Šarlatán / Charlatan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peterloo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Official Secrets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM MSFF:

Abrir puertas y ventanas / Back to Stay

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

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

Sinopsis

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

Crítica

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

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

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF INFO:

Intemperie / Out in the Open

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF INFO:

Všechno bude / Winter Flies

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

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

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

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF INFO:

Le jeune Ahmed / Young Ahmed

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

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

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

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

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

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

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

DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MSFF OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 38. Death / Kuolema / Död

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

Chapter 39. Endings / Miten elokuva lopetetaan / Avslutning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adults in the Room

Costa-Gavras: Adults in the Room (2019). Christos Loulis as Yanis Varoufakis.

Ενήλικοι στην αίθουσα
    FR/GR © 2019 KG Productions / Wild Bunch / Elle Driver / France 2 Cinéma / Odeon SA. P: Alexandre Gavras, Michèle Ray-Gavras.
    D: Costa-Gavras. SC: Yanis Varoufakis, Costa-Gavras – based on the book Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment (2017) by Yanis Varoufakis. DP: Giorgos Arvanitis - negative: 35 mm – 2,35:1 – colour – Dolby Digital – release: DCP. Cost: Agis Panagiotou. M: Alexandre Desplat. ED: Costa-Gavras, Lambis Haralambidis.
    C: Christos Loulis (Yannis), Alexandros Bourdoumis (Alexis), Ulrich Tukur (Wolfgang), Daan Schuurmans (Jeroen), Christos Stergioglou (Sakis), Dimitris Tarloou (Efklis), Josiane Pinson (Christine), Cornelius Obonya (Wims), Vincent Nemeth (Michel), Aurélien Recoing (Pierre), Alexandros Logothetis (Manos), Thanos Tokakis (Yorgos), Themis Panou (Siagas), George Lenz (Troika Leader), Maria Protopappa (Elena), Francesco Acquaroli (Maria), Valeria Golino (Dea). Dan Fredenburgh (Osborne), Trevor Sellers (Juncker). Adam Arnold (Finnish Minister).
    Loc: Paris, Athens, Riga, Brussels, Strasbourg, Frankfurt am Main, London, Berlin.
    In English, Greek, French and German.
    124 min
    Festival premiere: 31 Aug 2019 Venice Film Festival.
    Greek premiere: 29 Sep 2019.
    French premiere: 6 Nov 2019.
    Corona lockdown viewings / Virtual Midnight Sun Film Festival: Online Press Screening.
    Elle Driver screener link, adaptation in English: Andrew Litvack, subtitling: Hiventy.
    Viewed at home in Helsinki on a 4K tv set, 28 May 2020

IMDb synopsis: "Greece in 2015: the economy is in tatters and the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. A new government rebels against the EU's iron-fisted rule and inspires millions of Europeans. Based on the political memoirs of Yanis Varoufakis."

Wikipedia synopsis: "In 2015, following the Syriza's victory to the 2015 Greek legislative election, Greek minister of finance Yánis Varoufákis was tasked by Prime Minister Aléxis Tsípras to negociate a new deal on the Greek bailouts signed by previous government with the Troïka, in order to avoid the country having to face another debt crisis. However, following succesive meetings of the Eurogroup throughout the entire film, Varoufakis proposals are only met with flat refusals from Troïka's institutions. With constant threats from the European institution of an eviction of Greece from the Eurozone if their demands aren't met, Greek PM Aléxis Tsípras is forced to sign the MoU, going against popular will which rejected the bailouts through referundum with the No winning with 62% of the ballots. Yánis Varoufákis then resign five months after taking office."

Synopsis: "Behind closed doors, a human tragedy plays out. A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them. A tragedy in the Ancient Greek sense: the characters are not good or evil, but driven by the consequences of their own conception of what it is right to do. A tragedy for our very modern time."

Costa-Gavras: Director’s Statement: "You never forget the country of your birth, especially when it is a country like Greece. I fled my country because, back then, all it offered to young people of my social class was a life of submission to a theocratic-democracy. As an immigrant, France allowed me to surpass my wildest dreams. My ‘Greekness’ took hold of me again when the Colonels seized power. The expression of my personal resistance was Z. Ten years ago, the Greek crisis plunged the country back into the same situation that made me flee in the first place. And this, of course, made me want to express my revolt once again, with Adults in the Room."

AA: The Greek debt crisis is a harrowing topic, an extremely painful chapter in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. It is still going on. From the viewpoint of the cinema, it could be handled as a horror film, a catastrophe film or a straight documentary. The innocents – the Greek people – have suffered excessively. No wonder that populists have thrived.

The challenge for the film-maker is in the nature of the subject. There is no visible enemy, no tangible monster. Ultimately what happened, and what is still happening, was a consequence of the development of the global financial system, the evolution of new and complex financial instruments during the digital age, when speculations can take place within fractions of seconds, and when ingenious tax shelter arrangements make possible an extreme escalation of inequality. The have-nots end up having less than nothing: an endlessly worsening spiral of debt. This is the horror story of Greece after 2008.

In Shakespeare's time politics could be dramatized as tragedy. Even Oliver Stone succeeded in Nixon in adapting classical tragedy to politics. Usually, however, even Shakespeare expressed politics not via tragedy, but within the epic genre of the historical play.

Costa-Gavras is a master of the political thriller, author of the classic trilogy Z (1969, based on the assassination of Lambrakis in Greece), The Confession (1970, about the Stalinist Slansky show trial in Prague) and State of Siege (1972, about US involvement in the repression of the Tupamaros in Uruguay), all starring Yves Montand, with strong scripts by Jorge Semprún or Franco Solinas and memorable scores by Mikis Theodorakis or Giovanni Fusco.

Who would be a better candidate to direct a film about the Greek disaster than Costa-Gavras? "Greek tragedy" is a popular saying about what is happening, but as Jessica Kiang, the critic of Variety, has stated, nobody is expecting here revelations of Varoufakis having killed his father and married his mother.

Classic tragedy is out of the question, but Costa-Gavras is not resorting to his pet genre of the political thriller, either. Instead, the approach is that of the historical play. The film is based on the memoirs of Yanis Varoufakis, the economist who was the Minister of Finance of Greece for the first half of 2015. Predictably, the film is partisan. Although it has been made on a solid budget, it proceeds mostly as a series of meetings. From potentially boring premises the film gets electrified by the mise-en-scène of the director and the dynamic contribution of the DP Giorgos Arvanitis, the master cinematographer of Angelopoulos.

The historical play was one of the genres favoured by Bertolt Brecht in his "epic theatre". Adults in the Room is not a Brechtian film, but there are a couple of distancing effects reminding us that this is a musical or a show. These are digressions in the film which remains on the whole sober and factual. There is a tendency to caricature in the portraits of the double-faced Frenchman Michel [Sapin] and particularly Wolfgang [Schäuble] whose presence has been compared with Dr. Strangelove.

The title of the movie stems from a comment by Christine [Lagarde]: "We need adults in this room". While not an "all male panel", the movie is dominated by men, and the task of the leading female character, Varoufakis's wife Dea (Valeria Golino), is mostly to serve tzatziki to negotiators on a mission to save Greece. On the other hand, Christine Lagarde emerges as a memorably constructive figure. And behind it all is of course the formidable and unseen Angela Merkel. Viewing this in the pandemic spring of 2020 everybody knows that women have succeeded particularly well in handling the unheard-of catastrophe. Would we also need more women in the room to save Greece?

There is a Finnish detail in the movie. Meetings of the Eurogroup are central, and the Finnish finance minister appears as one of the hardliners. This is correct. The unnamed minister also cuts a slightly ridiculous figure. Our finance minister during Varoufakis's tenure was Antti Rinne, the chairman of the Social Democratic Party, later the prime minister before Sanna Marin, now the first deputy speaker of the Parliament.

Finnish Social Democrats have generally been sympathetic towards Greeks, paid by a severe decline in their support in elections. Voters have found it hard to accept Greece's blatant forgery of financial statistics, massive kleptocracy by a corrupt elite and enormous investments and deposits of national funds flowing to foreign assets and offshore accounts. The populist True Finns party has been on the rise, and the Greek quandary has been one of their trump cards.

Finland's part is tiny in this epic, but what happened here reflects all Europe. If the European project is not based on honesty and fair play, the EU and the Euro are in danger. Costa-Gavras is not blind to this, but his and Varoufakis's account is not very balanced.

Strengths of the film include besides Giorgos Arvanitis's engaging cinematography also a strong performance by Christos Loulis in the leading role as Yanis Varoufakis. On the whole, Adults in the Room is a valuable contibution to a theme of urgent importance, but it is not very good cinema. Granted, Costa-Gavras was 86 years old when he made this film. But senior masters have been making some of their best films at a late stage. Andrzej Wajda released Afterimage at 90, and Agnès Varda was also 90 when she brought Varda par Agnès to the Berlin Film Festival.

...
THE KEY TO THE CAST OF CHARACTERS (FROM FRENCH WIKIPEDIA):
    Chrístos Loúlis (VF : Félicien Juttner) : Yánis Varoufákis, ministre des finances grec
    Aléxandros Bourdoúmis (VF : Éric Caravaca) : Aléxis Tsípras, Premier ministre grec
    Ulrich Tukur (VF : François Marthouret) : Wolfgang Schäuble, Ministre des Finances allemand
    Daan Schuurmans (VF : Arnaud Bedouët) : Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Président de l'Eurogroupe
    Dimítris Tárloou : Euclide Tsakalotos, ministre des finances grec
    Josiane Pinson (VF : elle-même) : Christine Lagarde, présidente du FMI
    Valeria Golino (VF : Olga Grumberg) : Danái Strátou, épouse de Varoufákis
    Aurélien Recoing : Pierre Moscovici, Commissaire européen aux affaires économiques et monétaires
    Vincent Nemeth (VF : lui-même) : Michel Sapin, Ministre français de l'Économie et des Finances
    Francesco Acquaroli : Mario Draghi, président de la Banque centrale européenne
    George Lenz : le chef de la troïka
    Philip Schurer : George Osborne, ministre des Finances anglais
    Damien Mougin : Emmanuel Macron, ministre français de l'Économie, de l'Industrie et du Numérique
    Aléxandros Logothétis : Mános
    Chrístos Stérgioglou : Sákis
    Cornelius Obonya : Wims
    Thános Tokákis : Yórgos
    María Protópappa : Elena
    Thémis Pánou : Siágas
    Kostas Antalopoulos (l'attaché de presse de Wolfgang Schäuble)
    Skyrah Archer : une secrétaire de l'Eurogroupe
    Marina Argyropolo : Fenia
    Georges Corraface : l'ambassadeur de Grèce en France
    Giannis Dalianis
    Adrian Frieling : le ministre des Finances lituanien

Women Make Film 13: Life Inside, The Meaning of Life, Love

From Chapter 35: Life Inside: La Coquille et le clergyman / The Seashell and the Clergyman / Germaine Dulac, France 1928. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

From Chapter 36: The Meaning of Life: Now I'm Thirteen / ဆယ့်သုံးနှစ်မလေး / Shin Daewe, Myanmar 2014. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

From Chapter 37: Love: Qing chun ji / / 青春祭 / Sacrificed Youth / Nuanxing Zhang, China 1986. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

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

GB © 2019 How To Make A Movie Ltd. PC: Hopscotch Films. P: John Archer. EX: Clara Glynn, Tilda Swinton. Assistant P: Sonali Choudhury. Associate P: Carl Beauchamp, Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Barbara Timmer.
    D+SC: Mark Cousins. Sound mixing: Diane Jardine. S: Joe Harfield. ED+script consultant: Timo Langer. Online: Chas Chalmers. Edit assistant: Scott Bilsbrough. P coordinator: Mhairi Valentine. P team: David Brown, Rowan Ings, Raja Kryda. World Sales: Dogwoof. Head of sales: Ana Vicente. Legal: David Burgess.
    https://www.womenmakefilm.com/
    14 hours – HD – 16:9
    Festival premiere: 1 Sep 2018 Venice Film Festival
    Finnish telepremieres of the 14 episodes: 3.3.2020, 10.3.2020, 17.3.2020, 24.3.2020, 1.4.2020, 8.4.2020, 15.4.2020, 22.4.2020, 29.4.2020, 6.5.2020, 13.5.2020, 20.5.2020, 27.5.2020, 3.6.2020
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    Yle Areena.
    Viewed on a 4K tv set at home in Helsinki, 28 May 2020.

Episode 13/14: Life Inside, The Meaning of Life, Love
Jakso 13/14: Tärkeintä elämässä
Narrator: Debra Winger
Finnish / Swedish subtitles: Tiina Kähkönen / Sari Östman

Chapter 35. Life Inside / Ihmismieli / Vårt inre väsen

La Coquille et le clergyman / The Seashell and the Clergyman / Germaine Dulac, FR 1928
Krylya / Крылья / Wings / Larisa Shepitko, SU 1966 [unreleased in Finland]
The Future / Miranda July, DE/US/FR 2011 [unreleased in Finland]
Bhaji on the Beach / Gurinder Chadha, GB 1993 [unreleased in Finland]
Mikey & Nicky / Mickey and Nicky / Pelkojen yö (video title in Finland) / Elaine May, US 1976
An Angel at my Table / Enkelin kosketus / Jane Campion, NZ/AU/GB/US 1990
Film About A Woman Who... / Yvonne Rainer, US 1974 [unreleased in Finland]
La Zerda ou Les Chants de l'oubli / الزردة وأناشيد النسيان / La Zerda / Assia Djebbar, DZ 1983 [unreleased in Finland]

Chapter 36. The Meaning of Life / Elämän tarkoitus / Meningen med livet

Together / Lorenza Mazzetti, GB 1956 [unreleased in Finland]
Rusalka / Русалка / Mermaid / Rusalka [in Finland] / Anna Melikyan / Anna Melikian, RU 2007
Western / Valeska Grisebach, DE/BG/AT 2017 [unreleased in Finland]
Now I'm Thirteen / ဆယ့်သုံးနှစ်မလေး / Shin Daewe, MM 2014 [unreleased in Finland]
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna / The Meetings of Anna / Chantal Akerman, FR/BE/DE 1978 [unreleased in Finland]
Betoniyö / Concrete Night / Pirjo Honkasalo, FI/SE/DK 2013
Woman / Signe Baumane, cm, anim, US 2003
Rue Cases-Nègres / Sugar Cane Alley / Mustat kadut / Euzhan Palcy, FR/MQ 1983
Nimeh-ye penhan / نيمه پنهان / The Hidden Half / [Finnish release with English title] The Hidden Half / Tahmineh Milani, IR 2001

Chapter 37. Love / Rakkaus / Kärlek

Qing chun ji / Qingchun ji / 青春祭 / Sacrificed Youth / Uhrattu nuoruus / Zhang Nuanxing / Nuanxing Zhang, CN 1986
Gahanu lamai / ගැහැණු ළමයි / The Girls / Sumitra Peries, LK 1978 [unreleased in Finland]
Me and You and Everyone We Know / Minä, sinä ja kaikki muut / Miranda July, US/GB 2005
Testről és lélekről / On Body and Soul / Kosketuksissa / Ildikó Enyedi, HU 2017
Ghesse-ha / قصه‌ها‎  / Tales / Rakhshān Banietemad, IR 2014 [unreleased in Finland]
The Piano / Piano / Jane Campion, NZ/AU/FR 1993
Where I Am Is Here / Margaret Tait, cm, GB 1964
L'Intrus / The Intruder / Claire Denis, FR 2004 [unreleased in Finland]
An Education / An Education / Lone Scherfig, GB/US 2009
Ung flukt / The Wayward Girl / Nuoret syntiset / Edith Carlmar, NO 1959
Na-moo-eobs-neun san / 나무없는 산 / Treeless Mountain / So Yong Kim, US/KO 2008 [unreleased in Finland]
Mon roi / My King / Huuma / Maïwenn, FR 2015
Mustang / Mustang / Deniz Gamze Ergüven, FR/DE/TK/Qatar 2015
Mimangin / Mimang-in / Gwabu-ui nunmul / The Widow / 미망인 / Nam-Ok Park / Nam-ok Pak / Park Nam-ok, KO 1955 [unreleased in Finland]
Tou ze / 桃姐 / A Simple Life / Ann Hui, HK 2011 [unreleased in Finland]
Heart of a Dog / Laurie Anderson, US/FR 2015 [unreleased in Finland]

AA: Episode 13 of Women Make Film is a poetic web of associations. The series is like a smörgåsbord, a hors-d'œuvre, an antipasto, offering appetizers to unknown films that I must see.

Life Inside starts with Germaine Dulac taking us to the consciousness (and the unconscious) of a woman via superimpositions. Larisa Shepitko cuts to the clouds, and we realize that her heroine, a former ace pilot, dreams of flying. Gurinder Chadha lights up her Ferris wheel during a love scene. Jane Campion emphasizes Janet Frame's (Kerry Fox) insecurity via subtle camera movements. Since 1974, Hitchcock meta-films have grown into a subgenre. Yvonne Rainer creates what may be the first Hitchcock meta-film in Film About a Woman Who...  in which we see a still frame montage from Psycho. Assia Djebbar's La Zerda is also a startling photomontage, this one about the Algerian tragedy. A haunting music track conveys the life inside. I must learn more about this key intellectual.

The Meaning of Life: the topics keep getting bigger! Lorenza Mazzetti's (1927–2020) Together is a study in communication – featuring two deaf-mutes. From Anna Melikian's Rusalka we see a scene set in a school for mentally disabled children who possess special abilities. In Valeska Grisebach's Western two Gastarbeiter of different backgrounds meet. Shin Daewe's Now I'm Thirteen is a vibrant chunk of life from Myanmar. What is it about? Pure being. Chantal Akerman witnesses pure solitude even in a sexual encounter. From Pirjo Honkasalo's Concrete Night we see the scene with its first credo about the meaning of life: only hope is to be feared. (The second credo will be: hope is all there is). The Latvian animator Signe Baumane's Woman offers a personal foundation myth of the birth of woman: a mummy carried on its back by a bull. In Euzhan Palcy's Rue Cases-Nègres another foundation myth is recounted by an old man to a young boy.

Finally, Love, the biggest of all. Nuanxing Zhang's Sacrificed Youth belongs to China's "scar dramas" covering the persecutions of the Cultural Revolution, made in the same year as Xie Jin's Hibiscus Town. Sacrificed Youth has been telecast in Finland but I have missed it. Poetic closeups in black and white are striking in Sumitra Peries's Gahanu lamai. The wife of the master of Sri Lankan cinema Lester James Peries is proven a masterful film-maker herself. In Miranda July's film a stroll along a sidewalk compresses an entire love story (with affinities with Abbas Kiarostami's Copie conforme). "Do you feel the attraction" is the question in Rakhshān Banietemad's Ghesse-ha. Nam-Ok Park's Mimang-in (The Widow) is the first Korean film directed by a woman. The widow refuses to conform to the Confucian tradition and "her love light goes out" (Cousins). The episode comes to a finale with Laurie Anderson's reckoning of her mother's love, narrated by herself in her richly evocative voice.

Women Make Film 12: Reveal, Memory, Time

From Chapter 32: Reveal: Baby ryazanskie / Бабы рязанские / Women of Ryazan / Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Soviet Union 1927. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

From Chapter 32: Memory: Mille soleils / A Thousand Suns / Mati Diop, France 2013. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

From Chapter 33: Time: Falling Leaves / Alice Guy-Blaché, USA 1912. Screenshot from the Women Make Film website.

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

GB © 2019 How To Make A Movie Ltd. PC: Hopscotch Films. P: John Archer. EX: Clara Glynn, Tilda Swinton. Assistant P: Sonali Choudhury. Associate P: Carl Beauchamp, Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Barbara Timmer.
    D+SC: Mark Cousins. Sound mixing: Diane Jardine. S: Joe Harfield. ED+script consultant: Timo Langer. Online: Chas Chalmers. Edit assistant: Scott Bilsbrough. P coordinator: Mhairi Valentine. P team: David Brown, Rowan Ings, Raja Kryda. World Sales: Dogwoof. Head of sales: Ana Vicente. Legal: David Burgess.
    https://www.womenmakefilm.com/
    14 hours – HD – 16:9
    Festival premiere: 1 Sep 2018 Venice Film Festival
    Finnish telepremieres of the 14 episodes: 3.3.2020, 10.3.2020, 17.3.2020, 24.3.2020, 1.4.2020, 8.4.2020, 15.4.2020, 22.4.2020, 29.4.2020, 6.5.2020, 13.5.2020, 20.5.2020, 27.5.2020, 3.6.2020
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    Yle Areena.
    Viewed on a 4K tv set at home in Helsinki, 21 May 2020.

Episode 12/14: Reveal, Memory, Time
Jakso 12/14: Paljastuksia ja ajan kulumista
Narrator: Kerry Fox.
Finnish / Swedish subtitles: Jaana Wiik, Sari Östman

Chapter 32. Reveal / Paljastukset / Avslöjanden

Westworld Season 2 Episode 4: The Riddle of the Spinx / [same title in Finland, HBO Nordic] / Lisa Joy, tv, US 2018
Pas gjurmëve / After the Tracks / On the Track / Xhanfise Keko, AL 1978 [unreleased in Finland]
Morvern Callar / Morvern Callar / Lynne Ramsay, GB/CA 2002
Povest plamennykh let / Повесть пламенных лет / The Story of the Flaming Years / Liekehtivän taivaan alla / Yuliya Solntseva, SU 1961
Koibumi / 恋文 / Love Letter / Rakkauskirje / Kinuyo Tanaka, JP 1953
Baby ryazanskie / Бабы рязанские / Women of Ryazan / Rjazanin naiset / Olga Preobrazhenskaya, SU 1927
Lourdes / Jessica Hausner, AT/FR/DE 2009 [unreleased in Finland]
Stories We Tell / Sarah Polley, CA 2012 [unreleased in Finland]
Le meraviglie / The Wonders / Alice Rohrwacher, IT/CH/DE 2014 [unreleased in Finland]

Chapter 33. Memory / Muisti / Minnen

Elena / Petra Costa, BR/US 2012 [unreleased in Finland]
I lykaina / Η Λύκαινα / The She-Wolf / Maria Plyta, GR 1951 [unreleased in Finland]
Pet Sematary / Uinu, uinu lemmikkini / Mary Lambert, US 1989
Poema o more / Поэма о море / Poem of the Sea / Runoelma merestä, Yuliya Solntseva, SU 1958
Pora umierać / A Time to Die / Dorota Kędzierzawska, PL 2007 [unreleased in Finland]
Faunovo velmi pozdní odpoledne / The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun / Faunin iltapäivä / Věra Chytilová, CZ 1983
Älskande par / Loving Couples / Rakastavia pareja / Mai Zetterling, SE 1964
Zacharovannaya Desna / Зачарованная Десна / The Enchanted Desna / Lumottu Desna / Yuliya Sointseva, SU 1964
Olympia, 1. Teil – Fest der Völker / Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations / Olympia I: Kansojen juhla / Leni Riefenstahl, DE 1938
Mille soleils / A Thousand Suns / Mati Diop, FR 2013 [in Wolof] [unreleased in Finland]
Return / Liza Johnson, US 2011 [unreleased in Finland]

Chapter 34. Time / Aika / Tid

Falling Leaves / Alice Guy-Blaché, US 1912
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna / The Meetings of Anna / Chantal Akerman, FR/BE/DE 1978 [unreleased in Finland]
Az én XX. századom / My 20th Century / Minun 20. vuosisatani / Ildikó Enyedi, HU/DE/DU 1989
Thumbelina / Peukaloinen / Lotte Reiniger, GB 1954
Monster / Monster – Aileen Wuornos / Patty Jenkins, US 2003
Something Better To Come / Parempi huominen / Hanna Polak, dok, DK/PL/JP/NL/US 2014
The Gold Diggers / Sally Potter, GB 1983 [unreleased in Finland]
Ravenous / Erämaa syö miestä / Antonia Bird, CZ/GB/US/MX 1999
Go! Go! Go! / Marie Menken, cm, exp, US 1964
I lykaina / Η Λύκαινα / The She-Wolf / Maria Plyta, GR 1951 [unreleased in Finland]
The Future / Miranda July, DE/US/FR 2011 [unreleased in Finland]
Orlando / Orlando / Sally Potter, GB/RU/IT/FR/NL 1992
Roozi ke zan shodam / روزی که زن شدم / The Day I Became A Woman / Marziyeh Meshkini, IR 2000 [unreleased in Finland]

AA: All episodes of the Women Make Film series start with a montage of men in the film industry. The dominant figure is Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959), which is fair enough. His career spanned the classical Hollywood of the studio era from 1914 till 1956. DeMille was a strong man who preferred strong women in his production teams, including Anne Bauchens (his editor from 1915 until 1956) and Jeanie MacPherson (his screenwriter from 1915 until her death in 1946). Since the beginning DeMille also favoured strong leading ladies such as Geraldine Farrar and Gloria Swanson. The terrain of "women make film" is wider than directors.

The chapters in the previous episode were titled Tension, Stasis and Leave Out. Now we have chapters called Reveal, Memory and Time. "Leave Out" and "Reveal" are interconnected. We start with a scene from Olga Preobrazhenskaya's The Women of Ryazan, where the arranged marriage plan is revealed to the bride and the groom. From Kinuyo Tanaka's Love Letter we see the scene where a war veteran who writes professionally love letters in the names of women overhears beyond the curtain the voice of her own long lost true love, revealed also to be a customer of the letter service. Another film I need to see.

Memory of course is an essential dimension in the cinema. This chapter offers unusual and unexpected samples. Mary Lambert directed Pet Sematary based on the novel by Stephen King. We see a sequence where the backstory of the uncanny cemetery is remembered. In Mati Diop's Mille soleils memories hark back to the times that were discussed in her uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty's classic Touki-Bouki. In Liza Johnson's Return a female soldier comes home from Middle East, but "you can't come home again", to quote the title of the novel by Thomas Wolfe.

Time. You cannot get more philosophical than this. Gilles Deleuze named the two volumes of his magnum opus Cinéma I: L'image-mouvement and Cinéma II: L'image-temps. For Deleuze, the golden age of the "time image" starts around WWII with films such as Citizen Kane. To simplify: the history of the cinema is action until the 1940s, and contemplation after that. Cousins's approach is completely different and starts earlier with a beautiful fairy-tale shot from Alice Guy's Falling Leaves where a little girl tries to insert leaves back to trees to turn back time. Literally manipulating time was a haunting magic theme in early cinema, and Guy's contribution is particularly eloquent. The opening shot of Chantal Akerman's Les Rendez-vous d'Anna is actually called by Cousins "a time image". It's a static long shot and long take without editing: an image of the passage of time. We witness time lapse by Marie Menken. We experience Virginia Woolf's time travel over the centuries in Sally Potter's Orlando, starring Tilda Swinton. We observe the fatal disappearance of the shadow at noon in Marziyeh Meshkini's The Day I Became a Woman. This chapter belongs to the most rewarding thematically in Mark Cousins's magnum opus.