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off off beat beat cinema cinema Underground Cinema Magazine Amsterdam Issue #03 April 2011 Free amsterdam off off beat beat content cinema page 03: Editorial page 04: Lessons on love’s obscenity page 06: Attenberg dvd review page 10: Poecumentary page 12: Interview with Phil van Tongeren page 16: A Radical Pedagogy page 18: In Praise of Alternative Erotic Cinema page 20: Interview with Emile Zile page 24: From San Quentin to Hollywood. The life of Danny Trejo page 28: Amsterdam cinema overview page 34: OT301 events overview page 36: Cinésthesia page 37: Cine qua Non page 38: Cinema derive page 40: Cinemapasta page 41: Kino Praxis page 42: Column Luuk Huët amsterdam 003 Lessons on Love’s Obscenity obscène / obscene Discredited by modern opinion, love’s sentimentality must be assumed by the amorous subject as a powerful transgression which leaves him alone and exposed; by a reversal of values, then, it is this sentimentality which today constitutes love’s obscenity. A Lover’s Discourse 1 Roland Barthes, As with schools and cathedrals, the Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void (2009) If we follow Barthes point then, the present, and try to explore an cinema also plays a role in social- also transgresses mainstream ideas the most transgressive films of all old transgression that is often ne- izing us through its lessons on of love, but with images that are should be the ones that explore sen- glected. love. In the throes of passion, who extremely scarring. The film presents timentality, and not simply sexu- can deny uttering a line or perform- a critical deconstruction of inti- ality. In other words, there is an Together, let’s look into these les- ing a gesture that we once encoun- macy that focuses on the radical abject quality to sentimentality sons on love’s ultimate obscenity. tered on screen? In these moments, materiality of sex. There are images that surpasses even the most obscene with an uncanny sense of déjà vu, revealing p.o.v. close-ups of vagi- representations of sex (incest, Let’s redefine the sentimental… we briefly become the actors of our nal penetration, alongside orgiastic rape, paedophilia, etc), and for dreams; acting out films, in the mov- scenes of emptiness at a neon-Tokyo- this reason must be addressed in any Let’s take back sentimentality! ie that is our life. (oh god, what a brothel in the middle of the night. meditation on transgression. horrible admission…) Adam Chambers Although these films offer inspiring The pain we feel in Death in Venice But cinema also helps us transgress cinematic experiences, and succeed (1971), when Gustave von Aschenbach such images, moments, and gestures. in transgressing taboos and ste- slowly succumbs to his death, sit- Through its movements, it sometimes reotypes, perhaps they fall short ting on the beach, as he stares at guides us beyond the heteronormative in crossing what Roland Barthes his pure image of love; an adoles- impressions left upon our brains, describes as love’s most obscene cent boy representing everything he and reminds us that we still have aspect of all: namely, its sentimen- lacks. some semblance of control over whom tality. and what we love – even the concept Marco’s tears in Hable con ella of ‘love’ itself. In A Lovers Discourse, Barthes (2002) following the suicide of his writes that in our modern age, by friend – the man who taught him how Xavier Dolan’s recent J’ai tué ma some historical reversal, “it is no to love, and how to talk. mère (2009) offers audiences with a longer the sexual which is indecent, beautiful sex scene that far sur- it is the sentimental – censured in And in Mädchen in Uniform (1931), passes the usual depictions of high the name of what is in fact only the teacher-student relationship school romance. With collage-style another morality.”2 In other words, that reveals the deep pleasures of editing, and an abundance of paint, today, love’s true obscenity is its pedagogy, while truly pushing the the two male actors wrestle each sentimentality (it is what is most boundaries of critical cinematic other to the floor, and have sex to hidden by the morality police of eroticism. an awesome musical score. consumer culture). Together, with such films, let’s move beyond the conventional taboos of 004 / off beat cinema amsterdam 005 Attenberg FILM REVIEW Title: Attenberg Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari Producer: Giorgos Lanthimos Cinematographer: Thimios Bakatakis Cast: Ariane Labed, Vangelis Mourikis & Evangelia Randou Year: 2010 Language: Greek with Dutch subtitles 95 minutes In EYE and Kriterion from 28 april Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2582qyfXOSs Greek cinema is undeniably on the rise. It all started last year with the excellent and very off beat Dog- tooth (2009) picking up awards at prestigious international film festi- vals such as Cannes, in addition to receiving an Oscar nomination in the category Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. Now the equally absurd- ist black comedy-drama Attenberg (2010) hits our Amsterdam cinemas. And with this film, the Greek suc- cess continues as lead actress Ariane Labed picked up a Coppa Volti for Best Actress at last year’s Film Fes- tival in Venice. While Dogtooth was directed by Gior- gos Lanthimos and produced by Athina Rachel Tsangari, for Attenberg they switched roles. Both films share the same cinematographer, Thimios Bakata- kis, but the similarities don’t stop there. Both of these Greek cinema gems share a common, quirky look at the world and some of its inhabitants. After The Slow Business of Going (2000), this is Athina Rachel Tsan- 006 / off beat cinema Amsterdam 007 gari’s second feature film, for which she also wrote the screenplay. At- tenberg is the story of an underde- veloped 23 year old Marina (Ariane Labed); a highly observational and naive young woman. She acts like a little girl and has learned most of what she knows from watching animals in Sir David Attenborough’s nature programs. That’s also where the film gets its unusual title; being Mari- na’s mispronunciation of Sir David’s surname. Marina lives in a remote and aban- doned industrial environment where she only associates with two people; her father Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis) and her sexually aggressive girl- friend Bella (Evangelia Randou). By contrast, Marina has never slept with a man. With her father slowly dying of cancer, she feels the need to ma- ture and get in touch with her hidden sexual and more communicative self. When she meets a visiting engineer (Dogtooth director Giorgos Lanthimos) her life seems to get in a new and positive direction. From the long and awkward open- ing scene, in which Bella tries to teach Marina how to kiss in a way that only two six years olds would, one prepares for a very strange and sometimes pretty uncomfortable ride. These are obviously not people that live next door, but characters who we must learn to love. Luckily, Athina Rachel Tsangari makes this a lot easier then might be feared from that opening sequence. Tsangari manages to thoroughly engage us in her distant and aloof world by creating interesting and completely believable characters from unconven- tional social misfits Marina, Bella, and Spyros. With Attenberg, the Greek cinema wave has produced yet another delightful absurdist and offbeat dra- ma. Obviously, we at Off Beat Maga- zine are certainly looking forward to the next cinema treasure from Greece. Ronald Simons, 2011. 008 / off beat cinema amsterdam 009 Wolf, they also leave in the back- Poecumentary The other, The Four Times (Le quat- ground that which doesn’t concern tro volte, 2010), by Michelan- men directly. These films enable gelo Frammartino, takes place in the elements in the background (of Calabria, Southern Italy, and con- society and of an anthropocentric tains four wordless stories, or view of the world) to acquire their rather the same story embodied in dignity. Both works have the merit four characters: an old shepherd, of casting an honest and respect- a baby goat, a tree, and a pile of ful gaze to the filmed reality, and wood becoming coal. The old shep- not imposing the director’s view of herd spends the last days of his it; they raise questions but rather From Reality to Poetry – “Poecumentary” life leading his flock to pasture and leave the answers to the viewers. in Italian Contemporary Cinema treating his disease with the dust Both seem to respect the Kracauerian of the church, which he believes conception of cinema. According to to be sacred; a baby goat is born, him, film should not only represent goes to the first pasture but remains physical reality, but enable the behind the herd and gets lost; a viewer to see it anew: give a new majestic tree is cut down, and its visibility to a world which is like trunk is erected in the village’s Edgar Allan Poe’s purloined letter, Italian contemporary cinema has re- to misery, condemned to end up “in square for the annual festivity; the impossible to see precisely because cently shown the urge of finding new the mouth of the wolf” (the title tree is transformed into coal fol- it’s in plain sight. ways of expression and of setting is inspired by the homonymous ver- lowing the traditional technique of In this respect, these movies seem itself free from the burden of its ist novel by Remigio Zena). Enzo coal making. It is a story about the to follow the Neorealist prescrip- maestros. Among the most original films moved from Sicily to Genoa when he cycles of life, about the same soul tion of granting an objective and from the past few years, two of them was still a child.