A Film a Week - Farewell / Abschied von den Eltern

previously published on Cineuropa

After a world premiere at Locarno, Farewell to the Parents has had its national premiere at the Viennale. The film is the debut feature by Austrian filmmaker, cinematographer, editor, photographer and philosopher Astrid Johanna Ofner. This essay-film co-written by Ofner and late Viennale director Hans Hurch is based on Peter Weiss’ autobiographical novel Abschied von den Eltern and feels more like a book-reading accompanied by visual art than a regular narrative film experience.

Weiss’ novel covers his youthful years in the period between the two world wars in different European countries. Even though Weiss was half-Jewish, he does not dwell on the topic of the rise of fascism and national socialism for too long, as some might expect, since his battles lay somewhere else. Through his journeys in different countries, studies, different jobs and interests, he fought for his personal freedom and independence from his parents: his industrialist father travelling from country to country seeking business opportunities in times of economic crisis, and his former actress mother striving to keep the family together. Young Peter wanted something quite different from the life his parents had chosen for him: he wanted to find the meaning of life, love and art, and to pursue his talents for writing and painting. He succeeded in the end, but his novel, and Ofner’s film, is only about the first steps he took in that direction.

Astrid Johanna Ofner’s approach suits Weiss’ novel well. Actor Sven Dolinsky reads the text as Peter-the-Narrator and plays the part of Peter-the-Character wordlessly. The visual material in the background during the novel passages consists of archive footage, Weiss’ own early experimental films and new material filmed by Ofner on a variety of cameras and formats, from Super 8 to HD 4K, on location in Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic, keeping it as faithful as possible to the real places portrayed in the novel. Her main goal was to preserve the coherence of the source material while finding the right rhythm and the right images for Weiss’ sentences. Sometimes, the narration is accompanied only by darkness, highlighting the strength of words themselves, while Ofner’s decision to modernise the context at times stresses the timelessness of Weiss’ work and the importance of gaining independence from the will of one’s parents as an integral part of growing up. As Ofner’s reading of Weiss and his work, Farewell to the Parents is not just legitimate; it’s actually quite good.

A Film a Week - Making Judith!

previously published on Cineuropa



In the prologue to Making Judith!, and more specifically on a title card featuring one of his own quotes (“The only way for films to feel true is to fill them with lies”), veteran German filmmaker Klaus Lemke, dubbed “The Pope of Kitsch”, not only gives his educated opinion on low- to no-budget filmmaking, but also offers the key to the interpretation of the film and his intentions behind it. It is not about the plot itself; it is about Lemke, his persona, his ideas on contemporary filmmaking and turning the title character into his new muse. The film has just had its international premiere at the Viennale, where Lemke enjoys something of a cult following, just a few months after the world premiere at the Munich Film Festival.



Lemke is a unique figure in German-language cinema, as he is the only one of the “New Munich Group” who stayed faithful to his low-budget roots, making a number of trivial genre- and subculture-themed and trash films in dialect, rather than in standard German, with non-professional, almost randomly chosen cast and crew members. Earlier in his career, Lemke acted in his own films, but he has not done so recently, which makes Making Judith! his big acting comeback. His trademark pimp-style hats, torn jeans and Air Max Nikes are an integral part of his style and persona that he plays both on and off screen. For him, filmmaking is a chance for anyone to be someone – or something – else: he would rather be his films than himself.



But not all movies are destined to be finished, which is the lesson that Lemke has to learn the hard way when the noir-like family mystery surrounding his alleged daughter Caroline (Mela Feigenbaum), set under the blazing sun of the Canary Islands, solves itself too quickly and leads nowhere. Lemke needs his new film, and his secretary Judith (Judith Paus) is ready to do anything to secure her big role in it. However, the director will intentionally test her patience by spending the money she stole and the money they both swindled out of an investor (Murat Mermer) on his own carnal pleasures. He evidently has no idea what to make a film about, and Judith is no actress or producer. Will he make her an actress? A producer? His muse? The new Saralisa Volm from Finale, Dancing with Devils and Berlin für Helden?



One cannot say that Making Judith! is a stellar example of exceptional filmmaking, because it is not. It is deliberately bad to the bone, filmed on a seemingly home-video level of equipment, with Paulo de Silva handling both the cinematography and the sound, and lit so poorly that the actors stay in the shadows for most of their time on screen. But Making Judith! is mind-blowingly funny and takes much pride in its trashiness. It actually serves as a bold statement against gentrification in cinema. With his latest production, Lemke has remained loyal both to his style and to his persona, and hopefully, he has secured a muse for his next few projects.

A Film a Week - Ramiro

previously published on Cineuropa

When it comes to artists, writers and poets – especially the unsuccessful ones – film tropes are particularly cruel to them. They end up being the worst kind of character: erratic, crazy, prone to conflicts, or somewhat lazy, depressed and in a perpetual state of writer’s block. For the successful ones, depression and creative block are replaced by a condescending, sell-out attitude and an inflated ego. The title character of Manuel Mozos' newest film, Ramiro, premiering internationally at the Viennale, is a prime example of the former, ticking almost every cliché box, which luckily cannot be said for the film itself.

Ramiro, played in stunning deadpan fashion by António Mortágua in his first fiction-film role, has not written anything in ages, so he supports himself and his regular drinking habit by being the owner of a bookstore. First we meet him in his darkened apartment, "arguing" with a television programme dedicated to his more successful colleague, Saavedra. Then we see him at work, half-heartedly trying to swindle one of his regular customers, José (Américo Silva, of Arabian Nights fame), and finally with his still-interested ex-wife Patricia (Sofia Marques), his publisher and his friends at book readings and in bars. We then get a clearer picture of the reasons for his artistic failure: even if he is talented, he is not particularly disciplined or committed to his art, and nor is he motivated to put his heart into anything other than his small rituals.

The only people he cares about are his elderly neighbour Amélia (Fernanda Neves), who is recovering from a stroke, her pregnant, high-school-age granddaughter, Daniela (up-and-coming TV actress Madalena Almeida, a perfect casting choice for the role), and Daniela's teacher Isabel (Cristina Carvalhal), whom he tries to impress. Daniela has been brought up thinking that she is an orphan, but her father Alfredo (Vítor Correia, Hay Road) is actually alive and serving a long prison sentence for the murder of his mother. Ramiro is curious to meet him and makes reconnecting the father and the daughter his own personal project. And, who knows, maybe it will stir up some of his creative juices and he will be able to start writing again. But life has other plans for him, its soap opera-worthy twists echoing the telenovela running in the background on Ramiro's television throughout the film.

At first, it seems that Mozos is just recycling the patterns of other filmmakers, from Woody Allen to Alex Ross Perry, and the regular tropes found in absurdist comedies about the literature world in general. Even the choices of a narrow, 4:3 aspect ratio and the digital simulation of the grainy 16 mm look are not that new or fresh (even though they look good), but there are some redeeming qualities. First, the sheer lethargy of the title character is quite hard both to write and to act compellingly, and screenwriters Telmo Churro and Mariana Ricardo, plus António Mortágua as an actor, have done a great job. The unpredictability of the melodramatic subplots is also quite refreshing.

But above all, Ramiro radiates earnestness in such a way that it could serve as a slightly silly autobiography of Manuel Mozos, a competent and polished filmmaker who never got his big break with his "poetry", and so he had gigs as an editor on two dozen films and worked as a film archivist.