Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Solo (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1970)

By: börek - June 1st, 2018  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 10 June 2018, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema.
SOLO, 1970 Directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky 83 minutes. In French with English subtitles.
Doors open at 20:00. Intro starts at 20:30

Once the revolution of May ’68 collapsed, there were few brave enough to discuss what had happened. Some directors like Godard continued, but in a more underground way. This flick was one of the few that managed to fuse some of the ideas of May with the predominant movie industry. Most films dealing with this taboo subject were totally marginalized, but this one slipped through the door.

This isn’t only directed by the notorious Jean-Pierre Mocky but he also stars in it – and he comes off a bit like a less cynical version of Alain Delon. This flick was connected to what was really happening in France during the post-68 crisis, but stylistically it was ahead of its time. Italian ‘police films’ would explode in the mid-70s, but this film already has the poise and determination of those movies in tact. Graced with a moody soundtrack the story focuses on a diamond smuggler who cares nothing for the political upheaval of ’68, but when his revolutionary brother is being chased by the cops, he is forced to help his brother get away. By doing so, he becomes a target himself. This alarming movie shows how the more radical elements of the May events would be hunted down afterwards.

An amazing little flick, wonderfully directed. In its own way it’s a masterpiece, but one that was never screened outside France. In other words, this is another outrageously rare screening.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Year 01 (1969)

By: börek - May 1st, 2018  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 20 May 2018, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema.
L’AN 01 1969 MAY 68 Directed by Jacques Doillon, Gébé, Alain Resnais and Jean Rouch. 90 minutes. In French with English subtitles.
Doors open at 20:00. Intro starts at 20:30

This is a collective film, where each of the filmmakers worked separately, but all of them were influenced by a single source—a utopian comic strip devised by the legendary cartoonist Gébé. It’s a farce with a free-wheeling avant-garde approach to cinema, embracing a ludic spirit of subversion. Although this satire is loaded with humour, it is also very ‘engaged’ and can be compared to the experimental ciné-tract short movies that were shot on the barricades. It is unstructured in its form, and changes style as it drifts along, touching on issues connected to ’68—the ecology, rejection of authority, challenges to growth and productivity, anti-war, free love, pollution, communal living, rejection of private property and demolishing the idea of forced labor.

This flick is a fable, and one that proposes with gleeful abandonment the following utopian scenario: all of a sudden, all the ordinary people throughout the world stopped working and money becomes worthless. Once everything has come to a grinding halt, we could bring back—reluctantly—only the services and products we really need. What follows is a wide-ranging series of whimsical sketches, a bit like a Monty Python narrative, of how different people react to such a situation. For example, the contribution of anthropologist Jean Rouch is documentary-like and harpoons the domination of northern countries over the south, and the so-called first world over the third world—something that is still alive and kicking today.

The tone is festive and all of the passages are marked with the cutting-edged humour of Gébé. Among the cast of actors are illustrators Georges Wolinski and Jean Cabut, who were both were killed in the January 7th, 2015 terrorist attack on the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Also on hand are several actors that would only later become well-known… Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Far from Vietnam (1967)

By: börek - April 1st, 2018  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 15 April 2018, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema.
Doors open at 20:00. Intro starts at 20:30 LOIN DU VIETNAM 1967 (Far from Vietnam) Directed by Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard. 120 minutes. In French with English subtitles.

In the late 60s there was a movement to make films collectively as a group. This idea took several forms, and in this one Chris Marker asked six directors to all make their own short film based on the anti-war movement against America’s tragic destruction of Vietnam. I was talking to someone recently who was saying they felt things were getting better because the internet is informing people better than before. Really? Then where the hell is the anti-war movement today?

This flick shoots us back to the 60s, when people were fighting for what they believed in. The demonstrations and solidarity created a constant charge of moral electricity, and it ricocheted through an entire generation. This new wave was both political and cultural. All seven directors who contributed to this movie have their own take… some are more fictional, others like Joris Ivens, are more documentary. Today the result is considered by many to be the best document of those foundation-rocking times. But back in the 60s, the reaction to this film was volatile… when the finished movie was first shown in Paris, it resulted in right-wingers vandalizing theaters and slashing seats. This was a bold project headed by Chris Marker, giving the public a vastly different picture of what was happening in Vietnam than the “official story” that was being reported by the mass media.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Moi, un noir (Jean Rouch, 1958)

By: börek - March 1st, 2018  Filed under: Filmavond


Sunday March 18th 2018, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Moi, un noir (1958). Directed by Jean Rouch. 73 minutes. In French with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

Today the name of ethnographer Jean Rouch is barely even whispered in cinema history, which just goes to show that history is always recorded by the winners. Today the winner is Hollywood… but perhaps tomorrow an influence like Jean Rouch could shatter the glass menagerie of American filmmaking. Who knows?

In this cinematic gem Jean Rouch traveled to Abidjan, on the Ivory Coast of Africa, with no predetermined concept. He wanted to make a film with the local people, to record their everyday lives and their dreams. So Rouch starts to hang out in Treichville – one of the poorest neighborhoods of Abidjan – and spends a week with immigrants from Niger who have come to the big city hoping to become successful. Now here is where the real importance of this film begins to shine… these down and out people are doing hard labor (for us here in Europe) and trying to scrape enough money together to buy a bowl of soup, but have re-named themselves after stars in western movies. One calls himself Tarzan, another Edward G. Robinson and another is Eddy Constantine. One even plays an FBI Agent. At night they hang out in bars and try to drink away their misery, and when they go to sleep we follow their dreams of an idealized world. The movie then submerges into poetic mode as we enter these dream-sequences.

The result is a cinematic fusion called “ethnofiction.” Director Jean Rouch had an explosive impact on cinema back in the 60s, and many in the French New Wave, like Jean-Luc Godard, would name him as one of their major influences. Jean Rouch took narrative cinema and fused it with anthropology and sociology: sometimes his films were documentaries tinted with fiction, and at other times they were fiction tinted with documentary.

The magic of this movie is how it nails down the way imperialism works today… less with guns and tanks, and more with the overtaking of dreams. It is clear the local dreams of these people in Africa have been hijacked by foreigners – so what we are talking about is a colonization of the subconscious. I daresay the same is true in Europe today, which has been robbed of its own dreams and replaced by those of the Yankees. Another rare screening of a neglected masterpiece.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: When I’m Dead and Gone (Živojin Pavlović, 1967)

By: börek - February 1st, 2018  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday February 4th 2018, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: When I’m Dead and Gone (Kad budem mrtav i beo, 1967). Directed by Živojin Pavlović. 79 minutes. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

If most people are asked about movies from Yugoslavia, at best they usually can only name one filmmaker – Emir Kusturica. This is because the western media can only remember a few names from any foreign country, and therefore often only one person is recognized and reaps everything, while everyone else is left behind. Yugoslavia was a country that was rich with wild, crazy, creative and legendary cinema… and yet it’s been almost totally deleted from the history books, and never shown in cinemas. This only shows the prejudice of the northern countries, who are in control of the international cinema distribution system.

So let’s go back and take a look at one of the masterpieces from the 60s that helped pave the way for Yugoslavian ‘black wave’ cinema – When I’m Dead and Gone. The story of this flick is simple, and follows a petty thief who wants to be a singer in a rock band because it’s the easiest and most glamorous option available. This story is told with a lot of humor, and raw-poetry. The movie also had a subversive meaning… the main character is totally opportunistic and after any woman that comes across his path. Hidden in this parable is a biting criticism of the Yugoslav “60’s economic boom” … and it was because of this provocative commentary that it was banned by the authorities.

Following the tradition of a picaresque story, the movie is a terrific blend of comedy, drama and, finally, absurd tragedy. But what is beautiful about this gem is the way it documents the times. You wanna be transported to a different world in a meaningful way – then forget the latest apocalyptic cgi cine-junk playing at the commercial cinemas, and check out this movie instead… you will be surprised by its charm, wit and magic. Starring Dragan Nikolić and Ružica Sokić.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Pickup on South Street (Sam Fuller, 1953)

By: börek - January 2nd, 2018  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday January 14th 2018, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Pickup on South Street (1953). Directed by Sam Fuller. 80 minutes. In English. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

A wonderful film noir, and one of the key films in the genre. Director Samuel Fuller gave cinema the punch and brilliance that it badly needed. Here we have wonderful hard-hitting acting performances, razor-sharp dialogue, existentialist situations and a labyrinthine plot that knocks you around as if you were a punching bag.

Joey, a lowlife pickpocket, and his ex-prostitute girlfriend Candy, become involved in what they believe is just a simple two-bit theft involving a secret file. But, as it turns out, the stakes are much bigger than they would ever have dreamed. In true noir form, the action is set in 50s New York – a brooding city of predators and power hungry jerks… of sell-outs and finks, of heartless betrayals and con-artists. But despite all of these icy hearts, Fuller manages to make us feel for his characters. All of this is fueled by the director’s trademark raw energy. Starring Richard Widmark in one of his best roles, and Thelma Ritter who gives a performance of a lifetime.

This will be a high-definition screening.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Missing (Costa-Gavras, 1982)

By: börek - November 1st, 2017  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 12th November 2017, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Missing. Doors open at 20.30. Intro + film start at 21.00. Missing – 1982 – Directed by Costa-Gavras. 122 minutes. In English.

They sure don’t make movies like this anymore. This was made in the day when bucking the system was still possible, and if you had some big name actors in your project you could make hard hitting flicks. This one stars Sissy Spacek (Carrie, Badlands) along with Jack Lemmon (Some Like it Hot) in one of his most important roles. It’s directed by the Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras, and is based on the true story that happened in the 1970s. It follows the journey of a young American journalist who travels to Chile to cover a news story. While he is there, everything goes totally haywire, the country is thrown into turmoil, the government is overthrown and marshal law is declared. While the young boy is reporting the events, he suddenly goes missing. The movie mostly focuses on his wife and father who travel to Chile to try and find him back.

This is a thriller about having firm beliefs about the world, only to have them utterly shattered. Most of the film we spend with the father, a businessman who not only has to deal with a missing son, but also having his world view collapse as dark secrets are revealed. It’s devastating to follow him through a dark journey of dead ends – a maze of hospitals, morgues and police stations. The film is moody and suspenseful, and remains one of the director’s riveting masterpieces. The dreamy synthesizer music track was composed by Vangelis, and it’s considered to be one of his best. This is a movie that gives us some deep insights into history, and reflects a time when edgy movies could still be produced in Hollywood. The film has lost none of its power since it was made, and maybe has become even more relevant than before.

A highly-charged drama based on real events. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Film begins at 9pm, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: I was Nineteen (Konrad Wolf, 1968)

By: börek - October 1st, 2017  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 1st October 2017, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: I was Nineteen (Ich war neunzehn). Directed by Konrad Wolf. 1968, 115 minutes. In German with English subtitles. Doors open at 8.30, film starts 9pm. Free admission.

Here we dive into East German cinema, which in the 50s and 60s was often actually better than the movies peddled in West Germany! This one is a coming-of-age movie about a teenager in the chaotic insanity of the second world war. The narrative was put together from director Konrad Wolf’s own diaries and personal memories. This moody gem is a searing and intimate life story of a boy whose family left Germany for Russia when he was eight, and later finds himself confronted with the ironic situation of fighting his own people (the Germans) in World War II. We follow him as a young Russian soldier in a squadron that is making its way to Berlin in the final days of the war.

This is a masterpiece of East German cinema, which is not as much concerned with following the logic of war as it is with the weird situations that our main character encounters. There are moments that are chaotic, unpredictable, often senseless, bordering on the surreal, and you find dragged through one amazing, bizarre situation after another. It is a rough journey, sometimes even terrifying, but compared to its Hollywood/Spielberg counterparts this movie is devastatingly poetic and meditative. My god, what has happened to aspects like poetry and mood in movies? In any case, this film has them both still intact. Plus, it of course it offers us a very different view of history than what is depicted here in the West. The b&w cinematography is riveting and helps to create the meditative atmosphere of this beautifully crafted East German DEFA film.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Doors open at 8pm, film begins at 9pm, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net

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