Annelin aika / The Northern Star

Saara Cantell: Annelin aika / The Northern Star. (FI 2024).

Saara Cantell: Annelin aika / The Northern Star. (FI 2024), a documentary portrait of the actress Anneli Sauli. She was discovered in a theatre production of Linnankoski's The Song of the Scarlet Flower and got her breakthrough in Hilja maitotyttö based on a vignette by Linnankoski. Image: a SF publicity photograph for Hilja maitotyttö. 

OHJAAJA: Saara Cantell

MAA: Suomi

VUOSI: 2024

KESTO: 82 min

KIELET: suomi, englanninkielinen tekstitys

KATEGORIA: Puhuttu tai tekstitetty suomeksi, Tekstitetty englanniksi, Uusia suomalaisia elokuvia

Festival premiere: DocPoint Helsinki, 2 Feb 2024.

Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä, 14 June 2024.

Vimeo screener link viewed at home, 9 June 2024.

Inari Ylinen (MSFF 2024): " Saara Cantellin tuore dokumentti Annelin aika sukeltaa näyttelijälegenda Anneli Saulin (1932–2022) elämän ja uran uskomattomiin käänteisiin. Dokumentti ei tyydy vain käymään läpi tapahtumia, vaan päästää onneksemme itse karismaattisen kohteensa kertomaan ja kommentoimaan. "

" Saulin näyttelijänura alkoi, kun Toivo Särkkä valitsi tuolloin suurelle yleisölle tuntemattoman näyttelijän päärooliin elokuvaansa Hilja maitotyttö. Esikoisrooli rakensi Saulille seksisymbolin maineen. Asema Suomi-elokuvan Marilyn Monroena tai Sophia Lorenina toi kuitenkin mukanaan myös hankaluuksia. "

" Kun studioelokuvat katosivat Suomesta, Sauli lähti Saksaan tekemään uutta elokuvauraa uudella nimellään Ann Savo. Myöhemmin elämä kuljettaa Saulin niin rakennustyömaille kuin politiikkaankin. Hän ei vaikene dokumentissa myöskään uransa vaikeammista hetkistä, jotka kertovat synkkää tarinaa menneiden vuosikymmenten ilmapiiristä elokuva-alalla ja Suomessa laajemmin. "

" Cantell tutustui Sauliin Kohtaamisia-elokuvansa kuvauksissa vuonna 2009.  Runsaan elokuvamateriaalin elävöittämä dokumentti loistaa naisten välistä ystävyyttä. Välittömissä haastattelukohtauksissa Cantell istuu kameran edessä sohvalla Saulin vieressä. Kaksikon keskustelujen seuraaminen onkin vauhdikkaan elokuvan riemastuttavinta ja myös koskettavinta antia. "

" Saara Cantell’s new documentary The Northern Star dives into the twists and turns of acting legend Anneli Sauli’s (1932-2022) unbelievable life and career. The film does not merely browse through the events, but, luckily for us, lets its charismatic subject speak and comment for herself. "

" Sauli’s acting career began, when director Toivo Särkkä chose the then unknown actor to lead his film The Milkmaid. This role brought Sauli a reputation as a sex symbol. Still, being the Marilyn Monroe or Sophia Loren of Finnish cinema was not without its issues. When the era of studio films ended in Finland, Sauli left for Germany to continue her career in film under her new name Ann Savo. "

" Later, life takes her to both construction work and politics. Sauli also speaks on the more difficult moments in her career, which tell a dark story of the atmosphere of the past decades in the film industry and in Finland at large. "

" Cantell got to know Sauli on the set of their film Heartbeats in 2009. Brought to life with plenty of film clips, the documentary shines with the friendship that exists between the two women. In the interview scenes, Cantell is seated on the couch with Sauli, also in front of the camera. Following the conversations between the two is both the most fun and the most touching part of the viewing experience. " Inari Ylinen

AA: I was deeply moved by Annelin aika, Saara Cantell's personal journey into the life and career of Anneli Sauli, one of Finland's most beloved actresses on stage and screen, also with a theatre and film career in West Germany in the late 1950s and the early 1960s as Ann Savo.

Anneli's personal favourite film was Duel in the Sun because of Jennifer Jones's portrayal as Pearl Chavez. Like Pearl, Anneli was an outsider in many ways. The paradox of her public life was that she was at the same time popular and an outsider. She was active to the end. She kept in shape and still at the end of her career was cast by Aki Kaurismäki and Saara Cantell in memorable appearances.

Anneli was proud of her Romani lineage (she rejected the word Romani and preferred Gypsy), and was also an activist for Romani rights.

All her life she was openly Communist - since her childhood in Depression Era Finland. She was a Communist in the sense of early Communists and original Communists - beyond Stalin, beyond bureaucrats and gerontocrats, beyond the stagnation era.

In Hilja maitotyttö [Hilja the Milkmaid] she became Finland's most beloved post-war love goddess.

Finland fought three different wars in World War II, and we suffered devastation and a crushing death toll. But a demographic wonder happened in Finland like in other war-torn countries: a baby boom.

In ancient times there were Aphrodite and Venus. In the 1940s and the 1950s, film stars were the love goddesses all over the world. Anneli Sauli was a shy, young, bewildered woman when she found stardom. All her life she struggled to make sense of it.

Her feminine appeal was genuine, not fabricated. She was kind, tender and compassionate. She was charged with a high life force, sense of humour and joy of life. Men struggled to come to terms with her. 

Among her own films her favourite was Miriam, in which men are crazy about Miriam but lack the courage of their desire, try to hide it and wish to carry a back street affair only.

Miriam is about men's fear of sex, fear of woman, fear of life.

In the cinema, there were not enough good roles for Anneli Sauli. Her main artistic contributions took place in the theatres of Finland and West Germany. 

In the man's world of the cinema, Anneli Sauli was treated with respect in the studio era, but during the sexual liberation of the new wave it was different. There were men who misunderstood liberation as license. Anneli never revealed the name of the film person who tried to rape her, because "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" (speak only good about the dead).

Timo Humaloja made an excellent portrait documentary, Katseen vanki / Captive of the Gaze about Anneli Sauli in 2011. Saara Cantell's movie is completely different, based on a deep friendship between the two women artists. Cantell had access to Sauli's personal archives, photo albums and scrapbooks, even correspondence with Åke Lindman, her husband at the time. A warm current of confidentiality flows through the movie. 

I miss Anneli Sauli, her direct and honest address. She always said what she thought. Like Jeanne Moreau, she pleased us by not trying to please. I was flattered by Saara Cantell's invitation to conduct her last public interview, but I was not prepared to deal with her memory disorder. I had known her for thirty years, but she did not recognize me. Of topics we had previously discussed she reversed views. No matter. She was charismatic and completely charmed the audience. I played the part of the clown.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PRESS RELEASE:

Sodankylä morning discussion 2024: Michelangelo Frammartino

Michelangelo Frammartino, Elina Suolahti, Otto Kylmälä. The morning discusion at the School, 14 June 2024. Photo: Juho Liukkonen / Midnight Sun Film Festival.

Michelangelo Frammartino

In Italian. Hosted by Otto Kylmälä, translated by Elina Suolahti. 60 min

The School, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 14 June 2024

Otto Kylmälä (MSFF Catalogue 2024): " When it comes to quality and pace, Milanese director Michelangelo Frammartino is in the same class as veteran masterpiece-maker Victor Erice. Frammartino could be likened to many of the greats of film history while still being firmly in his own league. His seemingly modest filmography is a prism into humanity, larger than the sum of its parts. In his films, the symbiotic natural relationship between humans, flora, and fauna – but also the decay of that relationship in the modern world – are central. The sturdy landscapes and forgotten villages of Southern Italy set the stage. "

" Frammartino, who finds his niche somewhere between documentary film-making and art installations, began his studies in architecture but later made the switch to the film school of Civica Scuola di Cinema. Stylistically, Frammartino is one of the vivacious reformers of Italian cinema. His hybrid style has similar observational notes as the award-winning films of Gianfranco Rosi and Pietro Marcello, and a love for a more diverse Italian imagery, as in works by Ermanno Olmi or Alice Rohrwacher. "

" Though he comes from industrialised and urban northern Italy, the director often turns his gaze south, to his grandparents’ Calabria. His debut film The Gift (2003), which has also graced Finnish TV screens in the past, tells the interwoven stories of an old man and a young girl in a remote Calabrian village, whose winding roads call to mind the rural landscapes of Abbas Kiarostami. Shipwrecks and decaying cars mirror the forgotten Italian south and the passage of time. Erosion and wind have hardened the rocky village, but that hasn’t dampened the desires or humanity of the townspeople. Frammartino’s film is, in and of itself, a little gift to the viewer. "

" The director’s international breakthrough and one of the masterpieces of modern filmmaking, The Four Times (2010) depicts the wayward journey of the soul or the spirit from one body and form to another, both poetically and irresistibly cinematically. It is hard to imagine how a film, which deals meditatively with themes of rebirth, can also seamlessly draw from the wordless comedy of Tati and Chaplin, but this is something one must witness for oneself. The film had its premiere in the Quinzaine des réalisateurs section at Cannes, where the central dog won the Palm Dog award for the best canine performance. "

" Loyal followers of Frammartino had to wait more than a decade for his next work, but it was well worth the wait. The partially documentary-style The Hole (2021), which had its debut at the Venice Film Festival, is set in the early 1960s and at the peak of the Italian economic boom. While Europe’s tallest building is being built in northern Italy, a small group of researchers are descending into the world’s third deepest cave in the south. The film depicts both the descent of the research team as well as the everyday life of a nearby town. In the beginning, the camera steps out into the light as from Plato’s cave, but true knowledge is found by delving back into the depths. Icons of the time and magazine cover stars are ephemeral dust before the mysteries of the universe. " Otto Kylmälä (MSFF Catalogue 2024)

MSFF Press Office 14 June 2024: " On Thursday, the morning discussions began with Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino. Frammartino is known for depicting the symbiotic relationship between people, animals and plants. His movies also highlight the forgotten villages and majestic scenery of Southern Italy, where his grandparents hail from.

Frammartino himself grew up in Milan, Northern Italy, in the 1980s. The preceding 1970s were characterised by a sense of community as people took to the streets and protested often. On the other hand, the 80s brought on the economic depression that made the people return to their homes. The life became more family-oriented and Frammantino told that like other children, he spent a lot of time in front of the television. Going to the cinema was considered a luxury.

Working in the middle ground between documentary and art installation, Frammartino initially studied architecture but switched to Civica Scuola del Cinema film school. During the discussion, he said that he regards his studies in architecture more relevant to his career in film than his studies in film school. From architecture he learned the ethics of design; an architect designs a space where people will eventually live in. This is how Frammartino sees movies as well: “Cinema is a space that welcomes its audience in.”

He mentioned that he was jealous of the cinematographers in his film school as they could work physically with the cameras, whereas the directors were not allowed to touch them.

“Nowadays everything has become digitalised so the significance of the material has diminished. Cinema is in danger of becoming fully conceptual.” Frammartino told that he is also interested in people who work in film but come from a different field: “If for example a visual artist is given a movie camera, the results are unique.”

Frammartino’s first film The Gift (2003) is set in Southern Italy’s Calabria, where his grandparents are from. Frammartino was asked how the region differs from the north, and he highlighted the differing relationships between the inside and outside spaces. In Milan, the division is notable; in apartment buildings visitors had to ring a bell, take an elevator and knock on the door. On the other hand, in Calabria people could come in and ask for permission to visit afterwards. If you wanted milk, a shepherd with a goat would be called inside to milk the animal.

Similarly set in Calabria, Frammartino’s international breakthrough The Four Times (2010) stars a dog and goat kids. Animal characters cannot be fully controlled, and according to Frammartino it puts the director in the role of an observer and enabler. You must stay patient and still for long periods of time. “The aim is to create perfect choreographies but the content is unpredictable so it will never be perfect,” he said.

The Four Times explores the theme of reincarnation, which is not a part of the local, firm Catholic tradition. According to Frammartino many beliefs in Calabria are based on pagan worldview. Frammartino’s religious grandmother also believed that snakes are enchanted souls. “In Calabria items and things have a soul too,” Frammartino said.

The name The Four Times originates from a description written in the name of philosopher Pythagoras which claims a human to be formed out of four elements. The bone structure is mineral, the circulation alludes to flora, the ability to move to animals and the rational thought distinctively human. According to Pythagoras people have to learn to know themselves four times.

In the end of the discussion the topic turned to the director’s most recent film The Hole (2021). The partly documentary film tells the story of a deep cave found in Italy in the 1960s, and the group of researchers from Piedmont who studied it.

Frammartino was interested in Italy’s Boom in the 1960s. Back then the aims were high, Pirelli skyscraper built and Yuri Gagarin travelled to space. At the same time one of the deepest holes in the world was explored in Italy. The dark movie is extraordinary as the only light in many scenes comes from the headlights of the characters. Through the film Frammartino almost became a cave researcher himself. “I make movies for a very long time and in the end I start resembling my subjects. While filming The Four Times I learned to herd goats.” MSFF Press Office 14 June 2024

MSFF Press Office 14 June 2024: " Aamun keskustelun aloitti italialainen ohjaaja Michelangelo Frammartino. Frammartino tunnetaan ihmisten, eläinten ja kasvien symbioottisen luontosuhteen kuvaajana. Hänen elokuvissaan ovat suuressa roolissa myös Etelä-Italian jylhät maisemat ja unohdetut kylät, jotka ovat hänen isovanhempiensa kotiseutua.

Frammartino itse kasvoi Pohjois-Italian Milanossa 1980-luvulla. Edeltävä 1970-luku oli vielä Italiassa yhteisöllisyyden aikaa, jolloin ihmiset olivat kaduilla ja osoittivat mieltään ahkerasti. 80-luku kuitenkin toi taantuman ja vei ihmiset kaduilta kotiin. Elämästä tuli perhekeskeisempää, ja Frammartino kertoo viettäneensä muiden lasten tapaan paljon aikaa television edessä. Elokuvissa käyntiä pidettiin ylellisyytenä.

Dokumenttielokuvien ja taideinstallaatioiden välimaastossa työskentelevä Frammartino opiskeli ensin arkkitehtuuria, mutta vaihtoi opinnot Civica Scuola del Cinema -elokuvakouluun. Keskustelussa hän kertoi pitävänsä arkkitehtuurin opintoja elokuvauransa kannalta paljon tärkeämpänä kuin elokuvakoulua. Hän oppi arkkitehtuurista suunnittelun etiikan: arkkitehti suunnittelee tilan, jossa ihmiset myöhemmin tulevat elämään ja asumaan. Näin Frammartino näkee myös elokuvan: “Elokuva on tila, joka ottaa vastaan yleisön.”

Hän kertoi olleensa kateellinen elokuvakoulun kuvaajille, jotka saivat työskennellä fyysisesti kameroiden kanssa, kun ohjaajat taas eivät saaneet koskea kameroihin.

“Nythän kaikki on digitalisoitunut, joten materiaalisen merkitys on vähentynyt. Elokuva on vaarassa muuttua mielelliseksi.” Frammartinoa kiinnostavat myös muiden alojen ihmiset, jotka tekevät elokuvaa: “Jos vaikka kuvataiteilijalle antaa käteen elokuvakameran, tulos on omanlaisensa.”

Frammartinon ensimmäinen elokuva The Gift sijoittuu Etelä-Italian Calabriaan hänen  isovanhempiensa kotiseudulle. Aamukeskustelussa häneltä kysyttiin, miten tuo alue eroaa pohjoisesta. Frammartino nosti esiin erilaisen suhteen sisä- ja ulkotilaan. Milanossa raja näiden välillä oli tarkka. Kerrostalossa kyläilijän piti soittaa ovikelloa, tulla hissillä ylös ja koputtaa. Sen sijaan Calabriassa ihmiset tulivat ovesta sisään ja kysyivät vasta sen jälkeen, voivatko tulla kylään. Jos halusi maitoa, paimen kutsuttiin vuohen kanssa sisään lypsylle.

Frammartinon niin ikään Calabriaan sijoittuvassa kansainvälisessä läpimurtoelokuvassa The Four Times päähenkilöinä on koira ja kilejä. Eläinhahmoja ei voi täysin hallita, ja se asettaa Frammartinon mukaan ohjaajan enemmän havainnoijan ja mahdollistajan rooliin. Paikalla on oltava kärsivällisesti pitkiä aikoja. “Tarkoituksena on saada aikaan täydellinen koreografia, mutta materiaali on arvaamatonta, joten siitä ei koskaan tule täydellistä”, hän sanoi. 

The Four Times -elokuva käsittelee uudelleensyntymää, joka ei kuulu paikalliseen vahvaan katolilaiseen perinteeseen. Frammartinon mukaan Calabriassa monet näkemykset kuitenkin perustuvat pakanallisiin käsityksiin. Myös Frammartinon uskonnollinen isoäiti uskoi, että käärmeet ovat tuomittuja sieluja. “Calabriassa myös esineillä ja asioilla on sielu”, Frammartino sanoi.

The Four Times -nimi tulee filosofi Pythagoraan nimissä kirjoitetusta kuvauksesta, jonka mukaan ihminen koostuu neljästä elementistä. Luusto on mineraalinen, verenkierto vertautuu kasvikuntaan, kyky liikkua eläimiin, ja rationaalinen ajattelu taas on ominaista vain ihmisille. Pythagoraan mukaan ihmisen pitää oppia tuntemaan itsensä neljään kertaan.

Aamukeskustelun lopuksi puhuttiin ohjaajan uusimmasta vuoden 2021 The Hole -elokuvasta. Puolidokumentaarinen elokuva kertoo Italiasta 60-luvulla löytyneestä syvästä luolasta ja sitä tutkineista piemontelaisista tutkijoista.

Frammartinoa kiinnosti 60-luvun alun nousukausi Italiassa. Silloin kuroteltiin korkeuksiin, rakennettiin Pirellin pilvenpiirtäjä ja Juri Gagari matkasi avaruuteen. Samaan aikaan Italiassa alettiin tutkia yhtä maailman syvimmistä kuopista. Tummanpuhuva elokuva on poikkeuksellinen, sillä ainoa valo useissa elokuvan kohtauksissa tulee hahmojen otsalampuista. Näyttelijöistä tulee siis eräällä tavalla kuvaajia. Elokuvan kautta Frammartinosta tuli myös lähes luolatutkija. “Teen elokuvia hyvin pitkän aikaa ja loppujen lopuksi alan muistuttaa sitä mitä kuvaan. The Four Times -elokuvan kuvauksissa opin paimentamaan vuohia.” " MSFF Press Office 14 June 2024

AA: Added notes:

Q: WHAT WAS THE FIRST FILM YOU SAW? A: I don't remember. At age four with my father I saw an animation with insects. [AA: Around 1972 it's hard to figure out what the film might have been. There have been many animations on the Grasshopper and the Ant, including by Disney, and there are the Wladyslaw Starewich classics of course]. Tantissimo televisione - multiple movies on tv - Hitchcock - only state channels - before arrivo Berlusconi - the center was Rome - Milano was peripheral - North Italian cinema: no studios - more experimental.

Q: ANNI PIOMBO. A: In the 1970s there was still communality. In the 1980s there was a backlash, people withdrew into homes, families, the intimate sphere. Television was watched at home, it was the window to the world. Experimental video was important, Studio Azzurro. Interactive installations. I started in video.

Q: ARCHITECTURE. A: The only thing I knew was to draw. My architectural studies were more important than film studies. The ethics of planning. In a film, the story becomes the inhabitant. A movie is a space which receives the audience into the narrative. I entered the director studies at the film school, but I envied the camera studies. I went to school to access the camera. But directors were not allowed to touch the camera. 

There are the grandi cineasti. Rossellini, Bresson, Dreyer, Dovjenko, But there are also non-cineastes who make films anyway. Visual artists as film-makers are original. Such as the little-known Swiss Peter Fischli & David Weiss who create mysterious images. 

Q: THE GREAT ITALIANS. A: Antonioni, Fellini, Visconti. Personally, I love contemporary cinema: Alice Rohrwacher, Pietro Marcello, Paulo Costanzo. In Friuli: Alessandro Comodin. 

Q: INSTALLATIONS, GALLERY ART. A: They are two different worlds. Tile vs. wood. Video vs. pellicola. Now all is digital, and the significance of material is decreasing. As a teacher I juxtapose the physical space with the movie's mental space.

Q: IL DONO - IN CALABRIA - THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. A: Nato Milano, famiglia Calabrese, roots in Calabria via grandparents. In Milan, the interior / exterior divide is sharp. In Calabria, it is fluid. Hospitality: you don't close the door to visitors and strangers. 

Q: IL DONO - NONNO ANGELO. 

CLIP: Le quattro volte (2010). A long scene with a plan-séquence approach: a crossing with a car, a goat-pen and a country road along which a Biblical costume drama is staged, a procession of the Calvary complete with Jesus Christ carrying the cross proceeds towards Golgotha, the three crosses remotely visible in the far horizon.

A: You cannot control all the elements. The material is unpredictable. But you can create a readiness for the force field in which things can happen. The director's work is observation above all. To enter inside a certain mechanism. To introduce mechanisms which pre-exist. 

Ir is rather the reality which directs me.

Q: REINCARNAZIONE. A: Molto pagano. In Calabria, beneath the churches there are Pagan temples. My religious grandmother entertained Pagan aspects. For instance: a snake is a doomed soul.

Q: LE QUATTRO VOLTE. A: The title derives from a Pythagorean view according to which a human being consists of four elements:

    The bone - mineral

    The blood - vegetarian

    Movement - animal

    Rational thought - human.

To know yourself you must live four times.

Q: IL BUCO, your latest film, takes place in the year 1961.

    A: It takes place at the Abisso del Bifurto in the caves of Pollino discofered in 1961. At 700 meters it is the second deepest cave.

   It was the age of the economic miracle in Italy and many other countries. The post-war reconstruction period had been tough. Now everything was getting higher. There was the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan, the highest in Europe. The Mont Blanc Tunnel was built. Yuri Gagarin flew into outer space. 

    I was interested in the contrast of the exploration of the inside of the Earth.

    My South Italian father had gotten the inspiration to move to the North from television.

    I start to resemble what I film.

    I learned to herd goats.

    Me and Giovanna [Giuliani] turned into cave-explorers.

    We become a part of a community.

Q: YOUR CINEMATOGRAPHER RENATO BERTA.

A: Renato Berta was a friend of Giovanna's.

We shot a lot in the dark.

Buio completamente nere.

We needed to use helmet lights.

The performers became the actual camerapeople.

I designed the helmet flashlights myself.

Q: WHICH FILM WOULD YOU TAKE TO THE DESERT ISLAND?

A: Solo uno, o mamma mia!

Viaggio in Italia.

Köprüdekiler / Men on the Bridge, in the presence of Asli Özge

Asli Özge: Köprüdekiler / Men on the Bridge (TK 2009).

Bosporin sillalla (TV title, 13 Nov 2017).

DIRECTOR: Aslı Özge

COUNTRY: Turkey, Germany, The Netherlands

YEAR: 2009

DURATION: 87 min

LANGUAGES: Turkish, subtitled in English

CATEGORY: Aslı Özge, Special Guests' Films, Subtitles in English

In the presence of Asli Özge, in English.

Viewed at Lapinsuu, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 13 June 2024

Otto Kylmälä (MSFF 2024): " Three men work near the Bosphorus bridge. The bridge that links Europe and Asia also connects the men whose lives barely interject. Teenager Fikret sells flowers illegally to motorists, lonely policeman Murat searches the internet for a girlfriend, and Umut tries to balance his low-paid minibus job with the demands of his wife Cemile. The couple try to find a bigger apartment, but Istanbul’s rising prices and Cemile’s demands are out of sync, putting a strain on their marriage. "

" In addition to the bridge, the men are united by their longing for money and love, which represent a better life and spiritual balance in the middle of congested Istanbul. Yet nothing in the stories feels tacked on, as they are strongly rooted in the lives of the characters, mostly men playing themselves. "

" Aslı Özge’s award-winning debut film began as a documentary project but became a fiction film when the director was not allowed to film real police officers. Like Jafar Panahi’s Mirror (1997), which switches from fiction to documentary in the middle of the film, Özge’s hybrid of the two genres grows to unpredictable heights. The result is a charming neorealist work with a greater empathy for its characters than either documentary or fiction could separately achieve. " Otto Kylmälä

AA: The location in Asli Özge's Men on the Bridge is the Bosphorus Bridge.

All allegorical interpretations are meaningful, starting from the obvious one about Turkey, a country that belongs both to Asia and to Europe, to the Islamic world and the Christian tradition. But associations fly back to Homer and Herodotus.

Main characters include illegal rose sellers and policemen patrolling the bridge. Both are marginalized. Both struggle to make ends meet. The policemen have a hard time with the frustrating dating scene.

Asli Özge sees the Bosphorus Bridge with visionary eyes. It is an epic sight at all times, also during rainstorms and traffic jams, and most impressively on the National Day - the Republic Day (Cumhuriye Bayrami) on 29 October, celebrating the republican constitution of 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk declared the Republic of Turkey. It is a popular feast in which everybody can feel proud and important. The crowds are magnificent, the fireworks fabulous.

The visual experience is engaging both in handheld subjective camera shots and in magnificent compositions in depth.

The end credits tune is a rap by Ceza. I wish I knew the title and the lyrics also in translation.

Sodan ja rauhan lapset / Children of War and Peace

Ville Suhonen: Sodan ja rauhan lapset / Children of War and Peace (FI 2024).

Ville Suhonen: Sodan ja rauhan lapset / Children of War and Peace (FI 2024).

DIRECTOR: Ville Suhonen

COUNTRY: Finland

YEAR: 2024

DURATION: 65 min

LANGUAGES: Finnish, subtitled in English

ORIGINAL NAME: Sodan ja rauhan lapset

CATEGORY: New Finnish Films, Puhuttu tai tekstitetty suomeksi, Subtitles in English

Festival premiere: 25 Jan-4 Feb 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) Big Screen Competition,

Finnish festival premiere: DocPoint Helsinki, 2024

Premiere: 22 March 2024 - released by Pirkanmaan Elokuvakeskus r.y.

Viewed at Lapinsuu, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 13 June 2024

Vanja Kaludjercic (IFFR 2024): " For the first time in its history, Finland became an autonomous state when it broke away from a crumbling Russian empire in 1917. Witnessing the upheaval of the First World War and all too aware of the threat posed both outside and within its borders, the newly installed government initiated harsh and draconian policies for its younger generation. All children and youths were drilled in the importance of discipline, rectitude and nationalism. With no exceptions. "

" Comprising archival footage, photographs, radio programmes, books, magazines and a wealth of propaganda material, alongside first-hand accounts and diary entries of children and young people under the yolk of a disciplinarian regime, Ville Suhonen’s film is a grim sketch despite the cinematographic beauty each shot is imbued with: it was an era soaked in hatred where children were educated for war, against class enemies, against the other… Suhonen has already made various documentaries about Finland, war and ideology, ranging in perspective. Still, none of these were as open for allegorical readings that reached beyond the ordinary barriers of time and space. Can we avoid thinking of Ukraine or Gaza when looking into the eyes of these spiritually devastated children born almost a century ago? " – Vanja Kaludjercic

Joonas Nykänen (MSFF 2024): " Konkaritekijä Ville Suhosen (Ompelijatar, 2015; Ikuiseen rauhaan, 2021) taitavasti rakennettu essee-elokuva on Peter von Baghin loistavan Sosialismin (2014) sisaruksia – aiheenaan valtion propagandakoneisto. "

" ”Mitä tapahtui viimeisinä kuukausina ennen jatkosodan alkua? Ennen kuin Suomi hyökkäsi?” Elokuva alkaa sisällissodan jälkeisestä ajasta, loppuu kuolemaan ja kuoron lauluun. Tarkkanäköisesti dokumentti näyttää, miten valtio lähtee propagandassaan heistä, jotka ovat kaikkein eniten alttiita ympäristön vaikutuksille. "

" ”Halusin tehdä tämän elokuvan kertoakseni kuvin ja äänin, kuinka vanhempieni ja isovanhempieni sukupolvilta ei kysytty lapsena tulevaisuudensuunnitelmia”, Suhonen kirjoittaa. Kun tyylistä on karsittu moni konventionaalisen dokumenttifilmin painolasti – kuten selittävä kertojaääni (mm. Alma Pöysti ja Olavi Uusivirta lukevat arkistomateriaalia!) – on päästy asian ytimeen: montaasiin. "

" Montaasin kautta näemme suomalaisten militaristisen kasvatuksen. Ehyt, tiivis työ esittää, kuinka eräs ideologinen koneisto toimi. Hegeliä lainatakseni: “Historiasta opimme ainoastaan sen, ettemme opi historiasta mitään.” " Joonas Nykänen

Joonas Nykänen (MSFF 2024): " Seasoned director Ville Suhonen’s (Seamstress, 2015, Price of Peace, 2021) masterfully crafted essay film is much akin to Peter von Bagh’s brilliant Socialism (2014), dealing with state-run propaganda machines. "

" “What happened in the last months before the beginning of the Continuation War? Before Finland attacked?” The film begins in the time after the Finnish Civil War and ends in death and choir song. The documentary shows with a keen eye how the state sows the seeds of propaganda, starting with those who are most susceptible to influence from their environment. "

" “I wanted to make this film to convey through image and sound how my parents’ and grandparents’ generations were not asked about future plans when they were children,” Suhonen writes. As the style has been rid of many of the burdens of documentary conventions, like having a narrator to explain everything (Alma Pöysti and Olavi Uusivirta, among others, read archive materials!), we get to the heart of the film: montage. "

" Through montage we witness the Finnish militaristic upbringing. The clear and concise work presents how one ideological machine operates. To quote Hegel: “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” " Joonas Nykänen

AA: In my blog notes about Das Lehrerzimmer / The Teachers' Lounge I discussed a mini-wave of films about the school world in the spring season of 2024. Ville Suhonen's Children of War and Peace is also one of them. In film history, it evokes Shigeyoshi Suzuki's Glimpses of Japan: Children at School (JP 1936) and Walt Disney's Education for Death: the Making of the Nazi (US 1943).

The theme of Suhonen's historical compilation documentary is the patriotic and military aspect in Finnish school education until the end of WWII. Patriotism sometimes verged into nationalism, the military aspect towards militarism. "Nationalisme, c'est la guerre", stated François Mitterrand.

The Finnish nation at large was allergic to Fascism and Nazism in the 1930s, but in far right contexts Nazi salutes were popular, as documented by Suhonen in repeated filmed excerpts. I can testify that they still appeared at my school in the 1960s and the 1970s.

The impact of Children of War and Peace is electrifying. I am thinking about my father and mother who were schoolchildren in the 1930s and the 1940s. My mother said that her childhood ended on 30 November 1939 when she at her high-rise home looked in the eye of a Red Air Force pilot who was bombing her hometown Lahti. 

Also the original soundtracks are thrilling. In those days, we knew how to sing from the bottom of our hearts. Now, even professional singers seldom do. They hum, they wail. "Leivolle" by Haydn. "Ateenalaisten laulu" by Sibelius, to lyrics by Viktor Rydberg, channeling Tyrtaeus, actually a Spartan. A fierce Spartan fighting spirit and military virtue is what it is all about.

Children of War and Peace is the fourth movie in Ville Suhonen's documentary film series about the first quarter of a century of independent Finland, preceded by Jäämarssi / Frozen Hell (2011), Ompelijatar / Seamstress (2015) and Ikuiseen rauhaan / Price of Peace (2021). 

I look forward for more historical explorations in Ville Suhonen's unique series.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PRESS MATERIAL:

Henry Fonda for President

Alexander Horwath: Henry Fonda for President (AT 2024).

DIRECTOR: Alexander Horwath

COUNTRY: Austria, Germany

YEAR: 2024

DURATION: 184 min

LANGUAGES: German, English, subtitled in English

CATEGORY: Documentary Films, Film History, Subtitles in English

Viewed at Lapinsuu, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 13 June 2024

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

" The film begins with a personal memory: Paris, summer of 1980. The Moscow Olympics are underway. In Detroit, Ronald Reagan has just been nominated as the Republican presidential candidate. In New Hampshire, Henry Fonda is shooting his final film. Two actors sketch out two different ways of viewing the United States of America: as God’s Own Country or as a stage for social struggle. "

" A sharp leap backwards: Holland, 1651. A dual history of migration takes its course: the story of a man and his family – and the history of a nation in motion. The film’s journey continues to the shores of the Mohawk River and the years of the American Revolution, to the “Wild West” and the waves of racist violence in the early 20th century, to New York during the Great Depression, to Hiroshima and the Pacific Front in Wold War II. The postwar era and its new forms of depression, the Cold War and its apocalyptic scenarios – this is also the time when the society of the spectacle finally asserts itself. "

" Our protagonist is now closer than ever to the role of a politician. The story comes to a close around 1976: after Watergate and the Vietnam War, during a time of confusion and hope in which the U.S. is trying to find itself again. "

" Each station on this journey through the country and its times is connected to Henry Fonda – to his life and that of his forebears, to his work as an actor and his public persona, and to the movie characters he portrayed. He becomes concentrated in them – along with the country from which all of these faces arise. Considered from the vantage point of today: another time, another country. But its phantoms, no matter if famous or nameless, are more potent than ever before. "

ALEXANDER HORWATH: DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

" The search for “origins” should be avoided at all cost, but it’s not a big stretch to say that my lifelong preoccupation with the history and present of the United States, with the American cinema and its practitioners, and specifically with the actor Henry Fonda, were essential reasons for me to try out a new profession. "

" Still, this leap into filmmaking is certainly a stretch for me. I decided to go for it because in order to come to terms with the material that had accumulated in front of me the cinematic approach seemed to be the only logical one. A lesson from my previous activities: Every topic that one “adopts“ pushes towards a certain form of realization. To some degree, any constellation of questions already contains the form of the possible answer. That’s why, in close collaboration with Michael Palm and Regina Schlagnitweit, I chose to answer in the shape of a film. It may resemble a double helix: Two main strands constantly intertwine in a mutually ascending, spiraling movement – the biography of a composite called “Henry Fonda” and the “biography” of the United States of America. "

" The film superimposes multiple thematic spheres and presentation formats: fictional narratives and historical facts; individual life paths and socio-political reflections; moments from American history and its pop cultural detritus – as well as acute questions about democracy. Henry Fonda is the pilot of this endeavor. His life and the life of his ancestors, the actual person and the persona that crystallizes from his works, the places and times where and when the person and the persona were active – these threads condensed into a view of America. And they directed us to the locations where we filmed in 2019 and 2021. Their concrete shape and their own momentum led to further investigations: new side roads, new satellite characters, new connections and speculations. Thanks to his family history, his personal conflicts, weaknesses and beliefs, his films and his special talent as an actor, Fonda also acts a bit like a zoom lens, capturing the most varied dimensions of history and life in America via different focal lengths. It can give you just the outlines – or very precise details. And thanks to Fonda’s voice, which reaches us through Lawrence Grobel’s long interview with him in the summer of 1981, he is also the second “narrator” of the film. "

" In reality, he was a taciturn person. He didn’t see himself as an artist and didn’t like to talk about himself. But he managed to bear witness – even if he himself didn’t perceive it that way. Hannah Arendt talks about this at the beginning of my film, and I took the liberty of reading it as a statement about Henry Fonda: “The subject discloses an objective work to the public. What is subjective about this, the working process for instance, is of no concern to the public. However, if this work is not merely academic, but rather the result of a life lived and suffered, then it will also reveal a living action and speech, the bearer of which is the person himself. What appears here is unknown to the one who presents it. He has no command over it.” "

Lauri Timonen (MSFF 2024): " At over three hours, Alexander Horwath’s brand new personal essay-documentary Henry Fonda for President may sound long, but it goes by in a flash. The film offers a hefty helping of biographical information, film clips, interviews (including one of his final, F-bomb-filled sessions), and bittersweet accounts from his radical offspring (“Hanoi Jane” and Easy Rider’s Captain America Peter Fonda, who all but wrapped up the revolution of the 1960s generation). The director also makes a commendable tour of the important places in the life of the protagonist, who lived from 1905 to 1982, digitally recording the pale changes of the present and the slowly fading touches of history. "

" Fonda was the sum of his personal contradictions: a shy man in a public profession; an interpreter of great personalities for whom his own identity remained the ultimate mystery; a stern old-world parent who loved to work in his garden; a cold, iron-clad professional who performed on the Broadway stage on the evening of the day his wife slit her throat from ear to ear; Steinbeck’s favourite actor and a rare liberal among the morose right-wing conservatives of his generation. Yet above all, Fonda was presidential material, both for the many roles he played and for the moral backbone they conveyed! Horwath’s excellent compilation film provides ample evidence of this. " Lauri Timonen

AA: Alexander Horwath's Henry Fonda for President lasts over three hours, but time flies while watching this montage masterpiece as it moves along on multiple interconnected levels - the history of the Fonda family in America from 1642 to the present - the history of America - the life and career of Henry Fonda - his presidentially relevant roles (Young Mr. Lincoln, Fail-Safe, Meteor, The Best Man) - and the story of the director's personal engagement with Fonda. 

Seen at Midnight Sun Film Festival, the point of comparison is Ehsan Khoshbakht's Celluloid Underground seen the day before. In both, the personal and the film historical are one. Horwath is a connoisseur of the essay / compilation / montage form. Each great work in this lineage reinvents the form, and also Henry Fonda for President is such a work.

The Fonda family story illuminates film history. Just like the family in Drums Along the Mohawk, an American Revolution saga, the Fondas were settlers in what is now the state of New York. The Ox-Bow Incident is a tragedy around lynching. A relevant memory from Henry Fonda's last interview (with Lawrence Grobel, July 1981) is heard.

...

1919, A LYNCHING

" On September 28, 1919, a lynching occurs outside the Omaha courthouse. The victim is William Brown, one of the many African-American migrant workers from the South who have moved to the industrial cities of the North and the Midwest after World War I. "

Fonda: " My dad’s office looked down on the courthouse square. And he took me with him, we went up into his office and watched from the window. And there was this young black that they had arrested on suspicion of rape. And this mob started to collect. I know the mayor, he was on horseback. He rode with two assistants on horseback, rode into the middle of this mob, trying to quell them and calm them. They damn near lynched the mayor. That’s how out-of-control they were. You couldn’t believe that they would overpower the law, force their way in, get this guy out of a cell, drag him through the streets, hang him from a lamppost, riddle him with bullets, and then drag him in the back of an automobile. It was an experience I will never forget. It was so horrifying. I know that my dad never lectured. We watched. And when it was all over and we went home, he didn’t talk about it. Well, it was a great shock to me. "

...

Henry Fonda's first presidential film, Young Mr. Lincoln, also revolves around a lynching - which the young and awkward lawman Lincoln succeeds in interrupting. Even more impressively, he makes the people regret what they have done. Inspired by him, the raging mob transforms into a peaceful crowd. Already we see a leader of the union, not above the people but of the people. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

During the movie, we go to the roots of American political philosophy - Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. We follow the ideas of the manifest destiny, the strategic air command, the principle of the first strike and the society of the spectacle. 

In studio era Hollywood, Henry Fonda embodied American ideals, often in complex and self-reflective ways. In the 1930s he played outlaws (You Only Live Once) and rebels (The Grapes of Wrath). In comedy (Lady Eve) and tragedy (Fort Apache) he expressed a repressed masculinity - a complex with which he had a personal family history. After Hollywood's golden age, in Once Upon a Time in the West, he played a blue-eyed baby-killer. He played the enemy against which Hanoi Jane and Captain America rebelled in turn.

In Fail-Safe, the president orders the destruction of New York to prevent the destruction of the world. The Nuclear Age came close also to the Fonda family.

...

HIROSHIMA

" Fonda’s home town produces B-29 bombers. The flying Superfortress ensures U.S. superiority in the war against Japan. The deadliest one is the ’Enola Gay’. "

Grobel: " You knew about the dropping of the atomic bomb, didn’t you, before it was dropped. Did you realize what that was going to be? "

Fonda: " Not totally, because I had no idea what kind of devastation it would create. It was just something new, bigger bomb. And I went up to Tinian with my boss, commander Koepke. We briefed the pilot about where he was going and what marks to look for. And the next thing I knew we hear about Hiroshima, which sort of took me aback, I must say. I can only wish that they had never thought of making it in the first place and never made an atomic bomb. I’m against all of it. I wish they’d just said, “Well, that’s dangerous, let’s not touch it.” "

Grobel: " That’s not the nature of man, though, is it? "

Fonda: " No. "

Grobel: " Do you think it will eventually destroy us? "

Fonda: " I wouldn’t be surprised. "

...

Because Young Mr. Lincoln is my personal favourite film, I had high expectations for Alexander Horwath's movie, but it is even much better than I expected.

Henry Fonda for President is topical in a fateful presidential year. The Lincoln spirit is needed more than ever since the Civil War. God bless America.

...

J. Hoberman: "Straight Shooter : On Henry Fonda for President". Artforum, October 2024, Vol. 63, No 2

https://www.artforum.com/columns/j-hoberman-henry-fonda-for-president-559591/

Sodankylä morning discussion 2024: Leos Carax

Leos Carax

Leos Carax, Satu Kyösola, Timo Malmi. The morning discussion at the School, 13 June 2024. Photo: Juho Liukkonen / Midnight Sun Film Festival. Please do click on the photos to expand them. The blogger's silhouette is to the left in the front row of the audience.

Hosted by Timo Malmi and Satu Kyösola. In English. 120 min

The School, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 13 June 2024

Lauri Timonen (MSFF Catalog 2024): " One of the last true representatives of the European auteur tradition, director-writer Leos Carax (Alex Christophe Dupont) was born in Suresnes, a western suburb of Paris, to two journalists – a French father and an American mother. Carax, who also carved himself a career as a critic – his stage name is an anagram of the words “Alex” and “Oscar” – made his first short film, Strangulation Blues, in 1980, and his debut feature Boy Meets Girl (1984), shot in black and white, made well-deserved waves four years later. Interpreted by his future trusted actor Denis Lavant and Mireille Perrier, this melancholy love story contains, alongside homages towards Godard and Truffaut, many of the essential hallmarks of Carax’s art: the beauty of gestures, romantic chaos, intuitive imaginative physicality, melancholic wanderings on the nocturnal shores and bridges of the Seine that grow into the director’s soul-scape, jerky lyricism marked by adrenaline rushes, unexpectedness that breaks the conventions of form, and hallucinatory imagery that leans on surrealism… "

" Borrowing its name from a poem by Rimbaud, Bad Blood (1986) marked his definitive breakthrough, growing into an autopoietic, brutally romantic genre collage characteristic of Carax. Equally sensitively fierce, unconditional, and headstrong is The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), which expands into a cruel adult fairy tale. It promptly received an inordinate amount of flak for, among other things, its budget, which the French press raised to mythical proportions and deemed to be Ciminolian. Associated together with Luc Besson and Jean-Jacques Beineix as a representative of the ’80s Cinéma du look movement, Carax’s influences range from Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971), set on the very same bridge, all the way to Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante (1934). Nor is it likely a coincidence that Jack and Rose (in a direct reproduction of the final scene) pose in the bow of Titanic (1997), or that Uma Thurman’s tracksuit in Kill Bill (2003-2004) is bright yellow, reminiscent of Juliette Binoche’s character as signs of the opposite cultural exchange. "

" The next directional work by this artist known for his long breaks, Pola X (1999), a rough adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), acts as a kind of private cleansing ritual – a cyberpunk hybrid of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Jacques Rivette’s urban board games. The exploding cemeteries in the first shots seem to pose the unspoken question – can the dead be killed again? – and on a meta level, the sense of a ghost story is deepened by the early demise of both main actors. "

" Carax took his time again, directed short films and Godardian postcards like Sans titre (1997), music videos for Carla Bruni (2002-2003) and New Order (2005), and a guerrilla-style episode of the portmanteau film Tokyo! (2008). The latter introduces us to Denis Lavant’s incredible acrobatic-anarchist creation belonging to the series of “sacred beasts,” the metropolis-terrorising Monsieur Merde. Dressed in a green suit and living in the sewers, the dark side of Chaplin’s Tramp is a brilliant combination of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, the sadistic but lusty Opale from The Testament of Dr. Cordelier (1959), the persecuted Godzilla, the hedonistic King Ubu, and the tormented Jesus Christ. The character also makes a comeback in Holy Motors (2012), one of the masterpieces of the 21st century by any measure. "

" Carax’s first English-language film Annette (2021), a lively collaboration realised with the cult band Sparks combining musical and rock opera genres, once again opens unknown doors while cleverly tapping into the universes of his earlier works. His latest directorial effort, the 41-minute It’s Not Me (2024), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this spring. "

" Leos Carax is a visionary who never explains his signals and the greatest French cinematic artist of his generation, who has refused to ever forget that the camera-pen was invented for poetry. When the chain-smoking maestro with already two nicotine patches stuck to his throat (according to legend) lights his next cigarette, not only does its fiery tip begin to glow, but so do the projector lamps, the cosmic screens, and the audience’s imagination! " Lauri Timonen (MSFF Catalog 2024)

MSFF 13 June 2024: " Torstain aamukeskustelussa kuultiin elokuvaohjaaja Leos Caraxia, joka on pitkien elokuvien lisäksi ohjannut myös lyhytelokuvia ja musiikkivideoita. Yhdysvaltalaiselle äidille ja ranskalaiselle isälle Pariisin esikaupunkialueella vuonna 1960 syntynyt Carax, oikealta nimeltään Alex Christophe Dupond, tunnetaan erityisesti tarinoista kaoottisesta rakkaudesta. "

" Carax kertoi täydelle salille Kitisenrannan koululla, että löysi elokuvien maailman teini-ikäisenä. Ensimmäistä elokuvakokemustaan ohjaaja ei muistanut, mutta kuvaili yhdysvaltalaisnyrkkeilijä Muhammad Alin mestauusottelun olleen hänelle merkittävä kokemus, vaikka ohjaaja ei pidäkään itseään urheilufanina. Hieman myöhemmin elokuvakriitikkona työskennellessään Carax matkusti useille elokuvafestivaaleille, jolloin hän pääsi keskustelemaan elokuvista kiinnostuneiden ihmisten kanssa. "

" Sodankylän elokuvajuhlien avajaisnäytöksenäkin nähdyssä Pont-Neufin rakastavaisissa (1991) esiintyvät ohjaajan useissa elokuvissa nähdyt näyttelijät Denis Lavant ja Juliette Binoche. Carax korostaa, ettei hän olisi ikinä tehnyt elokuviaan ellei olisi tavannut oikeita ihmisiä. Ohjaaja sanoo, ettei osaa kuvitella elokuviensa kohtauksia ilman luottonäyttelijöitään. "

" Caraxin ohjasi ensimmäisen täyspitkän elokuvansa Boy Meets Girl (1984) vain 24-vuotiaana. Elokuvan tarinaa Carax kuvailee omakseen. Lavantin roolihahmon nimi on Caraxin elokuvissa usein Alex, joka on myös Caraxin oikea etunimi. Ohjaajan taitelijanimikin on anagrammi nimistä Alex ja Oscar. "

" Ohjaajan elokuvissa toistuvat rakkauden teemojen lisäksi leikkisyys ja liike. Carax kuvailee elokuvan maailman näyttäytyvän hänelle saarena, jolla ei ole rajoja. ”Se on kaunis saari, mutta siellä on myös hautausmaa, missä on kuolleita ihmisiä” Carax kiteyttää, viitaten elokuvahistorian edesmenneisiin pioneereihin ja mestareihin. "

" Ohjaajauransa alussa Carax kertoo olleensa epävarma ja pelänneensä värien käyttämistä. Hän kuvasi ensimmäiset elokuvansa mustavalkoisina ja pääosin öisin, jotta katsoja keskittyisi vain hallittuihin yksityiskohtiin. Myöhemmissä töissään ohjaaja käyttää värejä mitä leikkisimmin ja innovatiivisin tavoin. "

" Keskustelussa nousi esille useasti myös elokuvien painotus liikkeeseen, sillä ohjaajan elokuvissa juostaan huomattavan paljon. Carax kertoo olleensa koulussa aina kaikista pienin ja tunteneensa, ettei hän osaa juosta. Hän päätyi käsittelemään asiaa elokuviensa kautta ja laittoi elokuvien Alexin juoksemaan puolestaan. "

" Aamukeskustelujen klassikkokysymykseen autiolle saarelle elokuvasta Carax ei suostunut vastaamaan, sillä hän sanoo jo olevansa jumissa autiolla saarella. " (MSFF 13 June 2024)

MSFF 13 June 2024: " Thursday morning’s discussion spotlit Leos Carax, whose filmography includes short films and music videos in addition to feature films. Born in 1960 to an American mother and French father in suburban Paris, Carax (born as Alex Christophe Dupond) is best known for his stories about chaotic love. "

" Carax shared with the full venue at the School that he started to get more into films as a teenager. The director could not remember his first cinematic experience, but described how impactful the championship game of American boxer Muhammad Ali was to him even if he does not consider himself as a sports fan. Later Carax worked as a film critic and travellet to many film festivals where he had a chance to discuss films with other movie-lovers. "

" The opening film of the Midnight Sun Film Festival  The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) stars the director’s frequent collaborators Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche. Carax emphasises that he would have never made his films without meeting the right people. The director says that he could not imagine the scenes of his films without his trusted actors.  "

" Carax directed his first feature film Boy Meets Girl (1984) when he was just 24 years old. He describes the story of the film as his own. Lavant’s characters are often called Alex, which is Carax’s official first name too. His alias on the other hand is an anagram of the names Alex and Oscar. "

" Alongside the recurring theme of love, Carax’s filmography is infused with playfulness and movement. Carax explains that he sees the world of cinema as an island without borders. “The world of cinema has changed a lot, but it’s always been an island. It is a beautiful island but with a cemetery also, with dead people”, he remarks referring to the bygone pioneers and masters of film history. "

" Carax says that in the beginning of his career as a director, he was insecure and afraid of using colour. He shot his first films in black and white and mostly by night so that the audience would only concentrate on controlled details. In his later work he has used colour in an innovative, playful manner. "

" Another topic that was often brought up was the emphasis on movement as Carax’s films notably have a lot of running in them. Carax says that in school he was always the smallest, and he felt like he was not able to run. He ended up approaching these memories through film and making the character of Alex run in his place. " 

" When asked the festival’s classic question of which film he would take with him to a desert island, he said he is already stuck on the island." (MSFF 13 June 2024)

AA: Added notes:

Q: FIRST FILM. A: I don't remember. I did not see films as a child. Joe Frazier vs. Muhammad Ali on tv. Bresson: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne on tv: for the first time I became aware of the presence of a director. Passion for Muhammad Ali as an actor, as a dancer. Cinema is a country where you can live in. I was a film critic for six months. I could travel to festivals, met Martin Duras and Robert Kramer, I was 18. Made Strangulation Blues (1980). With a big Mitchell camera. The only time with a big camera.

BOY MEETS GIRL. I was afraid of colour. The hard work is to meet people. I have never seen my films as French. Nouvelle vague was 20 years old. 

DENIS LAVANT was a strange boy - circus - poetry - street theatre - dancer - also sculpture.

CLIP: Boy Meets Girl (1984), two guys on the bank of the Seine. 

The first three films were love stories. 

The masters - Hitchcock, Bresson - they know what they are doing.

If you are not a storyteller, it's the usual chaos.

For each production, you need 2-3 key images, 2-3 key feelings.

In Paris, I mostly shoot by night.

SO MUCH MOVEMENT. At school, I was the youngest and the smallest. I did not know how to run. Porthos in The Three Musketeers: he forgot to tell his legs to run.

CLIP: Mauvais sang (1986). Juliette Binoche: in tears. Denis Lavant: magic tricks. Extreme close-up.

The muse. Actors look at you. We look at each other. At the time, there were very few women directors. 

Big cameras give a feeling of heaviness, gravity.

When the camera moved - it was God watching.

The lighter it gets, the more you need to reinforce the sense of God watching.

Magic tricks: it is all about trying to escape gravity.

I felt very old when young.

Légéreté. Tintin. I saw Juliette Binoche as Tintin. The playfulness.

The two marginals.

Cinema comes from the circus. Chaplin, the Marx Brothers.

PARIS. At 17 I came to Paris. I can't say I like Paris. It is more and more for the rich people.

CLIP: Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991). The marginalized, the extinguished, the maimed. The night shelter. 

A REAL SHELTER FOR THE POOR. I could not do this today. They should agree to be filmed. 

The film took three years to make.

The night shelter was shot on Super 16.

The producer said that the film cannot be released if it is in there.

The film was very expensive. We built a 1:1 replica of the Pont-Neuf in Montpellier.

MARGINAL CHARACTERS. It's all of us.

SECOND CLIP FROM: Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991). A chase in the subway tunnels. Binoche in anti-glamour mode. The cellist in the tunnel. A gunshot into the peephole. Kodaly cello piece. 

REALITY AND IMAGINATION. That's where art comes in. Without it there would be no art.

SILENTS. When I came to Paris I visited the old Cinémathèque française. It was special to see silents with many people. There was no music at the time. It was really silent. I felt at home.

MUSICALS. I don't think much about genre. Guru Dutt. My fourth film I made with an original music score.

CLIP: Holy Motors (2012). Denis Lavant and Kylie Minogue. Expressionless. Singing in an empty department store. Pieces of mannequin dolls. Kylie Minogue sings "Who Were We?"

A: Samaritaine was the department store, now a luxury hotel.

Sanctuary for lost love.

Story of capitalism.

True in every big city.

THE FIRST THREE FILMS WERE OF YOUTH. Then, old age. We have all ages all the time. 

GODARD. Very important. When I started, he was the only person from the old guard alive - and still only half-way in his career. 

NB. Godard influence: C'est pas moi (2024).

INFLUENCES. I don't see many films. There are too many references. Fassbinder. Made 32 films, died at 36.

DESERT ISLAND FILM. No way.

...

The discussion was in English. It would have been even better in French.

Celluloid Underground

Ehsan Khoshbakht: Celluloid Underground (GB 2023). Poster design: Giselle Monzon.

Ehsan Khoshbakht: Celluloid Underground (GB 2023).

DIRECTOR: Ehsan Khoshbakht

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

YEAR: 2023

DURATION: 80 min

LANGUAGES: English, Persian, subtitled in English

CATEGORY: Documentary Films, Film History, Special Screenings, Subtitles in English

Viewed at Kitisen Kino, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 12 June 2024

Timo Malmi (MSFF 2024): " How deeply can the passion for cinema, cinephilia, impact a person and their destiny? "

" This is illustrated in Celluloid Underground, a deeply personal documentary flavoured with abundant film snippets from Ehsan Khoshbakht who lectured last summer in Sodankylä on architecture and film. "

" Khoshbakht shares his own experience of exile in London and tells the story of his friend Ahmad Jorghanian, whose passionate archiving of film copies led to his imprisonment for four years and torture in Iran. "

" In the painful but treasured memories of his birthland, Khoshbakht founded a film club in Tehran at only 17. When he screened the classic film The Cow (1969) by the father of modern Iranian cinema Dariush Mehrjui who was murdered in 2023, he got in trouble with the Islamic revolution. "

" The emigration caused by the persecution has, on the other hand, brought Khoshbakht blessings in the West, such as a place among the quartet of artistic directors of the prestigious Italian festival Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna. "

" The consequences of cinephilia, defying authority and becoming dangerous from the authorities’ perspective are sadly evident in Jorghanian’s fate. Known as the “Iranian Henry Langlois,” he archived over 4,000 films and 1,000 still images, by hiding these forbidden reels in his suburban hideout. Ahmad, a true believer in cinema, values the copies more than himself! " Timo Malmi

AA: Celluloid Underground, a tribute to the great Iranian film collector Ahmad Jorghanian (2014), is a companion piece to Filmfarsi (IR/GB 2019), the director Ehsan Khoshbakht's previous marvellous piece about Iran's secret film history.

Filmfarsi was created "in VHS-Scope", documenting the return of the repressed in Iran's low budget sensationalist cinema, films only surviving on home video.

Celluloid Underground is a celebration of photochemical film, private possession of which was decreed illegal in Iran in 1984. In defiance of the film ban, the heroic collector Ahmad Jorghanian gathered thousands of prints and let underground film societies access them.

This could be a thrilling and entertaining anecdote and footnote to film history. But helmed by Khoshbakht the story grows into a personal Bildungsroman, a story of a great friendship, a history of Iranian cinema and Iran itself before and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It is about cinephilia in the "classe tous risques". On many levels it is about cinema as an art of time - and about time itself.

As in Filmfarsi, the visual quality is unique in being beyond good and awful. The film-makers display excellent taste in creating a mosaic from disparate materials that separately might be rejected. The film is bigger than the sum of its parts. In its experimental drive it reaches cosmic and timeless grandeur.

...

NB. Celluloid means nitrate film which was the norm until the early 1950s. Safety film became the norm in 1951. First it was acetate, in the 1990s polyester. The digital turn of the cinema started in 1999.

La spiaggia / The Boarder (2021 Bologna restoration)

Alberto Lattuada: La spiaggia / The Boarder (IT/FR 1954). On a Ligurian beach in Pontorno, the single mother Anna Maria Mentorsi (Martine Carol) meets the adventuress Marini (Mara Berni). I love the hairy armpit.

Kuuma rannikko / Gatflickan i societeten.

DIRECTOR: Alberto Lattuada

COUNTRY: Italy, France

YEAR: 1954

DURATION: 102 min

LANGUAGES: Italian, subtitled in English

CATEGORY: Master Classes and Special Presentations, Olaf Möller, Subtitles in English

Introduced by Olaf Möller.

Viewed at Lapinsuu, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 12 June 2024

Olaf Möller (MSFF 2024): " One of the most famous quotes about Italian postwar cinema comes from Giulio Andreotti, who as a vice-minister in one of the eight De Gasperi governments likened Neorealism to the washing of dirty laundry in public. The cinema of this era, thus, should be a clean one that only showed an unspoiled, spotless, unsullied, pristine if not outright immaculate image of Italy. But what does that mean? Alberto Lattuada was one of the most stylish and refined masters of the era, whose films were always perfectly crafted and radiant with beauty – while often talking about all the unsavory things to be found in the so spotless-seeming world, especially of the gente per bene. Which makes The Boarder something of a reflection on the period, its morals: Here, a high-class sex worker goes on holiday with her young daughter, gets seen by one of her clients whose loose lips soon have everybody whispering in nasty tones about the poor woman. "

" What becomes visible, even when seemingly good deeds get done, is a world made of little more than hypocrisy, a mere façade, a chillingly silly charade. This fits well with one technical aspect of The Boarder: It was one of the very first Italian color films; the technology, especially in its Ferraniacolor-variety here, stresses the artificiality of the world we get to see… The Boarder might look harmless, but it’s a bottomless pit. " Olaf Möller

AA: Alberto Lattuada visited Sodankylä in 1991, but La spiaggia was not screened back then. Now we were offered a reconstructed and restored version (2021) of the film that suffered censorship cuts during its initial release. 

La spiaggia is a cynical caricature about hypocrisy in Italy during its postwar economical boom. Anna Maria Mentorsi (Martine Carol) is taking a Liguria vacation with her little daughter Caterina (Anna Gabriella Pisani) in the town of Pontorno. Believed to be a respectable widow, Anna Maria is initially accepted by high society, but when her profession in Milan is exposed, everyone turns their backs on them, even children. 

The mayor Silvio (Raf Vallone) does his best to help, but he fails to find cooperation. Deus ex machina: the billionaire Chiastrino (Carlo Bianco) takes Anna Maria in his protection with no strings attached. His satisfaction is to see the instant turnabout in everybody's attitudes towards Anna Maria and Caterina. Money talks.

When Milanese men recognize Anna Maria they start to suggest dates. I was thinking about Woody Allen's To Rome with Love and its references to Italian films. Might Anna (Penélope Cruz) be an homage to Anna Maria in La spiaggia?

The restoration and reconstruction looks clean, stable and smooth in the DCP presentation. I am not a Ferraniacolor expert, and I have no Ferraniacolor sense. In this presentation the colour impact is consistent, and there is a soft blur, no clear outlines. I have just been meditating the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, and in the colour world of La spiaggia there is some affinity with post-impressionist painting such as La Grande Jatte by Seurat, but in lower definition.

Kalak

 

Isabella Eklöf: Kalak ( DK 2023). Trying to come terms with his trauma, Jan (Emil Johnsen) resorts to the indigenous face masks of indigenous Greenland.

DIRECTOR: Isabella Eklöf

COUNTRY: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Finland

YEAR: 2023

DURATION: 120 min

LANGUAGES: Danish, Greenlandic, English, subtitled in Finnish

CATEGORY: Gems of New Cinema, Puhuttu tai tekstitetty suomeksi

Viewed at Lapinsuu, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 12 June 2024

Timo Malmi (MSFF 2024): " Kalak, directed by Swedish filmmaker Isabella Eklöf as a Nordic co-production in Greenland, opens with a startling scene: an older man is sexually abusing a sleeping young man. But this is not sensationalist doom and gloom; instead, the effortlessly talented narrator sympathetically follows the adult life of Jan, who flees Copenhagen with his family to Greenland at the turn of the millennium, traumatised by a difficult relationship with his father. "

" As Kalak is based on an autobiographical novel by Kim Leine, who also contributed to the screenplay, even the most intense phases of the film can be expected to have counterparts in reality. Eklöf deals with things with honest frankness, but also with succinct economy: how the smiling Jan is in the grip of manic sexual polygamy fuelled by drug abuse, which his tolerant wife and mother of two (Asta Kamma August) accepts – even though she is not aware of the dark side of his relationship with his father. "

" “Kalak” means “dirty Greenlander,” referring to both the positive and negative aspects of the adaptation process. In the film, relationships with the Indigenous population reflect Danish colonialism. Nadim Carlsen’s camera beautifully captures the barren atmosphere of the island, and Norwegian Emil Johnsen is a real find in the conflicted role of the boyish Jan. " Timo Malmi

AA: Isabella Eklöf has an assured touch with the tough subject-matter of Kalak. 

It is the tragedy of Jan (Emil Johnsen) coming to terms with the legacy of his pedophilic and incestuous father. Now in a terminal phase of cancer, the father Ole (Søren Hellerup) is jovial and unrepentant, celebrating his licentious lifestyle to the end. Jan's family has moved / escaped to Greenland, but in the finale they return to Copenhagen.

The world unfolds in a mode of contemporary realism / naturalism, but the theme dates back to ancient tragedy and Sophocles.

Everybody in Jan's circle suffers collateral damage: his wife, his children, his colleagues at the hospital where he works, the partners in his serial polygamy. Like his father, Jan in his relationships seems to have a void where conscience should exist. At the hospital Jan has access to drugs, and he becomes a reckless addict.

Greenland dogs can be dangerous. Jan's daughter becomes horribly savaged by one. His wife and children fly back to Copenhagen and its surgical experts. When Jan refuses the attentions of Nikoline, an indigenous lover, she commits a family suicide by burning down her house with her child. The traditional Nordic funeral hymn, "Gammal fäbodpsalm från Dalarna", is heard in the funeral sequence. The camera catches it in a distant high angle shot, tilting up along a mountain and further up to heaven.

A half-hidden current in the story is the profound resentment of the indigenous Greenland people towards Danish colonialists.

Kalak is an original tragedy of Vatermord. Isabella Eklöf offers us a potent cocktail, as powerful as the one mixed by Jan for his father in the finale, but with reverse impact. Eklöf wants to wake us up. 

The sublime landscapes of Greenland offer striking counter-images to the darkness of the fabula. According to the end credits they have been shot on photochemical Kodak film. 

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MY PROGRAM NOTE FOR HELSINKI FILM FESTIVAL 2024:

Cerrar los ojos / Close Your Eyes

Víctor Erice: Cerrar los ojos / Close Your Eyes (ES/AR 2023). The actor Julio Arenas (José Coronado) on the night of his disappearance.

DIRECTOR: Víctor Erice

COUNTRY: Spain, Argentina

YEAR: 2023

DURATION: 169 min

LANGUAGES: Spanish, Catalan, English, French, subtitled in English

CATEGORY: Gems of New Cinema, Subtitles in English

Viewed at Lapinsuu, Sodankylä, Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF), 12 June 2024

Timo Malmi (MSFF 2024): " Spanish cinema virtuoso Víctor Erice has only made four feature films in 50 years, and Close Your Eyes is as masterful as any of them. Don’t be put off by its length: despite its many layers, this “film within a film” is easy to follow and never bores for a moment. As a little bonus, our 1995 guest pays homage to our festival: the main character’s friend Max wears a Midnight Sun Film Festival T-shirt from the 100 Years of Cinema edition! "

" Close Your Eyes, which explores the themes of time and memory, is set in 2012, but The Farewell Gaze – an unfinished film left behind by the protagonist, Miguel Garay – is being made in the 1990s and takes place on a third temporal plane, in France in 1947. The star of The Farewell Gaze, Julio Arenas, mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming, and in “present day,” Miguel is asked to appear on a TV show to investigate the case and its implications. "

" The melancholy Close Your Eyes is considered by many to be one of last year’s best films – although its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival was overshadowed by a curious episode: the film was in the main selection but, to Erice’s surprise, out of competition, prompting him to boycott the festival and publish an open letter about the matter. For an introduction to Erice’s South (1983) and an interview with the director, see Yle Teema’s Best of Midnight Sun Film Festival (pages 152-153). " Timo Malmi

AA: The year 2023 is turning out to be one of the greatest in the history of the cinema. One of its distinctions was that veterans and established masters presented some of their best work (Wes Anderson, the Dardenne brothers, Terence Davies, James Gray, Todd Haynes, Agnieszka Holland, Aki Kaurismäki, Ken Loach, Hayao Miyazaki, Errol Morris, Christopher Nolan, Alexander Payne, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Wim Wenders).

Add to their number Víctor Erice whose Close Your Eyes is a cinephilic detective story like La Morte Rouge. It is the most story-driven movie by the master from the Basque Country. 

Erice's movies are usually purely imagist, carried by the spell of poetic visions. In Close Your Eyes, Erice has lost none of the spellbinding power of his cinematography. An engrossing ambience of meditation and a genius in moments of epiphany are on display as profoundly as in The Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur.

But Close Your Eyes is also a storyteller's tale on many layers, continuing from the Sherlock Holmes legacy of La Morte Rouge, and displaying roots going deep into One Thousand and One Nights. Again there is a significant reference to the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent reign of terror.

A Jewish character in La mirada del adíos, the film within the film, is the primus motor. In 1947, the ageing Monsieur Lévy (Josep Maria Pou) engages a detective to find from Shanghai his only surviving relative, his daughter Judith / Qiao Shu (Venecia Franco). Monsieur Lévy has chosen the detective because of his record as a contact person during the French Occupation for refugees over the Pyrenees. The film ends with with Judith and Monsieur Lévy joining in the Sephardi song "Hija mia, mi querida". 

The actor Julio Arenas / Gardel (José Coronado) has lost his memory after playing the role of the detective for the director of La mirada del adíos, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo). He has then lost contact with everybody, even his daughter Ana (Ana Torrent). There is an extraordinary double catharsis. The screening of the surviving reels of La mirada del adíos brings about an anagnorisis. On the verge of waking up from amnesia, Julio closes his eyes.

The Julio Arenas story evokes Leo Tolstoy's The Living Corpse, Luigi Pirandello's The Late Mattia Pascal and Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger.

There is a warm blur in the imagery, shot on 16 mm. Ana Torrent was discovered by Erice as a child for The Spirit of the Beehive when Franco was still alive. Her deeply moving presence 50 years later in Close Your Eyes evokes a feeling of a closing of a circle.

A letter to the managements of Musée d'Orsay and Fondation Louis Vuitton: to photograph or to see IV

 

From: Lindsey Tramuta's article on Lonely Planet, 26 Nov 2022.

To the managements of

Musée d'Orsay

Fondation Louis Vuitton

Dear Madam, dear Sir,

I thank you for the fabulous exhibitions I saw during my three-month visit to Paris this spring: " Van Gogh à Auvers-sur-Oise : Les derniers mois ", " Mark Rothko ", and " Paris 1874 : Inventer l'impressionnisme ".

I am an enthusiastic visitor to art exhibitions since the 1960s, and these three belong to the most unforgettable I have ever seen.

I am a man of the cinema. In our commercial and artistic world we find it self-evident that concentration on the visual presentation is sacred.

The opening announcements of the UGC cinema network nail it perfectly:

- Respecter sa place

- Respecter ses voisins

- Respecter l'œuvre

- Respecter l'environment

Which means for instance: mobile devices must be turned off during the entire presentation. The illumination on the screen is fragile, and the impact is disturbed if there is a bright LED screen in the field of vision.

Nothing can make me happier than to observe your beautiful museums filled with huge crowds, local and international. This is the golden age of art museums.

I admire your subtle lighting (extra tender for pastels), the invisible non-reflective glass protection and the art of hanging.

Ten years ago, you lifted the photo ban. Could you please consider instead making reproductions of the whole exhibition available at websites? Obviously there is a tremendous need for people to have digital copies of artworks.

Paradoxically, the focus of the exhibition has by now shifted so much that the main activity is photographing.

More than that. The brightest element at your museums are now the LCD / LED / OLED screens of mobile devices. It is not rare to detect twelve such screens dominating the space before a painting. That bright, quickly moving spectacle prevents concentration on the art on display. Thinking back on those exhibitions I saw this spring: I visited them and was impressed - but did not really see them. I saw a social media spectacle.

As we know, one of the great turns in the breakthrough of impressionism 150 years ago was a new way of appreciating a painting. Viewing an impressionistic painting requires finding the proper distance and being able to concentrate and meditate, to let the full impact sink in. Not long ago, it was not rare to contemplate a single painting for hours.

Shouldn't we give today's art lovers the opportunity to the same full experience - in conditions that are respected even in cinemas ? Films are artworks of mechanical reproduction. Your treasures are unique - shouldn't  they be treated with even greater respect ?

Yours with best regards - with love, respect and gratitude for your wonderful work - live long and prosper !

Antti Alanen

Film historian

Helsinki

My previous blog comments in this series:

Le Louvre: to photograph or to see (2 Jan 2014).

Musée d'Orsay: to photograph or to see II (5 March 2023).

Manet/Degas: to photograph or to see III (13 April 2023)