Germany

  • Werner Herzog – Jag Mandir (1991)

    1991-2000DocumentaryGermanyWerner Herzog

    Quote:
    Jag Mandir is a quiet and often overlooked film in the vast oeuvre of Werner Herzog. Apparently, 20 hours of footage was shot that covered the whole fest and the film hardly presents us a twentieth of that. A native walking into the film in between may well fail to immediately realize that it is his country that is being shown and these are figures from the mythology of various sections of his nation. You might take if for a scene from a procession in Thailand or a sketch from festival from Africa or even a snapshot from the gala celebrations in Brazil. Such is the diversity it presents that it reminds us of those clichés about Indian culture.Read More »

  • Werner Schroeter – Willow Springs [+Extras] (1973)

    1971-1980ArthouseGermanyQueer Cinema(s)Werner Schroeter

    Schroeter set out to make a film about Marilyn Monroe ten years after her death as a meditation on the new feminism in America. The result was this bizarre chamber melodrama about three women who turn an abandoned shack in the Mojave Desert into a kind of Charles Manson commune. The three lure men to their lair, force them to have sex, then rob and murder them. With a music track that includes Bizet, Yugoslavian folk tunes, the Andrews Sisters and the Blue Ridge Rangers, Schroeter fashions a spectacle of female power which critics have compared to Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Altman’s Three Women.

    – San Francisco CinemathequeRead More »

  • Werner Herzog – Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel AKA Wings of Hope (2000)

    1991-2000AdventureDocumentaryGermanyWerner Herzog

    Quote:
    Werner Herzog returns to the South American jungle with Juliane Koepcke, the German woman who was the sole survivor of a plane crash there in 1971. They find the remains of the plane and recreate her journey out of the jungle.Read More »

  • Erwin Keusch & Christian Weisenborn – Was ich bin, sind meine Filme AKA I Am My Films: A Portrait of Werner Herzog (1978)

    1971-1980Christian WeisenbornDocumentaryErwin KeuschGermany

    Quote:
    The film is an interview done at the time of Stroszek, it has Herzog talking about each film, talking about their creation and what he hoped to achieve. Its the director explaining his films in a way that enlightens on more than just a cinematic level. Herzog not only talks about his films but also his larger ideas about what film is, both fiction and documentary.Read More »

  • Peter Nestler – Att vara zigenare AKA Zigeuner Sein AKA Being Gypsy (1970)

    1961-1970DocumentaryGermanyPeter Nestler

    Quote:
    Being Gypsy is one of Peter and Zsóka Nestler’s most important works. The film uncovers the history and fate of the Roma and Sinti in Germany under Nazism and their continued persecution after the war.

    Quote:
    In the Romani language, Roma means “people.” This film lends a voice to these people, who tell of how they were arrested and locked up in camps and prisons, and how 90 percent of their families never returned from the death camps. They speak in dialects from Burgenland, Bavaria and Saxony. They live in desolate barracks on the fringes of cities, where ten people share a room with damp walls. The children are sick all winter long.Read More »

  • Fred Kelemen – Frost (1997)

    1991-2000DramaFred KelemenGermany

    Frost is a landmark European film, cementing Fred Kelemen as an inheritor of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. This three-hour epic 16mm film focuses on a mother and son fleeing her abusive husband in Berlin and wandering the former East Germany seeking a town that has long since vanished. Set during a sunless Christmas, Frost slowly unfolds during their one-week odyssey across glacial landscapes, towards peace. Introduced by the film critic Jonathan Romney.Read More »

  • Pina Bausch – Die Klage der Kaiserin AKA The Plaint of the Empress (1990)

    1981-1990ArthouseExperimentalGermanyPina Bausch

    Quote:
    This first film by choreographer Pina Bausch reflects her method of working as developed with the Wuppertal Theatre of Dance during the 1973/74 season. The film does not tell a story, but is made up of various scenes put together as a collage with scenes set in different locations, such as the woods and fields around Wuppertal, the city centre, the suspension railway, a carpet shop, a greenhouse and the rehearsal room. The futility of human activity and the search for love make up the film’s central theme set against the strains of a Silician funeral march. Filmed on location in Wuppertal, Germany, between October 1987 and April 1989.Read More »

  • Wim Wenders – The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaGermanyWim Wenders

    The Million Dollar Hotel follows the supposed murder of Izzy Goldkiss. FBI Agent Skinner is sent into investigate the crime, and to weed out the killer. When he reaches the ‘hotel’, he comes across many of the forgotten types of people living in the city. You have Geronimo, who is a self proclaimed Native American artist. Dixie, played with great gusto by Peter Stormare, as the ‘fifth’ Beetle that is still waiting for his royalty payments, as well as recognition. Eloise, who is the neighborhood ‘whore’. And then there is Tom-Tom, played by Jeremy Davies. He’s the center of the story, being that he’s the ‘village idiot’ of the bunch, and has the trust of everyone in the Hotel. Agent Skinner has a few days to find out who the killer is, while the residents of the hotel devise a scheme to sell off Izzy’s fabled ‘Tar Paintings’Read More »

  • Muscha – Decoder (1984)

    1981-1990ExperimentalGermanyMuschaSci-Fi

    Quote:
    FM (FM Einheit of Einstürzende Neubauten) has discovered something incredible in the monotonous ‘muzak’ played through the fast food restaurant H Burger’s speaker system: the tracks are laced with subliminal messages designed to ensure complacency and consumerism. Experimenting with his discovery, FM soon realizes that by changing the type of music played, he can manifest a whole range of emotional responses and stir up the populace from their consumerist subordination. But as the diners are emotionally awakened, they become more and more prone to rioting and general social unrest, which puts FM in an increasingly dangerous position, especially when the sinister and mysterious organization behind the the plot to keep the public complacent takes an interest in finding and stopping him…Read More »

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