“A journalist’s sharpest weapon is silence.” This I learned from my very first Editor in Chief, when I started to learn my ropes at an office technology magazine. As a TV/radio newscaster at ORF I learned also to prioritize news along certain rules of the craft. Broadcasting time is very limited. As is newsworthyness. And your patience, dear blog reader. So what makes me write this post? The fact that I don’t want to “stab” certain films with my “silence” weapon, even though they obviously didn’t make it into my first selections. I’ll tell you why they weren’t mentioned then and I’ll tell you why they’re mentioned now. So here goes:
DAS BEGRÄBNIS DES HARALD KRAMER felt simply too long – 29 minutes make this bizarre piece of Austrian “Six Feet Under”-humour into some kind of a normal film stub, no real short. In German: Ich freue mich auf das erste echte Langfilmprojekt von KRAMER-Regisseur Marc Schlegel … he said at the ALPINALE interview that it will be with SWR Debut im Dritten.
VIGIA (see featured pic) by Marcel Barelli made me laugh and cry tears … it’s a classic colour pencil animation piece about bees in broad Ticino dialect (that kind of non-Italian they speak in the south of Switzerland). Would I have liked it without the lovely dialect? It has made quite a success in Switzerland, obviously.
STILLER LÖWE (directed by Sven Philipp Pohl) imho goes way too fast through some points it tries to make, but the cinematography by Stefan Bühl is superb, so is the acting. Watch out for Eyk Kauly.
LA NUIT AMÉRICAINE D’ANGÉLIQUE by Joris Clerté is animation in a 1960s style black and white (it’s about Truffaut and his DAY FOR NIGHT, duh!) and so full of text it makes you hold your breath. Within it beautiful sentences pop up, such as “voir est un grand plaisir” (seeing is a great pleasure) or “les personnages nous attirent … est nous trompent” (the characters draw us in … and mislead us). Over the top for many non-cineasts, I believe, and – again – I ask myself: would I have liked it in any other language than French?
to be continued
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