Frantsuz / The Frenchman

Andrei Smirnov: Frantsuz / The Frenchman (2019) with Evgenya Obraztsova (Kira Galkina) and Anton Rival (Pierre Durand).

Andrei Smirnov: Frantsuz / The Frenchman (2019) with Nina Drobysheva (Olga Obrezkova, Natalia Tenyakova (Maria Obrezkova) and Anton Rival (Pierre Durand). Gradually Pierre gets on track of his lost father. My screenshot. Please click to enlarge the image.

Француз / A Frenchman.
    RU © 2019 Ano "KADR". PC: Marmot-Film. P: Elena Prudnikova, Andrei Smirnov, Valeri Todorovski.
    D+SC: Andrei Smirnov. Cin: Yuri Shaygardanov – b&w – digital. PD: Vladimir Gudilin. Cost: Ludmila Gaintseva. Makeup: Elena Dmitrienko. VFX: CGF. S: Oleg Tatarinov. ED: Alla Strelnikova. Steadicam: Aleksandr Vdovenko. Quadcopter: Andrei Dontsov. Advisor: Arseni Roginsky (Memorial).
    Soundtrack selections include: Ludwig van Beethoven: Opus 27 Nr. 2: Klaviersonate Nr. 14 in cis-Moll „Mondschein“ (1801), played by Pierre Durand to his father at the Pereslavl-Zalessky House of Culture.
    "Bernie's Tune" (Bernie Miller, 1952) and "Donna Lee" (Charlie Parker, 1947) performed by the jazz quintet of Anton Rumyantsev.
    Poems: "Kogda ya ochen zatoskuyu" (Aleksandr Kushner), "Moroz segodnya krepki" (Igor Kholin), "Ivanovy" (Nikolai Zabolotski).
    Paintings by Oscar Rabin.
    C: Anton Rival (French exchange student Pierre Durand), Evgenia Obraztsova (Bolshoi ballerina Kira Galkina), Yevgeny Tkachuk (VGIK student, photographer Valeri Uspenski), Aleksandr Baluev (Tatishchev, night watchman at a bakery, former Count, former White Officer, Gulag survivor), Mikhail Efremov (Valeri Uspenski's dad, former teacher of Marxism-Leninism, Gulag survivor), Roman Madyanov (Chuhnovski, writer), Nina Drobysheva (Olga Obrezkova, former noblewoman, Gulag survivor), Natalia Tenyakova (Maria Obrezkova, former noblewoman, Gulag survivor), Vera Lashkova (Anna Fedorovna, manager of the house of culture), Evgeny Kharitonov (Oscar Rabin, painter), Thomas Alden (Louis), Anna Neverova (Marusya), Alexander Zamuraev (alcoholic), Manuel Sinor (restaurateur).
    Locations: Moscow, Paris.
    128 min
    Dedicated to the memory of Aleksandr Ginzburg.
    Festival premiere: 16 June 2019 Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr.
    International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020.
    31 Oct 2019 Walt Disney Studios Sony Pictures Releasing (Russia) direct-to-consumer.
    Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition / Films by former Sodankylä guests [Andrei Smirnov: 2006].
    From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform with English subtitles, viewed at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a tv screen, 19 June 2020.

Official synopsis: "In 1957, a French student, Pierre Durand, comes to Moscow for an internship at Moscow State University. Here he meets the Bolshoi Theater ballerina Kira Galkina and photographer Valera Uspensky. Thanks to these acquaintances, Pierre is immersed in the cultural life of Moscow, not only official, but also underground. For a year, Pierre has lived in Moscow for a lifetime, completely unlike anything he knew. But internship and acquaintance with different aspects of the life of Soviet people is not Pierre's only goal. He is looking for his father, white officer Tatishchev, who was arrested in the late 1930s." (Official synopsis).

International Film Festival Rotterdam: "By the end of the 1970s, Andrei Smirnov had had enough. One of the best and brightest auteurs to emerge from the Soviet 1960s couldn't stand constant harassment from the authorities anymore, and quit cinema for good. At least as a director; he stuck around as a screenwriter and actor. But then, after 32 years, he returned with Žila-byla odna baba (2011). Now A Frenchman suggests he's back to stay, and will continue directing."

"A Frenchman, the story of a French exchange student's adventures in late 1950s Moscow, makes us painfully aware what a formidable cinematic mind and soul Smirnov has: discrete, educated, good-humoured, politically poignant while never dogmatic – the kind of public intellectual we perhaps need these days more than ever. Watching this film is like looking at a lost world, in more ways than one." (Rotterdam)
 
AA: Andrei Smirnov belongs to the masters of Thaw cinema, debuting before the beginning of Brezhnev's era of stagnation. His most famous film is Belorusski Station, but my own personal favourite is Angel (1967), suppressed at the time along with the episode film The Beginning of an Unknown Era and only released during Glasnost. One of the greatest Russian films of all times.

After a break of over 30 years Smirnov returned to directing films in the 2010s. I have yet to see the acclaimed Once Upon a Time There Lived a Simple Woman. The Frenchman is such a distinguished achievement that it makes me look forward to seeing not only it but all Smirnov's films again.

The Frenchman combines a strong argument with complexity in its account of character and history. It is a historical drama about a young Frenchman in search of his Russian roots. Pierre Durand is a member of the PCF, the French Communist Party, coming to the Soviet Union for the first time in his life in 1957. His father, a French resistance fighter, has died as a prisoner of the Nazis.

Pierre is both an insider and an outsider. Because he has spoken Russian with his mother all his life, he can instantly connect with everybody. Khrushchev has given his speech denouncing Stalin in the previous year, in 1956, rehabilitated millions purged by Stalin and ousted Stalin hard-liners from the party. Durand is aware of this, but the USSR is still full of surprises for him. And yet somehow, however, he is not surprised. This film is not a satire in the Candide tradition. Smirnov avoids clichés and stereotypes while the message remains strong and clear.

The Thaw liberation is real, but we also meet an opportunistic author, happy to be conform, yet giving Pierre the advice: "Keep your mouth shut. Don't speak to anybody". We meet a KGB officer who tries to engage Pierre as an informer, and Pierre even signs a document but never provides anything (instead, he smuggles samizdat poetry upon his return to France). Spies are everywhere. The walls have ears.

We visit legendary official landmarks of culture: Moscow State University and Bolshoi Ballet (Pierre falls asleep during Swan Lake), but we are also taken to the clandestine atelier of the modernist painter Oscar Rabin, an underground jazz club where the sax virtuoso Zubov gives a brilliant performance of "Bernie's Tune", and most importantly, witness the excitement of samizdat poets such as Joseph Brodsky and Igor Kholin. Period detail feels accurate, including vintage radio broadcasts.

The horror of the recent past starts to emerge. Valeri Uspensky's dad, an ex-teacher of Marxism-Leninism, is a camp survivor. Remote relatives, the Obrezkova sisters, former noblewomen, tell about their Gulag ordeal across the Soviet Union, including the Solovki.

Finally Pierre is given the clue that leads him to Pereslavl-Zalessky, to his biological father, the former Count Tatischev, a White officer, believed lost in Gulag. He has survived Kolyma and other chambers of hell. An alumnus of Mikhailovskoe artilleriskoe uchilishche, a master school of mathematics, he has survived by focusing his mind on Gödel theorems and the Russell paradox. He now works the night shift as a bakery guard. It is not a happy reunion between son and father. Pierre is the result of a summer fling, after which mother left Russia and gave birth in France to Pierre whom the Count has never seen before.

Aleksandr Baluev, Nina Drobysheva, Natalia Tenyakova, Vera Lashkova and Mikhail Efremov give the most memorable performances in the film as the Gulag survivors. Their faces carry the legacy of a terrible past. The young ones lose their illusions but not their hope. The final gestures are full of defiance.

The Frenchman is one of the best films I have seen about life during the Thaw. It has been shot in black and white like contemporary classics by Danelia, Khutsiev and Tarkovsky, but in the digital presentation there is a glacial atmosphere like also for instance in Frantz by François Ozon. A lack of warmth emphasizes a probably unintentional sense of alienation including in the two romantic separations of the film, in Paris in the beginning and in Moscow in the finale.

REMARKS FROM THE OFFICIAL SITE:

"Valeri Uspensky mentions in a conversation with Pierre the name of "his sidekick Alik" and the independent magazine "Gramotei", which he publishes. This is a reference to the Samizdat poetic almanac Syntax, which Ginsburg produced, and for which he received his first term. All the verses read in the picture are from Syntax."

"In the role of Anna Fyodorovna, the manager of the house of culture in Pereslavl-Zalessky, where Pierre and Tatishchev have a conversation, stars Vera Lashkova, a comrade-in-arms of Alik Ginzburg, a typist who was engaged in reprinting the Samizdat collections “White Book” (files from the Sinyavsky and Daniel trials collected by Ginzburg). The dedication at the end of the film – “In memory of Alik Ginzburg and his friends who wanted to live not by lies” – is addressed to Vera Lashkova in particular."

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM MSFF ETC.

Mr. Jones (2019)

Agnieszka Holland: Mr. Jones (2019) with Peter Sarsgaard (Walter Duranty), James Norton (Gareth Jones) and Vanessa Kirby (Ada Brooks).

Obywatel Jones / Ціна правди / Mr. Jones [Finnish and Swedish title] / Den sorte jord [Danish and Norwegian title]
    PL/GB/US © 2019 Film Producja / Parkhurst / Kinorob / Jones by Film / Krakow Festival Office / Studio Produkeyjne Orka / Kino Swiat / Silesia Film Institute in Katowice. P: Andrea Chalupa, Stanisław Dziedzic, Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska.
    D: Agnieszka Holland. SC: Andrea Chalupa. Cin: Tomasz Naumiuk – colour – 2,35:1 – release: D-Cinema. PD: Grzegorz Piątkowski. AD: Fiona Gavin. Set dec: Kinga Babczynska. Cost: Galina Otenko, Ola Staszko. Make up and hair: Janusz Kaleja. M: Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz. S: Wojciec Mielimaka. ED: Michał Czarnecki. Casting: Colin Jones.
    Songs include: "Forces of Baba Yaga". "Piosenka głodnych dzieci" [The Song of the Hungry Children] (Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz, lyr. DP), sung by the Choir of Ukrainian Orphans.
    Gareth Jones's theme poem: "Cad Goddeu" / "The Battle of the Trees" from the Book of Taliesin (14th century).
    C: James Norton (Gareth Jones), Vanessa Kirby (Ada Brooks), Peter Sarsgaard (Walter Duranty), Joseph Mawle (Eric Blair = George Orwell), Kenneth Cranham (Lloyd George), Celyn Jones (Matthew), Krzysztof Pieczyński (Maxim Litvinov), Beata Pozniak (Rhea Clyman), Martin Bishop (Sir Ernest Bennet), John Edmondson (J. E. B. Seely), Julian Lewis Jones (Major Jones), Patrycja Volny (Bonnie), Michalina Olszanska (Yulia), Marcin Czarnik (Paul Kleb), Michael O'Donnell (Malcolm Muggeridge), Matthew Marsh (William Randolph Hearst).
    Filmed in Ukraine, Poland and Scotland, 16 Feb – 30 July 2018.
    Languages: English, Russian, Ukrainian, Welsh.
    141 min (festival), 119 (theatrical).
    Festival premiere: 10 Feb 2019 Berlin International Film Festival
    Polish premiere: 25 Oct 2019.
    Ukrainian premiere: 28 Nov 2019.
    British premiere: 7 Feb 2020.
    Finnish premiere: 13 March 2020 [distribution interrupted by corona lockdown 17 March 2020], released by Future Film with Finnish / Swedish subtitles.
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    Draken Film, 119 min version with Swedish subtitles by Oneliner.
    Viewed on a tv screen at a forest retreat in Punkaharju, 17 June 2020.

BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL SYNOPSIS: "In March 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones takes a train from Moscow to Kharkov in the Ukraine. He disembarks at a small station and sets off on foot on a journey through the country where he experiences at first hand the horrors of a famine. Everywhere there are dead people, and everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out to the general public. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin; the policy is tantamount to mass murder. Supported by Ada Brooks, a New York Times reporter, Jones succeeds in spreading the shocking news in the West, thereby putting his powerful rival, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, pro-Stalin journalist Walter Duranty, firmly in his place."

"Shot in Poland, Scotland and in original locations in the Ukraine, Agnieszka Holland’s film recalls the legendary journalist Gareth Jones (1905–1935) who, despite fierce resistance, could not be dissuaded from telling the truth. Jones’s encounter with the young George Orwell is said to have inspired the latter’s dystopian parable ‘Animal Farm’ (1945)." Berlin Film Festival 2019

AA: Having just watched Charlatan in Midnight Sun Film Festival's online edition I was inspired to see Mr. Jones, Agnieszka Holland's previous historical drama. It had its Finnish premiere on 13 March only to have its run interrupted during the premiere week by the corona lockdown.

Both films are well directed, produced, written and acted historical tragedies about Eastern European ordeals under the aegis of the Soviet Union. Charlatan takes place in Czechoslovakia in 1957, and Mr. Jones is an exposé of the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1933. Jan Mikolášek, the faith healer of Charlatan, treated four million patients. In Ukraine, at least an equal number of famine victims perished during the Holodomor.

Holodomor is a major historical catastrophe that has been discussed far from enough in the cinema. Nine years ago we mounted a Ukrainian film retrospective at Cinema Orion, curated by Dalia Stasevska. We screened the first Holodomor movie, Famine-33 (1991), a powerful, uncensored and unflinchingly horrifying account made in the Soviet Union during the last year of its existence. In the same year the Soviet Communist Party acknowledged its guilt in the catastrophe in which seven million people died. A Spring for the Thirsty and The Stone Cross are not Holodomor films but they carry poetic echoes of the primal shock.

Ukraine on the eve of the Holodomor was the home of some of the greatest masterpieces of film art including The Man with the Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov and Earth by Alexander Dovzhenko. What happened around 1933 was a devastating blow to the ideals of both masters.

Vertov had also directed in 1931 Enthusiasm: the Donbass Symphony about the industrial area that has a special meaning in the story of Mr. Jones. Gareth Jones's mother had worked as a teacher in her youth in Donetsk, called Hughesovka / Yuzovka in her youth and Stalino during Gareth's explorations.

The story of Mr. Jones is enormous, and I believe the case is more complicated than discussed in the film. As we know, but the film does not tell, the Western mainstream media was staunchly anti-Soviet, but, as the film tells, it nevertheless failed to convey the enormity of the Holodomor. A parallel case was the Holocaust during WWII. It sounded too incredible to be discussed with full gravity while it happened.

At the core of the film is Gareth Jones's voyage to the heart of darkness, "the bloodlands" (Timothy Snyder). Ostensibly he is on his way to document the miracle of the Five Year Plan in Kharkiv. But during the train ride he escapes from his "beard" to explore the countryside on his own and witness the horror of hunger and devastation. Encounters with starved children are the most memorable in the movie.

The account of the Western journalists' bubble in Stalin era Moscow is lurid and colourful in a movie-movie fashion. Even if it is true, it is told with a slick agenda that weakens the main argument. I would hope that the film-makers would be more Orwellian in trusting in the viewers' ability to think.

Many of the characters are real, starting with Gareth Jones. Malcolm Muggeridge was the first to expose the Holodomor (for Manchester Guardian). Walter Duranty was a mysterious persona: an anti-communist whose account of Stalin's terror had a tinge of racism. He saw Russians as inferior people who longed for a brutal tyrant. I sense that the mystery here would be worth exploring further. Perhaps it might provide clues even to the Stalin mystery itself, and the pseudomorphosis of Russia, to speak with Spengler. Duranty was an invalid: a part of his leg had been amputated after his injury in a train wreck, and he had been prescribed opium to alleviate the pain. He had also belonged to the circle of the Satanist Aleister Crowley. Might Duranty's attitude to Stalin be understood in terms of Satanism?

In this film about the year 1933 we see George Orwell writing Animal Farm, a book written over ten years later and published in 1945. Orwell is presented as the antithesis of Duranty, but isn't there a fundamental affinity in their views of humanity? Duranty's reports from Moscow were published in The New York Times, to the eternal disgrace of the newspaper. The editorials of the paper expressed the opposite view, unmentioned in the film.

The year 1933 was quite a year in world history because of Hitler's rise to power, also covered by Gareth Jones.

A fascinating character in the movie is Maxim Litvinov, USSR's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. His agenda in the 1930s was to build an anti-Fascist front to contain Hitler. When in the Munich Agreement the West chose a policy of appeasement, Litvinov was removed by Stalin and replaced with Molotov who launched the Machiavellian pact with the Devil (Hitler): instead of the USSR Hitler would attack the West first.

Duranty is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and in a nice twist in the finale Jones meets Pulitzer's arch rival, William Randolph Hearst, to publish his Holodomor exposé.

Into historical dramas Agnieszka Holland inserts fascinating mythical dimensions: Taliesin in Mr. Jones ("The Battle of the Trees") and Rusalka in Charlatan ("The Song to the Moon").

To sum up: the core is powerful, and the film would be even stronger without some of the honey trappings.

David Rooney (The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Feb 2019): "For [Andrea] Chalupa, this piece of history has personal significance. His grandfather was born on a farm in Eastern Ukraine and survived the Holodomor, only to be arrested and tortured by Soviet secret police during Stalin's purges."

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: WIKIPEDIA SYNOPSIS:

"Cad Goddeu" / "The Battle of the Trees" from the Book of Taliesin (14th century) (a poem)

"The Druid Grove" (1845). Wikiwand: "Many types of trees found in the Celtic nations are considered to be sacred, whether as symbols, or due to medicinal properties, or because they are seen as the abode of particular nature spirits. Historically and in folklore, the respect given to trees varies in different parts of the Celtic world. On the Isle of Man, the phrase 'fairy tree' often refers to the elder tree. The medieval Welsh poem Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees) is believed to contain Celtic tree lore, possibly relating to the crann ogham, the branch of the ogham alphabet where tree names are used as mnemonic devices." Wikiwand: Celtic Sacred Trees.

Facsimile of a page from the Book of Taliesin (folio 13 recto), showing the last lines of the poem Cad Goddeu and the beginning of the poem Mabgyfreu Taliesin (= BT 27). Medieval, facsimile published in 1868. Source: William Forbes Skene, The Four Ancient Books of Wales. Vol. 2. 1868. Following page 108. Author: medieval scribe. From: Wikimedia Commons.

I HAVE been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
I have been the light of lanterns,
A year and a half.
I have been a continuing bridge,
Over three score Abers.
I have been a course, I have been an eagle.
I have been a coracle in the seas:
I have been compliant in the banquet.
I have been a drop in a shower;
I have been a sword in the grasp of the hand
I have been a shield in battle.
I have been a string in a harp,
Disguised for nine years.
in water, in foam.
I have been sponge in the fire,
I have been wood in the covert.
I am not he who will not sing of
A combat though small,
The conflict in the battle of Godeu of sprigs.
Against the Guledig of Prydain,
There passed central horses,
Fleets full of riches.
There passed an animal with wide jaws,
On it there were a hundred heads.
And a battle was contested
Under the root of his tongue;
And another battle there is
In his occiput.
A black sprawling toad,
With a hundred claws on it.
A snake speckled, crested.
A hundred souls through sin
Shall be tormented in its flesh
I have been in Caer Vevenir
Thither hastened grass and trees
Minstrels were singing
Warrior-bands were wondering
At the exaltation of the Brython,
That Gwydyon6 affected.
There was a calling on the Creator,
Upon Christ for causes,
Until when the Eternal
Should deliver those whom he had made.
The Lord answered them,
Through language and elements:
Take the forms of time prinncipal trees,
Arranging yourselves in battle array,
And restraining the public.
Inexperienced in battle hand to hand.
When the trees were enchanted,
In the expectation of not being trees,
The trees uttered their voices
From strings of harmony,
The disputes ceased.
Let us cut short heavy days,
A female restrained the din.
She came forth altogether lovely.
The head of the line, the head was a female.
The advantage of a sleepless cow
Would not make us give way.
The blood of men up to our thighs,
The greatest of importunate mental exertions
Sported in the world.
And one has ended
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified
And the day of judgement near at hand
The alder trees, the head of the line,
Formed the van.
The willows and quicken trees
Came late to the army.
Plum-trees, that are scarce,
Unlonged for of men
The elaborate medlar-trees
Tue objects of contention.
The prickly rose-bushes,
Against a host, of giants,
The raspberry brake did
What is better failed
For the security of life.
Privet and woodbine
And ivy on its front,
Like furze to the combat
The cherry-tree was provoked.
The birch, notwithstanding his high mind,
Was late before he was arrayed.
Not because of his cowardice,
But on account of his greatness.
The laburnuin held in mind,
That your wild nature was foreign.
Pine-trees in the porch,
The chair of disputation,
By me greatly exalted,
In the presence of kings
The elm with his retinue,
Did not go aside a foot
He would fight with the centre,
And the flanks, and the rear.
Hazel-trees, it was judged,
That ample was thy mental exertion
The privet, happy his lot,
The bull of battle, the lord of the world
Morawg and Morydd
Were made prosperous in pines.
Holly, it was tinted with green,
He was the hero.
The hawthorn, surrounded by prickles,
With pain at his hand.
The aspen-wood has been topped,
It was topped in battle.
The fern that was plundered
The broom, in the van of the army, in the trenches he was hurt.
The gorse did not do well,
Notwithstanding let it overspread.
The heath was victorious, keeping off on all sides.
The common people were charmed,
During time proceeding of the men.
The oak, quickly moving,
Before him, tremble heaven and earth.
A valiant door-keeper against an enenly,
his name is considered.
The blue-bells combined,
And caused a consternation.
In rejecting, were rejected,
Others, that were perforated.
Pear-trees, the best intruders
In time conflict of the plain.
A very wrathful wood,
The chestnut is bashful,
The opponent of happiness,
The jet has become black,
The mountain has become crooked,
The woods have become a kiln,
Existing formerly in the great seas
Since was heard the shout:--
The tops of the birch covered us with leaves,
And transformed us, and changed our faded state.
The branches of the oak have ensnared us
From the Gwarchan of Maelderw.
Laughing on the side of the rock,
The lord is not of an ardent nature.
Not of mother and father,
When I was made,
Did my Creator create me.
Of nine-formed faculties,
Of the fruit of fruits,
Of the fruit of the primordial God,
Of primroses and blossoms of time hill,
Of the flowers of trees and shrubs.
Of earth, of an earthly course,
When I was formed.
Of the flower of nettles,
Of the water of the ninth wave.
I was enchanted by Math,
Before I became immortal,
I was enchanted by Gwydyon
The great purifier of the Brython,
Of Eurwys, of Euron,
Of Euron, of Modron.
Of five battalions of scientific ones.
Teachers, children of Math.
When the removal occurred,
I was enchanted by the Guledig.
When he was half-burnt,
I was enchanted by the sage
Of sages, in the primitive world.
When I had a being;
When the host of the world was in dignity,
The bard was accustomed to benefits.
To the song of praise I am inclined, which the tongue recites.
I played in the twilight,
I slept in purple;
I was truly in the enchantment
With Dylan, the son of the wave.
In the circumference, in the middle,
Between the knees of kings,
Scattering spears not keen,
From heaven when came,
To the great deep, floods,
In the battle there will be
Four score hundreds,
That will divide according to their will.
They are neither older nor younger,
Than myself in their divisions.
A wonder, Canhwr are born, every one of nine hundred.
He was with me also,
With my sword spotted with blood.
honour was allotted to me
By the Lord, and protection (was) where he was.
If I come to where the boar was killed,
He will compose, he will decompose,
He will form languages.
The strong-handed gleamer, his name,
With a gleam he rules his numbers.
They would spread out. in a flame,
When I shall go on high.
I have been a speckled snake on the hill,
I have been a viper in the Llyn.
I have been a bill-hook crooked that cuts,
I have been a ferocious spear
With my chasuble and bowl
I will prophesy not badly,
Four score smokes
On every one what will bring.
Five battalions of arms
Will be caught by my knife.
Six steeds of yellow hue
A hundred times better is
My cream-coloured steed,
Swift as the sea-mew
Which will not pass
Between the sea and the shore.
Am I not pre-eminent in the field of blood?
Over it are a hundred chieftains.
Crimson (is) the gem of my belt,
Gold my shield border.
There has not been born, in the gap,
That has been visiting me,
Except Goronwy,
From the dales of Edrywy.
Long white my fingers,
It is long since I have been a herdsman.
I travelled in the earth,
Before I was a proficient in learning.
I travelled, I made a circuit,
I slept in a hundred islands
A hundred Caers I have dwelt in.
Ye intelligent Druids,
Declare to Arthur,
What is there more early
Than I that they sing of.
And one is come
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified,
And the day of future doom.
A golden gem in a golden jewel.
I am splendid
And shall be wanton
From the oppression of the metal-workers.

Šarlatán / Charlatan

Agnieszka Holland: Šarlatán / Charlatan (2020). Ivan Trojan (Jan Mikolášek) and Juraj Loj (František Palko). "Miehet tutkivat jätöksiä tarkoin" (Veikko Huovinen).

CZ/IE/PL/SK/ 2020. PC: Marlene Film Production
    Crew listing from Berlinale:
Director    Agnieszka Holland
Screenplay    Marek Epstein
Cinematography    Martin Štrba
Montage    Pavel Hrdlička
Music    Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz
Sound Design    Radim Hladík Jr.
Production Design    Milan Býček
Costumes    Katarína Štrbová-Bieliková
Make-up    René Stejskal, Gabriela Poláková
Assistant Directors    Pavel Svatoň
Production Manager    Filip Brouk
Producers    Šárka Cimbalová, Kevan Van Thompson
Executive Producer    Aleš Týbl
Co-producers    Mike Downey, Sam Taylor, Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Livia Filusová
Co-production    F&ME, Dublin
Madants, Warschau
Furia Film, Bratislava
Czech Television, Prag
RTVS, Bratislava
Barrandov Studio, Prag
Studio Métrage, Bydgoszcz
CertiCon, Prag
Magiclab, Prag
Cast:
    Ivan Trojan (Jan Mikolášek)
    Josef Trojan (Young Jan Mikolášek)
    Juraj Loj (František Palko)
    Jaroslava Pokorná (Mülbacherová)
    and (data from Wikipedia):
Daniela Voráčková     Johanka, Mikolášek's sister
Melika Yildiz     young Johanka
Jiří Černý     defense attorney Zlatohlávek
Miroslav Hanuš     investigator
Tomáš Jeřábek     spy
Martin Myšička     Mikolášek's father
František Trojan     Alois, Mikolášek's brother
Václav Kopta     judge
Jan Budař     clerk
Jan Vlasák     Mikolášek's caretaker
Michal Süttö     soldier
    Language: Czech    118’
    Colour, 2K DCP
    World premiere: 27 Feb 2020 Berlin Film Festival.
    Czech premiere: 20 Aug 2020 (postponed to this date due to the corona lockdown)
    Theme song: Rusalka's song to the Moon, the soprano aria "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" from the opera Rusalka (1901) by Antonín Dvořák. Two performances: Ludmila Červinková (1952) and Ema Destinnová (1916).
    Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition. / Films by former Sodankylä guests [Agnieszka Holland: 1995].
    From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform with English subtitles, viewed at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a laptop, 13 June 2020.

Berlinale 2020: "Jan Mikolášek is the epitome of aplomb and solidarity. He is talented, sensitive, assertive and enigmatic. In his youth and when he is older, regardless of whether he is in private or public, he is a man of action, reason and intuition. A faith healer. Just one glance at the urine bottle is enough for him to know what ails his patient. With fame comes fortune, and this at a time when Czechoslovakia is a pawn in a game being played by the major power blocs. Protected and used by both the National Socialist and Communist regimes, he steps in wherever the system fails. But during the post-Stalinist years, the political climate becomes unpredictable and his special status is endangered. Along with his assistant František, with whom, as the secret police are well aware, he has much more in common than herbal medicine, the charlatan finds his morals being put to the test. Based on the life of Jan Mikolášek (1889–1973), and with a screenplay by Marek Epstein, Agnieszka Holland once again explores the link between the private and the political, and the relationship between the passage of time and the story of an unconventional individual." (Berlinale 2020).

AA: Agnieszka Holland has directed two big period tragedies of Eastern European history back to back: Mr. Jones (on the Holodomor in Ukraine) and Charlatan (covering Czech history from WWI to the Thaw).

Charlatan is based on the life of Jan Mikolášek (1889–1973), a herbalist and renowned faith healer over many periods of Czech history. Mikolášek was careful to insist that he is not a doctor but a certified herbal expert. Reportedly he treated four million patients.

When Agnieszka Holland started to plan her film she thought that Mikolášek has fallen into oblivion. During the production she found out that almost everybody in her Czech crew had relatives whom Mikolášek had treated. In herbal medicine circles Mikolášek is reportedly still in high regard.

Faith healers are often called charlatans, and miracle cures sell well. Mikolášek, however, was careful not to promote miracles. In the film he is seen as brutally honest. His strengths include talent in herbal medicine and an experience in interpreting urine tests. Besides, he has a rare intuition in assessing health.

Mikolášek does promote the transcendental dimension. Faith can cure. It is a matter of opinion if such a conviction is charlatanism. Personally I don't think so. Faith can help, but psycho-somatic cure is not a miracle. There are healing hands, "hot hands", such as those of Jan Mikolášek's.

Agnieszka Holland and the screenwriter Marek Epstein are at their most intriguing in discussing the intrinsic tragedy in the calling of the faith healer. When the young Jan Mikolášek meets the ageing legendary faith healer, Mrs. Mülbacherová, for the first time, she makes it clear that the special talent is also a curse. Endless queues of unfortunate patients line up. Mülbacherová warns Mikolášek not to accept any fee for the treatment, because that would spell the end of the practice.

The sequence of Mikolášek's apprenticeship with Mülbacherová is the most haunting in the movie, thanks to an outstanding performance by Jaroslava Pokorná.

The film is structured as a cycle of flasbacks around Mikolášek's trial in 1957, after the death of the President Antonín Zápotocký, his last protector. Paradoxically, Mikolášek has survived Hitler and Stalin but during the Thaw he is put on trial and must stop.

Mikolášek (played by Ivan Trojan as a grown-up and Josef Trojan as a young man) is portrayed as a complex, guilt-ridden figure, struggling with his homosexuality which finally finds its consummation with his loyal assistent František Palko (Juraj Loj).

Mikolášek has been traumatized in the First World War. We meet him as a brutal officer shooting one of his own soldiers who refuses to obey an execution order. Later, during his apprenticeship with Mülbacherová, the old lady is shocked to witness young Mikolášek cruelly crushing to death kittens which she had asked him to terminate painlessly.

František, the loyal assistent, friend and lover, is betrayed by Mikolášek in two turning-points. There is no danger of complexity in the account of the thugs of Czech totalitarianism of the 1950s. The film takes place in two worlds: the horror of the present of 1957 and the better times of the life before. The past before the 1950s is conveyed in sunny and warm colours like in a beautiful oil painting. The present is like graphics: dirty colours bordering on the monochrome, ink wash and even silhouette, at its most stylized in the startling final minutes with multiple reflections of love, guilt and betrayal.

The theme tune is Rusalka's song to the moon by Antonín Dvořák. It is heard three times. At Mikolášek's practice and during the end credits we hear the classic recording by Ludmila Červinková. At Mrs. Mülbacherová's practice, in a scene set in 1935, we hear a searing performance by Ema Destinnová, in a recording probably from 1916.

Růžena Maturová as the first Rusalka. 1901 Source: Jarmil Burghauser: Antonín Dvořák, p. 101. Unknown author. Photo and caption: Wikipedia.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM MSFF AND GERMAN WIKIPEDIA:

Peterloo

Mike Leigh: Peterloo (2018). Neil Bell, John-Paul Hurley, Philip Jackson, Rory Kinnear, Tom Gill. © Simon Mein. Please click on the photo to enlarge it.

To Henry Hunt, Esq., as chairman of the meeting assembled in St. Peter's Field, Manchester, sixteenth day of August, 1819, and to the female Reformers of Manchester and the adjacent towns who were exposed to and suffered from the wanton and fiendish attack made on them by that brutal armed force, the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, this plate is dedicated by their fellow labourer, Richard Carlile: a coloured engraving that depicts the Peterloo Massacre (military suppression of a demonstration in Manchester, England by cavalry charge on August 16, 1819 with loss of life) in Manchester, England. All the poles from which banners are flying have Phrygian caps or liberty caps on top. Not all the details strictly accord with contemporary descriptions; the banner the woman is holding should read: Female Reformers of Roynton -- "Let us die like men and not be sold like slaves". 1 October 1819. Source: Manchester Libraries. Author: Richard Carlile (1790–1843). From: Wikipedia.

GB © 2018 Amazon Content Services, LLC / Film 4 A Division of Channel Four Television Corporation / British Film Institute. P: Georgina Lowe.
    D+SC: Mike Leigh. Cin: Dick Pope – digital (HD) – Leitz Summicron-C lenses – colour (ACES) – 1,85:1 – release: D-Cinema. PD: Suzie Davies. AD: Dan Taylor, Jane Brodie. Set dec: Charlotte Dirickx. Cost: Jacqueline Durran. Makeup and hair: Christine Blundell. M: Gary Yershon. S: Lee Herrick. ED: Jon Gregory. Historian: Jacqueline Riding.
    C (IMDb):
Rory Kinnear     ...     Henry Hunt
Maxine Peake     ...     Nellie
Pearce Quigley     ...     Joshua
David Moorst     ...     Joseph
Rachel Finnegan     ...     Mary
Tom Meredith     ...     Robert
Simona Bitmate     ...     Esther
Robert Wilfort     ...     Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister
Karl Johnson     ...     Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary
Sam Troughton     ...     Mr. Hobhouse
Roger Sloman     ...     Mr. Grout
Kenneth Hadley     ...     Mr. Golightly
Tom Edward-Kane     ...     Mr. Cobb
Lizzy McInnerny     ...     Mrs. Moss
Alastair Mackenzie     ...     General Sir John Byng
    Locations: UK.
    154 min
    Festival premiere: 1 Sep 2018 Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival
    British premiere: 2 Nov 2018
    Finnish subtitles: Jaana Wiik.
    Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition.
    From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at home, Helsinki, on a 4K tv set, 12 June 2020.

Synopsis: "The story of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre where British forces attacked a peaceful pro-democracy rally in Manchester."

Official storyline: "An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter's Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reform and protest against rising levels of poverty. Many protesters were killed and hundreds more injured, sparking a nationwide outcry but also further government suppression. The Peterloo Massacre was a defining moment in British democracy which also played a significant role in the founding of The Guardian newspaper."

Director's statement (Venice Film Festival: "The strengths and weaknesses of humanity. The eternal struggle of love, care, integrity and commitment against power, corruption, greed and cynicism. If only the fights for true democracy two centuries ago were lost in remote antiquity. But the Manchester massacre, a seminal event in the history of universal liberty, resonates on endless levels with our chaotic 21st-century world. Peterloo is a celebration of the power of hope, and a lamentation on man’s inexhaustible capacity to destroy."

AA: It is a sign of the times that a masterpiece like Peterloo can be viewed in our country only now. I am grateful to Midnight Sun Film Festival for the opportunity to see it online. Of course this historical epic deserves to be seen on a cinema screen as soon as possible.

Mike Leigh has made period films before, and Mr. Turner (2014) even covers the same period. Both films share a lived-in quality, and the people in both feel authentic.

But Peterloo is special because it is a political epic, a reminder that democracy and human rights did not come into being via peaceful evolution. A magnificent demonstration carefully organized to avoid violence ended in bloodshed because of the military intervention of the British cavalry, representing the ruling class.

Peterloo is a tragedy in a great tradition that dates back to Herodotus: the victory in defeat. The courage and the dignity of the people give an immortal model for all who follow.

Epic spectacle always runs the risk of becoming a colossal bore, but Leigh, whose forte is in the intimate psychological study, excels even in this expansive genre. The film is well written, the combination of the historical  and the private well judged. We follow developments from multiple angles. The main approch is realism, but there is also a touch of caricature and satire. It's a difficult equation, but it works, and Leigh here taps into a great British tradition (of Hogarth, Swift, Dickens etc.)

Together with his trusted DP Dick Pope Leigh keeps expanding his visual universe. Like in Mr. Turner there is a painterly approach in the cinematography. Leigh and Pope paint with light inspired by the great artists of the epoch. Digital keeps getting better in fine soft detail and nuances of light and shadow.

I have read that historically the film is considered fair and authentic. I also admire the wisdom in the political dimension. The question of violence is in the heart of the film. Henry Hunt insists that no weapons are allowed, not even for self-defense. This condition is obeyed, but it leads to tragedy.

I have recently studied Tolstoy, and Peterloo is a film that provides much to think from the Tolstoyan viewpoint. Violence begets violence. Even harder it gets when non-violence begets violence. The other Tolstoyan connection is of Napoleon: Peterloo starts with the final defeat in Waterloo of Napoleon, a protagonist of War and Peace. Napoleon and Wellington feature prominently also in the work of Beethoven whose collected works I'm listening this year. I also happen to be listening the fabulous Guardian Lectures by András Schiff on Beethoven. The Guardian was founded in Manchester as a reaction to the Peterloo massacre.

There are many interesting topics in Peterloo. A special feature is the prominent role of police spies and provocateurs in the movement. The police supports violent rabble rousers in order to discredit the movement and to have an excuse to stop and ban people from defending their rights.

A Finnish connection: the industrial revolution reached Finland a bit later, and the biggest industrial center in the North grew in the city of Tampere, specializing in textile industry like Manchester. This is why Tampere received the nickname "Manse" which it still retains although the textile industry is long gone to low-wage countries. Tampere was also a center of radical reform, prominently in the great revolutionary year 1905 which led to universal suffrage, including full political rights for women for the first time in the world.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: INFO FROM MSFF AND THE TELLURIDE PROGRAM NOTE BY LARRY GROSS:

Official Secrets

Gavin Hood: Official Secrets (2019). Matt Smith (Martin Bright), Keira Knightley (Katharine Gun) and Ralph Fiennes (Ben Emmerson).

GB / US / CH / CN © 2018 Official Secret Holdings, LLC. PC: Classified Films / Clear Pictures Entertainment / OS / The Mark Gordon Company. P: Ged Doherty, Elizabeth Fowler, Melissa Shiyu Zuo.
    D: Gavin Hood. SC: Gregory Bernstein, Sara Bernstein, Gavin Hood – based on the book The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion by Marcia Mitchell and Thomas Mitchell. Cin: Florian Hoffmeister – Sony CineAlta Venice – colour – 2.35:1 – release: D-Cinema. PD: Simon Rogers. AD: Bill Crutcher. Set dec: David Morison. Cost: Claire Finlay-Thompson. Hair, makeup: Nadia Stacey. M: Paul Hepker, Mark Kilian. S: Craig Mann. ED: Megan Gill.
    C from Wikipedia: Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun
    Matt Smith as Martin Bright
    Matthew Goode as Peter Beaumont
    Rhys Ifans as Ed Vulliamy
    Adam Bakri as Yasar Gun
    Indira Varma as Shami Chakrabarti
    Ralph Fiennes as Ben Emmerson
    Conleth Hill as Roger Alton
    Tamsin Greig as Elizabeth Wilmshurst
    Hattie Morahan as Yvonne Ridley
    Ray Panthaki as Kamal Ahmed
    Angus Wright as Mark Ellison
    Chris Larkin as Nigel Jones, Baron Jones of Cheltenham
    Monica Dolan as Fiona Bygate
    Jack Farthing as Andy Dumfries
    Clive Francis as Admiral Nick Wilkinson
    John Heffernan as James Welch
    Kenneth Cranham as Judge Hyam
    Darrell D'Silva as Chilean Ambassador
    Janie Dee as Jan Clements
    MyAnna Buring as Jasmine
    Niccy Lin as Mi-Yung
    Chris Reilly as Jerry
    Shaun Dooley as John
    Peter Guinness as TinTin
    Hanako Footman as Nicole Mowbray
    Jeremy Northam as Ken Macdonald
Locations: United Kingdom.
    112 min
    Festival premiere: 28 Jan 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
    US premiere: 30 Aug 2019.
Finnish subtitles: Jaana Wiik.
Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition.
From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at home, Helsinki, on a 4K tv set, 11 June 2020.

IMDb synopsis: "The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq."

AA: Official Secrets is a powerful political thriller by Gavin Hood, who has been specializing in the genre for years. Based on this exciting film, I know I need to see his previous films, as well.

I was a bit disappointed at the time with Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer (2009) because it added an incredible assassination plot to material that was inflammatory enough without exaggeration. The material: how Tony Blair became a puppet for the reactionary US government.

Official Secrets is generally considered to be a pretty sober and accurate account of what happened, and we have the writers and the director to thank that they trust in their material.

Keira Knightley has profiled herself in taking risky and ambitious roles from Sabina Spielrein to Anna Karenina. Here she uses her star clout in the story of Katharine Gun who risked her career in betraying her code of secrecy as a spy.

Official Secrets is also a court drama, and an exceptional and unique one. Katharine Gun is guilty, but what happens when states commit crimes against the people and millions die? And she has risked all to prevent that?

Great performances including in small roles, fine judgment in mise-en-scène by Gavin Hood and eloquent scope cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister who obviously knows the Gordon Willis tradition but chooses differently most of the time.

I don't watch television, and I saw the stunning television clips here for the first time. Eternal shame will be attached to the memories George W. Bush, Colin Powell and Tony Blair for the glib lies they told us at the time. No actors could convey them. Theirs were the most memorable performances for me in this remarkable film.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM MSFF:

Abrir puertas y ventanas / Back to Stay

Milagros Mumenthaler: Abrir puertas y ventanas / Back to Stay (2012). Three sisters in Buenos Aires. María Canale ... Marina Tauss. Martina Juncadella ... Sofía Tauss. Ailín Salas ... Violeta Tauss.

Open Doors, Open Windows [the on-screen title in translation].
Dirección:    Milagros Mumenthaler
Producción    Violeta Bava, David Epiney, Rosa Martínez Rivero, Eugenia Mumenthaler
Diseño de producción    Sebastián Orgambide
Guion    Milagros Mumenthaler
Fotografía    Martín Frías
Montaje    Gion-Reto Killias
Vestuario    Françoise Nicolet
Protagonistas:
    Ailín Salas
    Martina Juncadella
    Sofía Bertolotto
    María Canale
    Julián Tello
País    Argentina, Suiza
Año    2012
Género    Comedia dramática y comedia
Duración    100 minutos
Idioma    español
Match Factory screener link with English subtitles.
Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition / Sodankylä Hits.
From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at home, Helsinki, on a 4K tv set, 11 June 2020.

Sinopsis

"La historia, que transcurre en un caluroso verano, muestra a tres hermanas adolescentes que quedan solas en la casa familiar tras la muerte de su abuela, que las había criado. Cada una expresa su luto en forma diferente en un clima de indolencia y apatía, y la directora nos muestra, como si fueran larvas que finalmente rompen su capullo para volar como mariposas adultas, el paso de las protagonistas a la adultez."

Crítica

"Deliberadamente la directora va aportando información sobre los protagonistas con parquedad y así se sabe que la abuela de las tres hermanas protagonistas, que las ha criado, murió poco antes del momento de inicio del filme. El trío debe encontrar nuevas formas de seguir adelante sin la presencia adulta de quien encabezaba la familia. A regañadientes examinan sus vidas y prioridades, se enzarzan en riñas –generalmente por cuestiones nimias- y mientras pasa la estación emergen lentamente de su tímido semiexilio. Las muchachas habían crecido entre polvorientos restos del pasado, como lo indican los muebles y artefactos de luz antiguos de la casa, pero claramente ha llegado el momento de abrir puertas y ventanas y para ello es crucial el diestro vecino Francisco (Julián Tello) quien, luego de la súbita salida en viaje de la inquieta Violeta — un hecho que ocurre fuera de la pantalla pero que tiene gran incidencia en lo que siguese encamina hacia una relación con Marina, la mayor y más insegura de las hermanas. Manteniendo con firmeza el énfasis en la evolución de los personajes y en el clima de la acción, Mumenthaler, cuya técnica cinematográfica y elección del tema recuerdan los primeros trabajos de su aclamada compatriota Lucrecia Martel (La ciénaga, La niña santa), se toma sus propios recreos al comienzo y en la mitad del filme, recorriendo la casa y sus alrededores con la fascinación de un antropólogo por los detalles más tediosos. Este enfoque es riesgoso, y a veces cruza la línea a lo desmedido o tedioso, pero el público predispuesto a ser paciente puede encontrarse en forma imperceptible inmerso en el mundo de las hermanas. Abrir puertas y ventanas es un filme que, aunque aparentemente tedioso, resuena lentamente en nosotros. Algunas escenas claves transmiten su encantador significado, como aquella en la cual las hermanas, hundidas en un sofá, eventualmente se unen en un coro entonando la etérea canción de los 70’ (cantada por Bridget St.John) Back To Stay, que fue luego utilizada como título de la película en inglés. Sobre todo, hay una sensación tangible de que estas son personas reales, no simplemente el producto de un guion, en tanto Mumenthaler extrae sólidas actuaciones de su pequeño conjunto. La película fue vista por más de 11.000 espectadores del cine local." (Wikipedia)

AA: This film is not new, but I had failed to see it before. The three sisters seem lost in their big house. Why are they on their own? There is a free-wheeling, relaxed approach to storytelling. Perhaps it was not a good choice to see this after the harrowing Spanish revenge drama Intemperie. I failed to focus and gave up watching after 20 minutes.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF INFO:

Intemperie / Out in the Open

Benito Zambrano: Intemperie / Out in the Open (2019). Luis Tosar (the shepherd, "El Moro") and Jaime López (the boy, "Niño").

ES/PT © 2019 Morena Films / Áralan Films / Ukbar Filmes / Intemperie La Pelicula A.I.E. P: Juan Gordon, Pedro Uriol.
    D: Benito Zambrano. SC: Daniel Remón, Pablo Remón, Benito Zambrano – based on the novel (2013) by Jesús Carrasco. Cin: Pau Esteve Birba – colour – 2,35:1. AD: Curru Garabal. Makeup: Rubén Samos. Hair: Rafael Mora. M: Mikel Salas. ED: Nacho Ruiz Capillas.
    Theme song: "Intemperie" by Javier Ruibal (winner of the Goya Award for best film song).
    C: Luis Tosar (the shepherd, "El Moro"), Luis Callejo (Capataz), Jaime López (Niño), Vicente Romero (El Triana), Kandido Uranga (El Viejo), Juanjo Pérez Yuste (El Segovia), Adriano Carvalho (El Portugués).
    Loc Granada (Andalucia, Spain). Including the towns: Orce, Galera, Huéscar and Puebla de Don Fadrique.
    Festival premiere: 19 Oct 2019 Valladolid International Film Festival.
    Spanish premiere: 22 Nov 2019.
    In Spanish.
    103 min
Match Factory screener link with English subtitles by Laserfilm.
Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition.
From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at home, Helsinki, on a 4K tv set, 11 June 2020.

Wikipedia synopsis: "Intemperie narra la dramática historia un niño que, por razones desconocidas (pero que se adivinan terribles), huye del pueblo y se adentra en la implacable llanura. En su escapada se encontrará con un silencioso cabrero que le ayudará ante sus perseguidores, el capataz del pueblo y sus hombres."

AA: Intemperie is a tragic chase drama set in the plains of Granada in 1946, seven years after the Spanish civil war. A reign of terror prevails, the people under the landowners live in slavery, under constant bullying and death threats. A boy that has become a house slave of the foreman rather risks death on a perilous flight across the desert than stay one day more at his house. What he has gone through is never explained but the viewer can make an educated guess.

The drama is highly stylized. Following the original novel, the characters have no names: they are types. The approach is mythical and timeless, although the context is historical. Jesús Carrasco's award-winning novel has also been adapted as a graphic novel.

The affinity with the Western is apparent. More precisely, the film belongs with the super-Western, the post-Western and the meta-Western, like silver age American westerns of the late 1960s or Italian Westerns.

In the appetite to sadistic violence there is a touch of horror, but in authentic horror fiction the monster is a complex figure, made thus genuinely disturbing. Here the villains are one-dimensional cardboard figures.

That said, the boy's desert trek and his friendship with the old hermit shepherd, a veteran of the war in Morocco, is exciting, and the performances of Luis Tosar and Jaime López are excellent.

The cinematography by Pau Esteve Birba is fantastic, catching the majestic grandeur of the desert in landscape compositions in glorious scope. The director Benito Zambrano has a strong concept in the mise-en-scène, and he handles action and rhythm very well.

The dedication is "to all those who teach us to forgive". But this film is hardly of the forgiving sort. It is a work of outrage.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF INFO:

Všechno bude / Winter Flies

Olmo Omerzu: Všechno bude / Winter Flies (2018) with Jan František Uher (Hedus) on the roof and Eliška Křenková (Bára) and Tomáš Mrvík (Mára Mikule) in the car.

CZ/SI/PL/SK/FR 2018.
    Produkce     Jiří Konečný
    Režie     Olmo Omerzu
    Scénář     Petr Pýcha
    Kamera     Lukáš Milota
    Architekt     Antonín Šilar
    Hudba     Šimon Holý, Monika Midriaková, Paweł Szamburski
    Zvuk     Daniel Němec
    Střih     Jana Vlčková
    Hlavní role: Tomáš Mrvík (Mára Mikule)
Jan František Uher (Hedus)
Eliška Křenková (Bára)
Lenka Vlasáková (officer Freiwaldova)
Martin Pechlát (policeman)
    Premiéra: 1. července 2018 MFF Karlovy Vary
    6. září 2018 Česko
    In Czech.
    85 min
    Žánr     road movie
English subtitles
Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition.
30 minutes from the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at home, Helsinki, on a 4K tv set, 10 June 2020.

AA: An offbeat road movie that takes place in deserted winter landscapes. Juvenile delinquency, proceeding in a double timeline: the road trip in the present tense and a police interrogation that takes us to the past scene by scene. Different and original but I failed to connect with the characters and gave up after 30 minutes (20+ minutes straight and then hopping from sample to sample). Perhaps after the gravity of Le jeune Ahmed this film seemed a bit frivolous.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF INFO:

Le jeune Ahmed / Young Ahmed

Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne: Le jeune Ahmed / Young Ahmed (2019). Victoria Bluck as Louise and Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed.

BE/FR © 2019 Les Films du Fleuve / Archipel 35 / France 2 Cinéma / Proximus / RTBF (Télévision Belge).

Credits:
Luc DARDENNE - Director
Jean-Pierre DARDENNE - Director
Luc DARDENNE - Script / Dialogue
Jean-Pierre DARDENNE - Script / Dialogue
Marie-Hélène DOZO - Film Editor
Jean-Pierre DURET - Sound
Igor GABRIEL - Set decorator
Julien SICART - Sound
Valène LEROY - Film Editor
Thomas GAUDER - Sound
Maïra RAMEDHAN-LEVI - Costumes designer
Denis FREYD - Co-Producer
Caroline TAMBOUR - Assistant Director

Cast:
Idir BEN ADDI - Ahmed
Olivier BONNAUD - general educator
Myriem AKHEDDIOU - Inès
Victoria BLUCK - Louise
Claire BODSON - the mother
Othmane MOUMEN - Imam Youssouf

Franz Schubert: Klaviersonate 21, D 960, 2. Satz: andante sostenuto, played by Alfred Brendel.
Festival premiere: 20 May 2019 Cannes Film Festival – winner: Best Director
Duration: 85 min
English subtitles: Titrafilm.
Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition.
From the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at home, Helsinki, on a 4K tv set, 10 June 2020.

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

"In Belgium, today, the destiny of young Ahmed (13), caught between his imam's ideals of purity and life's temptations."

DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT

"When we finished writing this screenplay, we realized that, in a way, we had written the story of the fruitless attempts made by various characters to dissuade the young fanatic Ahmed, our main character, from carrying out his murderous plan. Whoever these characters may be – his teacher Inès, his mother, his brother, his sister, his caseworker, the judge, the psychologist at the detention centre, his lawyer, the owners of the farm where he is placed, their daughter Louise – not one of them manages to reach the hard, mysterious core of this boy ready to kill his teacher in the name of his religious convictions."

"When we began writing, we never imagined that we were creating such an inscrutable character, capable of eluding us to such an extent, of leaving us without any possibility of a dramatic construction to catch up with him and bring him out of his murderous madness. Even Youssouf, the imam at the fundamentalist mosque, this magnetic figure who has harnessed the energy of the adolescent’s ideals to focus it on purity and hatred of impurity, even he, the master, is surprised by his disciple’s determination. But could it be any different? Could it be any different when the fanatic is so young, almost a child, and when, moreover, his charismatic master encourages him to venerate a martyred cousin, a dead man?"

"How to halt the headlong rush towards murder of this fanatical boy, cut off as he is from the kindness of his educators, from the love of his mother, from the friendship and romantic games of young Louise? How can he be stopped in a moment when, without resorting to naïve optimism or an implausible happy ending, he could open up to life, converting to the impurity he has loathed until that point? What scene, what shots, could allow us to film that transformation and trouble the gaze of the audience that has entered Ahmed’s night, as close as possible to that which possesses him, and to that from which he would finally be delivered?"

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Cannes Film Festival 2019)

AA: Among the films of 2019 Le jeune Ahmed by the Dardenne brothers is for me a parallel achievement to Nora Fingscheidt's remarkable Systemsprenger. In both films a community struggles with dedication but in vain to get in touch with a destructive young person. The protagonists are exceptional individuals, and both films are also about their respective societies. Both films are about salvation in a most basic way.

Systemsprenger won the Alfred Bauer prize in Berlin Film Festival and Le jeune Ahmed won the Best Director award in Cannes. In Venice the Golden Lion award was won by Joker, also a tale of a destructive outsider. That seems to have been a key theme in the cinema of 2019.

The three films are fundamentally different. The Dardenne brothers approach the problem of the clash of cultures profoundly – violent Islamist extremism versus Western culture. We can feel in a most gripping way how language, culture and religion are matters of identity. No easy solutions are offered. No solutions at all are offered. Only the insight of infinite patience to avoid a multiple collision course.

The Dardenne brothers practice the art of observation with the same devout approach that young Ahmed practices his sacred service. It feels true.

There is no composed score, but when the Dardennes end the film with a cut to black we hear the slow movement of Franz Schubert's last composition, the B♭ major piano sonata played by Alfred Brendel.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION:

Women Make Film 14: Death, Endings, Song and Dance

Chapter 38. Death: Chibusa yo eien nare / 乳房よ永遠なれ / The Eternal Breasts / Kinuyo Tanaka, Japan 1955. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

Chapter 39. Endings: Born in Flames / Lizzie Borden, USA 1983. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

Chapter 40. Song and Dance: Beyoncé: Lemonade: Hold Up / Beyoncé Knowles, Kahlil Joseph, USA 2016. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

Women Make Film. A New Road Movie Through Cinema
Women Make Film. Uusi matka elokuvaan

GB © 2019 How To Make A Movie Ltd. PC: Hopscotch Films. P: John Archer. EX: Clara Glynn, Tilda Swinton. Assistant P: Sonali Choudhury. Associate P: Carl Beauchamp, Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Barbara Timmer.
    D+SC: Mark Cousins. Sound mixing: Diane Jardine. S: Joe Harfield. ED+script consultant: Timo Langer. Online: Chas Chalmers. Edit assistant: Scott Bilsbrough. P coordinator: Mhairi Valentine. P team: David Brown, Rowan Ings, Raja Kryda. World Sales: Dogwoof. Head of sales: Ana Vicente. Legal: David Burgess.
    https://www.womenmakefilm.com/
    14 hours – HD – 16:9
    Festival premiere: 1 Sep 2018 Venice Film Festival
    Finnish telepremieres of the 14 episodes: 3.3.2020, 10.3.2020, 17.3.2020, 24.3.2020, 1.4.2020, 8.4.2020, 15.4.2020, 22.4.2020, 29.4.2020, 6.5.2020, 13.5.2020, 20.5.2020, 27.5.2020, 3.6.2020

Episode 14/14: Death, Endings, Song and Dance
Jakso 14/14: Loppuja ja lauluja
Narrator: Debra Winger
Finnish / Swedish subtitles: Jaana Wiik / Sari Östman

Chapter 38. Death / Kuolema / Död

Chibusa yo eien nare / 乳房よ永遠なれ / The Eternal Breasts / Kinuyo Tanaka, JP 1955 [unreleased in Finland]
Dongfang hong / 东方红 / 東方紅 / The East is Red / Wang Ping, CN 1965
Privarzaniyat balon / Привързаният балон / The Attached Balloon / Binka Zhelyazkova, BG 1967 [unreleased in Finland]
Le Lit / Vuode / Marion Hänsel, BE/CH 1982
Hateship Loveship / Liza Johnson, US 2013 [unreleased in Finland]
The Street / Caroline Leaf, anim, 10 min, CA 1976
Crulic – drumul spre dincolo / Crulic – The Path To Beyond / Anca Damian, anim, RO/PL 2011 [unreleased in Finland]
El camino / Ana Mariscal, ES 1963 [unreleased in Finland]
Vergine giurata / Sworn Virgin / Laura Bispuri, IT/CH/DE/AL/Kosovo [XK proposed, or KV]/FR 2015 [unreleased in Finland]
The Selfish Giant / Clio Barnard, GB 2013 [unreleased in Finland]
Tonio / Paula van der Oest, NL 2016 [unreleased in Finland]
Pora umierać / A Time to Die / Dorota Kędzierzawska, PL 2007 [unreleased in Finland]

Chapter 39. Endings / Miten elokuva lopetetaan / Avslutning

Hotel Very Welcome / Sonja Heiss, DE 2007 [unreleased in Finland]
Nachalo nevedomogo veka: episode 2: Rodina elektrichestva / Начало неведомого века 2: Родина электричества / The Beginning of an Unknown Era / The Beginning of an Unbeknown Age Part 2: Homeland of Electricity / Sähkön kotimaa / Larisa Shepitko, SU 1967 [unreleased in Finland]
Gahanu lamai / ගැහැණු ළමයි / The Girls / Sumitra Peries, LK 1978 [unreleased in Finland]
Koibumi / 恋文 / Love Letter / Kinuyo Tanaka, JP 1953 [unreleased in Finland]
Hard, Fast and Beautiful! / Hän möi tyttärensä / Ida Lupino, US 1951
Born in Flames / Lizzie Borden, US 1983 [unreleased in Finland]
35 rhums / 35 Shots of Rum / Claire Denis, FR 2008 [unreleased in Finland]
Ritual in Transfigured Time / Maya Deren, exp, 15 min, US 1946

Chapter 40. Song and Dance / Laulu ja tanssi / Sång och dans

Ren · gui · qing / 人 · 鬼 · 情 / Woman Demon Human / Shuqin Huang, CN 1987
Boris Godunov / Борис Годунов / Boris Godunov / Vera Stroyeva, SU 1954
John MacFadyen / Margaret Tait, anim, 4 min, GB 1970
Le Piano irrésistible / The Irresistible Piano / Alice Guy, 4 min, FR 1907
Le Lit / Vuode / Marion Hänsel, BE/CH 1982
Elena / Petra Costa, BR/US 2012 [unreleased in Finland]
Aldri annet enn bråk / Nothing But Trouble / Edith Carlmar, NO 1954 [unreleased in Finland]
Sehnsucht / Longing / Valeska Grisebach, DE 2006 [unreleased in Finland]
Bande de filles / Girlhood / Céline Sciamma, FR 2015 [unreleased in Finland]
O Ébrio / The Drunkard / Gilda de Abreu, BR 1946 [unreleased in Finland]
Crossing Delancey / Romanssi Manhattanilla / Izzy & Sam / Joan Micklin Silver, US 1988
Sambizanga / Sambizanga / Sarah Maldoror, AO/FR 1973
The Connection / Shirley Clarke, US 1961 [unreleased in Finland]
Le Bonheur / Onnen hetket / Agnès Varda, FR 1965
Dance, Girl, Dance / Tanssi, tyttö, tanssi / Dorothy Arzner, US 1940
L'une chante l'autre pas / One Sings, The Other Doesn't / Onni on olla nainen / Agnès Varda, VE/FR/BG 1977
Attenberg / Athina Rachel Tsangari, GR 2010 [unreleased in Finland]
Beyoncé: Lemonade: Hold Up / Beyoncé Knowles, Kahlil Joseph, US 2016

AA: Mark Cousins's poetic montage, capricious anthology and counterhistory comes to a striking finale.

Death. A dark sequence from The Eternal Breasts, Kinuyo Tanaka's tragic biopic of the tanka poet Fumiko Shimojo, opens this episode. Death can be discussed in many different ways, and some of the most original ones are in animations such as Caroline Leaf's The Street and Anca Damian's Crulic – The Path To Beyond.

Endings. Another strong topic. Larisa Shepitko shows us a montage of ravaged faces in The Homeland of Electricity. Sumitra Peries ends with a question mark written with a lipstick on a mirror in Gahanu lamai. Ida Lupino elevates a classic melodrama ending where the daughter abandons her long-suffering mother (a strong performance by Claire Trevor) in Hard, Fast and Beautiful! Watching this in this week we remember the news from the current American race riots and Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames looks startlingly topical. There is even an explosion at the Twin Towers in the finale.

Song and Dance. This chapter starts with the first feminist Chinese film-maker Shuqin Huang and her film Woman Demon Human in which a woman opera star defies tradition by specializing in male roles and particularly the beloved ghost Zhang Kui. We are reminded that Alice Guy belonged to the founders of sound film as a director of Gaumont Phonoscènes, starting in 1902. In her comedy Le Piano irrésistible the uncanny pianist makes us slaves to his rhythm. From the first Brazilian woman director Gilda de Abreu we see a clip from O Ébrio. Having recently studied Leo Tolstoy I think I recognize here an affinity with his much-filmed play The Living Corpse. From Dorothy Arzner's Dance, Girl, Dance, we see the anthology piece where the dancer interpreted by Maureen O'Hara transforms from an object of gaze to a subject of the spectacle. The last clip is from Beyoncé: Lemonade: Hold Up where the pop queen activist goes much further. She is busting loose with a baseball bat, finally smashing us the viewers (the camera) in a meta-cinematic act.

We see a brief portrait montage of some of the directors featured in this new road movie through the cinema. The journey ends at Maryrest Cemetery in Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey at the grave of Alice Guy, the first of them all.

Chapter 40. Song and Dance: Beyoncé: Lemonade: Hold Up / Beyoncé Knowles, Kahlil Joseph, USA 2016. She is about to smash the camera. My screenshot from YouTube.

The grave marker of Alice Guy Blaché. Death: 24 Mar 1968 (aged 94), Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA. Burial: Maryrest Cemetery, Mahwah, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA. Plot: Sec-3 Blk-F Tr-B Gr-16 1B. Memorial ID: 6837011 · View Source. Motion Picture Director. Generally considered to be the world's first female film director, she directed over 400 films between 1897 and 1920. She also produced hundreds of films. A secretary with Gaumont-Paris, she became one of their first directors when they started producing movies. In 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising the company's other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, and they went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations. In 1910 she set up her own production company, Solax Film Co. in Flushing, New York and built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After closing her studios due to financial decline, she directed several films for Hollywood. Upon her divorce, in 1922, she returned to France, and never made another film. The French government awarded her the Legion of Honour in 1953. In 1964 she returned to the U.S., where she remained until her death. Her memoirs, Autobiographie d'une pionnière du cinéma, 1873–1968" were published in 1976. The English edition, "The Memoirs of Alice Guy Blaché," was published in 1986. Bio by: Ginny M. From: Find A Grave website.

Beethoven 250: Piano Sonata No. 7 (Stephen Kovacevich, 1998)

Ludwig Pietsch (1824–1911, Originalzeichnung): Beethoven beim Prinzen Louis Ferdinand. [Around 1803?]. Wood engraving by: F. P. Schindler. Cut from p. 725 of an issue of the Illustrierte Chronik der Zeit (1885). Collection: Beethoven Graphics Box 4. Repository: The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San Jose State University. Digital Beethoven-Haus B 2129, K 70/5. From: King Library Digital Collections / San Jose Library. Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Beethoven: The Complete Works (80 CD). Warner Classics / © 2019 Parlophone Records Limited. Also available on Spotify etc. I bought my box set from Fuga at Helsinki Music Centre.
    Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827.
    Beethoven 250 / corona lockdown listening.

From: CD 18/80  Piano Sonatas Nos. 4–7
Opus 10 – Der Gräfin Anna Margarete von Browne gewidmet.
Stephen Kovacevich, 1998.

Opus 10 Nr. 3: Klaviersonate Nr. 7 in D-Dur (1798)
Erster Satz: Presto; D-Dur; alla breve; Sonatensatzform; 344 Takte
Zweiter Satz: Largo e mesto; d-moll; 6/8-Takt; freie Sonatensatzform; 87 Takte
Dritter Satz: Menuetto. Allegretto; D-Dur; 3/4-Takt; Dreiteilige Menuett-Form; 68 Takte
Vierter Satz: Rondo. Allegro; D-Dur; 4/4-Takt; Rondo-Form; 113 Takte
    This interpretation 20'54" , there are also those of 25 minutes. Sokolov: 28 min.

AA: My Beethoven Complete Works project keeps slowing down, and for a good reason. I don't listen less but focus more. When I find a work that I do not know, I need time to digest.

The greatest treasure so far of the works previously unfamiliar to me is Opus 10 Nr. 3: Klaviersonate Nr. 7 in D-Dur. I have been listening to it daily since two weeks now, and probably it is now in my dreams, too, because I often wake up to one of its passages.

András Schiff in his humorous Guardian lectures laments the fact that this sonata is not better known. Already Beethoven himself was flabbergasted that the Moonlight sonata was so popular and the much better Opus 10 Number 3 less so. Schiff quips that perhaps what is missing is a catchy title like Moonlight or Pathétique.

Again I start with my official menu: Stephen Kovacevich. Again, his performance is correct, perfect and immaculate. I cannot say it's uninspired. But a conviction seems to be missing about the deep currents of the piece. In Kovacevich's hands this work is not the vibrant magnificent creature of the composer's vision.

In physical exercise we know the concept of "the core". We must be aware of the three layers of muscles in the abdominal wall and train them. They are the core upon which all other exercise is based.

In Beethoven's compositions there is a powerful core. When you achieve that, you win an extraordinary freedom of expression, and still everything connects and builds to an exciting and living whole. All pianists have not succeeded in understanding the core of Opus 10 Number 3.

Listening further I discover great interpretations by Angela Hewitt (who recently completed a full cycle of recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas), Alfred Brendel (very convincing) and Claudio Arrau (with a refined surface sheen and strong metal muscles beneath). Wilhelm Kempff is meditative, Paavali Jumppanen perhaps a bit hasty. All original.

Angela Hewitt has called this work the first masterpiece among Beethoven's piano sonatas. For Donald Tovay it was "a landmark in music history". Wilhelm von Lenz said it's "his most symphonic sonata". Anton Rubinstein was amazed how suprisingly capricious and amiable certain passages were. Romain Rolland found in it "the whole of Beethoven". For Schiff it's a "miracle of music".

The contrasts are extreme. From the sunlit first movement Beethoven plunges into the absolute night of the largo e mesto movement. It is of breathtaking tragic depth, Ultima Thule, the end of the world. But an extremely slow pulse of life continues, until a flicker of light appears.

The first two movements are like Finland. Now we have the first movement; in Lapland there is midnight sun. In mid-winter there are months without sunlight in Lapland. That time is called kaamos. Beethoven's second movement is like that.

For Schiff, Number One of Opus 10 is drama, Number Two is comedy and Number Three an enigma. Schiff is amazed at Beethoven's ability to weave such a magnificent work from such limited elements: "how much can you do with four notes".

One of Beethoven's beloved summer forest walks (the first movement) leads to his mother's grave and intimations of his own fatal illness and mortality (the second movement). The synthesis is a joyful reaffirmation of life (the lovely third movement), followed by a capricious flight of fancy ending in nothingness.

...
http://digitalcollections.sjlibrary.org/cdm/search/searchterm/Portraits%20Beethoven%20Full%20figure/mode/exact/page/2

https://www.beethoven.de/en/archive/view/6559862288809984/Beethoven+playing