Aan

Nadira as Princess Rajshree at the royal torture chamber.

Aan: Nadira as Princess Rajshree, abducted by Jai Tilak (Dilip Kumar).

Aan: Nadira as Princess Rajshree learns to sow.

आन / آن / [Proud] / Salaperäinen Intia / Mangala – flickan från Indien [title in Sweden, title on print] / Det hemligsfulla Indien [title in announcements] / The Savage Princess / Mangala, fille des Indes / Mangala – indische Liebe und Leidenschaft. IN 1952. PC: Mehboob Productions. EX: V. J. Shah, M. A. Qureshi. P+D: Mehboob Khan. Ass D: Chimankant Gandhi, S. A. Master, Mehrish, S. M. Sarkar, Ahmed Sheikh. SC: R. S. Choudhury, S. Ali Raza (dialogue). CIN: Faredoon A. Irani – negative: 16 mm Gevacolor – released as a 35 mm blow-up in Technicolor. AD: M. R. Achrekar. Art department: D. R. Jadhav. Cost: Fazal Din, Alla Ditta, Chagan Juvan. Makeup: Abdul Kader, Gafoor Miya. Hair: Tony Tehan. M: Naushad. Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni. CH: Surya Kumar. S: J. P. Kaushi. ED: Shamsudin Kadri.
    C: Dilip Kumar (Jai Tilak), Nadira (Princess Rajshree), Nimmi (Mangala), Premnath (Prince Shamsher Singh), Murad (Maharadja), Mukri (Chandan, Jai's friend), Amir Banu (Jai's mother), Cuckoo (guest performance as a dancer), Sheela Naik, Maya, Abdul, Nilambai, Aca Mahraj.
    Studio: Central Studios, Tardeo (Mumbai).
    In Urdu, songs in Hindi. 4435 m / 161 min. International release versions: 88 min, 101 min, 105 min.
    Helsinki premiere: 23.4.1954 Adlon, distributed by: Filmi-Leijona Oy, with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Bror Labart – VET 40167 – K16 – 2855 m / 104 min
    A vintage 104 min print viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Cinema), 21 Feb 2017

Plot from Wikipedia: "A royal Indian family consists of the Emperor Maharaj (Murad), his brother Shamsher Singh (Premnath) and sister Rajshree (Nadira). A local village leader named Jai Tilak (Dilip Kumar) enters a contest to tame Princess Rajshree's horse and after he is successful Shamsher challenges him to a game of fencing. Jai is declared the winner of the fight after much dispute and Shamsher is enraged at losing to a poor villager. Jai then falls in love with Rajshree and tries numerous times to woo her but the princess's arrogance prevents her from revealing her true feelings."

"Shamsher becomes even more enraged when the Emperor Maharaj reveals that Shamsher is not the heir to his throne after his death and that he plans to free India from monarchy and turn to democracy."

"Shamsher then plans to gain control of the kingdom by killing the Maharajah on the night before he is due to travel to England for a medical procedure. However he is unsuccessful after the Maharajah escapes an attempt on his life by Shamsher's henchmen and disguises himself as a servant in his own palace."

"Shamsher then sets his eyes on Mangala (Nimmi) who is a village girl and childhood friend of Jai but her love is not reciprocated as he is only in love with princess Rajshree. After Mangala is kidnapped by Shamsher Singh who plans to keep her prisoner in his palace and molest her, Mangala takes a bottle of poison and dies. Jai kills Shamsher in revenge and provokes Princess Rajshree to launch an attack on his village to avenge her brother's death. Jai manages to kidnap Rajshree and sets out to gain her love by taking her into his village and forcing her to live as a peasant girl. Just when Rajshree begins to realise her feelings for Jai, Shamsher Singh who was presumed dead returns to get his revenge against Jai." – Plot from Wikipedia (edited from IMDb, gavin@sunny_deol2009@yahoo.com

AA: Aan is a Mumbai blockbuster from the golden decade of Indian popular cinema. It is a fairy-tale, a musical, and a message movie about social justice featuring some of the country's biggest stars. It was one of the first Indian films to have a worldwide release, and it was released also in Finland in the international release version which is almost an hour shorter than the Indian original version. The international version still makes sense plotwise. Perhaps some of the musical production numbers were cut, but there are still at least eight of them in the international version.

Aan is a naive film in the full sense of the word, made in a period in a newly independent country when real naivete – not naivism – was still possible. The fairy-tale has affinities with A Thousand and One Nights and The Thief of Bagdad, and also with the adventures of Robin Hood and Zorro. Its visual influences range from the Hollywood musical (especially the bucolic ones produced by Twentieth Century Fox) to the Pyriev-Alexandrov school of the Soviet kolkhoz musical. The message of the film: "power to the people".

Mangala (Nimmi) commits suicide when she is kidnapped by the evil prince Shamsher (Premnath), and Mangala's best friend Jai Tilak (Dilip Kumar) kidnaps Princess Rajshree (Nadira). Mangala loved Jai but her love remained unreciprocated. Mangala and Rajshree are untamed heroines. Their spirit is strong and independent.

The main love story is about Jai and Rajshree. In the beginning Jai tames Rajshree's wild, dangerous, and crochety horse. When Rai has abducted Rajshree she has to work for the first time in her life: grind corn, and put a thread into a needle (see image above). She hates it but she loves Jai. When Shamsher conquers Rai and Rajshree insists in defending him he orders his sister to be burned at the stake. There is an enormous bonfire in front of which Rai and Shamsher fight a final duel to death. In a last minute rescue Rai saves Rajshree, and they fall into a passionate embrace.

The physical production is impressive, the crowd scenes and the epic sequences are magnificent. With its abundant passages of wild nature scenery Aan satisfies a travelogue appetite. The fairy-tale approach is balanced by moments of realism, starting with the credit sequence's footage of earth being plowed. There is a kind of a balance between earthy physicality and a fairy-tale dream-world; there is even a long dream sequence set up as a musical production number. The action adventure includes thrilling rides on horseback, duels, teasing heroines by letting them hang above a deep well or chasm, and having a horde of camels attack the royal army.

The performances of the actors are stylized and exaggerated with wide open stares and gleaming white-toothed grins. There is little room for psychology. There is a lot of farcical comedy, starting with the pranks between Rai and the blacksmith who should forge a sword for him.

The music by Naushad is excellent and compelling. Indian and Pakistani friends who visited our screening confirmed that these songs with lyrics by Shakeel Badayuni are still beloved across generations.

A high point in the film is the "festival of colours" like in Bharat mata / Mother India, and indeed the entire film, the first full Indian Technicolor feature, can be called a "festival of colours". The use of Technicolor is uninhibited. Ardent and blazing warm colours rule.

Although the vintage print has predictably a look that betrays the 16 mm origins of the cinematography, the full Technicolor impact remains, unlike in the screening of Bharat mata I visited in Bologna three years ago. Aan is a film of passion – for love and justice – and the glowing, burning, flaming colour conveys the message gloriously.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN:

Silence

Silence. The crucifixion of Tomogi villagers (actors including the great Yoshi Oida as Ichizo, and the director of the Tetsuo films, Shinya Tsukamoto, as Mokichi). Please click to enlarge the images.

Silence. Yoshi Oida as Ichizo.

Silence. Shinya Tsukamoto as Mokichi.

US/TW/MX © 2016 FM Films, LLC. PC: Cappa Defina Productions / CatchPlay / Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films (EFO Films) / Fábrica de Cine / SharpSword Films / Sikelia Productions / Verdi Productions / Waypoint Entertainment. P: Vittorio Cecchi Gori, Barbara De Fina, Randall Emmett, David Lee, Gastón Pavlovich, Martin Scorsese, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Irwin Winkler. D: Martin Scorsese. SC: Jay Cocks, Martin Scorsese ‒ based on the novel Chinmoku (1966) by Shusaku Endo ‒ translated from Japanese into Finnish as Vaitiolo by Vappu Kataja / SLEY-Kirjat (1980). CIN: Rodrigo Prieto ‒ negative: 35 mm, Codex ARRIRAW 2,8K ‒ source format: Master Scope (anamorphic) ‒ master format: Digital Intermediate 4K ‒ lab: EFilm (digital intermediate) ‒ Fujicolor ‒ scope 2,35. PD+cost: Dante Ferretti. AD: Wen-Ying Huang. Set dec: Francesca Lo Schiavo. Makeup: Noriko Watanabe. SFX: R. Bruce Steinheimer. VFX+AN: Industrial Light and Magic. Additional VFX: BaseFX, Rodeo FX, Post Mango. M consultants: Kim Allen Kluge, Kathryn Kluge (see soundtrack listing beyond the jump break). S: Philip Stockton.
ED: Thelma Schoonmaker. Casting: Ellen Lewis.
C from Wikipedia:
    Andrew Garfield as Sebastião Rodrigues
    Adam Driver as Francisco Garupe
    Liam Neeson as Father Cristóvão Ferreira
    Tadanobu Asano as The Interpreter
    Ciarán Hinds as Father Alessandro Valignano
    Issey Ogata as Inoue Masashige
    Shinya Tsukamoto as Mokichi
    Yoshi Oida as Ichizo
    Yōsuke Kubozuka as Kichijiro
    Nana Komatsu as Mónica (Haru)
    Ryo Kase as João (Chokichi)
    Béla Baptiste as Dieter Albrecht
El Greco painting: from La Verónica (1582).
    Loc: Taiwan, Macau. Studio: CMPC Studio (Taipei City). Languages: English, Japanese, Latin. 161 min
    2K DCP released in Finland by Future Film with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Marko Pyhähuhta / Heidi Nyblom Kuorikoski (Saga Vera Oy), day of Finnish premiere 17 Feb 2017.
    Viewed at Kinopalatsi 7, Helsinki, 18 Feb 2017.

Synopsis from Wikipedia: "At St. Paul's College, Macau, an Italian Jesuit priest, Alessandro Valignano receives news that Father Cristóvão Ferreira, a Portuguese Jesuit in Japan, renounced his faith after being tortured. Ferreira's young pupils, also Portuguese, Fathers Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe, set off in disbelief to find him. Kichijiro, an alcoholic fisherman who fled Japan (later revealed to be a Christian who renounced his faith to save himself), agrees to guide them. At the Japanese village of Tomogi, the priests are surprised to find local Christian populations driven underground. They eagerly welcome the priests, who administer long-awaited sacraments to them. A samurai searching for suspected Christians, whom the villagers refer to as "the inquisitor", straps some of the villagers to wooden crosses on the beach and places them in the ocean, where the tide eventually kills them. The bodies are then cremated on a funeral pyre so that they cannot be given a Christian burial."

"Garupe leaves for Hirado Island, believing that their presence forces the shogunate to terrorize the village. Rodrigues goes to Gotō Island, the last place Ferreira lived, only to find it destroyed. Wandering around Gotō, he struggles over whether it is self-centered and unmerciful to refuse to recant when doing so will end others' suffering. He eventually reunites with Kichijiro, who betrays him into the hands of the samurai. An old samurai, who had earlier accompanied the inquisitor to Tomogi, tells Rodrigues that other captured Christians will suffer unless he commits apostasy."

"Rodrigues is taken to Nagasaki, where he is imprisoned with the captured Christians from Gotō. At a tribunal, he is told Catholic doctrine is anathema to Japan. Rodrigues demands to see governor Inoue Masashige, who he learns to his dismay is the old samurai. Rodrigues is returned to prison, and Kichijiro arrives. He explains that court officials threatened him to give up Rodrigues, then says he is a Christian and asks to be imprisoned to be absolved of his betrayal through a confession, which Rodrigues reluctantly grants him. He later is released after agreeing again to step on a fumi-e (a crudely carved image of Christ), an act symbolizing rejection of the faith. Rodrigues is brought to witness a famished Garupe, and three other prisoners (who have apostatized) about to be drowned. Garupe refuses to apostasize, and the prisoners are drowned, with Garupe drowning trying to rescue one of the prisoners."

"Later, Rodrigues is taken to a Buddhist temple where he meets Ferreira, who now goes by the name Sawano Chūan. Ferreira says he committed apostasy while being tortured, and states that after 15 years in the country and a year in the temple, he believes Christianity is a lost cause in Japan. He now also believes humans find their original nature in Japan and that perhaps this is what is meant by finding God. Rodrigues calls him a disgrace, but Ferreira is unmoved. That night in his prison cell, Rodrigues hears five Christians being tortured. Ferreira tells him that they have already apostasized; it is his apostasy the Japanese demand to save them. As Rodrigues looks upon a fumi-e, he hears the voice of Christ giving him permission to step on it, and he does."

"A year later, Ferreira and Rodrigues sort through religious iconography gathered from suspected Christians. Watching all of this is Dutch trader Dieter Albrecht, who narrates his observations of the fallen priests. Albrecht states in his journal that Ferreira eventually died, and that a now-married Rodrigues goes by the name Okada San'emon. Kichijiro, now a servant, asks Rodrigues for forgiveness, but Rodrigues refuses, saying he is no longer a priest. Kichijiro later is caught with a religious amulet he claims to have won while gambling, but never bothered to look inside the pouch. He is taken away and never heard from again."

"Many years later, Rodrigues has died. He is placed in a large round wooden casket, and his body is cremated. In his hand is a tiny crudely-made crucifix that was given to him when he first came to Japan." - Synopsis from Wikipedia

AA: Silence is a labour of love for Martin Scorsese in a similar way as The Fugitive was for John Ford. The Fugitive was based on the novel The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. Shusako Endo, the Japanese Christian writer of the novel on which Scorsese's film is based, was highly admired by Greene.

The novel and the film are based on a true story, and their historical background is in the arrival of Christianity into Japan from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. Missionaries from four countries introduced Christianity into Japan, for decades they were welcome, and by 1600, there were 200.000-300.000 Christians in Japan. They were true believers, but the countries that sent them had huge trade interests, and they were all colonial powers. Japan's Edict of Expulsion in 1614 led to a period of persecution of Christians, and the missionaries went underground, including Father Cristóvão Ferreira, who was captured and in 1633 renounced his faith and became a Buddhist. Japan's borders were closed to the West for 200 years.

Silence the film is set in the year 1643 and tells the story of two followers of Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson): Father Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver). It is a story of a harrowing spiritual ordeal shot in breathtaking seashore landscapes.

The physical production is impeccable and magnificent. The work by the cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and the production and wardrobe designer Dante Ferretti is marvellous. But that is all just a framework for a spiritual journey. The spiritual debates of the film are profound and engaging. For Scorsese, who has also written a foreword to an edition of Shusako Endo's book, the story is about believing and questioning. To believe or not to believe. Faith and disbelief. "From certainty to doubt to loneliness to communion".

I have not seen Chinmoku, the previous film adaptation of Shusako Endo's book, directed in Japan in 1971 by Masahiro Shinoda. But I have seen Nagisa Oshima's powerful jidai-geki epic Shiro Amakusa: The Christian Rebel (1962) about the same period (Oshima's film is set in 1637), a shattering account about the fight led by Shiro Amakusa against gross injustice and oppression. Scorsese's viewpoint is with the Portuguese missionaries, but both Oshima and Scorsese share a compassion for the exploited farmers who seek solace in Christianity and its message of love against tyranny.

Silence is essential viewing for anyone who loves Martin Scorsese or Christianity. The ethical question faced by the missionaries is extreme. Should one renounce faith in order to save human lives? For me all answers would be justified since in conditions of torture no confession is valid.

The greatest thinkers of mankind ‒ such as Socrates, Cicero, Jesus, and Seneca ‒ have sacrificed their lives by telling the truth. But it is a different matter, an impossible equation, to sacrifice lives of others.

Martin Scorsese is a versatile director, and he can be compelling in many kinds of films, including Italianamerican, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, After Hours, Life Lessons, and A Letter to Elia. His film and music historical documentaries are priceless, and I value his film historical fiction (The Aviator, Hugo). Scorsese has a special interest in gangster films and religious films, and the results are distinguished, but there is something studied in them. One thing in common to Scorsese's gangster films and Christian films is an emphasis on sadism which I find puzzling.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese is at his best in contemporary stories, and not quite as unforgettable in period tales, no matter how impeccably they are produced.

I understand the commercial coup of having Andrew Garfield star in Silence, but his performance is lacking in conviction.

Shot on 35 mm photochemical film Silence has been beautifully mastered in digital. The cinematography of Silence is worthy of the great tradition of religious visual art.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: FROM SILENCE OFFICIAL PRESS NOTES:

Warlock

Laki ja väkivalta / Våldet och lagen / L'Homme aux colts d'or. US © 1959 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. P+D: Edward Dmytryk. SC: Robert Alan Aurthur – based on the novel (1958) by Oakley Hall. DP: Joseph MacDonald – colour: DeLuxe – CinemaScope 2,35:1. AD: Herman A. Blumenthal, Lyle R. Wheeler. Set dec: Stuart A. Reiss, Walter M. Scott. Make-up: Ben Nye. Hair: Helen Turpin. M: Leigh Harline. "Beautiful Dreamer" (Stephen Foster). "Rock of Ages" (Thomas Hastings, Augustus Montague Toplady). S: Alfred Bruzlin, Harry M. Leonard – Westrex Recording System. ED: Jack W. Holmes.
    C: Henry Fonda (Clay Blaisedell), Richard Widmark (Johnny Gannon), Anthony Quinn (Tom Morgan), Dorothy Malone (Lily Dollar), Dolores Michaels (Jessie Marlow), Wallace Ford (judge Holloway), Tom Drake (Abe McQuown), Richard Arlen (Bacon), DeForest Kelley (Curley Burne), Regis Toomey (Skinner), Vaughn Taylor (Henry Richardson), Don Beddoe (Dr. Wagner). Whit Bissell (Petrix), Bartlett Robinson (Buck Slavin), Frank Gorshin (Billy Gannon), June Blair (dance hall girl), Noble "Kid" Chissell (townsman), Ann Doran (Mrs. Richardson), L. Q. Jones (Fen Jiggs).
    Loc: Moab, Utah (Dead Horse Point State Park, Professor Valley, Arches National Park, White's Ranch). Studio: 20th Century Fox Studios, Century City.
    Warlock is the name of the fictional mining town.
    Helsinki premiere: 14.8.1959 Metropol, distributor: O.Y. Fox Films A.B. – telecast 7.7.1980 MTV1; 13.11.1987 TV1, 13.5.1995 TV2 (Western of the Month) - VET 51173 – K16 – 3350 m / 122 min
    A vintage print with Swedish subtitles by Gun Östlund viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Westerns selected by Pertti Avola), 16 Feb 2017

I saw for the first time Warlock, one of Edward Dmytryk's best films. It may be his last great film. It is a late classical Western of the second golden age of the genre. Which means that it isn't in any way a meta-Western or a post-Western. Also the story is set in the classical period of the Wild West, in the 1880s. In Warlock one can also admire a Hollywood studio system production still at its best.

The starting-point of the story is familiar from the Wyatt Earp stories, but the treatment is original. There is a town bullied by a bunch of outlaws, the San Pablo gang. The official deputy sheriff is chased out of town by the rampant gang. A barber is shot because a nervous outlaw moved in his chair and got a cut in his chin. The citizen's committee decides to hire the famous gunfighter Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fonda) to fight the outlaws. His terms: he brings with him his partner Tom Gannon (Anthony Quinn), and they will establish a touring saloon ("French Palace") which provides girls and gambling.

The basic myth dramatized here is the birth of justice, law and order. In the beginning we have the right of the might, the rule of brute force and violence. Then comes the gunfighter, an in-between creature, a vigilante, a hired hand. But he must be followed by real law and order.

The premises are familiar but there are several distinctive features in Warlock. One is a genuine epic, dramatic, and novelistic touch. There is a convincing sense of a turbulent evolution of a society. There is also a density of detail and observation.

There is remarkable complexity in the relationships. We follow with interest the development of a surprising relationship between Blaisedell and the nurse Jessie Marlow (Dolores Michaels). No less surprising is the attraction between the new deputy sheriff Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark) and the former saloon girl Lily Dollar (Dorothy Malone). Underneath there is a feeling of tremendous, suppressed emotion like in Johnny Guitar.

During the film we follow the coming of age story of Johnny Gannon who has belonged to the San Pablo gang but is distancing himself from it, at first by getting drunk and staying drunk. He supports Blaisedell to a certain limit. He surprisingly volunteers to become a deputy sheriff, and after having been brutalized by the leader of his former gang, Abe McQuown, including having his gun hand pierced with a knife, he beats the gang with his partners in a final battle without Blaisedell's help.

In a confession to Lily Johnny tells about his traumatic experience when he as a member of the San Pablo gang had participated in a massacre of 37 Mexicans in the context of a huge cattle rustling job. The outlaws' cover story was that it was the Apaches who killed the Mexicans.

Henry Fonda is at his toughest as Blaisedell. He is a master gunfighter but even more impressively he can discipline crooks with his mere authority, without having to use guns. He is a real lawman also in the way he protects the crooks from a lynch mob that is gathering around the prison. Also without having to use guns. "Lynch mob is the lowest thing". Blaisedell also realizes that his time is coming to an end. "Maybe we've run out of towns".

The most original feature of Warlock is the relationship between Blaisedell and Morgan. Morgan is also a gunfighter, apparently the better of the two, although he is lame, and he has saved Blaisedell's life countless times. Morgan also protects Blaisedell in many other ways which complicates the story considerably. Why? Blaisedell is "the only one who did not look down on me and didn't see a cripple". Morgan is profoundly shattered when he learns that Blaisedell wants to quit from his gunfighter career and settle down with Jessie. He goes into a mad rampage, forcing Blaisedell to shoot him.

The most deeply emotional passage of Warlock is that of Blaisedell's mourning over Morgan's death. Blaisedell carries Morgan's corpse to the saloon table and burns the saloon down. The Blaisedell-Morgan bond has echoes of Achilles and Patroclus, and the mythic resonance of the ritual funeral feels genuine and powerful. Warlock has been called, among other things, the strongest expression of homosexual love in the Western genre. "Maybe I'm nothing without him", is a remark of Blaisedell to Jessie.

A powerful screening experience of a vintage DeLuxe print with the expected occasional fading but also with passages of good and properly unrealistic colour.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN:

Devyat dney odnogo goda / Nine Days in One Year

Nine Days in One Year: Aleksei Batalov (Dmitri Gusev). Please click to enlarge the images.

Nine Days in One Year: Aleksei Batalov (Dmitri Gusev), Innokenti Smoktunovsky (Ilya Kulikov), and Tatyana Lavrova (Lyolya).

Nine Days in One Year: Tatyana Lavrova (Lyolya) and Aleksei Batalov (Dmitri Gusev).

9 дней одного года / Девять дней одного года / 9 dney odnogo goda / Devjat dnei odnogo goda / Vuoden yhdeksän päivää / Årets nio dagar / Nine Days of One Year. SU 1962. Year of production: 1961. PC: Mosfilm. P: Igor Vakar. D: Mihail Romm. SC: Daniil Khrabrovitsky, Mikhail Romm. Cin: German Lavrov – b&w – Academy or widescreen. PD: Georgi Kolganov. Cost: V. Kiselyova. Make-up: V. Fetisova. M: Dzhivan / Dzhon Ter-Tatevosyan. S: Boris Volsky. ED: Yeva Ladizhenskaya. Commentary read by: Zinovi Gerdt. Scientific advisor: Igor Tamm (Nobel laureate 1958).
    C: Aleksei Batalov (Dmitri Gusev), Innokenti Smoktunovsky (Ilya Kulikov), Tatyana Lavrova (Lyolya), Nikolai Plotnikov (prof. Sintsov), Sergei Blinnikov (Pavel Butov, director of the institute), Evgeny Evstigneyev (Nikolai Ivanovich). Mikhail Kozakov (Valery), Nikolai Grabbe (Basil, physicist), Valentin Nikulin, Pavel Shpringfeld (guest physicist), Aleksandr Pelevin (guest physicist), Evgeni Teterin (prof. Pokrovsky, surgeon), Nikolai Sergeyev (Gusev's father), Ada Voitsik (Maria Tikhonovna Sintsova), Lyusyena Ovchinnikova (Nura, Gusev's sister), Andrei Smirnov (tall bearded physicist), Lev Durov (KGB officer), Nadezhda Batyryova (physicist), Alla Demidova (student).
    Helsinki premiere: 31.8.1962 Allotria, Capitol, distributor: Kosmos-Filmi Oy, with Finnish / Swedish subtitles (n.c.) – telecast 13.10.1963 – Yle TV1 – VET 62033 – S – 2970 m / 109 min
    Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (History of the Cinema), 15 Feb 2017

Synopsis from Wikipedia: "Two young physicists and old friends—the possessed experimentator Dmitri Gusev and the skeptical theoretician-physicist Ilya Kulikov—conduct nuclear studies at a research institute in Siberia. Dmitri leads the research started by his teacher Sintsov who received a deadly dose of radiation in the result of an experiment. Gusev is also irradiated. Doctors warn him that further irradiation might kill him as well. Meanwhile, his friend Ilya and Lyolya, a love interest of Dmitri, have developed a romantic relationship. The enamoured couple is getting prepared for the wedding and looking for an opportunity to inform Dmitri. When they finally meet, Dmitri already suspects Lyolya and Ilya, treating them coldly. Being caught up in self-contradictions, Lyolya tries to understand Dmitri's true feelings for her, only to learn the terrible diagnosis. Realizing that she still loves Dmitri, Lyolya cancels the wedding to Kulikov to get married with Gusev."

"Despite the health warnings, Gusev continues with his experiments in fusion power. After a number of failures, he turns to Kulikov for help. Whilst carrying out of the experiment successfully, Gusev receives a new radiation dose. He ties to hide this fact from everyone, including his wife Lyolya who is misinterpreting his sudden isolation, but the truth eventually rises to the surface. The research work is continued by Kulikov. Dmitri's health getting worse, but he decides to fight his illness to the end and agrees to undergo bone marrow transplantation." – synopsis from Wikipedia

Revisited after 40 years a key film of the Thaw starring two of the greatest (Russian) actors, Aleksei Batalov and Innokenti Smoktunovsky.

Nine Days in One Year, a film about nuclear physicists, is based on reality. Its scientific advisor was the Nobel laureate Igor Tamm, one of the fathers of the Soviet thermonuclear bomb. Among Tamm's young colleagues was Andrei Sakharov who liked the film on release but later found it too conventional (see quote beyond the jump break). Presumably the external circumstances of the story are close to reality. Beyond that, there is a more profound dimension of authenticity in the repeated motif of patience in the scientific process. In science, everything must be put to test multiple times.

The director Mikhail Romm was a veteran of the Soviet cinema and a survivor of the Stalin era. Nine Days in One Year was the first in the final cycle of his most personal works, followed by Everyday Fascism and And Still I Believe (his film testament finished by Marlen Khutsiev and Elem Klimov). Romm was also a respected teacher at the VGIK, notably of Tarkovsky and Shukshin, but also of Finnish talents such as Mikko Niskanen and Ywe Jalander.

The screenwriter Daniil Khrabrovitsky had recently distinguished himself with an interesting screenplay to Grigori Chukhrai's Clear Skies, one of the thaw era works that confronted Stalin's Gulag system.

The basic dynamics of Nine Days in One Year has an affinity with C. P. Snow's topical book The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959). According to Snow the split into the natural sciences and the humanities is a major hindrance to solving the world's problems. In the USSR the two cultures were called "the physicists and the lyricists". In Mikhail Romm's film Kulikov (Smoktunovsky) is "a lyricist", and Gusev (Batalov) "a physicist".

Nuclear disaster is the great underlying theme. In the first of the nine episodes of the film we soon witness the consequences of an accident at a nuclear reactor. The intrepid Gusev has been exposed to a dangerous 200 röntgens, his colleague Sintsov to a lethal 800 röntgens. Mikhail Romm avoids horror and science fiction imagery. Sintsov observes that this is a peculiar death: it does not feel like anything at all. A surgeon demonstrates Gusev two dogs which have been subjected to bone marrow transplants. One has a chance to survive, the other doesn't. The surgeon compares Gusev with the hopeless case.

Kulikov speaks out. "Mankind has achieved perfection: it can destroy everything in a minute". He discusses Hiroshima. "Man has not grown wiser in 30.000 years". He discusses the tyrants of the past, the pharaohs, Ekhnaton and Nefertiti, and Chingiz Khan. For them 10.000 casualties was a trifle. Now we have had gas ovens, people reduced to lamp shades, their ashes spread on fields.

Gusev belongs to the early nuclear scientists. In 1954 when he started he was not aware how dangerously he was getting polluted. In the finale we meet him on his death bed.

Their work is extraordinary, but their everyday life is ordinary. Lyolya has had a meaningful affair with Gusev (– "What was between you and him?" – "Everything"), but she is about to get married with Kulikov now. Then the three of them meet, and Lyolya realizes she is still attracted to Gusev. There is a modernist maturity in the account of the relationships which invites comparison with Resnais and Antonioni, and Raizman and Khutsiev. Difficulty of communication, lack of confidence, confusion of the heart – Romm is very good in conveying this, and of course he has top actors to interpret shadowlands of emotional life. Smoktunovsky and Batalov are at their best, not forgetting Tatyana Lavrova in her soulful debut role. Although courted by both men, Lyolya is suffering from solitude. "Don't you need me at all?"

Nine Days in One Year is at once of an epic scope and a chamber play, like Hiroshima mon amour. Geographically we move between Moscow and Siberia. Having observed nuclear tests in one scene we witness a happy dance party in the next.

The gravity of the film keeps growing towards the end. My favourite episode is number seven where Gusev visits his home village. Everybody is happy to welcome the illustrious son back home. But at the homecoming banquet the family registers Gusev's trembling hands.

German Lavrov is the master cinematographer. He shot all three of Romm's final films, and other fascinating works such as Marlen Khutsiev's July Rain. Nine Days in one Year starts with an aerial shot. In the seventh episode there is Ophulsian-Kubrickian magic in the camera movement. The camera glides, turns elegantly and unobtrusively, and stops into striking medium shots, never with over-emphasis. The camera circles around the banquet table to register the different ways in which each notices what is happening to Gusev. From here until the end there is hardly a shot without an interesting or offbeat camera angle or observation. This is camera thinking on a profound level, even bordering on the avantgarde.

Romm's approach is meditative. The voice of the narrator emphasizes this. Hallmarks of the approach also include tact, subtlety, and a gentle smile. One of the first shots, soon after the aerial one, is a close-up of two hands touching. Nine Days in One Year is an inside story of a nuclear superpower told with sensitivity and a sense of gravity.

A good and complete print.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE FROM PETER VON BAGH, MIKHAIL ROMM, AND DANIIL KHRABROVITSKY:

Němá barikáda / Silent Barricade

Nema barikada. A surprise on a captured Nazi train: concentration camp survivors.

Nema barikada. Resistance is organized.

Nema barikada. Halina the Auschwitz survivor (Barbara Drapińska) bids farewell to the fatally wounded resistance veteran (Robert Vrchota) whose legs are broken.

Mykkä barrikaadi / Den stumma barrikaden. CS 1949. Year of production: 1948 (data on print). PC: Československý Státní Film. P: Frantisek Milic. D: Otakar Vávra. SC: Jan Drda, Otakar Vávra – based on a story by Jan Drda. CIN: Václav Huňka. AD: Jan Zázvorka. M: Jiří Srnka. Orchestra: Filmový Symfonický Orchestr, conductor: Milivoj Uzelac. S: Emil Poledník. ED: Antonín Zelenka.
    C: Jaroslav Průcha (locksmith Hošek), Barbara Drapińska (Halina, Auschwitz survivor), Jaroslav Marvan (strážník / policeman Brůček), Vladimír Šmeral (Kroupa), Marie Vášová (Nedvědová), Jiří Plachý st. (uhlíř / collier), Robert Vrchota (četař / sergeant), Jaromír Spal (průvodčí / guard), Jaroslav Zrotal (idič tramvaje / tram driver), Eva Karelová (tramvajačka / tram conductor), Jaroslava Panenková (Hošková), Jaroslav Mareš (Jarda Nedvěd), Antonín Šůra (Pepík Hošek), Vítězslav Boček (barikádník Kouba), J. O. Martin, Běla Jurdová, Miroslav Homola (záškodník / saboteur Walter), Marie Rýdlová (stará Němka, Waltrova matka / old German woman, Walter's mother), Václav Švorc (mladík / young boy Bengál), Josef Bek (poručík / lieutenant Československé armády), Štěpán Bulejko, Vladimír Hlavatý, Ljuba Skořepová (pekařova žena / baker's wife, baker woman), Karel Pech, Vladimír Řepa, Libuše Freslová, Miloš Nedbal (major Československé armády), Vlasta Vlasáková, Vladimír Ráž, Radovan Lukavský (německý voják / German soldier), Zdeněk Kryzánek, Emil Kavan, Karel Pavlík, Oldřich Lukeš, Viktor Očásek, Věra Kalendová, Josef Chvalina, Emil Bolek, Ella Nollová, František Marek, Rudolf Široký, Jaroslav Seník, Zdeněk Řehoř, Marie Blažková, Ladislav Hájek, Anna Kadeřábková, Jan Brandýs.
    Loc: Prague. Studio: Atelier Hostivar (Prague).
    VET 33543 – 95 min, 113 min, 128 min
    A 35 mm print from Národni filmový archiv (Prague) with English subtitles, duration 118 min, viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (a tribute to Jiří Menzel – Otakar Vavra was his teacher at FAMU), 11 Feb 2017

An engrossing war and resistance epic about the Prague Uprising, 5–8 May, 1945. Czechoslovakia is still occupied by Germany. Partisans have been conducting a battle on the rails. There is also a battle for the Czech radio. By the morning of 6 May, over 1000 barricades are erected by the resistance movement. The Waffen-SS launches heavy tank fire on the city, and there are Luftwaffe air raids. The German Surrender Act is signed on 8 May. The Red Army arrives on 9 May.

There is a newsreel prologue. Berlin has fallen, but remnants of Field Marshal Schörner's army still keep fighting, proceeding from the East towards Prague. Czechoslovakia is the last stronghold of of armed Nazism. Prague is to be destroyed. The Czech underground resistance movement fights to save Prague from the advancing troops and destruction.

Silent Barricade is an impressive contribution to the cinema of resistance and liberation. The opening montages of the last days of WWII and Czech resistance are striking. There is a long tracking shot of Czechs removing German signs from the streets of Prague. There are also humoristic vignettes of turncoats who keep changing the badges on their lapels.

There is a general feeling of joy, but fighting goes on, and as a tram is proceeding towards the Troja Bridge several civilians are shot by advancing Germans. A woman dies in her lover's arms. The tram is overturned, and it becomes the starting point for a barricade on the bridge. The locksmith Hošek opens a cache of rifles under his floor.

Otakar Vavra has a solid grip on the action sequences. They seem real and feel exciting. There is a resistance sequence at the railway yard. The engine driver deserts a Nazi train with his engine. The resistance fighters take possession of the arsenal on the train, but in further cars they also discover concentration camp survivors in their striped clothes (see image above).

Although Halina (Barbara Drapińska), one of the survivors, is exhausted, she joins the fight immediately, killing a Nazi with a hand grenade and confiscating his machine gun. Having gotten shelter at Hošek's home she cries in her sleep. The family notices the tattoed number on her arm. Having rested she dresses in overalls and becomes one of the leading fighters.

There is a lively sequence at an air raid shelter. The resistance movement engages everybody to contribute to the fight. Even the owner of the apartment block joins, reluctantly at first, but with growing enthusiasm. The account of unanimité, solidarity, what we in Finland call talkoot (a working bee) is engaging.

A new perspective on things is provided by the sniper sequence. A hidden sniper is killing people from an apartment block that is supposedly vacated. Halina rises onto the rooftop of the house, and we get a panoramic view of the fighting city. The sniper Walter is found by Halina hiding in an old woman's closet. Walter is her son.

German tanks are approaching. Hošek has forbidden his 15-year old son Pepik to join the fight, but Pepik sneaks into a group crossing the Vltava river to the other side of the bridge to stop the tanks. Two Panzerfaust strikes fail, but Pepik succeeds in destroying the tank with his Panzerfaust – and gets to feel its mighty recoil.

After a reconnaissance visit and a mendacious promise of cease-fire the Nazis start seriously to destroy Prague with their artillery. There is an exciting human shield sequence at the bridge. Just when it seems that everything is lost the people of the human shield desert to their own side and join the fight against the Nazis.

London is dancing on V Day but Czechs are still fighting Nazis with their last bullets. Finally Germans retreat. Halina observes lilacs blossoming in Prague. The next day the Red Army arrives in Prague and is celebrated with a liberators' welcome.

Silent Barricade is a Stalin era film with the resulting emphases. From the complexity of events the contribution of the anti-communist Russian Liberation Army is eliminated. The film needs to be analyzed critically. But there is an undeniable authentic spirit in the film which seems to include documentary inserts. Silent Barricade has been made with a similar feeling of inspiration as the classics of Italian neorealism. It is impossible to notice the seam between fiction and non-fiction. It would be interesting to study a text critical analysis of different versions of Silent Barricade. The print we saw was not one of the shortest, but the official duration is ten minutes longer.

The affinity to Menzel might be seen in Vavra's sense of humour and his never losing a human perspective. It is also interesting to observe than in this epic film without a conventional identification structure the person who comes closest to being the main protagonist is a woman: Halina the Polish Auschwitz survivor who turns into a liberation fighter. The actress Barbara Drapińska had recently played a main role in Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage. The keynote to her performance is survivor instinct. Halina's spirit has not been crushed, and she seems to belong to the special class of war veterans who have developed a sixth sense about danger.

The print is good enough and very watchable.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN

Moonlight

Moonlight: Trevante Rhodes as the grown-up Chiron. Please do click on the images to enlarge them.

Moonlight: Naomie Harris as Paula, Chiron's mother.

Moonlight / Moonlight. US © 2016 Dos Hermanas, LLC. A Plan B / Pastel Production. An A24 and Plan B Entertainment Presentation  EX: Brad Pitt, Sarah Esberg, Tarell Alvin McCraney. P: Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner. D+SC: Barry Jenkins – based on a story by Tarell Alvin McCraney. CIN: James Laxton – colour – 2,35:1 – camera: Arri Alexa CT Plus – camera format: SxS ProRes 4:4:4 (2K) – source format: Hawk Scope (anamorphic) – master format: digital intermediate 2K – release format: D-Cinema. PD: Hannah Beachler. Cost: Caroline Eselin-Schaefer. M: Nicholas Britell. M supervisor: Maggie Phillips. M selections include: "One Step Ahead" (Charles Singleton, Eddie Snyder) perf. Aretha Franklin (1966), "Cucurrucucú paloma" (Tomás Méndez Sosa) perf. Caetano Veloso, "Hello Stranger" (Barbara Lewis) perf. Barbara Lewis (1963).  S: Joshua Adeniji. ED: Nat Sanders, Joi McMillon.
C from Wikipedia: Chiron, the film's protagonist
        Trevante Rhodes as Adult Chiron / "Black"
        Ashton Sanders as Teen Chiron
        Alex Hibbert as Child Chiron / "Little"
Kevin, Chiron's closest friend
        André Holland as Adult Kevin
        Jharrel Jerome as Teen Kevin
        Jaden Piner as Child Kevin
Janelle Monáe as Teresa
Naomie Harris as Paula
Mahershala Ali as Juan
Patrick Decile as Terrel
    Loc: Miami, Florida.
    111 min
    Released in Finland by Cinema Mondo on 2K DCP with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Maria Amberg / Frej Grönholm / BTI Studios, Finnish premiere 10 Feb 2017.
    2K DCP viewed at Kinopalatsi 5, Helsinki, 11 Feb 2017

I have now seen for the first time a film by Barry Jenkins, a serious talent to be reckoned with.

Some ingredients of this coming of age story seem at first familiar. A story of marginalization and bullying, a broken home, a dysfunctional mother, growing up in a lifestyle dominated by drugs, a circle of violence at school, landing in juvenile prison, which turns out to be a school of crime, a lucrative start as a drug dealer.

Also in the visual approach there are familiar elements. The relentless handheld camerawork, an intentionally pared down visual quality, a penchant for extreme close-ups and high contrast passages.

But this is just the starting-point. Moonlight is a story of personal growth against all odds. It is the story of a poor, black and gay kid of a crack addicted mother. A first turning point is the grown-up Chiron's encounter with his mother who has managed to wean herself off drugs. The true climax is Chiron's meeting with his childhood friend Kevin in the finale.

There is emotional depth and truth in these sequences which give new sense to everything that has happened before.

The cast is excellent, and the director's talent is evident in the way he succeeds in creating a compelling whole from the performances of different actors interpreting three different ages of Chiron and Kevin.

There is intensity in Nicholas Britell's score, and there is room for key vintage pre-soul selections of Aretha Franklin ("One Step Ahead") and Barbara Lewis ("Hello Stranger").

Barry Jenkins has a sure sense of rhythm as a visual storyteller. There is tenderness in his emotionally charged scenes. There is restraint in his love scenes. There is intensity in his silences.

Among the key motifs are the wind and the water – the strong wind and the mighty waters of the Atlantic Ocean. A related motif is tears. It takes courage from a man to cry and to admit having cried.

Meeting his mother as a grown-up man is a step for Chiron to break out from his drug gangster shell. "Who is you really?" asks Kevin who does not recognize Chiron at first. Chiron has transformed from a shy and skinny teenager into a body-building bully, a mirror image of his erstwhile worst enemies. "I have never really been myself. I have just been doing what is expected of me".

Moonlight is the story of man starting to discover himself after always having been a stranger to himself as well as to others.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: FROM THE MOONLIGHT PRODUCTION NOTES:

Attenberg

GR © 2010 Haos Film. PC: Haos Film, Faliro House, Boo Productions, Stefi. EX: Giorgos Serdaris. P: Maria Hatzakou, Yorgos Lanthimos, Iraklis Mavroidis, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Angelos Venetis. D+SC: Athina Rachel Tsangari. DP: Thimios Bakatakis – negative: Super 16 mm. PD: Dafni Kalogianni. Cost: Thanos Papastergiou, Vasileia Rozana. Makeup: Sissy Petropoulou. Hair: Daniel Babek. Soundtrack selections: Françoise Hardy: "Tous les garçons et les filles" (1962) et "Le Temps d'amour" (1962, comp. Jacques Dutronc), Suicide ("Ghost Rider", 1977,  "Be Bop Kid", 1980). S: Leandros Ntounis. ED: Sandrine Cheyrol, Matthew Johnson. C: Ariane Labed (Marina), Evangelia Randou (Bella), Vangelis Mourikis (Spyros, father), Yorgos Lanthimos (engineer). Loc: Aspra Spitia, Viotia, Greece. 95 min
    A 35 mm print from The Match Factory with English subtitles viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (New Greek Cinema), 11 Feb 2017

Athina Rachel Tsangaris' Attenberg is a coming of age story of the 23 year old Marina, a chauffeur at a copper mine by the sea. She looks after her father, Spyros, an architect at the mine, dying of cancer. Spyros is deeply estranged from the modern Greece he has helped create. Spyros views his death as an exit from the overrated 20th century.

Marina is an outsider who has never dated. Her sexual initiation is inspired by her girlfriend Bella, and she also meets a shy boyfriend, an engineer (the film director Yorgos Lanthimos) with whom she is on the same wavelength. "You make me feel unembarrassed".

Essential elements of communication with Bella are the BBC nature documentaries of David Attenborough ("Attenberg"). Bella and Marina have also established their own variation of "Ministry of Silly Walks" inspired by Monty Python. There is also a sing-along with Françoise Hardy's classic chanson about teenage loneliness, "Tous les garçons et les filles". Attenberg is a film full of funny gestures (see poster image above: Marina "spreading her wings" with her shoulder blades), gags, parodies, games, plays, and wordplays.

Athina Rachel Tsangari has created an original vision of alienation in the modern world. Emotions are expressed to an overwhelming degree via artefacts of culture the imitations of which remain on the level of clumsy approximations like the title of the film while original gags can be funny on their own terms. Sexuality is not spontaneous. The partners are like strangers from outer space trying to make sense of sex. Beyond the playfulness there is a profound sense of solitude and disorientation.

Daughters of the Dust (2016 restoration in 2K from Cohen Film Collection)

GB / US 1991 © Geechee Girls Productions, Inc. PC: American Playhouse, Geechee Girls, WMG Film. EX: Lindsay Law. P: Julie Dash, Arthur Jafa, Steven Jones. D+SC: Julie Dash. DP: Arthur Jafa. PD: Kerry Marshall. AD: Michael Kelly Williams. Cost: Arline Burks Gant. Makeup: Rose Chatterton. M: John Barnes. S: Michael Payne. ED: Joseph Burton, Amy Carey.
    C: Cora Lee Day (Nana Peazant), Adisa Anderson (Eli Peazant), Alva Rogers (Eula Peazant), Kay-Lynn Warren (unborn child), Kaycee Moore (Haagar Peazant), Cheryl Lynn Bruce (Viola Peazant), Tommy Redmond Hicks (Mr. Snead), Bahni Turpin (Iona Peazant), M. Cochise Anderson (St. Julien Lastchild), Barbarao (Yellow Mary), Trula Hoosier (Trula), Umar Abdurrahman (Bilal Muhammed), Cornell Royal (”Daddy Mack” Peazant), Tony King / Malik Farrakhan (newlywed man), Sherry Jackson (older cousin), Ervin Green (Baptist priest), Vertamae Grosvenor (hair braider). The film was not released in Finland – MEKU 2017: K7 – 112 min
    A film belonging to National Film Registry.
    Daughters of the Dust has been restored in 2016 from the original film elements by Cohen Film Collection at Modern Videofilm in Burbank, CA. The colour grading was supervised by cinematographer Arthur Jafa and the final restoration approved by director Julie Dash. Special thanks to the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
    A Black History Month event in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy and KAVI.
    Introduced by Ms. Jeanie Duwan and Ms. Tara Lewis.
    2K DCP from Cohen Film Collection with English subtitles for some of the Gullah Creole dialect and full additional e-subtitles in English for the rest operated by Mikko Lyytikäinen viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Black History Month), 9 Feb 2017.
   
Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust had been screened in Finland to my knowledge only on one occasion before, in 1993 at Love & Anarchy the Helsinki Film Festival.

Daughters of the Dust is a film about a fatal day, 18 August 1902, when most of the members of the Peazant family leave their home on the Sea Islands in South Carolina in order to move to the mainland. It may mean a farewell to the unique Gullah way of life.

Daughters of the Dust is a film about coming to terms with a long tradition of history in order to be prepared for the future. "What's past is prologue".

The film is poetic, and it approaches the atmosphere with a sensual embrace. Or the atmosphere embraces us. There is a strong presence of the Atlantic Ocean, huge trees, and marvellous beaches. A strong wind can emerge at any moment, but usually there is tranquillity. There are leisurely farewell picnics among these "wonderful women by the water" to quote the title of a novel by the Finnish writer Monika Fagerholm.

The film is not story-driven, and the characters are not drawn in dramatic terms. The film is driven by a sense of place and identity, a quest of one's place in a society with profound traumatic traditions.

50 years after the abolition of slavery the wounds still remain. In slave society, proper registers did not exist, and in order to avoid interbreeding the slaves, who were not taught to read or write, relied on memory.

There is a hidden tension of unrest in the movie, and it explodes towards the finale in Eula's monologue which is the grand climax of the film. "Deep inside we believe they ruined our mothers". "We are the daughters of those old dusty things Nana carries around in a tin can". Nana Peazant is the great-grandmother, the matriarch of the family. At first viewing Daughters of the Dust seems to me like a story of a matriarchal family.

The film is fascinating to watch as an account of a very special culture with its way of life. It is a cultural mix, including the vicinity of the Seminole.

We had been warned of the Gullah creole dialect, but it was not as difficult to understand as we had foreseen. Anyway we were generously helped by the subtitles on the copy itself, and the live electronic subtitling produced for the screening.

The cinematography by Arthur Jafa is luminous, mixing realism with magic.

The score by John Barnes is a delightful and inspired update of ethnic sound worlds. A soundtrack album of this film would be worth listening to.

Julie Dash's film was ahead of its time. Beyoncé paid tribute to it on her video album Lemonade. Michelle Obama's speeches last year resonated with its most painful concerns.

A fine digital restoration of a unique work of art and memory.

La Bandera

La Bandéra / Kuoleman pataljoona / Legionärer, Spanien har lejt er att dö! / Navnløse helte. FR 1935. PC: Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie. P: André Gargour. D: Julien Duvivier. SC: Charles Spaak, Julien Duvivier – based on the novel (1931) by Pierre Mac Orlan (Pierre Dumarchais). Cin: Jules Kruger. Cadreur: Marc Fossard. AD: Jacques Krauss. M: Jean Wiener, Roland-Manuel. Theme song: "Sous les ponts de Paris" (paroles: Jean Rodor [= Jean Coulon], musique: Vincente Scotto, 1914). S: Robert Teisseire. ED: Marthe Poncin. Ass D: Robert Vernay, Jésus Castro-Blanco.
    C: Jean Gabin (Pierre Gilieth), Annabella (Aïscha la Slaoui), Margo Lion (Planche-à-Pain), Viviane Romance (the girl in Barcelona), Génia Vaury (a girl in the restaurant), Claude May (a drunken woman), Robert Le Vigan (Fernando Lucas, a detective of the secret police), Pierre Renoir (captain Weller), Gaston Modot (soldier Muller), Raymond Aimos (Marcel Mulot), Charles Granval (the Segovian), Robert Ozanne (the man with the tattooed face), Maurice Lagrenée (Siméon), Louis Florencie (Gorlier), Noël Roquevert (drill sergeant), Marcel Lupovici (a legionnaire at the fort), Robert Ancelin (lieutenant), Raphaël Médina (a legionnaire at the fort), Pitouto (bellboy), Paul Demange (a joker), Raymond Blot (patron at the dance hall), Eugène Stuber (thief), Robert Moor (legionnaire), Jésus Castro-Blanco (sergeant), Reine Paulet (Rosita), Little Jacky (Weber, a legionnaire), Philippe Janvier, José Casado, Suzy Prim.
    Dedicated to General Francisco Franco.
    Loc: Barcelona, Gibraltar, Morocco: Spanish Sahara (June 1935). Studio: Studios de Joinville.
    Helsinki premiere: 2.10.1936 Royal, released by: Kosmos-Filmi – classification 1936: 19933 – K16, MEKU 2017: K12 – 96 min, 106 min
    Viewed a 35 mm print with a duration of 102 min with dansk tekst and e-subtitles in Finnish by Lena Talvio at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Julien Duvivier), 8 Feb 2017

Revisited La Bandera, a turning-point on the careers of Julien Duvivier and Jean Gabin. It was also Duvivier's first collaboration with the brilliant screenwriter Charles Spaak.

Jean Gabin may be the greatest tragic actor in the history of the cinema, and La Bandera is the film where this talent of his first emerged on the screen.

Like later in Pépé le Moko the action is set in the Arab world of Northern Africa. Also here Jean Gabin plays a dangerous wanted criminal on the run from the police, here called Pierre Gilieth. Place Blanche at Montmartre already appears as an object of nostalgia, but not for Pierre. Pierre gets a jolt every time when Rue Saint Vincent is mentioned (a street now near the tourist district). Worst of all for him is singing or playing the song "Sous les ponts de Paris".

After the striking opening scene at Rue Saint Vincent we observe Pierre in a little hotel room in Barcelona, like a haunted beast trapped in its cave. The scene already prefigures Le Jour se lève in many ways.

André Bazin wrote about "the suburban Thebes" of Le Jour se lève. In La Bandera and Pépé le Moko we still have a foreign space for tragedy. A hallmark of Jean Gabin's stardom, a rage scene, emerges twice. The first scene takes place in Barcelona, when Pierre, down and out, having gone for days without food, is offered a plate of soup by a kindly bar woman and bullied by the customers who shove his face into the soup. An even worse fit of rage emerges in the Foreign Legion when "Sous les ponts de Paris" is played. There is a cosmic, mythical power in Gabin's rage. The pretext may be trivial, but the rage, as Bazin observed, opens an aperture into something extraordinary and atavistic. We are in the vicinity of the definition of tragedy: greatness is within his reach, but he fails due to a fatal weakness.

In Barcelona, Pierre hits bottom. "The measure of squalor cannot be fathomed by anyone who hasn't experienced it in Barcelona". In Sahara, having met his soulmate Aisha, Pierre celebrates a blood and tattoo wedding with her. "I have never been so happy in my life".

La Bandera is about the death drive. Even the vintage Finnish name of the movie is, aptly, Kuoleman pataljoona = The Battalion of Death. In the final suicide command mission everyone dies except one, the detective of the secret police, who had just decided to give up on hunting Pierre. Puzzlingly, this kind of extreme fatalism was a source of Jean Gabin's stardom.

La Bandera is also a colonial film, a colonialistic film, a militaristic film, and a film dedicated to General Francisco Franco – a year before the Spanish Civil War, one of the preludes to WWII. But it is also so pervasively a desperado film that I cannot seriously relate to the political context. The title on the gate of the fort says "La Légion", but it might as well read "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" / "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" / "Ken tästä käy saa kaiken toivon heittää", because it is the gate of Hell.

The most positive figure in the film is the Arab woman Aisha, a free spirit, an incarnation of the life force so powerful that she almost manages to draw Pierre out of his suicidal vortex.

Among the films that La Bandera seems to prefigure is La Grande Illusion – the camaraderie of the soldiers, and the figure of the crippled commandant. Pierre Renoir plays here Captain Weller, one-eyed, and with a prosthetic arm, in a way that invites comparison with Erich von Stroheim's immortal Captain von Rauffenstein in brother Jean Renoir's film. Perhaps an inspiration to Jean Renoir was to create an anti-militaristic counterpart to La Bandera. But La Bandera is too honest a film to paint a picture of the military that would seem lucrative to anyone with sanity. And – I had never even thought about this before – La Grande Illusion is still a picture about the gentleman's war, and it does not even aim at an account of the unheard-of massacres of WWI. Les Croix de bois was more to the point. The final massacre of La Bandera is also relevant as an account of modern warfare.

Music is of the essence as often in Julien Duvivier's films. The theme song has been mentioned, but there are many other exciting music contributions from Italian ballads to military marches. It would be fascinating to study a soundtrack listing.

Duvivier is in command of the whole. The atmosphere is strong and exotic. There is documentary passion in scenes of Barcelona, Gibraltar, and Morocco. The ensemble of actors is wonderful. The looks are expressive and soulful. The looks have gravity.

The cinematographer is the master Jules Kruger who had worked with Dulac, Gance (as one of the four DP's of Napoleon), L'Herbier (L'Argent), and Bernard (Les Croix de bois). Kruger is still in possession of the magic of silent cinematography with striking angles and agile movements. The camera dances and fights like in Napoleon.

The print viewed has been heavily used but it is of equal duration with the restoration from Les Archives françaises du film / CNC which I blogged about in 2008 in Bologna. The image is good enough often enough to get a strong impression of Jules Kruger's cinematography.

Film concert Chemi bebia / My Grandmother – with Cleaning Women

ჩემი ბებია / Моя бабушка / Moya babushka / [Isoäitini].
    SU 1929. PC: Sakhkinmretsvi / Goskinprom Gruzii. P: S. Siharulidze. Redaktor: A. Dzhugeli.
    D: Kote Mikaberidze. SC: Giorgi Mdivani, Kote Mikaberidze, Siko Dolidze. CIN: Vladimir Poznan, Anton Polikevich. AN/SFX: K. Sharishvili. AD: Irakli Gamrekeli, Valerian Sidamon-Eristavi. ED: O. Gevorkian.
    C: Aleksandre Takaishvili (the bureaucrat), Bella Chernova (the bureaucrat's wife), Akaki Horava (labourer), E. Ovanov (doorman), Mikhail Abesadze, G. Absaliamova, K. Lavretski. 2000 m / existing versions: 80 min, 73 min, 65 min, 60 min
    The film was shelved in 1929, first released in 1968 in Moscow, restored in 1976 and screened at the New York Film Festival in 1977.
    Restoration curated by: Leila Gordeladze. Duration of the DCP: 60 min
    Live performance by Cleaning Women.
    2K DCP from Georgian Film Archive with Georgian intertitles only (but with Russian in the diegetic text world) and English subtitles viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (film concerts), 3 Feb 2017

    Cleaning Women
Risto Puurunen (CW01), coffee bean can bouzouki, washing tub bass
Tero Vänttinen (CW04), laundry rack, bass laundry rack, clothes hanger rod bass
Timo Kinnunen (CW03), rhythm instruments, washing machine drive pulleys, fermentation vat
Sound: Jari Laakkonen, live sound engineer

The first screening in Finland of My Grandmother, based on a discovery and proposal by Pasi Nyyssönen to the cult band Cleaning Women appreciated for inspired work with films such as Aelita, Battleship Potemkin, The Man with the Movie Camera, The Eleventh Year, and Metropolis. Cleaning Women premiered with My Grandmother on 2 September 2016 at the Tromsø Silent Film Days at Verdensteatret, Norway.

I have seen my share of weird and incredible films, but My Grandmother ranks among the craziest that I have ever seen.

Let's state at first that the film has nothing to do with grandmothers. It is a satire on bureaucracy which makes all other satires look tame. The expression "my grandmother" seems to mean a referee, patron, or protector needed to get back on track when the protagonist is fired from his office.

No holds are barred in Kote Mikaberidze's savage attack on bureaucracy. There are affinities with the Dada, the wildest masters of early film farce (Cretinetti), early Eisenstein (The Strike), and the FEKS school of Soviet cinema.

Kote Mikaberidge's film is a fireworks of visual means of expression. There are urban montages, distorted visions, object animation sequences, slow motion passages, and extreme close-ups. The entire film is geared to extreme states of consciousness. One of the wittiest and most original inventions is towards the end when the characters of a chase sequence transform into their own shadows.

A dystopian vision of an open-space office is a recurrent feature in classic films exposing the alienation of the modern workspace. We remember The Crowd by King Vidor, The Apartment by Billy Wilder and The Trial by Orson Welles. Kote Mikaberidge beats them all with his vision of the bureaucratic workspace.

A possible weakness in this movie is its relentless sledge-hammer approach. During the sixty minutes of the film's duration there is never a breathing space in the madness. But more is not more.

Yet this incredible work is a must for all interested in films that transcend the limits of conventional narrative.

The Cleaning Women were in full form, connecting to the rhythm of the film and providing a compelling sound world satirizing the excesses of the machine age.

I diarkis anahorisi tis Petra Going / The Slow Business of Going

Η διαρκής αναχώρηση της Πέτρα Γοινγ. GR 2000. PC: Cinenomad, Haos Film, Greek Film Centre. P: Athina Rachel Tsangari. D: Athina Rachel Tsangari. SC: Athina Rachel Tsangari, Matthew Johnson, Tasca Shadix. CIN: Deborah Eve Lewis. AD: Tom Dornbush. M: Mark Orton. ED: Leah Bowers, Kyle Henry, Matthew Johnson, Athina Rachel Tsangari. S: Matthew Johnson, Jeremy Fleischman. C: Lizzie Curry Martinez (Petra Going), Maria Tsantsanoglou (Micah), Gary Price, Kenny Strickland, Daniel Aukin, Sandra Carter, Lauryn Pithey-Petrie, Steve Moore, Gary Price. 101 min
    In English.
    2K DCP from Haos viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (New Greek Cinema), 3 Feb 2017   

Today was a very long day but I managed to sample the first 30 minutes of Athina Rachel Tsangari's debut feature film. It is an intrepid experimental essay in global urban alienation. The sequences I saw were "Manhattan 1994" and "Thessaloniki 1995", and the beginning of a sequence presumably set in Prague.

This movie is a series of urban visions and moods. People are connected by sign language via high rise windows or through the haircrosses of telescopic sights of high tech rifles. There are setpieces such as a combat on a railway yard, building houses of cards, dancing a tango habanera, and following actions through a 12-way video screen. The film is a dazzling display of the versatility of Athina Rachel Tsangari and a calling card of her bravado in many approaches of film-making. The alienation of the world of perpetual intercontinental travel is conveyed with montages of boarding passes which bring to mind Mika Taanila's Tectonic Plate. Petra Going is also an erotic wanderer experiencing a series of non-committed relationships.

The visual look is intentionally low-tech, often based on video technology.

Toivon tuolla puolen / The Other Side of Hope

Ljus i natten / L’autre côté de l’espoir / Die andere Seite der Hoffnung.
    FI 2017. PC: Sputnik Oy. Yhteistuottajat: Oy Bufo Ab / Pandora Film. Rahoittajat: Suomen elokuvasäätiö / Kirkon mediasäätiö. Yhteistyössä: Yle TV1 ja ZDF / ARTE.
    P+D+SC: Aki Kaurismäki. DP: Timo Salminen – 35 mm – colour – 1,85:1 – released on 2K DCP and 35 mm. Valaisu: Olli Varja. Lavastus: Ville Grönroos, Heikki Häkkinen, Markku Pätilä. Cost: Tiina Kaukanen. S: Tero Malmberg – Dolby SRD. ED: Samu Heikkilä. Photographer: Marja-Leena Hukkanen.
    C: Sherwan Haji (Khaled), Sakari Kuosmanen (Valdemar Wikström), Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon (Mazdak), Janne Hyytiäinen (Nyrhinen), Nuppu Koivu (Mirja), Kaija Pakarinen (wife), Niroz Haji (Miriam), Tuomari Nurmio, Tommi Korpela (Melartin), Kati Outinen, Sulevi Peltola, Timo Torikka, Taneli Mäkelä, Elina Knihtilä, Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Antti Virmavirta, Maria Järvenhelmi, Ilkka Koivula (Calamnius), Matti Onnismaa, Puntti Valtonen, Elias Westerberg, Marko Haavisto, Hannu Laurila, Juhani Niemelä, Antero Jakoila, Panu Vauhkonen, Harri Marstio, Pauli Patinen, Mohamed Awad, Ismo Haavisto.
    In Finnish, English, and Arabic.
    The film is a part of the Finland 100 jubileum program.
    Dedicated to the memory of Peter von Bagh.
    [The Swedish title Ljus i natten is a reference to Tuomari Nurmio's most legendary song, "Valo yössä" {"A Light in the Night"}. Please notice also the headlights of the car in the poster.].
    Helsinki premiere: 3.2.2017, distributed by B-Plan Distribution – MEKU K12 – 98 min
    2K DCP with Finnish subtitles viewed at Tennispalatsi Scape (gala preview), Helsinki, introduced by Mark Lwoff, 2 Feb 2017
    A 35 mm print with English subtitles viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (world premiere of a 35 mm print), in the presence of Sherwan Haji, Simon Al-Bazoon, Nuppu Koivu, Niroz Haji, and Mark Lwoff introduced by Anna Möttölä, 3 Feb 2017

Toivon tuolla puolen / The Other Side of Hope [literally: Beyond Hope] is the second film in Aki Kaurismäki's projected harbour trilogy. The first one was Le Havre. This new film takes place in Helsinki.

Both films represent new openings for Kaurismäki. In Le Havre there was a new kind of protagonist and a new identification structure. We were no longer worrying about the protagonist but identifying with a protagonist worrying for others.

In Toivon tuolla puolen there are two protagonists but the main one (with whom the film begins and ends) is different. For the first time in Kaurismäki the protagonist is a foreigner in the literal sense of being not native, not even European. He is worrying for himself only to a certain extent. Even more he is worrying for his sister. Helping her is his main concern.

The Mediterranean refugee crisis, although reflected in only modest proportions in distant Finland, has shattered our country. Kaurismäki's standpoint is humanist. The refugees have lost their homes and their families, their nearest and their dearest. Kaurismäki observes the gamut of reactions: official, bureaucratic, sympathetic, indifferent, hostile, violent, even murderous. The value above all for Kaurismäki is solidarity. When Khaled is about to be beaten by skinheads he is saved by cripples. In a telling detail Khaled who has practically nothing gives a coin to a street singer (Nurmio) and a gypsy beggar woman. Khaled is the only one we can see helping those who are the worst off.

Khaled (Sherwan Haji) hails from Syria. Having dodged border controls all over Europe he has landed in Helsinki by accident. He has nothing against Finland, but "if you could tell me how I could get out of here I would be very grateful". This line got the biggest laugh in the screenings.

The story is serious but often Kaurismäki tells it with a Buster Keaton approach. Indeed, long passages of the film are without dialogue, including the opening sequences that introduce the two protagonists Khaled and Wikström. Their paths cross only for a fleeting moment before they truly confront each other later.

Khaled emerging from the coal pile. The water in the shower turning black. The stud poker game. Cobweb surrounding the cook. Sardines served straight from the can. A dog called Koistinen hidden by the restaurant staff. Rusty tap water at the refugee's hideaway. Salted herring served as sushi. Such are some of the motifs of the deadpan comedy.

A running gag is introducing old-fashioned gadgets such as a mechanical typewriter, carbon paper, landline telephones, and transistor radios. Money is prominent but only as cash in the world of this film. Mark, the Finnish currency before our joining the euro in 1999 is still valid. Smoking is rampant like the anti-smoking legislation of 1995, 2000, and 2007 never happened. And then there is the most prominent prop, the gleaming vintage car.

Modern technology appears only when unavoidable. An electronic fingerprinting device. A cell phone that Khaled uses to reach his lost sister. A computer wizard's equipment to forge an identity card for Khaled.

Out of details like this grows a tragi-comic world view which has been crystallized by film critic Hans Sundström in Hufvudstadsbladet (3 Feb 2017):  "Kaurismäkiland is a universe that finds its distinction in a precise intersection between a proximity and a distance to reality". ("Kaurismäkiland är ett universum som finner sin egenart i den rätta skärningspunkten vad närhet och avstånd till verkligheten beträffar.")

Kaurismäki's films are highly stylized. After the more obviously quirky fairy-tale approach of Le Havre, Toivon tuolla puolen introduces subtle advances in psychology, steps towards more rounded personalities. The actors have more room for depth and detail. Sherwan Haji is intense and dignified as Khaled. Sakari Kuosmanen, a Kaurismäki regular, gets his juiciest part ever as Wikström the salesman turning into a restaurant keeper.

In the most striking shot of Le Havre Kaurismäki observed faces of refugees found in a container. Toivon tuolla puolen goes further. Never have faces been more intense and memorable in a Kaurismäki film. The soulful close-ups convey loss, longing, pain, suffering, and a history of experience. There is a gravity in these close-ups that brings to mind John Ford's films such as The Grapes of Wrath and They Were Expendable.

Loneliness and alienation have been Kaurismäki's main themes since the beginning. He has found an international audience by focusing on solitude. There is something new in the approach to the theme of loneliness in Toivon tuolla puolen. The characters are now less parodical cardboard figures and more nuanced living and suffering beings. There is more courage in being vulnerable, not hiding behind parody. The refugee question is a perfect Kaurismäki topic that opens him new and promising options of growth.

Music is again of the essence. The first song on the soundtrack is "Oi mutsi mutsi" ["Oh Mother, Mother"] by Tuomari Nurmio [Judge Nurmio], probably its 1979 album version produced by Pekka Aarnio with Esa Pulliainen at the guitar, Hans Etholén at the bass, and Juha Takanen at the drums. On his illustrious Stratocaster Pulliainen plays a searing, unforgettable solo creating a sound which resembles the balalaika (information confirmed with Pekka Aarnio, 6 Feb 2017). It is a slow and haunting masterpiece of popular music, a funeral dirge in the first person sung by the dying man. The lyrics of this old Helsinki city slang traditional tell how a drunkard bids his last farewell to his mother expecting her to arrange his burial anytime soon. The theme of death is introduced early on.

There are many memorable song numbers in the film, all good, but might there be one too many?

The cinematography by Timo Salminen is powerful. I had the privilege to watch Toivon tuolla puolen on both digital and film on consecutive days. The digital presentation is solid and impeccable. The film presentation is more subtle and delicate. There is a stronger presence of the fragility of life.

At Tennispalatsi there was an audience of invited guests. At Orion the audience consisted of aficionados. The reactions were completely different; more spontaneous, tender, amused, and passionate at Orion.

The main reference point for Le Havre was the classic of French poetic realism, Le Quai des brumes directed by Marcel Carné, written by Jacques Prévert and starring Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan (1920–2016). Le Havre was full of cinephilic references. One of the distinctive features of Toivon tuolla puolen is the absence of such references. Influences remain on a deeper level. Charles Chaplin's tramp is certainly one of them. That figure has never been more topical than during the current refugee crisis.

Another deep reference is the fatalistic Jean Gabin figure in French films of the 1930s. In the 1930s it seemed to be written in Jean Gabin's contract that he would die in the end. Le Quai des brumes ends with death. The final image is of a stray dog he had rescued. The dog is running towards us, too late.

In Kaurismäki's movies dogs are essential. The dog as a physical and metaphysical being, a harbinger of unconditional friendliness. The dog as a mirror of its master. Treat it well, and it becomes your best friend. Humans have a lot to learn from them. In Toivon tuolla puolen the dog named Koistinen is a puppy well taken care of by the restaurant staff. (The dog motif is introduced early on in a glimpse of Ransu the dog, a popular hand puppet figure in Finnish children's television. There is even a Ransu statue in Pirkkala).

Le Havre ended on a note of hope. Toivon tuolla puolen seems to be moving towards tragedy. Like Gabin in his 1930s films Khaled, who has been stabbed, is watching the sea. Then the puppy appears and licks him. We are left contemplating the title The Other Side of Hope.

What does the title mean? It evokes Dante, Walter Benjamin and Franz Kafka. It might mean Finland as an Ultima Thule, a last resort on the trek of the Mediterranean refugee. My wife Laila finds in the title an affinity with the song "Over the Rainbow". Also in the Finnish tango there is sometimes a yearning for the beyond, the infinity of the sky, the land of eternal happiness. There is also in them a dimension of a longing for death.

Introduction and Q&A at Orion

Mark Lwoff told us that the production of the film print was all analog. Not only was the movie shot on photochemical film, the negative was also cut on film without a digital intermediate, and the colour grading was conducted in analog as well. There are only two labs left in Europe able to do this. The greatest challenge was subtitling. There is only one photochemical subtitling service left in Europe.

The actors described the special circumstances on an Aki Kaurismäki set. There was an excellent script that is also a piece of literature. There were no rehearsals. There was no preparation. There was as a rule only one take. No mobile devices were allowed on set. On digital the camera can run almost endlessly. Shooting on film there are only 3 minutes of film in the magazine. The Aki average is 9-11 minutes of exposed film per day.

PS 25 Feb 2017. Hesiod tells that when Pandora opened her box and unleashed all the evils the only thing left inside was hope.

PS 26 Feb 2017. Hesiod also writes about philoxenia, the art of hospitality. In ancient Greece refugees, asylum seekers, unprotected orphans and helpless elderly people were under a special protection of the Gods, and hurting them was an especially grave offense. Philoxenia was one of the characteristics by which the Greek could tell a civilized person from a barbarian. An example of the latter was the cyclops Polyphemos in the Odyssey. He started to eat Ulysses's travelling companions and received the punishment he deserved.

PS 20 March 2017. Tacitus in Germania (De Origine et Situ Germanorum Liber, 98 AD) offers one of the earliest comments on the people called fenni (probably no relation with the current inhabitants of Finland but the name has stuck). The latest Finnish translation of the second to last sentence of Germania (Chapter 46, Section 5) is interesting. "Rauhassa jumalilta ja rauhassa ihmisiltä he ovat saavuttaneet sen vaikeimman päämäärän, ettei heidän tarvitse edes mitään toivoa." (Tacitus: Germania. In Finnish by Tuomo Pekkanen. Yliopistopaino 1988). The original text: "securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset". An English translation "Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished" (by Thomas Gordon, 1910). Following the Finnish translation I would offer an alternative: "Secure from men, secure from gods they have achieved the most difficult goal of being beyond the need of hope".

PS 1 April 2017, a quote from IMDb dated 27 March 2017 | by Ruben Mooijman (Ghent, Belgium): "The complete lack of emotions, a trademark feature of Kaurismäki's work, adds an extra dimension to the message. The refugee doesn't complain, his protectors don't discuss, the violent racists don't explain. Everything just happens." In this approach there is an affinity with Bresson and Godard.

PS 1 April 2017. Heard from Mark Lwoff afterwards: there is no internegative. All photochemical prints of the film have been struck directly from the camera negative.

Reading classics of Antiquity IV: De vita Caesarum

Quo vadis? (1951). Peter Ustinov as Emperor Nero.

Suetonius: De vita Caesarum
The Twelve Caesars. Written in Rome. Written AD 121. Written in Latin. Covers Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire. Originally published on papyrus in the scroll format (in tomes / volumines). Read in Finnish:
Suetonius: Rooman keisarien elämäkertoja. Translated into Finnish by J. A. Hollo. Introduction by Edwin Linkomies. Series: Antiikin klassikot. 445 p. Helsinki / Porvoo: WSOY, 1960.

One year ago I started to read systematically classics of antiquity, ignoring only the (all too few) classics I had read before, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. There can be no better reading project. These works are still models of wisdom, excitement, wit, and style.

Suetonius, the secretary of emperor Hadrian, is not one of the finest and noblest of the classic authors. His weightiest surviving work discusses the twelve first rulers of imperial Rome. Julius Caesar was not the first emperor, but he was pontifex maximus, the absolute ruler, worshipped as God, and a model for his followers. Augustus was his immediate successor, but after these two great leaders there was a procession of tyrants: Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and from the year of the four emperors, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian, and another short-lived emperor, Vitellius. The book ends with the beginning of the Flavian dynasty: Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, after whose murder started the era of the five good emperors, not discussed here.

There is a "rise and fall" arch in this book, though written in the period of the five good emperors. The book is full of salacious detail which would not be out of place in tabloid press or in an anthology of pornography. At the same time it is very well written. Suetonius is the original source of the story of Nero burning the city of Rome while singing about the siege of Troy dressed in an appropriate period costume.

Some classical writers of antiquity considered the golden age of Rome having ended already after the defeat of Carthage (Third Punic War, 146 BC). As long as Rome had an enemy such as Carthage it achieved grandeur. Decadence started, slowly at first, after the victory. Be it as it may, the quartet Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero represent the nadir of decadence in the history of mankind, in full vile detail exposed in this book.

Reading books on the development leading to Pax Romana brings to mind current concerns about the destiny of Pax Americana now with a leader certain traits of whose are similar to the decadent leaders of antiquity.

The book is written in brisk, vigorous style, full of witty quotes and verses of poems, including the famous remark of Nero's before his suicide, "Qualis artifex pero" ("What an artist dies in me" / "Millaisen taiteilijan maailma nyt menettääkään").

The Finnish translation by J. A. Hollo is witty, lively, and a page-turner.