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

Anatole Litvak: Cœur de Lilas (FR 1932). In an underworld haunt in Paris with Jean Gabin (as the jealous criminal Martousse), Fréhel (as the saloon singer La Douleur), André Luguet (as the undercover cop André Lucot) and Marcelle Romée (as the sex worker "Cœur de Lilas" caught in a triangle between her old lover Martousse and the new flame André). 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 name of her character: La Douleur. Interestingly, there is no good translation for that name in English, Germanic or Scandinavian languages. In Finnish, she would be called Tuska. The legendary performer had started as a child during la Belle Époque over 30 years ago under the protection of la "Belle Otéro".

In the cinema, Fréhel had only appeared in Germaine Dulac's startling short "music video" Celles qui s'en font (FR 1930). Her searing "voice of fate" became a 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).

Even more importantly, Litvak casts Jean Gabin in his most prophetic film role so far. This is not yet classic Gabin, but he makes his presence and charisma felt. Like in Pépé le Moko, he appears 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 in the parcours of Anatole Litvak and particularly here. Litvak belonged to the founders of the French poetic cinema of the 1930s, and his arch was long. As late as 1947 in Hollywood he directed with Henry Fonda The Long Night, a remake of the Jean Gabin vehicle Le Jour se lève. 

The poetry of the French films of the 1930s received its authority from death.

They are the opposite of "cosy crime". It was only 14 years after what was called The Great War. The first European industrial scale massacre destroyed received notions of heroism. Aesthetic categories of the beautiful and the sublime became meaningless in discussions of modern art. The heart of darkness had existed in colonialism. Now it came home to Europe, and in the 1930s the menace was growing.

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. There is a lavish wedding party. When Lilas finds out husband's undercover mission, 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 as far as I remember.

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 the II movement (Largo) in 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. Olivia de Havilland's anti-glamour approach makes it special. She bravely explores the agony of losing one's mental balance. Anatole Litvak casts a benevolent look on the patients in general. As Khoshbakht states above, during his war service Litvak got familiar with mental disorders, and a sympathy for those with conditions is the overwhelming impression.

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.

Tovarich (US 1937)

Anatole Litvak: Tovarich (US 1937). Claudette Colbert (Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna/Tina), Charles Boyer (Prince Mikail Ouratieff/Michel). 

Tovarich (title in Italy) / Tovarich or Tovaritsch (title in Finland) / Kamrater i Paris.

    US 1937. Prod.: Anatole Litvak per Warner Bros. Pictures. 

    D: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dalla pièce omonima (1933) di Jacques Deval e dall’adattamento (1935) di Robert E. Sherwood. Scen.: Casey Robinson. F.: Charles Lang. M.: Henri Rust. Scgf.: Anton Grot. Mus.: Max Steiner. 

    Int.: Claudette Colbert (granduchessa Tatiana Petrovna/Tina), Charles Boyer (principe Mikail Ouratieff/Michel), Basil Rathbone (il commissario bolscevico Gorotchenko), Anita Louise (Helene Dupont), Melville Cooper (Charles Dupont), Isabel Jeans (Fernande Dupont), Morris Carnovsky (Chauffourier-Dubieff), Victor Kilian (gendarme). 

    98’. Bn.

    Helsinki premiere: 20 March 1938 Capitol.

    35 mm print from Warner Bros. Pictures, concession by Park Circus

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

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 24 June 2024

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " Opening with the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris (embellished with Litvak’s trademark crane and rooftop shots) and quickly singling out two down-and-out Russian exiles, a former Prince and a Grand Duchess played by Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert, the couple innocently ask a musician why people are dancing all over the city."

" “It has something to do with history,” the musician replies. Colbert and Boyer need the rest of the film to find out how much their own personal relationship and struggle for survival has something to do with history. The Czarist fortune they faithfully safeguard puts a Bolshevik Commissar on their tail. The penniless aristocrats seek a job as servants for the spoiled Duponts whose mansion becomes the stage for a soft screwball comedy as things go charmingly hokey pokey. "

" The script was penned by ever-reliable Casey Robinson, based on Robert E. Sherwood’s English adaptation of a French play by Jacques Deval which had a successful 4-year run in Broadway. After having bowed out of Cette vieille canaille, and with Mayerling making him a huge star, Boyer and Litvak were reunited in the US. When Warner rejected a remake of Cette vieille canaille, Litvak pitched Tovarich. Despite Boyer’s reservation about playing a Russian in Paris – he argued that the only cast member with a real French accent would be him – he gave in. The film’s success, even in France, proved Boyer’s worries baseless. In an example of star power contributing to the overall look of a film, Charles Lang was summoned from Paramount on Colbert’s request. When Lang’s slow pace in setting up the camera upset the studio who fired him, Colbert defended him and gave up two weeks’ worth of her salary to reinstate him. "

" Premiered at the same time as Mayerling was enjoying a delayed US distribution, this forerunner of Anastasia in terms of investigating identity, history and displacement had all the elements that Litvak cared for: role-playing, old world sophistication winning over socialism, couples losing privilege but finding their place in the new world, and the acknowledgment, albeit in an ambivalent tone, of new political structures which makes for the film’s fantastic finale. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: Anatole Litvak's screwball comedy is based on a French play, itself based on the true story of Count Alexei Ignatiev. The truth is very much stranger than fiction, but the core is the same: the White Russian handing over the Imperial Treasury to the Soviet Union, for the good of the country.

The popular screenwriter Jacques Deval's play had already been filmed in France by himself as Tovaritch (FR 1935), and in its interesting cast we can discover Pierre Renoir as Commissar Gorochenko and the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Voyage au bout de la nuit) in a bit part.

The comedy is crazy and witty. It starts on Quatorze Juillet, and the aristocratic Russian immigrants are ignorant of what it is. When they learn it is a feast for a Revolution, they don't feel like celebrating.

I find the Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert duo a bit insecure in the beginning (although this was already their third film together), but they develop an engaging approach to the complex charade later on. The characters they portray are members of high aristocracy in exile who have to disguise as common servants. They are in possession of the Russian State Treasury, but they live like bums from hand to mouth, even having to resort to stealing groceries, because the millions in the bank are meant to be used for a Counter-Revolution in Russia. 

The most astounding encounter is with the Soviet Commissar Gorochenko, portrayed by Basil Rathbone in his best icy villain mode. Tables have turned many times. Gorochenko as a revolutionary has been persecuted by Imperial Russia, and our aristocrats have been subjected to torture in Ljubljanka by Gorochenko. 

The anthology piece of Tovarich is their discussion which consists of death threats and menaces of extreme torture. That is the official self, and so much for diplomacy. Privately they are attracted to each other.

Finally they share the commitment of keeping the Baku oil fields in the hands of the Russian people. That is why the State Treasury has to be returned to Russia. An extraordinary ending for a Hollywood movie.

"Suomi mainittu" ("Finland was mentioned") as we in our provincial-self-ironic mode register anything with Finland in it. In this movie Finland appears as the gate to freedom for our beloved aristocratic rascals. Beyond the fabula: the real life Alexei Ignatiev was a friend of the Marshal of Finland C. G. E. Mannerheim.

The first Hollywood role of the incredible Curt Bois (1901-1991) who started his film career in Imperial Germany in 1907 and ended it in Wim Wenders's Der Himmel über Berlin.

...

One of the best books of the year is Anna Reid's A Nasty Little War : The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (2023). According to Reid, during the Civil War, the Czech Legion guarded a train full of imperial gold and probably "handed it over to the Red Army in exchange for safe passage, but the story persists that they took it home and founded Czechoslovakia's National Bank with it" (p. 268).

George Pal: Date with Duke (US 1947).

 

DATE WITH DUKE

US 1947. Director: George Pal

Running time: 7'

RECOVERED AND RESTORED

Copy: UCLA Film & Television Archive Library

AA: Puppet animation to "The Perfume Suite". Perfume bottles appear as instruments, and a live action Duke Ellington is the leader of the minuscule band.

From IMDb: " Pianist Duke Ellington performs his Perfume Suite while conducting a group of stop-motion animated perfume bottles. Wonderful early integration of live action and animation. Actor: Duke Ellington. Voice: Walter Tetley. Director of Photography: William Snyder, A.S.C. Technicolor Color Director: Natalie Kalmus. Story: Jack Miller. Puppet Photography: John S. Abbott. Animation: Gene Warren. Sound: Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording. 35 mm/7:24. Paramount Presents A George Pal Puppetoon in Technicolor. Produced and Directed by George Pal.—© Arnold Leibovit "

Khak-e sar bé mohr / The Sealed Soil (2024 restoration by UCLA Film & Television Archive)

Marva Nabili: خاک مهر شده / Khak-e sar bé mohr / The Sealed Soil (IR 1977).

Marva Nabili: خاک مهر شده / Khak-e sar bé mohr / The Sealed Soil (IR 1977).

خاک مهر شده / La Terre scellée / Die versiegelte Erde.

    IR 1977. D: Marva Nabili. Scen.: Marva Nabili. F.: Barbod Taheri. Mus.: Hooreh. Int.: Flora Shabaviz (Roo-Bekheir). Prod.: Marva Nabili. DCP. 90’. Col.

    Copy from UCLA Film & Television Archive Library

    In Farsi with English subtitles on DCP. E-subtitles in Italian by Valentina Cristini.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Cinemalibero.

    Introduced by Marva Nabili (via cellphone video)

    Introduced by Jillian Borders (UCLA)

    Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 23 June 2024

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by Golden Globe Foundation, Century Arts Foundation, Farhang Foundation and Mark Amin, from the 16 mm original A/B negatives, color reversal internegative, magnetic track, and optical track negative. Laboratory services by Illuminate Hollywood, Corpus Fluxus, Audio Mechanics, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Thomas Fauci, Marva Nabili, and Garineh Navarian.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2024 Catalogue): " Khak-e Sar bé Mohr chronicles the repetitive and repressed life of Roo-Bekheir, a young woman in a poor village in southwest Iran, and her resistance to forced marriage. It’s a formally rigorous, if emotionally distanced, critique of patriarchy and the spurious reform of Iranian agricultural life that was a factor in the 1979 revolution. "

" Nabili conceived Khak-e Sar bé Mohr as her graduation film when studying in New York. With the help of Iranian producer and cinematographer Barbod Taheri, she returned to Iran and got a deal to direct part of the Ancient Persian Fables series for Iranian public television in exchange for raw 16 mm film stock and a crew for her film project. She wrote the script as she was directing the series, making frequent trips to the village she had scouted for the film, and it was eventually shot by Taheri in 1976 with his wife, Flora Shabaviz, playing the main role. After completion, Nabili edited the film in the US, though the post-production work (especially the professional dubbing) indicates that support from Iran must have continued after her return to New York. "

" Using long shots, static camera, and long takes, Nabili cites the Persian miniature, in which the story is always depicted from a distance, allowing the viewer free interpretation of characters and situations, as her main influence. She also refers to Bertolt Brecht and Robert Bresson, the latter’s influence most evident in the lyrical and quiet sequence in which the film finds a momentary poetic release as Roo-Bekheir undresses in the rain. This measured and restrained rebellion against patriarchy – Nabili’s only feature, other than a TV film made for PBS in 1983 – might explain the renewed interest in her work in post-Woman/Life/Freedom Iran, even if Khak-e Sar bé Mohr was never screened in its country of production and a generation saw it only on ghastly VHS tapes. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2024 Catalogue)

AA: I among many became aware of Marva Nabili's The Sealed Soil thanks to Mark Cousins, who in his mega-series Women Make Film (GB 2019) highlighted it in episodes 4, 7 and 11 (chapters 10 Journey, 18 Bodies, and 31 Leave Out). Since then it has been a "must see" for me.

It is a work of imagist poetry, belonging to a special lineage in Iranian cinema. The images are completely realistic, yet they emanate a spiritual presence and an imagination that transcends the limits of the ordinary. I would call it the presence of the sacred in everything.

There is also a poetic kinship between Iranian cinema and its northern neighbours Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine, personified in the cinema of Sergei Paradjanov, also inspired by Persian miniatures. The tableau aesthetics reminiscent of early cinema, the plan-séquence approach, the emphasis on the image instead of storytelling.

The Sealed Soil is a movie about quiet violence inflicted on the young woman Roo-Bekheir (Flora Shabaviz) in a patriarchal, traditional village society. Marriage is overdue, and like in Japanese shomin-geki of the 1950s, such as Kozaburo Yoshimura's Yoru no kawa / Undercurrent shown in this festival, the young woman would prefer to remain free. By the way, this is also a major theme in the Finnish folklore collection Kanteletar based on ancient oral tradition in poems sung by women.

Finally, Roo experiences a fit of possession, and an official exorcist is summoned to help her get rid of the demon. After the elaborate rite, Roo is numb and expressionless like a zombie. There is a proposal waiting for her.

Shot in Academy and in subdued colour by Barbod Taheri, with meaningful images of roosters, Persian carpets and children's games. Nature is ever-present in the sound world and in scenes of rain escalating into a rainstorm. Roo's freedom is memorably expressed in a scene where she is alone by the river in the rain and takes off her clothes. The scene is special because it is not about exploitation, quite the contrary.

The 2024 restoration by UCLA Film & Television Archive is refined and vivid, based on 16 mm original negatives. A remarkable work of art has been rediscovered for the world.

Napoléon vu par Abel Gance - première partie: Bonaparte (2024 restoration La Cinémathèque française)

Napoléon vu par Abel Gance, première partie (FR 1927). The Double Tempest. The vision of Marianne - Goddess of Liberty, personification of the French Revolution, the French Republic and embodiment of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Reason.

International title: Napoleon.

    FR 1927. Director: Abel Gance. Scen.: Abel Gance. F.: Léonce-Henri Burel, Jules Kruger, Joseph-Louis Mundwiller, Nikolai Toporkoff. M.: Abel Gance, Marguerite Beaugé. Scgf.: Alexandre Benois, Ivan Lochakoff, Eugène Lourié, Pierre Schildknecht. Int.: Albert Dieudonné (Napoleone Bonaparte), Vladimir Roudenko (Napoleone Bonaparte da giovane), Edmond Van Daële (Robespierre), Alexandre Koubitzky (Danton), Antonin Artaud (Jean-Paul Marat), Abel Gance (Saint-Just), Gina Manès (Joséphine de Beauharnais), Suzanne Bianchetti (Maria Antoinetta), Marguerite Gance (Charlotte Corday), Yvette Dieudonné (Elisa Bonaparte). Prod.: Société du Film Napoléon, Société Générale de Films. DCP. D.: 220’. Col.

    From: La Cinémathèque française.

    French intertitles with English subtitles and e-subtitles in Italian.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Recovered and Restored

    Introduced by Costa-Gavras and Frédéric Bonnaud (La Cinémathèque française)

    Viewed at Cinema Modernissimo, 23 June 2024

Reconstructed and restored by La Cinémathèque française, with the support of CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée and Ministère de la Culture, under the direction of Georges Mourier at Éclair Classics – L’Image Retrouvée laboratory. Music composed by Simon Cloquet-Lafollye and performed by Benjamin Bernheim, tenor, Orchestre National de France and Orchestre Philharmonique et le Choeur de Radio France, under the direction of Fabien Gabel.

This is not about morals, or politics, but art.

– Abel Gance

Joël Daire (Bologna Catalogue, 2024): " The new restoration’s frame rate has been fully re-established at 18 frames per second, previously only the case for the Brienne episodes. This gives the film a new fluidity. The effect on the audience of the singing of La Marseillaise in sync with the actors’ lips at long last remains to be seen. Moreover, while the new restoration’s extra 90 minutes provide the merest hint of new, rediscovered sequences, they exist nonetheless; beginning with the powerful images of civil war that open the siege of Toulon sequence and conclude the first part of the film, a rigorous and painstaking piece of reconstruction. The restoration also made every effort to respect the experimental dimension that Abel Gance wanted to give his work, and this shines through in many iconic sequences (Brienne, La Marseillaise at the Cordeliers, the “double tempest,” the shadows at the National Convention, the famous triple-screen of the Italian army’s departure…). As the first entirely digital restoration, this new version strove to overcome many difficulties previously considered unsolvable, working with photochemical technology alone: colours chart, aspect ratio, authentic reproduction of the original tinting etc. The combination of all these elements is sufficient to guarantee audiences a film that is very different from the one they may remember. "

" But what is it that engenders the emotion of film, or in other words, poetry on the screen? What the extended version of Napoléon offers visually takes viewers far beyond anecdotal narrative and plunges them into the mystery of what Gance called his “music of light,” and his friend Epstein “the idea between the images.” In his great works of the preceding years, such as J’accuse! and La Roue, Gance works in his themes and motifs in the form of overlays, juxtaposing rather than combining them. In Napoléon – especially in the “Apollo” version – in full mastery of his art, he reaches new heights of dazzling virtuosity. Nothing escapes Gance and he’s indifferent to nothing. Right up to the eleventh hour, he adjusts the editing of any given scene. "

" Conceived as a gigantic visual symphony, Napoléon exposes, juxtaposes, combines and interweaves themes and instruments – in the form of his camera operators, actors, extras, landscapes and sets – right down to his title cards… He applied the same scientific method, the same combinatory genius, to his characters and to emotions. There isn’t one sequence in Napoléon that isn’t woven through with drama mixed with comedy, shot through with sense of rhythm – a kind of music, if you will – propelling the viewer out of the diegetic time of the action into a sublime visual symphony, further enhanced by the new score. "

" Over the top or inspired, the triptychs assured the film its triumph at l’Opéra de Paris, but only the second one, featuring the Italian army, has survived; the “double tempest” triptych surviving only in its single-screen version. Like a Renaissance altarpiece, the three-screen extravaganza of symbolist dramaturgy, combining the horizontal (the conquest of Italy) and the vertical (multiple superimpositions of images of Bonaparte, Josephine, the yet-to-be-imperial eagle, the world on a globe and the “beggars of glory”) form the obligatory epilogue of the extended version, even if it wasn’t shown at the Apollo in May 1927. In his “proclamation” of 4 June 1924, addressed to all his contemporary and future collaborators, Abel Gance concluded: “Today it is for the public to tell us whether we achieved our goal.” We couldn’t have put it better ourselves! " Joël Daire (Bologna Catalogue, 2024)

AA: Napoléon vu par Abel Gance is a towering achievement of the cinema, and in its first half seen today in a brilliant digital restoration by La Cinémathèque française it's as vigorous, exhilarating and troubling as ever. The visual quality is exquisite.

It's a classic but also an ever-young achievement of experimental cinema, of the première avant-garde of the 1920s French cinema. D. W. Griffith had gone far in exploring montage in Intolerance, and Abel Gance went even further in J'accuse, La Roue and Napoléon, the culmination of his exploration in the possibilities of the film media. It is intoxicating and stimulating at the same time. It's the portrait of a revolutionary turning into a reactionary.

I have been a champion of Napoléon since I saw Kevin Brownlow's documentary Abel Gance - The Charm of Dynamite (GB 1968) at the Cinemateket / Svenska Filminstitutet in 1981. Then in 1984 at Arsenal in West Berlin I saw the 1981 Zoetrope Studios version of Napoléon in a 16 mm print with the house pianist, a veteran from the 1920s, playing live for the duration of 285 minutes, Arsenal perhaps slowing down the projection speed of the version that runs 235 min at sound speed?

Came the first full experience: a live cinema event of the Kevin Brownlow restoration  with Carl Davis conducting his own score at the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki in 1986. It was 320 minutes, and the polyvision was realized with a dual projection of 35 mm and 70 mm. I had the privilege of being the Finnish Film Archive liaison of the event, launched by Peter von Bagh, who had left the Archive the year before.

I also saw live Kevin Brownlow's third Napoléon restoration in the 20th anniversary gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto at Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine in 2001, Carl Davis again conducting his score. It was 333 minutes long and felt exquisite with refined tinting passages achieved with vintage chemical methods. Tinting almost invariably fails in modern copies, whether photochemical or digital, but this time they got it right.

I have also seen a 35 mm print of the 1981 Zoetrope version when we screened it in Helsinki in 2013. 235 min.

Of this year's restoration I had the pleasure the enjoy an "appetizer screening" at La Cinémathèque française in March in which Simon Cloquet-Lafollye demonstrated the impact of the new music in six scenes: La Marseillaise, Siège de Toulon, La Terreur, Mariage de Bonaparte, the Double Wedding and the Italian Campaign.

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This year I pay attention to new aspects. Abel Gance portrays the royal family with dignity. Napoléon is such an extreme workaholic that he never properly registers his best friends, the Fleuri family. But they register him, and there can be no better recommendation for a man. This is a film so rich in telling details, that I am not always sure if there is a newfound moment added to the restoration or whether I have just not noticed it before.

In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan inserts experimental passages to convey thinking about quantum physics. Segundo de Chomón's special effect montage superimpositions of Napoléon's thinking fully bear comparison.

Certainly something new is the compilation score by Simon Cloquet-Lafollye, a jigsaw puzzle of 104 compositions by 48 composers. I could not believe my ears when I registered Sibelius (Pelléas et Mélisande and The Tempest), but those entries do fit in the film. How about Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Wagner? No problem. In the finale of this Part One, Cloquet-Lafollye finally gives in to Beethoven, and we hear the funeral march from Eroica in Gance's devastating "war's peace" sequence of the casualties of Toulon and the burning of the French Navy.

After the Udine screening in 2001 I launched a "too much Beethoven?" discussion with my friends from La Cinémathèque française. Is there too much Beethoven in the Carl Davis score? Or can there ever be enough of Beethoven? Today I think that one thing is sure: Beethoven is the Napoléon composer par excellence, expressing both the revolutionary bravado and the tragedy of Napoléon's transformation into an imperialist, nationalist and militarist - the Emperor. They were contemporaries: Beethoven (1770-1827), Napoléon (1769-1824). Napoléon, Beethoven and Gance share a common spiritual dimension of grandeur. Gance directed also Beethoven biopics: La Dixième Symphonie and Un grand amour de Beethoven.

Beethoven is the obvious choice, and the real issue is: is it too obvious?

Ridley Scott in his Napoleon avoided the obvious - no Beethoven, not even La Marseillaise, instead drawing from Haydn.

It is rewarding to get lost in the details of Napoléon. There is an abundance of them. But over it all there hovers a powerful spirit of history. Sometimes centuries pass and nothing changes. Sometimes there is a moment when things start to turn and everything changes. Abel Gance catches this moment and this spirit unforgettably. His movie is deeply human, deeply tragic and deeply historical.

The 2024 restoration by La Cinémathèque française is destined to become the standard version, and the standard is high indeed. It is full of joys to behold. I trust that La Cinémathèque française also pays fair tribute to Kevin Brownlow in the process.

Napoléon was never a lost film, but Kevin Brownlow was the one whose restoration in 1979-1980 rediscovered the full glory of Abel Gance and his film to a modern global audience. More than that, his Napoléon restoration was instrumental in reviving the glory of the silent cinema in general, after it had been lying semi-dormant for half a century.

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Until now, I have always seen Napoléon with English intertitles only (the Brownlow and Coppola versions). Today, for the first time with French intertitles. Vive la France!

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The week after Bologna, the full 2024 restoration was premiered in Paris.

The Polyvision (triptych) sequences were screened letterboxed = half the size of the regular image.

Paul Cuff: review of the Paris premiere 4-5 July 2024 of the 2024 restoration of Napoléon.

Paul Cuff: review of the book by Frédéric Bonnaud and Joël Daire on Napoléon, 2024.

Simon Cloquet-Lafollye wrote the score for the 2024 reconstruction of Napoléon vu par Abel Gance drawing on 104 works by 48 different composers. Photo from: Frédéric Bonnaud & Joël Daire (ed.): Napoléon, vu par Abel Gance (Paris: La Table Ronde, 2024). From: The Realm of Silence, Paul Cuff, 5 June 2024.

Vražda ing. Čerta / Murdering the Devil (2023 restoration by Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)

Ester Krumbachová: Vražda ing. Čerta / Murdering the Devil (CZ 1970) with Jiřina Bohdalová as Ona = She.

CZ 1970. Director: Ester Krumbachová. Sog., Scen.: Ester Krumbachová. F.: Jirí Macák. M.: Miroslav Hájek. Scgf.: Boris Moravec. Mus.: Angelo Michajlov. Int.: Jiřina Bohdalová (Ona = She), Vladimír Menšík, (signor Čert = Devil), Ljuba Hermanová (Miriam), Helena Ruzicková (Helena Ruzicková). Prod.: Filmové studio Barrandov. DCP. D.: 75’. Col.

    Copy from NFA

    Restored in 4K in 2023 by Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in collaboration with Národní filmový archiv and Státní Fond Kinematografie at UPP and Soundsquare Studios laboratories, from the original image and sound negatives. Funding provided by Milada Kučerová and Eduard Kučera

    In Czech with English subtitles by Alex Zucker, e-subtitles in Italian by Ada Caterina Nanni.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Recovered and Restored.

    Introduced by Marie Barešová (Národní filmový archiv)

    Viewed at Cinema Lumière - Sala Scorsese, 23 June 2024

Martin Šrajer (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " “We live and operate in a man’s world. That’s why we as women are like guests. Of course, this could be an advantage for us, because we can mock the male world more easily,” Ester Krumbachová said in an interview with A. J. Liehm. The Czech set designer, costume designer, screenwriter and director did not consider herself a feminist, but deconstructing patriarchal structures was a lifelong mission for her – as it was for her friend Věra Chytilová. The battle of the sexes was also the subject of her only directorial effort Vražda ing. Čerta. "

" The simple plot woven from many fairytale archetypes consists of a series of meetings in the apartment of the nameless protagonist. A friend she hasn’t seen in years, engineer Bohouš Čert [Devil in Czech], arrives. While she lovingly prepares a feast of many courses, he just sips, munches and grunts without restraint. And still he isn’t satisfied. The more empty plates and chewed-up furniture legs he leaves behind, the more his hostess is horrified. But she still dreams that the visitor from hell will rescue her from her boring, lonely life, so she lets Devil invade her privacy again and again. She only keeps him away from the fridge, her Pandora’s box… "

" With previous projects, Krumbachová could only use a fraction of her skills. On Vražda ing. Čerta she embraced everything she was fascinated by and excelled at. She herself gave form to a detailed mise-en-scène with a touch of Art Nouveau and occultism, sewed the clothes, made the jewellery, designed the furniture, and even prepared the food that conveys more meaning than the dialogue. The film passed censorship and was allowed to premiere in September 1970. However, artistic opportunities of Krumbachová, who collaborated on many politically problematic films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, were gradually cut down. She never made another film. This visually opulent parable about male and female roles not only launched but also ended the directorial filmography of this Renaissance woman. " Martin Šrajer (Bologna Catalogue 2024)

AA: "Between two evils I always pick the one I never tried before", said Mae West. 

But Ona (= She) (Jiřina Bohdalová, born in 1931 and still with us) invites the devil she knows, Engineer Čert (= Devil) (Vladimír Menšík, 1929-1988).

Perhaps she believes that she can change him with her attractions, most importantly, lavish multi-course meals. Mr. Čert does gorge himself thoroughly, paying no attention to table manners, elementary courtesy or even clean dress. He is the Chauvinist Pig incarnate.

It is about time to pay tribute to Ester Krumbachová (1923-1996), a key talent in the Czech New Wave of the 1960s, including in the movies of Oldřich Lipský whose playfulness is relevant also here, Otakar Vávra, Jan Němec, Karel Kachyňa, Jaromil Jireš, and particularly Věra Chytilová. Murdering the Devil has profound affinities with the crazy world of Daisies, whose co-screenwriter, creative consultant and costume designer Krumbachová was. Both Daisies and Murdering the Devil are also films relevant to feminism.

In Murdering the Devil, Krumbachová appears as a total film-maker: director, screenwriter and costume designer. Her touch is evident in every detail, including make-up, hair design, jewel design and food design. From Marie Barešová's introduction we learned that Krumbachová was a great cook, and Murdering the Devil earns a place in anthologies of cinema and cooking.

It is a design-driven movie, exquisite, ornate, staging an artificial paradise welcoming the Devil. It is unique and unforgettable. But sometimes the Devil can be in the detail.

The 4K restoration is impeccable. That it is also slightly airless and missing photochemical juiciness may be intentional.