A Film a Week - Vista Mare

 previously published on Cineuropa

It’s easy to assume a position of moral superiority when dealing with the subject of tourism, since said economic activity has a triangular scheme of exploitation linking the guests, who have needs; the workers, who cater to them; and the businesses, which provide the services. On the other hand, it is harder to remain neutral and objective when portraying the whole process of exchange among the three parties.

In their sophomore documentary, Julia Gutweniger and Florian Kofler strive for absolute objectivity as they observe the large-scale operation that is the tourist season on the Italian North Adriatic coast. Vista Mare premiered last year in the Semaine de la Critique section of Locarno and has toured several festivals since. Its visit to the Diagonale was fruitful, since the film scooped two prizes there, for cinematography and for sound design, which were handled by Gutweniger and Kofler, respectively.

The duo opens the film on a grey, windy day on an almost empty beach, where a single swimmer battles against the waves, set to the sounds of eerie wind music composed by Gabriela Gordillo, followed by still shots of empty rental apartment blocks and swimming pools. It is an off-season period in an unnamed tourist town, and although all seems quiet, preparations for the coming boom are under way. Leaflets are printed, deckchairs and automatic parasols are tested and repaired, the new generation of tourism workers are trained in vocational schools, hotels and restaurants, and heavy machinery is even utilised to restore the eroded beaches by adding more sand.

Then, some half an hour in, the first tourists arrive and these places of peace and quiet morph into crowded, busy ones. The deckchairs and parasols are arranged in perfect order. The lifeguards and vendors exchange small talk amongst themselves while some serve customers almost on autopilot. The hotels and the rental apartments are filled to maximum capacity. Kids’ parties happen during the day and raves take place at night on the beach. The attractions nearby are also busy: customers can choose between a dolphin show, an aquapark and a park featuring a miniature model of Venice. A workers’ rights protest even takes place in the town, but it also seems like a mere routine in which both the protesters and the police play their predefined roles.

Gutweniger and Kofler opt for a strictly observational method, predominantly using fixed, mid- to long-distance shots, overhearing conversations but never intervening in them and refusing to portray the whole operation as a class conflict. Gutweniger’s long takes are immaculately composed, and even if the symmetry is not always perfect, they are still astonishing and serve the purpose of showing the terrifyingly large scale of the business, in which all individuality tends to get lost. Dealing with the sound recording and design, Kofler does pretty much the same, creating a rich tapestry of a soundscape. The structure of having two asymmetrical acts also serves the film well by highlighting the contrast between the life of the town (or towns in the region) during the off and high seasons. The filmmakers’ approach might at times seem cold and calculated, but Vista Mare can still move the viewer merely by showing the size and the complexity of the process.

A Film a Week - This Movie Is a Gift / Dieser Film ist ein Geschenk

previously published on Cineuropa

Daniel Spoerri is a Swiss multidisciplinary artist best known for his work in the realm of visual arts, and as the driving force behind the New Realism, Fluxus and Eat Art movements. During his long and fruitful life (he was born in 1930 and is still alive and active), he has also written poetry, and has been a professional ballet dancer, avant-garde theatre director and experimental filmmaker. He is the principal subject of Anja Salomonowitz's latest documentary, This Movie Is a Gift, which had its festival premiere at the Viennale.

It is an unusual piece of documentary filmmaking, and this is evident right from the start. Salomonowitz is also present as one of the narrators and active characters, stating her intentions directly into the microphone. She opens the movie with the full version of Spoerri's own short film Resurrection (1969), which examines one of his life-long preoccupations, the cycle of life, but backwards.

Only after the short film, which takes up eight minutes of the total 72-minute running time, does she proceed to the opening credits and the introduction of her characters and subjects. First up is the director's own son, Oskar, who breaks the ice with a joke before taking on the roles of a narrator who recounts Spoerri's childhood memories and a student-type character interested in the artist's work. This kind of gimmick might seem tasteless, but it works well here for several reasons, one of them being Oskar's seemingly genuine interest in Spoerri's work, the technique and the logic behind it, as well as the laid-back interaction between the two in a couple of scenes later on. Another reason is Spoerri's commanding presence both when he talks about his art and when he reflects on his childhood as a secular Jewish boy in fascist Romania and as his father's unloved son, with the wisdom and the attitude of an experienced older man and a complete lack of sentimentality that complements Oskar's unforced naivety.

Salomonowitz's presence is as the active narrator explaining her motivations for making a film about Spoerri and creating it as a gift to him. In this way, she wishes to repay him for a gift he gave her, a work of art centring around an object that belonged to her recently deceased father. Both the artist-subject and the filmmaker are defined by the relationships they had with their fathers, though these are completely different in nature.

The director’s frank storytelling approach is matched precisely by the filmmaking style she goes for. The delicate and logical balance that is struck between the static and hand-held shots by Martin Putz, the straightforward but off-kilter sound design by Veronika Hlawatsch underlined by Bernhard Fleischmann's gentle score dominated by a piano over an electronic loop, and the clean jump cuts thanks to Eleonora Camizzi and Petra Zöpnek's editing make This Movie Is a Gift a pleasant watch and a worthy gift indeed, both to Daniel Spoerri and to the audience.

A Film a Week - Johanna Dohnal - Visionary of Feminism / Die Dohnal

previously published on Cineuropa

It seems that, with the current state of things in global economics and politics, some of the heroes of the past are being systematically forgotten, and some of the rights and liberties they worked so hard to attain for the people have to be defended – or even fought for – again and again. One of these heroes was late Austrian politician Johanna Dohnal, a socialist and a feminist whose work in the fields of women's and labour rights stretched beyond a strictly national context. The documentary Johanna Dohnal - Visionary of Feminism, directed by Sabine Derflinger (known for docs such as One Out of 8 and Hot Spot, as well as the fiction features Day and Night and Anna Fucking Molnar), which puts the iconic politician firmly in the spotlight, recently premiered at the Viennale.

The strictly Austrian scope of the documentary offers little chance of a wider international release, even though a number of parallels can be drawn with contemporary trends and social issues in the whole of Europe. However, its TV-friendliness and the clarity of Derflinger's storytelling might pave the way for a decent performance in this kind of market.

From 1979-1995, Dohnal occupied two different offices within the Austrian government: first as State Secretary for Women's Rights and Issues, and from 1990, as Minister for Women. During that period, she fought for the redefinition of gender roles (striving to offer other career options for women as well as introducing parental leave for men), granting maternity leave and guaranteeing pension rights for female farmers, establishing shelters for women and children who had been victims of domestic abuse, and making marital rape legally equivalent to extra-marital rape. She fought hard for gender quotas and saw them as a tool to enable women to be represented in a political landscape dominated by male representatives and officials, rather than as a goal, per se. Aside from being a feminist, she was also a committed socialist who came from a working-class background and knew the life of working women only too well. In her politics, labour rights were tightly connected to women's issues, and she saw economic dependence as one of the principal tools of oppression.

Derflinger examines Dohnal's influence on her immediate environment, portrayed through the testimonies of her widow/domestic partner Annemarie Aufreiter, her daughter Ingrid Dohnal, her granddaughter Johanna-Helen Dohnal, public figures (such as various artists, performers, journalists and contemporary feminists) and society as a whole. The filmmaker also tracks the politician's career, covering its rise during the times of Bruno Kreisky's tenure and its fall during the era of Franz Vranitzky, when Dohnal fell victim to different political pressures and to the global adoption of the neo-liberal model, even within the ranks of leftist political parties.

Over the course of the movie, Derflinger makes use of the usual, tried-and-tested methods from the arsenal of documentary filmmaking, such as talking-heads interviews with the subjects conducted in their home or work environments, and archive TV material in which Dohnal has to defend her political agenda, which she does eloquently and passionately. The most poignant moments are the excerpts from Dohnal's personal diary, with which Derflinger opens and closes the film. The steady camerawork by Christine A Maier and Eva Testor and the precise editing courtesy of Niki Mossböck suit the material well, which makes Johanna Dohnal - Visionary of Feminism easy to watch and to follow – and this is very necessary for such an informative and socially charged documentary.

A Film a Week - Moments of Resistance / Widerstandsmomente

previously published on Cineuropa

Every period of time presents a range of things that must be resisted, and resistance against abuse or repression is an ethical obligation for any responsible citizen in a civilised society. In her documentary film essay Moments of Resistance, Austrian director Jo Schmeiser tries to join the dots between the glorious days of the anti-Nazi resistance in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and contemporary movements that are standing up to capitalism, patriarchy and racism as the main forms of injustice that are threatening society. The film has just world-premiered at the Viennale.

Schmeiser combines a number of different approaches and techniques, which are largely dictated by the various materials she introduces in the film. Individuals from contemporary civil society are interviewed directly in front of the camera, where they present their views, standpoints and the actions undertaken by their organisations. Sometimes this is humanitarian or legal aid for refugees and asylum seekers; sometimes it is self-defence classes for migrant women. On the other hand, there is a lack of living witnesses to the past, so Schmeiser relies on the testimonies recorded in the period from the 1980s until the early 2000s, and she tastefully and cleverly sets them against images of people working in the factories and the fields, highlighting the class background and the political views of the anti-Nazi resistance fighters. Schmeiser also introduces other types of materials from the Archives of the Austrian Resistance in Vienna, so we get to see letters that the executed members of the resistance cell sent to each other and to their parents, but also other written materials, such as handwritten leaflets produced during the war and texts from songs and poems, like the one that opens the film, Our Town Is Burning by Mordechai Gebirtig (1938), translated from Yiddish, and even whisper jokes that she simply uses as title cards.

The connection between the two forms of resistance is not that obvious, since the methods of exerting pressure and demonstrating resistance have changed dramatically over that period of time, so the viewers are tasked with finding the similarities and differences themselves. Schmeiser, however, bridges that gap with a subject that she introduces early on, a middle-aged Argentinian woman now working in the Austrian civil sector, who was a political prisoner during the military dictatorship. Her testimony and her advice on how to stand in solidarity with fellow inmates is a crucial piece of the puzzle in this film. The other connection is the predominant presence of women in both the movements back in the day and nowadays, making gender equality a long-standing goal that has not yet been accomplished completely.

Schmeiser has managed to communicate a clear message and to make an important and timely film. Her technical skills are impressive, her presentation methods are meticulous, and even her manipulation of the material (the audio recordings were cleaned up in post-production, and some of the objects she films appear in different contexts) renders the final product even more polished. She had an enormous amount of help from her numerous subjects and her small crew. Cinematographer Sophie Mantigneux and editor Michael Palm do a good job of taking the different kinds of material and fusing them into a coherent movie that has a strong impact.

A Film a Week - Gwendolyn

previously published on Cineuropa

The protagonist of Ruth Kaaserer’s new documentary, Gwendolyn, which is avant-premiering at the Viennale before its official world premiere at DOK Leipzig, Gwendolyn Leick, is a woman in her sixties. She is an Austrian ex-pat living in London, a retired anthropologist, a part-time writer, a cancer survivor and an athlete. She started competing in weightlifting at the age of 52, rose to claim the titles of European and World Champion in the under-52kg category, and is now on the path to recovery after her painful illness and has her sights firmly set on the throne. Closely monitored by her coach, Pat, supported by her seemingly younger Ivorian husband Charlie and occasionally visited by family members, she tests her limits day after day.

Gwendolyn is Kaaserer’s second feature-length documentary, after the 2014 title Tough Cookies, and both of them examine the topic of women and their struggle through physically demanding, so-called “male”, sports. Tough Cookies followed three American female boxers, both amateurs and professionals, their life on the fringes of society, and their soul-searching through the often brutal sport. Gwendolyn Leick is a different type of protagonist, though: she is at peace with herself, she seems fulfilled in her life, and she does not have to prove anything to anyone. Her fight is not against her competitors, but against her illness, which lurks just around the corner, as well as her inner weakness. She is the prototype of a strong woman and the main reason why the film works outside of the sports and illness-beating niches.

Shot on location in Great Britain, Germany, Austria and Azerbaijan, where the Master’s Competition final took place, the film follows Gwendolyn’s athletic and personal journey, but also gives an insight into the mind of this unusual woman and her unique life path. Kaaserer and her director of photography, Serafin Spitzer, prefer to stay close to the protagonist at her home, at Pat’s gym and at the championships she attends, focusing on her facial expression and muscle tension, but they also give her some space to breathe during the more contemplative parts, such as her trips into nature and the time she spends on the balcony, suggesting that there is more to it than merely the components of physical pain and a feeling of accomplishment thanks to the sport results. Weightlifting might be a bit of an “on the nose” metaphor for the daily weight pulling called life, but in Gwendolyn, it works because of its protagonist, portrayed as a complete, integral human being.

A Film a Week - Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse

originally published on Cineuropa

In recent years horror has proven to be not just a trivial genre, but also a legitimately artistic one. Guillermo del Toro won the Golden Lion in Venice for The Shape of Water, Darren Aronofsky’s mother! has driven a huge wedge between film critics, Lars von Trier’s new film The House That Jack Built, set to premiere next year, is also a horror, so it’s reasonable to expect that the trend of artistically ambitious horror films is going to continue. The whole thing arguably started with Robert Eggers’ debut feature The Witch, which Lukas Feigelfeld’s Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse – with its European premiere simultaneously at CPH, London Film Festival and Sitges’ Night Visions One section – feels closely related to in terms of narrative and style.

The film is set in a remote wooded area in the Austrian Alps in the 15^th century. A young girl named Auburn (Celina Peter) lives with her ill mother (Claudia Martini) in a log cabin outside the village. The villagers are hostile to them, calling them witches (the title is an archaic term for witch or female demon), the mother is dying of plague right in front of her daughter’s eyes, leaving her traumatised for good.

Jump forward twenty years, Auburn (now played by Aleksandra Cwen, a force of nature) still lives in the same cabin, with an infant daughter of her own, herding goats and producing milk and cheese. She is still being bullied by the nearby villagers, the priest included. The only woman nice enough to her (the perfectly cast Tanya Petrovsky) turns out to have some sinister intentions, which push Auburn over the edge of sanity, causing her to do the unimaginable.

A comparison with The Witch might seem superficial, but the two films share a deliberately slow pace, eerie atmosphere and undertones of female empowerment created via the humanisation of the subjects. But while Eggers’ film is all about the paradigm of time and place, which also plays a certain role in Hagazussa (the villagers firmly believe that witches exist and that Jews are the plague-bringers), the German-Austrian film focuses on the psychological side of things, dealing with delusions, sexual and other tensions and mental illness when faced with solitude.

With scarce dialogue, Aleksandra Cwen is left with the difficult task of portraying Auburn realistically, which she manages with just her facial expressions and a strong screen presence. Hagazussa relies on its setting, The Alps are filmed by cinematographer Mariel Baqueiro in a limited colour palette of natural browns and greens, highlighting their natural beauty, but also the hardships of life up there. Some of the striking images, like the underwater sequence, erotically charged goat-milking scene and others will be carved into the viewer’s memory. The droning score by the Greek music group MMD also contributes to the general atmosphere.

It is hard to believe that Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse is the work of a student. It’s actually the partially crowd-funded graduate work of Austrian-born Berlin-based up-and-coming filmmaker Lukas Feigelfeld. Hagazussa is not just an assured feature debut, but also an auteur film with a clear vision. It could prove to be a milestone of arthouse folk horror.