Atleti ansimanti, biciclette distrutte al bordo della strada, medici della corsa che soccorrono ciclisti accidentati, volti concentrati durante allenamenti infiniti, una lenta riabilitazione, un fan club con le magliette arancione, un bagno invernale nel fiume, l’analisi e il ricordo di una corsa gloriosa – senza mai, o quasi, vincere una sola tappa. Che razza di ciclismo è questo? Arunas Matelis svela una dimensione precisa delle quinte del ciclismo contemporaneo, ovvero il regno dei gregari, pilastri silenziosi dell’impalcatura dell’eroismo sportivo. Un regno fatto di sofferenza, di dedizione, di servizio, di lavoro di squadra. E nell’arena globale abitata da sole primedonne, quasi ci sorprende scoprire che questi ragazzi possano gioire soddisfatti del loro mestiere di subalterni.

Mi sarei aspettato forse una maggiore attenzione al lavoro di tattica e al cameratismo che pure sono decisivi per il mestiere di gregario. L’insistenza del regista lituano sulla sofferenza e sulla solitudine risponde certamente al bisogno di sottolineare l’eroismo di questi campioni dimenticati dal giornalismo, producendo al contempo un risultato drammatico di sicura efficacia per il grande schermo. Se la specializzazione del lavoro di gregario si manifesta attraverso un profilo psicologico che potrebbe pericolosamente assomigliare a quello del buon soldato, Matelis è comunque bravo a far emergere sempre la carica umana e la passione sportiva di questi atleti misconosciuti.

Wonderful Losers è più un film di immersione che un’inchiesta giornalistica. Dei quattro testimoni d’eccellenza è ritratto più l’animo che il corpo, attraverso uno sguardo intimo che si nutre di riprese in soggettiva, di lunghi silenzi, di un paesaggio sonoro accurato e incisivo. I corpi sono piuttosto i protagonisti delle immagini dedicate alle gare, di cui non cogliamo mai la visione panoramica e strategica propria delle riprese televisive a cui siamo abituati. Il film di Matelis si mantiene rigorosamente all’interno di una profondità di campo ridotta, che mira a rendere omaggio a coloro che abitano negli interstizi normalmente invisibili del grande spettacolo che è il ciclismo professionista. Se, come molti ritengono, il racconto audiovisivo delle gare ciclistiche è questione propriamente cinematografica, allora Wonderful Losers è un documentario umanistico sul suo making-of.

Wonderful Losers | Film | Arunas Matelis | IT-BE-CH-LTU 2017 | 71’

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Screenings in Swiss cinema theatres 

Con il suo documentario Giovanni Totaro ci immerge nel microcosmo della spiaggia di Mondello, vicino Palermo, più precisamente in uno stabilimento balneare dove più persone rinnovano l’affitto di una serie di casette da spiaggia. Scopriamo così un mondo dove regna la familiarità a cavallo tra la vita cittadina e la vacanza. Infatti, quello di Happy Winter è il mondo della “villeggiatura”, un’oasi di lunga durata, tradizionalmente coincidente con l’intero arco dell’estate, un mondo in cui il tempo è come sospeso. Una nozione ormai desueta, quella di “villeggiatura”, considerati i nuovi ritmi lavorativi, se non fosse per spazi “semi-urbani” come appunto Mondello.

Il microcosmo racconta allora del macrocosmo Italia: un fazzoletto di spiaggia finissima riassume quel miscuglio di vita collettiva e individualismo che costituisce l’essenza della società italiana contemporanea, tra rabbia e speranze, arte di arrangiarsi e indolenza. Totaro riesce a coordinare in una sola narrazione più registri, da quello umano e privato a quello politico, con un’acuta capacità di osservazione che lascia trapelare una strutturazione sociale ancora abbastanza classista. Per questa composizione di grande ricchezza tematica va particolarmente lodato l’eccellente montaggio di Andrea Maguolo, che riesce a seguire l’andamento dell’estate con il giusto equilibrio tra momenti di riflessione e picchi emotivi – a cui contribuisce una mobilitazione intelligente della musica pop italiana.

Particolarmente interessante è notare come il macrocosmo Italia che esprime il microcosmo Mondello ha alla fine ancora le sembianze di un microcosmo, perché l’immaginazione dei “protagonisti” sembra rimanere bloccata da una miopia cronica che fa sistematicamente trionfare il particolare sull’universale. Dinanzi abbiamo una famiglia allargata che è incapace di diventare comunità, malgrado l’esuberante vitalità dei singoli personaggi che, appunto, restano singoli. Nonostante la sua forza esemplare, la documentazione di Giovanni Totaro colpisce anche per la sostanziale assenza delle nuove generazioni, schiacciate da una generazione di mezza età che si mostra e si dimostra l’unica in grado di trasmettere positività, per quanto spesso sotto forma di esagerato protagonismo e comunque imprigionata da un radicatissimo fatalismo.

Happy Winter | Film | Giovanni Totaro | IT 2017 | 91’ | Visions du réel 2018, ZFF 2018

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Screenings in February 2019 at Cinématte Bern and Kino Xenix Zürich

La réalisatrice kényane Wanuri Kahiu s’était fait remarquer à Sundance avec son court-métrage Pumzi, une fable de science-fiction qui avait pour décor un Kenya post-apocalyptique. Elle porte cette fois à l’écran l’histoire d’amour proscrite entre deux jeunes femmes. Un long parcours du combattant pour la cinéaste qui explique qu’elle est parvenue à réunir les fonds de financement du film (adaptation de la nouvelle Jambula Tree) après sept longues années.

Dès les premières scènes du film, la figure de proue d’une buvette de quartier, Mama Atim, donne le ton. Dans la ville, les ragots vont vite, très vite. Lorsqu’au détour d’une rue Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) rencontre l’expansive Ziki (Sheila Munyiva) et en tombe presque immédiatement amoureuse, on s’attend à ce que l’opprobre s’abatte sur le couple, qu’il soit séparé et qu’au sentiment de plénitude se substitue la béance du manque. Pour ne rien arranger, Kena et Ziki sont les deux filles de candidats aux élections locales. Deux clans s’affrontent, et voilà que frappe à nouveau la puissance de feu shakespearienne ! Dans la cour d’une boîte de nuit, ou à l’arrière d’un van parqué au milieu de nulle part, le couple se cherche un espace d’intimité.

Dès lors, on s’abandonne facilement au charisme des deux protagonistes. Wanuri Kahiu s’autorise très gros plans et ralentis lorsque les deux amoureuses se rejoignent et brusque la mise en scène à l’aide d’une caméra portée frénétique lorsqu’elles sont violentées. À noter que la palette de couleurs pastel et pop de l’image de Christopher Wessels participe au langage cinématographique exubérant de Rafiki, ce qui n’est pas pour nous déplaire. Même s’il peut être associé à un tour de passe-passe dramatique, le chassé-croisé qu’entraîne le combat intérieur des deux filles fonctionne. En réaction à l’environnement qui leur est hostile, chacune à leur tour, Kena et Ziki vont se repousser. Kena ira jusqu’à dire sur le ton du reproche à Ziki : « tu n’es rien d’autre qu’une simple et typique fille kényane ».

Après avoir été autorisé sept jours, Rafiki reste interdit de diffusion au Kenya en raison « de son thème homosexuel et de son but évident de promouvoir le lesbianisme, ce qui est illégal et heurte la culture et les valeurs morales du peuple kényan » — selon le Kenya Film Classification Board. Si les pleins feux ont été mis sur le métrage en raison des rebondissements liés à son interdiction, ce dernier vaut le détour — bien qu’il repose davantage sur l’alchimie entre les deux actrices, dont on peine à croire qu’il s’agisse de leur première expérience devant la caméra, que sur le brio d’une mise en scène en réalité très conventionnelle.

Rafiki | Film | Wanuri Kahiu | KEN-ZA-DE-NL-FR-NO-LB 2018 | 83’ | ZFF 2018, Everybody’s Perfect Genève 2018

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Screenings in Swiss cinema theatres

”My life is a gunshot”, when said by the Swiss artist Joke Lanz, can mean at least two things, the first  being that his life was determined, for better or for worse, by the gunshot with which his father killed himself. Marcel Derek Ramsay dedicates a large part of his film to this traumatic episode in the life of the young Lanz, whose consequences still weigh on his life today, mostly in terms of consciousness of the suffering and of the need for freedom and liberation from the societal conformism. This theme, which is connected partly to his relationship to Switzerland, recurs obsessively in My Life Is a Gunshot, but not as frequently as the image of Lanz’s face, which appears to be Ramsey’s own obsession. These two obsessions actually work as ballast to balance an explosive, high-paced and high-spirited filmic journey into the amazing world of an artist who is able to transform anything into an occasion of expression and creation.

Here is the second meaning of “my life is a gunshot”; referring to the volcanic mode of creation of Joke Lanz, for whom the matter of sound – music and noise confounded – is in perfect continuity with the matter of humanity and the matter of the world. Lanz’s fundamental intuition is that the shout of suffering can be seen as, heard as or transformed into the cry of a newborn baby – and that is why his life-long project is named “Sudden Infant”. The destructive power of a gunshot therefore becomes more than just liberation from a hostile world; it is a regeneration that gives a narrative form to the seemingly shapeless shout.

In this, Ramsay’s formal choices for the film are brilliantly coherent with Lanz’s art and philosophy: thanks also to Peter Bräker’s impressive sound editing, Ramsay was able to manage a huge amount of material, blending an explosive and fast rhythm with a narrative structure that alternates the emotive moments with the informative ones. When form matches content in cinema, a stronger experience is guaranteed –experienced here with the discovery of a highly original sound artist or, better, sounding artist.

My Life Is a Gunshot | Film | Marcel Derek Ramsay | CH 2019 | 91’ | Solothurner Filmtage 2019

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Das Gegenteil vom Erinnern ist das Vergessen. Die aktive Form vom Vergessen ist das Verdrängen. Im Dokumentarfilm Gilda Brasileiro – Contra o esquecimento (Gegen das Vergessen) kommen alle drei Umgangsarten mit Vergangenheit vor. Stein des Anstosses ist eine illegale Sklavenroute. Sie wurde trotz dem Ausstieg aus dem transatlantischen Sklavenhandel 1831 und der Abschaffung der Sklaverei 1888 gebaut und rege genutzt, um das grösste Kaffeeplantagengebiet Brasiliens zu versorgen. Der Film zeigt die jüdische Afrobrasilianerin Gilda Brasileiro auf der Suche nach Beweisen und bei einem Filmdreh über die Sklavenroute. Sie kämpft «gegen das Vergessen». Zum einen, weil die Erinnerungen der alten Dorfbewohner stetig verblassen. Zum anderen, weil es Dorfleute gibt, die ihre geschönte Version der Dinge verbreiten. Obwohl das intakte Sklavenhaus mitsamt den Sklavenketten als kleines Lokalmuseum genutzt wird, ist der Besitzer nicht bereit, seine familiär überlieferte Version ohne Sklaven zu überprüfen. «Warum die Story ändern?», fragt er einmal in die Kamera.

Gilda Brasileiro hingegen sucht und sucht, bis sie schriftliche Beweise findet. Aufzeichnungen von Pater Doría, Erbauer und Namensgeber der Strasse, die Plantagenbesitzer wie Pereira mit illegalen Arbeitskräften versorgte. Die Aufzeichnungen waren öffentlich zugänglich im Archiv von São Paulo. Einziges Problem dieses Funds, der Gilda die Freudentränen in die Augen treibt – niemanden scheint es zu kümmern: nicht im Dorf und – man darf mit gutem Grund befürchten – auch nicht unter der neu gewählten, fast ausschliesslich weissen Regierung Brasiliens unter Präsident Jair Bolsonaro.

Was Gilda im Dorf mit einem selbst gedrehten Dokumentarfilm hartnäckig in Erinnerung ruft, hat die zwei Regisseure, die Schweizerin Viola Scheuerer und den Brasilianer Roberto Manhães Reis, dazu animiert, in ihrem Film eine weitere Ebene der Erinnerns einzuführen: ein suggestives Erinnern anhand von Fotografien, die die Arbeit auf den Kaffeeplantagen dokumentieren. Sie richten die Kamera auf Schwarz-Weiss-Bilder, ergänzen sie auf der Tonebene mit einem faszinierenden Geräuschteppich (Dietrich Körner, mit Musik von Thomas Rohrer, Bella, Fabio Nino Müller), kommentieren Gesichtszüge und Figurenkonstellationen und stellen Fragen an das Bildgut. Mit diesen langen Einstellungen zwingen sie einen zum Hinschauen auf ein Thema, das – ausser Gilda – niemand so richtig betrachten und anerkennen mag. Dabei bietet diese Art Fokussieren etwas Kathartisches: nämlich die Möglichkeit, dank dem Erinnern vergessen statt verdrängen zu können.

Gilda Brasileiro – Contra o esquecimento | Film | Viola Scheuerer, Roberto Manhães Reis | CH-BRA-DE 2018 | 90’ | Solothurner Filmtage 2019

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Rati Titseladze approche Adelina et Georges directement, c’est-à-dire Adelina, personne transsexuelle en Géorgie, un pays où elle restera peut-être à jamais Georges. La pression sociale évoquée par le titre du film n’émergera qu’indirectement, plus précisément à travers le portrait de la famille d’Adelina. Son père et sa mère sont montrés frontalement, ce qui souligne leur différence : celle-ci constituera le début d’un discours complexe sur les relations familiales, qui sont aussi le miroir de toute une société — où l’homophobie et l’intolérance sont capables de tuer.

Prisoners of Society est composé par un montage qui met en avant la dimension constructive du film, rendant ainsi parfaitement le puzzle identitaire et les conflits sociaux. Malgré l’usage de l’interview frontale, le langage filmique de Titseladze préfère le registre expressif au déclaratif ou au descriptif — un registre expressif qui passe aussi par des choix formels comme celui du cadre carré pour Adelina, puis rectangulaire, donc plus standard, pour le rassemblement de la famille (apparemment) unie.

À ce propos, une attention spéciale est accordée à la bande-son du film, qui alterne musique traditionnelle de chœur et rock, et surtout se sert de toute une palette de sons, laquelle sait communiquer beaucoup plus qu’un discours verbal. Dans l’expérience de Prisoners of Society, les mots nous apparaissent seulement comme la pointe d’un iceberg riche en couleurs, contrastés et nuancés, où les questions ouvertes, souvent dramatiquement insolubles, priment sur toute détermination bien définie.

Prisoners of Society | Short | Rati Titseladze | GEO 2018 | 16’ | Black Movie Genève 2019

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Transcendence is the aspect of architecture that Christoph Schaub explores in his Architektur der Unendlichkeit. Infinity becomes a secular, non-religious notion through which he considers the longing of contemporary architecture for the sacred. Through the works and voices of three architects, Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli and Alvaro Siza Vieira (a quite intelligent selection), the transcendent object is not only divine but also nature, or art. Both church and museum find a common inspiration. Schaub approaches these themes with an unhidden naiveté, which probably underrates the philosophical issues only hinted at by the interviewees; but in so doing, he is able to accompany even the less informed viewers of the film into a suggestive experiential reconsideration of architecture. Thanks to his candid touch, Schaub can expand architectural reflections into artistic and musical elaborations, and perfectly pulls the three architects together with the artists Cristina Iglesias and James Turrell, and the musician Jojo Mayer.

Filmically, Architektur der Unendlichkeit is a peculiar piece of didactic documentary and an intimate essay at the same time. The discourse is often flat but the images (Ramon Giger) are very impressive; the editing sometimes simply illustrative, sometimes refined and original. The interviewees keep a frontal posture but Schaub’s personal signature openly emerges – through the voice over and even the self-filming. Jojo Mayer’s precisely edited musical commentaries carry us on to a highly inspiring reception of the images, but, at the same time, the kitschy atmosphere sounds often interpose. I would say that there is a stylistic hesitation between a self-imposed need to communicate to a larger public and a (probably more) genuine need to deliver the filmic language into the pleasures of essayism. Independently of this formal hesitation, however, Christoph Schaub’s proposal appears to be authentically motivated, and is the occasion to reflect on the transcendence that inspires our relationship with our spatial habitat.

Architektur der Unendlichkeit | Film | Christoph Schaub | CH 2018 | 85’ | Solothurner Filmtage 2019

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Screenings at Solothurner Filmtage 2019 and in Swiss cinema theatres

Twarz, translated as “mug”, explores more than just the deformation of Jacek’s face (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) after his tragic, yet miraculous survival of an accident on a construction site. It is seen as nothing short of a miracle in the eyes of his deeply catholic village, as he falls backwards into the giant body of Christ, a statue built with the people’s unrivalled devotion, Polish nationalism and their absurd expression of religiosity. Jacek loses not only his face but his fiancé (Malgorzata Gorol) who cannot see past his deformity, nor beyond her mother’s myopic prejudices, despite the transplant and his subsequent notoriety. 

The film humorously unveils the degree of superstition and lack of education reflected in the archaically shared belief system of the villagers. Exorcisms and ecclesiastic evaluations of where Christ should be looking or showing his “best side” punctuate other more stylised scenes of awkward and inappropriate dancing to bad 90s dance music and death metal. A touching sense of family is felt between Jacek and his older sister (Agnieszka Podsiadlik) who is a cynical and clever figure remonstrating against the odd dynamics of his other relations. We also watch Jacek face (in another sense) the cruelty of the State in its unsympathetic demands for him to return to work uncompensated. A somewhat limited life worsened.

There is an interesting use of focus that foregrounds the faces of the figures of whom the camera invites us to look at, fuzzing out the edges and background into an undifferentiated haze. Is the face the only way that one can constitute love, understand another or find a deep spiritual connection? Are we still looking for icons? Perhaps on or beyond the LCD widescreen as the opening scene – looking more like the “Last Judgment” than a product sale – attests. Writers Michal Englert and Malgorzata Szumowska make light of such questions but explore them astutely all the same. 

Twarz | Film | Malgorzata Szumowska | PL 2018 | 91’

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