The Nightmare Continues

Darwin's Nightmare



Due to popular demand, the Oscar-nominated documentary Darwin's Nightmare has been extended at the Northwest Film Forum. Screenings have been added for Saturday and Sunday, March 4th and 5th, at 12pm and 4:30pm. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. between Pike and Pine. For more information: www.nwfilmforum.org. General info: 206-329-2629. Showtimes: 206-267-5380.

Sophie Scholl: Six Days in a Remarkable Life

SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS / Die Letzten Tage
(Marc Rothemund, Germany, 2005, 35mm, 117 mins.)

Sophie in her cell.

In the end of the movie "Downfall," we see Hitler's original secretary, Traudl Jünge.
Years after the war, in Munich, she passed by a sign with information about Sophie
Scholl. She learned that the day when she started to work as a secretary for Hitler
was exactly the same day Sophie Scholl was executed. So years after the war, she
understood that if you wanted to know what was happening, you could have known.
--Marc Rothemund to Salon (February 16, 2006)

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

A household name in Germany, Sophie Scholl is likely to be an unfamiliar one to many Americans. A member of the anti-Nazi organization The White Rose, the 21-year-old nursing student was arrested, interrogated, sentenced, and executed for high treason in 1943. Marc Rothemund's Oscar-nominated film pieces together the last six days of her life.

Although some critics have described Sophie Scholl as "cool" (Stephen Holden) and "clear-sighted" (Peter Bradshaw), this is somewhat misleading. The film isn't manipulative or heavy-handed, but such descriptions imply that it was shot cinema verité style or that it's devoid of tender moments; most of which occur between Sophie and her sympathetic cellmate, Else Gebel. Despite intensive research on the part of Rothemund and screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer, Sophie Scholl is, unmistakably, a feature film and not a documentary.

The opening sequence, in which Sophie (the excellent Julia Jentsch, The Edukators) and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs, also very good) distribute anti-war pamphlets at Munich University, for instance, moves like a thriller. The lighting is dramatic, the camera angles skewed, the music (by Run Lola Run's Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil) suspenseful. It reminded me, coincidentally enough, of Steven Spielberg's Munich. And I mean that as a compliment. I got swept into the story right from the start. In a couple of instances, Sophie is also shot looking up towards the light. Granted, she literally has to look up to see the sky outside her cell, but the allusions to Joan of Arc are clear--and Sophie was a religious person.

There will be other moments of high drama, but the heart of the film is Sophie's intense interrogation by Gestapo investigator Robert Mohr (the impressively ambiguous Alexander Held; like Jentsch, a player in Oliver Hirschbiegel's magnificent Downfall). This section evokes Volker Schlöndorff's The Ninth Day. Also based on a true story, Schlöndorff's movie centers around the interrogation of dissident Luxembourg priest Henri Kremer by a Gestapo officer who fancies himself Kremer's theological equal. As with Scholl, Kremer refuses to sell out his compatriots. While he isn't sentenced to death, he is sent to Dachau (and fortunately, he survives). Both movies prove that talk can be just as compelling as action.

Ironically, I caught Claire Denis' The Intruder the day before Sophie Scholl, and my head is still spinning from the contrast. Stylistically, the two films couldn't be more different. While Denis' is built on imagery, Rothemund's is built on words--the opening sequence being a notable exception to the rule. It is, in fact, one of the "talkiest" pictures I've seen so far this year, but arguably, it needs to be. Scholl is, after all, charged with speaking out against the Third Reich. Words are her weapon; the only means at her disposal to fight against a system in which she has no voice. That she was silenced so quickly indicates how powerful those words were and how desperately the Nazi Party hoped to deter further dissent.

By making Sophie, Hans, and the other White Rose members into martyrs, however--a total of six were executed--the Nazis only hastened their own demise. Incidentally, one of the film's other moments of high drama is the trial itself, although I did wonder if André Hennicke as Judge Roland Freisler wasn't taking things too far. The wildly gesticulating Freisler is one frightening spectacle, but then cinema is littered with the antics of raving Nazi loons. As it turns out, this crazed depiction was based on fact. The press notes quote Leo Samberger, "one of the few independent witnesses" at the trial, on the judge: "Raging, screaming, howling to the point where his voice broke, leaping up explosively again and again."

Samberger, a junior lawyer at the time, says that such behavior "did not intimidate or break the defendants." He adds, "Calm, composed, and brave were their answers to the sometimes shameless questions put to them." Two years later, after pronouncing "death sentences on about 2,295 individuals," Freisler "was killed by schrapnel in an air raid on Berlin." Considering that Hans and three other defendants fought for their country on the Eastern Front, while Freisler--as Hans bravely points out--did not, his death holds a special irony.

The real-life Hans, Sophie, and Christoph.

Sophie Scholl is the first film to look so closely at the life of this remarkable young woman, but not the first to examine the resistance movement to which she belonged (Sophie was one of the few female members of The White Rose). Rothemund's effort was preceded by Michael Verhoeven's Die Weiße Rose and Percy Adlon's Fünf Letzte Tage. I'm not familiar with either, although it's worth noting that both were produced before the crucial minutes of the Gestapo interrogations were made available in 1990. Hence, this sensitive, yet unsentimental take on the subject seems likely to stand as the definitive one. Sophie Scholl works as history, it works as drama and it is, in the end, as wrenchingly sad as it is uncomfortably relevant.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days premieres at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, March 12, at MOHAI. It opens at the Varsity on March 17. The SJFF will also be featuring the highly regarded Hungarian drama Fateless and the amiable Israeli comedy Metallic Blues, which premiered at SIFF '05. For more information, please click here. Images from Wikipedia.

From Perch to Pop Art, Part Two: Henry Geldzahler Portrait Who Gets to Call It Art?

Two New Documentaries at Northwest Film Forum

WHO GETS TO CALL IT ART?
(Peter Rosen, USA, 2006, 35mm, 80 minutes)

The answer is: Henry Geldzahler. There are those who document their times and those who participate in them. Curator Geldzahler (1935-1994) did both. This lively portrait from Peter Rosen (Khachaturian) is sketchy on biographical detail, but vivid in depicting Geldzahler's passion--the promotion of modern art--and the dazzling practitioners he championed, including Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein.

Geldzahler, an impish chap with ever-present cigar clamped in mouth, is best known for the massive 1969 exhibit, "New York Art and Sculpture, 1940-1970," he mounted for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, Rosen avoids the obvious documentary approach--constructing his narrative around one defining event. Geldzahler's entire life was about encouraging the cause of modern art, so why not look at all of the ways in which he pursued his goal? This keeps things moving along at a brisk clip and prevents the last act from coming across as anti-climactic.

On the other hand, by speeding through Geldzahler's childhood, Rosen never makes it clear why this product of a conservative, upper class upbringing--Belgian diamond merchants--would throw his lot in with some of the 20th century's most eccentric individuals, especially Robert Rauschenberg, who comes across as the wildest of a wild era's wild cards. 

However, as many commentators note, he had complete confidence in himself. 

Everyone feels it was justified, but then Rosen only spoke to the artists Geldzahler embraced, like Larry Poons and Frank Stella--in the story of his life, let's hope John Turturro get to take the lead. What about those he didn't embrace? They don't get to have their say, but then they may not have wanted one.

Louise Nevelson and Helen Frankenthaler aside--Geldzahler didn't have a lot of love for the ladies--he got the word out about the art he loved, but how did this non-artist become a work of art himself? Easy: he didn't hobnob with the critics and fellow curators of his day, but with the artists themselves. He was particularly close to Andy Warhol and David Hockney, and both would create pieces that revolved around his image.

They weren't alone. Not only did George Segal make a plaster mold of the guy, but Geldzahler participated in some of Oldenberg's hippie dippy "happenings." Didn't this represent a conflict of interest? Rosen doesn't say, but he implies that this chumminess fed some of the resentment engendered by the Met show.

The director concludes by looking at Geldzahler's lower-profile post-Met career, which continued as it had begun. In the 1980s, he moved on to newer artists, like Francesco Clemente, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. He may have gotten older, but his mind remained as open as ever.

Who Gets to Call It Art? is an entertaining look at an important period in America's aesthetic life. 

As biography, it falls short--and the first act is a little baggy--but as a snapshot of a colorful scene, it gets the job done. Granted, Rosen doesn't look at the politics of the 1960s and 1970s, but I'm getting pretty tired of the usual line-up of images: JFK, MLK, Woodstock, etc. Instead, he takes an insular look at an insular world, filled with the art, the artists, and even the music of the times--from the Monks to Meredith Monk.

Co-presented by the Henry Art Gallery, Who Gets to Call it Art? plays Mar 3 - 9, Fri - Thurs, at 7:15 and 9pm. Henry curator Elizabeth Brown will introduce the first screening. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. For more information, please click here or call (206) 329-2629 for general information or (206) 267-5380 for show times. Images from the IMDb (Henry Geldzahler), Rotten Tomatoes (Geldzahler with David Hockney), and Widewalls (Geldzahler with Jean-Michel Basquiat).

From Perch to Pop Art: Darwin's Nightmare

Two New Docs at the Northwest Film Forum

DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE
(Hubert Sauper, Austria/Belgium/France, 2004, BetaSP, 107min)

The most visceral film-going experience I've had so far this year, Oscar-nominated documentary Darwin's Nightmare couldn't be more aptly titled. It begins with a harried control tower employee swatting at wasps and ends with a pleasant-faced local watching planes depart from the same outer-Mwanza airport. The ex-Soviet aircraft, which is bound for Europe, is filled with Nile perch. The fish, which is not native to Tanzania, has been providing jobs for the Indigenous population, along with Russians, Ukrainians, and others for forty decades now. So what's so nightmarish about that? And what does any of this have to do with Charles Darwin?

Well, no one seems to know who introduced the perch to Lake Victoria, but the predator has decimated the other fish in the area and, although flourishing at the moment, the voracious creature is a cannibal that seems likely to decimate its own species at some point. It gets worse. First of all, the processed perch is too expensive for the average Tanzanian--who earns a dollar a day--to purchase, and yet the country is in the midst of widespread famine. Consequently, citizens either do without or feast on the remnants (the heads and stripped carcasses).

Then there's the processing of the remnants, which provides additional jobs, but only under the most atrocious conditions. The carcasses are crawling with maggots and the ammonia used in the processing makes the workers sick. Again-"t gets worse. Medical care in this northern region is subpar to non-existent. Several (surprisingly well spoken) subjects are missing limbs and many have AIDS. The women who aren't involved in processing work as prostitutes--a profession that proves to be even more hazardous for one poor unfortunate--and their primary clientele appears to be the foreign pilots. The children, who are left unattended, smoke, sniff homemade glue, and fight over the few scraps of food available.

But wait--it gets even worse. Turns out those Russian planes are also exporting goods into Tanzania. I won't say what, but they're the last thing this country needs. Darwin's Nightmare has been described as "agitprop" by some observers. They have a point. Austrian writer/director Hubert Sauper aims to get your blood boiling, but unlike Michael Moore, his images tell more of the story than his words (there's no narration and minimal music). His tale is a powerful one, but it's hard not to feel overwhelmed by all this misery, especially since the film offers no remedy, nor even a glimmer of hope. Then again, maybe that's the point: In Tanzania, the fittest have been allowed to survive for so long that there is no solution.

*****

Darwin's Nightmare plays Feb 24 - Mar 2, Fri - Thurs at 7 and 9 pm. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave, between Pike and Pine. For more information: www.nwfilmforum.org. General info: (206) 329-2629. Showtimes: (206) 267-5380. Image from Indiana University Cinema.

He Don't Use Jelly

MATTHEW BARNEY: NO RESTRAINT 

(Alison Chernick, US, 2006, DV-CAM, 70 mins.) 

I know a girl who thinks of ghosts / she'll make you breakfast / she'll make you toast / she don't use butter / she don't use cheese  / she don't use jelly / or any of these / she uses Va-a-a-a-aseline.--The Flaming Lips, "She Don't Use Jelly" (1993) 

Even if you've only heard about Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9 (2005), you might assume the "9" was a randomly chosen number. From Alison Chernick's short, but informative documentary, I learned that his 11-part "Drawing Restraint" series actually began when he was a college student in the late-1980s. Chernick's film is full of such facts. I can't say how interesting the uninitiated will find them, but the background she provides sheds welcome light on his work. I still find his dependence on Vaseline excessive, but it certainly confirms his iconoclastic rep!

[barney image] 

More Björk 

In brief, Drawing Restraint 9 concerns the evolution--or devolution, depending on your point of view--of two "Occidental Guests" (Barney and his real-life partner, Björk) Most of the action takes place on the Japanese whaling ship the Nisshin Maru. Being the unconventional director that he is, Barney didn't simply commission a making-of featurette. Nor has he even announced a DVD release. Instead he allowed Chernick (The Jeff Koons Show) to produce her own film about his effort to get this unusual cinematic/sculptural project off the ground--and onto the sea. 

Because of his life-long interest in petroleum jelly as a sculpting agent, Barney decided to base an entire movie around its origins. He's as fascinated by the texture--liquid when hot, solid when cold--as its link with the prehistoric world. After some casting experiments in New York, the production moved to Nagasaki. Throughout Drawing Restraint 9, his Guest works on a vaguely cross-shaped piece made out of 45,000 pounds of the slippery stuff, while sailing on the Nisshin Maru. The ship's other Guest (Björk) spends most of her time preparing for the elaborate tea ceremony in which the two participate towards the end of the film. 

During the shoot, the Nisshin crew has other concerns, like their goal to catch 440 whales for the purposes of research and "production" (a term left undefined). In other words, this is an active whaling ship--reportedly one of the few remaining--and not just an over-sized staging platform for ambitious conceptual artists. So when they're not working on Barney's thing, they're working on their own. 

[knives image] 

Let the flensing begin! 

As Barney explains, the ship represents Japan. The Guests represent land mammals. Once these foreigners board the vessel, their transformation into sea creatures begins. In addition, he sees their metamorphosis as a love story. Björk, who also serves as composer, seems to agree since she describes Japan as "neutral ground" between Barney's America and her Iceland. 

Aside from B&B, Chernick speaks with crew members, gallery owners, producers, critics, architects, relatives, and the head of the Japanese Whaling Commission, who laughingly admits the project makes absolutely no sense to him. 

Along the way, she doubles back to look at the Boise-bred, football-playing, Yale-educated artist's early career--yes, as his dad notes, "Matt" was using Vaseline right from the start. And he modeled on the side, which was considered controversial (it made him a more compelling personality to some, less so to others). She also includes family photos, pictures of sculptures, footage from performance pieces, and clips from his films, including the five-part Cremaster series and shorts, like "Radial Drill," in which Barney leaps about in gown, gloves, and high heels. 

If you caught Drawing Restraint 9 and wondered how Matthew Barney made it happen, No Restraint is your answer. For those who haven't seen the movie, it serves as a nice introduction to this one-of-a-kind filmmaker. And though it isn't a complete puff piece, Chernick is more flattering to Barney than not. That said, she does leave a few mysteries unsolved. Since artists are a lot like magicians, that may be intentional. Consequently, I have no idea what happens to all that petrolatum when Barney's finished with it--and I'm not sure I want to know! 

[drawing restraint 9 image] 

The raw material for petroleum jelly was discovered in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania where it was stuck to some of the first oil rigs in the U.S. The workers hated the paraffin like material because it caused the rigs to seize up, but they used it on cuts and burns because it hastened healing. Robert Chesebrough, a young chemist whose previous work, distilling fuel from the oil of sperm whales, had been rendered obsolete by petroleum, went to Titusville to see what new materials had commercial potential. Chesebrough took the unrefined black "rod wax", as the drillers called it, back to his laboratory to refine it and explore potential uses. Chesebrough discovered that by distilling the lighter, thinner oil products from the rod wax, he could create a light-colored gel. Chesebrough patented the process of making petroleum jelly (U.S. Patent 127,568) in 1872... Chesebrough traveled around New York State demonstrating the product to encourage sales by burning his skin with acid or an open flame, then spreading the ointment on his injuries and showing his past injuries healed, he claimed, by his miracle product. Chesebrough opened his first factory in 1870 in Brooklyn. The brand name "Vaseline" stems from the German word for water,wasser...and the Greek word for oil, elaion. -- From the Wikipedia entry on petroleum jelly  

Matthew Barney: No Restraint plays the Northwest Film Forum on 3/23-29, Fri.-Thurs. at 6:30, 8, and 9:30pm. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. For more information, please click here or call 206-267- 5380. Björk's new album, Volta, hits the streets on 5/7. Image from Deviant Art.