Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Ecstasy of Angels (Kōji Wakamatsu, 1972)

By: börek - December 2nd, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday December 8, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Ecstasy of Angels * 1972 * (天使の恍惚, Tenshi no kōkotsu) * Directed by Kōji Wakamatsu * 89 minutes * In Japanese with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

Japanese director Kōji Wakamatsu was a wild cat, and was the primary director that fused together radical politics along with transgressive sexuality. He had made a link between these two things that was, in a way, revolutionary. He didn’t believe in breaking down barriers only on a single issue or theme, but through an explosion of freedom he sought to destabilize Japan’s colonized, regulated, conservative society that was imposed by America after World War II.

These were wild days in Japan, with student protests, occupations, psychedelic music and a lot of experimentation. This movie is a byproduct of that time, a snapshot of his zeitgeist, a call for freedom. It is a pink political flick, meaning it’s politically charged. The story is about a group of left-wing revolutionaries who break into a US military Depot to steal weapons and ammunition. As they make their getaway they come into a conflict with soldiers, leaving some Americans dead. The movie takes off from there.

Right around the time when Kōji Wakamatsu made this movie, he went to the Palestinian territories and filmed a radical left-wing group training there, he was instantly put on a blacklist by three major organizations – the Japanese government, Interpol, and the American government. In fact, he was banned from entering the United States for the rest of his life.

Wakamatsu is a great example of guerilla filmmaking, knocking out radical, imaginative films, and all budgets. In fact, Wakamatsu said the reason he became a film director in the first place was because “in movies, you can kill as many police officers as you want and not get caught.”

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Net – Unabomber, LSD & Internet. The hidden side of the Internet (Lutz Dammbeck, 2003)

By: börek - November 8th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday November 10, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Net – Unabomber, LSD & Internet. The hidden side of the Internet * 2003 * Directed by Lutz Dammbeck * 121 minutes * In English and German, with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

This is a wild documentary made by a German filmmaker who goes down a strange rabbit hole starting with American avant-garde artists of the 1960s like musician John Cage and experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas. The structure of the whole movie reflects our modern internet world, because while he is looking around collecting information about those artists, he comes across links that lead him in another unexpected direction. As things unfold, the movie shifts into several directions that seem to be linked. One thread involves cybernetics and the development of computer technology, another is the covert operations of the CIA and their use of LSD. All these things are tied together with the story of a man named Ted Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Una Bomber.

Ted Kaczynski had been a professor of mathematics who abandoned the university system and began living in a self-built cabin in the remote countryside. He felt the world was going in a totally dystopian direction, an increasingly technological world of mass surveillance, endless wars and the destruction of nature. He resorted to targeted violence in order to get his message across, and managed to have his manifesto printed on the front page of the New York Times before he was arrested in 1996.

Of course the documentary raises questions about the uncontrovertibly negative side of Ted’s actions, but it also shows something else that isn’t talked about often enough – the almost religious zeal of Silicon Valley and big tech executives, and how they turn a blind eye to the destructive sides of what they are doing and refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever. These megalomaniacs are uprooting society across-the-board, creating polarizing divisions, the scattering of people’s attention, rampant addiction and surveillance.

The Net has become a cult classic in the last several decades, revealing an untold history. Today we live in a world where memory is largely obliterated, and we tend to think of the internet as something that just happened ‘organically’ without a plan or history. This movie argues differently, and digs up the history of how Internet was sculpted punch by corporate punch. What it uncovers is pretty shocking in its relevance to the world we live in today. Along the way on this cinematic journey we also come across many 60s icons, such as Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary. This documentary opens up a world you might not have known even existed. Hell, it even features narration by legendary German actress Eva Mattes. An underground classic, marginalized for good reasons.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Inkubo (Leslie Stevens, 1966)

By: börek - October 13th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday October 13, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: INCUBUS (Inkubo) * Directed by Leslie Stevens * 1966 * 78 minutes * In Esperanto with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

Once there was a guy named Zamenhof who lived in Russia. In 1887 he decided to make a second language that could be spoken by everyone. His aim was to make it easier for international communication, by avoiding division which led to war. The language he invented was simple to learn, and it was called Esperanto. It’s High Point perhaps with the 1960s, an era when people wanted to end war and misunderstandings, unlike today. There is only one movie in the history of cinema that was spoken totally in Esperanto, and it’s this one.Holy cow, what planet was this movie made on? Not only is the language exceptional, but the whole mood, story and orientation is so otherworldly and oddly mysterious. We are thrown into a world without a history, with people speaking this familiar but at the same time strangely unidentifiable language. The landscape where everything takes place seems out of context, and perhaps in that way it’s like an early Jodorowsky movie. The film is surreal, pagan and supernatural. In a way, we find ourselves thrown into a bizarre world, one that works by different laws, which pits the human soul against powerful forces of nature.
Another bizarre thing about it is that it has an actor who a year later would become totally famous in the original Star Trek TV series – William Shatner. Yep, it seems he actually spoke Esperanto. Shatner was a strangely committed actor who often did movies that he believed in.
The whole movie is an incredible trip, and even though it was obviously extremely low budget it has great cinematography, and some of the images are absolutely astounding. It was thought to be lost for decades, and only recently has there been a copy discovered in archives in France.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Nov Lituania

By: börek - September 3rd, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 8, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Nov Lituania * 98 minutes * In Lithuanian with English subtitles, doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

This is a pretty unusual film for when it was made, and actually it’s a pretty unusual movie to be made in America at any time. It presents us with a situation that we are increasingly becoming familiar with – lack of housing, food prices rising like crazy, and not being able to afford anymore to live in big cities. The story takes place in the 1930s during the great depression, a time when the bankers went too far with their wheeling, dealing and money grubbing, causing a disaster.

Our main characters are a couple who have no place to live anymore but are offered a worthless piece of land in the countryside. Their idea is to create their own Eden, but when faced with difficulties they realize that they are city people and have no idea how to do things like farming. The solution to the problem is by inviting other unemployed people to join them, and thereby creating a cooperative.

A film about collectivism and community and alternative societies, I think we are sadly missing these days. It’s been called an anti-cynical film and no matter what you think of it, its enthusiasm whips up a semi-socialist alternative that includes exchange of labor, sharing food, bartering and solidarity. All of this is presented as an alternative to the dog eat dog capitalism and monopolization that was tearing apart the country. Some viewers have even aptly compared it to the early Russian-Ukrainian movies Alexander Dovzhenko.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Our Daily Bread (King Vidor, 1934)

By: börek - August 5th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday August 11, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: OUR DAILY BREAD * 1934 * Directed by King Vidor * 80 minutes * In English * free screening * doors open at 8.30 * intro and film start at 9:00.

This is a pretty unusual film for when it was made, and actually it’s a pretty unusual movie to be made in America at any time. It presents us with a situation that we are increasingly becoming familiar with – lack of housing, food prices rising like crazy, and not being able to afford anymore to live in big cities. The story takes place in the 1930s during the great depression, a time when the bankers went too far with their wheeling, dealing and money grubbing, causing a disaster.

Our main characters are a couple who have no place to live anymore but are offered a worthless piece of land in the countryside. Their idea is to create their own Eden, but when faced with difficulties they realize that they are city people and have no idea how to do things like farming. The solution to the problem is by inviting other unemployed people to join them, and thereby creating a cooperative.

A film about collectivism and community and alternative societies, I think we are sadly missing these days. It’s been called an anti-cynical film and no matter what you think of it, its enthusiasm whips up a semi-socialist alternative that includes exchange of labor, sharing food, bartering and solidarity. All of this is presented as an alternative to the dog eat dog capitalism and monopolization that was tearing apart the country. Some viewers have even aptly compared it to the early Russian-Ukrainian movies Alexander Dovzhenko.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988)

By: börek - July 1st, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday July 14, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: CHOCOLAT * 1988 * Directed by Claire Denis * 105 minutes * In French with English subtitles * free screening * doors open at 8.30 * intro and film start at 9:00.

French Director Claire Denis grew up in west Africa, where her father was a civil servant. The family moved to a different country in Africa every several years because they wanted her to understand culture and geography. This is why much of her work deals with the spiritual and psychological impact of colonialism, especially in West Africa. This was her debut film, and it is about a French woman reflecting on her childhood in a colonial outpost in French Cameroon as a 7-year old girl.
So as you might expect the film is largely autobiographical, recounting her own memories and emotions while she was growing up, and in this case the film has a special focus on her relationship with her family’s African servant.
This film isn’t restless, like so many movies today. It sinks into the world of west Africa, and moves at an ambient pace… allowing sensuality to surface. The film is about identity, memories, and a romance that tries to navigate racism and complicated social structures. This is different from a Hollywood film also because it doesn’t try to exploit our emotions and treat us like children by making things black-and-white. Instead it is a film full of mystery.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Death of a Bureaucrat (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1966)

By: börek - June 4th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 9 June 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Death of a Bureaucrat (La muerte de un burócrata) * by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea * 1966 * 85 minutes * In Cuban Spanish with English subtitles * free screening * doors open at 8.30 * intro and film start at 9:00.

A key black comedy in Cuban film history, directed by one of its maverick filmmakers Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (Memories of Underdevelopment, Strawberry and Chocolate) who chose to stay in post-revolutionary Cuba and supported its socialist cause but never thought twice about criticizing the regime’s shortcomings.

In this film director Alea lampoons the stuffy and insane world of bureaucratic red tape. The journey begins when a widow realizes there was an important document in the pocket of her deceased husband who has already been buried, and needs an official permit to have the body exhumed. This starts an absurd chain of events with a razor-sharp Buñuelian sense of black humor.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978)

By: börek - May 12th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 12 May 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Killer of Sheep * 1978 * Directed by Charles Burnett * 80 minutes * In English* free screening * doors open at 8pm * intro & film start at 8.30

Back in the 1970s there was a defiant wave of black filmmakers on the West Coast of America that would later be known as the L.A. Rebellion. This movement broke out of the film department at U.C.L.A, so their movies were mostly based in Los Angeles. And since the filmmakers were primarily black, the films were exposing the poverty, violence, and everyday racism that their communities endured. One of the key directors that emerged from this movement was Charles Burnett, and this was his debut.. The depiction of his community was so tenderly and honestly rendered in this flick, that it became legendary even though it was pushed underground and never shown to a mass public audience.

What’s the story of this film?I don’t want to say very much, because everybody is fixated on stories. The Killer of Sheep focuses on the slums of Watts during the late 70s. It’s about a guy who dreams, but who is forced to work in a slaughterhouse. It’s about his family, and the world around him. That’s all I will say, and let the movie unfold for itself.

Today a lot of people in universities seem to get off on using sophisticated academic language that separates them from everyone else. This creates a clique or an elite group that ends up basically just talking amongst each other. This is the last thing we need. Back in the 70s this was much less of a problem, and someone like Charles Burnett was able to speak in a human way, and on a human level. This didn’t preclude experimentation or creativity. In fact it was exactly the opposite. The members of the L.A. Rebellion wanted to redefine the aesthetics of cinema, but to do that, they didn’t resort to academia to define their new forms, they instead went into the streets. Too many artists are creating with their head these days, and not with their heart. They are convinced that the heart can’t be creative, but they are so wrong. This film is a perfect example of this.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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