documentary, movies

0048 – Der Untergang (2004)

spacetime coordinate: April – May 1945, Germany / Battle of Berlin / the Führerbunker

Der-Untergang_poster_goldposter_com_15

Downfall (German: Der Untergang) is a 2004 German-Italian-Austrian historical war drama film depicting the final 12 days of Adolf Hitler‘s rule over Nazi Germany in 1945. It was based on several histories of the period.

Der-Untergang_poster

The film begins with an excerpt from the documentary Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary (2002), featuring the real Traudl Junge expressing her guilt and shame for admiring Hitler in her youth. The film continues showing Hitler (Bruno Ganz) hiring Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) as his secretary at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia in November 1942.

The story resumes on 20 April 1945, the Führer’s birthday, during the Battle of Berlin.


_____

imdb

movies

0044 – Hard to Be a God (2013)

Hard to Be a God (Russian: Трудно быть богом, translit. Trudno byt’ bogom) is a 2013 Russian science fiction film directed by Aleksei German, based on the novel Hard to Be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Text_Plakat 18_2

A group of 30 scientists travel from Earth to a nearly-identical alien planet that is culturally and technologically centuries behind. The inhabitants of this planet have brutally suppressed a renaissance movement, murdering anybody they consider to be an intellectual, and thus the planet is stuck in the middle ages.

____

imdb

movies, quotes

0040 – georgica (1998)

spacetime coordinate: post-World War II Estonia

Georgica is a 1998 Estonian drama film directed by Sulev Keedus. The film takes its name from Virgil‘s poem of the same name.

The action takes place in post-World War II Estonia. An old man lives alone on a deserted island which the Soviet fighter planes use for nighttime target practicing. A young neglected boy, who has become mute, is banished from the mainland and sent to the island to keep the old man company. Both are haunted by memories, the boy about his mother and the old man about the years before World War I he spent as a missionary in Africa.


Jakub: If you want to live and survive… then wait… Wait…and do what you’ve got to do. And then…wait again… This is the best thing you can do in this world…
I have seen it and I can tell you… You may push but only slightly… And then wait again… And you’ll live your life – and eat bread and honey… I eat honey –
and translate this old Vergil into Swahili… And I make silage for the animals on the continent… And you too will start talking when the right time has come…
(…) This end of the wax cylinder, it’s still quite empty… This is for you… Then later you can hear what your voice was like – when you were on the island – with an old man, a horse and some bees…

movies, music

038 – Carol (2015)

spacetime coordinate: Christmas season of 1952 – early 1953 / New York City > Waterloo, Iowa

carolCarol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay, written by Phyllis Nagy, is based on the 1952 semi-autobiographical romance novel The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy and Kyle Chandler. Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.

1118full-carol-poster

Carol was shot on Super 16 millimeter film to resemble the look and feel of photographic film from the late 1940s/early 1950s. The cinematography was influenced by the photojournalism of Vivian MaierRuth OrkinHelen Levitt, and Esther Bubley. Photography by Saul Leiter (known for shooting through windows and using reflection) was a key influence.

Prior to production, director Todd Haynes compiled a playlist of 79 songs and instrumental music that were popular during the period Carol is set in (including songs referenced in the novel “The Price of Salt”) to assist in further understanding the era and mood of the times.

Director Todd Haynes creates image books as a guide to the visual feel of his films, going back to his drama Safe (1995). The compendiums are culled from photographs, film stills, paintings, periodicals and other sources to generate ideas for the film’s style. They are meant initially for the cinematographer. (The books are not to be confused with storyboards, the shot-by-shot breakdowns he has made since his first feature, Poison(1991).) His image books are “a way of communicating beyond words that gets to the crux of what the mood, temperature and stylistic references would be.” For Carol “it becomes great reference for clothes, hair, makeup, the way women carry themselves in the period and the specificity of how they’re being created from the outside in.” The image book includes, for example, references to other films such as: Brief Encounter(1945) and Vertigo (1958) for their sense of period, and The Sugarland Express (1974) for its innovative cinematography by Vilmos ZsigmondLovers and Lollipops (1956) for the locations and The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for the interiors; and urban photography by Ernst Haas, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. Haynes assembles his image books almost as a kind of visual mixtape, pulling photos and movie screen grabs of his inspirations and laying them out in pages of collages to create a kind of virtual movie. Haynes created more than 80 pages of photo collages for “Carol” that served as a road map through the production. It took him two months to compile. [from N.Y.Times 1/28/2016 “Todd Haynes Collects Images to Guide the Feel of His Films”]


imdb   /   wiki

animation, movies

0023 – Immortel (ad vitam) 2004

spacetime coordinate: New York City, 2095

Immortal (French: Immortel, ad vitam) is a 2004 English language French live-action and animated science fiction film co-written and directed by Enki Bilal and starring Linda Hardy, Thomas Kretschmann and Charlotte Rampling. It is loosely based upon Bilal’s comic book La Foire aux immortels (The Carnival of Immortals).

Immortal was one of the first major films (along with Casshern and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) to be shot entirely on a “digital backlot“, blending live actors with computer generated surroundings. The French video game studio Quantic Dream helped produce much of the cinematics.

The film takes place in New York City in the year 2095 where genetically altered humans live side by side with unaltered men and women, and where Central Park has been mysteriously encased in an “intrusion zone” where people who attempt to enter are instantly killed. A strange pyramid has appeared over the city; inside, the gods of ancient Egypt have judged Horus, one of their fellow gods, to cease his immortality.

In the city below, Jill, a young woman with blue hair is arrested…


imdb

movies, quotes

009 – Kingdom of Heaven 2005 (director’s cut)

spacetime coordinate: 1184 France,  the Holy Land

The story is set during the Crusades of the 12th century. A French village blacksmith goes to aid the Kingdom of Jerusalem in its defence against the Ayyubid Muslim sultan Saladin, who is battling to claim the city from the Christians leading to the Battle of Hattin. The film script is a heavily fictionalised portrayal of the life of Balian of Ibelin (ca. 1143–93).


imdb