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Reviews
Fi intidar Pasolini (2012)
Because Godot won't come...
In 1966 Italian film maker Pasolini came to a small Moroccan village to shoot his Oedipus Rex. Today, the village elders still remember it as a great money-making opportunity: acting as extras, houses were built, marriages were brokered off the money the production crew spent on them. Thami, one of the villagers, became friends (and maybe more) with Pasolini and when the news arrives that an Italian crew will make another film in their town, he tells everyone Pasolini is coming back, even though he knows full well Pasolini is long dead.
At first it's not quite clear why he lies: perhaps because it improves his standing among the villagers as friend of the Great Director, able to procure work, put in a good word for people initially rejected by the casting director, or perhaps he just feels a nostalgic need to relive a period from his youth. Gradually though, the film hints at something deeper: Thami and his friends are extras, not just in the cheap Italian peplum being shot, but in the world at large. Living in a dusty Moroccan town far removed from the centres of power and culture, they are skipped over, their lives are not reflected in pop-songs or commercial cinema, in an increasingly globalised economy they have been driven to the margins. And yet, for a few glorious months in 1966, they were the centre, they became important people, making an important film for an important director. That's why Thami feels the need to will Pasolini back to life.
But as the film ends with Thami installing a satellite dish on his roof so his family can watch more American films and TV-shows, it becomes painfully clear that time is never coming back.
Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage (1926)
The Devil You Know
The Devil wagers with God that he can corrupt the soul of pious alchemist Faust (a little pro-gambling tip for His Horned Hoofedness: never bet on future outcomes with an omniscient being). After initially refusing to sell his soul, Faust agrees to a one-day free trial, but then, much like me and the Sports Channel, forgets to cancel his subscription in time. Like so many of Murnau's films, Faust is an overwhelming visual experience, with great cinematography and some nifty special effects. Things do turn very melodramatic by the end, even by silent film standards, with poor Camilla Horn having nothing to do but weep for the last half hour, something for which we can blame Goethe as much as Murnau, although the latter does little to assuage the problem. Nevertheless, Faust remains a striking display of the power of German silent cinema.
De duivel te slim (1960)
Not Too Clever
I suppose these films existed in every country at one time: quickly and cheaply made star-vehicles for a local comedian or two, made for a domestic market, panned by critics, beloved by audiences.
In Belgium, Edith Kiel was the undisputed queen of such films, whose early successes in the genre afforded her her very own film-studio (although apparently a small one, as all the sets have no more than two walls). Between 1952 and 1960, she churned out no less than 12 of these films, until the rising popularity of television finally did her in.
In De Duivel Te Slim (Too Clever For Words), two men, after a fight with their wives (battle-axes both, obviously), decide to skip town and enlist on a river barge. As it turns out, the captain of the barge is involved in a smuggling ring and they soon become unwitting accomplices.
The stars of the show, Gaston Bergmans and Jef Cassiers, are competent comedians and do their best with what little material they get. In fact, it's surprising how little they do get to work with. The film has all the outward appearances of a comedy, but is very stingy when it comes to delivering jokes, gags or witty dialogue. For instance, there is a sequence where the the two men (for no apparent reason) dress up as women, but rather than see this as an opportunity to create comedy, the film seems to think this is funny in and of itself.
On the plus side, I was never bored, as Edith Kiel keeps the pace going steadily, and I can see how it may have been popular at one time, but today, it is little more than an old-fashioned curiosity.