161 min
Archive for the ‘germany’ Category
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé, 2009)
March 28, 2011William Shatner’s Mysteries of the Gods (1976)
February 21, 2010
The Young Törless (Volker Schlöndorff, 1966)
February 6, 2010Der junge Törleß
DE, 87 min
The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926)
February 4, 2010
Decoder (Muscha, 1984)
December 21, 2009w. DE, 87 min
Hamburg, 1983. F.M. is a youngster leading an idle urban life, totally alienated from his environment, and only active when making “sound experiments” in his home studio. Christiana, his girlfriend, works in a peepshow on Reeperbahn. A chronically depressed customer is infatuated by her and tries to get more closely acquainted. The relationship between F.M. and Christiana is cool and distant, except for the moments at breakfast, when they share the muddled visions of their dreams.
One day F.M. suddenly wakes up to the reality around him, as he notices how the inconspicuous background music at a hamburger joint may have some connection with the junk food. It dawns on him that muzak is designed to control and brainwash the masses, not unlike lobotomy. On top of its paralysing effects, muzak is also laced with subliminal messages. F.M. decides to go back to the restaurant and records the muzak for his own purposes. He starts to develop a form of “anti-muzak” in his studio, by playing the original material backwards, or at a wrong speed, or by mixing it with interfering factors like sounds of street riots or squealing frogs.
[spoilers follow]
In a dream of his F.M. receives support for his one-man war from an old shopkeeper (William Burroughs) selling electronics spare parts. He gives F.M. a disassembled cassette with the advice “This is all you need!” While wandering around the city, F.M. runs into members of a shady cult, “the pirates”, who have taken over an abandoned building in order to practice their nocturnal rituals of “black noise”. The core of their high priest’s (Genesis P-Orridge) message is: “Information is like a bank. Some of us are rich, while others are poor. It is our mission to rob that bank.” F.M. and the pirates decide to co-operate. They perform terrorist attacks in Burger Kings and McDonalds, armed with cassette players and anti-muzak. The customers get sudden nausea attacks and start rushing to the exits
The action continues around the city, until the mighty Muzak Corporation intervenes by sending agent Jger to track down the tape terrorists. Things get complicated when F.M. finds out that Christiana’s secret admirer and regular peepshow visitor is none other than Jger himself. All the while, F.M. and the pirates keep copying more anti-muzak cassettes and distributing them to people in the streets. Mass hysteria and general chaos ensue.
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantin, 2009)
October 10, 2009USA/DE, 153 min
Snow White & the 7 Perverts, Parts 1 & 2 (1975)
April 5, 2009Schneeflittchen hinter den 7 bergen, Teil 1 & 2
DE, 6 min
second recently-viewed politically incorrect animated snow white parody
Ah Pook Is Here (1994)
April 2, 2009
The Tin Drum (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979)
March 11, 2009
the Scream of Stone (Werner Herzog, 1991)
March 10, 2009Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein
CA/DE/FR/BE, 105 min
oops, only this crap vhs copy
i think the world has forgotten this film…
Woyzeck (Werner Herzog, 1979)
March 10, 2009
the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (W. Herzog, 1974)
March 7, 2009Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle
Every man for himself and God against them all
DE (w.), 110 min
the first of herzog’s two films starring the very intriguing bruno s.
based on the true and mysterious story of kaspar hauser,
the 19th-century german near-feral manchild,
depicted above.
A young man suddenly appeared in the street in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or walk, and bearing a strange note. The “foundling” (Findling) later explained that he had been held captive in a dungeon of some sort for his entire life and had only just been released, for reasons unknown…
Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977)
March 6, 2009
the Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (W. Herzog, 1967)
March 3, 2009Die Beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreuz
DE (w.) / 14 min / b&w / short
“…My next film, also shot in 35 mm, was The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz which was financed by the money I got from the screenplay award (note: for Signs of Life). The four actors got something, but the basic expenses were for the raw stock and the lab fees. It is a short film about a group of young men protecting an abandoned castle from imaginary attackers. It is the same kind of theme that I worked with in Signs of Life a few years later. People think they are being besieged, yet there is actually no enemy and they are left in the lurch.” — wiki
the Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (Werner Herzog, 1974)
February 26, 2009
Marianne and Juliane (Margarethe von Trotta, 1981)
February 25, 2009
the Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (Volker Schlöndorff & Margarethe von Trotta, 1975)
February 25, 2009der Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum
DE (w.), 103 min
frau aweh showed this to us in high school
and had us read the damn thing
auf deutsch…
she was awesome.
