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Now in ICA. watched (T)Error  de Lyric and Cabral, David Felix Sutcliffe

The day is starting to warm up a bit film wise. Un documentar destul de unsettling, cutting an edge into your reliance on state/justice systems and the morality behind. in America, but in the end about anywhere where personal arbitrary decisions of people in security institutions can take such a disguised precedence. M-a facut sa ma gandesc deseori la Sorin si Cami, dar si la Cristina si Paul and what they could be up against in this society. Un film despre un informator musulman al FBI-ului infiltrat intr-o comunitate din Pittsburgh unde incearca sa provoace un musulman sa isi dea pe fata presupuse tendinte teroriste. Which the guy doesn’t, ba mai mult se prinde de toata schema si incearca sa dea in vileag totul. Dar e totusi ingenuncheat de sistem chiar si asa. Ceea ce e neasteptat este totusi ca echipa documenteaza toata povestea informatorului, FARA stirea autoritatilor FBI. As they are happening. And this is NOT fiction!

Personaje reale. And still they take it one step further and cross boundaries: they start interviewing the POI (person of interest) without the informant knowing it. Nor does the poi know they had been following everything from the informant pov before. So you wonder how they got away with making this film, same as you wonder how the FBI got away with fumbling this whole investigation and forcing an unsubstantiated conviction. Ok, he might have been a more radical muslim, with a lot of stern opinions, but he would not take any antiamerican stance. He’d expressly avoid to meet up or hook up into the terrorist trap. Not wanting to have anything to do with it. So in the end it is this type of situation (and other similar “societal harassment” contexts/situations) that would make you think twice about exposing yourself to it. As it felt like the whole FBI lead into it was (at least from one point onwards) led by simple humans, simple minds trying to justify their salaries, trying to get a case in spite of evidence agst it. And then covering the whole mess up just cause they could. That TV reportage was such a lame setup that you stare that reporter in the face and judge how manipulation looks like, how shamelessly in your face it sometimes is. And what you often credit as “intelligence” and deep obscure/sophisticated rationality is  actually loaded with massive ineptitude. What a spy’s face can be like and how antagonistic to your expectations his life may turn into; in spite of a certain ability and connecting skill he actually had. Sad!
A debate section film of course!

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11 Minutes de Jerzy Skolimowski (scenariul si regia)

Dupa ce am iesit, sent this message to friends:
“Just came out of the best film i’ve seen so far (out of 9 seen). Go see “11 Minutes” by a Czech director. A thrilling experience, adrenalinic, excellent cut and visceral soundtrack. Excellent filmmaking technique. It runs once on Monday @ 14:45 in WestEnd and once more ok Wednesday at 18:30 in Hackney Picturehouse.”

Am vibrat de intensitatea si ritmul acela vreo ora dupa aceea, sentimentul suprapunandu-se la inceput si peste filmul urmator chiar. A film about life struggle and in my view the futility of it. I asked Skolimowski in the end why his obsession with the futility of struggle?, meant to phrase it like: it seems every character is set upon a very identifiable course of action and regardless of the moral choices you punish them for even trying to do anything. For living. (I just missed
the word “punish”). His answer… but isn’t life so? And that he wanted to emphasize that every step you take might be the last one and it’s good to live in the present but also to pause for it and realise it might be the last one. There are some poignant moral leads in about every story told on screen. And that brings up a certain expectation of things turning one way or another in the end.  But all are pretty much connected in the end by a chance chain reaction. Indeed the director hints at some point in the film the final outcome of all, but it’s still subtle, you may not catch it pr mot want it. Unless the pervasive theme of sexuality, the unfinished/fake stories of suicide (brief commented on visually), the coincidence of nearlife and neardeath, the edge of realism don’t spell it out. And he said he started writing it with this end image in his mind and building up the script from that. I’d say, not necessarily unseen take on filmmaking. Very engaging indeed, but if I were to choose the most original piece of the day it would be Sun of Saul. There are some script small cliches, like fate type of ones. And the disregard for moral color when it comes down to grandovers. But you can’t not enjoy these every story. Still, this film calls for several reviewing. A delve into the pleasures of film aesthetics, techniques, various camera views, very intense score, quite well balanced between extremes of vibrating silences, ambience sounds and powerful rhythm blasts (that it is surprising that it took only two 3 hour sessions in the sound studio with the band to put it together. Masterful!). Reminded me of Run Lola Run in terms of story layering and rush takes, of Snatch sometimes. But what’s unsettling is that you’d really wish the savory catches in every story have a furthering. And that the whole script would turn into a counterpoint symphony that goes on for longer. You wonder though how would all these come together and what’s with the brushing by of stories. Again, taken apart a lot of snaps are gratifying by themselves, if not all, but what blasts your senses is how intense it’s constructed as an ensemble concert of life. Almost breathless. A, one more thing: it’s in Czech. A language that flirts with the spring of senses in my sensible world, as it connects my memories of childhood films of The Visitors and Rumburak with the budding sexuality and a growing sense that I could feel back then in the acts and screen flirts. A good texture to open up to this.
Overall the motive behind writing and doing this film is the director loss of a sun. Overcome with grief he sat down and to pull himself out of it he made himself write 4 pages a day for 20 days. And knowing this you see through all sorts of references to this. Sad, but somehow that youthful energy explodes through father’s end game. And as dark or intense as it is, it cannot be removed. The black pixel stays on.

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20:45 and “Son of Saul” de Laszlo Nemes.

Poetul Géza Röhrig in rolul principal.

Mesaj catre Anca:
“Acum ies de la Son of Saul. Hard to watch, but a necessary viewing. A luat Grand Prix-ul la Cannes anu asta. La un mom dat you disconnect from the horrors and sort of remain stuck with the obsession of what the guy wants to do. You take refuge in Ausländer’s obsession. The only thing that has a resemblance of normality. While all the atrocities happen in the background. So it’s like you dress a psychological dread coat and learn that now you wear it and try to sort of maintain a dignity somewhere, anywhere… a dignity almost beyond human or compassion. As you’re lost in what actually happens behind.”
A clique of sociopaths (ma refer la nazis dar in the end nu numai la ei), a society of sorts, end up pulling you into the  system. Or obliterating any traits non-conform to the current normality. How group morality takes deviant routes. Ppl become instruments. Ma uitam la gesturile sodderkomander’s de a-i impinge (fie si daca ar fi fara brutalitate) pe ceilalti in camera de gazare. Apoi termenii folositi, I became numb at some point. Focused on the life facts in the foreground and blocking out the rest of reality.
This film somehow managed the cancel my feeling of weekend. Strung my inner safety resorts to a level that gets me through life by obliterating the horrors but uses so much energy that it also wipes out the joy. So it suddenly felt to me like I have but 5-6 hours to go to bed, sleep then wake up and go to work and I have so little time to unwind. As if day to day stuff puts that much pressure on you. Or in reverse… that that was work for ’em and that wd be a way to sail through it, by perceiving as hard, overwhelming work. I realised it was still Saturday (night), but couldn’t shake that feeling easily. A somnambulant dread that I desperately needed sleeping out of my system.

If any of you know a bit of hungarian then enjoy this poem by Geza Rohrig ( the main actor) and be so kind as to translate it for me, as google translate fairs poorly in this case.

Elpislogtak szép tüzeim

El a hivalkodó, a szégyellt lángok

A sok görcsös is hiába hányaveti

Fölszívódtak bennem már a fény artériafonalai

A rügyeim is rendre megvakultak

Meg, a kíváncsi, a szemérmes rügyek

A sok pirinyó

S a nagy vadgesztenye óriás rügyét

Körmösre emelve

A rügyeim is mind megvakultak

Festék nélkül, de jól kitetoválva

Arcom, elvből nem hasonlít anyámra

Csak érzi ezt, tudja micsoda nagy érdem

A tengercsúcsról a hegyfenékre értem

Festék nélkül, de jól kitetoválva