Usually I dislike talking about time…

Ten Minutes Older – The Trumpet and The Cello

“Intro”
I found it rather disturbing that the names of the actors are nowhere shown, while the whole project is an hommage to big directors. (In fact, usually I think that directors should get more worship, this time, I think it’s the actors, that mostly were good.)
I can imagine very well that a lot of people are criticizing the display of “big director names”. I, myself, are actually only watching this because of Jim Jarmusch, the only director I have actually ever seen a film of. The others, Wim Wenders, Bernardo Bertolucci, Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Luc Godard, are only directors I’ve heard of and know that they’re famous ^^;;;
Nevertheless, I was delighted by the idea of a short film collection in which Jim Jarmusch participated *g* I have a weak spot for short stories and episodical films.
As you can see, I started off with two films from “The Cello”, but when I saw that “The Trumpet” came first, I switched to it.

Bernardo Bertolucci – Histoire d’eaux
I didn’t really like the film esthetically… but the story was nice. I’ve read it’s based on an indian parabel which I like pretty much. As the first film I have seen, this one gave me a rather weird impression though (since the film is so unusual).

Mike Figgis – About Time 2
Speaking about unusual, this one is even weirder XD And it was difficult to follow, but then I understood that it is all about memories or something. Although it was a creative idea, I simply did not enjoy watching this.
And by the way, I was surprised that the guy who did this is so old… for some reason, this segment looked like it’s done by somebody rather young O.o

“Interlude I”
I wonder if I will end up preferring “The Trumpet” over “The Cello”. “The Trumpet” came first – and it has the more interesting directors. On top of that, I am surprised about how great this instrument sounds – the jazzish interludes of the film simply are the best *g*

Aki Kaurismäki – Dogs have no hell
The song in the middle of the episode is gorgeous… it’s a pretty catchy song and I like it X3 The camera focuses more on the guitars than the band members *hrr* I wonder if this is a coincidence.
Anyways, I cannot even guess which language this is! Is this really finnish? O.o
But this really is a rather cute love story *hehe* It’s a good beginning for “The Trumpet”.

Victor Erice – Lifeline
Uh, uh… isn’t that child, like, bleeding? O.o For some reason, I find that rather scary… even though the rest of the film looks so incredibly peaceful and beautiful (the scenery, the people, the black cat!). The best were the girls who polish other people’s beautiful shoes while their own are in a horrible state.
This episode was totally stunning. ’nuff said.

Werner Herzog – Ten Thousand Years Older
I’ve read a review where somebody denounced this film as the worst of all of them – I can’t really say that. I mean, it isn’t really an original idea to do this film, and it really is slightly too long (more than ten minutes, unlike the rest). But of course the (simple) message went through, and actually I do like the atmosphere.

Jim Jarmusch – Int. Trailer Night
Like I said, I am watching this film solely for Jim Jarmusch. I am a completist – one day, I want to watch every single movie he has done, and since something like “Ten Minutes Older” will never show up on TV anyways (especially not with these subtitles), I just had to rent this movie one day ^^
I have not expected this to be a black and white film O.o
I especially love the “Thank you for not smoking” sign in her trailer whiel she’s smoking the whole time *hrr*
This film was not particularily funny, but it was still Jarmusch *g* It rather had the atmosphere of Broken Flowers or the first sequence of Night on Earth, but still very great.

Wim Wenders – Twelve Miles to Trona
Yay for the soundtrack *g* Of course I know Wim Wenders, but I think I haven’t seen any of his films.
But this one was pretty suspenseful – compared to Jarmusch’s for example that felt like 20 minutes *hrr* (even though that one was not supposed to be suspenseful, of course), this film felt like 4. Melikes *g*

Spike Lee – We Wuz Robbed
You knew from the beginning what this film is leading to, because I cannot imagine a serious intelligent person be neutral with this issue or even side with Bush. It’s well done, as well, but this topic is making me furious, so it was literally a pain to watch this. I guess in this case, it rather means that it was good. *g*

Chen Kaige – 100 Flowers Hidden Deep
The translation of this sequence is total bullshit. I admit that it’s difficult to translate though, since all the people are talking heavy slang.
This episode is so sad and beautiful that I felt like crying… at least when you are chinese and have seen the incredible changes of the country, which is, imho, absolutely unique. It definitely was the perfect end for the movie.

“Interlude II”
Just like I’ve expected, I like all the films on “The Trumpet”, and I found all of them better than the first 2 on “The Cello”. That’s probably the infamous problem of the successor. (And on top of that, “The Trumpet” has Jim Jarmusch) *g*
A propos Jarmusch, I found a nice site with his “Golden Rules”. They are immensely cool *g*
It’s difficult to say whether I’d want to buy this DVD… it’s worth it to watch some of them several times, but some just are not of the kind that I would watch again. The DVD cover looks great, but I’m not *that* impressed by the making-of.

Jirí Menzel – One Moment
So this guy is not german, but czech.
I enjoyed the background music a lot, but I don’t really know what to think about the story itself *hrr*
For some reason I’m not really able to care for an old sexually frustrated guy as the protagonist apparently is. But the cinematography and the atmosphere were interesting.

István Szabó – Ten Minutes After
What a loser of a husband. There’s nothing else to say about this. The movie was very well done and pretty realistic, though. Maybe the best of the Cello films so far.
Bourgeoisie is evil.

Claire Denis – Vers Nancy
Amazing… this film is so french, it’s impossible to make it even frenchier XD A pretentious “philosopher”, a young, charming woman, the incredible arrogance of being french, the way to discuss things in that incredibly pseudo-intellectual way without any single “idea” coming out of it… arrr XD

Volker Schlöndorff – The Enlightenment
I know that this guy is probably the most important german director so far… but I haven’t seen any of his films either. I think he was friends with Billy Wilder or something.
The atmosphere is incredibly boring, but rather nice – until the people appeared. Ugh, fat german proletariat.
The stuff the narrator talks about isn’t that bad, but the film itself makes me want to sleep. Oh, at the end I understood why I liked it: Apparently the narrator was merely something written by Augustinus *hrr*
I believe Schlöndorff’s other films don’t look like this. ^^;;;

Michael Radford – Addicted to the Stars
When the subject of a short film collection is time, there necessarily has to be one science-fiction film, right? Only in science-fiction, you can distort time – and let somebody “time travel”.
I didn’t really like this film, because despite all the artsyness, I have expected him to not to see his son, turn around and go away again.

Jean-Luc Godard – Dans le noir du temps
Another french, philosophical short film *g* This one is a lot more intelligent than the other one though *hrr* Still I do have the impression that Godard is desperately trying to do a meaningful movie, even though this attempt is a very touching one. I want to see more by him.

“Outro”
I have noticed that I prefer films where people actually talk (a lot) with each other. This is the case for the Trumpet films (except for Lifeline)… while most of the Cello films were rather quiet, or the things they said did not make that much sense.
More than 3 hours of indie stuff is just a little bit too much, I guess @.@
And I thought I haven’t written much about Ten Minutes Older… it turned out to be more than 1400 words O.o