Cinema: Persepolis (2007)

An autobiographical film of a girl growing up in Iran.

This film is superb, animated brilliantly and contains the right balance of humour and drama. Persepolis is also the final showing at my local art cinema until summer time as it's in the process of relocation. Being the last for a while, the screening (which i believe is also an advance showing) was free, with free drink and a small free raffle.

Cinema: Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (2007)

AKA The Bands Visit

An Egyptian police band become stranded for the night in Israel when they go to the wrong town.

I thought this film was absolutely wonderful. A light charming comedy with some outstanding music, I can't wait to see this film again.

The only qualm i had about the showing however was the that subtitles were provided throughout the films and a lot of it was in English (though a fair amount in Arabic and Hebrew). How sometimes subtitles are required even for English dialogue in cases of heavy accents or a jumbled interpretation of a language but not in this case. The subtitles became a bit of a distraction and I found myself at times reading them when i could understand perfectly.

Cinema: Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)

aka Pandora's Box

A vaudeville dancer (Louise Brooks) in Germany goes on the run when she accidentally kills her husband.

The showing was preceded by a small introduction into gay silent cinema in which Pandora's Box was used as an example by depicting one of the earliest lesbian couples on screen. Actually it was really a couple as described but a character played by Alice Roberts. This aspect is actually so small in the film that one of the gay cowboy films mentioned in the introduction would have served as a better example. But in actually this may of just been the better film full stop as it is wonderful. The huge downside to the showing however was the fact that it was shown straight off a DVD and not a print, i feel slightly cheated by that.

Cinema: Wheel of Time (2003)

Part deux of the Werner Herzog season, in which Herzog takes a look at the Buddhist Kalachakra initiations from 2002. Done in a more traditional method then Little Dieter, the pic features interviews with the Dalai Lama and Takna Jigme Zangpo, a man who was imprisoned for 37 years demanding freedom for Tibet.

Whilst Dieter was a lot simpler to get into Wheel of Time is worthy not only as an education into Buddhism but also to the lengths that man would himself in for their beliefs, as demonstrated when pilgrims are shown making there way to the initiations whilst getting on the ground in prayer and back up again every few steps for however many days they must travel. For one monk it took him several years.

I throughly enjoyed this film and i am looking forward to seeing the final part in the Herzog series this Sunday with Rescue Dawn.

Cinema: Lust, Caution (2006)

In the build up to the Second World War a group of students plot to kill Yee, a collaborator working with the Japanese. It is up to 'Mrs Mak' to become his mistress in order to take his guard his down.

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution brought controversy when released in China due to the explicit sex scenes which were cut out. Consecutively in the US the film will be released in both R and NC-17 cuts. The sex scenes are indeed explicit, getting more so through out. The first being quite tame compared to what follows.

Took a little while to get in to this film but overall i loved it, even being over two and half hours long it didn't seem to drag.

Cinema: Little Dieter Needs To Fly (1997)

The story of Dieter Dengler, a German-America pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam war and struggled for survival both in the jungle and in the hands of his capturers.

A few weeks ago I mentioned I enjoyed several of the pieces on Ten Minute Older: Trumpet and desired to look more into the works of these directors. I was lucky that at my local art cinema (Metro, Derby) they were showing three of Werner Herzogs pictures, the first showing last night and the last at the start of next month. Little Dieter is an unique documentary told throughout by Dengler himself. Dengler take us through his life and even to the past by re-visiting his hometown in Germany and then going back to Laos where he fought and was captured. As he describes the horrors he encountered the film suddenly becomes very cathartic as Dengler even replays some of the moments surrounded by local people filling in for the role of his capturers.



This approach to me seems very daring, even the fact that Dengler re-visits his hometown to tell his story is something you usually see in documentaries, it is far different then the usual talk heads followed location shooting by the crew alone.

The film was shot on 35mm but by the look of the projection to me it looked like video at times. It is possible that the projection itself was from the video source, at times there were moments of interlacing. To me this low quality did not distract from the film as a whole but probably made it even greater then it ever could be. The quality to me made the film feel and look honest. Dengler and Herzog have done an amazing job with this film. Dengler tells his story boldly and without remorse whilst Herzog dones a magnificent job at capturing his unique character.

Little Dieter is an amazing, sometimes funny and sometimes shocking insight. Werner Herzog recently adapted this story into a films tarring Christian Bale called Rescue Dawn (2006), which I will see on the 3rd of February but before then it's Herzogs documentary Wheel of Time (2003), showing next Wednesday.