Bela Tarr's masterpiece: The Turin Horse (2011)

Bela Tarr is a hungarian film director. For 30 years he has been tracing his own path in cinematic greatness with a vision, an integrity and perseverance worthy of a Bergman or a Tarkovsky. His new film "The Turin Horse" (2011) is a real masterpiece. The film's starting point is the following real event in the life of Nietzsche:

"In Turin on the 3rd of January 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, the driver of a hansome cab is having trouble with a stubborn horse. Despite all his urging, the horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche comes up to the throng and puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse's neck, sobbing. His landlord takes him home, he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan until he mutters the obligatory last words ("Mutter, ich bin dumm."), and lives for another ten years, silent and demented, cared for by his mother and sisters. We do not know what happened to the horse."



So Bela Tarr with the pretext of continuing the story and finding out what happened to the horse and its owner, explores the philosophical depths of the human condition. In a recent interview, Bela Tarr says that "The Turin Horse is about the heaviness of human existence. How it’s difficult to live your daily life, and the monotony of life. We didn’t want to talk about mortality or any such general thing. We just wanted to see how difficult and terrible it is when every day you have to go to the well and bring the water, in summer, in winter... All the time. The daily repetition of the same routine makes it possible to show that something is wrong with their world. It’s very simple and pure."

The slow, glacial rhythm of the cinematography with minimal cutting between scenes together with the haunting minimalist soundtrack that blends with the constant wind sound in the background, have a strange effect on the viewer draging him into the room, making him a part of the preceedings.



Dialogue is sparse or even absent in the greater part of the film and it therefore comes as a shock when an outside character bursts into the confined world of the father and daughter to deliver a monologue. Everything that Bela Tarr wants to say is contained in this one or two minute monologue. It is immediately dismissed by the father as rubbish but as a viewer, these few words leave an indelible mark.



The way Bella Tarr films each scene is extraordinary because each silence is pregnant with alternatively absurd noise and meaning and every object in the camera frame is transformed by time, space, light and shadow into something symbolic, a key that unlocks the next level.

From an esthetic point of view, the camera angles and the setting of certain scenes seem to be inspired from the world of painting. From Vermeer, to Gustave Dore and from the "potato eaters" of Van Gong to Caravaggio they are all there. Take a close look for example at the way the father is filmed when awaking from bed. The camera is placed at the end of the bed and the viewer is not watching a film anymore but staring at Mantegna's painting "Lamentation over the Dead Christ" (1490). At other camera angles, it's the anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" (1632) of Rembrandt. The way the palinka bottle and glass are filmed on the table bring the photographs of André Kertesz to life. Then, in another scene, the photograph of the Appiani family tomb in the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno in Genoa, Italy, by Demetrio Paernio, found on the cover of the "Closer" album of Joy Division, comes to mind. Or the photograph of Che Guevara lying dead on the stretcher. The references are endless.



Elements of Beckett and the existentialist theatre of the absurd can also be found in the chained relationship between father and daughter. The viewer feels paralysed by the harshness of everyday life, of every hour and moment lived under extreme conditions with eternal monotonous repetition of actions and events and no divine or other intervention to end the torture of Sisyphus. The daughter and the father some times take turns to stare out of the window for hours. We have replaced that window with a computer screen but nothing has changed fundamentally.



The critics that say that the films of Bela Tarr are dark, difficult and pessimistic are beside the point. What Bela Tarr succeeds in doing is breaking the narrative mold of modern cinematography, reinventing the power of the image and effectively creating a true cinematic experience that has been missing since the demise of Andrei Tarkovsky.

On seeing the last photograph of Oscar Wilde

The last photograph. Taken in 1900, a few months before he died. There he stands unrecognisable. It's him. But people in the street now pass him by and no one stops, no one whispers. You see, gone are the locks, gone are the Dandy and the scandal, gone is the panache and the nonchalance.

Just an overweight gentleman. Awkward he finds what was effortless before. And a broken man, he has no time for wit and all that goes with it. In fact everything feels already published and long ago out of print. Oh yes, the portrait hidden in the attic has already started to look all the better.

The inevitable decay of light into darkness, of fame into infamy, of Oscar into Dorian and of Wilde into tame, has finally caught up with him. The bargain is not valid anymore. Just a last photograph. For all time's sake. "Try taking the profile", he said. "I am tired of looking straight at the camera. I've been doing that all my life."

It only took a few more months, for the last blemish to be wiped clean as if by magic from the portrait of Dorian Gray in the attic. Eternity was finally his.

The subversive humour of John Cage

When John Cage delivered a lecture or wrote an article, you could rest assured that the result would be uncompromising and unusual in form and substance as the music he composed. It was sometime in late 1958 or 1959 that he decided to give a talk that was nothing but a series of unrelated stories which were accompanied by music including several radios which were provided as noise elements. He said that his intention was to put the stories together in an unplanned way so as to suggest that all things - stories, incidental sounds from the environment, and, by extension, beings - are related, and this complexity is more evident when it is not oversimplified by an idea of relationship in one person's mind. The stories ranged from diary notes, thoughts, to memories and conversations and simply anything that he could recall fitted the "story" category. The mundane and the extraordinary, the sad and the happy, the complicated and the simple mix and sometimes leave a trace. Other times they simply evaporate...

In the following short, one minute story, taken from the lecture, it's all down to the individual versus society. It's the rules against common sense. It's just an everyday event where one is part of it and then forgets it. But John Cage noted it all down. And it was delivered together with another 59 against the music and radio noise in the background.

But if you leave the experiment aside and just read the stories as stories for what they are worth, you will discover that John Cage was somebody with a wonderful sense of humour that never failed to be subversive and ask the right questions.

- A crowded bus on the point of leaving Manchester for Stockport was found by its conductress to have one too many standees. She therefore asked, "Who was the last person to get on the bus?" No one said a word. Declaring that the bus would not leave until the extra passenger was put off, she went and fetched the driver, who also asked, "All right, who was the last person to get on the bus?" Again there was a public silence. So the two went to find an inspector. He asked, "Who was the last person to get on the bus?" No one spoke. He then announced that he would fetch a policeman. While the conductress, driver, and inspector were away looking for a policeman, a little man came up to the bus stop and asked, "Is this the bus to Stockport?" Hearing that it was, he got on. A few minutes later the three returned accompanied by a policeman. He asked, "What seems to be the trouble? Who was the last person to get on the bus?" The little man said, "I was." The policeman said, "All right, get off." All the people on the bus burst into laughter. The conductress, thinking they were laughing at her, burst into tears and said she refused to make the trip to Stockport. The inspector then arranged for another conductress to take over. She, seeing the little man standing at the bus stop, said, "What are you doing there?" He said, "I'm waiting to go to Stockport." She said, "Well, this is the bus to Stockport. Are you getting on or not?" -

Extracted from the book "SILENCE - Lectures and Writings by John Cage". The book has the finest dedication of modern times - "To Whom It May Concern"...

The Invention Of Love (2010)

A beautiful short animated film inspired by the technique of the 2005 Australian short animated film "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello". What is really impressive in this film is the way the light penetrates the intricate cut out shadows producing a warm honey like atmosphere that is completely different to the cold and calculated Morello film. Well worth watching.

Νίκος Παπατάκης (1918-2010) - Nico Papatakis

Ο Νίκος Παπατάκης που έφυγε πρόσφατα από τη ζωή ήταν ένας από τους μεγαλύτερους "άγνωστους" σκηνοθέτες του Ελληνικού αλλά και διεθνούς κινηματογράφου. Άγνωστος στο ευρύ κοινό, γιατί ποτέ δεν αποτέλεσε μέρος του εμπορικού συστήματος. Άγνωστος γιατί δεν φοβήθηκε να εναντιωθεί σε οποιοδήποτε εθνικό, πολιτικό, κοινωνικό κατεστημένο ή κεκτημένο της τέχνης ορθωνόταν μπροστά του.

Και τι δεν έκανε ο Νίκος Παπατάκης. Γεννηθηκε στις 19 Ιουλίου 1918 στην Αντίς Αμπέμπα της Αιθιοπίας και πήρε μέρος στο πόλεμο εναντίον των ιταλικών στρατευμάτων του Μουσολίνι στο πλευρό του Haille Sellasie. Μετά την ήττα της Αιθιοπίας αναγκάστηκε να φύγει, βρίσκοντας καταφύγιο πρώτα στη Λιβύη, μετά στην Ελλάδα για να καταλήξει άφραγκος στο Παρίσι όπου και έμεινε πλέον σχεδόν μόνιμα από το 1939.

Στη γαλλική πρωτεύουσα, ο αεικίνητος Παπατάκης συναναστράφηκε με όλη την αφρόκρεμα της γαλλικής διανόησης, από τον Ζαν Πολ Σαρτρ ίσαμε τον ‘καταραμένο’ Ζαν Ζενέ, και τους ποιητές Αντρέ Μπρετόν, Ζακ Πρεβέρ και Ρομπέρ Ντενό. Με τον Ζαν Ζενέ βρέθηκαν μαζί στους "πέντε δρόμους". Μονίμως πεινασμένοι, κλέβανε και μετά, πολυ συχνά, τσακωνόντουσαν και για τα κλεψιμέικα. Ο Παπατάκης, αν και δεν ήταν ομοφυλόφυλος, είναι το αντικείμενο του πόθου του Ζενέ στο ποίημα "La Galère" που είναι και αφιερωμένο σε αυτόν.

Το 1947, ο Νίκος Παπατάκης ανοίγει το καμπαρέ «Το Κόκκινο Ρόδο» (La Rose Rouge), που απετέλεσε στέκι και συναυλιακό χώρο για πολλούς καλλιτέχνες της εποχής όπως η Juliette Greco, ο Miles Davis και ο Boris Vian μεταξύ άλλων. Το 1950 γίνεται παραγωγός και χρηματοδότης της ταινίας του Ζαν Ζενέ «Ένα ερωτικό τραγούδι», του οποίου τη φωτογραφία υπέγραψε ο Ζαν Κοκτώ. Η μοναδική αυτή, χωρίς διαλόγους ταινία 26 λεπτών του ‘άγιου’ (όπως τον απεκάλεσε ο Σαρτρ) συγγραφέα-εγκληματία λογοκρίθηκε και δεν προβλήθηκε στις κινηματογραφικές αίθουσες παρά μόνον το 1975. Η ταινία γυρίστηκε απο τον Ζενέ στο χώρο του εστιατορίου πάνω απο το Καμπαρέ του Παπατάκη.

Το 1954 παντρεύτηκε την Anouk Aimée και απόκτησε μία κόρη.

Το 1957 αηδιασμένος από τη στάση της Γαλλίας στη Αλγερία, εγκατέλειψε το Παρίσι για τη Νέα Υόρκη, όπου είχε δεσμό με το μανεκέν από τη Γερμανία Κρίστα Πέφγκεν, η οποία υιοθέτησε σαν καλλιτεχνικό ψευδώνυμο το μικρό του όνομα. Ως Nico, είχε μία αξιόλογη σόλο καριέρα στη μουσική ροκ σκηνή, ξεκινόντας ως ηθοποιός του Άντι Γουόρχολ στην ταινία του Chelsea Girls και μέλος των Βέλβετ Άντεργκράουντ. Την ίδια περίοδο, ο Παπατάκης, συνδέεται φιλικά με τον μεγάλο Αμερικάνο σκηνοθέτη John Cassavetes τον οποίο βοηθά με χρήματα να τελειώσει την ταινία σταθμό του κινηματογράφου, Shadows (1959).

Κατά την επιστροφή του στο Παρίσι, γύρισε το 1962 την πρώτη του ταινία «Οι Άβυσσοι» (Les Abysses), βασισμένη στο μυθιστόρημα του Ζενέ «Οι Δούλες» (Les Bonnes). Η ταινία προβλήθηκε την ίδια χρονιά στο Φεστιβάλ των Καννών και προκάλεσε σκάνδαλο.

Το 1967 γύρισε την ταινία «Οι βοσκοί». Η ταινία αυτή είναι μια εκπληκτική διαχρονική προσέγγιση και αλληγορία της ελληνικής πραγματικότητας . Η φαινομενικά απλή βουκολική ιστορία γίνεται αφορμή για να προβληθούν, γυμνές, οι έννοιες της επανάστασης, της ελευθερίας, της σχέσης των φύλων, της εξουσίας και πολλών άλλων καίριων θεμάτων μέσα από την ανάλυση των κοινωνικών δομών μιας Ελληνικής κοινότητας. Ας μην ξεχνάμε οτι η ταινία τελείωσε τη στιγμή ακριβώς που η Ελλάδα άρχισε να βυθίζεται στα σκοτάδια της δικτατορίας. Προβλήθηκε το 1968 σε ελάχιστους κινηματογράφους (ως ντοκυμαντέρ) χωρίς καμμία εμπορική επιτυχία και μετέπειτα φυγαδεύτηκε στο εξωτερικό.

Ακολούθησαν οι ταινίες Gloria Mundi (1975), Η Φωτογραφία (1987) και η τελευταία του ταινία, Οι Ισσοροπιστές (1992).

To 2009, στο πλαίσιο μιας προβολής της ταινίας του "Les Abysses" σε ένα κινηματογράφο στο Παρίσι και της συζήτησης που ακολούθησε, ο Νίκος Παπατάκης αναφέρθηκε και σε ένα απραγματοποίητο ακόμα σενάριο ταινίας που είχε αρχισει να δουλεύει. Το σενάριο αυτό θα ήταν βασισμένο σε μια ιδέα του Μαρξ που είπε ότι το έγκλημα είναι παραγωγικό. Παράγει τον δικηγόρο, τους δικαστές, τα όπλα, τον πόλεμο, κ.ο.κ. Ο Παπατάκης λοπόν φαντάστηκε μια κοινωνία στην οποία δεν υπάρχει έγκλημα γιατί στην εξουσία βρίσκεται ένας δικτάτορας που έχει απαγορέψει ακόμα και να μιλάει κανείς για κάτι τέτοιο. Η κοινωνία τότε σταδιακά χάνεται μεσα στη πλήξη. Το έγkλημα λοιπόν αποτελει απαραίτητο στοιχείο για την επιβίωση της κοινωνίας.

Δυστυχώς ο Νίκος Παπατάκης πέθανε σε ηλικία 92 ετών χωρίς να προλάβει να γυρίσει σε ταινία αυτό το τελευταίο σενάριο. Είμαι σίγουρος όμως ότι σε μια άλλη διάσταση, πάνω απο τα σύννεφα, το γύρισμα αυτής της τανίας έχει ήδη αρχίσει... Το σενάριο τώρα το έχει αναλάβει κάποιος κύριος εγκληματίας με το όνομα Ζαν Ζενέ. Bοηθός σκηνοθέτη και σύμβουλος χρήστηκε αυταπάγγελτα ο John Cassavetes...Α, ναι... και την ηχητική επιμέλεια την έχει αναλάβει η Nico. Μάλλον ενδιαφέρουσα ακούγεται αυτή η ταινία...

Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

Take a Break

Seamus Heaney

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.


- from Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Transcient Art On The Walls Of Athens: Graffiti

Theme: Hanging upside-down

There comes a time when the world seems like a place where everything is hanging upside-down. And then things somehow fall into place and the world is familiar once again. The chaos recedes and a certain method to the madness appears. Like a bat out of hell you are hanging upside-down listening to the Balanescu Quartet covering David Byrne.

Listen to

The Balanescu Quartet (David Byrne) - Hanging Upside-down

A photograph by Erwin Blumenfeld

Title: Untitled, ca. 1940, by Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969).

A great artist and innovator in photography, Erwin Blumenfeld moved to the States and while working for the fashion industry in the 40s and 50s, he managed to push the borders of what was known and accepted until then as a fashion photograph. He experimented in the darkroom and came up with stunning results.

The above photograph, which is one of my favorites, is actually not only a fashion photograph but a philosophical statement at the same time. Combining the negative and the developed print in one photograph, he brings out the duality and even the mortality of his subject. He makes a statement about the passing of beauty or the dark side that we always keep buried deep within. It's perfectly fitting that Erwin Blumenfeld never gave it a title. No title could do justice to this work of art.