The Panorama sidebar at this year’s Berlinale overflows with documentaries. Especially documentaries about either a) gay life around the world or b) downtown New York during the 1980s. Both of which, some might say, are closely related. As well as portraits of Warhol superstars and stories of gay life in Paraguay, there’s a search for enlightenment David Lynch-style and a new film from the director of Control Room. Click on the title for trailers and other clips.
Alle meine Stehaufmädchen – Von Frauen, die sich was trauen (All My Tumbler Girls Or All About Women Who Dare To…)
Ever wonder what it’s like being a woman over 40 living in Berlin? Lothar Lambert did, so he went out and interviewed 11 associates. Although well-known in Germany, friends like photographer Erika Rabau and painter Evelyn Sommerhoff may not mean a lot to international audiences. Lambert’s doc highlights the common threads of their lives as well as the differences. Fun fact lazily obtained from Wikipedia: The name “Berlin” is possibly derived from “Berl,” an Old Polabian stem meaning “swamp.”
Klaus Nomi fans will recognize Joey Arias’s name. He was the singer’s confidant during the Lower East Side’s ‘80s heyday. Since his lover’s death Arias has emerged as a formidable performance artist in his own right. Bobby Sheehan documents his collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist on Arias With a Twist and digs up related footage that featuring Jim Henson and Andy Warhol. Fun fact lazily obtained from Wikipedia: While working at the Fiorucci boutique, Arias took part in the first live display in the shop’s windows.
It says something about the extraordinary Antichrist that the first time Squally saw it, the film felt like a comedy. The second time, it felt like a tragedy. The movie was greeted with jeers at Cannes, which writer/director Lars von Trier brushed off with the proclamation, “I am the world’s greatest filmmaker.”
The critics were trying to take Antichrist too seriously. In dealing with the disintegration of a woman, after all, Von Trier was walking on hallowed ground. The cracked woman is a favorite trope of (male) directors, whether it’s Marnie or Rebecca, Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, Monica Vitti in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert, any number of women in Bergman’s films, Gena Rowlands in John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence, Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’s Safe, or especially Isabelle Huppert in The Piano Teacher, by von Trier’s bete noire, Michael Haneke. Squally could go on, but let’s just say that it’s one of the greatest clichés of the art house cinema: a beautiful woman goes to pieces, the beautiful actress who plays her is acclaimed for the performance.
A Serious Man is not a nice movie. Like both No Country for Old Men or Burn After Reading, it’s a film where the pieces don’t quite add up. You could compare it to Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, except the Coen Brothers are less interested in sifting through history than grappling with the eternal mysteries. Man depicts a kind of war against God, a war which is always going to be one-sided. As the protagonist Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) puts it at one point, why does God give man so many questions if He’s not going to provide any answers?
Filmmaker Magazine brought our attention to Errol Morris‘ latest advertisement. Try to guess what he’s shilling before it gets to the end. Then meet us after the jump.
David Lynch‘s interest in transcendental meditation is usually treated as another exhibit in the prosecution’s “He’s so wacky!” case. The more you think about it, however, The Straight Story starts making a lot of sense. And Buddha’s voice starts coming through the white light in our ceiling. Here the Inland Empire director stumps for a new online channel for his Foundation, which is advocating for TM to be introduced into schools. That interests us about as much as the forthcoming Paul McCartney concert, but we’d sure like to goof on those red curtains.
Since most of my time is spent picking my nose and eating chocolate chips cookies out of a trough, I’ve always figured getting a Twitter feed was a little pointless. It would make much more sense to simply hand out coins with “eating chocolate chip cookies” on one side and “digging for gold” on the other, and let the follower flip as appropriate. David Lynch, however, has a bit of a fuller slate. So stumbling on his Twitter feedis cause for celebration. And celebration means White Fudge Chips Ahoy chez Showers.
Lynch’s Tweets are a mix of his press release-style material, DavidLynch.com weather reports and a “thought for the day.” His current mantra=
“The number and depth of those moments of silence with activity in the production of a work (continued …) … directly influence the true value of the product.”
Yeah, character count’s a bitch, huh? (Logic, too!) But there are few bum notes in this man’s birdsong. Lynch has even pointed the way to a YouTube clip of a short film he submitted to Los Angeles’ NuArt movie housein the early 1980s. The clip has Lynch thanking NuArt for their support Eraserhead and seems to record a brief flirtation with garden gnome imagery that, sadly, has not appeared elsewhere in the director’s work. Think positive thoughts, team!
The Coen Brothers direct an advertisement for clean coal. As Gary Oldman says in Batman Begins, “Gotta get me one of those!”
Admittedly, the Coens seem to be satirizing corporate language more than the cleanliness of our coal. Over at MacLeans.ca, Alexandra Shimo tries crunching the numbers.
Hey you, throwing that cup out your car window! David Lynch wants you to clean up New York … AND IT’S BLOODY TERRIFYING!
SquallyShowers 