MY FAVOURITES IN WORLD CINEMA

Goodbye Lenin!

dir. Wolfgang Becker, German with English subtitles, 

DVD X-Filme 2003

Picture (below right): Alex Kerner (Daniel Brü hl) disposes of a picture of leader Erich Honecker, whose resignation was announced on 

18 October 1989

    The film starts in 1978 showing a happy childhood in the family in their holiday home in the East German countryside. The young Alex Kerner is obsessed with his hero – the first German in space, Sigmund Jähn. But while he has his eyes on the cosmos, his family life is falling to pieces – his father has the opportunity to travel the west on a professional visit, and having found another woman there, never returns.

Alex and his sister, Ariane, visit their mother Christiane (Katrin Sass) after she has a breakdown, but she is subsequently restored to health, and puts all her energy into eulogies of the ‘socialist fatherland’, and into being a model citizen, but at the same time berating with letters the quota-obsessed manufacturers of ill-fitting clothes. 

The film jumps to 1989 when Ariane and Alex are both young adults and there is change in the air. The GDR goes ahead with celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its founding but the spirit of the majority of the people is elsewhere. Alex (Daniel Brühl) speculates that it might be ‘the last time with the old gang’, and, indeed, long-time leader Erich Honecker is severely out of touch with the movement started by Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, whose presence at the commemoration only serves to encourage the rebels.

At this point, the film’s plot really develops. Whilst on her way to a state awards ceremony, Christiane collapses as she catches sight of her son being arrested on the other side of the street. He is soon released, but only to the news that his mother has had a heart attack and lies in a coma. In the following eight months, the most momentous changes in Europe for more than forty years occur as the fall of the Berlin Wall triggers the unstoppable move to the unification of Germany, originally divided at the end of the Second World War. In all these months, Christiane stays in a coma, missing everything, not only those external events, but also the development of romance for both of her children – Ariane with a West German, Rainer, her colleague in her new job with Burger King, and Alex with Lara, a Russian nurse who works on the ward where his mother lies unconscious. Then, significantly, shortly before the currency union (which occurred in July, three months before the political unification in October 1990), Christiane miraculously awakes from the coma.

Now the film truly develops into the tragicomedy for which it will be remembered. The doctor wishes to forbid Christiane’s discharge, warning that she had suffered memory loss and that any sudden shocks may cause another heart attack. Alex quickly realises, however, that his mother would soon become exposed to the current news in the hospital, and that this would most probably finish her off. Furthermore, the hospital was rapidly becoming short-staffed, a doctor having just left for the west. 

So Alex, having started his web of deception by inventing a story to tell his amnesic mother about her collapse, resolves to restore the previous décor in the flat; to re-create one room for his mother with the old furniture, furnishings and books. In this way, she could stay and rest in this room, under the watchful eye of the family and without any exposure to the world outside. He provides her with cassettes but mentions that the radio is broken. A problem arises when she asks to be able to watch television. It is at this point that Alex enlists the help of a work colleague, (he had been redeployed from his job in an electronics factory to sell satellite dishes) who was doing a bit of ‘moonlighting’ as a video director for private family occasions. By recording videos which are to be used in the pretence that they are showing current TV footage, the colleague, Dennis Domaschke, becomes crucial in keeping the fiction of the East Germany which Alex feeds to his mother alive. He emulates the turgid news-reading style of East German reporters to explain various happenings to which Christiane is exposed – a glimpse out of the window reveals a coca-cola advert – and later, when Christiane evades her sleeping son to take a stroll outside the flat, she becomes a witness to some apparently inexplicable sights – inexplicable, that is, until Alex finds a way of putting his mother’s mind at rest through Dennis’s hilarious fake newsreel. 

Another effort Alex makes which brings a great deal of comedy to the film is his relentless quest to find a jar of ‘Spreewald pickles’ which his mother has asked for. By this time, the old stock of East German goods had been cleared from the supermarkets to make way for western produce, and Alex fails to find the brand of his mother’s choosing, having to buy a chic Dutch alternative. However, he still has to make an effort with the packaging for which he roots around in the rubbish containers outside his block to find some old glass jars. At a time when many East Germans are losing their jobs, a passing neighbour, an elderly man, misinterprets his action as a desperate attempt to make ends meet by scouring garbage!

Some other typical features of the time are incorporated into the story – Alex and Lara find a new flat with ease, so many having been vacated by migrating easterners, ironic later when Christiane warns her son not to marry too quickly just to get accommodation.

Alex visits an ‘Osi-Markt’, an eastern market, where only east German goods could be sold, in order to help with the ambience of his mother’s ‘old world’ room. (I visited one such market myself in Dresden around this time). In the background are Germany’s triumph in the football world cup and the continuing pace of the unification, notably the currency reform. The latter event gives rise to a story which magnifies in an ironic way a reality for some East Germans at the time – missing the deadline on amounts of cash that were stashed away and forgotten.

So, as the film goes on, with the help of Dennis’s videos, hilarious for their irony, depicting ever more outrageous explanations of events which Christiane manages to witness. Alex gets more and more caught up in the non-reality he has created, to the extent that an extreme East-West tension erupts between him and Rainer.

The strangest twist of the tale, though, comes as a thunderbolt and leads Alex into a journey into his past which he would once never have expected to make…

  Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring

(Kim Ki-Duk):

  a Buddhist cyclical allegory and tale of spiritual enligtenment.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring (2003) (Korean with English subtitles)

 This film is entirely shot at a specially constructed one-room wooden temple set in the middle of a beautiful lake in Korea. The analogy of the seasons is connected to the stages of the life of the main character, a monk, whom we first meet as a young boy who is being trained by a Buddhist ‘Master’.

 The only way from and to the small hermitage where the two live is across the lake by boat – the whole area is very much isolated from the outside world. Very early on, the boy has to learn a hard lesson which foreshadows an event later in his life. He attaches a stone to each of a fish, frog and snake, thinking it is a joke. The Master ties a stone to the boy’s back while he’s sleeping in order to show him how painful and obstructive it must feel to the animals.

 With the stone still tied to his back, the boy is instructed to untie the stones from the animals, and he cries when he finds the snake dead as the Master warned him that if any animals had died as a result of his cruel act, he would carry the stone in his heart as long as he lives.

 We next see the boy grow into a young man – in the summer of his life. He is watching two snakes mating which sets the scene for the next part of the film – he falls in love with a sick young woman who is brought by her mother seeking a cure. Intimacy develops between them, and they make love at the edge of the lake. The Master sees the two drift back to the hermitage naked and asleep in the boat.  He unplugs it so that the entry of cold water will wake them.  He comments that what happened is natural, but as the girl is now better, she must have had the right medicine and she must leave.

 The young man wishes to leave to be with her, but the Master warns that desire leads to attachment, which in turn leads to the intention of killing. However, the young man does leave – he finds the influence of this intrusion into his protected world too strong.

 He is thirty when he returns in autumn to the Master, whose warning proved to be prophetic; as it turned out, the monk was unable to suppress his jealousy. The plot develops into a tale of guilt and torment, finally leading to reconciliation and atonement. Finally, in winter, the cycle of learning is set to start again until spring is finally reached once more.

It was interesting to see the footage on the supplementary DVD in which the director states that it doesn’t matter if the background to the story is Buddhist or Christian. He appears in the film himself as the middle-aged monk returning in winter. He is, in fact, a Catholic, but, as he also points out, an Asian director. He comments that he initially felt he was too young in his early forties to have the contemplative thoughts which are reflected in the film. There are plenty more interesting facts revealed here, so viewing the second DVD as well as the film itself is a must.

 The tale is allegorical – the stones represent our burdens which come to be revisited later on. The film shows that they can be overcome. The human beings in the film speak little, but animals feature quite prominently. Apart from those mentioned at the beginning, the tail of a cat is used to paint a sutra carved out by the monk to calm his anger before he leaves to pay his debt to society for his crime. To find out more, you will have to see the film yourself…

 I enjoyed this film especially because of its peaceful, serene ambience and its clear spiritual message.

Il Postino (The Postman) – dir. Michael Radford, 1994

Italian with English subtitles

The film is set in 1952 on a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, and is a tale that struck a chord with me about relationships, poetry and politics. It opens with a scene of a simple man, Mario Ruoppolo, and his father, who is a fisherman. Mario dreams of emigrating because of the difficult and jobless life he has at home.

Mario sees an advertisement for a temporary postman with a bicycle. He goes to apply, and on being questioned, says he could read and write, but not fast. It is explained to Mario that he will be the personal postman to Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet who has been exiled from his country and has been given a home on the island  which should remind him of home.

The boss at the Post Office is keen to emphasise Neruda’s communist allegiances, but Mario is more interested the fact that he writes love poems and receives a lot of mail from women..  On delivering the post, he arrives at times when Neruda is off guard, in a romantic moment with his wife Matilde. Mario becomes fascinated by the power of Neruda’s love poems and starts to learn about metaphors. As Neruda explains them, it appears there is far more to the humble postman when he asks Neruda if the whole world is a metaphor for something else! A friendship develops between the two as Mario falls in love with a local girl, Beatrice, and enraptures her with love poems, at first using Neruda’s poems and then his own. There are some comical scenes; ironically echoing Neruda’s communist sentiments, Mario states that poems belong to the people who need them, not the people who write them, and Beatrice’s aunt, being illiterate, takes Mario’s poems to her niece to the Priest to read and allows herself to believe that Mario has taken advantage of her.  It is also touching to witness Mario speaking into a tape recorder as part of a message to sympathisers at home.

Mario and Beatrice get married, with Neruda as Best Man, and at the wedding feast he learns that he and Matilde can return to Chile. So Neruda leaves, and the following year the election is won by the opportune Christian Democrats, who clearly have no intention of spending money on the island with no running water once they are in power. A long time passes, and it appears that Neruda has forgotten his old friend. Eventually, though, Mario does receive a letter – but not the one he expected. However, Mario’s devotion to Neruda continues to be shown by his use of the taper ecorder, his desire to name his and Beatrice’s child after him, and his dedication to communism.

This really is a wonderful film which was received acclaim the following year  which, unhappily, the lead actor Massimo Troisi did not live to see – already ill with a heart ailment during filming, and unable to work then more than one or two hours on the set per day, he died, aged 41 the day after the film was finished.  

The Road Home

Chinese (Mandarin) with English subtitles

Directed by Zhang Yimou

Starring Zhang Ziyi and Zheng Hao

This film was made around the turn of the millenium. It relates a very simple but beautiful tale, based on the novel ‘Remembrance’ by Bao Shi, and the original Chinese title means ‘My Father and Mother’.  It starts with a man named Yusheng  returning to his home village Shanhetun  after the sudden death of his father. On talking to his mother, he finds that she is absolutely adamant that the coffin be carried back to the village so he knows his way back; this was following an ancient custom. The son talks with the mayor and tries to persuade his mother that it was impractical as there were only old people and children available in the village. What is more, nobody had done it since the Cultural Revolution. But he cannot change her mind, and she sets about weaving the cloth for the coffin.

 The film then flashes back to the courtship between Yusheng’s parents many years before. His mother, Zhao Di was 18 when the 20-year-old Luo Changyu arrived to be the village schoolteacher. Zhao Di lived with her blind mother, a widow, but was considered the prettiest girl in Shanhetun. The women of the village cooked meals to be taken to the site where the village men, along with Changyu, was working on building the new schoolhouse. Zhao Di was always hopeful that Changyu was picking her dishes. She was also chosen to weave the red cloth to be wound around the rafters on the new building. It was later said that Changyu never had the ceiling completed because the red banner reminded him of her.

 Zhao Di’s mother felt she could not encourage her daughter who was illiterate, in her love for Changyu. But Zhao Di loved to hear the schoolteacher’s voice, chanting out recitations for the children, and staged a ‘chance’ meeting as he escorted pupils home. The feelings appeared to be mutual as he expressed a desire to fetch water from the same well Zhao Di was using.

 The village families were to take it in turns to invite the new teacher to eat in their homes – but on the day that it was Zhao Di’s turn, Changyu was starting to show his interest in Zhao Di when some men arrived to take him to the city for questioning. Zhao Di tried to follow him as he was transported along the road out of the village; she carried some food, but lost the hairpin Changyu had given her and accidentally smashed the bowl in the attempt. The hairpin was found, and as it became clear that Zhao Di was freely expressing her love by taking care of the schoolhouse – the village’s first love match – her mother also had the bowl repaired.

 Whatever the reason for Changyu’s absence, he was away for some time. Although some reviews suggest that this episode took place during the Cultural Revolution, it would be more feasible looking at the film that it was earlier - at the time of Mao’s ‘Ant-Rightist’ campaign of the late fifties. When it was rumoured that Changyu was returning to the village, Zhao Di waited by the road so long, then setting off down it to look for him in the city, she fainted by the road and was carried back. She then became very sick.  Changyu, did come back shortly afterwards, but, as it turned out, had sneaked away to see her when he had heard of her illness. For this disobedience, he had to remain away from her for more than two years longer. When he did finally return, Zhao Di was there by the road to greet him. They were never separated again from that point.

 Back in the present, Yusheng, realising the importance the road played in the courtship of his parents, set about meeting the wishes of his mother for his father’s funeral. The affection Changyu held in the hearts of so many former school pupils then became apparent – so many turned up to be coffin bearers. In relation to the school, Yusheng was to perform one last task to help his mother remember and to fulfil a wish of his father…

What I like about this story is its simplicity, the free expression of love beyond social constraints and the enduring symbolism of the village road in the journey through life the couple made together in their relationship which developed against all odds.

 http://www.sonyclassics.com/theroadhome/

Wings of Desire

Wim Wenders, 1987, screenplay Wim Wenders/Peter Handke

Starring Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk

German (some French) with English subtitles, some English.

Much has been written about this film already, and, no doubt, if I keep watching it, I will find something new in it every time. Set in a divided Berlin in the late 1980s, the story centres on Damiel, an angel, who wishes to become human. It is a very wordy film; Damiel and his companion Cassiel talk in a lofty German about the human condition they witness. They both have the ability to read human minds and compare notes on the sights and thoughts they witness. These may range from the banal and everyday to more momentous events – a woman giving birth, a man dying on the roadside after an accident, and, later a man committing suicide.

Originally titled ‘Himmel über Berlin’ (Heaven Above Berlin), the backdrop of Berlin is the perfect location – the director Wim Wenders describes it as an ‘island’, separate from the rest of Germany. There is a confusion of voices, both east and west, and international – those non-Germans who live in or are visiting the city. Among them is a French circus trapeze artist named Marion. She is the main motivating factor in Damiel’s desire to attain mortality. He wished for a sexual relationship, but also for the tangibility of human life; the chance NOT to be all-knowing. This is the reverse of the idea in ancient myths when kings desired to attain that which belonged to the gods and fell down in the attempt. However, in contrast, and as we will find out, Damiel’s success in his quest turns out to be his fulfilment. 

 The portrayal of the woman he falls in love with as a trapeze artist has its connections with flight – she wears mock-wings as part of her act, and there is therefore already a parallel established with an angel. However, her existence in the circus is just as precarious as her act – she is on a threshold as the circus closes for its season and her makeshift home disappears from one of Berlin’s many pieces of waste ground. These areas of the city, largely created due to the presence of the wall, also set the scene for the side-theme created by the character of Homer, ‘mankind’s storyteller’. The angels already have an insight into the history of the world – but shots of the end of the second world war set the scene for Homer’s own search for the past – for the Potsdamer Platz, a square that used to be there before the city was divided. We also see Homer in the library – a ‘serene place – home to the angels’, as Wenders visualises it. Homer questions why an epic of peace has never been written. Later he states that there would have been no need for murder war if we could have found the hidden passes that exist. A human thought previously witnessed by Cassiel, however, expressed the idea that each individual soul is a state within himself, requiring a password to enter.

The theme of war is also the subject of a film in which the other main character, Peter Falk, is acting. Falk plays himself – an actor, talking in English, of course – but his role is essential in helping Damiel with his decision, because, as we later find out, he had also been an angel. Through him, we become convinced that Damiel will find happiness. In marked contrast to the refined German scripted by Peter Handke for the angels, Peter Falk’s part is largely unscripted, and the scenes presented – trying on hats, sketching extras, were things which Falk genuinely did. There is a nice touch when a group of youths think they recognise him as Colombo as he wanders across some wasteland but then dismiss the idea that it could be him!

 The film is shot in black and white to show the essential and profound perspective of the world that the angels have. By means of Henri Alekan’s excellent cinematography, we see Damiel’s inability to possess anything material – he ‘picks up’ a stone which materially remains where it was. As he leaves, the scene is shown in colour, as are any other scenes which show only the human world. So it is when Damiel finally makes his crossing to becoming a human. Appropriately, this part is also filmed at the wall, the two angels apparently crossing over to the east side to discuss Damiel’s decision. In reality, permission was not granted to film in the east – the idea of angels crossing the Wall would have been totally taboo – so a makeshift wall was constructed to resemble the plain, unpainted eastern side of the Wall. Cassiel then carries his now mortal friend back to the heavily decorated west side, with all its many colours. I recalled my own experiences of the divided Berlin, and, in particular, a song by Wolf Biermann about a friend who had escaped from east to west, entitled 'Er ist hinüber'. This was a double entendre meaning that he had crossed to the other side, but also that he could be dead.

Throughout the film, there are quotes from Handke’s Song of Childhood. The theme of this poem shows that many aspects of childhood are carried into adulthood, but in some cases, the adult has to shift emphasis according to his responsibilities. Damiel, still looking for Marion, sits in the middle of a field, and is approached and questioned by some children. He replies that he has a 'need'. It appears that it is the need for the human contact that he has so yearned for. 

So the film contains the dualities; the eternal and the transient, the ethereal and the carnal, the sublime and the banal, the heavenly and the earthly.

In Marion’s last monologue, she talks about the union between her and Damiel against the background of other human experiences of union; to finish, a quote which I find particularly suitable by way of summary:

'It does not suggest that a choice must be made between the spiritual and the material, since Damiel's quest is not a denial of the spirit but a wish to live a life in which spirit and body are united. Similarly, no choice is to be made between the lofty and the everyday...not presented as mutually exclusive alternatives, but rather as opposites to be embraced within a framework that is open and comprehensive enough to leave room for them all'.

Richard Raskin, 'What is Peter Falk Doing in 'Wings of Desire?''

http://www.wim-wenders.com/movies/movies_spec/wingsofdesire/wingsofdesire.htm

Whale Rider

Niki Caro 2002, English with some Maori

Starring: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, Cliff Curtis

 Based on the novel of the same name by Witi Ihimaera

 I am completely taken by this film – I have watched it several times, and each time I see something more in it; it is so inspirational. A Maori girl is born, descended from a long line of chiefs, her twin brother dying, along with her mother, during the birth. Her father, who did not want the responsibility of the traditional leadership, is grief-stricken and moves abroad to sell his art work, returning only occasionally for short periods. The girl, named Pai - Paikea being the ancient chief who arrived on a whale for the sake of his people, is cared for by her grandparents, and grows up to develop a special sense of destiny about her role in her community, which is struggling to preserve traditional ways in the modern world.

 Central to the story is the great love, but also the conflict, that exists between Pai and her grandfather Koro, who has come to see arrival as the breaking of the ancestral line because she is a girl. He resolves to find a leader among the first-born boys in Whangara, the coastal village in North East New Zealand where the film is shot, but fails in his attempt.

 Pai, now 12, almost leaves to live abroad with her father but finds the call to stay too strong – she has a sense of the spiritual link with the whales the people have through the legend of the Whale Rider and returns. Convinced within herself of her destiny to lead, she is supported by her grandmother and learns traditional ways in defiance of her grandfather. In the end, it is Pai who passes the ultimate test which the other boys in the village failed, and her grandfather is finally forced to accept that, she is, indeed, the person to take on this special role.

 There are many other features of this film that make it so special – the mystical music of the shell flute has to be mentioned – but, for me personally, some quotes that show the wisdom that shines through this film:

 Pai, when talking of the tragedy surrounding her birth - her survival as a baby when her brother died:

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault, it just happened”.

 Flowers, her grandmother, when Pai passes the test and is asked if she will tell Koro:  “He’s not ready yet”.

 Pai, when the whales arrived on the beach: “ I called them and they came, but it wasn’t right. They were dying”.

 Koro, when he realises Pai’s destiny, contrary to everything he has believed: “Wise leader, forgive me, I am just a fledgling new to flight”.

 Twice in the film, the use of rope is symbolic of the breaking with old traditions, showing that the community is coming adrift from its spiritual past. However, in this struggle to find a balance between new and old, there remains a great love binding the community together, a love seen in the relationships within Pai’s family; a love, which, finally, she succeeds in spreading through her willingness to sacrifice herself to achieve the role of leader she was born to fulfil.

http://www.whaleriderthemovie.com/

Goodbye Bafana

www.goodbyebafana.com

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