Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation / Rīgas vēstures un kuģniecības muzejs (permanent exhibition

Unknown artist: Port of Riga. Second half of the 17th century. At the time Riga was under the rule of the king of Sweden. Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation / Rīgas vēstures un kuģniecības muzejs. 

Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation / Rīgas vēstures un kuģniecības muzejs

Palasta iela 4 - Riga - Latvija

Visited on 13 July 2024

Based on a private collection by Nikolaus von Himsel and launched in 1773, Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation is one of the oldest museums in Europe. What is now called Riga has been an important hub for millennia, thanks to the sheltered harbour by the river Daugava which during the Viking era was instrumental in the trade with the Byzantium, via the Dvina-Dnieper route.

The artefacts date back to around 9000 BC, the end of the last glacial period. There are tools from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. We witness the times of the resistance to Christianisation, the Livonian Crusade, the founding of Riga in 1201, and the reign of the Hanseatic League. Because of its strategic location, Riga was a focus of combats between the Teutonic Order and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the Great Northern War, the Swedish Empire crumbled and the Russian Empire was born under Peter the Great. In 1710 Riga became a Russian city. The first independence started in 1918 after the Russian Revolution and the First World War, until 1940. This ends the period covered by the fascinating and beautiful displays of the Riga history museum.

Scale model of a frigate. Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation / Rīgas vēstures un kuģniecības muzejs.

Among the special exhibitions there is a fabulous Silver Cabinet and an impressive Navigation Exhibition - including beautifully crafted scale models from Viking ships till modern vessels. There are some 400 exhibits on display. Also the development of the Latvian ports of Riga, Ventspils and Liepaja is documented. This section is a joy to behold for admirers of arts and crafts.

The Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn: permanent and topical exhibitions

Eesti Kunstimuuseum Kumu. The Kumu Art Museum is situated on the limestone cliff between Kadriorg Park and the Lasnamäe district. Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1, 10127 Tallinn. The building opened its doors to the public on 18 February 2006. Architect: Pekka Vapaavuori.

Eesti Kunstimuuseum Kumu. The Kumu Art Museum 

Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1, 10127 Tallinn

Visited on 12 July 2024

I have visited Kumu before and admired it as a building of inspiration, a space for rich associations with plenty of room to breathe. Today I visited the permanent exhibitions of the Art Museum of Estonia for the first time. They are on display on the third and the fourth floors. It was a fabulous day.

    Friedrich Hartmann Barisien, Christian Gottlieb Welté: Põltsamaa lossi talvine vaade / Põltsamaa Palace at Winter (1783). Oil on canvas. 210,5 x 160. Eesti Kunstimuuseum EKM j 9257 M 3700.

The Third Floor houses "Landscapes of Identity: Estonian Art 1700-1945". We are welcomed by distinguished busts of Estonian cultural figures such as Lydia Koidula sculpted by August Weizenberg. Over the centuries, Estonian visual arts reflect the general outlines of continental trends, but peculiar landscapes, seascapes, faces, costumes, buildings, climates, seasons and qualities of light and air give it all an original distinction. From the Great Northern War to the end of the Second World War we experience the persistence of the Estonian spirit against the Swedish Empire of King Charles XII, the rise of Russia since Peter the Great, the German landlords, the Nazi Occupation and the Soviet Occupation. There is much to discover. Innovative solutions of hanging break the routine. There is an excursion in the depiction of sex work. There is a portrait room where the quantity of the portraits transforms into quality - and into an act of installation art / conceptual art. Similarly, and even more so, in a bust room developed by Villu Jaanisoo around Tamara Ditman's bust The Seagull, with dozens of important figures ranging from Peter the Great to V. I. Lenin. I am also impressed by the Black Room where selected paintings glow with rare illumination - paintings such as Ernst Hermann Schlihting's Toolse varemed / Toolse Castle Ruins (n.d.). 

Aili Vint: Mees merd kuulamas / Man Listening to the Sea (1972). Oil on canvas. 160 x 98 cm. Eesti Kunstimuuseum EKM j 15105 M 4599.

The Fourth Floor exhibition is called "Conflicts and Adaptations: Estonian Art of the Soviet Era (1940-1991)". The curator is Anu Allas working with an inspired team, and they have also written an excellent guidebook, which is a true keepsake. Estonian art reflected the same periods as Soviet art in general: Stalin - Thaw - Stagnation - and Glasnost. But because Estonia was the most Western outpost of the USSR, liberty was reflected more openly. I learn about the image of power and the power of the image. I learn about inner exile. I learn about trauma in secret art such as Olga Terri's Prisoner (1949) and Fear (1952). I learn about Stalinist Impressionism - a paradox, because Stalinist art was tendency art, and impressionism, whose 150th anniversary we celebrate this year, was against tendency and even against big subjects in general, art for art's sake. After 1956, modernism was tolerated within limits, and even abstraction, when it was understood in a context of architecture and design. Surrealism, whose centenary we celebrate this year, flourished in the underground circle of Ulo Sooster in Tartu. A work like Ilmar Malin's Fading Sun (1968) was possible to register as surrealist art, abstract art, figurative art or symbolic art. It is striking to notice how the international trends of 1960s modern art found expressions in Estonia. Pop Art was an ambiguous reaction to consumer society - a phenomenont absent from Estonia. But here we have Estonian Pop Art - an original and different reflection. We have also psychedelia, collages, assemblages, records of performances, media art, happenings, self-referential art, found photographs and environment art. The individual spirit was highlighted against the collectivist agenda. Socialist realism was never abandoned, but artists transcended it via hyperrealism.

Jevgeni Zolotko: an installation of gravestones with names erased in the exhibition The Secret of Adam (2024).

The Fifth Floor is dedicated to a monograph exhibition of Jevgeni Zolotko (born 1983) called The Secret of Adam.

Kumu: "Jevgeni Zolotko’s large solo exhibition in the Kumu Art Museum displays some of the earlier chapters of his creative legacy and creates new ones. The Secret of Adam is an exhibition that consists of various works, and constitutes his most massive work thus far, synthesising recurrent subjects and images in his oeuvre. Zolotko, who entered the art scene in the late 2000s, is one of the most idiosyncratic contemporary artists in Estonia. Instead of dealing with the topical and political, the context of his art is Western cultural history in the broadest sense, embracing antiquity, the Bible, belles-lettres, philosophy and folklore. His works deal with human existence: life, death, loneliness, silence and decay, as well as hope."

Curator Triin Tulgiste-Toss (1987–2024) about the exhibition: 

"While it is often possible to point out shifts in artists’ choices of subject matter or emphasis over time, Zolotko’s art can be compared to a tower: every new work of art grows out of the previous one, specifying and elaborating on what has been said. The Secret of Adam combines previously used elements and those that have been developed further with completely new ones, returning to the central issue in Zolotko’s art: the question of the relationship between things and language."

"It seems like the artist is finally providing us with a clear answer. Words are as old as the first human being and inseparable from his nature, serving in addition to the physical body as a way of communicating with the world and understanding it. The realisation that we need both the physical and language to cope in society becomes evident."

"According to Zolotko, his works are not autobiographical, and his main interest in art is to deal with universal topics. Considering the emotional effects of his works and their perceptiveness, one gets the sense, however, that only a person whose works emanate from personal experience and acknowledgement, not theoretical ideas, can say something like that."

"The purpose of Zolotko’s works has never been to generate intellectual reflection but to induce recognition. You may approach them like a detective trying to find the clues hidden in the installations, but by doing so you will miss something intrinsic. Zolotko’s works are meant to be inside of, like being in nature, and it seems that the sole purpose of the artist is to make sure that the viewer does not feel alone during these moments." (Kumu)

This exhibition is not only monumental but possesses true magnificence and gravity. I am thinking about Anselm Kiefer, now topical also because of Wim Wenders's remarkable movie. The Jevgeni Zolotko exhibition consists of sculptures, images, photographs, paintings, assemblages, objects and videos. It is a one-man adventure in the multitude of contemporary art. The most impressive entry for me is a vast room full of gravestones with names erased. An original and haunting image about the evanescence of memory.

Elisàr von Kupffer (1872-1942): Uus liit / The New Covenant (1916). The central figure is an auto-portrait of the artist himself. Elisarioni keskus, Minusio omavalitsus.

In the nooks and crannies of the Third Floor we can discover a very special exhibition: “Elisarion. Elisàr von Kupffer and Jaanus Samma”. "Come if you dare", we would have said in the 1980s about these flamboyant displays of queer pride created a hundred years ago. They are also idyllic celebrations of gay happiness. Irresistible.

Kumu: "This exhibition brings together the works of the Baltic-German artist Elisàr von Kupffer (1872–1942) and the Estonian artist Jaanus Samma (b. 1982). Elisàr von Kupffer, also known as Elisarion, was a colourful personality, versatile creator and something of a visionary. He was passionate about painting, literature, art history and philosophy. He was also one of the founders of the neo-religious movement Clarism (German klar “clear”).Today, Kupffer is recognised as a pioneer who promoted tolerance for people of different sexual orientations."

"In the exhibition, Elisàr von Kupffer’s homoerotic paintings, influenced by ancient and Renaissance art, are in dialogue with contemporary works by Jaanus Samma, who explores the sexuality of Estonian peasants and queer folk art. His works highlight the relationship between Estonian peasants and the German-speaking elite: a fusion of fear, hostility and desire, and a juxtaposition of the high and the low."

"Jaanus Samma has created a new video work for the exhibition, The Clear World of the Blissful. Also on display is Karl Joonas Alamaa’s installation Limited Fun."

Richard Wagner: Lohengrin (2024 Savonlinna Opera Festival)

Richard Wagner: Lohengrin, Savonlinna Opera Festival, 3 July 2024. Photo: Jussi Silvennoinen.

Richard Wagner: Lohengrin, Savonlinna Opera Festival, 3 July 2024. Sinéad Campbell Wallace, Karita Mattila, Timo Riihonen, Lucio Gallo & Choir. Photo: Jussi Silvennoinen.

Olavinlinna, 2 October 2023. Photo: Savonlinna Opera Festival.

THE OPERA

    Lohengrin : Romantische Oper in drei Aufzügen

    DE 1850 [Weimar, Thüringen, Königreich Preussen]. Musik und Libretto: Richard Wagner. Durchkomponiert. Originalsprache: Deutsch. Literarische Vorlage: Wolfram von Eschenbach: Parzival (1200-1210). Uraufführung: 28 August 1850 - Grossherzogliches Hoftheater - in Weimar - unter der Leitung von Franz Liszt.

    Figuren: Heinrich der Vogler, deutscher König - Lohengrin - Elsa von Brabant - Friedrich von Telramund, brabantischer Graf - Ortrud, seine Gemäldin - Der Heerrufer des Königs - Vier brabantische Edle - Vier Edelknaben - Vier Kammerfrauen - Sächsische und thüringische Grafen und Edle, brabantische Grafen und Edle, Edelfrauen, Edelknaben, Mannen, Frauen, Knechte.

    Die Handlung spielt in Antwerpen in der 1. Hälfte des 10. Jahrhunderts

SAVONLINNA OPERA FESTIVAL TEAM

Conductor / Stephan Zilias

Director / Roman Hovenbitzer

Set designer / Hermann Feuchter

Costume designer / Hank Irwin Kittel

Lighting designer / Wolfgang Göbbel 

Video designer / Andreas J. Etter 

Choreographer / Janne Geest

Chorus master / Jan Schweiger

Savonlinna Opera Festival Choir

Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra

Language / German

Surtitles / Finnish and English

Duration : approx. 4 hrs 30 min, 2 intervals

CAST

TUOMAS KATAJALA / LOHENGRIN

KARITA MATTILA / ORTRUD

SINÉAD CAMPBELL WALLACE / ELSA

LUCIO GALLO / FRIEDRICH VON TELRAMUND

TIMO RIIHONEN / HEINRICH DER VOGLER

KRISTIAN LINDROOS / THE KING’S HERALD

PERFORMANCES AT OLAVINLINNA CASTLE

Olavinkatu 27 ; 57130 Savonlinna ; Finland

Capacity: 2.264 seats

5.7.2024 - 9.7.2024 - 12.7.2024 - 15.7.2024 - 18.7.2024

Visited on Friday, 5 July 2024

Savonlinna Opera Festival introduction: " Finally – here is Karita Mattila’s debut at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. She is a cunning sorceress and deep-voiced plotter in Wagner’s opulent Lohengrin. And what a Finnish celebration the evening will be, with Tuomas Katajala, the most internationally successful Finnish tenor of today, singing the title role. "

‘ Only one Finnish star can fill Olavinlinna alone. ’

Helsingin Sanomat about Karita Mattila’s concert, 15 July 2012 

" Wagner’s mythical work of art is a fairy tale about the relationship between utopia and reality. ‘It is a child’s dream of an intact, reconciled world. The world has dreamed of this hundreds of times and keeps dreaming of it again and again. The work is about this human longing – and the painful realization that it can never come true’, says director Roman Hovenbitzer. "

" Right from the intense prelude, Lohengrin grips the listener. There’s a rumble of thunder in the castle walls. The music is highly charged, even hypnotic. With Wagner, time loses its meaning. When the secrets are revealed and the performance ends, you walk out of Olavinlinna into the summer night and ask yourself what really happened. "

‘ There is an empire on the verge of collapse, a people waiting for its saviour, and Lohengrin, the saviour. There is love, loyalty and Wagner’s medieval world of myths. ’ – Director Roman Hovenbitzer 

AA: The setting, Olavinlinna castle, provides a magnificent context. The building was launched around 1475 by the Kalmar Union (1397-1523), in what proved to be the last stage of this union of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with Copenhagen as its de facto capital. The monarch then was the Danish King Christian I, followed by his son Hans. The construction was launched by Erik Axelsson Tott, the regent of Sweden.

The Kalmar Union had been established as a counterforce to the Hanseatic League, but by now new powers were gaining prominence. Lithuania had grown into the greatest state of Europe. Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow, pushed Lithuania back from the East. The Byzantine Empire (330-1453) ended in the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire. Ivan III wed Sophia Palaiologina, niece of the last Byzantine emperor. Moscow finally liberated itself from the Mongol / Turkish rule of the Golden Horde (1242-1502). It also annexed the mighty Novgorod Republic (1136-1478).

Against this new formidable power of Ivan III the Kalmar Union fortified itself by strengthening the Castle of Vyborg (est. 1293) and building Olavinlinna.

Visiting Savonlinna Opera Festival today we cannot help meditating the power of history and the history of power. The troubles of history and the history of troubles. "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (William Faulkner: Requiem for a Nun).

Richard Wagner's Lohengrin is set in a precise moment of history 500 years before Olavinlinna, but it is not a historical play. It is a dream play, a fairy-tale and a mythological quest inspired by Arthurian legends. The formidable walls of the real castle provide a rock solid sounding board to the ethereal fabula.

As a music lover I am an amateur and armchair listener who hardly ever ventures to a live event. Knowing Lohengrin as a radio listener only I am moved and stunned by the subtle power and refined perfection of detail in a first class live performance. Live music is a superior physical experience, shared by a spellbound audience in a castle with a capacity of over 2000.

I realize that Richard Wagner started to discuss "unendliche Melodie" ("endless melody") only ten years after the premiere of Lohengrin and that this work is the last which he called an opera, meaning that it still obeys the conventions of arias and choruses. Yet already here I am most moved by the unity of the suspense that begins with the Vorspiel and holds until the tragic finale. 

Later Wagner works have been compared with the stream of consciousness and inner monologue, but already here it is the most compelling feature. "The poet's greatness is mostly to be measured by what he leaves unsaid, letting us breathe in silence to ourselves the thing unspeakable; the musician it is who brings this untold mystery to clarion tongue, and the impeccable form of his sounding silence is endless melody" (Wagner 1860).

The cast of characters are like sleepwalkers in a shared dream, which we are invited to join. The most striking feature of the music is its gentleness and tenderness. It is an experience of serenity, nobility and a presence of the sacred. The Arthurian element (Lohengrin, Graal) belongs to Christianity, but there is also a presence of the ancient Teutonic gods of Wotan and Freya invoked by the witch Ortrud, Lohengrin's formidable adversary.

The most famous feature of Wagner's music is das Leitmotiv, although Wagner was not the inventor of the method  nor did he use the word himself. He only spoke of motifs (Motive), but did not accept the standard discourse about his work. Wagner's emphasis was always on organic unity and the integration of elements, including motifs.

I stumbled upon a beautiful online lesson by Professor Laurence Dreyfus (Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, 7 Nov 2019) in a "Lohengrin TimeMachine app". He discovers 14 motifs in Lohengrin and selects one of them for close study, das Frageverbot ("don't ask"), which appears 18 times in the opera. Dreyfus really opens Wagner's way of composition in a fascinating way.

After the Olavinlinna performance I have been listening to the opera on cd, and for the first time registered something that aficionados must have always recognized: the affinity of the Frageverbot motif with the "Flight of the Swans Theme" (the key theme first introduced in Act I:9: Finale andante and Act I:10: Scène moderato) in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (comp. 1875, perf. 1877). A profound and meaningful homage by the Russian master to the creator of the Swan Knight.

The prohibition to ask the question is at the core. Elsa is the suspect of the murder of her brother, but comes a knight in shining armour drawn by a swan to save her. He also proposes to her, with one condition:

Nie sollst du mich befragen,

noch Wissens Sorge tragen,

woher ich kam der Fahrt,

noch wie mein Nam' und Art!

(Never shall you ask me / nor trouble yourself to know / whence I came / my name nor my kind!)

The most famous passage of the opera is the Brautlied / Bridal Chorus in the first scene of act three ("Treulich geführt" / "Here comes the bride"), probably the most popular and joyous of all Wagner melodies. Again, I am impressed by the sober and gentle interpretation. Less is more. The restraint and the solemnity make it feel special.

But: in the context of the opera it is a tragic song, because Elsa breaks her vow never to ask the question. The mysterious stranger is compelled to reveal that he is Lohengrin, the son of Parsifal the Grail King, a guardian of divine power, which he loses if he reveals who he is.

Lohengrin gets ready to go and leaves his horn, sword and ring for Elsa's brother. The swan sinks, and Lohengrin lifts Gottfried from the water. Gottfried will be the new ruler of Brabant, Lohengrin vanishes in his boat now drawn by a dove. Ortrud collapses. Elsa embraces Gottfried and sinks lifeless to the ground.

For the first time in my life I see Karita Mattila in a live performance. It is also her first visit to the Savonlinna Opera Festival. I am a long term Karita Mattila admirer. The title of her biography is characteristically Korkealta ja kovaa ([High and Loud], 2019). Her star quality is ideal for the biggest arenas, and only they are big enough for her. As a radio listener I have never felt that I have really known her.

Now I do. All singers are great, but I focus on Karita Mattila because this performance revealed a new aspect that I did not know before. She is the villain and the monster, and she commands the stage effortlessly with her mere presence. It is an understated performance with psychological nuance. There is bitterness, and a barely hidden sense of condescension and superiority. And a pathos of evil. The monster is finally a victim of herself.

This is a new Karita Mattila. Even her voice has changed. The soprano is a mezzo-soprano for a change.

Lohengrin is a mystery play, but it is never confused or insecure. It is always compelling, often in a quietly self-assured manner. It is based on myths, but there is nothing decorative in Wagner's approach. Claude Lévi-Strauss admired Wagner's audacious way of grasping complex associations from various myths and his ability of conveying a profound and genuine emotional impact via them. Lévi-Strauss even called him the "father of the structural analysis of myth".

Otto Rank put Richard Wagner on the couch, paying attention to the hero's arrival on "the billows' azure mirror", the forbidden question and the white swan pulling a newcomer out of the water, and the even more devastating implications of the unknown identity and the anxiety with triangle situations.

Otto Rank's suggestions may seem preposterous, unless we pay attention to Wagner's recurrent obsessions both in his work and his life: Already in his first opera, Die Feen (comp. 1833, unproduced until prem. 1888) includes themes of the forbidden question, search for father, conflict between worldly and otherworldly love, compassion for an animal and a key musical motif expressing aspiration towards transcendence. Wagner never found certitude about the identity of his father. He hardly knew how to live except in a triangle situation, usually with a married woman. But this private trouble he sublimated into works of universal grandeur.

The Wagnerian swan image in Lohengrin and Parsifal stems from the Knights of the Holy Grail for whom the swan was a sacred creature. Universally swans are also a symbol of everlasting love. Universally and since ancient times birds in general are sexual symbols. But often birds also appear as images related to death: harbingers from beyond, images of souls flying to heaven. I also think about The Swan of Tuonela by Sibelius based on Kalevala mythology but also "Sparven om julmorgonen" ("Sparrow on Christmas Morning") written by Zachris Topelius in memory of his little son, in the superior Finnish translation "en mä ole, lapseni, lintu tästä maasta ; olen pieni veljesi, tulin taivahasta" ["My child, I am not a bird from this earth, I am your little brother coming from heaven"].

Because this is the first production of Lohengrin that I have seen I cannot compare it, except perhaps with Lohengrin scenes in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig. I was impressed with the musical achievement, the performances and the Olavinlinna Castle. I was puzzled by the production and costume design. They look impressive in photographs, but in the real experience I felt like following a children's room performance. I was asking: are we still too close to Hitler that we must deconstruct Wagner glory to the max? Are we living in an écolo period of opera design that the approach must be ars povera, recycling. (I don't mean that this is the third revival of this production in Savonlinna, seen before in 2011 and 2013). Video: whenever there is video in a stage performance or art exhibition I look the other way or close my eyes.

I guess that the director Roman Hovenbitzer does not believe in transcendence. The sacred dimension may not be mean much to him. From the first notes to the last, Wagner's opera is an exalted piece of spiritual poetry, but Hovenbitzer's stage interpretation remains in the world of prose. Entzauberung instead of Zauberfeuer.

But the musical performance is triumphant.

...

Wagner and the cinema? "The Wedding March" from Lohengrin has been one of the most popular themes in film music since the early days. For some reason I'm thinking about the double wedding of Dorothy and Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: "Remember, honey, on your wedding day, it's alright to say yes." Today the wedding ceremony might be between Dorothy and Lorelei.

Les Timidités de Rigadin (FR 1910) is an early comedy with Rigadin (Charles Prince) as Lohengrin, the knight in shining armour. Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (IT/FR/DE 1973) is a key film about Wagner's faithful patron of arts, with a lavish scene about staging Lohengrin at Schloss Neuschwanstein. Lohengrin was for Ludwig a point of complete identification.

In a class of his own is Hans Jürgen Syberberg, especially in Parsifal. His Ludwig, Requiem für einen jungfräulichen König (DE 1972) is naturally deeply Wagner relevant, including Lohengrin passages.

Not Wagnerian but Arthurian: two unique films untypical for them by Frenchmen: Lancelot du Lac by Robert Bresson and Perceval le Gallois by Éric Rohmer. Walt Disney's The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).

A book could be written on Wagner and the cinema, and probably has. Suffice it to mention the controversial side: "The Ride of the Valkyries" in The Birth of a Nation and Apocalypse Now. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg inevitably in Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens (shot on location in Nuremberg). 

À propos: Daniel Barenboim in dialogue with Edward Said on Wagner and Ideology: " A lady who came to see me in Tel Aviv when the whole Wagner debate was taking place said, “How can you want to play that? I saw my family taken to the gas chambers to the sound of the Meistersinger overture. Why should I listen to that? ” (Daniel Barenboim.com, 1998)

One film is genuinely Wagnerian. Vertigo.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MORE DATA FROM THE SAVONLINNA OPERA FESTIVAL WEBSITE:

Cœur de Lilas (2023 restoration Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung)

Anatole Litvak: Cœur de Lilas (FR 1932) with Jean Gabin (Martousse), Fréhel (La Douleur), André Luguet (André Lucot) and Marcelle Romée (Lilas). Please click on the photo to expand it.

Lilac / Salaperäinen Pariisi / Lilas - grändens drottning.

    FR 1932. Prod.: Jean Hulswit per Fifra. 

    Director: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dalla pièce omonima (1921) di Charles-Henry Hirsch e Tristan Bernard. Scen.: Dorothy Farnum, Anatole Litvak, Serge Véber. F.: Curt Courant. Scgf.: Serge Piménoff. Mus.: Maurice Yvain. 

    Int.: Marcelle Romée (Lilas Couchoux, "Cœur de Lilas"), André Luguet (André Bardon, le jeune inspecteur), Jean Gabin (Martousse), Madeleine Guitty (Madame Charigoul), Carlotta Conti (Madame Novion), Marcel Delaître (Jean Darny), Lydie Villars ("La Crevette"), Fréhel ("La Douleur"), Paulette Fordyce (Madame Darny), Fernandel (testimone di nozze / le garçon d'honneur de la noce). 35 mm. 90’. Bn.

    Songs: Maurice Yvain (comp.), Serge Veber (lyr.): "La môme caoutchouc" perf. Jean Gabin and Fréhel [« J'ai une petite gosse extra, Elle est en Gutta-percha, Élastique"] ; "Dans la rue" perf. Fréhel ; "Ne te plains pas que la mariée soit trop belle" perf. André Luguet and Fernandel.

    Helsinki premiere: 28 Oct 1932 Kit-Cat, released by Suomi-Filmi Oy.

    From: Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung

    Restored in 2023 by Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung at Studio Hamburg laboratory using a combined duplicate negative. With funding provided by FFE – Förderprogramm Filmerbe (financed through BKM, federal states and FFA)

    In German with English subtitles. E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Journeys Into Night: the World of Anatole Litvak

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 26 June 2024

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " An example of Litvak’s breathtaking early mastery, the titular Lilas is a prostitute suspected of having committed a murder. An undercover police inspector poses as a common worker out to dig up the evidence to convict her, only to fall in love with her. The transition from the sunny playfulness of his previous film to a tale of doomed love and crime was gradual as there was still song and dance in this, his first fully French production. Litvak subjects his characters to an amorous, swirling camera (the work of German cinematographer Curt Courant), relishing their fickle joys. Two smaller roles were given to then unknown Jean Gabin and Fernandel. By the time the film was released a year after production, Gabin was a rising star and the producers gave him top billing on the poster. He deserves it. He steals the show as soon as he appears. "

" Cœur de Lilas opens with a glorious crane shot of a military parade, slides over bridges, and runs along passing trains. In a miniature of the world on the move, children with paper helmets imitate the soldiers. The movement and length of the shots in this ten-minute-long sequence are in sync with the rhythm of the march and a blind organ grinder’s tune. Even the power cables that cut the smoggy skyline into parallel lines start to resemble pages of sheet music. A lengthy scene set in the judge’s room with characters walking in and out follows, and a restless camera and rapid editing captures the frenzy that leads to the judge convicting the wrong man. The middle section is set in a working class dive, a hotel frequented by ruffians, jobless labourers and fallen women where songs, cheap booze and thick smoke make the air heavy with lust. Finally, the last twenty minutes deals with the departure of the newly reunited lovers. Pouring rain and a Renoiresque outing make the final revelation – where the inspector holds back tears as he hands over his lover to the authorities – more shattering. The film then cuts back to the opening parade to close the circle. This time, the whistle of a train against the grey silence of the suburb proclaims the end of the day. Originally meant to be directed by Maurice de Canonge, Litvak’s work is a miracle of cinema that gives precedence to atmosphere over story; it heightens emotional impact through the minutest of details rather than attending to the action. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: In Cœur de Lilas, Anatole Litvak gives to Fréhel her first feature film role. The legendary performer had started as a child during the Belle Époque over 30 years ago under the protection of la "Belle Otéro". Fréhel had already appeared in Germaine Dulac's startling short "music video" Celles qui s'en font (FR 1930), and her searing "voice of fate" became a recurrent feature in the soundtrack of the French cinema of the 1930s, also in La Rue sans nom (Pierre Chenal, 1934), Amok (Fédor Ozep, 1934), Le Roman d'un tricheur (Sacha Guitry, 1936), Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937), La Rue sans joie (André Hugon, 1938, a remake of Die freudlose Gasse) and La Maison du Maltais (Pierre Chenal again, 1938).

Much more importantly, Litvak casts Jean Gabin in what is probably his most prophetic film role so far. It is not yet classic Jean Gabin, but he makes his presence and charisma felt. Like in Pépé le Moko, he appears together with Fréhel, and they sing a song together, "La Môme caoutchuk".

A third giant, Fernandel, also appears in Cœur de Lilas, one of the five films he made during his first year as a film actor.

I keep thinking about the cinema's peculiar lineage of darkness that runs from Russia to Weimar to the French 1930s to Hollywood film noir, evident also in the parcours of Anatole Litvak and in this very film. Litvak belonged to the founders of the trend of darkness in the French cinema of the 1930s, and still in 1947 in Hollywood he directed The Long Night, an American remake of an essential French classic, Le Jour se lève, starring Gabin.

Cœur de Lilas is a detective story, a police procedural and a court drama. André Lucot (André Luguet), the policeman assigned to investigate the murder mystery, falls in love with the suspect, a sex worker known as Cœur de Lilas (Marcelle Romée). André becomes a partner in a violent triangle drama of jealousy, facing lethal danger while fighting his rival Martousse (Gabin). His romance is not a cover story. There is even a lavish wedding party. But when Lilas finds out that her husband is an undercover policeman, she gives up.

Marcelle Romée (1903-1932), Pensionnaire de la Comédie-Française, was considered one of the great hopes of the French cinema and theatre, but she suffered from depression. She escaped from hospital and committed suicide by jumping into the Seine.

We have reason to be grateful for the restoration of this remarkable film. Perhaps the source materials have been challenging, because the visual quality is uneven. Since much of the 35 mm print has good definition it is possible to deduce how it must have looked. I was wondering whether some of the sources or the film itself might have been shot in the early sound film aperture (Movietone). The screening was in Academy if memory serves.

The Snake Pit (1948)

Anatole Litvak: The Snake Pit (US 1948) with Helen Craig (Miss Davis), Olivia de Havilland (Virginia Stuart Cunningham) and Beulah Bondi (Mrs. Greer).

La fossa dei serpenti / Käärmeenpesä / Ormgropen.

    US 1948. Prod.: Anatole Litvak, Robert Bassler per Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. 

    Director: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dal romanzo omonimo (1946) di Mary Jane Ward. Scen.: Arthur Laurents. F.: Leo Tover. M.: Dorothy Spencer. Scgf.: Lyle Wheeler, Joseph C. Wright. Mus.: Alfred Newman. 

    Int.: Olivia de Havilland (Virginia Stuart Cunningham), Mark Stevens (Robert Cunningham), Leo Genn (dr. Mark Kik), Celeste Holm (Grace), Glenn Langan (dr. Terry), Helen Craig (Miss Davis), Leif Erickson (Gordon), Beulah Bondi (Mrs. Greer).

    Soundtrack main theme (including in a farewell chorus and during end credits): "Goin' Home" from II movement Largo from Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" / Symfonie č. 9 e moll "Z nového světa" (1893) by Antonín Dvořák.

    108’. Bn.

    Helsinki premiere 16 Sep 1949 Adlon, Rea.

    35 mm print from BFI, concession by Park Circus

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Journeys Into Night: The World of Anatole Litvak.

    E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 26 June 2024.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): "A trailblazing work in its depiction of psychoanalysis and mental illness, The Snake Pit came after Anatole Litvak’s failed attempt to make a film about Sigmund Freud. Instead, Freud’s framed picture hung on a wall and his ideas filled the film that became effectively the first overt depiction of the Oedipus complex in a Hollywood film, with Columbia’s The Dark Past following the same year."

"Litvak, who during the war made films about soldiers suffering from and being treated for PTSD, came across the bestselling semi-autobiographical novel by Mary Jane Ward about a recently married woman (to be played by Olivia de Havilland) admitted to a psychiatric ward with symptoms of severe schizophrenia. Litvak bought the rights for a huge sum but there was no interest from any studio in this grim subject-matter. Later, Darryl Zanuck saw the potential and gave Litvak the green light to co-produce and direct. Despite months’ long research in New York hospitals, the first draft by Frank Partos and Millen Brand was rejected. Arthur Laurents wrote the version we see, but ironically remained uncredited due to a dispute with the Screen Writers Guild."

"The cruel treatment of the patients in the film sparked outrage, quite surprisingly, in the UK where 12 minutes of the film had to be cut out by the censors. The film’s earnest humanist approach meant more investment in scientific facts, letting the drama falter at points but continually picking it up with potent visual ideas and fine dialogue. There’s also a great deal of attention paid to time (shots of clocks) and doors. Their symbolic significance aside, Litvak makes the mental hospital look like a stand-in for a concentration camp, with hollow-eyed, desperate women wandering around in numbered robes and Polish, Italian and German dialogue on the soundtrack. He relives his war memories in the form of melodrama. Like the post-war films of George Stevens, Litvak translates the horror into stories that seemingly bear no relationship to the memories and ideas that have shaped them. Wrapped up in multiple layers, the pain is too great to be revealed openly." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: Psychoanalysis became a force to reckon with in popular culture in the 1910s in films ranging from The Case of Becky (US 1915, Blanche Sweet channeling split personality) to Fritz Lang thrillers (doorplate "Dr. Mabuse - Psychoanalyse").

The Snake Pit is a key example of the second wave of psychoanalysis in the cinema, along with films such as Lady in the Dark, Spellbound, The Dark Past and Whirlpool.

It belongs to the essence of both cinema and psychoanalysis that no profession has met with more ridicule and misunderstanding on the silver screen. Even when the intention is positive, the doctor may be portrayed as an oracle or miracle worker. Meanwhile cinema, even newsreels, as a medium of dreamwork is deeper in psychoanalytical terrain than film-makers themselves always realize. 

Ehsan Khoshbakht in his program note above alerts us to Anatole Litvak's commitment to Sigmund Freud and also what I would characterize as the "poetry after Auschwitz" dimension of The Snake Pit: the startling sight of forlorn, incarcerated women subjected to straitjackets, narcosynthesis and electric shocks and hovering around like living dead. The Snake Pit is a movie relevant to film noir.

I would also promote The Snake Pit as an Olivia de Havilland vehicle. After her epochal victory in the fight for independence from the studios, she embarked on a series of unusual roles, including To Each His Own, The Dark Mirror, The Snake Pit and The Heiress.

Yesterday we saw a sober and credible movie about the world of mental disorders, The Annihilation of Fish by Charles Burnett. In The Snake Pit, the first chords of the lurid and strident Alfred Newman score lead us to expect the exact opposite, a sensationalist exploitation movie.

It is not. First of all, Olivia de Havilland's anti-glamour approach makes this film different and special. She bravely explores the agony of losing one's mental balance. Anatole Litvak casts a general benevolent look on the patients. As Khoshbakht states above, during his war service Litvak had become familiar with mental disorders, and a sympathy for those with conditions is the overwhelming impression in this movie.

The Snake Pit is sympathetic to psychoanalysis, and it is not portrayed as a miracle cure. Realities are made plain. Good treatment takes time, time is money, and resources are limited. The Snake Pit was indeed a sensation - in a good way, leading to increased awareness of mental health. Awareness led to growing investments in hospitals and therapy.

After the movie I joined an Italian family for lunch. We discussed Gone With the Wind and agreed that Olivia de Havilland as Melanie is our favourite.

SOLITUDE

US 1952. Director: Duke Goldstone. Int.: Harry Carney, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Grissom, Quentin Jackson, Britt Woodman. Prod.: Snader Telescriptions. DCP. 4’. Bn.

RECOVERED AND RESTORED

From: Library of Congress

AA: A straight performance Snader Telescription in a digital restoration by the Library of Congress.

Osaka monogatari / An Osaka Story (1957)

Kozaburo Yoshimura: 大阪物語 / Osaka monogatari / An Osaka Story (JP 1957). Photo © Kadokawa

大阪物語 / [Una storia di Osaka]

    JP 1957. Director: Kozaburo Yoshimura. Sog.: Kenji Mizoguchi, dai racconti di Ihara Saikaku. Scen.: Yoshikata Yoda. F.: Kohei Sugiyama. Scgf.: Akira Naito. Mus.: Akira Ifukube. Int.: Ganjiro Nakamura (Jinbei), Raizo Ichikawa (Keizaburo), Kyoko Kagawa (Onatsu), Shintaro Katsu (Ichinosuke Abumiya), Michiko Ono (Takino), Narutoshi Hayashi (Yoshitaro), Tamao Nakamura (Ayagi), Aiko Mimasu (Otoku). Prod.: Daiei. 35 mm. Bn. 96 min

    Not released in Finland.

    Courtesy of Kadokawa. E-subtitles in English and Italian by Chiara Saretta.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Kozaburo Yoshimura, Undercurrents of Modernity

    Introduced by Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 25 June 2024

Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " Yoshimura was widely viewed as an heir to Kenji Mizoguchi, and, when Mizoguchi died in 1956, he replaced him as director of his final project: a tragicomic account of a farmer-turned-merchant and his destructive obsession with wealth. Mizoguchi had collaborated with his regular screenwriter, Yoshikata Yoda (1909-91), on a script adapted from a number of the stories of Ihara Saikaku, the great Edo-period satirist and chronicler of the mores of the merchant class, whose prose had already furnished the plot for Mizoguchi’s Saikaku ichidai onna (The Life of Oharu, 1952). "

" Yoshimura avowedly made the film as a memorial to his late colleague. One may only speculate as to what Mizoguchi might have made of the material, but Yoshimura’s dry humour and harder-edged style is arguably more in keeping with Saikaku’s wry vision than Mizoguchi’s elegance and grace. Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie write that the film was “filled with excellent satire on the inception of capitalism”, and see the film as a dig at the expense of Japan’s commercial capital, whose inhabitants were stereotypically noted for an obsession with wealth. But they also judged the film to be a “period-drama meaningful to contemporary audiences”. No doubt the theme seemed particularly relevant as postwar Japan rushed to embrace Western-style capitalism. "

" “Kinema Junpo” critic Jun Izawa praised Yoshimura’s ability to draw in the viewer with sharply crafted, “smart, fast scenes” such as the striking opening. But he expressed reservations about the development of the main character, suggesting that he “takes on an independent existence, as if Yoshimura’s hand has been lifted”. Nevertheless, the central performance by Ganjiro Nakamura (1902-83) is one of the film’s definite assets. Himself an Osaka native, Nakamura had had a distinguished career in kabuki theatre. The postwar decline of kabuki in Western Japan impelled him to move into film and television, where he enjoyed a successful second career, working for such canonical filmmakers as Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kon Ichikawa. " Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: The film first screened in Bologna's Kozaburo Yoshimura tribute was Itsuwarero seiso / Clothes of Deception (JP 1951), written by Kaneto Shindo in homage to Kenji Mizoguchi's masterpiece Gion no shimai (JP 1936). I found the connection between Yoshimura and Mizoguchi one of contrast rather than affinity. Mizoguchi is a poet, Yoshimura a prosaist. Mizoguchi created an elegiac meditation of solitude where Yoshimura's film belonged to a context of rich realistic density near classic French naturalism. But intriguingly, in films such as Saikaku ichidai onna and Akasen chitai, Mizoguchi was moving towards Yoshimura's direction.

Now it was fascinating to see Osaka monogatari written by Mizoguchi himself based on stories by Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693), on whose text was also based Saikaku ichidai onna (JP 1952), a work of exceptional spiritual grandeur. Such grandeur is missing from Osaka monogatari, which is, however, effective in its own right.

Its lineage for a European viewer is great otherwise. We are led to remember Croesus in Herodotus, L'Avare by Molière, Le Peau de chagrin and Eugénie Grandet by Balzac, A Christmas Carol by Dickens, Greed by Frank Norris and Erich Stroheim and Uncle Scrooge in the Walt Disney universe. Osaka monogatari is a grand hyperbolic tale of greed, avarice and the power of money turning into an end in itself and ultimately against itself.

The story starts in circumstances of hard work, bitter poverty, injustice and arbitrariness of a cruel daimyo similar to Sansho dayu himself. The protagonists are children of poor farmers, and there is "no room for them in the inn". They suffer cold, they suffer hunger. They turn into gleaners like in Agnès Varda's Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse. 

Ten years later, the only thing that remains from those days of ordeal is a peculiar family ritual prayer to the broom with which they lifted themselves from almost certain death. They are wealthy now, but the father has been spiritually broken and deranged by extreme poverty and suffering. 

The mother is the carrier of the loving family spirit, but when she falls ill, the father's pathological avarice prevents them from acquiring the expensive medicine needed to save her. Even in her memorial service the hospitality budget is zero. 

In direct contrast to the extremist father, the son and his companions are spendthrifts only interested in expensive escorts at geisha houses, even robbing the father's cellar treasure cache for their pursuits. The film ends in brutalization, degradation and madness. The sense of black comedy is familiar from Herodotus, Molière, Stroheim and Uncle Scrooge.

Like in Itsuwarero seiso, the composer is Akira Ifukube, "the John Williams of Japan", trusted by Yoshimura, here creating eerie and original passages of music, perhaps even veering to Godzilla territory. The cinematographer Kohei Sugiyama was a veteran who had started in the silent days and worked with both Mizoguchi and Yoshimura. He was also a pioneer of Japanese colour cinema, but Osaka monogatari is in black and white.

The 35 mm print's visual quality is uneven in the beginning but turns good soon after.

Camp de Thiaroye / The Camp at Thiaroye (2024 restoration The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project)

Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow: Camp de Thiaroye / The Camp at Thiaroye (SN/DZ/TN 1988).

Campo Thiaroye / The Camp at Thiaroye

    SN/DZ/TN 1988. [Senegal/Algeria/Tunisia]. Prod.: Enaproc, Films Domireew, Films Kajoor, Satpec, Société Nouvelle Pathé Cinéma. 

    Director: Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow. Scen.: Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow. F.: Ismail Lakhdar Hamina. M.: Kahena Attia. Mus.: Ismaila Lo. Int.: Ibrahim Sane (sergente capo Diatta), Jean-Daniel Simon (capitano Raymond), Marthe Mercadier (la proprietaria del ‘Coq hardi’), Sidiki Bakaba (Sijirii Bakara), Pays Ismaël Lô (il soldato che suona l’armonica), Casimir Zoba (un soldato congolese). DCP. 147’. Col.

    In Wolof and French [including petit nègre patois to enable screenings all over West Africa without dubbing or subtitling].

    Festival premiere: 1988 Venice (Grand Jury Prize)

    French premiere: n.a. IMDb; according to French Wikipedia: "sortie discrète à Paris le 7 janvier 1998; semble n'avoir été diffusé par la télévision française et est paru en DVD seulement en 2005."

    Not released in Finland.

    From The Film Foundation with English subtitles.

    Restored in 2024 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Culture and the Senegalese Ministry of Culture and Communication. Special thanks to Mohammed Challouf. Restored in 4K from the original negatives preserved by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Cinemalibero. E-subtitles in Italian by L'Immagine Ritrovata.

    Introduced by Margaret Bodde (The Film Foundation), Aboubakar Sanogo (FEPACI), Mohamed Challouf (Association Ciné-Sud Patrimoine).

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 25 June 2024

Mohamed Challouf (Bologna 2024 Catalogue): " This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the FEPACI and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore and disseminate African cinema. "

" Many African films have received the support of French funding, but Camp de Thiaroye is one of a series of films whose very existence French funders and producers did everything in their power to prevent. They argued that such films were highly subversive since they denounced the barbarity of colonisation. A Western world that continues to brandish its claim to human rights was incapable of tolerating films about its criminal past. I recall that post-fascist and democratic Italy also censored the remarkable movie The Lion of the Desert, a condemnation of the crimes committed by soldiers of the fascist regime in Libya. This masterpiece by Syrian Mustapha Akkad, produced by Libya, was distributed worldwide, but ironically, it was banned for Italian audiences, the very people allegedly concerned. It should also be pointed out that producers of the North refused to finance Amok, an anti-apartheid work directed by Moroccan filmmaker Souheil Ben Barka, featuring a cast of extraordinary actors including Miriam Makeba and Douta Seck. The film was only made possible by all-South funding from Morocco, Senegal and Guinea. When it became a hit at festivals around the world at the height of the African National Congress’s anti-apartheid movement, a racist Swiss distributor purchased the exclusive distribution rights for the whole of the West at a high price – not so that he could distribute it, but simply to ensure it would be fully blocked for the ten years of its contract. "

" The film Camp de Thiaroye by Sembène Ousmane and Thierno Faty Sow was made thanks to the collaboration of three countries of the South: Senegal, Tunisia and Algeria, with a pan-African team of technical and artistic directors. Post-production was carried out at the SATPEC in Tunisia. When the film was finished, Cannes 1988 rejected it. However, in September of the same year, it was screened as an official selection at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. "

" This crucial pan-African film about the importance of remembrance does justice to those known as the Senegalese tirailleurs, the majority of whom were drafted into the French army against their will to fight the Nazis. After making substantial sacrifices and suffering thousands of casualties to defend France, the tirailleurs who had survived the war were nonetheless humiliated and mistreated by the French army. Instead of rewarding them, the French forces bombarded and massacred these soldiers when they demanded their right to the end-of-enlistment recompense. " Mohamed Challouf (Bologna 2024 Catalogue)

AA: We are celebrating the 80th anniversary of D-Day (6 June 1944) and forgetting the crucial role played in it by Black soldiers. (As well as the fact that 80% of the military deaths of the Wehrmacht were in the Eastern Front).

I saw in March Anthony Mann's Devil's Doorway (US 1949) about a Shoshone Civil War hero returning home - only to discover that he is not even a US citizen and will face death for his fight for his right to justice.

I am struck by the similarity in Camp de Thiaroye, the story of the tirailleurs Sénégalais in WWII, directed by Sembène Ousmane, himself a veteran tirailleur Sénégalais. It is epic historical fiction based on a true story.

We are also remembering the 80th anniversary of the Thiaroye tragedy (1 December 1944), in which French colonial troops and gendarmes massacred West African soldiers who claimed fair compensation for five years of service. It was one of many such violent confrontations. 

West Africans had been promised equal citizenship of France after the war. We are reminded of La Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789 that we just saw on Sunday in Napoléon vu par Abel Gance.

Black colonial troops made up the great majority of Charles de Gaulle's Free French Army, but before the liberation of Paris, Black fighters were removed from liberation ceremonies and from before photographers and newsreel cameras. 

Senegalese riflemen fought in the Battle of France / Westfeldzug since the first day - as de Gaulle's first fighters - and de Gaulle was not the one responsible for their effacement. American and British allies were the ones who wanted to suppress Black visibility in the liberation.

Like Anthony Mann, directing with cool and sober awareness of extreme injustice, Sembène Ousmane avoids caricature. We meet a range of White French officers, including ones that are fair, just and humane such as Captain Raymond (Jean-Daniel Simon). 

We also meet a Black intellectual officer, Diatta (Ibrahim Sane) who is married with children with a White Frenchwoman, listens to Charlie Parker and reads Le Silence de la mer by Vercors. 

There is also Pays (Sijiri Bakaba), a Buchenwald survivor, who has become insane but is also the first to register that French colonialism is not that different from Nazi occupation. For him, Thiaroye is like Buchenwald with its barbed wire fences and watchtowers. Only food is inferior in Thiaroye.

120.000 soldiers from French colonies were captured by Germans during the occupation. Many were summarily massacred in racial purges "to prevent Rassenschande". In Dunkirk, Blacks were not allowed to escape to England. Pays in his watchtower is the only one who notices the French military approaching for the final purge. Because he claims that Nazis are coming, nobody believes him.

Surprisingly, in Dakar, Americans are the worst. The racism of the American military police is scary.

Camp de Thiaroye never had a regular French premiere. Ten years after it won the Grand Jury Prize in the Venice Film Festival, it only had a "sortie discrète" in France.

In 2012, President François Hollande became the first French politician to officially recall the tragedy. He promised to deposit the documents to Senegal, but only one source of three major ones was made available.

Among Sembène Ousmane's classmates at the VGIK film academy in Moscow in 1961 was Sarah Maldoror whose Guinea-Cape Verde liberation trilogy we saw yesterday.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: THE FINNISH FILM ARCHIVE PROGRAM NOTE BY SATU LAAKSONEN (1993)

Entezar / Waiting (1974) (2024 restoration by Kanoon)

Amir Naderi: / انتظار  / Entezar / Waiting (IR 1974).

/ انتظار  / 

    IR 1974. Director: Amir Naderi. Scen.: Amir Naderi. F.: Firooz Malekzadeh. M.: Kamran Shirdel. Int.: Hassan Heidari, Soheila Ahmadi, Rasool Chamani, Zohreh Ghahremani, Reza Yaghuti, Farzaneh Yousefi. Prod.: Kanoon – Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. DCP. D.: 47’. Col.

    Not released in Finland.

    From MK2 Films

    Restored by Kanoon at Roashana Laboratory

    In Farsi with English subtitles. E-subtitles in Italian by Robert de Boot.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Cinemalibero

    Introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht.

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 25 June 2024

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " Entezar, Amir Naderi’s second film for Kanoon – the Iranian institution in charge of producing cultural goods, for children and young adults – was a deft and calculated move away from the gritty street dramas and crime films of the early 1970s that made him famous but also left him feel artistically unfulfilled. "

" This semi-autobiographical, dialogue-free meditation on puberty and desire was shot in the old city of Bushehr, in southern Iran, and edited by the Iranian New Wave documentarian Kamran Shirdel. The one-line story follows an orphaned boy who, every day, fetches ice for his elderly guardians. He falls for a girl, although he has only seen her hands. Showing Naderi at the peak of his purely visual storytelling, Entezar was a break from the realism of his previous films, allowing illusory images to sit next to documentary moments such as the mourning ritual for a Shia saint. Sizzling with a euphoric view of life and cinema through fixation on light and movement, and dazzling with high sensory sensitivity, this masterpiece establishes in three-quarters of an hour what other films need hours to ramble on. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: Nothing happens. Everything happens.

Everything is ordinary. Everything is miraculous.

The suspense. The anticipation. Existential.

The boy runs. "Il court" (Claude Beylie's definition of Max Ophuls).

The blinding reflection of the sun on the crystal bowl. "Go get ice". The enchantment of the young girl's hand.

The birds. The rosary. The dove. The sunburnt skin. The cat's meow. The water pipe. The red sun sets in the sea. The fish fell. The cat meowed. The boy ran. The epitaph. Zoom in. Zoom out. The horse galloping in the alley. In the finale, the old woman's hand. Frygt og Bæven, the fear and trembling of the boy.

...

A radiant lyrical imagist poem by Amir Naderi. Consisting of images at once immanent and transcendent.

Like Ezra Pound, Amir Naderi creates his work from luminous details, in an ideogrammic way, abstract ideas expressed in concrete images.

The lineage belongs presumably to the treasury of Persian poetry but also to Hellenic hardness, the musa lapidaria of Golden Latin, Chinese characters and tanka and haiku poems. They inspired also Eisenstein's montages of the 1920s. The image of the imagists has affinities with the symbol of the symbolists and the free verse of all modernist poetry until Beat poets.

A work of pure cinema - distilled into the essence - of light and movement - in an essay about time and space - growing into a tale about the ordinary mystery of existence - in a brilliant restoration with a beautiful definition of light and colour.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM IRANIAN WIKIPEDIA:

The Annihilation of Fish (2024 restoration by UCLA Film & Television Archive)

Charles Burnett: The Annihilation of Fish (US 1999) with Lynn Redgrave (Flower ‘Poinsettia’ Cummings) and James Earl Jones (Obadiah ‘Fish’ Johnson).

US 1999. Prod.: Paul Heller, William Lawrence Fabrizio, John Remark, Eric Mitchell, Kris Dodge per Intrepid Productions, Inc. 

    Director: Charles Burnett. Scen.: Anthony C. Winkler F.: John L. Demps Jr., Rick Robinson. M.: Nancy Richardson. Scgf.: Nina Ruscio. Mus.: Laura Karpman. Int.: Lynn Redgrave (Flower ‘Poinsettia’ Cummings), James Earl Jones (Obadiah ‘Fish’ Johnson), Margot Kidder (signora Muldroone), David Kagen (assistente sociale). 

    DCP. 108’. Col.

    Not released in Finland.

    From Kino Lorber

    Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive. Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Milestone Films at Roundabout Entertainment, FotoKem, Audio Mechanics e Simon Daniel Sound laboratories, from the original 35 mm and soundtrack negatives. Funding provided by Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Special thanks to Charles Burnett, John Demps, Dennis Doros, Amy Heller.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Recovered and Restored

    E-subtitles in Italian by Mirta Boschietti.

    Introduced by Jillian Borders and Dennis Doros (UCLA), hosted by Gian Luca Farinelli.

    Viewed at Cinema Lumière - Sala Scorsese, 25 June 2024

Jillian Borders (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " In a quiet Los Angeles boarding house, an unlikely romance develops between eccentrics Obadiah “Fish” Johnson (James Earl Jones) and Flower “Poinsettia” Cummings (Lynn Redgrave). Fish is newly released from a mental institution despite his regular physical wrestling matches with his demon, Hank. Poinsettia, prone to belting out arias from Madame Butterfly, contends with her own invisible partner, the ghost of the composer Giacomo Puccini, to whom she is engaged to be married. All this unfolds under the loving eye of the matron of the house, Mrs Muldroone, played almost unrecognizably by Margot Kidder. "

" The seemingly outlandish setup by screenwriter/novelist Anthony C. Winkler may lead viewers to expect a slapstick comedy, but instead the film handles the issues of aging, mental illness and finding a life’s purpose with a gentle touch. The leads impress in the character-driven story, with an emotional and athletic performance from Jones as the widower Fish, and a bold but nuanced turn by Redgrave as the over-the-top Poinsettia. "

" Revered director Charles Burnett has had a prestigious career since his time in the Master of Fine Arts program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Two of his acclaimed films have been placed on the National Film Registry: the “LA Rebellion” masterpiece Killer of Sheep (1978) – which was just ranked the 43rd Greatest Film of All Time in “Sight and Sound” – and the devilish family drama To Sleep with Anger (1990). Previously unreleased and unavailable on any home video format, The Annihilation of Fish is ripe for discovery as a worthy volume in Burnett’s impressive oeuvre. It is due to the persistence of Dennis Doros of Milestone Films, who pursued the rights for 19 years, that audiences will finally be able to experience this charming and poignant film. " Jillian Borders (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: Charles Burnett's unknown milestone (pun intended), The Annihilation of Fish is one of the most tender and open-minded movies about people in spectra of mental conditions. 

It was brave of the actors to live the parts such as these, James Earl Jones as "Fish" Obadiah Johnson, Lynn Redgrave as "Poinsettia" Flower Cummings and most of all Margot Kidder as Ms. Muldroone. There is no drama or melodrama emphasis. The tale is gripping without embellishment and reveals difference in a singular way, without stereotyping.

All three main characters are living with ghosts, Mr. Fish with a personal demon: Hank the Demon whom he is literally wrestling, Poinsettia with Giacomo Puccini, and Ms. Muldroone in the memory of Mr. Muldroone. 

Music is important, ranging from calypso, mariachi and tango to Irving Burgie and inevitably highlighting Puccini, the centenary of whose death we are observing this year. Poinsettia's one-sided love affair with Puccini includes sacrilegious interpretations of "Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly, even competing disastrously with a professional live performer.

The Annihilation of Fish has even been called a romantic comedy, and while it is hardly a genre movie, the label is not wrong either. It is one of a kind, a great therapeutic story, and love is the greatest therapy. It is about characters living in illusions, with illusionary companions, but the love between Mr. Fish and Ms. Poinsettia is no illusion.

The colour palette emerges in vivid and vibrant hues in the digital resurrection. A refined restoration of a film that has been forgotten because it was ahead of its time. Today it can be welcomed as an embrace of diversity, and above all a celebration of the universal human bond.

Sarah Maldoror Trilogy (2024 restoration by CNC)

Sarah Maldoror: À Bissau, le carnaval (GW 1980).

Sarah Maldoror: Fogo, l'île de feu (FR/CV 1979).

Sarah Maldoror: Cap-Vert, un carnaval dans le Sahel (FR/CV 1979).

Festa - a Trilogy by Sarah Maldoror 

Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Cinemalibero.

Introduced by Annouchka De Andrade.

Viewed at Jolly Cinema, Monday 24 June 2024.

FOGO, L’ÎLE DE FEU

FR/CV = Cape Verde 1979. Director: Sarah Maldoror. Scen.: Sarah Maldoror, François Maspéro. F.: Pierre Bouchacourt. M.: Salvatore Burgo. Mus.: José Pereira Cardozo. Prod.: Sarah Maldoror. DCP. 33’. Col.

In French and Portuguese with English subtitles - e-subtitles by Valentina Cristiani

From: CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée

Restored in 4K in 2024 by CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, using the original 16 mm camera negative and magnetic track.

CAP-VERT, UN CARNAVAL DANS LE SAHEL

Carnaval à São Vicente / Carnival in the Sahel

FR/CV = Cape Verde 1979. Director: Sarah Maldoror. Scen.: Sarah Maldoror. F.: Pierre Bouchacourt. M.: Salvatore Burgo. Prod.: Sarah Maldoror. DCP. 28’. Col.

In French and Portuguese with English subtitles

From: CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée

Restored in 4K in 2024 by CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, using the original 16 mm camera negative and magnetic track.

À BISSAU, LE CARNAVAL

Carnival in Bissau

Director: Sarah Maldoror

Year: 1980

Country: GW = Guinea-Bissau

In French with English subtitles

T. alt.: Carnaval en Guinée Bissau. F.: Jean-Michel Humeau, Sana Na N’hada, Florentino Gomes. M.: Stéphanie Moore, Catherine Adda, Sylvie Blanc. Prod.: Sarah Maldoror per INCA – Instituto Nacional de Cinema e Audiovisual, Guinée-Bissau. DCP. 30’. Col.

From: CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée

Restored in 4K in 2024 by CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, using the original 16 mm camera negative and magnetic track.

Annouchka de Andrade (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " After having filmed the struggle for independence in Angola (Monangambé, 1968; Sambizanga, 1972) and Guinea-Bissau (Des fusils pour Banta, 1971), Sarah Maldoror travelled to the Cape Verde Islands in 1979 and Guinea-Bissau in 1980 to film the first years of their independence. "

" Given the international acclaim of Sambizanga, the first film to raise awareness of the ordeals endured by the former Portuguese colonies, the leaders of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau soon called upon Maldoror to direct a film to document the countries’ newfound independence. "

" On the occasion of the Carnival and May Day festivities, the filmmaker reaffirms the convictions of her friend and leader Amílcar Cabral – founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) – for whom culture is an expression of history, the foundation of liberation and a means of countering colonial domination. "

" Shot prior to the coup d’état of November 1980 in Guinea-Bissau – bringing an end to the PAIGC – these films remain the last testimonials of the union of the two countries. "

" During the May Day celebrations depicted in Fogo, l’île de feu, we attend the speech given by the Prime Minister of Cape Verde surrounded by Guinean-Bissé leaders, who have gathered to celebrate Amílcar Cabral. François Maspero’s commentary reminds us of the historical significance of the archipelago – from a trading post for the Portuguese to a safe haven for sailors crossing the headlands. He points out that today, although Fogo has become an island deserted by drought, its population organises a unique festival every year, combining conquest and legends in a spectacle of light. "

" In Cap-Vert, un carnaval dans le Sahel and À Bissau, le carnaval, Maldoror films the preparatory stages for the procession – from its meticulous mask-making to its inventive costumes – and her camera lingers on gestures and faces to reveal the display of the imaginary, a source of pride for an entire people. "

" In this trio of shorts, Sarah Maldoror interweaves culture, tradition and politics, somewhere between documentary and poetry, culminating in a singular result. "

" My sister Henda and I were committed to restoring these three films to be able to present them together in a single programme as an expression of the emancipating force of culture, and as an illustration of the poetic cinema of our mother, Sarah Maldoror. " Annouchka de Andrade (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, three marvellous films by Sarah Maldoror, made in 1979-1980 in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, then newly independent from Portuguese colonialism.

Cape Verde had been for 500 years a Portuguese colony and a hub of slave trade in its time. Parts of Guinea-Bissau had been under some rule of the Portuguese empire for half a century, and it was also one of the earliest centres of Atlantic slave trade. The great leader in the fight for freedom for Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde was Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973), fondly remembered in the films.

In her jubilant trilogy Sarah Maldoror (1929-2020) celebrates the vitality of the newly liberated people. They are poor in materia but rich in spirit, beauty and joy of life. The volcanic force of Cape Verde seems to emanate even from the people.

I included Maldoror's fiction drama Sambizanga in my Sight & Sound 2022 Top Ten list of the greatest films of all time. This documentary trilogy shares its vibrant feeling, energy and life-affirming rebel spirit.

Maldoror displays her art and talent of observation in scenes of quotidian life and hard work, for instance in fishermen dealing with huge catches of fish. Education is covered in views of school classes. African unity and freedom is celebrated in epic demonstrations. "But but they also know how to party" - and mount festivals: life is a party. The last film is dedicated to a carnival. Maldoror excels both in magnificent establishing shots and vivid close-ups.

These films are also about the joy of colour and gorgeous music.

I was thinking about the engrossing Nome (Guinea-Bissau /Angola /France/Portugal 2023) by Sana Na N'Hada that covers the war for the independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. The story starts in 1969 and follows a troubled path long past independence. I was moved to hear on its soundtrack "Grândola, Vila Morena" by José Afonso. I was singing it, too 50 years ago in events of solidarity to the liberation fighters.