onhiat.us

Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies is not for everyone. It is long, coming in at around two and a half hours (not too long considering his last movie is seven and a half hours in length). The average time of each shot is close to three minutes long. It is shot in black and white. There are no special effects or plot twists.

Yet Tarr’s style is mesmerizing and penetrating. It creates a dark, bleak world of relentless winters, muddy streets, and frightened citizens. The characters seem real. The black and white shots are sometimes dramatic, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes horrifying. I really enjoyed this film, but as I said, its not for everyone. I’ll provide the opening takes below as well as the song from the video.

Víg Mihály – Valuska

On July 30th 2007 filmmaker Ingmar Bergman died.

When I was a kid whenever I thought about cinema as an art he was the first name that always came to my mind. It’s not a hyperbole to say that he was a giant among giants. What I mean is, his works are absolutely fantastic. I actually got tears in my eyes when I read an e-mail from a friend telling me that he passed away. It is one of the most important losses to anyone that cares about humankind, art, relationship, life, beliefs, time, and death. I thought I should do this, it’s close to nothing but if one person that never watched any of his films reads this and watches one, it’ll be worth it. Very much.

I’ve spent the last couple days watching the 11 or so hours of footage of BBC’s Planet Earth, arguably the best nature documentary to date. It really is incredible, with shots in over 200 locations, and footage from the rare snow leopard in the Himalayas to creatures that still remain so seemingly extraterrestrial at the very depths of the ocean. Even if you did catch a couple clips of it when it aired on tv, I highly recommend renting or purchasing the entire series.

(Trailer, exerpts after Break)

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Last week on May 16th, the 60th edition of Cannes Festival opened. It’s arguably the most important and glamorous film festival in the world. The main competition, “Palme d’Or”, has 22 films this year which were selected amongst 1615 from 95 countries. The president of the this year’s jury is filmmaker Stephen Frears. Being British and with a more conservative approach it might be safe to say that surprises are not likely to happen. They are quite usual through history though, like when in 1999, the then obscure Dardenne brothers took the Palm d’Or with “Rosetta” in one of the most memorable editions of the festival, or in 1994 when the yet young Tarantino took the honors with “Pulp Fiction”. Tarantino is back this year alongside many Cannes regulars, Sokurov, Kar-wai, Gus Van Sant, Kim Ki Duk, Kusturica, to name a few. Check the complete list of what’s being featured this year in the eight sections of the festival. It’s impossible to speculate who the favorites are, given that it’s all premiere and the jury doesn’t always makes the best choice. After the first few days of competition, David Fincher’s “Zodiac” was very well received by critics and press while Kar-wai’s “My Blueberry Nights” had a tepid reception after high expectations because it’s the first time he made a film spoken in English with American actors and a NYC setting. One point of interest this year is that if Kusturica’s film wins, he’ll become the first person to get three best film Palm d’Or’s. Stay tuned at Cannes Festival’s official website to get daily updates.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari – 1920 – Robert Wiene

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc – 1928 – Carl Theodor Dreyer

Ugetsu monogatari – 1953 – Kenji Mizoguchi

The Night of the Hunter – 1955 – Charles Laughton

L’année derniére à Marienbad – 1961 Alain Resnais

Le Feu follet – 1963 – Louis Malle

Il deserto rosso – 1964 – Michelangelo Antonioni

Repulsion – 1965 – Roman Polanski

Point Blank – 1967 – John Boorman

Faces – 1968 – Jonh Cassavetes

Johnny Got His Gun – 1971 – Dalton Trumbo

Solyaris – 1972 – Andrei Tarkovski

Don’t Look Now – 1973 – Nicolas Roeg

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma – 1975 – Pier Paolo Pasolini

Berlin Alexanderplatz – 1980 – Rainer Werner Fassbinder

A Zed & Two Noughts – 1985 – Peter Greenaway

Dekalog – 1989 – Krzysztof Kieslowski

Chung hing sam lam – 1994 – Wong Kar-Wai

A Com̩dia de Deus Р1995 РJọo C̩sar Monteiro

Gummo – 1997 – Harmony Korine

He liu – 1997 – Tsai Ming-liang

Mat i syn – 1997 – Aleksandr Sokurov

L’humanité – 1999 – Bruno Dumont

Dancer in the Dark – 2000 – Lars von Trier

La Pianiste – 2001 – Michael Haneke