Investigating the Cinema of 2011

Posted on by harrietwarman

It’s January again, a time for planning the New Year’s activities, films to watch, ones to look forward to and also a time for reflection. Unsurprisingly I have been thinking about the films I’ve seen this year – of which there are hundreds when I include cinema outings, DVD’s rented, films watched online and special ones bought or borrowed.

In order to narrow down my review of 2011 however, I am going to concentrate merely on cinema experiences; represented here by pictures of the tickets I have archived for the year. They include those of re-released classics, as those moments when the lights go down and the curtain pulls back are truly ones worth investigating!

Pina by Wim Wenders

In no particular order then, I begin with Wim Wenders’ Pina, a 3D documentary about the late choreographer Pina Bausch. Featuring interviews with dancers and collaborators as well as archive material of Pina herself, some of the real pleasure of this film came from the new performances of her work. Whether on stage or taken outside into the landscape or urban space, the intangibility of the digital created a wonderful tension, as movements appeared indiscernible from one dancer to the next and leapt from the screen.

Le Quattro Volte, on the other hand, directed by Michelangelo Frammartino also contained one scene that seemed choreographed like a dance, although so precise as to utterly convince as an hilarious accident, involving a dog, a truck and some goats. An almost wordless film, philosophical in intention – I’m stuck as to other films I’ve seen recently that so perfectly combined form and content. I didn’t want it to end.

In total contrast to that I really enjoyed Attack the Block, the directorial debut of Joe Cornish, one half of comedy team Adam and Joe(the other being Adam Buxton, of course). Wearing its horror and sci-fi influences firmly on its sleeve, Attack the Block gloriously celebrated the underdog and the delights of analog effects. The simplicity of the creature design – a beast with seemingly impenetrable black fur and the wittiness of the dialogue combined for a truly refreshing and hilarious British film.

Speaking of darkness – never has it been put to such startling use than in Béla Tarrs’ Turin Horse. Bleak in tone, repetitive in its plot and seemingly negative overall – I was captivated. Not one to see if you require your films to have explosions, or character development or a happy ending but if, like me you appreciate a unique world view about humanity and survival, then I wholeheartedly recommend you seek out this film. Especially as Béla won’t be making any more – as he said himself at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011: this film expresses all he has to say, and being about ‘apocalypse’, is a fitting end to a near 40-year career.

Also at EIFF last summer I had the pleasure of attending a screening of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon (2000). Having spent some time working through the feature films of this most marvellous Thai director I was excited to see his early work on screen – a rarity for sure (discussion of those can be found elsewhere on this blog). ‘Joe’ as Apichatpong likes to be referred to, had sent a video introduction in his absence at the screening, and he described how the conditions of making the film were so unique and special they could never be repeated – something that can certainly be said of his other works. An impression is given of a truly magical filmmaking process and a film that seems to evolve instinctively rather than being planned down to the last detail. If you ever get the chance to see any of Joe’s films at the cinema – take it!

In a similar vein there was another retrospective title that has proven itself one of the more memorable screenings of 2011. I have read a lot about Terrence Malicks’ The Tree of Life being the top of ‘best film’ lists for last year (notably in Sight & Sound) but if was the restored version of Days of Heaven (1978) by the same director that really affected me. Projected at Filmhouse in glorious 70mm this was the perfect cinema experience. The story concerns a family of sorts who work as farm labourers – Bill (Richard Gere) and his lover Abby (Brooke Adams), pose as brother and sister to be more respectable, whilst keeping Bill’s sister Linda (Linda Manz) under their care. Their seemingly simple, tough but somewhat idyllic life becomes disrupted when the land owner (played by Sam Shepherd) falls for Abby. Malicks’ technique of using only natural light is never more spectacularly demonstrated than in the scenes of the cornfields at dusk, and sitting in the dark I was mesmerised.

Margaret

Moving back into the 21st century one of the last films I saw last year was also the best. Being someone who has championed Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me (2000) for many years, I was keen to say the least to see his latest film Margaret. The film was actually made in 2005, but due to disagreements with the films’ financiers Camelot Pictures and Fox searchlight (that Lonergan failed to fulfil the terms of his contract, having gone over budget and failing to deliver a film of the agreed length, and on time) the film is only now seeing the light of day – and only just. In an attempt to ‘bury’ the film, Fox gave no press screenings and only after demands from London critics and twitter/Facebook users to give the film more screenings has it gotten a wider release in the UK – an example of social networking being put to good use.

This is all only important because the film itself deserves to be seen. It has obvious flaws – its length, how messy it is and a central character (Anna Paquins’ astonishing performance as Lisa) that is very difficult to like. At the core though is a portrait of New York – damaged and traumatised post- 9/11 and portrayed beautifully by Lonergan as a place where traffic is constant, but only occasionally do people really relate to each other.

There were many more fantastic films released in 2011, and some of them I only managed to see on DVD, but they are too numerous to mention here. I’ve already had one most memorable experience this year – Raúl Ruiz’s four and a half hour epic, Mysteries of Lisbon, which proved itself to be a true feast of cinema. I hope the year’s cinematic treats provide more opportunities for investigation.

We go there to escape, to find ourselves again…

Posted on by harrietwarman

Yesterday I attended a screening of Into Great Silence (Philip Gröning, 2005) at the Edinburgh Filmhouse. Playing in a packed cinema 2, projected on 35mm, the film had the audience sat utterly rapt, caught up in the atmosphere of near silence and awe. It was the kind of cinema experience you hope to have every time you enter the auditorium, but one that is sadly sporadic. I’ve written about this type of unique communal joy in the darkness before on my blog, and I certainly felt it seeing Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2010) at EIFF this summer, but Into Great Silence seems to be congealing somewhat inside me, so I felt the need to ponder over its lingering effect.

The idea of the movie theatre being akin to something religious, reverent is not an original one. Terence Davies talks of the influence of Catholicism in his work, favouring symmetrical framing and use of light that echoes the alter and stained-glass windows, not to mention the use of characters singing perhaps signalling a choir of angels. In his documentary, Of Time and the City (2008) his velvety voiceover speaks of cinema replacing religion in his life; this is certainly an experience I can relate to as well. Do we all need something to fixate on? Do we need something to be completely passionate about? If this is God for some, it may be cinema, and the movie-theatre, for others.

The French social-anthropologist, Edgar Morin wrote in his underappreciated book, The Cinema, or the Imaginary Man (1956, 1978) about the movie theatre providing conditions that are conducive to a reverent state. The darkness, reclined seating, presence of strangers, and flickering projector combine to allow the spectator to enter into a different state of mind:

The spectator in a “dark room” is, on the contrary, a passive subject in a pure state… for the spectator, deep in his cell, a monad closed off to everything except the screen, enveloped in the double placenta of an anonymous community and obscurity, when the channels for action are blocked, then the locks to myth, dream, and magic open up.

-P97, UMP.

Of course in the age of 3D and live satellite broadcast, most of the time the spectator cannot be considered to be closed-off, (especially if they’re of the type to check their phone in the cinema). However, I feel Morin’s description is highly applicable to the type of experience I had seeing Into Great Silence. Of course, I can’t ignore the subject of the film as a contributory factor: a near three-hour documentary, with no commentary, observing the almost completely silent day to day lives of the inhabitants of the Grand Prior of the Carthusian Order, a monastery high on the French Alps. Adjusting myself to the pace of the film, the audience and I seemed to slip into a meditative state, colluding with the cyclical rhythm of the film, our mutual appreciation made apparent when the image-switched to slapstick – monks sledging provided a small release of hysteria amongst the ‘congregation’.

Reverence therefore, can still be felt at the cinema. At a screening of his film The First Movie, Mark Cousins declared he felt cinema to be incredibly reverent, and if you’ve seen his The Story of Film: An Odyssey on More4 you will know that his musical voice-over drips of this sentiment in every word.

I wonder if others have had experiences like this in the past decade? In the 1990’s Susan Sontag declared the decay of cinema, but I think that we have now come back to an age of wonderful, exciting films. Even despite the financial restrictions that all artists face, cinema worthy of reverence is still being created, at least that’s what I believe.