Cost: Consolata Boyle. Makeup artist and hair stylist for Ms. Streep: J. Roy Helland. M: Thomas Newman. S: Nigel Stone. ED: Justine Wright. Casting: Nina Gold. Cast: Meryl Streep (Margaret Thatcher), Jim Broadbent (Denis Thatcher), Susan Brown (June), Alice da Cunha (cleaner), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Susie), Iain Glen (Alfred Roberts), Alexandra Roach (Young Margaret Thatcher). 105 min. Released in Finland by Scanbox with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by J.G. Lähdesmäki / Saliven Gustavson. 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 2, Helsinki, 27 Jan 2012.

Another top performance by Meryl Streep, said to give a better performance in her role than the original Margaret Thatcher. Very good is also Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher. As a story of the psychological development of a woman in a man's world The Iron Lady is moving.

As a historical drama or a political play The Iron Lady is weak. Social substance is missing. The great themes, arguments and conflicts of Margaret Thatcher's career are mere illustrations, soundbites and background to the psychological story.

Like in J. Edgar there is a flashback structure that unfolds from the protagonist's memories at old age. There is too much footage about the old Ms. Thatcher's senility.

The visual quality of the 2K DCP is ok. The movie takes mostly place in interiors, and there are many medium close-ups. There is also a deliberate news video quality in some of the footage.

Senses of Cinema: 2011 World Poll

2012-01-21T21:01:00.000+02:00

The Senses of Cinema 2011 World Poll is the most undisciplined and the most stimulating of the 2011 polls of the world's best films. There are a lot of old films listed, newly discovered by the participants. I was delighted to notice Loviisa (1946) on the lists of Olaf Möller and Christoph Huber. Loviisa is little known abroad, but in Finland it is a popular choice for one of our all-time best films along with The Unknown Soldier (1955) and The Eight Deadly Shots (the full 5 h 16 min version, 1972).

Johnny Otis and Etta James R.I.P.

2012-01-21T10:06:00.005+02:00

Two pioneers of rhythm and blues have died: Johnny Otis and Etta James. I started to discover them in the early 1970s, which was a good period for teenagers to find out the "golden oldies" of the 1950s. Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City became one of my favourite books (and it still is).

"Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes (December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012), better known as Johnny Otis, was an American singer, musician, talent scout, disc jockey, composer, arranger, recording artist, record producer, vibraphonist, drummer, percussionist, bandleader, impresario and pastor. Born in Vallejo, California, he is commonly referred to as the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues"." (The English Wikipedia)

"Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins; January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was an American singer whose style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. Starting her career in the mid 1950s, she gained fame with hits such as "Dance With Me, Henry", "At Last", "Tell Mama", and "I'd Rather Go Blind" for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics. She faced a number of personal problems including drug addiction before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album, The Seven Year Itch." (The English Wikipedia).

Johnny Otis was the one who encouraged and helped the 14-year-old Etta James launch her professional singing career. "Roll With Me Henry" (1955, renamed "Dance With Me Henry" for self-censorship reasons) was Etta James's humoristic breakthrough song, an answer to the hit song "Work With Me Annie" by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. There were several "sequels", such as "Annie Had A Baby (Can't Work No More)" and "Henry's Got Flat Feet (Can't Dance No More)".

Johnny Otis was the producer of Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and his pioneering career was amazing during several decades. Born of Greek parents, "Otis was well-known for his choice to live his professional and personal life as a member of the African-American community. He has written, 'As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black.'" (The English Wikipedia).

A Johnny Otis favourite of mine: "Every Beat Of My Heart", classic performances by The Royals and Gladys Knight & The Pips. His feelgood shuffle "Willie And The Hand Jive" became a part of Eric Clapton's repertory.

An Etta James favourite of mine is "I'd Rather Go Blind", particularly deeply felt.

Johnny Otis and Etta James were creators, inventors, interpreters and inspirers for new ways of expression. I have spent this morning listening to their music.

Antti Alanen: Viewpoints on Israel in the Cinema (a lecture)

2012-01-17T18:00:00.095+02:00

Israel in 5772 lecture series 17 Jan 2012, at Helsinki University, arranged by the Finland-Israel Society of Helsinki

My topics included:

BEFORE ISRAEL (during the Ottoman Empire, and during the British Mandate since the 1917 Balfour Declaration): Lumière 1897 and other pioneers like Oskar Messter and Edison's cinematographers came - showing Mount Zion, the Grave of Lazarus, the Jordan River, the Dome of the Rock, the Via Dolorosa, the Wailing Wall. Sidney Olcott came from the US to shoot From the Manger to the Cross (1912) on location
Zionism and the cinema were born simultaneously, and films about Zionism were important in the beginning, also showing the Holy Land
Film production in the area starts in 1911, Nathan Axelrod in 1926, the first feature Oded Hanoded / Oded the Wanderer (1933), D: Haim Halakhmi
Aleksander Ford: Sabra / Tsabar (1933)

THE STATE OF ISRAEL (1948)
1950: Mordechai Navon establishes the Geva studios
1951: Pargot Klausner establishes the Herzlyia studios
These two are powerful in 1950-1980, in 1980 merging into United Studios
In the beginning focusing on weekly newsreels
One of the rare feature films is Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955) directed by Thorold Dickinson, the first fictional feature film entirely produced within the borders of the state of Israel.
Another landmark is Hem hayu assarah / They Were Ten directed by Baruch Dinar, on the 19th century immigrants.
The state started to regulate cinema in 1954, but it was an affair of commerce strictly.

In the 1960s there was a growth in production from 2-3 movies into 10-15-20 movies annually.

MENAHEM GOLAN was interested in all genres including thrillers (El Dorado, 1963), musicals (Dalia vehamalakhim / Dalia and the Sailors, 1964), espionage (Mivtsa Kahir / Operation Cairo, 1966) and social melodrama (Fortuna, 1966). Not forgetting children's movies (Shmona bikvot elehad / When Eight Become One, 1964) and farce (Aliza Mizrahi, 1967). Critics ignored Golan. Golan had success with Kazablan (1973), a musical version of El Dorado, and Mivtsa Yonatan / Operation Thunderbolt (1977), a reconstruction of the Entebbe hostage drama. Later Golan had international success in partnership with Yoram Globus and the Cannon company in the 1980s.

BOUREKA was the first original Israeli genre. Bourekas were ethnic comedies about the meeting of the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi. The first boureka was Sallah shabbati (1964) produced by Golan and directed by Efraim Kishon.

The most personal Israeli comedy director was Uri Zohar. Khor balevana / A Hole in the Moon (1965) was an anarchistic satire with avantgardistic features. Uri Zohar made both personal movies and broad farces. Among his main works are Metzitzim / The Watchers (1972) and Eynaim gedoloth / Big Eyes (1974), starring himself. In 1977 Zohar started studies to become a rabbi.

In the late 1960 braver winds emerged, inspired by the new waves. Turning-point movies included Yehuda "Judd" Ne'emanäs Ha'simla [The Dress] (1970), Dan Wolman's Ha'timhoni [The Dreamer] (1970), and Avraham Heffner's Le'an ne'elam Daniel Wax? [Who Was Daniel Wax?] (1972).

MOSHE MIZRAHI was the new wave director who had most success with the audience in movies such as Ani ohey otakh, Rosa [Rosa, I Love You] (1972), and Ha bayit be Rekhov Chelouche [A House at Chelouche Street] (1973).

ISRAELI TEEN COMEDIES became another original Israel genre. They became international hits, produced by Golan and Globus, and directed by Boaz Davidson, starting with Lemon Popsicle (1977).

In 1979 the ministry of culture started to support film production on cultural grounds. A new wave of film-makers was more political and demanding than the previous film-makers. They did not hesitate to bite the hand that fed them. Since then the artistically ambitious Israeli cinema has been critical of the military-minded national policy of the country.

Among the new generation Yaki Yosha made striking movies such as Ha'ayt [The Vulture] (1981) and Dead End Street (1982). Daniel Wachsman made challengin films like Hamsin (1982). Other ambitious artists included Dan Wolman, Michal Bat-Adam, Mira Recanati and Itzhak "Zeppel" Yeshurun.

Yehuda Ne'eman who had acted as a professor continued his film-making career.

A disappointment with the national policy and the Lebanon war (1982-1984) was common to directors such as Uri Barbash [Beyond the Wall] (1984), Nissim Dayan [A Very Straight Bridge] (1985), Shimon Doran [A Lamb's Smile] (1986), Rafi Boukai (Avanti popolo, 1986) ja Eli Cohen [Ricochets] (Shtei etzba'oth me-Tzidon, 1986).

The myth of heroism was reconsidered in Yehuda "Judd" Ne'eman's movie Massa alounkoth [Paratroopers] (1977) and Dan Wolman's Ayal halayla [Soldier of the Night] (1984).

The myth of the victims of war was investigated in Yaki Yosha's Ha'ayit [The Vulture] (1981).

The concern about the uncertain future of schoolchildren facing military service was discussed in Renen Schorr's Blues la'hofesh hagadol [Late Summer Blues] (1987). Same topics were handled in Dan Wolman's Miskh'kei makhbu'im [Hide and Seek] (1981).

The intifada and the radicalization of the Israeli-Arab conflict in 1988 caused turbulence among film-makers. Itzhak "Zeppel" Yeshurun discussed the escalation of violence in Sadoth yerukim [Green Fields]. Assi Dayan directed The Life According to Agfa (1992), "Israel's Do the Right Thing" where people from different backgrounds face the vital / mortal questions of the nation. Also intimate films reacted on the change, films such as Avraham Heffner's Ahavata ha'acharona shel Laura Adler [Laura Adler's Last Love] (1990) and Eitan Green's Ezrakh amerikai [An American Citizen] (1992).

Women became more active. The director-actress Michal Bat Adam made an autobiographical series including Al khevel dak [On a Narrow String] (1981), Ben lokeakh bat [Children's Games] (1982) ja Aya, autobiografia diionit [Aya, a Fictional Biography] (1994).

Israel's first woman film-maker Gila Almagor became a film producer who produced Eli Cohen's Hakaitz shel Aviya [Aviya's Summer] (1989) and its sequel Etz hadmim tafus [Under the Domim Tree] (1995).

After the Fall of the Wall in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War half a million Jews immigrated from the ex-Eastern Bloc countries. There was a rise of antisemitism in Europe. Film-makers sought a new way to deal with the new problems.

The meaning of short films grew especially via the Tel Aviv film schools, and they received international awards. There was a new rise in documentary film making.

AMOS GITAI was the artistically leading film director. In the jom kippur war in 1973 he started to film, and his helicopter was shot down on the Golan Hills, discussed in Gitai's movie Kippur. Gitai made critical documentary movies about the occupation of Palestine (Bayit) and the Lebanon war (Yoman Sadeh). Facing censorship Gitai moved to France for ten years. He directed movies about the Jewish heritage (the Golem movies) and the birth of Israel (Berlin-Yerushalaim). In 1992 Gitai returned when Yitzhak Rabin was elected prime minister and the Oslo peace talks led to an agreement about Palestine government. In Kadosh Gitai criticized the emphasis on religion in Israel. Kippur gained strength from autobiography. Kedma was a critical view about Israel's war of independence in 1948. Altmanian multi-narrative was on display in the tragicomical Tel Aviv account Alila. Promised Land discusses foreign prostitutes in Israel. Free Zone, starring Natalie Portman, is an account of meetings between the Israeli and the Palestinians on the border zone governed by black market.

Commercial film production crumbled with the success of television. Public film subsidies were never strong. The new generation often used video. Facing the past and criticizing the national policy are hallmarks of Israeli quality cinema.

David Noy's What Now? (1998) was a critical 50th anniversary movie of the state of Israel.

Encounters between the Israeli and the Arabs started to grow into a central theme in the 1990s. In Udi Ben-Arieh's short film [The Second Guard] (1995) the soldier Berkowitz patrols the Israeli-Jordan border. Synyora Bar David discussed the theme in his documentaries as did Adok Dror. Artists feel that borders and walls are strange. To the great tradition of Israeli documentary film belongs Ron Havilio's Fragments Jerusalem (1998).

Since 11 September 2001 film-makers in the Middle East seem to agree on better understanding in a world of terror. Between Palestinian and Israeli quality film-makers there is no wall. They share the values of international humanism.

Movies in a spirit of reconciliation include the works of Amos Gitai (Kedma, 2002, and Free Zone, 2005), but also the work of the Palestinian Elia Suleiman (Divine Intervention, 2002) and Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now, 2005). The French-Israeli Simone Bitton faces the reality in Mur (2004). Among the highlights are Ari Folman's factual animation Waltz with Bashir (2008), Samuel Maoz's tautly autobiographical tank story Libanon (2009) and Julian Schnabel's Miral (2010).

A new blog by Tim Lucas

2012-01-15T14:47:00.000+02:00

Tim Lucas, one of the best writers among film historians, is well-known for his magazine Video Watchdog, for his column in Sight & Sound and for his book Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. He has had a blog of his own, Video Watchblog, and on the 1st of January 2012 he has launched another blog, called Pause. Rewind. Obsess., his movie watching diary. It may not be unusual that he has watched 22 movies so far this year, but he has also written an eminently readable instant review of each of them.

Books on my coffee table this week

2012-01-15T11:34:00.014+02:00

It has been almost seven weeks since my traffic accident, and tomorrow I have the doctor's permission to return to the office. Little by little I am rehabilitating and starting to frequent my regular places. Yesterday I returned to Café Aalto, a favourite café of mine, located at the Academic Bookstore, the architecture and the furniture design of course by Alvar Aalto. An excellent place for intellectual and romantic meetings, and reading. I also finally ventured to the sauna and even a few meters of swimming, selecting the Yrjönkatu Bath. Established in 1928 it is the oldest public bath in Finland. Too bad that the bath turns are for men only or for women only. The neoclassical architecture, beautifully restored, is by Väinö Vähäkallio with inspiration from the Roman bath culture and touches of Art Deco. Upstairs they have a café and private lodges where it is possible to take a nap after the sauna and delve deep into good reading while enjoying a cup of coffee.

1. Financial Times Weekend (Saturday Jan 14, Sunday Jan 15, 2012 Europe) surprises us by launching a "Capitalism in crisis" series. In the first dossier the articles are by Edward Luce on the American situation and Arundhati Roy on the Indian questions. There is also a special section on their website: www.ft.com/capitalismincrisis. Relevant is also the interview with the legendary cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski, 83 but not sclerotic, and with startling things to say. I admire Peter Aspden's cultural section (great interviews with Quincy Jones and Charlotte Gainsbourg, for instance), but these days financial news are more exciting than culture. In my student days I was a subscriber to three economic magazines, Talouselämä [Economic Life, the equivalent of The Economist in our country] and the quarterlies of the then two main merchant banks, known at the time as Suomen Yhdyspankki (their quarterly was called Unitas) and Kansallis-Osake-Pankki. The slogan "Capitalism in crisis" was heard then, too, but never in their quarters, although the beginning of the 1970s was turbulent, too. Towards the end of the costly Vietnam war President Nixon called the Bretton Woods agreement off which meant the end of the gold standard. But the IMF could deal with that, and the "capitalism in crisis" remained a purely Marxist slogan.

2. Ene Mihkelson: Ruttohauta (Katkuhaud, 2007) [The Plague Grave], translated into Finnish by Kaisu Lahikainen. Helsinki: WSOY 2011. A woman's bitter journey into the past of her family and her nation, a novel by one of Estonia's leading authors and intellectuals. In the recent years books by Imbi Paju, Seppo Zetterberg, Sofi Oksanen, Erkki Tuomioja, and others have opened new depths to the Finnish understanding of the Estonian tragedy during the Soviet and Nazi rule. We are deeply moved, because the same thing could have happened to us, and almost did. We have known about this, but not in such a profound and shattering way. This journey proceeds both outwardly (the realization of the horror of the torture chambers) and inwardly (the guilt inside the family).

3. Eugene O'Neill: Pitkän päivän matka yöhön (Long Day's Journey into Night, written in 1942 / posthumously published in 1956), translated into Finnish by Juha Siltanen. Helsinki: Love, 1989. I missed seeing the Sidney Lumet film adaptation of O'Neill's powerful autobiographical play about his childhood home while laying at the hospital, but as a compensation I read the play itself. In a rare arrangement for a major film, there was no screenplay for Lumet's production. He directed the movie directly from the O'Neill play itself. It is a page-turner, a dark and grim tragedy, yet (and maybe inevitably) full of humour. Unforgettable.

4. Peter Brunette: Roberto Rossellini. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1987, 1996. While writing the Cinema Orion programme note for Luciano Serra pilota I again enjoyed reading Peter Brunette's book on the fascinating career of the master of neorealism and his roots in the development of the Italian film culture since the 1930s, including his friendship with Vittorio Mussolini, the son of Il Duce.

5. Maailmantaide: Michael Kitson: Barokin aikakausi. Barokki, rokokoo ja uusklassismi (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Age of Baroque, 1966). Translated by Sakari Saarikivi. Helsinki: Tammi, 1968.

6. Maailmantaide: Norbert Lynton: Moderni maailma (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Modern World, 1965). Translated by Raija Mattila. Helsinki: Tammi, 1967.

7. Maailmantaide: Peter Kidson: Keskiajan taide (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Medieval World, 1967). Translated by Pirkko Lilius. Helsinki: Tammi, 1968.

8. Maailmantaide: Ernst J. Grube: Islamin taide. Rakennustaide, keramiikka, maalaustaide, matot, metallityöt, koristetaide (Landmarks of the World's Art: The World of Islam, 1967). Translated by Panu Pekkanen, supervised by Sakari Saarikivi. Helsinki: Tammi, 1968.

9. Maailmantaide: Kaukoidän taiteet: Jeannine Auboyer: Intia ja Kaakkois-Aasia. Roger Goepper: Kiina, Korea ja Japani (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Oriental World, 1967). Translated by Sakari Saarikivi. Helsinki: Tammi, 1968.

I have now finished revisiting in its entirety a favourite book series from my school days. In these books I have had some of my first encounters with images by Klee and Miro. At school age I sometimes even copied images from these books via drawing (pencil, charcoal, crayon) and painting (watercolour, oil), but soon enough realized that my talent was limited.

Now I realize there are imbalances in the concept of the book series. There are two volumes on the same period: one about early Christian art and another about Medieval art, both covering the same arid thousand-year period. The volume on Baroque actually starts with Mannerism and includes the Rococo and Neo-Classical periods. Certainly the series is Eurocentric. But in the world of Islam there is the question that muslims take the Biblical prohibition of the (graven) image seriously, which is why representative and figurative art has not flourished in their cultures. No such problem in the Oriental world which would have deserved many more volumes. As it is, the single Oriental volume is one of my favourites, presenting approaches to art radically different from the European tradition.

All the time I am rethinking my habits of seeing. The digital world in the 2K transitional phase of the digital cinema has brought us a relative poverty of visual quality. The 2K image in the cinema is deservedly praised for its brightness and sharpness. But visiting art galleries and art history books everybody can see that brightness and sharpness are not the hallmarks of refined art but of primitive art, also of children's drawings (often astounding in their own right). Leonardo and Turner did their best to avoid brightness and sharpness.

Primitive art is not inferior art. It is a sign of vitality that artists go back to the roots. See Picasso. Klee and Miro and Abstract Expressionists have their own direct links to the origins of art. Some modern paintings could be installed into the caves of Lascaux, and nobody would notice the difference. We need the whole richness of the experience of art.

Herra Heinämäki ja Leijonatuuliviiri / [Mr. Heinämäki and the Lion Weathercock]

2012-01-14T11:45:00.112+02:00

FI © 2011 Jackpot Films. P: Timo Kahilainen. D: Matti Grönberg, Pekka Karjalainen. SC: Timo Kahilainen, Heikki Salo. DP: Harri Räty. AD: Marjatta Kuivasto. Cost: Jaana Aro. Makeup: Erja Mikkola. M: Timo Kahilainen, Janne Louhivuori. Song list beyond the jump break. S: Pekka Karjalainen. ED: Kimmo Taavila. Loc: Kangasala. CAST: Heikki Hela (Mr. Heinämäki), Adalmiina Pelli (Arska), Jukka Rasila (Mauri Mutka), Timo Kahilainen (Reppanainen), Heikki Silvennoinen (Kakelberg), Satu Säävälä (Liisa Kakelberg), Atte Reunanen (Jaakko Kakelberg), Outi Mäenpää (Matleena Mutka). HERRA HEINÄMÄEN LATO-ORKESTERI: Janne Louhivuori (Timotei), Mikko Löytty (Punanata), Jouko Mäki-Lohiluoma (Strongman Horsma), Heikki Salo (Pujo). WITH: Tuija Ernamo, Matti Grönberg (waiter), Aku Hirviniemi (Jeppe Antinpoika), Miia Selin (as Mia Selin). 95 min. Distributor: The Walt Disney Company Nordic AB, filial i Finland. In Finnish with some Swedish with Finnish subtitles in the prologue. 2K DCP without Swedish subtitles viewed at Tennispalatsi 7, Helsinki, 14 Jan 2012.

Technical specs (from Pekka Karjalainen 17 Jan 2012): Digital camera: Red One - master format in 4K - digital post-production, colour definition, digital effects: Talvi Digital Oy - sound production: Meguru Film Sound Oy - distributed in 2K DCP's (70) and 35 mm prints (10).

From the production information: "THE BIRTH OF HEINÄMÄKI. In 1999 Heikki Salo and Janne Louhivuori published an album of children's music called "Omskista" [untranslatable, and nonsense also in Finnish] based on which Timo Kahilainen and Heikki Salo wrote for YLE TV2 a children's series called Herra Heinämäki [Mr. Heinämäki]. Heikki Hela got the role of Mr. Heinämäki. The series was directed by Matti Grönberg. Simultaneously established was Herra Heinämäen Lato-orkesteri [Mr Heinämäki's Barn Orchestra]: Heikki Salo (vocals), Janne Louhivuori (guitars and many other instruments), Jouko Mäki-Lohiluoma (drums), and Mikko Löytty (bass). The Herra Heinämäki tv series was continued in 2008 and 2009 via the new albums "Nyree näkkäri" [Sullen Crispbread] and "Äiti venyy" [Mother Is Flexible]. The series have been released on dvd in 2010. During the Christmas season of 2010 the musical Christmas show Herra Heinämäen joulu [Mr. Heinämäki's Christmas] was transmitted on YLE TV2."

"THE MOVIE. In 2009 Salo and Kahilainen started to plan a feature theatrical Heinämäki movie with music, warmth, friendship, humour, adventure, and an exciting plot. Previously Salo and Kahilainen had co-written based on a play by Salo the movie Beatlehem, directed by Pekka Karjalainen. The new Heinämäki movie was directed besides Matti Grönberg by Pekka Karjalainen whose company was responsible for the sound production. The movie was shot in Kangasala during June-July 2011."

"THE CONTENTS OF THE MOVIE. Herra Heinämäki ja leijonatuuliviiri is a funny and exciting family movie. During the Finnish war in 1808-1809 Jeppe Antinpoika the highwayman manages to rob the treasure of the King of Sweden. A bag full of jewels remains behind the oven structure for over 200 years. The city girl Aurora, also known as Arska [a male nickname], comes to spend summer days with her eccentric country relative Mr. Heinämäki. Heinämäki's neighbour, the baker Kakelberg, is in trouble, for ghosts have started to appear in his house, and his business is being sabotaged. One night Arska catches a strange prowler in the cellar of the baker's house. Together with Mr. Heinämäki Arska starts to solve the clue of the baker's house."

Among the main ingredients are also: - The orchestra, Herra Heinämäen Lato-Orkesteri, is on the run from the police because of overspeeding. - The girl Aurora / Arska gets the idea to arrange a garage sale and a charity concert to help the unfortunate baker family. - Mauri Mutka is a big crook in a policeman's uniform.

Because there are laptops the story seems to take place in the present, but on the wall of the police station is the portrait of Urho Kekkonen whose term of presidency ended in 1982.

The Kummeli comedy team has been active on the YLE TV2 channel since 1991, with Heikki Silvennoinen (1991–), Timo Kahilainen (1991–), Heikki Hela (1992–), Heikki Vihinen (1995–), Mari Turunen (1994–), Olli Keskinen (1991–1994, 1999–2000), Janne Saarinen (1991), Tom Lindholm (1992-1993), Miia Selin (2003–2004) and Mikko Kivinen (2003–2004) [the list copied from Finnish Wikipedia].

There have been four theatrical Kummeli feature films before. Herra Heinämäki ja leijonatuuliviiri is the fifth. The focus is different since it is family entertainment with a young girl in the leading role.

This movie is light family entertainment, a summer farce with its fair share of original ideas and performances. The basic Kummeli ensemble has an assured sense of play, and the children blend with them in a natural way. The family audience at the cinema obviously enjoyed the show.

The digital look is artificial in an interesting way like in the previous Kummeli production, Kummeli alivuokralainen. Sometimes I regretted the over-bright colour settings, in the beginning some grayish settings, and as a rule the usual digital difficulties with nature footage.

The song list is beyond the jump break:
Herra Heinämäki ja leijonatuuliviiri: musiikkia elokuvasta. CD 2011 Sateen Ääni Oy. The lyrics are printed on the CD leaflet.

Comp.+arr.: Janne Louhivuori, lyrics Heikki Salo: 1, 2, 10, 12, 16, 23
Comp.+arr.: Timo Kahilainen, Janne Louhivuori: 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, 18, 21
Comp.+arr.: Timo Kahilainen, lyrics Heikki Salo: 4
Comp.+arr.: Timo Kahilainen, lyrics Timo Kahilainen, Heikki Salo: 20, 2
Comp.+arr.: Janne Louhivuori: 13, 19
Comp.+arr.: Timo Kahilainen: 14
Comp.: Timo Kahilainen, lyrics Heikki Salo, arr. Tomi Aholainen: 24
Perf.: Lato-orkesteri: 1, 2, 10, 12, 13, 16, 23
Perf.: Herra Heinämäki ja Mr. Nekatiivi: 4
Perf.: Mutka ja Reppanainen: 11
Perf.: Herra Heinämäki: 14
Perf.: Herra Heinämäki ja Leipuri Kakelberg: 17
Perf.: Kari ja Karvattomat: 20
Perf.: Mutka ja Herra Heinämäki: 21
Perf.: Leipuri Kakelberg: 22
Perf.: Johanna Iivanainen: 24

1. Jeppe Antinpojan balladi
2. Kärryyn ja keikille
3. Tervetuloa Heinämäkeen
4. Kesäloma maalla
5. Ihmisperämoottori
6. Järvellä
7. Salli ja tytöt
8. Pyöräillään
9. Hiippari
10. Keikiltä kämpille
11. Mutka
12. Landelta lävähtää
13. Kazootah
14. Heinämäki siivoaa
15. Taikina
16. Tsikidiki oi oi
17. Alaväpäshörkytin
18. Jeppe muistelee
19. Takaa-ajo
20. Onni ei oo tonni
21. Pidätys
22. Kakkukone kunnossa
23. Ystävyyttä
24. Auroran laulu

Meet Me in St. Louis (2011 digibook blu-ray edition)

2012-01-13T21:24:00.005+02:00

Tyttö ja kosija / Vi mötas i St. Louis. US © 1944 Loew's Incorporated. P: Arthur Freed. D: Vincente Minnelli. SC: Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe - based on the book by Sally Benson (1942) - based on her "5135 Kensington" vignettes in The New Yorker (1941-1942). DP: George J. Folsey - Technicolor. AD: Lemuel Ayers, Cedric Gibbons, Jack Martin Smith. Set dec: Edwin B. Willis. Cost: Irene [Sharaff]. Makeup: Jack Dawn. Makeup for Judy Garland: Dorothy Ponedel. Score adapted by Roger Edens, orchestrations by Conrad Salinger, conducted by Georgie Stoll. Songs: Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane – »The Trolley Song»; »The Boy Next Door»; »Over The Banisters»; »Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas». Other songs: »Meet Me In St. Louis» (Andrew B. Sterling, Kerry Mills); »You And I» (Arthur Freed, Nacio Herb Brown); the cakewalk »Under The Bamboo Tree» (Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson). Folk song dance medley »Skip To My Lou» (trad. arr. Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane). Dance D: Charles Walters. ED: Albert Akst. Cast: Judy Garland (Esther Smith), Margaret O’Brien (Tootie Smith), Lucille Bremer (Rose Smith), Mary Astor (Mrs. Anna Smith), Leon Ames (Alonzo Smith), Tom Drake (John Truett), Harry Davenport (grandpa Potter). 113 min. Blu-ray released by Turner Entertainment / Warner Bros. 13 Dec 2011. 1030p High Definition 4x3 1,37:1 DTS-HD Master Audio English 5.0. With subtitles English, Français, Español. Viewed at home, Helsinki, 13 Jan 2012.

Special features from the 2004 special edition (information copied from DVD Verdict, by Judge Erich Asperschlager): "Introduction by Liza Minnelli" (4:59). - Audio Commentary: hosted by historian John Fricke, with archival interviews from Margaret O'Brien, screenwriter Irving Brecher, songwriter Hugh Martin, and Barbara Freed-Saltzman, Arthur Freed's daughter. - "The Making of Meet Me in St. Louis" (30:47): Hugh Martin recollecting the original, darker version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" that Garland refused to sing — with lyrics like "Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past." - "Hollywood: The Dream Factory" (50:31), narrated by Dick Cavett, focuses on the history of MGM and Hollywood's "Golden Age," including a profile of Louis B. Mayer. - "Becoming Attractions: Judy Garland" (46:10), a Turner Classic Movies TV special, hosted by Robert Osborne, is a collection of trailers from Garland's major movies: "Everybody Sing," "Love Finds Andy Hardy," "The Wizard of Oz," "Babes in Arms," "For Me and My Gal," "Presenting Lily Mars," "Meet Me in St. Louis," "The Clock," "The Pirate," "Easter Parade," "Summer Stock," "A Star is Born," and "I Could Go On Singing." - Meet Me in St. Louis 1966 TV Pilot (26:35). - "Bubbles" (7:54), the 1930 short is one of the earliest surviving records of Garland on film, as a singing-dancing member of The Vitaphone Kiddies. - "Skip to My Lou" (3:11), Martin and Blane's rearranged version of this pop standard goes back to the days when they were part of a singing group called The Martins, as seen in this 1941 "soundie." - The three remaining bonus features all fall under the category "Audio Vault": "Boys and Girls Like You and Me": Before it was cut from the film, this Rodgers & Hammerstein song appeared immediately after "The Trolley Song" sequence. Because footage of the scene no longer exists, it is presented here alongside a collection of rare photographs. - Lux Radio Theater Broadcast: this hour-long radio play version of Meet Me in St. Louis was broadcast on 12/2/1946, with Garland, O'Brien, and Drake reprising their roles, along with various other actors. - Music Only Track.

New 2011 special bonus features in the blu-ray set: a 40-page booklet, and a bonus CD sampler of four songs.

The music comments from English Wikipedia: "The musical score for the film was adapted by Roger Edens, who also served as an uncredited associate producer. Georgie Stoll conducted the orchestrations of Conrad Salinger. Some of the songs in the film are from around the time of the St Louis Exposition. Others were written for the movie.
* "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" Kerry Mills and Andrew B. Sterling, 1904
* "The Boy Next Door", Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Judy Garland.
* "Skip to My Lou", Traditional, with section sung to the tunes of "Yankee Doodle" arranged by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944
* "I Was Drunk Last Night," performed by Margaret O'Brien.
* "Under the Bamboo Tree," Words and music by Robert Cole and The Johnson Bros., 1902, performed by Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien.
* "Over the Banister," 19th-century melody adapted by Conrad Salinger, lyrics from the 1888 poem "Over the Banisters" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, adapted by Roger Edens (1944), performed by Judy Garland.
* "The Trolley Song", Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Chorus and Judy Garland.
* "You and I," Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, sung by Arthur Freed and D. Markas, mimed by Leon Ames and Mary Astor.
* "Goodbye, My Lady Love," (Instrumental), Joseph E. Howard, 1904.
* "Little Brown Jug", (Instrumental), Joseph Winner, 1869.
* "Down at the Old Bull and Bush," (Instrumental), Harry von Tilzer, 1903.
* "Home! Sweet Home!", (Instrumental), Henry Bishop, 1823/1852.
* "Auld Lang Syne", (Instrumental)
* "The First Noel", (Instrumental)
* "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Judy Garland. The lyrics for "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" were originally different. The lyricist, Hugh Martin, wrote lyrics which referred to the soldiers fighting during World War Two. Judy Garland thought the song as written was too mean to sing to Margaret O'Brien, so he changed the lyrics. Further revisions were made when Frank Sinatra objected to the generally downbeat tone of the piece. The latter revised version is the one most commonly performed."

Having read Dave Kehr's review in The New York Times and his blog entry on the movie in Davekehr.com I ordered a copy of the blu-ray edition of Meet Me In St. Louis to the Filmihullu [Movie Crazy] dvd and blu-ray store. It did not arrive in time for Christmas but exactly a month after its U.S. release date. A suitable ending to my extended Christmas holiday related to my recovery. Four seasons in St. Louis in the life of a large family in 1903-1904 just before the St. Louis World's Fair. This is the movie where Judy Garland met Vincente Minnelli, the result being Liza Minnelli, who appears in the special dvd / blu-ray introduction. Judy Garland is wonderful, but the most astonishing performance is by Margaret O'Brien in one of the most original and most personal performances of a child actor. Unsentimental, profound, terrible, and funny. The 60th anniversary dvd of 2004 was reportedly already excellent, and the blu-ray does look brilliant. The Technicolor is wonderful, sometimes bordering on the excessive, and the family feeling gets sometimes too cute, but deep conflicts appear, and Minnelli shows his psychological sense in handling them. "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" may be the saddest mainstream Christmas song number in a movie. It's not always fair weather. The profound feeling of sorrow and longing seems to reflect the situation of the nation and the world at the time when the movie was made - even after the Judy Garland revisions. Families were broken, and husbands, brothers and sons were fighting abroad. But "next year all our troubles will be out of sight", "Someday soon we all will be together / if the fates allow. / Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow".

I can personally relate to this movie as a child of a large family which moved constantly during my childhood (from Helsinki to Vaasa, Lempäälä, Tampere, Helsinki again, and finally Pirkkala; and before Pirkkala we always moved to summer homes for the whole summer). The family meetings in Meet Me in St. Louis about the impending move from St. Louis to New York have some emotional truth in them. After Tootie destroys the snowpeople because they cannot take them with them to New York anyway the father decides the family will stay in St. Louis. So this is a movie about permanence. But in my childhood the only permanent thing was change.

My favourite Finnish films of 2011

2012-01-12T10:19:00.003+02:00

My favourite Finnish films of 2011 include (while I look forward to see one theatrically released movie that I have not yet seen, Herra Heinämäki ja leijonatuuliviiri, and many high profile non-theatrically released movies):
MY FAVOURITE FILMS: Le Havre (D: Aki Kaurismäki), Hiljaisuus ([Silence], D: Sakari Kirjavainen), Pussikaljaelokuva ([Bag Beer Movie], D: Ville Jankeri), Varasto ([The Storeroom], D: Taru Mäkelä).
MY FAVOURITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: Matka Edeniin ([Journey to Eden], D+DP: Rax Rinnekangas) (although I would have preferred it in all-photochemical 35 mm or higher resolution DCP)
MY FAVOURITE DOCUMENTARY: THEATRICAL: Salla: Selling the Silence (D: Markku Tuurna) - NON-THEATRICAL: Lastuja - taiteilijasuvun vuosisata ([Splinters - A Century in a Family of Artists], D: Peter von Bagh)
MY FAVOURITE ANIMATION: Ella & Aleksi - yllätyssynttärit [Ella & Aleksi - a Surprise Birthday Party], D: Juuso Syrjä.
MY FAVOURITE FEMALE PERFORMANCES IN LEADING ROLES: Jessica Grabowsky (Missä kuljimme kerran [Where Once We Walked], D: Peter Lindholm), Minttu Mustakallio (Varasto [The Storeroom], D: Taru Mäkelä)
MY FAVOURITE MALE PERFORMANCE: Heikki Silvennoinen as the voice talent of Martti / Mater in the Finnish voice version of Cars 2 / Autot 2, D: John Lasseter, Brad Lewis.
MY FAVOURITE MUSIC: Ella & Aleksi - yllätyssynttärit [Ella & Aleksi - a Surprise Birthday Party].
MY FAVOURITE SHORTS SEEN IN TAMPERE FILM FESTIVAL:
Ilmianto [The Informers], D: Milla Pelkonen.
Miten marjoja poimitaan [How to Pick Berries], D: Elina Talvensaari.
Erään hyönteisen tuho [The Death of an Insect], D: Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen.

The Jussi Award nominees for the best Finnish films of 2011

2012-01-11T15:20:00.001+02:00

From today's Filmiaura newsletter:

In 2011 there were 29 Finnish premiere films in the cinemas, more than during any year since 1986. Finnish cinema production is strong, and the Jussi nominations were widely spread: Le Havre (9), Hiljaisuus (7), Hyvä poika (7), Hella W (3), Likainen pommi (3), Pussikaljaelokuva (2), Varasto (2), Herra Heinämäki ja Leijonatuuliviiri (1), Ikuisesti sinun (1), Iris (1), Kotirauha (1), Matka Edeniin (1), Missä kuljimme kerran (1), Salla - Selling the Silence (1), Syvälle salattu (1), and Tuntematon emäntä (1).

BEST FILM
Hiljaisuus - producers Joonas Berghäll, Alf Hemming, and Petri Ross
Hyvä poika - producers Misha Jaari, Mark Lwoff, and Elli Toivoniemi
Le Havre - producer Aki Kaurimäki

BEST DIRECTOR
Hyvä poika - Zaida Bergroth
Le Havre - Aki Kaurimäki
Varasto - Taru Mäkelä

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE IN A LEADING ROLE
Hiljaisuus - Joonas Saartamo
Hyvä poika - Samuli Niittymäki
Kotirauha - Samuli Edelmann

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN A LEADING ROLE
Hyvä poika - Elina Knihtilä
Missä kuljimme kerran - Jessica Grabowsky
Syvälle salattu - Krista Kosonen

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Hiljaisuus - Ilkka Heiskanen
Le Havre - Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Pussikaljaelokuva - Ylermi Rajamaa

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Hyvä poika - Anna Paavilainen
Le Havre - Elina Salo
Varasto - Hannele Lauri

BEST SCREENPLAY
Hiljaisuus - Esko Salervo
Hyvä poika - Zaida Bergroth ja Jan Forsström
Le Havre - Aki Kaurismäki

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Hella W - Peter Flinckenberg
Le Havre - Timo Salminen
Likainen pommi - Hena Blomberg

BEST MUSIC
Hiljaisuus - Timo Hietala
Herra Heinämäki ja Leijonatuuliviiri - Timo Kahilainen ja Janne Louhivuori
Matka Edeniin - Pascal Gaigne

BEST SOUND DESIGN
Hiljaisuus - Olli Huhtanen ja Pietari Koskinen
Hyvä poika - Micke Nyström
Likainen pommi - Pasi Peni

BEST EDITING
Le Havre - Timo Linnasalo
Likainen pommi - Iikka Hesse
Pussikaljaelokuva - Harri Ylönen

BEST ART DIRECTION
Hella W - Kari Kankaanpää
Hiljaisuus - Tiina Tuovinen ja Jukka Uusitalo
Le Havre - Wouter Zoon

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Hella W - Anu Pirilä
Iris - Riitta Peteri
Le Havre - Fred Cambier

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
Ikuisesti sinun - Mia Halme
Salla - Selling the Silence - Markku Tuurna
Tuntematon emäntä - Elina Kivihalme

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jussi-palkinto

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

2012-01-08T20:00:00.022+02:00

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (the Finnish dvd release title) / Innan djävulen vet att du är död (the Swedish title on the print). USA © 2007 Capitol Films. PC: A Unity Production / Linsefilm, Ltd. Production. EX: Belle Avery, Jane Barclay, David Bergstein. P: Michael Cerenzie, William S. Gilmore, Brian Linse, Paul Parmar. D: Sidney Lumet. SC: Kelly Masterson. Digital cinematography: Ron Fortunato – technical specs (IMDb): camera: Panavision Genesis HD Camera, Panavision Primo Lenses – lab: Technicolor, USA – camera format: HDTV – source format: HDCAM SR (1080p/24) – digital intermediate in 2K – released on: 35 mm – 1,85:1 – colour. PD: Christopher Nowak (prod. des.), AD: Wing Lee , set dec.: Diane Lederman. Cost: Tina Nigro. Make-up: Patricia Regan, Jeong-Hwa Fonkalsrud. Hair: Wayne Herndon, Diana Sikes. M: Carter Burwell. S: Dave Paterson. ED: Tom Swartwout. Loc: New York City: Bayside, Queens (jewelry store) – Douglaston, Queens (Hanson's house) – St. Agnes Hospital, White Plains, New York. Studio: Hell Gate Studios, Astoria, Queens, New York City. Casting: Ellen Lewis. CAST: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Andy), Ethan Hawke (Hank), Albert Finney (Charles), Marisa Tomei (Gina), Aleksa Palladino (Chris), Michael Shannon (Dex), Amy Ryan (Martha), Sarah Livingston (Danielle), Brían F. O'Byrne (Bobby), Rosemary Harris (Nanette), Blaine Horton (Justin). Swedish classification length: 3188 m / 117 min. A 35 mm SFI-Filmarkivet print with Swedish subtitles by Jennifer Warrender viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (A Tribute to Sidney Lumet), 8 Jan 2012.

The motto before the title: "May you be in heaven for a full half hour"
The title: "Before the Devil knows you're dead". (From a traditional Irish saying).

My first visit to Cinema Orion since my traffic accident 41 days ago, the last screening of our season from late August till early January, the last movie directed by Sidney Lumet, which went straight to dvd in Finland but was released theatrically in 35 mm in Sweden.

It was a great pleasure to meet the cinema staff and the Orion regulars and sit on my regular place again in one of our top comfort seats. Installed in 1977 by Leo Karni then collaborating with the WSOY publishing house, they are still widely appreciated as the best seats in Helsinki.

This was the first Sidney Lumet retrospective in Finland, and as was the case in many prominent Lumet obituaries, it was largely an occasion for reappraisal and rediscovery. I was struck by the positive reaction of the young cinephiles. Sidney Lumet has not always been considered a hot director, but his body of work is full of fresh approaches and frank attempts to reinvent himself: in the 1950s he was a leading director of the television generation, in the 1960s he was profoundly influenced by Alain Resnais and the Rive Gauche (Fail-Safe, The Pawnbroker), in the 1970s he was maybe at his best with the New Hollywood inspired gritty street realism and the new generation of actors such as Al Pacino.

In his last movie Sidney Lumet took up the challenge of Quentin Tarantino and created something surprising and original from a grim contemporary crime story. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead does not feel like an old man's film. The time labyrinth structure has an affinity with Tarantino but can also accurately be said to be influenced by Resnais. There is frank sex and violence in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but the frank scenes are motivated.

Interestingly, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead seems also to reflect Lumet's personal favourite film, his movie adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. In both, there is the overbearing father (Ralph Richardson / Albert Finney), a self-made man from whose shadow the sons (here: Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) can never rise. The stories differ completely as to the mother figure whose fragility is central in the Eugene O'Neill tragedy; in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead she and the father are equally strong. There is a surprising but logical tragic ending in the Devil, probably the most devastating in Lumet's oeuvre.

And awesome finale to Sidney Lumet's awesome career which started in the 1920s as a child actor.

The digitally photographed Before the Devil Knows You're Dead may be the visually shabbiest theatrical movie in Sidney Lumet's career. The print was excellent, but the trouble stems probably from the original digital cinematography. The lighting obscures facial expressions, and there is an overall shoddiness in the visual quality which cannot be intentional.

Impersonating celebrities on screen

2012-01-08T18:27:00.001+02:00

Impersonating celebrities on screen is so difficult and actually impossible that is is no wonder that the attempts usually fail. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris is full of such failed attempts, but the viewer can enjoy them as jokes.

The bigger the star's charisma the more useless it usually is to attempt a biopic about him or her.

Michelle Williams succeeds in My Week with Marilyn because she avoids straight imitation and instead creates a playful and personal impression of the love goddess. My two other favourite Marilyn Monroe impersonators have been Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd - both in the same movie, Norma Jean & Marilyn, representing two sides of the troubled star. In My Week with Marilyn I also admire Kenneth Branagh's memorable study or essay on Laurence Olivier.

I have also liked Eric Elmosnino as Serge Gainsbourg in Gainsbourg: Vie héroïque, Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in The Doors, Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray, and David Bowie as Andy Warhol in Basquiat.

Anthony Hopkins is a chameleon who has played memorably Richard Nixon and Pablo Picasso without surface likeness but with a lot of charisma.

Another chameleon is Gary Oldman who has played both Sid Vicious and Ludwig van Beethoven.

The best movie performance of W.A. Mozart is by Innokenti Smoktunovsky in Mozart and Salieri based on the Pushkin play.

A Finnish chameleon is Martti Suosalo who repeated the Gary Oldman stunt of playing both a rogue singer (Irwin Goodman) and a classical composer (Jean Sibelius).

Varasto / [The Storeroom]

2012-01-08T12:00:00.160+02:00

Lagret. FI © 2011 Kinosto. EX: Taru Mäkelä, Jouko Seppälä. P: Markku Tuurna. D: Taru Mäkelä. SC: Veli-Pekka Hänninen - based on the novel (1998) by Arto Salminen; there is also an acclaimed theatrical adaptation (2005) based on the novel. DP: Jouko Seppälä - camera: RED ONE - aspect ratio: 16:9 - screening copies: DCP and 35 mm at 1:85. AD: Tiina Paavilainen. Cost: Merja Väisänen. Makeup: Anne Airaksinen. M: Raoul Björkenheim. S: Kyösti Väntänen. ED: Tuuli Kuittinen. Loc: Helsinki. CAST: Kari-Pekka Toivonen (Rousku), Minttu Mustakallio (Karita), Aku Hirviniemi (Raninen), Esko Salminen (Kataja), Juha Muje (store manager), Hannele Lauri (Aino), Vesa Vierikko (Jylhäkorpi), Jope Ruonansuu (Ykä), Tomi Lauri (Rofa), Vesa-Matti Loiri (Mynttinen). Bit parts: Elina Knihtilä, Pirkko Hämäläinen, Vera Kiiskinen. 100 min. A Nordisk Film release. 2K DCP without Swedish subtitles viewed at Tennispalatsi 3, Helsinki, 8 Jan 2012.

"The wind was blowing because the elm branches were swaying. Or so one might think but it was not so. The branches were swaying because there was a wind."
- Arto Salminen in his novel Varasto

From the production information: "Varasto is a lusty, urban comedy about working people. The characters are tough, uneducated realists. They will never build a career but they work hard and never fail to give an answer. The men are men: they express their affection with blunt words and channel their rebellion into senseless gags. There are also two strong and quick-witted women: Karita and her mother are no yes women. Arto Salminen's source novel is a classical coming-of-age story where an immature young man grows - involuntarily - into love."

"Synopsis. Antero Rousku is a storeman in a paint store. His job requires raw muscle power, mixing paints and carrying house repair materials around to earn his daily bread. But the basic salary is not enough for Rousku. He also sells a lot of stuff on the side from the storeroom directly to Jylhäkorpi, a frequent visitor, bypassing company bookkeeping."

"Rousku's colleague in the cellar storeroom is Raninen whose life consists of work, quarreling with his wife, and lottery. Raninen wants to win the main prize but he wants to have the right numbers in exactly the order in which they appear from the lottery machine. Raninen is not the sharpest pencil in the pencil box."

"Rousku's freedom is threatened by his relationship to the saleswoman Karita. Rousku wants to keep a distance to the woman except in bed. Karita has decided otherwise." (From the production information, translation mine.)

Arto Salminen (1959-2005) was one of the most acclaimed contemporary Finnish novelists. With a brilliant command of language and a black sense of humour he discussed the life of the newly poor, the outcasts and the not so successful people in the neoliberalistic society.

Taru Mäkelä and Arto Salminen were schoolmates, Taru had directed a theatre adoptation of another Arto Salminen novel, Paskateoria, and she had seen theatre interpretations of Varasto.

Taru Mäkelä I have learned to know as the director of serious documentary films such as Lotat, Daavid, and Saalis. Because I am not familiar with her work in television and in the theatre the assured comedy touch of Varasto took me by surprise.

In the screening the audience responded to the comedy immediately. The punchlines are well timed, and the performances blend together in a seamless ensemble which is necessary for a comedy like this to succeed.

We laugh, but we laugh with these people who are not the winners in the current desolate battle for survival. Some of the jokes are grim such as the one where Rousku attempts to poison Karita's yoghurt with double hormone medicine treatment to have her pregnancy discontinued. The male store manager (Juha Muje) eats the yoghurt instead with surprising results. The big storeroom thief Jylhäkorpi seems to be an ex-Brezhnevian communist whose mobile phone tune is L'Internationale. The character of Ykä is a memorable satirical vignette of a man permanently marginalized and stigmatized by unemployment.

The movie starts and begins with a close-up of storeroom gloves. A zoom into their black dots is the space odyssey of the have-nots.

At first sight Varasto is a well-made situation and character comedy. On second thought it is a successful and topical social satire.

The visual look of the 2K DCP is clean and bright, sometimes perhaps emulating the colour world of the house paints mixed in the storeroom. The outdoors winter footage looks fine on digital.

Hiljaisuus / [Silence] (2011)

2012-01-07T15:15:00.190+02:00

[Tystnaden]. FI © 2011 Cine Works Koskinen Rossi. EX: Petri Rossi. P: Joonas Berghäll. D: Sakari Kirjavainen. SC: Esko Salervo. DP: Petri Rossi. AD: Jukka Uusitalo, Tiina Tuovinen. Cost: Janne Karjalainen, Kata Launonen. Makeup: Kata Launonen. M: Timo Hietala. S: Olli Huhtanen, Pietari Koskinen. ED: Jukka Nykänen. CAST: Joonas Saartamo (Eino), Lauri Tilkanen (Antti), Terhi Suorlahti (Jaana), Joanna Haartti (Siiri), Ilkka Heiskanen (Korpikangas), Sinikka Mokkila (Miina), Kari Hakala (military chaplain), Eeva Putro (Ilona), Matti Onnismaa (father), Harri Liuksiala (Nikolai), Kari Ketonen (artilleryman), Eero Järvinen (truck driver), Karri Lämpsä (medic), Thomas Dellinger (lieutenant), Tatu Siivonen (guard), Teemu Kaskinen (Helminen), Sari Lilliestierna (a lotta), Marc Gassot (sharpshooter), Mika Nuojua (chef), Leo Honkonen (lieutenant of the armoured brigade), Timo Julkunen (tanker), Riku Korhonen (staff sergeant), Janne Hyytiäinen (pastor), Vincent Saares (one taken for dead), Eduard Härkönen (enemy officer), Tatu Mönttinen (sergeant), Aaro Ruisvaara little Eino), Eija Ahvo (mother). 110 min. Released by Buena Vista International Finland with Swedish subtitles by Saliven Gustavson. 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 10, Helsinki, 7 Jan 2012.

Technical specs (from Petri Rossi, 10 Jan 2012): Digital camera: RED Mysterum X - shot on 4,5K in 1:2 - projection formats: DCP and 35 mm cinevator suorakopio, aspect ratio 1:2,35 cinemascope - sound: dolby surround 5.1 - 2K post-production of the image: Generator Post - colour definition: Lustre - sound post-production: Finnvox - mixed at Meguru.

Tagline: "When the fire ceases... silence remains".

From the official presentation in the production information: "The final spring of the Finnish war against Russia in 1944. Right behind the lines there is an evacuation center for the fallen. Dead soldiers are collected there to be sent home. Eino (Joonas Saartamo) together with his friend Antti (Lauri Tilkanen) begins his service in a unit where a few women and men carry a heavy and demanding task. Eino is full of heroic ideals, but life in a small community proves more complicated than war".

"Eino's most important duty is to take care of his promise to Antti's father - to keep him out of trouble and, most importantly, alive. Antti is a happy-go-lucky merchant spirit who charms the lottas with his smile, charges Eino with the heaviest chores and focuses relentlessly on illegal trading with his business partner Siiri (Joanna Hartti) right under the eyes of the military chaplain Hiltunen (Kari Hakala). Together with Korpikangas, a former student of medicine, Eino lands into the twilight zone between dream and reality. Jaana (Terhi Suorlahti) and Miina the cupper (Sinikka Mokkila) perform their uncompromising service in the shadow of death. Like others they try to survive in their everyday life full of contradictions while they send fallen soldiers to their dearest ones to bury."

"In WWII Finland was the only country which send the corpses of the fallen soldiers home for burial. In the corpse evacuation centers men and women collaborated in 1939-1945 and brought 83.000 fallen heroes back to their home burial grounds. Silence is not an account of history but of the mood of a community which has been been formed in strange circumstances. In the land of the shadow of death hell touches the earth, love touches death, and friendship touches betrayal." (From the production information, translation mine).

In Kalle Kinnunen's blog discussion chain Hiljaisuus has been appreciated as one of the two or three best Finnish movies of 2011, and I agree that it is now also my favourite along with Le Havre. Hiljaisuus has not been getting the attention it deserves, but let's hope it will become a sleeper like Letters to Father Jacob did a few years ago. Certainly there was a rare feeling of concentration and intensity in the screening I visited.

Hiljaisuus belongs to the best Finnish accounts of war. Its approach is new, different, original, interesting, and surprising. It takes place behind the lines, but the soldiers of the corpses' evacuation center face danger like everybody else, having to enter no-man's land to retrieve corpses under enemy fire. Also the lottas perform their service under mortal danger. The interaction of young men and women under wartime circumstances rings realistic. The account is beyond clichés.

The main dynamics is between the seemingly simple and stupid Eino and the apparently cunning ladies' man Antti, but their story is full of surprises. The highlight of the movie is Antti's funeral at the church of his home village, where Antti's own father condemns his son and Eino defends him eloquently.

From Esko Salervo's strong manuscript (which might be good reading in its own right) Sakari Kirjavainen has directed a gripping movie which is driven largely by fine performances. These are people of flesh and blood that we care deeply about. Sakari Kirjavainen was Åke Lindman's co-director in his war films, but now he shows what he really can, and the result is on a totally different, much higher level than Lindman's, pardon, wooden films of his final phase as a director.

Among the impressive themes of the movie is the terrible psychological pressure felt by everybody during the last year of the war.

The later parts of the movie are a growing-up story of Eino through hell (planned suicide), purgatory (severely wounded on duty, facing death, but: "Eino, your place is not yet here"), and paradise (having his back washed in the sauna by the lotta Jaana, whom we see as his wife in the epilogue). The account is firmly realistic, yet with an understanding of the dimensions of dreams, nightmares, and myths.

The subject of the movie is deadly earnest, yet it is told with of a sense of humour, as many of the best war stories are. "Man's wisdom is limited, but his stupidity is limitless", as the military chaplain states in Biblical terms.

The physical production feels authentic. There is a transitional 2K digital visual quality in the picture; the colour world looks unintentionally gray, and the nature feels unnatural.

My Week with Marilyn

2012-01-07T11:15:00.075+02:00

My Week with Marilyn / My Week with Marilyn. GB/US 2011. The Weinstein Company / BBC Films. EX: Kelly Carmichael, Bob Weinstein. P: David Parfitt, Harvey Weinstein. D: Simon Curtis. SC: Adrian Hodges - based on Colin Clark's books My Week with Marilyn (2000) and The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me (1995). DP: Ben Smithard. PD: Donal Woods. AD: Charmian Adams. Set dec: Judy Farr. Cost: Jill Taylor. Makeup: Jenny Shircore. M: Conrad Pope, with “Marilyn’s Theme” by Alexandre Desplat, piano solos by Lang Lang. "Tropical Heat Wave", "I Found A Dream", "Old Black Magic" sung by Michelle Williams. ED: Adam Recht. Casting: Deborah Aquila, Nina Gold, Tricia Wood. WITH: Michelle Williams (Marilyn Monroe), Kenneth Branagh (Laurence Olivier), Eddie Redmayne (Colin Clark), Dominic Cooper (Milton Greene), Philip Jackson (Roger Smith), Derek Jacobi (Owen Morshead), Toby Jones (Arthur Jacobs), Michael Kitchen (Hugh Perceval), Julia Ormond (Vivien Leigh), Simon Russell Beale (Cotes-Preedy), Dougray Scott (Arthur Miller), Zoe Wanamaker (Paula Strasberg), Emma Watson (Lucy), and Judi Dench (Sybil Thorndike). 99 min. Released in Finland by Scanbox Entertainment with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by J.E. Lähdesmäki / Saliven Gustavson. 2K DCP viewed at Tennispalatsi 10, Helsinki, 7 Jan 2012.

40 days after my traffic accident my movie-sitting muscles are fit enough to visit the cinema again.

I like the Michelle Williams impersonation of Marilyn Monroe. Wisely, it is not too much of an imitation. Instead Ms. Williams uses her own considerable personal charm and lets Marilyn be the inspiration. I like the combination of courage, frankness, joy, sense of humour, sensitivity, pain, vulnerability and fausse-naïveté in Michelle Williams's performance. She cannot be the immortal sex goddess, and she has nothing to envy about that, because the deepest secret of MM's star charisma lay in the desperate conditions of her early years, as is hinted at during the film. A deep bow to Michelle Williams who is not overwhelmed by the role she is portraying. She makes it her own in a naturally attractive and appealing way.

I also like Kenneth Branagh's performance as Laurence Olivier. Olivier was at a turning-point in his career, and it soon turned out that he was capable of reinventing himself during the revolution of the Angry Young Men. But at this moment he was old hat, and it was an interesting point in this movie that through Vivien Leigh's experience with Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando he had heard so much about the Method which he hated. The Prince and the Showgirl was not a happy experience for him, but he went on record that he had a high regard for Monroe's performance afterwards, although the production itself was unhappy.

The casting of Judi Dench as Sybil Thorndike is a masterstroke.

The Prince and the Showgirl was not a topical subject for a movie when it was made. Ernst Lubitsch could have made a great film of the material, but even Otto Preminger and Billy Wilder were no longer able to direct a sparkling film of such a story. The result was not very successful, but Marilyn Monroe was at her most beautiful in the movie, the only one produced by herself. It was shot in glorious Technicolor by the master Jack Cardiff (1914-2009).

The modest visual quality of the 2K DCP of My Week with Marilyn does not pay justice to the Technicolor glory of the original Marilyn Monroe footage of 1957.

Pleasures of reading: international cinematheque programme booklets

2012-01-06T19:16:00.015+02:00

Cinematheque programme booklets are among my favourite reading, and not only for professional reasons. The writing is by top talent. Sometimes there are articles and essays in extenso, sometimes the presentations have been boiled down to capsule formats, which may be even more challenging. Programmers are self-sufficient with ideas. As with every good editor, the final programme represents around one per mille of the ideas that have been circulating and accumulating before the final scheduling phase. There are many similarities and coincidences in our programmes, though. Many of us are paying attention to Georges Méliès around his 150th anniversary, and many of us highlight the 2010 restoration of Metropolis, because we are proud of such high profile achievements that also attract new spectators to see film classics, maybe for the first time in their lives.

Rehabilitating from my traffic accident I have started to frequent neighbourhood cafés such as the little cosy Café Succès on Korkeavuorenkatu 2, legendary for its oversized korvapuusti cinnamon rolls (the literal Swedish translation is örfil, in German Ohrfeige). Around Christmas the café-keepers have parked in front of their place a motorcar-sized advertising fairy-tale toy engine with the label Korvapuustitunturi (an untranslatable wordplay that refers both to the cinnamon roll and the home mountain of Father Christmas). Café Succès has been an institution since the 1950s. It was there before we moved to Cinema Orion in 1984 from our previous cinema location at Kino Joukola one block to the south of Café Succès. Between the archival screenings at Joukola a visit to the café was a must. I'm still a regular, and I usually carry copies of foreign cinematheque programme booklets to read while enjoying a cup of coffee and a gravlax sandwich. Last night some scoundrels had abducted the toy engine and hauled it to the nearby park.

La Cinémathèque française: Programme décembre 2011, janvier-février 2012. La Cinémathèque française (Paris) is the great-grandfather of visionary film historical programming, and they are still going with full speed ahead. Main themes include a giant Exposition Metropolis, a full Fritz Lang retrospective, a Récits américains triple retrospective dedicated to Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Altman, Centenaire de la Nikkatsu, a series on Images des outre-mer, and a full King Hu tribute. And much more for instance under the ongoing, delightfully eclectic Histoire permanente du cinéma title.

L'Institut Lumière: Rue du Premier-Film, Magazine de L'Institut Lumière. L'Institut Lumière (Lyon) hails from the home city of the fathers of the cinema, themselves, the Lumière brothers. The cover theme is "Play It Again Sam! Rétrospective Samuel Fuller". Other themes include: Maurice Tourneur années 1930: 5 films restaurés par Pathé; Rétrospective Michel Deville; Metropolis; Célébration Méliès; Spécial vacances de Noël: 4 westerns en couleurs: Ciné-concerts Chang and Prix de beauté, and La nuit RoboCop. The glossy and colourful Lumière magazine is a splendid showcase for vintage stills and poster art, a keepsake also for visual reasons.

La Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg offers double reading. Programme booklets of their own: 12 Décembre 2011, and 01 Janvier 2012. And Luxembourg city magazines with prominent cinémathèque sections: Tom's: City Magazine Luxembourg Dezember 2011, and Gabriele's: City Magazine Luxembourg Januar 2012. December themes include Soirée spéciale Méliès, 30 Years of Aids, Regards sur le cinéma israélien 2, the Finnish Rare Exports (with Finnish glögg afterwards!) and Sidney Lumet 3. January themes include Martin Scorsese, Road Movie Europe, Sidney Lumet 4, Ciné-debat: Le cinéma de la Révolution du Jasmin, and Ciné-concert Lubitsch (La Poupée, Roméo et Juliette dans la neige).

Filmoteca Española (Cine Doré in Madrid): octubre 2011 boasted themes such as Año Dual España-Rusia 2011: Mosfilm (1924-2009) II, Jacques Demy, Recuerdo de Luis G. Berlanga II, Sombras recobradas VIII (Shadows Recovered with restorations with special introductions of Cabiria, Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, , Premios Goya I, and Cine para todos.

BFI Southbank: BFI Southbank January 2012, BFI Southbank February 2012. London's legendary cinema formerly known as NFT (National Film Theatre) is a part of the BFI (British Film Institute). Along the complete set of our Helsinki programmes (since 1957) I also keep my annotated NFT / BFI Southbank sets (since 1980) and the collected La Cinémathèque française sets (since a bit later) always at hand in my personal shelves. January themes include Dickens on Screen, Woody Allen, the ongoing The Disney 50, and London Comedy Film Festival. February topics include David Lynch, Dickens on Screen 2, the Chinese New Year, and Raj Kapoor.

Arsenal, Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.: Arsenal, Januar 2012. Berlin's avantgarde-oriented Arsenal cinema is located at the Filmhaus am Potsdamer Platz. January themes include Werkschau Sandrine Bonnaire, Kamera: Boris Kaufmann, Andrew Bujalski zu Gast, Magical History Tour: Der Kammerspielfilm, Living Archive: Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice, Ulrike Ottinger, and Zum Holocaust-Gedenktag.

Filmmuseum: Filmmuseum Dezember 2011 - Jänner 2012, Filmmuseum Jänner - Februar 2012. Vienna's Filmmuseum programmes and programme texts are among the most ambitious anywhere. They always offer new insights, redefinitions and discoveries in film history. Their whole programming project is a series of explorations, with special emphases on the essay format and the experimental traditions. Many retrospectives are more complete than anybody else's. December 2011-January 2012 themes include Robert Mitchum and Santiago Alvarez. January-February 2012 topics include Giuseppe De Santis, Elio Petri, Hall of Mirrors: Hollywood über Hollywood, and In the Loop by Armando Iannucci. Permanent features include Was ist Film and Die Utopie Film.

Det Danske Filminstitut: Cinemateket December 2011, Cinemateket Januar 2012. The Danish Film Institute runs the most popular cinematheque programming of the Nordic countries in the heart of the city at the Filmhuset on Gothersgade 55 in Copenhagen. December themes included Elia Kazan: elsket og hadet, Disney Greatest, Dreyers mirakler, Beat: Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, D.A.F.F. Danish Adventure Film Festival, Speak Up! Censur og ytringsfrihed, and reruns of the highlights of the year. January topics include Orson Welles: det uregerlige geni with Stefan Drössler as a guest, Femmes fatales: farlig lidenskab på fransk, They rode to the East: Westerns beyond the Iron Curtain, Dansk film 2011: mod og mangfoldighed, and Marilyn på film. Permanent features include The documentary of the month, and Bio 12:30: film at noon with coffee and a cake.

Mad Men: Season 1, Episode 4: New Amsterdam

2012-01-05T22:45:00.037+02:00

The series credits are in a previous entry. Original Air Date—9 August 2007. IMDb synopsis: "Pete Campbell oversteps the mark when he pitches an idea for ad campaign to the head of Bethlehem Steel without telling Don Draper. Draper wants him fired but learns a lesson in corporate politics. Pete's wife wants to buy a Manhattan apartment but he has to approach his cold and distant parents for a loan. Pete's in-laws, however, are more forthcoming."

General remarks based on the first four episodes: the sex roles are so highly pronounced that from a viewpoint of a contemporary Nordic viewer they feel grotesque. They remind me of Hegel's master and slave dialectics: where there is oppression nobody is free, and the male "masters of the world" here behave like morons. Everybody is successful. Nobody is happy.

The satire of the shallow Madison Avenue lifestyle is familiar from movies by Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?), Alfred Hitchcock (North by Northwest: the Mad Men title design is a Saul Bass homage), and the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies (Lover Come Back, its "inspiration point" for boy scouts being the place at the top of the skyscraper with the ideal view to Madison Avenue). Another relevant reference is Billy Wilder's The Apartment, although the company of the movie is in insurance, not advertising. The utter cynicism of Don Draper is familiar from The Sweet Smell of Successs.

Yet Mad Men is not a pastiche but an original work in the serious tradition of the social novel, with sociological and psychological substance.

Mad Men: Season 1, Episode 3: Marriage of Figaro

2012-01-05T22:00:00.015+02:00

Series credits see previous entry. Original Air Date—2 August 2007. IMDb synopsis: "Pete Campbell returns from his honeymoon with tall tales and a big grin on his face. He does tell Peggy Olson that their fling before his marriage was for one night only. Don Draper runs into an old army buddy who knows him under the name of Dick Whitman. He also takes a tour of Rachel Menken's store but in a private moment, their mutual attraction becomes evident. The Drapers have friends over for their daughter's birthday party, including the divorcée who lives down the street. Don however is obviously unhappy with his lot in life and seems to be carrying a burden that is not apparent."

Don's way of mixing business with pleasure gets him in trouble with Rachel Menken. He is himself getting disturbed shuffling around with too many women.

Mad Men: Season 1, Episode 2: Ladies Room

2012-01-05T21:15:00.008+02:00

Series credits see previous entry. Original Air Date—26 July 2007. IMDb: "Don Draper is reluctant to talk about his past, or his childhood, whether with his wife Betty or his boss Roger Sterling. Joan Holloway teaches Peggy Olsen how to wrangle a free lunch out of some of the ad men. Roger Sterling raises the issue of working for the upcoming Nixon presidential campaign and while Don doesn't have much enthusiasm, senior partner Bert Cooper insists that they will go ahead and orders Don to put a team together. The creative team has to come up with an ad campaign for a new deodorant in an aerosol spray can. Betty Draper's doctor recommends that she see a psychiatrist."

Beneath the glamour surface there are deep psychological disturbances. Don Draper: ein Mann ohne Eigenschaften.

Mad Men: Season 1, Episode 1: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

2012-01-05T20:30:00.014+02:00

Series credits see previous separate entry. Original Air Date—19 July 2007. IMDb synopsis: "In 1960 New York City - the high-powered and glamorous "Golden Age" of advertising - Don Draper, the biggest ad man in the business, struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels."

Sharp satiric introduction into the advertising world: facing the truth that smoking is dangerous, introducing the theme of the death wish. - The department store owner Rachel Menken is portrayed by Maggie Siff, a counterforce to machoism.

Mad Men (tv series credits 2007-2010)

2012-01-05T20:25:00.059+02:00

US 2007- . Television series. PC: Weiner Bros. Dist. © Lions Gate Television. Original channel: AMC. EX: Matthew Weiner, Scott Hornbacher. Created by: Matthew Weiner. D: several. SC: Matthew Weiner and others. DP: several - picture format: 480i (SDTV), 720p (HDTV) - 1,78:1. PD: Dan Bishop. AD: Christopher Brown. Set dec: Amy Wells. Cost: Katherine Jane Bryant. Makeup and hair styling team: big. M: David Carbonara. S: Jason George and others. Studio: Los Angeles Center Studios. Casting: Carrie Audino, Laura Schiff. Cast (IMDb):
Jon Hamm ... Don Draper (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
Elisabeth Moss ... Peggy Olson (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
Vincent Kartheiser ... Pete Campbell (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
January Jones ... Betty Draper / ... (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
Christina Hendricks ... Joan Harris / ... (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
Aaron Staton ... Ken Cosgrove (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
Rich Sommer ... Harry Crane (52 episodes, 2007-2010)
John Slattery ... Roger Sterling (49 episodes, 2007-2010)
Kiernan Shipka ... Sally Draper (49 episodes, 2007-2010)
Robert Morse ... Bertram Cooper (40 episodes, 2007-2010)
Bryan Batt ... Salvatore Romano (39 episodes, 2007-2009)
Michael Gladis ... Paul Kinsey (39 episodes, 2007-2009)
Alison Brie ... Trudy Campbell (25 episodes, 2007-2010)
Emelle ... Secretary (25 episodes, 2007-2009)
Jared Harris ... Lane Pryce (22 episodes, 2009-2010)
Arne Starr ... The Artist (21 episodes, 2007-2009)

Episode duration 47 min.

I have started to watch episodes of this tv series today from the 2008 Finnish dvd box sets released by Future Film with Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian subtitle options. The first 4-dvd box set contains the 13 episodes of the first season, totalling 10 h 16 min. Bonus: Establishing Mad Men (77 min), Advertising the American Dream (9 min), Scoring Mad Men (22 min).

Regen / Rain

2012-01-05T20:24:00.002+02:00

NL 1929. PC: Capi-Holland. Een film van / D+SC: Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken (as M.H.K. Franken). DP+ED: Joris Ivens. [1932 score: Lou Lichtveld]. 13 min in the dvd duration. 2005 EYE Film Institute reconstruction with the 1941 Hanns Eisler music (Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain). There are no intertitles in the movie. Screener dvd viewed at home, in Helsinki, 5 Jan 2012.

Music performed by: Rudolf Kolisch (conductor), Tossy Spikakovsky (violin / viola), Eduard Steuermann (violoncello), Joseph Schuster (piano), and others. Recording: December 1941, New York City.

Reconstruction: Johannes C. Gall, Mark-Paul Meyer. Research: Johannes C. Gall. Digital restoration: Nederlands Filmmuseum. "Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain" was in 2005 realized by: Nederlands Filmmuseum, European Foundation Joris Ivens, International Hanns Eisler Society.

Introduction of the 2005 reconstruction: "In 1941, Hanns Eisler wrote a new score for the silent cinematic poem Rain (1929) by Joris Ivens [and Mannus Franken - AA]. A film print with picture and synchronous sound has not survived. The following is a reconstruction of Eisler's sound version of Rain - which he called Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain - with the 1941 soundtrack and a revised editing, based on the Lichtveld version of 1932."

A masterpiece of the lyrical documentary film. The story: it starts to rain in Amsterdam. Rain is one of the cinema's favourite subjects. Andrei Tarkovsky developed a whole philosophy of water in the cinema. Regen is a classic of the subject, playful, full of variations, perspectives, changes of light, many angles from the sky to the ground, reflections in the waterways. The score by Hanns Eisler is subtle, charming, modernistic. The restoration is good regarding the definition of light, respecting the full aperture of the image. No problem with the digital as seen on a tv monitor.

J. Hoberman fired from Village Voice, starts blog

2012-01-05T14:58:00.001+02:00

J. Hoberman, one of the greatest film critics and historians of all times, has been fired from Village Voice. The world is mad. Worth following: his J. Hoberman blog that he has now established.

Dave Kehr
January 5, 2012 at 9:26 am
"What the Village Voice did will ultimately damage the paper more than Jim Hoberman — you can’t buy that kind of stature and credibility. But the Voice seems doomed to oblivion anyway: in the last few months it’s shrunk to the size of a neighborhood shopper. They still have some good freelancers there and I hope they can hang on."

The Italian Key

2012-01-04T18:00:00.003+02:00

Avain Italiaan / Nyckeln till Italien. FI/US/IT/GB 2011. PC: Rose Hope Pictures / Old Trace Road Productions / Harmaa Media Oy. P: Peter O. Almond, Tuomas Kantelinen, Seppo Toivonen. D+SC: Rosa Karo. DP: Gianni Giannelli, Ville Tanttu. PD: Stefano Maria Ortolani. Makeup + hair: Francesca Panariti. M: Tuomas Kantelinen. S: Olli Huhtanen. ED: Pauliina Punkki, Paul Martin Smith. Loc: mostly in Italy, in the mountain villages of Piemonte and Liguria - also in India (Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan), and England. CAST: Gwendolyn Anslow (Cabella), Joana Cartocci (Maria), Leo Vertunni (Leo), Moose Ali Khan (Lord Jai), Mikko Leppilampi (Mr. Fabian), Elisa Cartocci (Sophia), Isadora Cartocci (Giulia), Joeanna Sayler (Chiara), Peter O. Almond (Bronzini), John Shea (Alexander). 92 min. Original in English. Released in Finland by Nordisk Film. Screener dvd without subtitles viewed at home, Helsinki, 4 Jan 2012.

Technical specs (from Rosa Karo): Camera: RED One - master format: 4K RED Raw - aspect ratio: 1,85:1 - edited on AVID - digital intermediate by Generator Post - colour correction: Lustre - distributed on 35 mm and as a DCP - subtitle options: Finnish, Swedish, Italian, and Spanish.

From the production information: capsule: "The Italian Key is a romantic fairy-tale about a 19-year-old orphan girl whose sole inheritance from her custodian is an old key. It takes her to an Italian village and an old house where long-hushed family secrets are gradually unveiled."

"Synopsis: Cabella is a 19-year-old orphan girl who has never learned to know her parents. When uncle Max dies Cabella inherits an old key which leads her to a dilapidated house in a small Italian mountain village. In the wardrobe of the abandoned house there are clothes that fit Cabella, and one night she gets acquainted with the ghost of the late chimney-sweeper Angelo who died at the age of nine. Little by little she starts to find out what links her to the village and the villagers, and Cabella gets acquainted with the three sisters who live in the house next door. The big sister Maria has fallen in love with a mysterious Indian aristocrat who owns a castle by the side of the village. Sophia explores the nature while drawing animals and plants, and the little sister Giulia expects a dashing Romeo to arrive at the village in a bus. Feelings frozen in solitude start to grow, and a new life starts for Cabella. In a big party at the castle the romantic longings of the sisters may finally come true." (From the producer's Finnish-language information, translation mine.)

The Italian Key, "a rose hope production", the debut feature film written and directed by Rosa Karo, goes against the grain of the typical contemporary Finnish film production, whether arthouse or popular. The Italian Key is light entertainment for young girls, a feelgood movie, a fantasy wish-fulfillment tale seen through rosy spectacles. Harridans, the staple of contemporary Finnish cinema, are missing, and so is any kind of social reality. The fairy-tale mode is not unique in the Finnish cinema of today. Neil Hardwick's musical Jos rakastat [If You Love] was inspired by the fairy-tale "The Pearl of Adalmine" by Z. Topelius. Aki Kaurismäki has been inspired by H.C. Andersen, and Le Havre has actually a happier ending than a typical Andersen tale. There are two musical sequences in The Italian Key, quasi music videos, composed by Tuomas Kantelinen, the husband of the director.

Points of comparison brought to mind by The Italian Key include Claude Lelouch, Tarsem, Sofia Coppola, and Indian musicals. The Italian Key is image-driven, dream-like, escapist, romantic, and naivistic. It is pulp fiction for girls. It indulges in goodness, faith, love, and being nice and positive. The young women in the leading roles are beautiful. The mountain views of the villages of Piemonte and Liguria are breathtaking. Visual motifs include keys, castles, sunflowers, and crippled ones (wheelchair bound or deaf-mute) starting to dance and hear again. The sun is always shining at daytime. At night, there is full moon. Charming princes find their princesses. The music is gentle and sweet.

Rosa Karo has the courage of her conviction to make a feelgood escapist romantic tale without a framework of postmodern irony.

Books on my nightstand this week

2012-01-04T12:16:00.010+02:00

1. Markku Kuisma: Saha: tarina Suomen modernisaatiosta ja ihmisistä jotka sen tekivät [The Sawmill: The Story of the Modernization of Finland and the People Who Achieved It]. Helsinki: Siltala, 2011. The historian Markku Kuisma is going strong: he publishes a remarkable book or two every year. They are page-turners like the best novels. Many surprises in this account of the sawmill industry of Finland, the industrial backbone of Finland for a century or more. A book of permanent value.

2. Andrew Martindale: Renessanssi [Landmarks of the World's Art: Man and the Renaissance, 1966]. Translated by Pirkko Lilius, the translation checked by Sakari Saarikivi. Helsinki: Tammi, 1967. The most uninspired entry in a favourite book series of my teenage years. The writer focuses on externals and misses the magnitude of the great fundamental discoveries of the various stages of the Renaissance - and of Mannerism, also covered (or not) here. Renaissance, my favourite period in the history of art (and how short the High Renaissance was... !!!) was the return to the greatest insights of visual art since the golden age of classical Greece 1700 years earlier. I was so disappointed with this book that I have been reading relevant pages of general art histories as a compensation. In this series, the book by Jean Lassus on The Early Christian and Byzantine World I found excellent although the subject-matter was the least interesting to me, a thousand years of visual poverty, including over a century of actual iconoclasm, systematic destruction of visual art heritage. The dictatorship of the emperor and the church tried to crush individual creativity, but it is never possible completely to crush creativity (see Andrei Rublyov, Saint John Climacus, Hagia Sofia, and the incredible Irish-style miniature manuscripts such as the Durham Gospels and the Codex Aureus in Stockholm).

I see a parallel in the history of the cinema. From the Lumière brothers until the 1990s was a period of photochemical visual glory. Since the 1910s great painters such as the High Renaissance masters and Rembrandt were models in films by Victorin Jasset, Benjamin Christensen, and the young Cecil B. DeMille. The last 10-15 years have been the visually most uneven and often arid period in the history of the cinema because of the poverty of the digital transition of a resolution of 2K or less. But there have been good exceptions all the time and I look forward to 4K-8K resolutions as the salvation. Even more importantly, as soon as there is more permanence in digital tools, artistic quality can start to grow with growing skills and taste.

The model could be Leonardo's painting The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (1508), where he started really to develop his art of the chiaroscuoro, the sfumato, the "refined subtle softness" in painting facial expression, and "sublime infinity softness" as the way to convey the perspective until the far horizon. Leonardo was the first to profoundly realize the meaning of atmosphere in a painting: he understood that air is not a void, not an emptiness, but full of invisible existence, which is reflected in a thousand ways everywhere. In digital, sharpness and brightness (the hallmarks of the Middle Ages) have been the watchwords. It is also a perfectly valid choice of aesthetics, but it can soon get boring even in animation, which is I believe is the reason why John Lasseter and Hayao Miyazaki see handmade animation as indispensable.

By the revolutionary methods of the Renaissance painters had new means to convey relief, that is, depth of field, or, in contemporary words, 3D.

Because of the loss of a sense of depth in the 2K digital image (because of its airlessness, its loss of a sense of atmosphere) there has been a new demand for special 3D technologies in the digital cinema. I am in favour of them, but I can understand the point of the many critics of 3D 2K DCP's (the loss of brightness, the flat and gray colour gamut). For me the greatest three-dimensional illusion in the cinema has been in full 70 mm screenings, most recently watching a brilliant print of The Agony and the Ecstasy in 2010 in Oslo. Appropriately the period depicted in the movie was the Renaissance, the work of Michelangelo.

3. Winsor McCay: Pikku Nemo Höyhensaarilla I osa: 1905-1907 (The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland [Vol. I]). Helsinki: Otava, 1990. Translated by Juhani Tolvanen, lettering by Jukka Heiskanen, introduction by Richard Marschall translated by Jukka Kemppinen, sleeve notes by Bo Carpelan. See my remarks on Little Nemo Vol. I and the Bo Carpelan notes.

Matka Edeniin / Un viaje al Edèn / A Journey to Eden

2012-01-01T18:09:00.000+02:00

Matka Edeniin (see my remarks 14 Oct 2011) revisited via a screener dvd at home, Helsinki, 1 Jan 2012. I add my new remarks to the original post.

My top films of 2011

2011-12-31T20:56:00.005+02:00

Studying the 2011 top ten lists of the major international film magazines I realize again that most of the best quality films no longer get cinema distribution in Finland. From 1896 until the 1980s Helsinki was an excellent cinema city, but now the first-run cinema supply has hit an all-time historical low. I have to find a solution to this dilemma since I often suffer in screenings of difficult films in a festival atmosphere (because they would need more space), and watching a dvd can only be a substitute for the real thing. Our programming team at Cinema Orion seems to agree that it will become our task to screen more modern quality cinema than before. Cinema Orion is ideal for the reflection and contemplation required by difficult films. I plan to see later all the movies top-listed in Cahiers du Cinéma, Sight & Sound, and Film Comment. Here are some favourites of mine of the year's crop.

NEW RELEASES: FEATURE FILMS

NUMBER ONE:
Nader and Simin: A Separation, D: Asghar Farhadi.

I ALSO LIKED:
The King's Speech, D: Tom Hooper.
Des hommes et des dieux, D: Xavier Beauvois.
Another Year, D: Mike Leigh.
Miral, D: Julian Schnabel.

MY FINNISH FAVOURITES:
Le Havre, D: Aki Kaurismäki.
Pussikaljaelokuva [Bag Beer Movie], D: Ville Jankeri.
Varasto [The Storeroom], D: Taru Mäkelä.
Ella & Aleksi - yllätyssynttärit [Ella & Aleksi - a Surprise Birthday Party], D: Juuso Syrjä.
Matka Edeniin [Journey to Eden], D: Rax Rinnekangas.

FINNISH SHORTS:
Ilmianto [The Informers], D: Milla Pelkonen.
Miten marjoja poimitaan [How to Pick Berries], D: Elina Talvensaari.
Erään hyönteisen tuho [The Death of an Insect], D: Hannes Vartiainen, Pekka Veikkolainen.

I UNDERSTAND WHY THESE ARE HIGHLY REGARDED:
The Tree of Life, D: Terrence Malick (my favourite Malick, I got the Stan Brakhage connection, although this is slick and polished movie in comparison).
Melancholia, D: Lars von Trier (although he always reminds me of Andersen's tale of the emperor's new clothes).
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, D: Nuri Bilge Ceylan (but this form of slow cinema I feel I have already experienced once too often).
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, D: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (I get the point but I need to see more of his work).
Drive, D: Nicolas Winding Refn (very well made, but perhaps I'm overfamiliar with the tradition behind this).

VERY REWARDING BUT NO MASTERPIECES:
The Skin I Live In, D: Pedro Almodóvar.
Midnight in Paris, D: Woody Allen.

A CONTENDER FOR THE MOST SCARY HORROR MOVIE OF ALL TIME:
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, directed by Bill Condon with a chilly assurance. (The more you think what it means the scarier it grows. There are many strange parallels with the two-part movie finale of the Harry Potter saga. The protagonists in the most popular contemporary fiction are strangers in their own lives, or worse. Or maybe I have misunderstood utterly.)

THE GREATEST DISCOVERIES AT CINEMA ORION:
The Ukrainian retrospective curated by the Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska with three films we'd never screened before: A Spring for the Thirsty / Krinitsja dlja spraglih (1965), D: Yuri Ilyenko. - The Stone Cross / Kaminni hrest (1968), D: Leonid Osyka. - Famine-33 / Holod-33 (1991), D: Oles Jantchuk.
...
The Ilyich Gate / Zastava Ilyicha (1962), D: Marlen Khutsiev, the 197 min 1988-1990 reconstruction from Gosfilmofond.

Abbas Kiarostami's intriguing Copie conforme I had seen the year before. I started to see movies by Jia Zhang-ke and need to go deeper into them. Clint Eastwood gave yet another surprise with J. Edgar.

Three books of the year

2011-12-31T18:40:00.000+02:00

These books have impressed me:

1. Nicholas Carr: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Internet is good for surfing, but print media is necessary for profound thought.

2. Antti Tuuri: Ikitie [The Eternal Road]. The epic tragedy of the 1930s: the right-wing white terror this side of the border; Stalin's Great Terror with its genocidal purges of Finns in Eastern Karelia on the other side. Tuuri has found a sober, original Homeric epic style for almost overwhelming experiences. A modern masterpiece in the classical novel form, worthy of translation.

3. Juri Joensuu, Marko Niemi, Harry Salmenniemi (ed.): Vastakaanon: suomalainen kokeellinen runous 2000-2010 [Anti-Canon: Finnish Experimental Poetry 2000-2010]. A thick, exhilarating tome full of new poetry against the grain, also in new media, exploding boundaries, from a decade when more new Finnish poetry was written than ever.

Watching movies at home and in the cinema

2011-12-30T20:20:00.012+02:00

I haven't visited the cinema in a month recovering from my terrible traffic accident, but as soon as my bruised hip has healed enough to enable me to sit through more than a stretch of one hour or so I'll be able to watch movies comfortably at home again. There is a blessing in this curse. It's good to have a break from the onslaught of moving images. I have had plenty of time to study the history of visual arts, to read many kinds of books, and to listen to music.

Since childhood I have watched a lot of movies on tv, and later on vhs, dvd, and blu-ray, but cinema screening has always been for me the primary experience. Home formats are great for revisiting favourite movies or seeing movies that would be impossible to see otherwise.

Some movies don't suffer at all from the reduction to home viewing circumstances. My favourite example is Rio Bravo. I was staying at the small Shangri La Motel, Spokane, about to go to bed, when I switched the tv on. The signal was bad and the image was terrible, but instantly I recognized the opening sequence of Rio Bravo. Needless to say, I couldn't take my eyes off the tv set until the movie was over. Robin Wood once said that there is not a single beautiful image in Rio Bravo. Its beauty is totally based on the character-driven dynamics of the story. Rio Bravo is visually based on television aesthetics, and it works fine both on tv and in the cinema.

For some strange reason Fritz Lang's movies don't work at all on the small screen. I once watched Scarlet Street on vhs and decided that the movie has lost its charm. Then I saw it on the cinema screen, and it was great again. There is something in the visual electricity of Fritz Lang's mise-en-scène that demands a sense of space, a sense of volume, a sense of real architecture.

As a rule the sublime of the film art is based on the cinema viewing experience.

The screen is bigger than us. The film-makers try their best to overwhelm us. But we, the viewers, fight against this overwhelming attempt, rise up to the challenge, and experience an uplift while doing so.

This is also a secret of the excitement of horror, thriller, fantasy, science fiction, violence, war, catastrophe, etc. on screen. It is strangely exhilarating to overcome the challenges the filmmakers give us. At the same time the collective anxiety of the audience in the cinema is palpable. Maybe there are girls actually screaming, maybe the one next to you needs protection.

In contrast, hard core pornography works ideally in privacy and has found its true distribution channel and form of existence via the home formats, especially the internet. A parallel phenomenon is that exhibitions of the graphic art of Japanese shunga are not successful in art galleries because audiences get embarrassed by the presence of others and they'd rather study a book of the same images at home.

The dynamics of comedy and humour is completely different. Everybody knows that a comedy seen alone is less than half as funny as seen with a receptive audience. Yesterday on the radio there was a funny talk programme amongst the foreign correspondents of YLE the Finnish broadcasting corporation. The YLE Paris correspondent reported having visited the Paris premiere of Aki Kaurismäki's A Man without a Past and observed that Frenchmen laughed at different things than he (alone) did.

André Bazin once made a remark about the different waves of laughter in a Charles Chaplin screening. There is the immediate gratification of the obvious funny farce aspects such as pratfalls for the children (in all of us). But there are also the more subtle satirical points that require a moment of reflection.

Max Davidson's Pass the Gravy is a comedy masterpiece viewed on the brilliant Edition Filmmuseum dvd at home, but I'll never forget the escalating thunderstorm of laughter in Pordenone's Forgotten Laugher retrospective where William K. Everson's personal 16 mm print was unveiled. It was elected the funniest comedy of the retrospective.

I'm grateful that I was first exposed to the comedies of Buster Keaton in the cinema screenings of the Finnish Film Archive when Raymond Rohauer visited Finland hosted by Peter von Bagh (the films were transmitted on Finnish television, too, soon afterwards). I had never experienced such a thunder of laughter. I literally fell on the floor while seeing Sherlock, Jr. for the first time (or was it Steamboat Bill, Jr., the hat fitting scene, or both?). In Finland there is a saying that "laughter prolongs your life". After the Buster Keaton experience I have known what James Agee meant about the profound belly laughter in his classic essay on comedy's golden age. But that you can hardly achieve in a home viewing.

I was grateful for the huge quasi-complete Kinowelt-Studiocanal-Universal Laurel and Hardy dvd box sets which were released in Finland complete with their superior silent shorts. They (especially the silents) would be the movies I would take to the desert island (where I would immediately realize that they are not that funny on a desert island, without the audience!). I agree with Peter von Bagh that the Laurel and Hardy silents should be ideally screened without music because their orchestration of laughter is so brilliant that it alone creates the perfect "soundtrack" when they are screened in a cinema. Our experiences at Cinema Orion of Laurel and Hardy silents with full houses of mostly children (initially suspicious: black and white? silent??) have kept beating laughter records.

When the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice were abolishing film censorship in Finland, I had the privilege to participate in 1997-1998. A representative of the Ministry of Justice was keen on the idea of "media neutrality", meaning that for instance cinema screenings and television transmissions should be treated equally. Partly this is correct.

But every student of communication studies knows that "the medium is the message", that the medium changes the message.

Nowhere is this difference more blatant than in moving images.

My favourite example then used to be Titanic. In a cinema palace we get drowned with the huge ocean liner. At home, in our living room, we drown the tiny boat on the monitor with our remote control.

In the cinema, there is darkness. At home, the living room is usually well lit.

In the cinema, there is silence. At home, noise, discussion, and distraction.

In the cinema we hardly leave our seat. At home we do that repeatedly.

In the cinema we see the movie without interruption. At home, we can use the pause button at will, for example if someone calls on the telephone.

In the cinema we are among strangers. In the living room we are in the safe atmosphere of the home.

Out now: the DocPoint 2012 newspaper

2011-12-30T07:49:00.004+02:00

DocPoint the Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, the biggest documentary film festival in the Nordic countries, takes place for the 11th time on 24-29 January, 2012. The DocPoint newspaper was published a week ago, and the festival programme will be online on 5 January. The programming is strong, and the newspaper (in Finnish) offers great reading even for the one who cannot attend the festival. The artistic director is Erja Dammert, the executive director is Leena Närekangas, and the editor of the newspaper is Tii Starck.

In 2012 the features include:
* the Apollo award to the visionary producer Iikka Vehkalahti
* live cinema event: Rien que les heures with Maud Nelissen's trio playing the original score
* opening movie: Jälki elämässä - 4 tarinaa kidutuksesta [A Trace in Life - 4 stories about torture] by Mervi Junkkonen
* Dokkino for children
* Finnsurf: surfing in cold water
* Five Star Existence: Sonja Lindén's movie about the transformation of life through technology
* Yhden miehen rauha [One Man's Peace] by Kati Juurus on Abdullahi Farah, peace negotiator in Somalia
* Säilöttyjä unelmia [Canned Dreams] by Katja Gauriloff on the the way of canned food to the consumer
* a retrospective of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, a photographer and film-maker based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a founder of the Amber collective
* Lastuja [Splinters] by Peter von Bagh on Juhani Aho's family of artists
* Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog
* A Wall Is a Screen movie happening, starting on the Helsinki Senate Square
* A Boatload of Wild Irishmen by Brian Winston on Robert J. Flaherty
* Ballroom Dancer by Christian Holten Bonke and Andreas Koefoed on the last challenge of a world class dancer, a dance of death
* Senna by Asif Kapadian on Ayrton Senna the F1 driver
* Planet of Snail by Seung-Jun Yin on a love story among the disabled
* Kumaré by Vikram Gandhi on a fake guru
* Catfish by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost on a special relationship that starts in the social media

THE ARAB SPRING AND THE MIDDLE EAST
* The Arab spring: Tahrir - Liberation Square (Stefano Savona), Forbidden (Ammal Ramsis), Grandma, a Thousand Times (Mahmoud Kaabouri), At Night, They Dance (Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault), A
* Road to Mecca - The Journey of Muhammad Asad, the story of the Pale of Settlement Jew turned an Arab statesman
* 5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat
* Waiting for Abu Zayd by Mohammad Ali Atassi
* special guest: Eyal Sivan, with his films Jaffa, the Orange's Clockwork, and Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel

EUROPEAN TURBULENCE
* Palazzo delle Aquile on homelessness in Palermo
* Foreign and Imagining Emanuel, on the African emigration to Europe
* Italy - Love It Or Leave It by Luca Ragazzi and Gustav Hofer
* He Thinks He's the Best by Maria Kuhlberg on a family feud among Italian Gastarbeiter
* All for the Good of the World and Nosovice by Vit Klusac on the Korean Hyundai company starting a giant car factory in the middle of Czech cabbage fields

POWER TO THE PEOPLE, THE ECOCATASTROPHE
* You've Been Trumped by Anthony Baxter on Donald Trump's building project in Scotland
* If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front by Marshall Curry
* Leader-Sheep and Big Boys Gone Bananas! on civil activism
* There Once Was an Island by Briar March on the Takuu atoll about to be covered by the ocean
* Made in China by Jian Dou on workers' conditions in China
* Empire of Dust by Loa Yen and Eddy on Chinese-Kongolese economic collaboration

DESIGN / GARBAGE
* Water Land by Vik Muniz on the world's biggest dump in Rio de Janeiro
* Your Garbage Is Their Gold: the story of the Palermo junk dealers
* Field of Magic: the story of the homeless that have lived next to a dump in Lithuania for 20 years
* How Are You by Jannik Splidsboel on the Danish artist duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset
* Water Children by Aliona van der Horst on art on the carnal dimension of womanhood

THICKER THAN WATER: FAMILY MOVIES
* How Are You Doing, Rudolf Ming? on a Latvian boy's self-made moving images
* Life in Stills by Tamar Tali on the 96-year old Israeli photographer Miriam
* Phnom Penh Lullaby (Cambodia) and Position among the Stars (Indonesia)
* Marathon Boy on a 3 year old marathon runner boy
* Planet Kirsan by Magdalena Pieta on Kazakh children as chess champions
* My Reincarnation by Jennifer Fox on a Tibetan Buddhist family drama

THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC
* George Harrison: Living in the Material World by Martin Scorsese
* From the Sky Down by David Guggenheim on U2
* Inni by Sigur Rós
* God Bless Ozzy Osbourne by Mike Fleiss and Mike Piscitelli

AFTER THE WAR
* Hell and Back Again by Danfung Dennis on the war in Afghanistan
* Enemies of the People by Thet Sambath on the Khmer Rouge genocide
* Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal by Eyal Sivan on Adolf Eichmann
* The Tiniest Place by Tatiana Huezo on El Salvador

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero: I wish I'd been there in Tallinn

2011-12-29T17:14:00.002+02:00

Mika Taanila just sent me these links about the unique "60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero" film happening that took place in Tallinn on 22 December, 2011. I wish I had been there.

Edmund Yeo at YouTube:
"On the 22nd of December, 2011, at Tallinn Port, the one and only screening of 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZERO was held. It was an ambitious omnibus film featuring almost 60 different directors from around the world. Like Park Chan-Wook, Naomi Kawase, Tom Tywker, Kim Jee-Woon, Amir Naderi, Brillante Mendoza etc etc. The Malaysian directors involved in this were, well, me. And Woo Ming Jin. This video of mine will show the 1-minute segments that he and I did, along with Filipino director Auraeus Solito's. (... you didn't expect me to film the ENTIRE omnibus, right?) List of directors involved in the omnibus:" http://60sec.ee/directors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PgH7jc6Wxw

Edmund Yeo at his homepage:
http://www.edmundyeo.com/2011/12/60-seconds-of-solitude-at-year-zero.html

Kalle Kinnunen in Finnish:
http://suomenkuvalehti.fi/blogit/kuvien-takaa/60-seconds-of-solitude-elokuva-on-ainutkertaista

P.S. 6 Jan 2012 Maggie Lee in Hollywood Reporter:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/60-seconds-solitude-year-zero-277143

National Film Registry of the Library of Congress: the selections of 2011

2011-12-28T05:10:00.003+02:00

Since 1989 in the U.S., following the National Film Preservation Act to ensure the survival of works considered "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", 25 films have been chosen for preservation every year because of their "enduring significance to American culture," in the formulation of the Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

I like the mix of the mainstream and the oddball, fiction and documentary, animation and experimental, early cinema and modern blockbusters. There is an affinity with the great tradition of cinematheque programming, the spirit that "all movies were born free and equal" shared by Henri Langlois and André Bazin.

I also like the emphasis on social consciousness and race issues in this selection.

Allures (1961)
Bambi (1942)
The Big Heat (1953)
A Computer Animated Hand (1972)
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)
The Cry of the Children (1912)
A Cure for Pokeritis (1912)
El Mariachi (1992)
Faces (1968)
Fake Fruit Factory (1986)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Growing Up Female (1971)
Hester Street (1975)
I, an Actress (1977)
The Iron Horse (1924)
The Kid (1921)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
The Negro Soldier (1944)
Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (1930s-1940s)
Norma Rae (1979)
Porgy and Bess (1959)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Stand and Deliver (1988)
Twentieth Century (1934)
War of the Worlds (1953)

The complete list of titles 1989- is at the National Film Registry homepage.

The 2011 presentations in extenso beyond the jump break - great reading obviously ghost-written by top talent:
Complete List of Films:

Allures (1961)

Called the master of "cosmic cinema," Jordan Belson excelled in creating abstract imagery with a spiritual dimension that featured dazzling displays of color, light, and ever-moving patterns and objects. Trained as a painter and profoundly influenced by the artist and theorist Wassily Kandinsky, Belson collaborated in the late 1950s with electronic music composer Henry Jacobs to create elaborate sound and light shows in the San Francisco Morrison Planetarium, an experience that informed his subsequent films. "Allures," Belson has stated, "was probably the space-iest film that had been done until then. It creates a feeling of moving into the void." Inspired by Eastern spiritual thought, the five-minute film (which took a year and a half to make), is, Belson suggests, a "mathematically precise" work intended to express the process of becoming that the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin has named "cosmogenesis."

Bambi (1942)

One of Walt Disney's timeless classics (and his own personal favorite), this animated coming-of-age tale of a wide-eyed doe's life in the forest has enchanted generations since its debut nearly 70 years ago. Filled with iconic characters and moments, the film's beautiful images, the result of extensive nature studies by Disney's animators, and its realistic characters that merged human and animal qualities in the time-honored tradition of folklore and fable have enhanced the movie's resonating, emotional power. Treasured as one of film's most heart-rending stories of parental love, "Bambi" also has come to be recognized for its eloquent message of nature conservation.

The Big Heat (1953)

One of the great post-war noir films, "The Big Heat" stars Glenn Ford, Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame. Set in a fictional American town, "The Big Heat" tells the story of a tough cop (Ford) who takes on a local crime syndicate, exposing tensions within his own corrupt police department as well as insecurities and hypocrisies of domestic life in the 1950s. Filled with atmosphere, fascinating female characters, and a jolting-yet not gratuitous-degree of violence, "The Big Heat," through its subtly expressive technique and resistance to formulaic denouement, manages to be both stylized and brutally realistic, a signature of its director Fritz Lang.

A Computer Animated Hand (1972)

Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, renowned for its CGI (computer generated image) animated films, created a program for digitally animating a human hand in 1972 as a graduate student project, one of the earliest examples of 3D computer animation. The one-minute film displays the hand turning, opening and closing, pointing at the viewer, and flexing its fingers, ending with a shot that seemingly travels up inside the hand. In creating the film, which was incorporated into the 1976 film "Futureworld," Catmull worked out concepts that have become foundational for computer graphics that followed.

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)

Robert Drew was a pioneer of American cinema-verite (a style of documentary filmmaking that strives to record unfolding events non-intrusively). In 1963, he gathered together a stellar group of filmmakers, including D. A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock, Gregory Shuker, James Lipscomb, and Patricia Powell, to capture on film the dramatic unfolding of an ideological crisis, one that revealed political decision-making at the highest levels. The result, "Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment," focuses on Gov. George Wallace's attempt to prevent two African-American students from enrolling in the University of Alabama-his infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" confrontation-and the response of President John F. Kennedy. The filmmakers observe the crisis evolve by following a number of participants, including Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, his deputy in Alabama, Nicholas Katzenbach, Gov. Wallace, and the two students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. The film also shows deliberations between the president and his staff that led to a peaceful resolution, a decision by the president to deliver a major address on civil rights, and a commitment by Wallace to continue his battle in subsequent national election campaigns. The film premiered at the first New York Film Festival and was subsequently shown nationally on ABC-TV. It has proven to be a uniquely revealing complement to written histories of the period, providing viewers the rare opportunity to witness historical events from an insider's perspective.

The Cry of the Children (1912)

Recognized as a key work that both reflected and contributed to the pre-World War I child labor reform movement, the two-reel silent melodrama "The Cry of the Children" takes its title and fatalistic, uncompromising tone of hopelessness from the 1842 poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "The Cry of the Children" was part of a wave of "social problem" films released during the 1910s on such subjects as drugs and alcohol, white slavery, immigrants and women's suffrage. Some were sensationalist attempts to exploit lurid topics, while others, like "The Cry of the Children," were realistic exposés that championed social reform and demanded change. Shot partially in a working textile factory, "The Cry of the Children" was recognized by an influential critic of the time as "The boldest, most timely and most effective appeal for the stamping out of the cruelest of all social abuses."

A Cure for Pokeritis (1912)

Largely forgotten today, actor John Bunny merits significant historical importance as the American film industry's earliest comic superstar. A stage actor prior to the start of his film career in 1910, Bunny starred in over 150 Vitagraph Company productions from 1910 until his death in 1915. Many of his films (affectionately known as "Bunnygraphs") were gentle "domestic" comedies, in which he portrayed a henpecked husband alongside co-star Flora Finch. "A Cure for Pokeritis" exemplifies the genre, as Finch conspires with similarly displeased wives to break up their husbands' weekly poker game. When Bunny died in 1915, a New York Times editorial noted that "Thousands who had never heard him speak…recognized him as the living symbol of wholesome merriment." The paper presciently commented on the importance of preserving motion pictures and sound recordings for future generations: "His loss will be felt all over the country, and the films which preserve his humorous personality in action may in time have a new value. It is a subject worthy of reflection, the value of a perfect record of a departed singer's voice, of the photographic films perpetuating the drolleries of a comedian who developed such extraordinary capacity for acting before the camera."

El Mariachi (1992)

Directed, edited, co-produced, and written in two weeks by Robert Rodriguez for $7,000 while a film student at the University of Texas, "El Mariachi" proved a favorite on the film festival circuit. After Columbia Pictures picked it up for distribution, the film helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s. "El Mariachi" is an energetic, highly entertaining tale of an itinerant musician, portrayed by co-producer and Rodriguez crony Carlos Gallardo, who arrives at a Mexican border town during a drug war and is mistaken for a hit man who recently escaped from prison. The story, as film historian Charles Ramirez Berg has suggested, plays with expectations common to two popular exploitation genres-the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns. Rodriguez's success derived from invigorating these genres with creative variants despite the constraints of a shoestring budget. Rodriguez has gone on to direct films for major studios, becoming, in Berg's estimation, "arguably the most successful Latino director ever to work in Hollywood."

Faces (1968)

Writer-director John Cassavetes described "Faces," considered by many to be his first mature work, as "a barrage of attack on contemporary middle-class America." The film depicts a married couple, "safe in their suburban home, narrow in their thinking," he wrote, who experience a break up that "releases them from the conformity of their existence, forces them into a different context, when all barriers are down." An example of cinematic excess, "Faces" places its viewers inside intense lengthy scenes to allow them to discover within its relentless confrontations emotions and relations of power between men and women that rarely emerge in more conventionally structured films. In provoking remarkable performances by Lynn Carlin, John Marley, and Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes has created a style of independent filmmaking that has inspired filmmakers around the world.

Fake Fruit Factory (1986)

An expressive, sympathetic look at the everyday lives of young Mexican women who create ornamental papier maché fruits and vegetables, "Fake Fruit Factory" exemplifies filmmaker Chick Strand's unique style that deftly blends documentary, avant-garde and ethnographic techniques. After studying anthropology and ethnographic film at the University of California, Strand, who helped noted independent filmmaker Bruce Baillie create the independent film distribution cooperative Canyon Cinema, taught filmmaking for 24 years at Occidental College. She developed a collagist process to create her films, shooting footage of people she encountered over several decades of annual summer stays in Mexico and then editing together individual films. In "Fake Fruit Factory," Strand employs a moving camera at close range to create colorfully vivid images often verging on abstraction, while her soundtrack picks up snatches of conversation to evoke, in her words, "the spirit of the people." "I want to know," Strand wrote, "really what it is like to be a breathing, talking, moving, emotional, relating individual in the society."

Forrest Gump (1994)

As "Forrest Gump," Tom Hanks portrays an earnest, guileless "everyman" whose open-heartedness and sense of the unexpected unwittingly draws him into some of the most iconic events of the 1960s and 1970s. A smash hit, "Forrest Gump" has been honored for its technological innovations (the digital insertion of Gump seamlessly into vintage archival footage), its resonance within the culture that has elevated Gump (and what he represents in terms of American innocence) to the status of folk hero, and its attempt to engage both playfully and seriously with contentious aspects of the era's traumatic history. The film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Growing Up Female (1971)

Among the first films to emerge from the women's liberation movement, "Growing Up Female" is a documentary portrait of America on the brink of profound change in its attitudes toward women. Filmed in spring 1970 by Ohio college students Julia Reichert and Jim Klein, "Growing Up Female" focuses on six girls and women aged 4 to 34 and the home, school, work, and advertising environments that have impacted their identities. Through open-ended interviews and lyrical documentation of their surroundings, the film strived, in Reichert's words, to "give women a new lens through which to see their own lives." Widely distributed to libraries, universities, churches and youth groups, the film launched a cooperative of female filmmakers that bypassed traditional distribution mechanisms to get its message communicated.

Hester Street (1975)

Joan Micklin Silver's first feature-length film, "Hester Street," was an adaption of preeminent Yiddish author Abraham Cahan's 1896 well-received first novel "Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto." In the 1975 film, the writer-director brought to the screen a portrait of Eastern European Jewish life in America that historians have praised for its accuracy of detail and sensitivity to the challenges immigrants faced during their acculturation process. Shot in black-and-white and partly in Yiddish with English subtitles, the independent production, financed with money raised by the filmmaker's husband, was shunned by Hollywood until it established a reputation at the Cannes Film Festival and in European markets. "Hester Street" focuses on stresses that occur when a "greenhorn" wife, played by Carol Kane (nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal), and her young son arrive in New York to join her Americanized husband. Silver, one of the first women directors of American features to emerge during the women's liberation movement, shifted the story's emphasis from the husband, as in the novel, to the wife. Historian Joyce Antler has written admiringly, "In indicating the hardships experienced by women and their resiliency, as well as the deep strains assimilation posed to masculinity, 'Hester Street' touches on a fundamental cultural challenge confronting immigrants."

I, an Actress (1977)

Underground filmmaker George Kuchar and his twin brother Mike began making 8mm films as 12-year-old kids in the Bronx, often on their family's apartment rooftop. Before his death in 2011, George created over 200 outlandish low-budget films filled with absurdist melodrama, crazed dialogue and plots, and affection for Hollywood film conventions and genres. A professor at the San Francisco Art Institute, Kuchar documented his directing techniques in the hilarious "I, an Actress" as he encourages an acting student to embellish a melodramatic monologue with increasingly excessive gestures and emotions. Like most of Kuchar's films, "I, an Actress" embodies a "camp" sensibility, defined by the cultural critic Susan Sontag as deriving from an aesthetics that valorizes not beauty but "love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration." John Waters has cited the Kuchars as "my first inspiration" and credited them with giving him "the self-confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision."

The Iron Horse (1924)

John Ford's epic Western "The Iron Horse" established his reputation as one of Hollywood's most accomplished directors. Intended by Fox studios to rival Paramount's 1923 epic "The Covered Wagon," Ford's film employed more than 5,000 extras, advertised authenticity in its attention to realistic detail, and provided him with the opportunity to create iconic visual images of the Old West, inspired by such master painters as Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. A tale of national unity achieved after the Civil War through the construction of the transcontinental railroad, "The Iron Horse" celebrated the contributions of Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants although the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country legally was severely restricted at the time of its production. A classic silent film, "The Iron Horse" introduced to American and world audiences a reverential, elegiac mythology that has influenced many subsequent Westerns.

The Kid (1921)

Charles Chaplin's first full-length feature, the silent classic "The Kid," is an artful melding of touching drama, social commentary and inventive comedy. The tale of a foundling (Jackie Coogan, soon to be a major child star) taken in by the Little Tramp, "The Kid" represents a high point in Chaplin's evolving cinematic style, proving he could sustain his artistry beyond the length of his usual short subjects and could deftly elicit a variety of emotions from his audiences by skillfully blending slapstick and pathos.

The Lost Weekend (1945)

A landmark social-problem film, "The Lost Weekend" provided audiences of 1945 with an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism. Directed by Billy Wilder and co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett, the film melded an expressionistic film-noir style with documentary realism to immerse viewers in the harrowing experiences of an aspiring New York writer willing to do almost anything for a drink. Despite opposition from his studio, the Hays Office and the liquor industry, Wilder created a film ranked as one of the best of the decade that won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Direction, Screenplay, and Actor (Ray Milland), and established him as one of America's leading filmmakers.

The Negro Soldier (1944)

Produced by Frank Capra's renowned World War II U.S. Army filming unit, "The Negro Soldier" showcased the contributions of blacks to American society and their heroism in the nation's wars, portraying them in a dignified, realistic, and far less stereotypical manner than they had been depicted in previous Hollywood films. Considered by film historian Thomas Cripps as "a watershed in the use of film to promote racial tolerance," "The Negro Soldier" was produced in reaction to instances of discrimination against African-Americans stationed in the South. Written by Carlton Moss, a young black writer for radio and the Federal Theatre Project, directed by Stuart Heisler, and scored by Dmitri Tiomkin, the film highlights the role of the church in the black community and charts the progress of a black soldier through basic training and officer's candidate school before he enters into combat. It became mandatory viewing for all soldiers in American replacement centers from spring 1944 until the war's end.

Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (1930s-1940s)

Fayard and Harold Nicholas, renowned for their innovative and exuberant dance routines, began in vaudeville in the late 1920s before headlining at the Cotton Club in Harlem, starring on Broadway, and performing in Hollywood films. Fred Astaire is reported to have called their dance sequence in "Stormy Weather" (1943) the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen. Their home movies capture a golden age of show business-with extraordinary footage of Broadway, Harlem and Hollywood-and also document the middle-class African-American life of that era, images made rare by the considerable cost of home-movie equipment during the Great Depression. Highlights include the only footage shot inside the Cotton Club, the only footage of famous Broadway shows like "Babes in Arms," home movies of an all African-American regiment during World War II, films of street life in Harlem in the 1930s, and the family's cross-country tour in 1934.

Norma Rae (1979)

Highlighted by Sally Field's Oscar-winning performance, "Norma Rae" is the tale of an unlikely activist. A poorly-educated single mother, Norma Rae Webster works at a Southern textile mill where her attempt to better working conditions through unionization, though undermined by her factory bosses, ultimately succeeds after her courageous stand on the factory floor wins the support of her co-workers. The film is less a polemical pro-union statement than a treatise about maturation, personal willpower, fairness and the empowerment of women. Directed by Martin Ritt, "Norma Rae" was based on the real-life efforts of Crystal Lee Sutton to unionize the J. P. Stevens Mills in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., which finally agreed to allow union representation one year after the film's release.

Porgy and Bess (1959)

Composer George Gershwin considered his masterpiece "Porgy and Bess" to be a "folk opera." Gershwin's score reflected traditional songs he encountered in visits to Charleston, S.C. and in Gullah revival meetings he attended on nearby James Island. Controversy has stalked the production history of the opera that Gershwin created with DuBose Heyward, who had written the original novel and play (with his wife Dorothy) and penned lyrics with Gershwin's brother Ira. The lavish film version was produced in the late 1950s as the civil rights movement gained momentum and a number of African-American actors turned down roles they considered demeaning. Harry Belafonte, who refused the part of Porgy, explained, "in this period of our social development, I doubt that it is healthy to expose certain images of the Negro. In a period of calm, perhaps this picture could be viewed historically." Dissension also resulted when producer Samuel Goldwyn dismissed Rouben Mamoulian, who had directed the play and musical on Broadway, and replaced him with Otto Preminger. Produced in Todd-AO, a state-of-the-art widescreen and stereophonic sound recording process, with an all-star cast that included Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Pearl Bailey, and Diahann Carroll, "Porgy and Bess," now considered an "overlooked masterpiece" by one contemporary scholar, rarely has been screened in the ensuing years.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Jodie Foster, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and director Jonathan Demme won accolades for this chilling thriller based upon a book by Thomas Harris. Foster plays rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling who must tap into the disturbed mind of imprisoned cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in order to aid her search for a murderer and torturer still at large. A film whose violence is as much psychological as graphic, "Silence of the Lambs"-winner of Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay-has been celebrated for its superb lead performances, its blending of crime and horror genres, and its taut direction that brought to the screen one of film's greatest villains and some of its most memorable imagery.

Stand and Deliver (1988)

Based on a true story, "Stand and Deliver" stars Edward James Olmos in an Oscar-nominated performance as crusading educator Jaime Escalante. A math teacher in East Los Angeles, Ca., Escalante inspired his underprivileged students to undertake an intensive program in calculus, achieve high test scores, and improve their sense of self-worth. Co-produced by Olmos and directed by Cuban-born Ramón Menéndez, "Stand and Deliver" became one of the most popular of a new wave of narrative feature films produced in the 1980s by Latino filmmakers. The film celebrates in a direct, approachable, and impactful way, values of self-betterment through hard work and power through knowledge.

Twentieth Century (1934)

A satire on the theatrical milieu and its oversized egos, "Twentieth Century" marked the first of director Howard Hawks's frenetic comedies that had leading actors of the day "make damn fools of themselves," in Hawks' words, in a genre that became affectionately known as "screwball comedy." Hawks had writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, who penned the original play, craft dialogue scenes in which lines overlapped as in ordinary conversations, but still remained understandable, a style he continued in later films. This sophisticated farce about the tempestuous romance of an egocentric impresario and the star he creates did not fare well on its release, but has come to be recognized as one of the era's finest film comedies, one that gave John Barrymore his last great film role and Carole Lombard her first.

War of the Worlds (1953)

Released at the height of cold-war hysteria, producer George Pal's lavishly-designed take on H. G. Wells' 1898 novel of alien invasion was provocatively transplanted from Victorian England to a mid-twentieth century Southern California small town in this 1953 film version. Capitalizing on the apocalyptic paranoia of the atomic age, Barré Lyndon's screenplay wryly replaces Wells' original commentary on the British class system with religious metaphor. Directed by Byron Haskin, formerly a special effects cameraman, the critically and commercially successful film chronicles an apparent meteor crash discovered by a local scientist (Gene Barry) that turns out to be a Martian spacecraft. Gordon Jennings, who died shortly before the film's release, avoided stereotypical flying saucer-style creations in his Academy Award-winning special effects described by reviewers as soul-chilling, hackle-raising and not for the faint of heart.

Lastuja - taiteilijasuvun vuosisata / [Splinters - A Century in a Family of Artists]

2011-12-25T18:58:00.014+02:00

FI 2011. PC: Illume Oy. P: Jouko Aaltonen. D+SC: Peter von Bagh. Music and sound editing: Martti Turunen. ED: Petteri Evilampi (Tuuba Oy). Archival editor: Anna Korhonen. Special expert: Jussi Brofeldt. Researchers: Erja Manto, Eero Saarinen, Peter von Bagh. Commentary recorded by: Timo Hintikka (YLE). Assistant producer: Venla Hellstedt (Illume Oy). Assistants: Ella Ruohonen, Marianne Mäkelä (Illume Oy). Commentary read by: Eero Saarinen, Erja Manto, Peter von Bagh. Dedicated to Sven Hirn. The films excerpted are not listed in the end credits. 74 min. First transmitted on tv on YLE Teema on 10 Sep 2011. Viewed from my DVR at home, Helsinki, 25 Dec 2011.

The official presentation on the YLE website: "Lastuja - taiteilijasuvun tarina is Peter von Bagh's new documentary essay about the writer Juhani Aho, his oeuvre, the family that grew around it, and the spiritual tensions and the electric power field of ideas and works in tune to which modern Finland emerged. The edges of many generations were enriched side by side with Juhani Aho and after him by the painter Venny Soldan-Brofeldt, the film-makers Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan and the photographer Claire Aho. The film moves between different periods of time: things are repeated, they develop and are transformed. The focus in on a half a century of Finland's many-sided history".

"Juhani Aho boiled down the most memorable and the most startling images on how a traditional community starts to transform into 'modern Finland'. In his oeuvre the old and the new clash, what has great emotional value and remarkable cultural heritage yields, and the modern steps into its place", stated Peter von Bagh while planning the documentary. "The common denominator in the material that penetrates decades is in a way genetic: Juhani Aho's heirs are as fond as he was in the aesthetic principle of the lastu [splinter] and the hajamiete [random thought]." (The official presentation, translation mine.)

Lastu is the splinter of wood that flies away while chopping wood with an axe. Juhani Aho published seven volumes of short stories with the title Lastuja [Splinters]. Hajamietteitä kapinaviikoilta [Random Thoughts on the Mutiny Weeks] was his sober three-volume account of our terrible Civil War in 1918.

Juhani Aho (1861-1921) (born Johannes Brofeldt, the Swedish family name meaning "a meadow field", the Fennified name Aho meaning "a meadow"; the family name Brofeldt is also still in use) was un homme de lettres, a man of the world, and a leading cultural figure during the golden age of Finnish art and the struggle for democracy and independence. He was a part of the inner circle of leading artists, composers, and writers, and one of the original forces involved in the most important newspaper Päivälehti / Helsingin Sanomat. He was also influential as a man of the theatre, as a member of the Bible translation committee, and as a translator of contemporary international literature. He was the first Finnish professional writer and the first with a typewriter. His wife Venny Soldan-Brofeldt (1863-1945) was a talented painter, designer and illustrator. They had two sons, Heikki Aho (1895-1961), and Antti Aho (1900-1960). Juhani Aho had also a son by Venny's sister Tilly Soldan: Björn Soldan (1902-1953). Antti Aho wrote a remarkable biography of his father in two volumes. Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan were the Robert Flaherty of Finland: they established the artistically ambitious tradition of documentary film in their productions in the years 1924-1961. Heikki Aho's daughter Claire Aho (born 1925) joined the Aho & Soldan company but most importantly established an independent career as a top colour photographer.

Lastuja is a remarkable contribution to two grand projects of Peter von Bagh: the cultural history of Finland, as reflected in his great tv series Oi kallis Suomenmaa 1-8 and Sininen laulu 1-12. It is also an addition into his project of covering the history of Finnish cinema in ambitious television series such as SF:n tarina 1-6, Suomi-Filmin tarina 1-5, Fennadan tarina 1-3, Tähtien tarina 1-6, and Ohjaaja matkalla ihmiseksi: Mikko Niskasen tarina 1-3.

The approach is at once distilled and rhapsodic. This À la recherche du temps perdu moves simultaneously in different periods of time, from the 1870s to the 1960s.

Peter von Bagh is a master of the compilation film, and Lastuja is distinguished by the emphasis on the visual quality of the excerpts. In Lastuja, Bagh is constantly seeking correspondences between Juhani Aho's literary insights and his sons' cinematic visions. This is the original and appealing central feature of Lastuja.

The invaluable film legacy of the Aho & Soldan company has mostly been lost thanks to gross neglicence of the brothers themselves in preserving their heritage. After the Aho & Soldan company dissolved the Finnish Film Archive experts, most prominently Lauri Tykkyläinen, managed to retrieve from several different sources important missing films. I have had the pleasure to study this legacy most remarkably in the Tampere Film Festival's Aho & Soldan retrospective in 1992, curated by Lauri Tykkyläinen, with many vintage nitrate prints, and in a smaller selection during the DocPoint festival in 2010 where no nitrate prints were screened.

From a thankless starting point (with most of the Aho & Soldan film material lost) Bagh has created a beautiful compilation. Many images strike me like I've seen them before (and probably haven't). Lastuja is both an homage to a great family of artists and an artwork of independent value.

The Snowman

2011-12-24T19:27:00.017+02:00

Lumiukko / Snögubben. GB © 1982 Snowman Enterprises Limited. PC: A Snowman Enterprises production for Channel 4. Made at the studios of TVC London. D: Dianne Jackson. EX: Iain Harvy. Supervising D: Jimmy T. Murakami. P: John Coates. SC: based on the wordless children's comic book by Raymond Briggs (1978). Published as Lumiukko in Finnish in 1979 (Jyväskylä: Gummerus), and in 2006 (Helsinki: Satusiivet, Lasten parhaat kirjat). A hand-made animation with pastel and crayon. 1,33:1. Colour by Rank Film Laboratories. Storyboard by: Dianne Jackson, Hilary Audus, Joanna Harrison (Joanna Fryer). AN: Hilary Audus, Alan Ball, Arthur Butten, Tony Guy, Joanna Harrison, Dianne Jackson, Dave Livesey, Roger Mainwood, John Offord, Eddie Radage, Joanna Fryer. Flying sequences: Stephen White, Glenn Whiting. Backgrounds by: Michael Gabriel, Tancy Barron, Paul Shardlow, Joanna Fryer. Design supervisor: Jill Brooks. Special FX supervisor. Mario Cassar. M+conductor: Howard Blake. Orchestra: Sinfonia of London. "Walking In The Air" (music and lyrics by Howard Blake) sung by Peter Auty (a St. Paul's Cathedral choirboy). ED: John Cary. Voice talent: Raymond Briggs (Older James / Narrator). 26 min. The 2004 Finnish (Nordic) dvd release (with Finnish, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian language options) by FS Film viewed at home in the Finnish version in Helsinki on Christmas Eve, 24 Dec, 2011

2002: 20th anniversary opening sequence D+AN: Roger Mainwood with the voice of Mel Smith as Father Christmas.

"Walking In The Air" is in the original English in the Finnish voice version. There is no dialogue in the story proper. There are only the brief introduction and the song lyrics. The film can be enjoyed without understanding the language; it is in effect a silent movie.

Dvd features: - The original English language version. - Alternatively: with the David Bowie introduction with a Finnish voiceover recorded on top of the David Bowie voice (irritatingly). - A storyboard montage version. - A sketch montage version.

This classic television animation short is the first movie I have seen in almost a month. On 29 November I got into a dangerous traffic accident and spent almost three weeks in hospitals (in an emergency room, in a casualty ward, and in the rehabilitation department of a trauma center). Since 19 December I'm at home; our Christmas started already then, and now I felt like watching a movie again. Meanwhile, I have been enjoying lots of reading, music, and books on visual arts.

Because I don't watch tv I have never seen this beloved animation before, but I know and love the theme song "Walking In The Air", which belongs to the golden greats of movie theme tunes. Besides the wonderful original recording there are high quality Finnish interpretations called "Avaruus" [The Space], with a beautiful translation by Tarleena Sammalkorpi, interpreted eloquently by the sopranos Sini Hyytiäinen and Mari Palo among others; the interpretations of those two I have heard during this December at YLE Radio 1. "Walking In The Air" is sung during the wonderful climax of the film: the dream sequence in which the boy dreams that the snowman takes him to a flight to Far North, to the land of Father Christmas.

The visual approach is familiar to me from the nuclear holocaust animation When the Wind Blows, also based on a book by Raymond Briggs, and directed by Jimmy T. Murakami.

A perfect way to return to movie watching on Christmas Eve. Last year in Helsinki we had white Christmas. This year, Christmas is black. It's been raining today, but the sun is shining in our hearts.

P.S. The "Walking In The Air" sequence is one of the great dream sequences in the history of the cinema. I like also the maturity of the story. In the morning the boy gets to face loss and disappointment as the snowman has melted.

"Walking In The Air" lyrics beyond the jump break:
(Music and lyrics by Howard Blake)

We're walking in the air
We're floating in the moonlit sky
The people far below are sleeping as we fly

I'm holding very tight
I'm riding in the midnight blue
I'm finding I can fly so high above with you

Far across the world
The villages go by like dreams
The rivers and the hills
The forests and the streams

Children gaze open mouthed
Taken by surprise
Nobody down below believes their eyes

We're surfing in the air
We're swimming in the frozen sky
We're drifting over icy mountains floating by

Suddenly swooping low
on an ocean deep
Arousing of a mighty monster
from its sleep

We're walking in the air
We're floating in the midnight sky
And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly

The silent film revival reflected in Finland: the Kari Glödstaf phenomenon

2011-12-24T18:06:00.006+02:00

The current silent film revival started with the FIAF 1978 Congress in Brighton, and this year it seems to have climaxed with high profile releases such as The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius, an Academy Award contender, and Hugo by Martin Scorsese, with Ben Kingsley playing Georges Méliès on the 150th anniversary of the first artist of the cinema. There have been several notable articles and essays on the silent film phenomenon in the world's media, including Financial Times, the weekend issue of which I always try to read in these times of financial turbulence. Last week there was a full page on the silents in it.

Also in Finland there is a specialized festival, The Forssa Silent Film Festival, since 2001. I have always wanted to visit it, but the timing, early September, is for me the worst possible, since it coincides with the launching of our autumn season (and actually with the launching of our whole programming year, which follows the school terms), the Helsinki Festival, and is too close to the Espoo Ciné festival. But the Forssa festival is successful, so no harm is done.

There is also a specialized Finnish silent film blog, Mykkäelokuvasivusto [Silent Movie Blog] hosted by Mr. Kari Glödstaf, since 2005. It is remarkable since Mr. Glödstaf lives in the city of Lappeenranta in South Karelia, where there are only two cinemas, Kino-Aula and Nuijamies, which probably focus on new releases solely. Kari Glödstaf is a Forssa Silent Film Festival regular, and he follows closely our programming at Cinema Orion in Helsinki. But most importantly he is well informed of the global silent film releases in home viewing formats: vhs, dvd, blu-ray, and the legally free online supply. This autumn, Mr. Glödstaf has also published a book:

Kari Glödstaf: Kirjoituksia mykkäelokuvasta [Writings on Silent Movies]. Lappeenranta: Kari Glödstaf (Lappeenrannan Kirjapaino), 2011.

There are twenty extended articles on the following movies: Terje Vigen, Tarzan of the Apes (1918), True Heart Susie, The Kid, Anna-Liisa, Robin Hood (1922), Tess of the Storm Country (1922), Gösta Berlings saga, The Iron Horse, Der letzte Mann, Greed, Du skal ære din Hustru, Mat (1926), The Kid Brother, The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Unknown, La petite marchande d'allumettes, Arsenal, and Lucky Star.

The criteria for the selection include the artistic quality of the movie, that it has something to say, and that it is available for the general viewer either in a home format or legally free online. There is a special section on each movie's availability for the general reader.

I read the book with great interest and learned something new about every film. (And there is a film there that I have not yet seen: the Elmo Lincoln version of Tarzan of the Apes). There is a consistent structure for each film, which would mean that this book is not far from qualifying as a textbook for teaching. The book has been written for the general audience, but it is also interesting for a specialized reader. Mr. Glödstaf has done his homework with the previous reseach but always adds insights and angles of his own. I'm looking forward for more from Kari Glödstaf.

P.S. Two of the movies discussed in Kari Glödstaf's book, The Kid and The Iron Horse, were added to the National Film Registry on 28 December, 2011.

Out now: Movie online Issue 3

2011-12-24T09:43:00.004+02:00

The legendary British film journal Movie has been resurrected in cyberspace. Movie Issue 3, published on 23 December, 2011, is now available free online!

Movie, Issue 3
The Fritz Lang Dossier, Part 2:
Rush to Judgement: Imperfect Justice in Fury (1936) / Stella Bruzzi
You Only Live Once (1937) / V. F. Perkins
Going Straight: The Past and the Future in The Return of Frank James (1940) / Edward Gallafent
The Woman in the Window (1944) / Mark Rappaport
Guess-Work: Scarlet Street (1945) / Adrian Martin
The Big Heat: Acts of Violence (1953) / Peter William Evans
Human Desire (1954) / Deborah Thomas
Lang With Lacan: The Power of the Gaze in Moonfleet (1955) / Peter Benson
Plus:
Bonjour Tristesse and the Expressive Potential of Découpage / Christian Keathley
The Texture of Performance in Psycho and its Remake / Alex Clayton
The Cry of the Owl: Investigating Decision-Making in a Contemporary Feature Film / John Gibbs

This issue edited by Douglas Pye and Michael Walker. Designed by Lucy Fife Donaldson, John Gibbs, and James MacDowell.

Cahiers du Cinéma: Le Top Ten 2011

2011-12-20T19:31:00.000+02:00

Cahiers du Cinéma, décembre 2011
1. Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope), Nanni Moretti
2. L’Etrange affaire Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica), Manoel de Oliveira
* The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
4. Hors Satan (Outside Satan), Bruno Dumont
* Essential Killing, Jerzy Skolimowski
6. Melancholia, Lars von Trier
* Un été brûlant (A Burning Hot Summer), Philippe Garrel
8. Super 8, JJ Abrams
* L’Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close) (House of Tolerance), Bertrand Bonello
* Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt

Bo Carpelan on Little Nemo

2011-12-18T18:58:00.002+02:00

"Do you still remember what you dreamt about last night? Your bed turned into a boat and floated into a wonderland where houses grew like mushrooms. You landed into an endless hall of mirrors, which turned slowly on its side. There a little strange man lifted his trumpet. You cried No! But nobody listened to you, and all your images were shattered. You woke up and remembered nothing except the fear, and the anxiety, and the dizzying perspectives. You had visited the land of Little Nemo. I have visited it often, myself, since 1976."

"The father of Little Nemo, Winsor McCay (1867-1934) is a great pioneer and master of the graphic art of the comic strip, and Little Nemo is his best-known creation. This little boy - who lives in all of us - was born in October 1905 on the pages of Sunday Herald in New York and lives on in the minds of everyone who have met him and his wild dreams. The reality of his world is ever-changing, curiosity and horror walk hand in hand, and in the world of transformations you meet suddenly yourself. Beware! Reality is fragile! Welcome to the beautiful, strange, and fascinating world of Little Nemo."

- The sleeve notes to the Finnish edition of Little Nemo II (1991) published by Otava, written by the poet Bo Carpelan (1926-2011). The translation is mine. - By permission from Anders Carpelan, who adds that "Little Nemo was one of dad's favourite books".

Film Comment: the top 50 of 2011

2011-12-18T17:06:00.004+02:00

Film Comment’s Best Released Films of 2011
The Top 10
1. The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick, U.S.
2. Uncle Boonmee, Who Can Recall His Past Lives, directedy by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/U.K./France/Germany
3. Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany
4. A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi, Iran
5. A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg, Canada/Germany
6. Mysteries of Lisbon, directed by Raúl Ruiz, France/Portugal
7. Certified Copy, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, France/Italy/Belgium
8. Meek's Cutoff, directed by Kelly Reichardt, U.S.
9. Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese, U.S.
10. Poetry, directed by Lee Chang-dong, South Korea

The Next 20
11. Film Socialisme, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland
12. Le Havre, directed by Aki Kaurismäki, Finland/France
13. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, directed by Andrei Ujica, Romania
14. Le quattro volte, directed by Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy/Germany/Switzerland
15. The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne, U.S.
16. Nostalgia for the Light, directed by Patricio Guzmán, Chile/France/Germany
17. A Brighter Summer Day, directed by Edward Yang, Taiwan/Japan
18. Midnight in Paris, directed by Woody Allen, Spain/U.S.
19. Take Shelter, directed by Jeff Nichols, U.S.
20. Margaret, directed by Kenneth Lonergan, U.S.
21. Shame, directed by Steve McQueen, U.K.
22. Drive, directed by  Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.
23. Cave of Forgotten Dreams, directed by Werner Herzog, U.S.
24. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson, U.K./France/Germany
25. To Die Like a Man, directed by João Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal/France
26. The Interrupters, directed by Steve James, U.S.
27. The Artist , directed by Michel Hazanavicius, France
28. Tuesday, After Christmas, directed by Radu Muntean, Romania
29. Aurora, directed by Cristi Puiu, Romania
30. Weekend, directed by Andrew Haigh, U.K.

The Rest
31. The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
32. City of Life and Death , directed by Lu Chuan, China/Hong Kong
33. Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh, U.S.
34. Of Gods and Men , directed by Xavier Beauvois, France
35. Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed by Sean Durkin, U.S.
36. Bridesmaids, directed by Paul Feig, U.S.
37. The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom, U.K.
38. Moneyball, directed by Bennett Miller, U.S.
39. The Arbor, directed by Clio Barnard, U.K.
40. The Future , directed by Miranda July, U.S,/Germany
41. Incendies , directed by Denis Villeneuve, Canada/France
42. Super 8, directed by J.J. Abrams, U.S.
43. United Red Army, directed by Koji Wakamatsu, Japan
44. Road to Nowhere, directed by Monte Hellman, U.S.
45. Tabloid, directed by Errol Morris, U.S.
46. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Rupert Wyatt, U.S.
47. Terri , directed by Azazel Jacobs, U.S.
48. J. Edgar, directed by Clint Eastwood, U.S.
49. Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, U.K.
50. Pina , directed by Wim Wenders, Germany/France

Worth reading, as well:
Film Comment’s Best Unreleased Movies of 2011

I agree about the trends in 2011:
Smith + Foundas: Discussing The Best of 2011

The best review of the best-ranking film of the year:
Light Years: Kent Jones on The Tree of Life

Out now: Cinema Orion's new programme (January-April 2012)

2011-12-18T05:02:00.025+02:00

Cinema Orion's new programme booklet (January-April 2012) is fresh from the printers, and the programme is also online. Luckily we were all set up when I got into my traffic accident 20 days ago. Themes in our spring season include, in a roughly chronological order:

RENÉ CLAIR: twelve selected French films by the "Immortal", from Paris qui dort till La Porte des Lilas.

CARTE BLANCHE À MATTI KASSILA: the beloved veteran director Matti Kassila (born 1924) who debuted in the studio era in the 1940s has made a strong selection including Kind Hearts and Coronets, A Matter of Life and Death, Gycklarnas afton (Sawdust and Tinsel), and Vertigo.

DAVID LYNCH: all the feature films of the master of modern Surrealism.

NUORTEN SÄVELLAHJA (the title is untranslatable, but it refers to a popular radio program where grown-ups of today can request favourite hit songs from the 1970s and the 1980s): Messrs. Lauri Lehtinen and Antti Suonio are our guest master chefs in our continuous explorations of counter-histories of the cinema. Rock 'n' Roll High School, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, Urgh! A Music War, and the Finnish Laulu [The Song] about the Sielun Veljet phenomenon are among the weekly treats.

DESIGN HELSINKI: ENEMMÄN FUNKISTA, REINO! (another untranslatable title, referring to a line of movie dialogue where more functionalism is required). The top production designer Minna Santakari has mounted an exhibition with the same name at the Helsinki City Museum, Sofiankatu. The weekly film series about architecture and design in films about Helsinki starts with 1930s functionalism and proceeds until 1960s modernism. A World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project.

CINEMA AND ARCHITECTURE. The Film Society of the Helsinki University Students' Association and Academy of Finland collaborate with us on a World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project. There is free entry to the lecture series on Friday afternoons at 14.30 at Cinema Orion, and among the films are Thom Andersen's essay Los Angeles Plays Itself and Sydney Pollack's Sketches of Frank Gehry.

FAMILY SCREENINGS: the first screening every Sunday is family programming, from Laurel and Hardy shorts till Whale Rider, not forgetting musicals such as The Wizard of Oz. A special theme is dedicated to "A Child's Look" together with The Finnish Association for Child and Family Guidance with movies such as My Neighbour Totoro. Besides the regular screenings there is also a media education programme for school classes of all levels.

THE HISTORY OF THE CINEMA PART II: a regular feature of our programme, together with the Helsinki University, in this season from the Second World War (Luciano Serra pilota) until the present age (Huang tu di / Yellow Earth).

DOCPOINT 2012: we are happy to continue our collaboration with the inspired documentary film festival on 24-29 January. The hot topics include the Arab Spring and the European conundrum.

LIVE CINEMA HIGHLIGHTS:
- At the DocPoint festival at Bio Rex 27 January Maud Nelissen with her trio (Lucio Degani, Francesco Ferrarini) play Yves de la Casinière's original score in the Cinema concert Rien que les heures, to the Ur-city symphony by Cavalcanti.
- The young Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska has reversed the usual process and commissioned the young film-makers Elina Oikari and Lauri Danska to make a new silent film to the beautiful stage music composition by Jean Sibelius (to Maurice Maeterlinck's play which is rarely performed today), performed at Cinema Orion on 12 February by a 25 piece orchestra in Cinema concert Pelléas et Mélisande, together with Regen by Joris Ivens and Mannus Franken, seen both silent and with the “12 manières de décrire la pluie” score by Hanns Eisler.
- Frank Strobel comes to the already legendary Music Center of Helsinki to conduct the RSO to the original score in the already legendary 2010 restoration in the Cinema concert Metropolis on 16 March.
- The Ma-a Trio presents the Cinema concert Happiness to Alexander Medvedkin's satirical masterpiece on 21 and 22 April.

TERRENCE MALICK - l'œuvre intégrale.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH we celebrate with the U.S. Embassy with Martin Scorsese's The Blues 1: Feel Like Going Home, on delta blues: Son House, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker...

EVIL NORTH: Nordic crime and horror is examined in a seminar on 3 March, and a highlight of the season is Lars von Trier's Riget (The Kingdom) I-II, screened on glorious 35 mm on two evenings, 27-28 April.

AKI KAURISMÄKI'S FRENCH MENU: A propos de Nice, Zéro de conduite, Le Quai des brumes, La Bête humaine, Le Silence de la mer, Le Quai des Orfèvres, Casque d'or, Du rififi chez les hommes, Bande à part, Au hasard Balthazar, and Autour de minuit.

CINEMA AND PSYCHE, SEVENTH EDITION: THE TREE OF LIFE. Since 1990 we have co-arranged symposia on Cinema and Psyche with organizations of Finnish psychoanalysts. The symposia have nothing to do with the infamous Lacanian interventions into film studies in the 1970s. Rather they emerge from the urgent needs of mental health professionals to discuss matters familiar with everybody who has to deal with issues of the troubled mind. The films discussed this time range from Ugetsu monogatari till The Tree of Life. Registration by paying 150 E (including the hard-cover book Elokuva ja psyyke 3) or 185 E (also including a solid buffet dinner in the nearby Dubrovnik on 17 March) on the account FI0821232000047286 / Johanna Eväsoja. There is an overlap with the dinner with Cinema concert Metropolis. Enquiries: helsingin_psykoterapiaseura(at)hotmail.fi

IN THE CORE OF THE DOCUMENTARY, 62-64. In their ongoing epic survey into the history of the Finnish documentary film, Ilkka Kippola and Jari Sedergren have compiled this time a canon of the Finnish documentary and short film.

ROBERT SIODMAK'S FILM NOIR CYCLE: his five anni mirabili (1944-1949) from Phantom Lady till The File on Thelma Jordon, most of the 13 films he made then, usually for Universal Pictures.

WAR AND PEACE 70 MM (Война и мир, 1967). On Easter Sunday, 8 April, at Bio Rex we screen the six hour version of Sergei Bondarchuk's gigantic interpretation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel with a cast including 120.000 soldiers. It is the 200th anniversary of the battle of Borodino and the fire of Moscow, both shatteringly reconstructed in the movie, with the camera descending from above the clouds to catch Napoleon's Grande armée get a brutal beating and a taste of the scorched earth treatment in Mother Russia. All in glorious photochemical, analogue 70 mm, albeit in a vintage print which may not have its colour intact.

THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO: Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation is one of the books that have changed the world. A new edition in Finnish will be published by Sofi Oksanen's Silberfeldt publishing house. We screen Marina Goldovskaya's magisterial documentary film Vlast Solovetskaya on the first Soviet prison camp.

3D THE THIRD DIMENSION: our first 3D retrospective with films from Dial M for Murder till Cave of Forgotten Dreams. On 24 March we get Stefan Drössler to present his legendary 3D lecture show with samples from the Lumière Brothers to the present day in 2K DCP 3D (XpanD). Stefan has toured the world with it, and now we are happy to welcome him in Helsinki.

Books on my night table this week

2011-12-17T17:16:00.017+02:00

My night table at the rehabilitation section of the trauma department at Laakso Hospital, Helsinki, has been filled with good reading matter.

1. Sidney Lumet: Elokuvan tekemisestä (Making Movies, 1995). Translated into Finnish by Petri Stenman. Helsinki: Like, 2004. As we are launching our memorial tribute to Sidney Lumet (1924-2011) at Cinema Orion I am recovering from my traffic accident two weeks ago at the rehabilitation department of Laakso Hospital with a scenic view over Southern Helsinki. There's plenty to read, and via my laptop I can access the YLE 1 and YLE Classic channels with top music programming. Music can be good medicine. I have never read a better hands-on book on film-making than Sidney Lumet's Making Movies. It is a sober account of the utterly demanding art and craft of directing movies, a collaborative art where success is dependent on good rapport with the fellow artists in all departments. Chapters are devoted to direction, screenwriting, style, actors, cinematography, art direction and costume design, principal photography, screening rushes, editing, music and sound design, mixing, check prints, and the studios. In the Finnish edition the special advantage is a "Sidney Lumet's three careers" supplement edited by Matti Salo with unique and detailed information on Lumet's incredible career in the theatre (from the 1920s: he started as a child actor), television (1950- ), and the cinema (1938- ). I used this book as the basis for our program note on Long Day's Journey into Night, Lumet's favourite film, which he discusses memorably in the most important chapters.

2. Frank R. Cunningham: Sidney Lumet: Film and Literary Vision. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1991. A fine scholarly study on Sidney Lumet as a director of film adaptations, many of which were based on distinguished literary sources, including the major modern American playwrights Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. I used Cunningham's book as the basis for our program note on Vu du pont / A View from the Bridge.

3. Winsor McCay: Pikku Nemo Höyhensaarilla II osa: 1907-1908 (The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland [Vol. II]). Helsinki: Otava, 1991. Translated by Juhani Tolvanen, lettering by Jukka Heiskanen, introduction by Richard Marschall translated by Jukka Kemppinen, sleeve notes by Bo Carpelan. Timeless dream imagery by the great visionary. Winsor McCay's The Sinking of The Lusitania (1918) is the greatest silent animation in my opinion. It started to haunt me, so I started to read this miraculous comic strip.

4. Nicholas Carr: Pinnalliset: mitä internet tekee aivoillemme (The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, 2010). Translated by Antti Pietiläinen. Helsinki: Terra Cognita, 2010. A key book of our time. Printed media focuses our attention and endorses profound and creative thought. Internet encourages quick, distracted browsing. I agree. I have experienced this thrice this autumn. 1) reading David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's printed blog book Minding Movies I realized their insights more profoundly than in reading their original blog entries. 2) Reading Pordenone's printed Le Giornate del Cinema Muto catalogue I had a more intensive engagement in the excellent program notes than in studying the pdf file of exactly the same publication online. 3) Here at Laakso hospital in the early hours I sometimes read the digital Helsingin Sanomat online, but first when I read the printed broadsheet newspaper version I really get the full sense of what is being written in these times of European and global financial turbulence.

5. Charles Baudelaire: Pahan kukat / Les Fleurs du mal (1861). Suomeksi tulkinnut / interpreted into Finnish by Antti Nylén. Turku: Sammakko 2011. Bilingual, dual page edition in French and Finnish. My French is not so very good, and I have studied Baudelaire with frequent help from the dictionary. Now for the first time the complete Les Fleurs du mal appears in Finnish. Antti Nylén has abandoned the metre, so the primary text in this edition remains the original French, which Nylén's interpretation helps to make sense of. For instance certain famous Baudelaire poems such as L'Albatros and L'Invitation au voyage convey the rhythm of the sea, but in the interpretation it is not even attempted. Thus, a remarkable edition, yet not the final word in Finnish.

6. Juri Joensuu, Marko Niemi, Harry Salmenniemi: Vastakaanon: suomalainen kokeellinen runous 2000-2010 [Anti-Canon: Finnish Experimental Poetry 2000-2010]. Helsinki: Osuuskunta Poesia, 2011. An impressive and explosive volume of 490 pages of radical questioning of poetry. If there is a tradition involved, it's Dada. In some poems words and even letters become incomprehensible, bordering on abstract visual art. The new approach has to do with the cyberworld: many poems have appeared first in the internet, in the blogosphere, for instance. Also the new world of desktop publishing and book-on-demand has made possible any approach without the filtering system of the established publishing houses. Browsing through the volume I have to laugh. I feel the energy but cannot always relate to the poems. The five introductions are eminently readable. The writers have royal fun with the incomprehension of the established, horribly withered "cultural sections" of today's print media and the dreary attempts at "bunch reviews" of new poems. On a more serious note the editors state that never in the history of Finland has so much new poetry been published as during 2000-2010. This delightful volume seems like a good introduction, although some of my favourites are missing, such as Miikka Mutanen (Mäkärä, särmä, Hindustani; Esikko, klassikko; her bold and promising project to translate Finnegans Wake into Finnish online).

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero: a manifesto

2011-12-14T11:01:00.006+02:00

From the official press release:

60 SEKUNDIT ÜKSINDUST AASTAL NULL
Where: Port of Tallinn, cruise ship area
When: 22.12.2011
Duration: 7:30 - 8:30 pm
Ticket: 0
Entrance: at the carfax of Rumbi and Logi Street
Open doors: 7 pm
Choose your clothing according to the weather.
Warm drinks on us.
http://www.youtube.com

The single 35 mm film print of a movie created by an international collective of directors will be screened for the audience this once. During the screening the frames will catch fire, after which the giant screen will be burned by flamethrowers.

The open air screening in the Port of Tallinn is the climax of Tallinn European Capital of Culture 2011 year.

The presentation is composed of dozens of short films made by for example Naomi Kawase and Shinji Aoyama (Japan), Tom Tykwer (Germany), Brillante Mendoza (The Philippines), Park Chan-wook (South Korea), Gustav Deutsch (Austria), Malcolm Le Grice (Great Britain), Ken Jacobs and Brian Yuzna (The United States), and Aku Louhimies, Ilppo Pohjola and Mika Taanila (Finland). Numerous directors will be present.

The film is predominantly silent. Live music will be played by Ülo Krigul with his band.

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero has been planned by the Estonian director Veiko Õunpuu anda actor Taavi Eelmaa. A manifesto (below) is a part of the project.

www.60sec.ee

60”
In the first decade of the 21st century entirely new aspects of human behaviour have emerged.
59”
Readiness and opportunity to be voluntarily spat on by a bunch of idiots 24/7, readiness and opportunity to aim your own gob 24/7 at a by-passer’s asshole, indiscriminate global forum and freedom...
58”
…to listen at any given moment the Microsoft audio logo or the judgement of the public passing on whatever kind of intimate aspect of human existence, humorous mobile ring tone as a soundtrack. It is more disgusting than cheese and other dairy products to a cow.
57”
The practical mind has caused a tragic flattening of life. I have no will, nor voice to speak in someone else’s name, nor to raise my fist towards the cold gaze of the stars when standing in a crowd.
56”
I go to the cinema, to be able to look into a mirror, albeit for a moment, that does not lie and deride.
55”
Not to enjoy emotions, but to pray for myself and my delusive love. Amidst people, without producing one single moan and completely alone.
54”
I do not find it necessary to quote Plato’s definition of democracy here. I am not bothered by lame theatre of politics. I am bothered by the entire world. The reason and consequence of the world. Lies and darkness.
53”
I want light. I want for that light to flicker on my face in the darkness of the screening room, giving me on average an hour and a half of faith into the possibility of life. Possibility of love. And faith that goodness does not have to be justified in any way.
52”
I am bothered by commercial pragmatism, the idea that people’s pure and spontaneous creativity is subordinated to business, rapacity, practical thinking, narrow-mindedness and cowardice.
51”
Accepting such subordinance to me seems like voluntary self-castration, as a result of which none of the participants end up with a higher voice, never mind feeling human.
50”
Devaluing intimacy to blunt orders of advertising and pornography makes me hide as a child under the bed that, for which I could cry.
49”
But I am no longer a child and I can no longer cry. There is an inseparable part of consciousness, which, when verbalised for a public discussion is a crime to the possibility of a soul existing.
48”
I want to draw a screen in front of the world and onto that your name in blazing shadows. You, from whose tears we have dripped to this planet. Accidentally. Without permission to stay out for longer than a second. Without a map that would show the way out.
47”
I don’t want to read the word ”love” only from the mail-order catalogue slogans.
46”
I will not let the public define, pack nor sell the ridiculousness of my human existence, the sad bragging of a lost monkey. Trade will not expand to the soul’s territory; I would rather burn it out than have garden gnomes, Sunday trousers or piggybanks shaped from it. This is war and the question is about survival.
45”
The ideology ruling the world is despicable as it tries to forcibly base the life of man and man and man and nature on the most primitive instincts.
44”
I would very much like to hear what do the Sunday trousers and piggybanks have to say about the cosmos, but the trouble is that trousers tend to speak about what they know best – arse, shitting and fucking. And as for the piggybanks, they don’t speak at all, they are mute and silent, some are full to the brim, others only half filled with pennies.
43”
They say that when a man dies, his soul falls into a sea of darkness. Eyes are the last tunnels through which the light shines, thus the dying man ought to gather his remaining shreds of strength and crawl to where the light or lantern shines. You could also place a candle, lighter, burning cigarette or a luminous widescreen in front of the dying man’s eyes.
42”
A flame or a ray of light is the door, a point on the map, a mark of the exit line from this world, which is controlled by the blind greed of a lousy Demiurg.
41”
Fire is the boundary, where physical matter becomes etherised matter. A matter that makes up my thoughts, imagination and soul. My projector and my camera.
40”
Soul is not merely a heartbeat or a thousand-year-old equestrian statue on the central plaza of Old Europe’s capital.
39”
It is the mewling of sad and vicious cats rutting on the steps of the statue.
38”
Soul is not the rusty car bonnets of New Europe where the same cats bask in a sun dappled, begging for affection from every hand, promising unconditional love to every ear that hears the meowing.
37”
It is the readiness of those cats to sink their teeth into every generously softened stroke. Fangs rasping through gravel, dirt, taxpayers’ expectations, social status, foie gras and excrement. All the way to the roots.
36”
Imagination is soul and it can be written, filmed and sung. It can be watched, read and listened to. It can be acquainted with.
35”
Man has a sacred, helpless and indivisible area, the boundaries of which become visible to the eye only in the cinema. Where sad lie speaks as mightily as happy truth, giving even the tiniest detail the right to live.
34”
Frame by frame, sliver by sliver, drop by drop until charring. And even the last particle of the ash has the right to BE.
33”
Screen is the iconostasis, from where the mystery of unconditional love can be sensed. Permissibility of possibility.
32”
I take a million euros to the desert and there it is merely paper with numbers.
31”
Only irrationality and a selfless act give the soul back its territory. Drags it back from the jaws of Molok so it wouldn’t disappear into its gut and dissolve into shit.
30”
The rule is a question of culture, the exception a question of art. Everyone speaks the rule: cigarettes, computers, t-shirts, tourism, war. No-one speaks the exception. It cannot be spoken. It can be written: Flaubert, Dostoyevsky. It can be composed: Gershwin, Mozart. It can be painted: Cezanne, Vermeer. It can be filmed: Antonioni, Vigo. Or it can be lived, and is thus called the art of living: Srebrenica, Mostar, Sarajevo. It is part of the rules to want the death of the exception. It is the rule of European culture to organise the death of the art of living. Jean - Luc Godard 1994.
29”
Is culture something that is more like art or something that is more like the grimace of civilisation? Is art the same as culture? Is goodness an exception or rule? I do not know.
28”
In my world goodness does not need a single lawyer.
27”
...I run to your feet, to you who are not waiting for me, like many others. I do not know what your face is like. I have never been able to imagine anything. I only see the world before me and a little bit on the sides, my own wide open eyes running in front of me, blood on the lashes, I see a birch leaf falling on a stranger’s warm cheek, a cold water bullet shooting into a puddle reflecting sand and the heart whisper of a stranger, a foot that squashes a butterfly on Rosa Luksemburg Strasse...
26”
The most sublime moments, my ecstasy and the depth of my sadness I owe to cinema. To those men and women who have managed to shoot their longing from any corner of the world through any walls erected from plastic, concrete, gold or shit directly into my primate brain, turning me into something more than just a chunk of fucking and devouring meat.
25”
No blade cuts too deep, no lie is too callous. No frame is superfluous. No film lasts too long. My clock goes backwards. Until the opening credits.
24”
Creativity with clean conscious does not fear anything – it is all-victorious and allencompassing, it is unstoppable. There is not enough military force, power or money.
23”
Its aim is to create works of art that would be self-destructive, would not enter the stream of exchanged values and become a commodity.
22”
My soul enters the projector as a film, sparks as lightning, blows a kiss over the jungle of heads into the back rows, where dusk strangles those who have lost hope, so they could believe in the possibility of a miracle. Not in the pyramidbased hierarchical model of the world.
21”
To then plunge into flames, without leaving a single euro or dollar or anyone’s pleased mug looking at the bank account. Leaving just the eternal repositioning of atoms and a postcard from my lover, which has been burned on the spume of my heart’s blood.
20”
Everything is repeating. A new one comes, loses hope, touches happiness´despite that and rouses in the arms of a miracle. This is not simply consolation – it creates the feeling of lightness and happiness.
19”
Pure spending is of ennoble impact. A person thinking only in practical categories does not understand that art could be interested in big losses and catastrophes. That a trauma could become an open door of a prison cell, which is burnt on the iris with a camera-stylus.
18”
Pragmatism that spreads everywhere has created a breach between the rules of life and human needs. Non-productive spending is a passion for cleansing. Rationality – owning, maintaining and consuming is nothing but fear. Claustrophobic static. To be freed from fear is to spend without the slightest desire to increase your capital – art, play, mourn, ritual... Fear is not a force of nature, it is a mood disorder. It can be cured by giving away with no regret not the superfluous, but the dearest. Gold is the most beautiful melting, a man while walking backwards smiling to oneself, love while burning to ash in the heat of the bodies.
17”
The increase of sensibility and any kind of awareness of the mechanics of one’s functioning has paved the way to mannerism, ennui and incredulity to all that is alive.
16”
I am a butterfly larva, laid under the skin of greed-based happiness myth. Into the fat tissue of a petit bourgeois buttock. My job is to eat. I eat efficiently and happily, without ever concealing my motivation, autonomously and not bearing the interest of ”climbing higher based on ever-improving results”. Why? Where? From large intestine to stomach? Or closer to sexual organs? I know nothing about Maslow’s hierarchy. I only know that tomorrow I will spread my wings for a couple of seconds and fly into the closest light bulb. Knowing that I am an inside enemy – a beautiful useless butterfly, whose wings are just for flying into a candle flame, helps me to forgive even the most repulsive criminals of my time.
15”
Purgatory is inevitable, but the dignity of the entering stride and the greeting words to the scorching comrades is for us to choose.
14”
Therefore I dare to face the end with a flower in my buttonhole, film posters on my walls like a little boy and a flamethrower in my hand. Light all the candles in the dark cathedral.
13”
Let the soul burn. It is made of fire. Only the important remains.
12”
Raising like smoke from everyone’s private quotidian convent walls.
11”
Proving the irrefutable truth of an individual’s indivisible experience amidst public hegemony.
10”
I can only be measured in Fahrenheit and frames per second.
9”
Each frame is burnt to the end and nothing can be rewound.
8”
It means that we are in a hurry. To be born while still alive.
7”
Ready!
6”
Aim!
5”
Fire!
4”
Water!
3”
Earth!
2”
Wind!
1”
Spirit!
0”
The world can be shaped by people. “60” of Solitude in Year Zero” shows with a myth-like simplicity an end, a clearing out and then a seed for the next one to come into existence. It is a great event which takes place in Tallinn bay, a unique cinematic installation, during which a film program composed of up to 120 60-second films will be watched while being burned.
Taavi Eelmaa
Veiko Õunpuu

Sight & Sound: the best of 2011

2011-12-13T04:34:00.001+02:00

1 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick, USA
2 A Separation, Asghar Farhadi, Iran
3 The Kid with a Bike, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy
4 Melancholia, Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany/Italy
5 The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius, France
=6 Once upon a Time in Anatolia, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/Bosnia and Herzegovina
=6 The Turin Horse, Bela Tarr, Hungary, Switzerland/Germany/France/USA
8 We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay, UK/USA
9 Le quattro volte, Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy/Germany/Switzerland
=10 This Is Not a Film, Jafar Panahi, Iran
=10 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson, UK/France/Germany

Great reading online at the Sight & Sound website: the full poll remarks of the best of the year 2011 of over 100 of top critics and curators.

Books on my nightstand this week

2011-12-11T12:31:00.002+02:00

1. Mirkka Rekola: Runot 1954-1978 [Poems 1954-1978] (1978) including Vedessä palaa [Burning in the Water] (1954), Tunnit [The Hours] (1957), Syksy muuttaa linnut [The Autumn Migrates the Birds] (1961), Ilo ja epäsymmetria [Joy and Asymmetry] (1965), Anna päivän olla kaikki [Let the Day Be Everything] (1968), Muistikirja [Notebook] (1969), Minä rakastan sinua, minä sanon sen kaikille [I Love You, I Tell It to Everybody] (1972), Tuulen viime vuosi [Last Year of the Wind] (1974), Kohtaamispaikka vuosi [Meeting Place the Year] (1977), Maailmat lumen vesistöissä [Worlds in the Water System of the Snow] (1978). - Juha Siltanen recommended me to read poems at the hospital. So I started with Mirkka Rekola, prominent right now with a new collection of poems, but this is a collection of her earlier work. Among the recurrent themes is the light, in the spirit of "let there be light".

2. Parnasso 7/2011: the literary magazine is hugely readable right now as edited by Jarmo Papinniemi. Highlights: Anne-Maria Latikka: Alaviitteitä elämään [Footnotes to Life], the Parnasso essay contest winner, inspired by a visit to James Joyce's grave in Zürich. Katja Seutu on Auli Viikari the great inspirer, Karri Kokko on the indefatigable Juri Nummelin ("Duracell Juri") - 39 years old, he already has published 52 books, including several on the cinema. Harri Veivo on Vastakaanon. Suomalainen kokeellinen runous 2000-2010 [Anti-Canon. Finnish Experimental Poetry 2000-2010]: poetry in the cyber-age.

The 150th anniversary of Georges Méliès

2011-12-09T19:09:00.003+02:00

Today is the 150th anniversary of Georges Méliès, the cinema's first artist. Great posts by some of my favourite bloggers:

Kristin Thompson on Martin Scorsese's Hugo.

Luke McKernan on the current Méliès revival, with many further great links.

Thoughts on Mannerheim on Independence Day

2011-12-06T14:37:00.031+02:00

Inspired by the Mannerheim conversation in the blog of the incredible Jukka Kemppinen I have now read the two Mannerheim books by Sakari Virkkunen:

Mannerheim. Marsalkka ja presidentti [Mannerheim. Marshal and President], 1989.
Mannerheimin kääntöpuoli [The Other Side of Mannerheim], 1992.

If there would be a movie on Mannerheim, my idea of it would be a blend of Stroheim and Visconti. For the role of the young brave Mannerheim: John Gilbert (The Merry Widow), and for the old tiger Mannerheim: Burt Lancaster (Il gattopardo).

Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951) was a nobleman who served 30 years (1887-1917) in the Imperial Russian Army and belonged to the close circle of the Emperor as a member of the Chevalier Guard in St. Petersburg. In the context of the Great Game about the control of Inner Asia Mannerheim served as an intelligence officer while making an exploration from Turkestan to Beijing; the exploration was not a mere cover but had scientific value in its own right. After the Bolshevik revolution Mannerheim returned to his native Finland. His native language was Swedish, besides which he was fluent in French, German, and Russian, learned Finnish first later, and knew also Latin, English, Polish, Portuguese and Chinese.

Mannerheim became the commander-of chief in all the wars fought by independent Finland: the Civil War, the Winter War, the Finnish stretch of the Operation Barbarossa, and the Lapland War, each of them fundamentally different. Mannerheim was created Marshal of Finland, and his horseman statue commands the center of Helsinki.

I would start my movie with the Bronze Horseman of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg and end it with the Mannerheim Statue in Helsinki.

Mannerheim's mission after the end of the Russian Empire was to destroy Bolshevism, and he saw himself as the leader of that battle on Russia's northwestern frontier.

The great paradox in Mannerheim's life is how he twice was about to seal the fate of St. Petersburg / Leningrad.

In 1918, he was prepared to lead an attack against St. Petersburg to crush Bolshevism, but he got no support from Finland.

In 1941, he refused to attack Leningrad, although both Hitler and the strong extreme right wing (including the Brotherhood of Hate) among his officers put pressure on him to do so.

With his firm refusal he may have saved Leningrad, and Stalin knew it. That may have saved Finland in 1944, when Finnish statesmen had to face Stalin's monsters such as Molotov and Zhdanov. They may have wanted much more horrible retributions, but Stalin said no.

In Operation Barbarossa Finland was Hitler's ally but not his underling. This is proven by three hard facts: Mannerheim's refusal to attack Leningrad, his refusal to destroy the Murmansk railway (the life-line of the Allies to Russia), and the fact that no Finnish Jew was harassed during the Holocaust (we had our share of Fascists, but they were kept at bay). At first Mannerheim admired Hitler because of their shared mission to destroy Communists but came to realize Hitler was mad. The two military newsreels on Hitler visiting Mannerheim and Mannerheim visiting Hitler are revealing. Mannerheim was not pleased of their existence and restricted their availability. From Sakari Virkkunen's book I learn that Hitler wanted Mannerheim to command also the German army on the Finnish front, but Mannerheim refused to even discuss the option. Because that would have meant that Hitler would have become his boss.

Mannerheim was a man of the world with a disdain for chauvinism and provincialism. His closest affinities after the end of the Russian Empire lay with England and France. Between the wars he travelled widely in Asia and participated in tiger hunt with the King of Nepal. He took regular health treatments at Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) and Baden Baden. The tiger hunts, African safaris, and health spa visits were also important for confidential networking. His ties with the Nordic monarchies of Sweden and Denmark were warm, and he was disgusted with our anti-Swedish "language fight" of the 1930s. He was well-connected, well-informed, and able to forecast the future: in 1944, and probably even before, he predicted the Cold War.

An old school nobleman to the end, a bon vivant, yet a hard-working man who needed only six hours of sleep. His style had a Spartan military simplicity, yet he was a smart dresser in the best sense: he dressed well because he was a symbol and a representative for his soldiers and his people. He paid attention to the common soldier, to the war invalid and those blinded by war, he respected women and was chivalrous with them, he took care of children (via the remarkably progressive Mannerheim League for Child Welfare). Visits were not formalities for him. During the war he lived a large part of his time in his own special train, and was constantly on the move. At 75, he rode an hour on horseback every morning and took a ten minute swim in the lake or the sea.

His authority was based on respect. When I cleared up the house of my dear deceased aunt in 2003, together with my brother Asko we also cleared up the cellar bunker war room of her husband (a WWII veteran, including Stella Polaris) who had died a little earlier. Self-evidently a portrait of Mannerheim was on the wall.

I'm writing this at Töölö Hospital in Helsinki, where I have landed after a traffic accident. There are six gravely ill people in the room (I am the most harmless case, with speedy and full recovery). This is the most memorable Independence Day of my life. I am not watching television but I cannot help overhearing it. First, there were the official church services (a Swedish-speaking female minister: Tarja Halonen's choice on her last Independence Day as President was delightful). Then, The Unknown Soldier (1955), which I have seen many times, but when my eyes dart to the monitor, I often see scenes I had forgotten. I seldom cry, but the pre-credit sequence had me in tears already. The all-time best war film in the long version, needing excellent translation for the foreigner. It may prove impossible to translate with its multitude of language worlds; a Finn can immediately identify the province and the social background of the soldier by the way he speaks. For Peter von Bagh Paisà is the best war film, and I agree it's the contender.

The Töölö Hospital was founded by Mannerheim in 1932 as the Finnish Red Cross Hospital. It was also his own regular hospital when he needed care.

Mannerheim was a reactionary and a visionary. Un gattopardo.

The Internet Archive: legally free

2011-11-29T13:21:00.001+02:00

From the mail of the European Commission's Audiovisual and Media Policy Unit:

The Internet Archive
The Internet Archive works to bring together anything and everything that resides in the public domain, including movies:
http://www.archive.org/details/movies
For instance, they have gathered together 40 best movies that can be downloaded legally and for free:
http://blog.archive.org/2010/08/12/top-40-best-free-legal-movies-you-can-download-right-now/
The Internet Archive has a collections of some 150 billion web pages, 900,000 audio recordings, almost three million books and more than half a million moving image items.

In the ‘moving images’ list of ‘most downloaded’, cinema content is second only to games with an interesting mix of fiction and documentaries. Some examples include :

- 765,503 downloads for Night of the Living Dead (1968), the first ‘zombie classic’
- 516,196 for Duck and Cover, a 1952 cartoon teaching kids how to protect themselves from a nuclear attack.
- 363,556 for a montage of US Department of Defense footage on Nazi concentration camps
- 279,487 - The Fighting Lady, a 1944 war documentary by William Wyler
- Various Charlie Chaplin’s shorts from the late 1910s regularly score between 250,000 and 280,000 downloads
- 265,636 for D.W. Griffith’s 1930 Abraham Lincoln biography

Books on my nightstand this week

2011-11-27T20:53:00.004+02:00

1. Jukka Kemppinen: Informaatio-oikeuden alkeet [A legal handbook of the information age. There is no English counterpart for the keyword "informaatio-oikeus" in the book's title] (2011). A comprehensive introduction to many of the most difficult legal problems of the information society written in an understandable language, yet without simplifying genuinely complex cases where there is often a right against another right, an aspect of justice against another aspect of justice.

2. Peter Englund: Menneisyyden maisema (Förflutenhetens landskap. Historiska essäer, 1991) [The Landscape of Times Past] (in Finnish, 2011). Historical essays in which for instance the myth of the military leader is debunked. From a historical perspective things at the battlefield start to seem much clearer than in the chaotic actuality itself. Military leaders often had to make their decisions in situations in which there was even literally hardly any visibility.

3. Jean Lassus: Varhaiskristillinen ja Bysantin taide (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Early Christian and Byzantine World, 1967) (in Finnish, 1968). The thousand years in the history of art after the Classical Age and before the Renaissance. What a downturn. There were even over a hundred years of iconoclasm during which art heritage was systematically destroyed.

4. Arsenal (Berlin), programme booklet, Dezember 2011 with an Andrzej Wajda retrospective (which includes a favourite of mine, the rarely seen Invitation to the Inside, 1978); Magical History Tour: Filmmusik und Musikfilm; Living Archive introducing Mary Ellen Bute; Ulrike Ottinger.

5. Cahiers du Cinéma, Novembre 2011. The cover title is "Adieu 35, la révolution numérique est terminée". Too bad that an intellectual journal adopts the marketing jargon of information technology. Yet information technology engineers are the first to warn that although digital can be great for distribution, the digital world is in constant turbulence. 35 mm film is robust for preservation even for a thousand years. Fortunately the articles in the digital dossier offer more profound reflections of the digital transition.

Risto

2011-11-26T13:45:00.127+02:00

FI © 2011 Yellow Film & TV. P: Olli Haikka, Samuli Norhomaa. D: Tuomas Summanen. SC: Mikko Reitala. DP: Arno Launos. Definition of colour and digital intermediate: Post Control. AD: Kaisa Mäkinen. Cost: Minni Härkönen. Makeup: Laura-Melanie Hecht. M: DJ Slow. S: Erno Kumpulainen. ED: Jyrki Levä. MAIN ROLES: Risto Kaskilahti (Risto "Ripa" Kaskilahti), Aku Hirviniemi (Pasi Happonen), Krista Kosonen (Anna), Elena Leeve (Inka), Jarkko Niemi (Akseli), Jaakko Saariluoma (Erik). SUPPORTING ROLES: Stan Saanila (editor), Mika Nuojua (Tuukka), Mika Räinä (policeman), Elina Knihtilä, Jussi Vatanen (manager), Petteri Summanen (lawyer), Riku Nieminen, Joanna Haartti (teacher), Ville Myllyrinne (producer), Kari Ketonen (assistant director). 98 min. Released by Scanbox with Swedish subtitles by Markus Karjalainen. 2K DCP viewed at Tennispalatsi 6, Helsinki, 26 Nov 2011 (premiere weekend).

From the official synopsis: "The beloved actor Risto (Risto Kaskilahti) gets paralyzed - quadriplegiac - in a studio accident. The accident brings him massive financial compensation and a flood of sympathy. Suddenly there is money for everything that Risto's young and beautiful wife (Krista Kosonen) has always wanted. She gives up her boring job and becomes an artist."

"The brew is mixed by Risto's obsessed little cousin (Aku Hirviniemi) who wants to become an actor and tries to take advantage of Risto by all means. Confusion get even worse by Risto's twenty-something son (Jarkko Niemi) who falls in love with his mother-in-law. And this is just the beginning. There is a surprise twist."

"What happens when Risto experiences a surprising recovery? The beloved star gets well but cannot tell it to the world. Must the popular actor pretend to be paralyzed for the rest of his life? Has Risto found the role of his life which he'll never get rid of?" (my translation).

Black comedy is a difficult genre. The risk is to get so cynical that there is nothing left to relate to.

Risto has been made by television entertainment professionals, and I realize I miss most points because I don't watch tv. My notes written during the screening include words like: "mean-spirited, love is missing, fraud, demoralization, erosion of trust". There is little complexity in the characters.

There are good performers, though, such as Krista Kosonen and Elena Leeve, both among my favourite actors in contemporary Finnish cinema. Elena Leeve plays a religious fanatic, and Krista Kosonen is the young wife of the veteran actor Risto. The most recurrent female figure in contemporary Finnish cinema is the harridan, and now it's Krista Kosonen's turn to play it. Yawn. Why don't their men just say "get out!"

The atmosphere of sleaze is pervasive, most memorably incarnated by Jaakko Saariluoma as the scandal reporter Erik in a performance that can be compared with [Kirk Douglas - Siru, thanks] in The Big Carnival and Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success. The absence of conscience is terrifying. The malaise of the yellow press, such as in the contemporary Rupert Murdoch case but also in the Finnish tabloids and the even worse weekly gossip trash, is crystallized in Erik. This kind of comedy is not even funny anymore, and the approach can be compared with the commedia all'italiana of the 1950s and the 1960s, sometimes more grim and severe than so-called serious drama. Speaking of The Big Carnival, Risto brings to mind also another black Billy Wilder satire, The Fortune Cookie, because of its theme (Risto Kaskilahti gets to play the Jack Lemmon role).

There is a flat digital video look in the movie, appropriate to the theme of the degradation of spirit.

Maaginen kristalli / The Magic Crystal [3D]

2011-11-26T11:00:00.085+02:00

Den magiska kristallen. FI / BG © 2011 Epidem ZOT / Skyline Animation / Aranéo. P: Mikael Wahlforss, Mark Mertens. D: Antti Haikala. SC: Thomas Wipf, Bob Swain, Dan Wicksman, Nuria Wicksman, Alessandro Liggieri, Kurt Weldon, Antti Haikala, Aki Martikainen - from an idea by Mikael Wahlforss. AN: Anima Vitae - Luca Bruno - Aki Martikainen, Meruan Salim, Antti Ripatti, Teemu Auersalo, Peke Huuhtanen. AD: Antti Haikala. M: Menno van Riet. S: Quentin Collette. ED: Antti Haikala. FINNISH VOICE VERSION: translation: Mari Virtanen; directed by: Antti Haikala; studio: Uptempo; VOICE TALENT: Jukka Nylund (Yotan), Veeti Kallio (Basil), Kiti Kokkonen (Jiffy), Santtu Karvonen (Reindeer), Paula Vesala (Jaga), Henni-Liisa Stam (Didi), Aapo Haikala (Alpo), Jon-Jon Geitel (Smoo), Veikko Honkanen (Santa Claus), Antti Jaakola (Lätty). 76 min. Distributed by Future Film with Swedish subtitles by Janne Staffans. 2D 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 6, Helsinki, 26 Nov 2011.

I saw this 3D movie in 2D.

From the official synopsis: "A new family adventure animation from the makers of Niko, lentäjän poika (The Flight before Christmas)".

"It's almost Christmas, and the magic crystal of Santa Claus has been stolen! With the help of the crystal Santa Claus delivers the presents to children. The crystal needs to be returned to Santa's headquarters at the Korvatunturi fjell, or there will be no Christmas."

"The crystal has been seized by Basil, the evil twin of Santa Claus, who wants to conquer children's minds and spread evil in the world. A special patrol is sent to redeem the crystal. The human boy Yotan joins the Korvatunturi elves in it."

"During the quest Yotan with his friends experiences exciting adventures, solves difficult problems and gets to test his forces with Basil and his henchmen. Yotan also needs to overcome his own fears and weaknesses" (from the official synopsis, the translation is mine).

There are similarities with The Nightmare before Christmas, but the concept of The Magic Crystal is original. There is an anti-Christmas dimension in the story. "The evil Santa" gets more screen space than the good one. The good Santa and his wife are jovial characters, and the bad Santa is a bit like yet another version of a James Bond villain in a children's animation. "Who would be crazy enough to build an ice castle on top of a volcano?" "I am!" One can already guess what will happen later. The explosive climax is my favourite sequence in this movie. There is a question of rhythm and dynamics here: I would expect a Christmas movie to have some relaxed and peaceful sequences besides the anti-Christmas action setpieces. The Finnish voice approach is based on the Särkkä school of dialogue. The colour palette is artificial and antirealistic.

Apflickorna / She Monkeys

2011-11-25T17:00:00.101+02:00

Apinatytöt. SE © 2011 Atmo Produktion AB. P: Helene Lindholm. D: Lisa Aschan. SC: Josefine Adolfsson, Lisa Aschan. DP: Linda Wassberg. PD: Kia Nordqvist. Cost: Kia Nordqvist. Make-up, hair: Sandra Wolterdorf. M: Sami Sänpäkkilä. S: Andreas Franck. ED: Kristofer Nordin. Casting: David Färdmar. Loc: Göteborg (Gothenburg). CAST: Mathilda Paradeiser (Emma), Linda Molin (Cassandra), Isabella Lindqvist (Sara), Sergej Merkusjev (Ivan), Adam Lundgren (Jens), Sigmund Hovind (Tobias), Kevin Caicedo Vega (Sebastian), Nasrin Pakkho (simfröken), Maria Hedborg (voltigetränare), Inger Lindberg (linförare), Elin Söderquist (badvakt), Malin Müller (expedit). 90 min. Released in Finland by KinoScreen Illusion Ltd. with Finnish subtitles by Emmi Juutilainen. Viewed at Kino Engel, Helsinki, 25 Nov 2011.

Technical specs (IMDb): Camera: Aaton Penelope - Laboratory: Nordisk Film Post Production, Sweden - Film negative format: 35 mm (Fuji) - Cinematographic process: Techniscope - Printed film format: 35 mm (Kodak Vision 2383, Vision Premier 2393) - Aspect ratio: 2.39:1. --- According to the end credits the digitital intermediate is in 2K.

Svensk Filmdatabas: "She Monkeys is about the art of survival. We follow 15 year old Emma, her seven year old little sister Sara, and Emma’s newfound friend, Cassandra. Emma and Cassandra meet at the vaulting club and soon develop a symbiotic friendship."

"When Emma meets Cassandra a relationship full of brutal physical and psychical challenges starts. Emma does everything to master the rules of the game. Boundaries are transgressed, and the stakes grow higher and higher. Nevertheless Emma cannot resist the intoxicating sense of total control."

A coming-of-age story of two teenage girls, and the seven-year old sister Sara. A tale of the turbulence, disorientation and chaos of youth. These are wild girls like those in Vera Chytilova's Sedmikrasky (Daisies) or Marja Pyykkö's Sisko tahtoisin jäädä (Run Sister Run). Lisa Aschan and Josefine Adolfsson touch especially sensitive ground in the account of the little Sara who is forced to wear a bikini and gets to witness a stallion mounting a mare. I don't know what this modern account of (mostly sexual) awakening is finally all about.

But there is no doubt that Lisa Aschan knows how to tell it. The movie is original and interesting in its mise-en-scène, imagery, rhythm, and visual storytelling. The movie is both exciting and relaxed. The performances seem natural and spontaneous. Probably only women filmmakers could have made such a confidential and intimate film about girls.

The visual quality looks all-photochemical, but according to the end credits there was a 2K scanning. If it is so, congratulations for the soft, natural feeling of sensuality which is still rare in digital intermediates.

J. Edgar

2011-11-25T14:40:00.137+02:00

J. Edgar / J. Edgar. US © 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. P: Clint Eastwood, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Robert Lorenz. D: Clint Eastwood. SC: Dustin Lance Black. DP: Tom Stern. PD: James J. Murakami. AD: Greg Berry, Patrick M. Sullivan, Jr. Set dec: Gary Fettis. Art dept.: big. Cost: Deborah Hopper. Prosthetic makeup artist (Leonardo DiCaprio): Sian Griff. Makeup dept.: big. S: Bub Asman, Alan Robert Murray. Special FX: Steve Riley. Visual FX: Ollie Rankin, Edison Williams, dept. huge. ED: Joel Cox, Gary Roach. Casting: Fiona Weir. LEADING ROLES: Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar Hoover), Armie Hammer (Clyde Tolson), Naomi Watts (Helen Gandy). SUPPORTING ROLES: Damon Herriman (Bruno Hauptmann), Jeffrey Donovan (Robert F. Kennedy), Judi Dench (Anna Marie, Hoover's mother), Ed Westwick (Agent Smith, Hoover's biographer), Josh Lucas (Charles Lindbergh), Ken Howard (U.S. Attorney General Harlan F. Stone), Stephen Root (Arthur Koehler), Denis O'Hare (Albert S. Osborn), Geoff Pierson (Alexander Mitchell Palmer), Lea Thompson (Lela Rogers), Gunner Wright (Dwight D. Eisenhower), David A. Cooper (Franklin Roosevelt), Jessica Hecht (Emma Goldman), Dermot Mulroney (Col. Schwarzkopf). 137 min. Released in Finland by FS Film. Unsubtitled 2K DCP viewed in an internal screening at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 27 Nov 2011.

Technical specs (IMDb): Camera: Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2, Panavision C-Series Lenses, Panavision Panaflex Platinum, Panavision C-Series Lenses. - Laboratory: Technicolor, Hollywood. - Film negative format: 35 mm (Fuji Eterna Vivid 160T 8543, Eterna Vivid 500T 8547). - Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), Panavision (anamorphic) (source format). - Printed film format: 35 mm (Kodak Vision 2383), D-Cinema. - Aspect ratio: 2.35:1.

The official synopsis: "During his lifetime, J. Edgar Hoover would rise to be the most powerful man in America. As head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nearly 50 years, he would stop at nothing to protect his country. Through eight presidents and three wars, Hoover waged battle against threats both real and perceived, often bending the rules to keep his countrymen safe. His methods were at once ruthless and heroic, with the admiration of the world his most coveted, if ever elusive, prize."

"Hoover was a man who placed great value on secrets–particularly those of others–and was not afraid to use that information to exert authority over the leading figures in the nation. Understanding that knowledge is power and fear poses opportunity, he used both to gain unprecedented influence and to build a reputation that was both formidable and untouchable."

"He was as guarded in his private life as he was in his public one, allowing only a small and protective inner circle into his confidence. His closest colleague, Clyde Tolson, was also his constant companion. His secretary, Helen Gandy, who was perhaps most privy to Hoover's designs, remained loyal to the end... and beyond. Only Hoover's mother, who served as his inspiration and his conscience, would leave him, her passing truly crushing to the son who forever sought her love and approval."

"As seen through the eyes of Hoover himself, "J. Edgar" explores the personal and public life and relationships of a man who could distort the truth as easily as he upheld it during a life devoted to his own idea of justice, often swayed by the darker side of power." (From the official website.)

Clint Eastwood keeps surprising. J. Edgar is a more irreverent biopic than the production company's official synopsis gives away. All the tabloid ingredients are here, but the treatment of the potentially scandalous subject-matter is sober. The director's touch is solid, maybe even a bit stolid. Eastwood has avoided flamboyance in a story like this.

Dustin Shane Black has written a daring screenplay that covers the entire grown-up life of the protagonist via a mosaic flashback structure. The scope is epic but there is a chamber-play core with the trio of J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson, and Helen Gandy.

At the first glimpse of Leonardo DiCaprio as the aged J. Edgar Hoover I had to laugh, and in retrospect I think I did not laugh at him but with him. There is somehow the familiar boyish trademark wink in DiCaprio's performance behind the forbidding prosthenic bulldog mask. This is an interesting and memorable performance, much better than DiCaprio's previous efforts as violent and troubled men with wrinkled eyebrows because here DiCaprio has found space for his unique sense of humour. Naomi Watts gives a first-rate performance as Helen Gandy.

The account of J. Edgar Hoover's subdued homosexual love story with Clyde Tolson rings believable. This interpretation is compatible with the classical psychoanalytical view of repressed homosexuality as a possible source of paranoia.

Among the interesting themes of J. Edgar is the power of the media. We see Hoover witness the audience applauding James Cagney as the Public Enemy. Hoover then gets media-conscious and starts a FBI collaboration with Warner Bros. and comic books publishers. In the satirical view of the movie, Hoover, who was a pioneer in serious crime investigation and criminology, got lost in public image fabrications, disinformation, secret files for blackmail, and finally blatant lies.

I have seen The FBI Story which belongs to the FBI's promotion projects with Warner Bros. J. Edgar could not be further from it. Instead, it could form a double feature with the Stasi exposé The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen).

Clint Eastwood's photochemical films always boasted refined dark cinematography. The digitally processed 2K visual quality of J. Edgar is icy, stony, and slightly stuffy.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

2011-11-25T12:00:00.167+02:00

Twilight - Aamunkoi, osa 1 / Så länge vi båda andas. US © 2011 Summit Entertainment. P: Wyck Godfrey, Stephenie Meyer, Karen Rosenfelt. D: Bill Condon. SC: Melissa Rosenberg - based on the novel Breaking Dawn (2008) by Stephenie Meyer. (In Finland the Twilight book series is called Houkutus, and the title of this novel is Aamunkoi. The first two novels are translated by Tiina Ohinmaa, and the second two by Pirkko Biström.) DP: Guillermo Navarro. PD: Richard Sherman. AD: Troy Sizemore, Lorin Flemming. Set dec: David Schlesinger. Art dept.: big. Special effects: Alex Burdett, David A. Poole. Visual effects dept.: huge. Animation dept:: Tom Gibbons. Cost: Michael Wilkinson. Animatronics and special makeup dept.: big. M: Carter Burwell. Sound dept.: 18. ED: Virginia Katz. Casting: Debra Zane. Stunt team: big. MAIN CAST: Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black). SUPPORTING CHARACTERS (as edited in the English Wikipedia): Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale, a member of the Cullen family who helps Bella through her pregnancy), Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen, a compassionate doctor who acts as a father figure to the Cullen coven), Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen, the most loving member who acts as the mother of the Cullen family), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen, a member of the Cullen family who can see "subjective" visions of the future and who is close friends with Bella), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen, the strongest member of the Cullen family, and provides the comic relief), Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale, a member of the Cullen coven can feel/control/manipulate emotions), Julia Jones (Leah Clearwater, a member of Jacob's pack who is constantly bitter and pained), Booboo Stewart (Seth Clearwater, a carefree member of Jacob's pack), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan, Bella's father and Forks' Chief of Police), Sarah Clarke (Renée Dwyer, Bella's mother who lives in Jacksonville, Florida with her husband Phil), MyAnna Buring (Tanya, the leader of the Denali coven), Maggie Grace (Irina, a member of the Denali coven whose lover, Laurent, was killed by the werewolves), Casey LaBow (Kate, a member of the Denali coven who has the ability to run an electric current on her skin), Michael Sheen (Aro, the leader of the Volturi), Jamie Campbell Bower (Caius, one of the three founders of the Volturi), Christopher Heyerdahl (Marcus, one of the three founders of the Volturi), Chaske Spencer (Sam Uley, the Alpha of the werewolves pack), Christian Camargo (Eleazar, a member of the Denali coven), Mia Maestro (Carmen, a member of the Denali coven). 119 min. Released in Finland by Nordisk with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Hannele Vahtera. 2K DCP viewed at Tennispalatsi 1, Helsinki, 25 Nov 2011.

Technical specs (IMDb): Camera: Arricam ST, Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses, Arriflex 435, Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses, Moviecam Compact, Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses. - Laboratory: EFILM Digital Laboratories, Hollywood, (digital intermediate). - Film negative format: 35 mm (Kodak Vision3 250D 5207, Vision3 500T 5219). - Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (master format), Super 35 (source format). - Printed film format: 35 mm (anamorphic), D-Cinema. - Aspect ratio: 2.35:1.

One of the most scary horror films of all times. The English Wikipedia calls it a "romantic fantasy film". Bella the human gets married to Edward the vampire, gives birth to a monster baby, dies at childbirth, and is resurrected as a vampire by Edward's vampire venom.

This viewing is my first acquaintance with the Twilight phenomenon. The book series (2005-2008) is one of the biggest bestsellers in history. The film series (2008-2012) belongs to the biggest box office phenomena of the period.

The author Stephenie Meyer belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Twilight was her debut novel, the inspiration to which she received in a dream.

The twist of contemporary vampire fiction is that vampires have become love objects and identification objects. This is the most astounding volte-face in the history of horror fiction.

The vampire is traditionally an incarnation of the Devil in the same meaning as Jesus was an incarnation of God.

Bill Condon directs this movie with a sense of solemn gravity. Breaking Dawn is like a requiem. There is an affinity with Lars von Trier's Melancholia and with the final episodes of the Harry Potter saga. The visionary horror montage sequences belong to the tradition of experimental film.

I have been fascinated with the cinema's obsession with an interrupted wedding or betrothal. Breaking Dawn is the story of a successful wedding, honeymoon, childbirth and the mother's rebirth... from a vampiric point of view. "Let's start with forever" says Edward in his wedding speech. From a human point of view the story is utter horror almost without redemption, almost without counterforce. The monsters have taken over, and there is hardly anything else.

Except details such as Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue which welcomes the newlyweds to their Brazilian honeymoon. It is an alienated image such as the one in the beginning of La dolce vita.

The horror pregnancy, childbirth and resurrection are the movie's original horror elements. Breaking Dawn goes beyond the Rosemary's Baby, the It's Alive, and The Brood traditions, although it avoids gore and splatter. The ultrasonic test gives no response. No future is visible. The fetus is kept alive by pints of blood.

In the Harry Potter saga I was amazed by the absence of a sense that the protagonists would see themselves as "heroes of their own lives". There was an overwhelming sense of lethargy. In the Twilight saga the lethargy has developed into a logical endpoint, death.

Even visually, there is a death breath in the movie. The denaturation of nature is appropriate to the subject.

Shelagh Delaney 1939-2011

2011-11-22T11:30:00.000+02:00

Morrissey's obituary of Shelagh Delaney (thank you, Antti Nylén, for the link):

21 November 2011
SHELAGH DELANEY

A genuine poet has passed through the world. Shelagh Delaney exercised a wide influence with the shock of plain language, and shafts of satiric wit, into a severe and donnish 1950s world where working-class people had thus far been assumed to be simplistic, flag-waving cannon-fodder. Her writing was a magnificent confession of life as it was commonly lived in her hometown of Salford, with all of its carefully preserved monotony. She was attacked for immorality, which, then as now, is proof that you have hit on something.

'A Taste of Honey' was a sentiment that had not been expressed before its time - far more real than life.

It was the Salford of sagging roofs, rag and bone men, walk-up flats, derelict sites, rear-entrance buses, and life in tight circumstances.

Shelagh Delaney did not become fat with success, or become a celebrity, because she was of richer intellect.

She has always been a part of my life as a perfect example of how to get up and get out and do it. If you worry about respect you don't get it. Shelagh Delaney had it and didn't seem to notice it.

MORRISSEY
Los Angeles, November 2011.

http://true-to-you.net/morrissey_news_111121_02

Books on my nightstand this week

2011-11-20T21:25:00.006+02:00

1. Pekka Suhonen (1938-2011) died a week ago, and I have kept reading his work, essay collections such as Kun Roomasta tuli ikuinen [When Rome Became Eternal] (1995), Rooli ja kohtalo [Role and Destiny] (1996, a third of it dedicated to Marlene Dietrich), Yöllä he menivät uimaan [At Night They Went Swimming] (1998), my favourite of them being Delfiini ja muita esseitä [The Dolphin and Other Essays] (1973, with interesting essays on 1960s architecture and the Alvar Aalto legacy). Suhonen's writing on design and architecture is his most solid and substantial, books such as Tapio Wirkkala (1981, the key article written by Suhonen), Artek (1986, on Alvar Aalto and his colleagues), and Ei vain muodon vuoksi: Suomen Taideteollisuusyhdistys 125 [Not for Form's Sake Only: Design Forum Finland 125 Years] (2000).
2. Jake Nyman: Tähtisumua: unohtumattomia sävelmiä menneestä ajasta [Stardust: Unforgettable Tunes from Lost Time] (2011). Jake Nyman is a leading Finnish expert of popular music. I have started to realize better the full proximity of the cinema and popular music during the last ten years or so, and this book is chock full of further evidence of it.
3. Harvard Film Archive, October November December 2011 programme magazine. Written by Haden Guest, David Pendleton, and Brittany Gravely. Great writing on Frederick Wiseman, the Romanian film essayist Andre Ujica, the cinematographer Agnès Godard, the countercultural star Taylor Mead, the animator Helen Hill, Sergio Leone, and Henri-Georges Clouzot.
4. Markku Kuisma: Sodasta syntynyt: itsenäisen Suomen synty Sarajevon laukauksista Tarton rauhaan 1914-1920 [Born out of War: The Birth of Independent Finland from the Shots of Sarajevo till the Tartu Treaty, 1914-1920] (2010). A broad perspective of world history (including economic history) as a background to the many stages on the road to Finnish independence.
5. The New York Review of Books, 10-23 Nov 2011. Jeff Madrick and Frank Partnoy discuss in their article "Should Some Bankers Be Prosecuted?" the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation (US Senate): Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse (2011), William D. Cohan's Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World (2011), and Goldman Sachs: Report of the Business Standards Committee (2011). Thrillers and detective stories seem trite in comparison with these true stories of fraud of world catastrophic dimensions. Madrick and Partnoy suggest measures by which the biggest villains could be prosecuted.
6. On my mother's nightstand I discovered Kiveen hakatut: Urheilijat maineen polulla [Carved in Stone: Sportsmen on Their Way to Glory] written by Arto Teronen and Jouko Vuolle, 2011, with a chapter on Tapani Niku, my grandfather, a ski champion in an era when that sport still had glory. My mother had revealed that Tapani was also interested in nature conservation. Tapani was a bog expert, among other things. Walking on bogs was also supreme training in his youth a hundred years ago. Today's cross-trainer gym machines strive for a similar impact.

My favourite seat

2011-11-19T14:44:00.006+02:00

David Bordwell writes in his and Kristin Thompson's blog about his favourite seat: the middle seat in the very first row. In Finland those seats were called "shell collecting seats" because kids who went to see Westerns used to sit "where the shells flew".

I don't have a consistent answer to the question of my favourite seat. When I visit Finnkino cinemas in Helsinki the ticket seller always asks me to select from among the green dots on a computer screen, and I always authorize the ticket seller to dictate because all Finnkino seats are good. Sometimes I get a first-row seat when the screening is going to be sold out. Sometimes I get to sit in the back, from where I can witness the epic of the audience participating in a hit film. Having already seen the 15 minutes of commercials and previews too often I sometimes arrive later than most, and then it is a good idea to have a side seat by the entrance in order not to bother others. But on the other hand I am also always the last patron to stay to the very end of the end credits, and it is a good idea to be in the middle of the row in new hit movies.

Everything is different at Cinema Orion where I do have a favourite seat, one from where it is easiest to jump away to react if there is something wrong in the screening. It would distract me if I would have to sit elsewhere.

At festivals I would have favourite seats, but the same seats are highly desired by others, and life has been easier since I gave up on them and decided I can sit anywhere.

Hiljaa toivotut / Silent Longing

2011-11-18T14:15:00.002+02:00

Stilla längtan. FI 2011. PC: Vaski Filmi. P: Janne Niskala. D+SC: Timo Haanpää. DP: Timo Haanpää, Hannu-Pekka Vitikainen. M: Tapani Rinne. S: Lauri Leskinen, Kimmo Vänttinen. ED: Tuuli Kuittinen. Loc: Helsinki and Tampere. Cast: Heli & Toni, and Matti & Marjaana. 75 min. Released by Suomen Elokuvakontakti with Swedish subtitles by Kajsa Wikström. 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 6, Helsinki, 18 Nov 2011 (day of Helsinki premiere; the Finnish premiere was in Oulu 11 Nov 2011).

A documentary film on two couples' fertility treatment.

Based on the film's official synopsis: True stories about the joy and the sorrow of trying to become a parent. The film tells about two childless couples, who use fertility treatments to help them get a biological child of their own.

The film is an account of the emotional journeys of two couples through endless hospital visits where their life is divided between home and clinic. Uncertainty about the future and fertility treatments are challenging for relationships. Childlessness forces the characters to make difficult decisions and think about their lives, its meaningfulness and future - with or without a child. The idea of one's own child turns into a silent longing.

Silent Longing tells how much involuntary childlessness can hurt. The protagonists of the film are not alone. Childlessness is common nowadays. In Finland every fifth couple remains involuntarily childless, and the proportion of the involuntarily childless is increasing (based on the film's synopsis).

A straightforward, honest and intimate account of two couple's struggles to get a child. The struggles are difficult and heartbreaking, but there is a happy end for both. The movie is almost artless, a basic newsreel camera record. The approach is factual, medical, practical, and educational, but not cold, indifferent or distancing. The movie is warmly confidential and startlingly candid in extremely private situations where most would never consider camera presence. I keep being amazed at this current age of candid documentary cinema. There is often a low definition video look, but visual quality is hardly the point in this matter-of-fact movie.

There are events and websites around this movie:
http://www.hiljaatoivotut.fi/
http://www.simpukka.info/fi_fi/etusivu/

Jodái-e Náder az Simin / Nader and Simin, A Separation

2011-11-18T12:00:00.187+02:00

جدایی نادر از سیمین / Nader ja Simin: ero / Nader och Simin: en separation. IR 2011. P+D+SC: Asghar Farhadi. DP: Mahmoud Kalari. PD: Keyvan Moghaddam. Make-up: Mehrdad Mirkiani. M: Sattar Oraki. S: Reza Narimizadeh. ED: Hayedeh Safiyari. Cast: Shabab Hosseini (Hodjat), Sarina Farhadi (Termeh), Merila Zarei (Miss Ghahraii), Ali-Asqhar Shahbazi (Nader's father), Babak Karimi (interrogator), Kimia Hosseini (Somayeh), Shirin Yazdanbakhsh (Simin's mother), Sahabanu Zolghadr (Azam). 123 min. A Cinema Mondo release with Finnish / Swedish subtitles. A 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 5, Helsinki, 18 Nov 2011 (day of Finnish premiere).

Technical specs (IMDb): Film negative format: 35 mm (Fuji Eterna 500T 8573, Eterna 400T 8583) - 1.85:1.

A modern Iranian couple gets separated because the mother Simin wants to move abroad for the education of their 11-year old daughter Termeh, and the father Nader needs to stay in Tehran to take care of his father who has Alzheimer's disease. They don't get a divorce, so Simin moves to her parents. Nader's father now needs a housemaid, and they get the young, traditionally religious Razief who is pregnant, comes with her little daughter, and has to work in secret from her hot-tempered husband Houjat who is under heavy pressure from debtors. The father's Alzheimer's disease is getting worse, and complications and misunderstandings set in motion a dramatic chain of events.

Nader and Simin is one of the best films of the year. It may be an authentic account of life in modern Tehran, but for a viewer like myself with no acquaintance with Iran its universal values stand out. At first sight, Nader and Simin is about sex, class and religion, but the fundamental concerns of the movie are even deeper than that.

Nader and Simin is a story- and character-driven film. The story and the characters are powerful and full of details worth reflecting. The issues in the dramatic conflicts are relevant, and the strands of the storyline intertwine in meaningful ways. David Bordwell has paid attention to the special kind of suspense in Asghar Farhadi's movies - a suspense often conveyed via dialogue.

Children are prominent in modern Iranian cinema, and in Nader and Simin the two daughters are main carriers of conscience. When Termeh asks: "Father, are you telling the truth?", it is a question that Nader cannot ignore. Honesty is one of the themes of the movie (what if honesty leads to injustice?), pride is another (pride as a form of misunderstood self-respect), and love still another (the imperatives of love may transcend other values). To support her family Razief takes the job about which she has to lie to her husband, and she experiences a miscarriage because of a collision with a car into which she has landed to save the Alzheimerian father in the traffic. (The story's complications include her baby daughter's fiddling with the father's medical equipment, which may have aggravated his condition.) There are no simple solutions. A basic issue is that Nader and Simin live a relatively safe life. Razief and Houjat live in mortal danger: Houjat under a death threat from his debtors, Razief under a death threat from her husband. The priorities of the two couples are incompatible. There are tragic values in Nader and Simin: there is greatness in the pursuits of the protagonists, but they fail because of their own shortcomings such as false pride.

Visually Nader and Simin is largely a realistic chamber piece, based often on medium shots of people in interiors. In the 2K DCP the digital post-production based on the 35 mm film negative looks fine, and there is a refined intensity in the cinematography of the faces.

Nachrichten aus der ideologischen Antike: Marx - Eisenstein - Das Kapital / [News Dispatches from an Ideological Antiquity: Marx - Eisenstein - Das Kapital]

2011-11-17T20:16:00.007+02:00

DE 2008. D: Alexander Kluge. Original format: dvd. 3-dvd. Duration with extras: 570 min. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag (Filmedition Suhrkamp), 2008.

The linear duration is 189 + 120 + 183 = 492 min = 8 h 12 min

A grand, playful dvd essay by Alexander Kluge, updating a critique of Marxist ideology in multiple ways, including interviews, readings, montages, lettering, documentary inserts, enactments, songs, collages, and animation.

Dvd I: Marx und Eisenstein im gleichen Haus [Marx and Eisenstein in the Same House]. The visionary project of Sergei Eisenstein was to film Das Kapital after October, inspired by Ulysses by James Joyce and by the novels of John Dos Passos. Oksana Bulgakova on Eisenstein. Kluge satirizes the ossification of totalitarian state Marxism by having Stasi recruits repeating dogma. Hans Magnus Enzensberger discusses the casting flaws of Marxism.Werner Schroeter discusses the rebirth of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with Linda Watson and Raimo Sirkiä from the spirit of Battleship Potyomkin. 189 min

Dvd II: Alle Dinge sind verzauberte Menschen [All Things are Enchanted People]. An essay on commodity fetishism. Includes: Tom Tykwer: Der Mensch im Ding [The Man In Things] 12 min, an experimental short film about the things around us in an urban freeze-frame setting. A visit at the official grave of Karl Marx - but there is a true grave that is hard to find. Peter Sloterdijk discusses the metamorphoses of the surplus value. "Only a great storyteller is capable of penetrating the world of Karl Marx - the world of this greatest analyst of enchantment". Oskar Negt: what is the meaning of happy failure in a risk society? Discourses on the French revolution.120 min

Dvd III: Paradoxe der Tauschgesellschaft [Paradoxes of the Exchange Society]. An essay on second nature. Reflections on the Dialectics of Enlightment by Horkheimer and Adorno. Oskar Negt about the humanization of machines and about how to read Das Kapital. Durs Grünbein on the Manifesto as Lucretian poetry. Karl Korsch's analysis of the impossibility of the Russian and Chinese social experiments. A socialist Robinsonade of Diana Leibowitz on Bear Island in 1942. The history of alienation. Helge Schneider's Marx-relating performance. 183 min

Three-blade shutters at Cinema Orion

2011-11-17T13:51:00.001+02:00

Yesterday we (more precisely: Jarni Susiluoto, our projection wizard) installed at last three-blade shutters at our Cinema Orion. They are basic equipment in silent film projection when the film is projected at speeds slower than the standard 24 fps, as we have always known, but we had not been able to solve issues of lamp brightness before this year. A three blade shutter needs more light than the usual two blade shutter. Starting from tonight's screenings of København ved Nat (DK 1910) and Afgrunden (DK 1910) we can enjoy silent films at Orion without flicker.

KAVA buys more rights to the Finnish film heritage

2011-11-16T13:08:00.003+02:00

On 16 November KAVA (the National Audiovisual Archive of Finland) has bought from Suomi-Filmi company rights to over 150 Finnish films from the silent era to the 1970s. This is in continuation to the purchase on 29 August 2011 from Finnkino of 300 Finnish feature films that were produced from the 1930s to the 1980s. The whole number of Finnish feature films is 1300.

The incentive to the acquisitions is KAVA's decision to start digitizing in 4K the Finnish film heritage. It makes more sense for the government to fund such a project when it also owns the rights.

The recent purchase includes over 150 feature films produced by the Suomi-Filmi company, and other feature films the rights of which had been transferred to Suomi-Filmi. Also included is a big number of short films and commercials.

Tv rights remain with YLE the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation. The rights to dvd's already published remain with Finnkino during a period of transition.

Among the treasures purchased are the majority of the Finnish silent feature films, the oeuvre of Valentin Vaala (such as Loviisa, for many the all-time best Finnish film), and many other prominent films such as The White Reindeer.

Cinema Context (Amsterdam), "the finest film reference source on the Web"

2011-11-16T07:17:00.002+02:00

Luke McKernan keeps plugging Cinema Context: Film in the Netherlands since 1896. An Encyclopedia of Film Culture, as a model for everybody. This is what he had to say four years ago:

“What is the finest film reference source on the Web, for all film let alone silent film? With all due respect to the Internet Movie Database, I think it is Cinema Context, a Dutch site created by Karel Dibbets and the University of Amsterdam. Describing itself as 'an encylopedia of film culture', the site documents film distribution and exhibition in the Netherlands in 1896. It does so through four data collections, on films, cinemas, people and companies, derived from painstakingly researched data on nearly all films exhibited in Dutch cinemas before 1960. The research team located film programmes from 1896 onwards in each of the major Dutch cities, entering all film titles, names, dates, cinemas etc, and then ingeniously matched this data to the records of these films on the IMDb."

"The result is an incomparably rich resource for tracing films, the performers and the producers across time and territories, opening up whole new areas of analysis. Cinema Context also contains comprehensive data from the files of the Netherlands Board of Film Censors 1928-1960. As the site states: 'Cinema Context is both an online encyclopaedia and a research tool for the history of Dutch film culture. Not only can you find information here about who, what, where and when: you can also analyse this information and study patterns and networks. Thanks to Cinema Context, we are now able to expose the DNA of Dutch film culture.' Naturally, it is available in both Dutch and English."

"This is the new film research. Every nation should have the same.”

Luke's view is still the same, only even more so.

Ski Patrol

2011-11-13T18:45:00.148+02:00

Jägarpatrullen. US © 1940 Universal Pictures Company, Inc. P: Warren Douglas. Associate P: Ben Pivar. D: Lew Landers. SC: Paul Huston. DP: Milton Krasner, A.S.C. AD: Jack Otterson; associate: Ralph M. DeLacy. Set dec: R.A. Gausman. Cost: Vera West. [M: Frank Skinner (n.c.)]. M director: H.J. Salter. S supervisor: Bernard B. Brown. Technician: Robert Pritchard. ED: Edward Curtiss. Cast: Philip Dorn aka Frits van Dongen (Lt. Viktor Ryder), Luli Deste (Julia Engle), Stanley Fields (Birger Simberg), Samuel S. Hinds (Capt. Per Vallgren), Edward Norris (Paavo Luuki), John Qualen (Gustaf Nerkuu), Hardie Albright (Tyko Gallen), John Arledge (Dick Reynolds), John Ellis (Knut Vallgren), Henry Brandon (Jan Sikorsky), Kathryn Adams (Lissa Ryder), Abner Biberman (Russian Field Commander), Wade Boteler (German Olympics Spokesman), Addison Richards (James Burton, American speaker), Reed Hadley (Ivan Dubroski), Trevor Bardette (Aranoff, Russian Tunnel Team Commander), John Gallaudet (Russian prisoner), Jodi Gilbert (Fanni Nerkuu), Nels P. Nelson (Finnish camp cook) Christian Rub (Jakob Sorenson, old villager), Karl Hackett (Gregor, tunnel soldier), Leona Roberts (Viktor's mother), Jack Gardner, George Magrill (Russian soldiers). 64 min. MPPDA certificate 6225. Screener dvd viewed at home in Helsinki, 13 Nov 2011.

An American film about the Winter War (1939-1940) between Finland and the Soviet Union, based on Luis Trenker's Tyrolean WWI movie Berge in Flammen / The Doomed Battalion (1932). The movie was never released in our land.

There is a 1936 Olympic Games poster behind the opening credits. Bobsleigh, skating, ski jumping, cross-country skiing and downhill racing are among the sports. With a gentlemanly spirit the Finnish Viktor helps Ivan during the race. Ivan (USSR) wins the ski marathon, Viktor (Finland) is second, and Dick (USA) the third. (USSR did not participate in Olympics before WWII). In the medal ceremony the American speaker praises world peace. Cut to a montage of explosions in Ethiopia, China, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Finland. There is an idyllic mountain landscape supposedly in Finland, and a folk dance. (There are hardly any mountains in Finland, and none on the Karelian border. The folk dance scene in all its details is strictly Ruritanian, or perhaps Tyrolean.) Julia is already preparing and in uniform, a member of the Lotta Battalion. We see an image of an Order of General Mobilisation, 8 Jan 1940 (the Winter War started on 30 November, 1939). Finns are surprised and reluctant to go to war (in reality there were were special exercises and a general mobilization months in advance, and there was a rare determination to fight). A Red Army plane fires, and Paavo's sister Liisa is the first casualty. Magnificent footage of torch-bearing skiers on a nocturnal mountain slope (perhaps from Luis Trenker's movie Berge in Flammen / Doomed Battalion). "There's our stopping place: Silver Mountain, we must hold it." The Finns dig trenches, set up barbed wire, and build a dugout. There is a daredevil sharpshooter Simberg, ready to fight: "I can shoot, I never miss". "Save the bullets for men". One of the men is a Nobel Prize winner, and other carry names of prominent artists such as Engel, Gallen, Vallgren and Simberg. The Russians' plan is to explode the mountain. The Finns' goal is to prevent them. Russians launch an avalanche which wipes out the Finns' supply team. We see the daredevil Viktor racing downhill. The men in the dugout cannot sleep listening to the Russians drilling. Gustav falls down to his death on the ski track at the very moment when his baby boy is born. There is a final race of the Finnish suicide patrol along the mountain slope with great action footage (probably from Luis Trenker's film), and devastating casualties on both sides. When the target is near Viktor is about to shoot a Russian, but it is Ivan, who takes his explosives and refuses to kill Viktor. "The penalty for a traitor is death", says Ivan's officer and executes Ivan point-blank - defusing the explosives and destroying his whole unit. At Paavo and Liisa's graves the Finnish officer speaks: "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they have done. The victory is theirs, but they couldn't realize the cost to them and to us. The flower of our youth trampled by their mad ambition. All of them gone, destroyed before their life has begun. And to what end, my Lord, to what end?"

This is a quickie production with a lot of back-projection and no commitment in the performances of the actors (Luli Deste and Samuel S. Hinds are good, though). The film is so oblivious of reality that it would not have been even offensive if it would have been released in Finland at the time. There is a blatant disregard for authenticity. The best aspect of the movie is the downhill racing footage probably lifted from Luis Trenker.

Books on my nightstand this week

2011-11-13T17:37:00.002+02:00

1. Pekka Suhonen (1938-2011), a refined man of letters and a critic of architecture and design, died on Friday. Pekka Tarkka's remarkable obituary in today's Helsingin Sanomat alerted me to read Suhonen's first three books, Kootut runot [Collected Poems] (1965), his debut book with a hilariously misleading title, Tytöt lähtevät maailmalle [Girls Get Out to See the World] (1966), a collection of short stories, and Palava omaisuus [Burning Property] (1968), with more poems. There are also film connections, especially in the short story "Garbo at Stiller's Grave".
2. Jorge Luis Borges: Kuvitteellisten olentojen kirja (El libro de los seres imaginarios) (Book of Imaginary Beings), 1957 / 1969, translated into Finnish by Sari Selander, 2009. Adventures of language and imagination in a uniquely humoristic pseudo-encyclopedia, Sari Selander succeeding in an almost impossible translation mission.
3. Aulis Tynkkynen: Muistoja elämästä ja ihmisistä Pahatson lapsuuden kodista 1930- ja 1940-luvulta [Recollections of Life and People in our Childhood Home in Pahatso in the 1930s and the 1940s], 2007. My wife's mother Aino died last month (born in 1917 before Finnish independence but just after the Czar had resigned from power, during the Russian Provisional Government), and these are the recollections of Aino's brother of their childhood and their fighting youth in Punkaharju in Southern Savo. These self-published memoirs are an invaluable record of a traditional way of life that has vanished with modernization.
4. Donald E. Strong: Maailmantaide: Kreikan ja Rooman taide (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Classical World), 1965, in Finnish in 1967. Continuing with a favourite childhood book series, the selection of artworks and the layout of their reproductions consistently in excellent taste. In classical Greece one starts to discover faces and expressions that are recognizable as contemporary with nothing archaic in them. The realism of the discus thrower is still unsurpassed.
5. MMM: Mitä Missä Milloin 2012 [What Where When 2012], 2011. The publishing house Otava's annual yearbook of what has happened in the world, in the society, and in culture. I always spend several hours studying it from cover to cover, my favourite section being "new words of the year". Editors: Tiina Aalto (editor-in-chief), Päivi Syrjänen.
6. Lauri Piispa: Sentimentaalinen marssi [A Sentimental March], 2005. A master's thesis with profound insight into the historical meanings in Marlen Khutsiev's movie Zastava Ilyicha.
7. La Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg programme booklet, Novembre 2011, edited by Claude Bertemes. Another film archive programme booklet worth reading in its own right, this one especially for the Regards sur le cinéma israélien notes. Other features include: Tous les genres du cinéma; Filmreakter Double Feature (Twin Tales of Terror and Madness); Voir Naples et sourire; Citizen Lumet; Cinema Paradiso for children.
8. Paul Klimpel (ed.): Bewegte Bilder - starres Recht? [Moving Images - Rigid Rights?], 2011. New openings in matters or rights regarding film heritage. Even I contributed an article on the topic of the exceptions to the droit d'auteur (as we say in Europe) / fair use (as they say in the US).

Immortals 3D

2011-11-12T12:30:00.102+02:00

Immortals / Immortals. US © 2011 War of the Gods, LLC. P: Mark Canton, Ryan Cavanaugh, Gianni Nunnari. D: Tarsem Singh. DP: Brendan Galvin. PD: Tom Foden. AD: Michele Laliberte. Art dept: big. Cost: Eiko Ishioka. Makeup dept: big. Special FX team: big. Visual FX team: really massive. Stunt team: large. M: Trevor Morris. S: Paul Timothy Carden, David Evans, Mandell Winter. Sound dept: big. ED: Wyatt Jones, Stuart Levy. Casting: Andrea Kenyon, Joseph Middleton, Randi Wells. Cast: Henry Cavill (Theseus), Mickey Rourke (King Hyperion), Stephen Dorff (Stavros), Freida Pinto (Phaedra), Luke Evans (Zeus), John Hurt (Old Man), Joseph Morgan (Lysander), Anne Day-Jones (Aethra), Greg Bryk (The Monk), Alan Van Sprang (Dareios), Peter Stebbings (Helios), Daniel Sharman (Aries), Isabel Lucas (Athena), Kellan Lutz (Poseidon), Steve Byers (Heracles), Stephen McHattie (Cassander). 110 min. Released in Finland by Nordisk Film with Finnish / Swedish subtitles. 2K DCP viewed in XpanD 3D at Tennispalatsi 3, Helsinki, 12 Nov 2011 (weekend of Finnish premiere).

Technical specs (IMDb): Camera: Panavision Genesis HD Camera - Original format: HDCAM - Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), HDCAM SR (1080p/24) (source format) - Printed film format: D-Cinema (also 3-D version) - Aspect ratio: 1.85:1.

Official synopsis: "Visionary director Tarsem Singh and producers Gianni Nunnari (300), Mark Canton (300), and Ryan Kavanaugh (The Fighter) unleash an epic tale of treachery, vengeance and destiny in Immortals, a stylish and spectacular 3-D action adventure. As a power-mad king razes ancient Greece and threatens to destroy mankind, a heroic young villager rises up against him in a thrilling quest as timeless as it is powerful."

"The brutal and bloodthirsty King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and his murderous army are rampaging across Greece, demolishing everything in their wake with ruthless efficiency. Village after village falls to Hyperion's legions and each victory takes him one step closer to his goal: unleashing the power of the sleeping Titans to vanquish both the Gods of Olympus and all of humankind."

"It seems nothing will stop the evil king’s mission to become the undisputed master of the world, until a stonemason named Theseus (Henry Cavill) vows to avenge the death of his mother in one of Hyperion’s raids. When Theseus meets the Sibylline Oracle, Phaedra (Freida Pinto), her disturbing visions of the young man’s future convince her that he is the key to stopping the destruction. With her help, Theseus assembles a small band of followers and embraces his destiny in a final desperate battle for the future of humanity."

Tarsem is an image-driven film-maker, a modern artist who keeps developing the tableau style and the Symbolist approach to the cinema which flourished before WWI, Maurice Tourneur and Yevgeni Bauer among its most talented artists. Influenced by Sergei Paradjanov, Tarsem's cinema has also affinities with the work of Yuri Ilyenko and certain visual aspects of Andrei Tarkovsky. The Cell and The Fall were movies strong with vision and slight with narrative. Immortals has a strong narrative with superficial connections with Greek mythology, but actually it is an original story, and it is only confusing to think about the mythic Theseus here. I feel that the story is only apparently strong and powerful tableaux are still the true raison d'être. The gods at Mount Olympos, the appearance of the virgin oracles in their red robes, certain psychedelic visions, and the tsunami caused by Poseidon are memorable Tarsem tableaux.

Immortals is among other things an explicit movie about brutal, sadistic violence, a splatter movie. I have become bored with splatter ever since I saw the Eugène-Louis Doyen brain surgery movies from a hundred years ago in Bologna's Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2004. I think it is worthwhile to have that experience, but it is not something I look forward to any more. Splatter is something I've seen already.

The 3D here is boldly anti-realistic, psychedelic, and vertiginous. There is nothing wrong with the 3D technically but I often removed my glasses to enjoy a brighter image with full colours, including Tarsem's signature reds. Five years ago The Fall was based on a 4K transfer so successfully that such a digital critic as myself did not find anything to complain. This 2K presentation looked shabbier, perhaps also because of the 3D.

Friends with Benefits

2011-11-11T15:45:00.004+02:00

Vain seksiä / Bara sex. US © 2011 Screen Gems, Inc.P: Liz Glotzer, Will Gluck, Martin Shafer, Janet Zucker, Jerry Zucker. D: Will Gluck. SC: Keith Merryman, David A. Newman, Will Gluck - story: Harley Peyton, Keith Merryman, David A. Newman. DP: Michael Grady. PD: Marcia Hinds. AD: Bo Johnson. Set dec: Cindy Coburn, Alyssa Winter. Cost: Renee Ehrlich Kalfus. Makeup: Tracy Manzo. S: Jon Wakeham. ED: Tia Nolan. Casting: Lisa Miller Katz. Loc: New York, Los Angeles. Cast: Justin Timberlake (Dylan), Mila Kunis (Jamie), Patricia Clarkson (Lorna), Jenna Elfman (Annie), Bryan Greenberg (Parker), Richard Jenkins (Mr. Harper), Woody Harrelson (Tommy), Shaun White (himself). Released in Finland by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Finland with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Timo Porri / Saliven Gustavson. 2K DCP viewed at Tennispalatsi 4, Helsinki, 11 Nov 2011.

Official synopsis: "Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it's going to be easy to add the simple act of sex to their friendship, despite what Hollywood romantic comedies would have them believe. They soon discover however that getting physical really does always lead to complications."

Jamie the NY based executive recruiter impresses the LA based internet art director Dylan with her introduction to New York so profoundly that she not only manages to have him recruited but they also become friends. So good friends that because they are both single they decide on non-committed sex.

Nobody would expect Jamie and Dylan to succeed, and the interest of the movie is not in the what but in the how. In the beginning my impression was that the film-makers try to hard, the dialogue is too clever, the soundtrack is too busy, and the characters are too shallow. What I liked: (1) the motif of Jamie and Dylan introducing each other their mountain top (the rooftop of a NY skyskraper with a view to the stars; the Hollywood sign with access forbidden), (2) the flash mob theme: Jamie converts Dylan with the flash mob experience in the beginning and Dylan charms Jamie with a flash mob in the conclusion, (3) the solemn oath to keep the sex relationship non-committed with a hand on an i-Pad electric Bible app which is malfunctioning, (4) Jamie is hidden in Dylan's little nephew's magician's chest expecting to be sawed in half when she overhears Dylan's fatal confession to his sister that he does not love Jamie, (5) "with friends like that who needs friends", (6) "I am damaged". - "So am I", (7) the duelling finger movements on a tablet computer as the basis of the end credits design, (8) a running gag is a corny romantic comedy invented for this movie which the couple keep referring to, and after the credits we see its "spoiled scenes" (because everybody had left the cinema long ago I was the only one who saw them).

Richard Jenkins brings an aspect of gravity as Dylan's father suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Patricia Clarkson gives a caricature MILF performance as Jamie's mother living in terminal non-commitment. Dylan is not a dream prince: he suffers from a fear of heights and from a serious disability with numbers. The running gag with "gay Harry Potter" I did not get.

The visual quality of the 2K DCP is fine except in nature scenes which look denatured.

The soundtrack (the i-Tunes list version from the movie's website) is beyond the jump break:
1 Magic Carpet Ride / Steppenwolf
2 L.O.V. / Fitz and The Tantrums
3 Booty Call / G. Love and Special Sauce
4 New York, New York / Ray Quinn
5 Boys Don't Cry / Grant Lee Phillips
6 Such a Colorful World/ Max & Simon
7 Satellite / Peter Conway
8 Let a Woman Be a Woman ... / Dyke & The Blazers
9 At the Window / Double 0 Zero
10 Love's Gonna Getcha / Tal & Acacia
11 Jump / Kris Kross
12 This Too Shall Pass / Rogue Wave
13 Tightrope / Janelle Monáe
14 Take a Bow / Greg Laswell
15 Closing Time / Semisonic

Ikuisesti sinun / Forever Yours

2011-11-11T13:30:00.116+02:00

För evigt din. FI © 2011 Avanton Productions. P: Sonja Lindén. D+SC: Mia Halme. DP: Peter Flinckenberg; Anssi Leino. S: Kirka Sainio. ED: Samu Heikkilä. Production manager: Mina Laamo. 79 min. Distributed by Pirkanmaan Elokuvakeskus with Swedish subtitles by Jani Kyllönen. 2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 6, Helsinki, 11 Nov 2011 (day of premiere).

From the film's website: "Forever Yours is a film about children who have been taken into custody. Through the children, their biological parents and foster parents, the film depicts love in everyday life. The film describes the entire foster care process: a child being brought into a shelter home, a teenager's everyday life in a foster family, and siblings preparing to return to their biological mother, after five years in a foster family."

"Forever Yours explores the invisible bond between a child and a biological parent. Even when a child is taken into custody, the yearning for closeness to the biological parents and need for their approval never seems to disappear. This longing is a form of loneliness that the foster parents struggle to overcome at the end of their tether."

Remarks of the director: "How much love is enough for a child? Are a warm embrace, food and clean clothes enough? Can anyone replace the love of a biological parent? Is it more important to love than to carry a responsibility? I don't know the answers."

"With this account of children taken into custody and their closest circle my aim is to mitigate shame. All the biological parents involved are not heavy duty drug addicts. Increasingly they may be lonely mothers suffering from depression. They could be anyone of us."

"I am not portraying foster parents as heroes. Many of them have been taken by surprise by the challenges involved. Many solicit social security and get disappointed. Some get totally exhausted."

"The breakdown of the relationship between a child and a parent and the yearning to be loved seem to be repeated from one generation to another. Many a parent of a child taken into custody is experienced the same longing for belonging. I presume that the breakdown of the biological bond between a child and a parent can never be completely repaired, but an atmosphere of safety and a chance to be accepted can alleviate the pain. In my movie I want to picture humanity, the difficulty of loving and the necessity of being loved." (The director's remarks, translation mine.)

A documentary film about children and their guardians in overwhelming circumstances. The film itself is facing the overwhelming: situations utterly sensitive, intimate, and explosive. Children abandoned and rescued, sometimes in an atmosphere totally thankless to the guardians, sometimes in a neo-family full of positive emotion and mutual affection. An important film on big themes. I keep wondering about definitions of documentary and role-playing. Today people are more prepared to expose themselves and play themselves in front of the camera in this new world of reality media. Visually Forever Yours is a basic record which is fine for the subject. There is no problem with the 2K DCP in faces and interiors, but nature looks denatured.

Zastava Ilyicha / [Ilyich's Gate]

2011-11-10T17:00:00.164+02:00

Застава Ильича / Zastava Iljitsha / [Iljitshin vartio] [The original version, unreleased at the time and first released during glasnost. The release version was called Mne dvadtsat let / Мне двадцать лет / I Am Twenty / Olen 20-vuotias / Jag är 20 åring]. SU 1962 / 1988 / 1990. PC: Kinostudija imeni Gorkogo, this 1990 reconstruction by Mosfilm. D: Marlen Khutsiev. SC: Marlen Khutsiev, Gennadi Shpalikov. DP: Margarita Pilihina - b&w - 1,37:1. AD: I. Zaharova. Cost: K. Rusanova. M: Nikolai Sidelnikov. "Sentimentalnyi marsh" perf. Bulat Okudzhava. "Past One O'Clock" by Vladimir Mayakovsky. "Solovi" ("Nightingales") by Mikhail Dudin. S: Aleksandr Izbutski. Loc: Moscow, 1961. The exhibition of modern art: Tretyakov Gallery. Cast: Valentin Popov (Sergei), Nikolai Gubenko (Kolya), Stanislav Ljubshin (Slava), Marianna Vertinskaja (Anja), Zinaida Zinovjeva (Olga Mihailovna Zhuravljova), S. Starikova (Vera Zhuravljova), Lev Prygunov (Sergei's father, ensign Aleksandr Zhuravljov), Lev Zolotukhin (Anya's father) Svetlana Svetslitshnaja (Sveta), Pjotr Shtsherbakov (Tshernousov), Andrei Tarkovski, Andrei Kontshalovski, Natalja Rjazantseva, Pavel Finn, Olga Gobzeva, Oleg Vidov (youngsters at the party). The poets: Yevgeni Yevtushenko, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Rimma Kazakova, Boris Slutsky, Mikhail Svetlov, Bulat Okudzhava. 197 min. A Gosfilmofond print with e-subtitles in Finnish by Tuulia Lehtonen viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Russian Cinema), 10 Oct 2011.

This version was 197 min, a duration longer than mentioned in any source (they give durations of 175 min, 189 min, etc.). Lauri Piispa's screener dvd is of the same version, 190 min at 25 fps.

Revisited Marlen Khutsiev's masterpiece in the director's cut. I was previously familiar with a three-hour cut of the I Am Twenty version.

One of the most remarkable Russian films of all times. This is the story of three young 20-something friends in Moscow in 1961, when "the times they were a-changing" even in Russia. Sergei has been demobilized from the military service; Slava has become a young father; Kolya is interested in chasing girls. They all have blue collar jobs. They have been friends since 15 years, since childhood.

Unintentionally the film-makers caught a documentary record of the highest point of the thaw era, when freedom of expression was increasing. The poets' evening (see the name of the poets above) is stunning. The extraordinary record of contemporary poets reciting and singing their poems to a spellbound audience can be compared with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen documentaries that were made some years later. There is a warmth of a common spirit blending with the pursuit of freedom.

"20 years" is a significant number. The year 1961 is reflected to the year 1941, the fatal 22th of June. This is a fatherless generation: 27 million died in the war, and many perished during Stalin's great terror (the year 1937 is mentioned as a marker). Some 20 before there had been the Civil War. And in 1961 the communist party (never mentioned in the movie, not even in the first of May parade) predicted that in 20 years the country would reach communism.

There is this epic background of the tragedy of history in the movie which is also in many ways a nouvelle vague and direct cinema style account of the private life of three young men. There are ominous encounters. Sergei meets Anya's father; Lev Zolotukhin gives a memorable performance as a Stalin-era apparachnik survivor. Kolya's boss would like him to become an informer, which request offends Kolya profoundly. Anya's friends, "the golden youth", don't take anything seriously (even Andrei Tarkovsky gets to play a shallow friend of Anya's). They will become the future apparatchniki.
There is a sense of joy and vitality in the movie, a feeling of being alive in 1961, and at the same time a sense gravity about the history and the future. In 1962 this movie and Solzhenitsyn's debut novel were still possible, but the thaw era was coming to an end, and Zastava Ilyicha was one of the casualties, shelved, cut and changed. The I Am Twenty version is not bad, but this is the real deal. Thanks, Lauri, for insisting on this version.

The thaw ended, and the country experienced a long era of stagnation until Brezhnev's death in 1982 (another 20-year period). Glasnost was a kind of continuation to the thaw, much too late. Zastava Ilyicha is a reminder of an alternative possibility to history: these youngsters were not cold warriors, but they were not strong enough to stop what happened.

This only film print of the director's cut is often fine, sometimes with a duped quality, and unfortunately our current provisional subtitling arrangement cast a light on the lower part of the image.

The lyrics to Bulat Okudzhava's "Sentimental March" are beyond the jump break:
I don't know Russian but with an internet translator one can get a rough idea.

Надежда, я вернусь тогда,
когда трубач отбой сыграет,
когда трубу к губам приблизит
и острый локоть отведет.
Надежда, я останусь цел:
не для меня земля сырая,
а для меня - твои тревоги
и добрый мир твоих забот.

Но если целый век пройдет
и ты надеяться устанешь,
надежда, если надо мною
смерть распахнет свои крыла,
ты прикажи,пускай тогда
трубач израненный привстанет,
чтобы последняя граната
меня прикончить не смогла.

Но если вдруг когда-нибудь
мне уберечься не удастся,
какое новое сраженье
ни покачнуло б шар земной,
я все равно паду на той,
на той далекой, на гражданской,
и комиссары в пыльных шлемах
склонятся молча надо мной.

Books on my nightstand this week

2011-11-06T21:17:00.006+02:00

Besides some books that I still haven't finished reading and that I mentioned a week ago:
1. Antti Tuuri: Ikitie [Eternal Road], 2011. A historical novel written in a matter-of-fact style, with a sense of epic grandeur. Set in 1930-1938, it starts in Kauhava, Pohjanmaa, where the liberal leftist protagonist is taken to a ride at night by vigilantes of the extreme right. Barely surviving an assassination attempt he escapes into Soviet Karelia where he has to endure the Great Terror of the 1930s with its genocidal massacres of Karelian Finns. Barely surviving again he escapes back to Finland where the vigilantist movement of the extreme right has been outlawed. From the world of the cinema this shattering novel reminds me of Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition, Part III. Thanks to Jukka Kemppinen for recommending this remarkable novel in his blog this week. Kemppinen remarks that Tuuri has also been a translator of Icelandic sagas. But the sober and rugged style is Tuuri's own. From my own family tradition not far from Kauhava I know that disgust was felt towards the vigilantes whose action was contrary to the tradition of freedom in Pohjanmaa, the cradle of free speech. The Enlightenment philosopher - and Lutheran minister - Anders Chydenius was the father of the world's first legislation of free speech in 1766. He also defended the freedom of religion and the freedom of enterprise before Adam Smith.
2. Jari Sedergren and Ilkka Kippola: Dokumentin ytimessä. Suomalaisen dokumentti- ja lyhytelokuvan historia 1904-1944 [In the Core of the Documentary. The History of the Finnish Documentary and Short Film 1904-1944], 2009. There have been about ten books on the documentary film in Finnish during the last decade, but this is the most significant, a foundation work with an abundance of original research. Besides its explicit subject-matter it offers also new insight in the founding of Finnish film companies more generally, the birth of the sound film in Finland, the construction of the image of the newly independent nation, the significant achievements in anthropology, and the various stages of the WWII propaganda.
3. Giovanni Garbini: Maailmantaide: Muinainen maailma (Mesopotamian, Egyptin ja muiden Lähi-idän maiden taide) (Landmarks of the World's Art: The Ancient World [Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Middle East], 1966, in Finnish in 1968. I continue revisiting this favourite book series from my childhood. The emergence of high culture in the most ancient urban societies in the river valleys of the Middle East, where architecture starts, writing systems are born, and history begins. There is archaic power in the images the oldest of which are from 8000 years ago.
4. Parnasso 6/2011, the leading Finnish literary magazine: Martti Anhava's essay on the writer Antti Hyry on his 80th anniversary, Antti Nylen's interview on his new translation of Les Fleurs du mal, and a translation of Thomas Mann's short story Das Wunderkind (The Child Prodigy).

Brassed Off presented by Neil Hardwick

2011-11-06T17:45:00.003+02:00

Neil Hardwick presented Brassed Off (GB/US 1996, D+SC: Mark Herman, starring Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald, and Ewan McGregor), his personal favourite film, in our Director's Choice: The Film of the Month series at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 6 Nov 2011.

Hardwick, born in 1948 in Teversal near Nottingham, moved to Finland in 1969 and has become a prominent figure in Finnish television, literature, theatre, and the cinema.

Hardwick told us about the background of Brassed Off: the destruction of the British mining industry during the reign of Margaret Thatcher. Brass bands of high artistic quality were prominent in mining towns. Hardwick, himself, was born to family with deep roots in an old mining community. He told the place has become almost unrecognizable after the closing of the mine: nothing reveals that there has ever been a coalmine there. Brassed Off was shot on location in Yorkshire with actual brass band veterans.

I have also always liked Brassed Off, even more than The Full Monty, Billy Elliot, and Bend It Like Beckham, with which it has similarities, but the sense of gravity in Brassed Off is of a different order.

We screened a vintage Finnish release print, and it was a pleasure to sample the juicy photochemical flavour of the cinematography. I revisited the beginning until their first rehearsal with the Aranjuez Concerto (dubbed "Orange Juice Concerto" by some of them), the double agent Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) upsetting the macho attitudes of the miners with her wonderful flugelhorn playing. This print has been struck from a source not too far removed from the negative.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

2011-11-05T11:15:00.144+02:00

Tintin seikkailut: Yksisarvisen salaisuus / Tintins äventyr: Enhörningens hemlighet. US / NZ © 2011 Paramount Pictures. P: Peter Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg. D: Steven Spielberg. SC: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish - based on the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. DP: Janusz Kaminski. AD: Andrew L. Jones. Cost: Lesley Burkes-Harding. Makeup: Tegan Taylor. Visual FX (Weta Digital): Matt Aitken, Scott E. Anderson. AN dept: huge. M: John Williams. "Ah! Je veux vivre" (Charles Gounod) - Bianca Castafiore's aria. S: Brent Burge, Chris Ward. ED: Michael Kahn. Casting: Scot Boland, Victoria Burrows, Jina Jay. Models and voice talent for the digitally animated characters: Jamie Bell (Tintin), Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock), Daniel Craig (Ivanovich Sakharine / Red Rackham), Simon Pegg (Inspector Thompson), Nick Frost (Inspector Thomson), Gad Elmaleh (Sheik Omar Ben Salaad), Kim Stengel (Bianca Castafiore), Enn Reitel (Mr. Crabtree / Nestor), Toby Jones (Aristides Silk, the pickpocket), Tony Curran (Ltn. Delacourt). 99 min. Released in Finland by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Finland in a Finnish-dubbed version and an original version with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Marko Hartama / Saliven Gustavson. 2K DCP in XpanD 3D viewed at Tennispalatsi 1, Helsinki (weekend of Finnish premiere), 5 Nov 2011.

Technical specs from IMDb: Camera: Canon 5D H4.1, Panavision Cameras and Lenses - Laboratory: DeLuxe - Original format: Digital - Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), Digital (source format) - Printed film format: 35 mm (anamorphic), 70 mm (horizontal) (IMAX DMR blow-up) (dual-strip 3-D) (Kodak Vision 2383), D-Cinema - Aspect ratio: 1.44 : 1 (IMAX 3-D version), 2.35:1.

Reading Tintin comic books belongs to my fondest childhood memories. Four hard-cover albums were published into Finnish in 1961-1962, including the ones that are the most important basis for this movie, Le Secret de la Licorne (1943), and Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge (1944). The really big success of Tintin in Finland started first during the 1970s when the rest of the albums were finally translated, too, so as a child in the 1960s reading other Tintin books was an incentive to even to try to read them in French and other languages with the help of a dictionary. I even liked the live-action movie Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d'Or (1961) which caught something of the true Hergé spirit and style: a fairy-tale adventure set in the real world.

A deep bow to Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson for this ambitious experiment with a new kind of animation. The production is first class and will become a deserved success. My favourite sequence is the opening credit sequence with stylized silhouette animation. Watching the movie I tried to reflect on the secret of the Hergé magic: very limited drawing in the human faces, sometimes almost photorealistic accuracy in the milieux, outlandish fantasy in the adventure plots, eccentric characters, a great sense of humour. The Tintin - Haddock - Milou trio is essential. Tintin is a boy scout. Haddock is a temperamental, cursing, alcoholic captain, but with a healthy sense of self-respect. Milou the dog is small but fearless, and it can sense what others cannot and go where others cannot go. Wit is of the essence. That essence I tried hard to find in this movie. The digi-animated Tintin is uncanny, a homunculus like the character played by Haley Joel Osment in A.I. I find this Tintin impossible to relate to, and in the Hergé books Tintin is a tabula rasa, too, only defined by his action. But in this movie I sense something slightly monstrous. This balance of animation and photorealism does not work for me.

No problem with the 3D, but the image is not particularly brilliant or sharp, and the feeling of sunshine that even a battered print of Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d'Or emits is missing. There are, however, splendid new 3D effects in the picture: optical effects seen through glasses and magnifying devices, for instance. There are other subtle inventions in making the depth of space come alive.

A list of the talent of the Finnish voice version is beyond the jump break:
SUOMENKIELISET ÄÄNET:

TINTTI / SAMUEL HARJANNE
ARCHIBALD HADDOCK / JARMO KOSKI
DUPOND / SANTERI KINNUNEN
DUPONT / JUKKA LAAKSONEN
SAKARIN / ANTTI JAAKOLA
BARNARD / HEIKKI SANKARI
BIANCA CASTAFIORE / JOHANNA RUSANEN-KARTANO
HERRA CRABTREE / MARKKU HUHTAMO
ARISTEIDES SELLISTINEN / TEIJO ELORANTA
SHEIKKI OMAR BEN SALAAD / TIDJAN BA

MUUT ÄÄNET:
PANU VAUHKONEN
TEUVO MATALA
MATTI ONNISMAA
AKU LAITINEN
PETRI HANTTU
JUHANI RAJALIN
TERO KOPONEN
ANTTI LJ PÄÄKKÖNEN
CARL-KRISTIAN RUNDMAN
MIKAEL EKLUND
MARJA PACKALEN
MARKUS BÄCKMAN

DIALOGIN KÄÄNNÖS MARKO HARTAMA / SDI MEDIA
DIALOGIN OHJAUS CARLA RINDELL
ÄÄNITYS KARI STARCK
TUOTANTOKOORDINAATTORI CAROLINA HEINONEN
STUDIO SDI MEDIA A/S, FINNISH BRANCH
TUOTTAJA SDI MEDIA A/S