Inglourious Basterds

Kunniattomat paskiaiset / Ärelösa jävlar. US/DE (c) 2009 Visione Romantica. D+SC: Quentin Tarantino. DP: Robert Richardson - negative: 35 mm (Kodak Vision2 200T 5217, Vision3 500T 5219), anamorphic Panavision 2,35:1 - digital intermediate 2K. CAST: Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine), Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus), Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa), Eli Roth (Sgt. Donny Donowitz), Michael Fassbender (Lt. Archie Hicox), Diane Kruger (Bridget von Hammersmark), Daniel Brühl (Pvt Fredrick Zoller), Til Schweiger (Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz), Gedeon Burkhard (Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki), Jacky Ido (Marcel), B.J. Novak (Pfc. Smithson Utivich), Omar Doom (Pfc. Omar Ulmer), August Diehl (Major Dieter Hellstrom), Denis Menochet (Perrier LaPadite), Sylvester Groth (Joseph Goebbels), Martin Wuttke (Adolf Hitler), Mike Myers (General Ed Fenech), Julie Dreyfus (Francesca Mondino). 156 min. Original in French, German, and English. Released in Finland by Finnkino, with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Timo Porri / Janne Staffans. Viewed at Cinema Bristol, Helsinki, 4 Sep 2009 (Finnish premiere day). - Although the film is reportedly based on a 2K digital intermediate, the print had a pleasant photochemical look except in the forest scenes. - I love Quentin Tarantino, but I have been disappointed with his films since Pulp Fiction because of their regressive development. - To be redeemed: the great cast - the complexity of Daniel Brühl's character: the Wehrmacht has made him a killer, yet one can sense the human being struggling to emerge from the uniform - the smiling, polite Gestapo officer created by Christoph Waltz certainly belongs to the great villains of film history - Brad Pitt has developed a new and strong blackly humoristic charisma in his roles for the Coen Brothers and Tarantino; in these roles he is at his best - Mélanie Laurent is dignified as Shoshanna Dreyfus, brutalized by the Holocaust. - The fascinating thing is Tarantino's meta-commentary of film history, which ranges from Ernst Lubitsch (To Be Or Not To Be) to European war exploitation cinema. It is fun, and maybe I'm wrong to expect more. - I hate the sadism of this film. I also hate the simple-minded revenge motif of this film. My initial reaction is also that this film does a terrible disservice to the Jews. - For the Finnish viewer it is striking to notice the swastika over Finland on Hitler's map of Europe. It is not right (Finland was never under Nazi rule), nor quite wrong (Finland was a partner in Operation Barbarossa).

Nepokorjonnye

Непокорённые / [Lannistumattomat] / [The Unvanquished]. SU 1945. D: Marc Donskoï. Based on a story by Boris Gorbatov; SC: Boris Gorbatov, Marc Donskoï; DP: Boris (Benzion) Monastyrski; DP: Moriz Oumanski; M: Lev Shwartz; S: Alexandre Babi; CAST: Amvrossi Boutchma (Tarass), Véniamine Zouskine (il dottor Aron Davidovitch), Lidia Kartachova (Efrosinia), Daniil Sagal (Stepan), Evgueni Ponomarenko (Andreï), V. Slavina (Nastia), M. Samosvat (Antonina), Nikolaï Zimovets (Vassiliok), Mikhaïl Troïanovski (Nazare), Ekaterina Osmialovskaïa (Valia), Ivan Kononenko (Maxime), Samuïl Stollerman (l’artista), Alexeï Vatoulia (Ignat), Anton DounaÏski (Chtchovkounov) (Panas), G. Dolgov (Petouchkov), Mikhaïl Vyssotski (l’ingegnere tedesco), Viktor Khalatov (Porossenkov) (il comandante tedesco), Hans Klering (un luogotenente tedesco), Dmitri Kapka (il fabbro), Vadim Zakourenko (Lionka), Iounona Iakovtchenko (Mariïka), Liouda Lizenguevich (la nipotina del dottor Aron Davidovitch); PC: Studio di Kiev; 35mm. 2590 m. 94’. B&w. Russian version. From: Gosfilmofond. - Presenta Valérie Pozner, earphone commentary in Italian and English, viewed at Cinema Lumière 2, Bologna, 4 July 2009. - Catalogue: The story of a Ukrainian family of workers during German occupation, which the father, Taras, thinks he can ignore by barricading himself in his house. The other members of the family are slowly swept by the events and join the resistance movement, while the father looks after the daughter of Doctor Aron Davidovitch, who has been murdered in the Babi Yar massacre. - The only pre-1960s Soviet fiction film that directly deals with the Holocaust on Soviet territory. The sequence, though shortened, was not banned, despite the opposition of some members of the Artistic Council of the Committee on Cinema. - A brilliant image quality in the print, but some fuzz on the soundtrack. - The motto is from Taras Bulba (Gogol) which the son of the main family is shown to read, a familiar motif with Donskoy (The Gorky Trilogy). Another familiar Donskoy feature is a score by Lev Schwartz, always with Gorky references. - The theme of the story: Never surrender. - The Jewish doctor is the embodiment of dignity in the picture. - The legendary Babi Jar scene is at 44 min of the film. In this print the scene lasts ca two minutes. - The mission of the father: to save the life of the daughter of the doctor slaughtered in Babi Jar. - The thriller element: one of the villagers has turned into a Nazi collaborator, but he has a change of heart after Babi Jar. - Not one of the best films by Donskoy but an important resistance and Holocaust film with a strong personal commitment by the Odessa-born master.

Sunshine

DE/AT/CA/HU (c) 1999 [many production companies]. P: Andras Hamori, Robert Lantos. D: István Szabó. SC: István Szabó, Israel Horovitz. DP: Lajos Koltai - colour and black & white (archival footage) - 1,85:1. M: Maurice Jarre. Egmont overture by Beethoven. PD: Attila Kovács. AD: Zsuzsanna Borvendég. COST: Györgyi Szakács. ED: Michal Arcand. CAST: Ralph Fiennes (Ignatz Sonnenschein / Adam Sors / Ivan Sors), Jennifer Ehle (Valerie Sonnenschein as a young woman) Rosemary Harris (Valerie Sors as a grown-up woman), Rachel Weisz (Greta), Deborah Kara Unger (Maj. Carole Kovacs), John Neville (Gustave Sors as an old man), Miriam Margolyes (Rose Sonnenschein), Rüdiger Vogler (Gen. Jakofalvy), Hanns Zischler (Baron Margitta), Mari Töröcsik (Older Kato), William Hurt (Andor Knorr). 181 min. A Filmunio print, original in English, viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 12 June 2009. - Print with beautiful colour, pleasant photochemical look, wear and tear in changeovers. - One of the essential films by István Szabó, one of the essential Jewish films of all time, an essential film of reckoning with the Eastern European past, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. - It is the story of a hundred years in three generations of the Sonnenschein / Sors family. It starts from the shtetl, the family patriarch the inventor of a herbal liquor. Ignatz becomes a judge, and has to change his name. His son Adam becomes an Olympic fencer, and has to convert to Catholicism. That does not prevent him from becoming a victim of the Holocaust. His son Ivan becomes a police officer in Socialist Hungary, to bring the fascists to justice. But witnessing the crimes of Stalinism and the bloody repression of the people's uprising of 1956 he turns his back to the new system. - A unique attempt to cover honestly the various totalitarian administrations in Hungary. - As a Jewish film, it is about the tragedy of forced assimilation and persecution. The Holocaust episode belongs to the most harrowing in the history of the cinema. - Among the recurrent motifs: the lost recipe notebook, the grandfather's watch, the splinters. - Towards the end of the film certain lessons first mentioned in the start get new resonance. "We are afraid to see clearly and to be seen clearly". "If you struggle for acceptance, you'll always be unhappy". "You are not in prison, they are in prison". "One day I'll wipe that smile off your face". "I'm not anybody's wife, I'm myself". - The finest sequence: the 1956 uprising edited to the rhythm of Beethoven's Egmont overture. - There are gorgeous female roles in the film, and especially the scenes with the bright Jennifer Ehle radiate with intelligence, courage, sensuality and frank sexuality. - Rachel Weisz would have deserved more screen time, but of course the film is long as it is. Rosemary Harris is excellent as the grown-up Valerie. - Although Ralph Fiennes in his triple role portrays the three main characters, finally, Valerie is the soul and heart of the film, the only one who never loses her inner compass. - A film I decided I want to see again even while still watching it.

Die Fälscher

Väärentäjä / Förfalskaren. AT / DE (c) 2007 Aichholzer Filmproduktion / Magnolia Filmproduktion. P: Josef Aichholzer, Nina Bohlmann, Babette Schröder. D+SC: Stefan Ruzowitzky - based on the book Des Teufels Werkstatt (1951) by Adolf Burger. In cooperation with Adolf Burger. DP: Benedict Neuenfels - shot in Super 16mm - 35mm blowup - 1:1,85. Starring: Karl Markovics (Salomon Sorowitsch), August Diehl (Adolf Burger), Devid Striesow (Sturmbannführer Friedrich Herzog), Martin Brambach (Hauptscharführer Holst), August Zirner (Dr. Klinger), Veit Stübner (Atze), Sebastian Urzendowsky (Kolya Karloff). 98 min. Released in Finland by Nordisk, Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Petra Honkala / Joanna Erkkilä. Viewed at Kinopalatsi 6, Helsinki, 6 Feb 2008. Based on the true story of the world's greatest forgery plan, Operation Bernhard, with the cooperation of Adolf Burger. The Nazis tried to collapse world economy by a huge and ingenious forgery industry, for instance printing counterfeit British pounds and U.S. dollars. The workers were concentration camp slaves who had to work at the risk of their lives. Apparently the protagonist Salomon Sorowitsch is fictive: a Jewish criminal from the Berlin underworld who has to endure 10 years of concentration camps and is saved from Auschwitz to Sachsenhausen because he is the genius of the counterfeiters, even admired by Nazis, to his dismay. A fascinating story, intelligently told. Drab digital intermediate look.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Burger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bernhard

Coup de foudre

Meidän kesken / Franska väninnor / GB: At First Sight / US: Entre nous. FR (c) 1983 Partner's Productions, etc. P: Ariel Zeitoun. D+SC: Diane Kurys - based on the book by Olivier Cohen and Diane Kurys (1983). DP: Bernard Lutic - Eastmancolor - Panavision 1:2,35. PD: Jacques Bufnoir. M: Luis Bacalov. Starring: Miou-Miou (Madeleine), Isabelle Huppert (Lena), Guy Marchand (Michel), Jean-Pierre Bacri (Costa), Robin Renucci (Raymond), Patrick Bauchau (Carlier). 113 min. A fine Ministère des Affaires Etrangères print with English subtitles by A. Whitelaw & B. Byron. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 29 Jan 2008. "A eux trois, je dédie ce film". A fine film about two women during some ten years, starting in 1942 during the Occupation of France and continuing until the 1950s. The character of Lena is based on the mother of Diane Kurys. Lena is rescued by marriage from a Nazi concentration camp in the Pyrenees, and Madeleine's boyfriend is killed by a Gestapo bullet. Lena has to face the insensitivity of her husband, and Madeleine is estranged from hers, and there are the children. The family situations are presented with vitality, the film is full of life. The women are more important to each other than men. The film is much better than I had expected by reading male reviews about it.

Guest at Cinema Orion: Mayer Franck

Mayer Franck (1928-2012). He appeared as himself in Pia Andell's documentary Matkustaja / Passenger (2011). He visited schools and met children and young people to tell them how it was. After the Orion meeting I used to see him at the Academic Bookstore and by the Stockmann Deli.

Mayer Franck (born in Zgierz near Lodz, Poland, in 1928), an Auschwitz survivor, settled in Finland in 1947. He was our guest in Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 25 Jan 2008 in the screening of Ostatni etap, a film he saw for the first time. After the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939 the Franck family was sent to the Lodz ghetto, where Mayer stayed until he was deported to Auschwitz in July 1944. From there he was sent to another labour camp, Tzebin. In January 1945 the camp was closed, and during the march Mayer managed to hide in a barn. He was saved by farmers, spotted but ignored by SS men, and captured by the Red Army who suspected he was a spy but fortunately the examiner was also a Jew. Life in post-war Poland was terrible for Jews, and in January 1947 Mayer came to Finland to stay and founded a family.

Mayer's comments on Ostatni etap: 1) it's about the women's block, foreign to him, 2) every day I expected that the planes would come to bomb Auschwitz, 3) I expected to be taken to Birkenau, but the orders changed by the day, 4) every day there was the selection, 5) the selection was the worst, 6) the young cruel women with their Schäfers were more horrible than men, children were ruthlessly crushed, 7) the orchestra I never heard, 8) doctors I never saw, 9) we only had numbers, no names, 10) everybody belonged to a certain work unit, 11) we did not sleep in beds but on the floor (stone or sand), without clothes, without lavatories, piled on top of one another, 12) there was no tea but dirty water, 13) we were not in stone but wooden barracks, 14) one was provoked against another.

To sum up: for Mayer Franck, Auschwitz was basically like in Ostatni etap but worse. He still has nightmares every night and needs sleeping pills to be able to sleep.

Ostatni etap / The Last Stage

Ken tästä käy... / Sista etappen. PL 1948. PC: Film Polski. P+D: Wanda Jakubowska. SC: Wanda Jakubowska, Gerda Schneider. DP: Borys Monastyrski. PD: Roman Mann, Czeslaw Piaskowski. M: Roman Palester. Starring: Tatjana Gorecka (Eugenia, doctor-prisoner), Antonina Gordon-Gorecka (Anna, nurse-prisoner), Barbara Drapinska (Marta Weiss), Aleksandra Slaska (superintendent of the women's block). A 35 mm Filmoteca Narodowa print with English subtitles (often good definition of light, partly high-contrast and dark). Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Forum Holocaust), 25 Jan 2008.

Observations revisiting a classic film: 1) this is the story of the women's block, 2) strong opening scene, bullied women prisoners, one of them pregnant, are kept standing, but they stay tough and express solidarity by swinging rhythmically, 3) the story of the baby in Auschwitz, 4) here are iconic images such as the smoke from the crematorium chimneys, suicide victims on the electric fence, the endless heaps of hair, toys, suitcases and so on, 4) strong dramatic score, 5) the women' s orchestra playing classical music, 6) the songs of the prisoners in Polish, Russian, and French, 7) banal schlager music in the torture chamber, 8) the prisoners are au courant of the war events, 9) the underground resistance with a secret telegraph and radio, 10) many Nazis are thieves, including the fake doctor, 11) this is the story of women's solidarity, 12) the Communists are heroes, there is jubilation for a declaration from Stalin, and the Red air force is the image of coming liberation. Final message: "never again".

FORUM HOLOCAUST

Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 21 Jan 2008. Organized by Yad Vashem Finland, chaired by Mr. Matti Myllykoski. Ms. Irene Jelin spoke about anti-semitism before the Holocaust, and Mr. Michel Grünstein about modern anti-semitism. My presentation on cinema and Holocaust was inspired by the new book edited by Jean-Michel Frodon: Le Cinéma et la Shoah: Un art à l'épreuve de la tragédie du 20e siècle (Paris: Editions Cahiers du cinéma / Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, 2007). It has also a useful filmography in six categories: 1) Documentary and compilation films, 2) Fiction, 3) Essays, 4) Television, 5) Original footage, 6) Nazi propaganda. The discussion was so lively that the event lasted much longer than planned. Personally, I find the theme the more profoundly disturbing the more I think about it, and I took the next day off for mental ventilation.

Az örvény / Free Fall - Private Hungary Part 10

/ / HU / 1996 / Forgács, Peter / / documentary essay
Örvény, Az / Free Fall - Private Hungary Part 10 / Kuilun partaalla - Yksityinen Unkari osa 10. © Peter Forgács; Balázs Bela Studio. D: Peter Forgács. Based on the home movies of György Petö from 1938-1944. M: Tibor Szemzó. Poems by János Pilinszy. 75’. Finnish translation by Anne Nádari. Yleisradio TV2 PAL transmission on Wednesday 11 February 1998. **** In search of lost time: a musical and poetic reconstruction of life in Hungary before the Holocaust. This is a companion piece to Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini: the small detail can be more devastating than bombastic effects. Thanks are due to the impressive work of the Finnish editors of the film.

Sterne

054894 / 16 / DD / 1959 / Wolf, Konrad / drama

Sterne / Zwezdy / Stars / Poljettu tähti. PC: Progress-Film / DEFA. D: Konrad Wolf. SC: Angel Wagenstein. Songs include ”Es brennt” (Mordechai Gebirtik 1941) and ”Eli Eli”, performed by Gerry Wolff. CAST: Sascha Kruscharska, Jürgen Frohriep, Erik S. Klein. 92’. B&w. Fair print with rainswept changeovers. Mostly in German, with occasional Bulgarian, Greek, and Yiddish dialogue. Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Marjatta Leskinen / Doris Harkimo with fatal errors of translation. Viewed at SEA, Cinema Orion, Helsinki, Thursday, 19 September 1997. *** A few days during the Nazi occupation of Bulgaria. Greek Jews are being transported to Auschwitz. Walter, a German Unteroffizier, is moved from his complacency by the meeting of Ruth, the keeper of the spirit of the deported. This is a film about the dawn of conscience. The simple realistic scenes in deep focus, the expressive close-ups, the lively moving camera, the haunting songs, and the gentle style of acting are effective, the passages of symbolic images misguided. But this film by a German Jew who survived in the Moscow exile is a valid contribution to the mystery of ”Hitler’s ordinary executioners”. (In order to pass for Cannes in 1959 it had to pose as ”a Bulgarian entry” to avoid West German protests, but actually it is an East German film.)